They went back to chatting, their voices eventually fading away as they disappeared out the door. With the restroom now emptied out, I could hear the music begin in the sanctuary on the opposite side of the wall. I continued my emotional breakdown on the toilet with my head in my hands, my chin quivering like a bowl of gelatin. I cried over the look I’d put on Warren’s face yesterday afternoon. I cried over the look that must’ve been on my own face when I’d found the note in his pocket.
As I heard the door to the restroom open, I quickly dried my tears. The pointed toes of a pair of deep green pumps appeared just under my door.
“Annie, I know you’re in there.”
Sheila. Naturally.
“You can’t stay locked up in that stall forever,” she said. “Might as well come on out and let me know what’s going on. Everyone is getting worried.”
“Everyone?” I choked back the lump in my throat. “Did Warren send you in here?”
“No.” She hesitated. “Your girls did. They think you’re sick. You’re not, are you?”
Leave it to Sheila to know the difference between physical sickness and sickness of the soul, even without laying eyes on me.
I sat in my confession booth a bit longer, unwilling to move. She could coax all she wanted. I wasn’t coming out and she couldn’t make me.
“Annie, did you get that e-mail I sent?” Her voice softened in an un-Sheila-like way.
I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me. “I got it.”
“I was right about the stressing thing, wasn’t I? You’re overtaxed. Too much going on at once?”
“Yes. You were right.” At this point, I raced forward, telling her everything—right down to the note in my husband’s pocket. Her exaggerated silence went on for so long, I suspected she’d left the building.
Finally, when I could take it no longer, I cracked the door and peeked out of the stall.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I queried.
She shrugged. “I’m thinking. Sometimes I speak too fast. Didn’t want to do that this time around. Besides,” here she smiled, “I kind of figured you just needed to get all of that off your chest. Didn’t really figure you needed anyone to tell you what to do.”
Her face lit into a broad smile and I couldn’t help but notice she’d styled her hair differently.
“You look great,” I commented. Her dark brown and green sweater caught my eye right away. “Is that new?”
“Mm-hmm.” She turned in a circle and the rich brown broomstick skirt made her look like a little girl spinning around the living room to impress her parents. “You like it?”
“Yeah.”
“Bought it at the mall on clearance.”
The woman had an uncanny way of lifting me from my woes, even through her wardrobe.
I let out an exaggerated sigh, then gazed in the mirror at the bags under my eyes.
“How do you do it, Sheila?” I queried. “How do you stay in such an upbeat mood all the time?” I knew she’d been through her own personal tragedies: an unexpected hysterectomy, her husband’s bout with prostate cancer, and watching her grown children marry and move away to other states.
She shrugged. “I get down, just like everyone. I really do. And I find myself in predicaments that get me stressed out, just like you. If anyone knows how to get into hot water, it’s me.”
True, true.
“I guess I just have a theory about all of that.”
“Okay,” I paused to see if she would continue, but finally gave up. “Well, would you mind sharing it with me?”
A pensive look crossed her face. “I look at it this way, Annie. If you’re going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.”
“Huh?”
“I mean,” she leaned against the wall to explain, “that we all go through things that stress us out. But you know what the Bible says. What the enemy means for evil in our lives, God will use for good. He will. So you might as well start dancing now, even before you have all the answers. Why save the celebration for later?”
What was it with all of the dancing images God kept putting in front of me these days. First Judy Blevins, then my rose-in-the-teeth cha-cha-cha dance with Warren—now Sheila. Lord, are you trying to drive home a point? A little self-improvement choreography, perhaps?
At this point, an older woman named Mrs. Powell entered the rest-room, her face flushed. “I didn’t think I’d make it till the end of the service,” she explained with a cockeyed grin.
She went about her business and I turned my attentions to touching up my lipstick. When she left, Sheila got right back to business, addressing my concerns.
“We all get stressed, Annie,” She continued. “It’s inevitable. And when you’re menopausal—” She paused. She must have seen the look of pain in my eyes, “When you’re pre-menopausal, the stresses just seem to pile up. They’re exaggerated.”
“I know.” I let out a lingering sigh.
“And change brings about undue stress in a woman’s life, but never so much as when she’s going through changes in her own body.”
I started at my reflection in the mirror and groaned. “Did you have to go there?”
“I did.” She stood next to me and we both stared at our reflections in the mirror. “We have no choice but to go there.”
“I’m getting old, Sheila.” I stared at the crow’s feet around my eyes and my gray roots.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“Gee thanks. That was the part where you were supposed to disagree with me.”
She laughed and then gave me a mock stunned look. “Why would I want to do that? Growing older is nothing to be ashamed of. And nothing to worry about. I dare say, we’re at the best age of all.”
She said “we” as if “we” were both the same age. I had to stifle a giggle, knowing her to be far older than she claimed.
“That scripture I sent,” Sheila spoke to my face in the mirror, “do you remember what it said?”
At the moment, I couldn’t even remember my own name. “Something about calling out to God when you’re stressed?”
“Well, that and more,” she said, “The scripture I felt led to send you that day—and one of these days maybe I’ll tell you the story of how God spoke to me—is from Psalm 18 and it goes like this: ‘In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.’ That means you have to call out to Him when you’re stressed. Don’t pretend it’s not happening. Don’t try to act like you have it all together. You were never meant to carry everyone on your own.”
“I know—”
“And I’m not just talking about this little investigation of yours,” she went on. “I mean you have to cry out to him about everything that’s stressing you out. Your changing body. Your daughters growing up. The weddings. The distrust that’s crept up between you and Warren. Everything.”
Here, emotion kicked in. “How do I do that? Warren and I have had our arguments through the years, but nothing like this. We don’t trust each other anymore. And I truly can’t see a solution. If the marriage falls apart—” A world of possibilities ran through my mind, none of them good.
At this point, a little girl with pigtails entered the bathroom. We let her finish up before continuing on.
“Annie, you’re letting your imagination run away with you,” Sheila consoled. “Calm down, take a deep breath. Your marriage isn’t falling apart. You and Warren are just at an impasse right now. Eventually one of you will make a move. But in the meantime, you have to call out to God and know that He’s heard you. Then you have to trust Him to put all of the pieces back together. If you go trying to do it on your own, well—”
“Say no more.”
I glanced down at my watch. Ten fifteen. Oh no! Had I really spent more than an hour in the ladies room and missed most of the service?
Yes, sure enough, the music began on the other side of
the wall, signaling the altar call. Soon, a flood of women would race through the restroom door for a respite before the Sunday school hour.
But, with a minute or two of lead time, I opted to turn the ladies room into my own personal prayer closet. An altar was simply a place where you met with God, right? Shouldn’t matter where, should it?
“Will you pray with me, Sheila?” I implored. “I really, really need it.”
She nodded and took me by the hand. “I thought you’d never ask.” Right then and there we began to do business with the Lord over my struggles of the past couple of days. Sheila prayed that I would have wisdom and godly discernment. She offered up a plea for truth to reveal itself. I “amen’d” along with her as she closed out with a lilt in her voice.
Truly, by the time we finished, I felt as if I’d really been in the presence of the Lord. In fact, I wasn’t sure when I’d heard a better sermon or experienced his presence in a stronger way.
Funny. God really does meet you right where you are. Even if it’s in the ladies room of the Clarksborough Community Church.
Chapter Twenty
My aversion to Tuesdays ended, ironically, on a Tuesday.
After nearly three days of avoiding me, Warren finally sat me down for “the talk.” Though I’d tried to prepare for it since our Saturday afternoon encounter, I’m not sure I’d readied myself for his opening line.
“Annie, you trust me, don’t you?”
“Um, I—” I stared across the table at him and shrugged.
“Have I ever given you any reason not to?” He gave me a lingering gaze. “Before all of this mess, anyway?”
“No. Never.” Nothing I can prove, anyway.
“Okay. So I’m a trustworthy guy. That much we’ve established.” Here he paused, which set my nerves on edge. His gaze shifted to the table. He took his fork and played with his mashed potatoes, avoiding my eyes. “I knew I’d have to tell you where I got the money for the weddings,” he said, finally. “I’ve known it all along.”
“Just like I knew I’d have to eventually tell you about using the credit card to sign up for those classes.”
“Something like that.” He looked up, and sighed. “I should have just told you that day at the bank. I knew you were fishing around for answers, and I owed you one.” He fell silent a moment, then continued on. “You know how money-conscious I am. I can’t help it. I’ve always been really—”
Tight? Frugal?
“Careful. I had to be, in the early days.”
“After I made such a mess of our finances, you mean?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I never blamed you for that. But I’ve always felt the need for financial security. So, as you know, these past few years I’ve been socking away money for our retirement. I didn’t want to have to worry about anything during our older years.”
Here comes the part where he tells me he cashed in an IRA. I knew I should have checked into that.
“See, I hated to touch the money I’d set aside,” he explained. “Didn’t want to deal with penalties and taxes for early withdrawal. Too much to handle psychologically.”
“Okay, so—?”
“Well,” here his face lit up, “with Richard’s help, I came up with a better plan. At least I think it’s better. Certainly better than borrowing from ourselves.”
Richard? A better plan? “Honey, what in the world did you do? I’m swallowing my fingernails over here.” Truly, I had gnawed them down to nubs, at least a couple of them.
“I took out a home equity loan,” he exclaimed proudly.
“You did what?” A host of things raced through my mind, not the least of which was the fact that we’d only—finally—paid off our mortgage six months ago.
“Richard and I talked at length about my options,” he explained. “I knew we’d probably need about $25,000 to cover both weddings, or at least somewhere in that neighborhood. And with Richard having expertise as a loan officer—”
Oh, good grief. Of course. Richard was the one who handled the loans for Clark County Savings and Loan customers. I’d filed that information in the back of my mind ages ago.
“So you’re saying we have a new mortgage payment?” I asked. “Why haven’t I seen a bill?”
“I asked them to send it to the bank,” he explained. “To buy myself time to work up the courage to tell you.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “I guess I’m just a coward at heart, and a little prideful. I’d bragged so much about paying off the house. It was such a huge relief. I didn’t know how you’d feel about starting over again.”
“Wow. And it must have killed you to do this, didn’t it?” My eyes stung as they watered over. “But you’re not a coward. I haven’t exactly been accessible lately. And I can see where you’d be nervous about telling me.”
“To be honest, the day I handed you the envelope, you didn’t ask me right away where I got the money. I had prepared myself psychologically to tell you then, if you asked. And like I said, I should have told you that day at the bank. Don’t know why I couldn’t seem to get the words out.”
“Oh my goodness.”
I could see the tension in his face ease. “If it helps, Richard got us a really great rate. And we’ll pay it off in five years, plenty of time before I actually retire. Besides, this new mortgage payment is just a drop in the bucket compared to our last one, so I can still set aside some money every month for the future.” Warren leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, a look of satisfaction on his face. “See, it’s a win-win situation.”
“Wow.” Still, one question remained. “Why didn’t you just deposit the money into our checking account?” I asked. “Why the envelope stuffed with cash?”
“I knew you could check our balance through online banking,” he admitted, “and didn’t want you to see what I’d done until I was ready, psychologically, to hand the money off to you. You should’ve seen the look on Richard’s face when I asked for it in cash.”
“I’ll bet.”
“And besides,” Warren’s face lit up, “I figured if I made the deposit into the checking account, the money would get all mixed up with our bill-paying money. That would’ve been a mess. This way, everything could be separated out.”
“Right.” Here, I paused as I gazed at him with admiring eyes. “Honey,” I said finally, “I totally trust you.” Is this really me speaking those words? “You know far more about our finances than I do. You know what we can afford and what we can’t. I think you’re brilliant to come up with a plan like this.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” And I meant it. “You’re a banker, for heaven’s sake. Who would know more about paying for something of this magnitude than a banker?”
“I hated the idea of going into retirement still owing anyone money.”
“Right.” Made perfect sense to me. In fact, a lot of things made sense to me, now, at least they appeared to. “So, let me ask you a question,” I ventured. “Is this why Richard started avoiding me a few weeks ago?”
Warren sighed and glanced at the floor. “Probably.” He looked back up into my eyes with a bit of a sheepish grin. I’m sure it put him in an awkward position that I asked him to keep it a secret. But, I apologized to him, just today, in fact. Felt like I needed to do that. With all he’s going through, he doesn’t need anything more to deal with.”
Good grief. Had I ever taken that ball and run with it.
“Your cryptic phone call a few weeks ago,” I started, “the one I overheard—”
“Richard,” he mumbled. “Should’ve told you on Saturday. Sorry.”
Good grief again.
“And the note in your pocket?”
He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Richard wrote it. I guess he was proud of the fact that we managed to pull one over on you.”
I thought back to Sheila and her uncanny timing on that e-mail. The Lord had known all along my husband had nothing to do with this. I had stressed needlessly.
Over nothing. If only I’d been able to apply the wisdom from that verse a little earlier, I could have saved myself several hours of anxiety.
“Are you mad at me?” Warren’s brow wrinkled as he asked the question and I felt compelled to rise from my chair and meet him at his, where I promptly pushed the curl back from his forehead and planted a kiss in its place.
“Are you kidding?” I whispered into his ear. “I was going to ask you the same thing. I suspected you of a crime, Warren. A crime.” A shudder ran down my spine. “That’s just…crazy.”
He drew me onto his lap and planted kisses along my upper arm. “Yeah, well, that’s why I knew I had to work up the courage to tell you. It was one thing to withhold information from you, another to have you thinking I’d robbed the bank.”
At this point, my sleuthing know-how kicked in. I gave him my most knowledgeable face. “It’s not considered robbery unless there’s bodily injury or death involved. We’re talking burglary here.”
“Ah. Burglary.”
“And,” I went on to explain, “In the state of Pennsylvania, burglary is considered a second-degree felony. Learned that from my research. So, up till now, I’ve thought of you as a burglar, not a bank robber. I suspected you of being a burglar, I mean.”
He leaned his head against my arm. “Wow. Well, that’s good to know. What else have you learned?”
“Hmm.” I rested against him. “I guess I’ve just discovered that my suspect list has pretty much been cut in half now. This revelation only leaves Nikki Rogers and the Mullins family in the line-up.” I shook my head, unable to think clearly. “Though, for the life of me, I don’t know where to begin. I’ll have to pray about it.”
“Well,” he offered up a smile, “at least now we can work together to figure things out. You won’t be on your own anymore. I can join you. You track the Mullins family, I’ll keep an eye out for strange behavior from Nikki.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed. “But I guess I should also tell you that I haven’t exactly been working on my own. Sheila has known for the past couple of weeks.”
He chuckled. “Should’ve known. I guess that explains the hour and a half you two spent in the ladies room on Sunday morning.”
The Wedding Caper Page 16
