A Kingsbury Collection

by Karen Kingsbury

  On top of that, the man had very nearly beaten him to death, and now Ben had signed a criminal complaint in a case that would likely drag through court for two years. The foster boys were gone, his job at the office was on hold, and he had driven three hundred miles south on a crazy search for a woman he’d never heard of before to see if she knew whether his wife had ever had a baby out of wedlock.

  It sounded like a soap opera, not the kind of life a man of faith should be living. How did we end up here? What terrible thing did my Maggie girl do when she dated—

  Judge not, or you, too, will be judged …

  The advice filtered through his mind, and Ben dismissed it. He wasn’t judging anyone. He was defending Maggie’s honor. He knew her better than that … that criminal ever had. Nothing could have forced Maggie to give a baby up for adoption. And if that part of what John McFadden had said was false, Ben guessed the rest was false, too.

  Whatever time and energy he might spend on his trip to Woodland, it was worth every minute. He would defend his wife and perhaps, in the process, help her come to her senses so that when she did, they could resume their lives.

  Ben followed the directions Nancy Taylor had given him and turned a corner, which put him in the heart of a middle-class neighborhood with 1970s-style ranch homes. He drove past four houses, then pulled over in front of the largest one on the block. Ben turned off the car and studied the house for a moment.

  So this was where Maggie had lived. Definitely not Israel.

  He paused. Maybe Maggie had lied because she was trying to impress him. Maybe the whole story about Israel was designed to make her look well traveled and educated. The truth—that she’d spent the semester in Woodland with the Taylor family—wasn’t nearly as appealing. But would such a lie cause Maggie to reject him completely, to look him in the eyes and tell him he had never really known her?

  Ben doubted it and for a moment he was pierced with fear of the unknown.

  What if Maggie—

  He shook his head and climbed out of the car, slipping on a pullover sweater. He wouldn’t consider the idea. It was impossible.

  He walked up a brick pathway to the front door and rang the buzzer.

  A woman in her midsixties answered the door and offered him a smile that never quite reached her eyes. Help me here, God. Please.

  “Hello, I’m Nancy Taylor. You must be Ben?”

  “Yes, thanks for letting me come.”

  The woman opened the door wider and extended her hand. “Come in. Have a seat, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Ben followed her into a front room and sat down while Mrs. Taylor disappeared into the kitchen. The smell of fresh-baked bread filled the air. At the far end of the sitting area a cheery blaze danced in the fireplace beneath a mantle lined with framed photographs of smiling teenagers. Ben had the feeling he’d come home somehow, and he felt himself relax.

  No wonder Maggie wanted to spend a semester here.

  The place was as warm and inviting as anywhere Ben had ever been. Mrs. Taylor brought him a mug of coffee and a plate of cookies and then settled down across from him. She was weathered and white-haired, but she had an amazing energy and a light in her eyes that seemed to come straight from her soul.

  “One question first … ” Nancy set her cup down and leveled her gaze at Ben. “Are you the Ben Maggie talked about when she stayed with us?”

  Ben thought back to that summer those eight years earlier and his fears faded almost completely. Maggie had talked about him to the Taylors, even though they hadn’t officially gotten back together at that point. “Yes. Maggie and I talked before she moved here. She knew I was waiting for her back in Cleveland.”

  Nancy nodded thoughtfully and stared at the cast on Ben’s arm. “Were you in an accident?”

  Ben knew the visible bruises had faded now so he didn’t feel the need to explain. “Nothing serious.”

  Relief filled Nancy’s eyes. “I thought … I was worried Maggie might have been in an accident … ”

  Ben understood the woman’s concerns. “No, nothing like that.”

  Situating herself more comfortably, Nancy cocked her head. “Okay, I’m ready. Tell me what’s happening with Maggie.”

  Ben sighed and combed his fingers along the length of his cast and noticed that the pain was not as intense as before. “She’s not doing very well, Mrs. Taylor.”

  “Nancy. Call me Nancy.”

  “Okay. She’s in a psychiatric hospital and … well, she doesn’t want to talk to me.”

  This was harder than he’d thought. How did he tell a woman he didn’t even know that his life was suddenly in disarray? Ben studied Nancy Taylor’s face and felt encompassed by her quiet spirit. “I guess I need to start at the beginning.”

  He took a fortifying swig of coffee and set the mug down while Nancy waited. He was no longer afraid of what he might find out. Maggie wouldn’t have spent the semester talking about him if she’d been hiding a pregnancy by McFadden.

  “For the past few months she’s been saying strange things to me, telling me I never knew her and acting weird, out of character. I guess it was part of the buildup. Then one day she forgot our foster boys at the—”

  “Foster boys?” Nancy sat up straighten. For some reason she seemed concerned by this bit of information.

  Ben hesitated. “Yes. We’ve tried but … well, we can’t seem to have children of our own. We were actually considering adoption when Maggie had her breakdown.”

  Nancy sighed and shifted positions. He couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like the weight of the world had just taken up residence on the woman’s shoulders.

  “No children?” The question was low, heavy.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Maggie very badly wanted babies. But, of course, you know that, I’m sure.”

  Ben felt like a man waiting for the other shoe to fall. Why was the woman stuck on this subject? “Yes. She still feels that way, I’m sure. But since she accused me of not knowing her, I decided to do some research into her background. Figure out what she’s been hiding.”

  “Maybe her breakdown has nothing to do with not knowing you … ”

  Ben decided to let Nancy continue.

  “Maybe this is about the baby.”

  Ben felt the blood leave his face. Baby? No, God, it can’t be true … If there had been a rewind function on the tape player of life, Ben would have hit it immediately, excused himself from the room, and never returned to the Taylor house. Instead, he remained glued to his seat, motionless but for his heart, which had skidded into a wild, unrecognizable rhythm.

  “Ben? Are you okay?” Nancy leaned forward in her seat, her face etched with grave concern. “I’m assuming you never connected the two?”

  Ben swallowed hard and tried to keep his mind from spinning. “I’m not sure I follow you. What baby?”

  A look of realization came over Nancy’s face and a shadow of guilt filled her eyes, as if she’d accidentally done or said something that she only now understood to be taboo. “Why, Maggie’s baby of course. The baby she had when she was staying with us.”

  Ben couldn’t have felt worse if someone had walked up and sent a hammer deep into his gut. So, it was true. The horrible things John McFadden had said about Maggie had actually happened. And the foundation of everything she’d ever told him was a lie.

  The realization was more than Ben could bear.

  He stood and moved across the room to the front window. There, turning his back on Nancy Taylor, Ben stared at the cloudless sky and tried to absorb the pain. Say something, do something! Scream or cry or run back to the car. But he was completely paralyzed by the truth.

  Maggie had lied to him for eight years.

  The woman he had married was none of the things she had pretended to be.

  From behind him, Ben heard Nancy set her coffee cup down on the saucer. “Ben, I’m so sorry. I always thought you knew. Maggie told us you were … ”

  Ben sp
un around, hot anger coursing through his veins. “The father?” He turned back toward the window. “Don’t believe it, Nancy. That was a lie, like a lot of other things Maggie said back then.”

  “So … the baby wasn’t yours? You’re sure?”

  Ben clenched his fists and faced the older woman once more. This time he returned to the overstuffed chair and sat perched on the edge, his gaze leveled at her. “Maggie and I waited until we were married to become … intimate. There is no way on earth that baby was mine.”

  Shock settled over Nancy’s features and then sorrow. “It all makes sense, then.”

  Ben was too angry to care. He dug his elbows into his knees and planted his head in his hands. “How could she lie about that? Make me believe she was a virgin? Keep me in the dark about this for eight years?” His voice was seething with rage and when he fell silent, Nancy cleared her throat.

  “I don’t know the answers to your questions, Ben, and maybe this is none of my business. But you’re here, and I believe the Lord would have me say this. Maggie agonized over giving that baby up for adoption. When we talked about it, the only thing she would say was that the two of you weren’t ready for children yet. She loved that baby, but clearly she loved you more.”

  What was this now? Was Nancy fighting Maggie’s cause for her?

  How could anyone calling herself a Christian defend Maggie’s decision to sleep with a man like John McFadden, to lie about the fact, and then to give her child up for adoption all to marry another man. And all under the guise of false virginity?

  It was an indefensible crime.

  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God … forgive, My son, forgive.

  Ben squeezed his eyes shut. This was no time for Scripture. He’d just been dealt the most devastating blow of his life. Everything about the past eight years, the woman he’d married and all she’d represented, had been a lie. All might have fallen short, but what Maggie had done crossed a line, and Ben wasn’t about to forgive her. His heart filled with the image of Maggie in her wedding dress, her eyes aglow.

  How could she have …?

  His emotions warred within him, and he knew that the undying love he’d felt for her the day before was now rivaled only by the intensity of his hatred.

  When Ben remained silent, Nancy continued. “Do you blame her?”

  For an instant he started to raise his voice, then he remembered that Nancy wasn’t his enemy. Maggie was. “Of course, I blame her. This is all about her.”

  Nancy settled back into the sofa and leveled a curious gaze at him. “Listen to you, Ben. You’re furious with her. If this is how you react now—with your wife suffering a breakdown at a psychiatric hospital—perhaps she felt she had no choice but to lie to you back then.”

  Ben glared at Nancy. “With all due respect, Nancy, you don’t know the whole story. Maggie did more than tell a simple lie. She slept with an awful man, got pregnant, gave the baby up for adoption, and never told me a word of it.”

  Nancy was silent, but there was a maddening calm and compassion in her eyes—feelings Ben was certain were not derived from any pity for him. The woman was sympathizing with Maggie!

  Why couldn’t she understand Maggie’s fault in this? “Oh, never mind. You don’t understand.” Ben stood to leave. “Listen, I gotta get out of here and do some thinking, get a hotel or something.”

  The woman remained seated and said nothing.

  “Thanks for your time.”

  Ben moved quickly across the room and was halfway out the front door, when she spoke up. “Ben?”

  He paused, tempted to ignore her, to leave and never look back, to forget everything shed said … or that he was ever married to a woman named Maggie in the first place.

  His insides seemed to be deflating and his sense of balance was off. How could she? All those years of marriage and never, not once, did she tell me the truth! And then her boyfriend nearly killed me—

  He turned and stepped backward into the Taylors’ front room. With his back to Nancy, he braced himself against the door frame. “Why?” He shouted the word and it hung in the air. Struggling to find his composure once more, he turned abruptly and found Nancy still on the sofa, her watery eyes locked on his.

  “Listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you, Ben. I don’t know if it’ll make a difference between you and Maggie, but maybe it’ll help you understand.”

  Ben didn’t know what to do, what to feel. I don’t want to listen; I need to think, Lord. Get me as far away from this as … as … it can’t be true, Lord. No … not my Maggie!

  His blood was hot with the intensity of his anger. The muscles in his hand twitched and he craved the relief of crashing his fist through a wall. Anything to relieve the rage and sorrow that warred in his heart. Helpless to act on any of these feelings, he stood motionless, his shoulders slumped, utter defeat washing over him.

  Nancy continued. “In this world there is no shortage of phonies, of people who come at you with one line or another never intending to make good on their word. Maggie wasn’t one of those. She never could have been. Maggie Johnson was a scared young woman desperately in love with you. And in the midst of the most terrifying time in her life, she made a decision to give her baby up for adoption—from the sounds of it, the only baby Maggie’s ever had—all because of her love for you.”

  Nancy wiped an errant tear off her cheek and cleared her throat. “But Maggie couldn’t live a lie like that forever. So gradually, year after year, the truth must have been eating away at her. Not only the truth about the lies she told you, but the truth about her baby, that she gave that child up when everything in her screamed not to do so.”

  Ben closed his eyes and crossed his arms; the woman was romanticizing the entire situation. There was nothing sentimental about what Maggie had done. She had lied, plain and simple, and then lived that lie every day for too many years. She was no longer someone Ben could—

  “I don’t know what thoughts are rambling through that self-righteous head of yours, Ben, and forgive me for being so forward. But in a world full of people who say what they want, when they want, and never look back, Maggie is genuine. The fact that she’s lived these past years never knowing her child’s love, never certain of that baby’s welfare, never telling you the truth about her past—those facts have obviously become more than she can bear.”

  Ben raised his head and stared at Nancy. “The whole thing could have been solved up front—” he pushed the words out through clenched teeth—“if only she’d been honest with me. Don’t you see that? Maggie’s right. We have no marriage now because I can’t be married to someone I don’t know. And this … this Maggie who would do these things … is someone I don’t know at all.”

  Nancy sat back into the sofa and cocked her head thoughtfully. “Is that right? A Maggie who would go to whatever extremes necessary to win your love? You don’t recognize that woman?”

  Ben sighed. Nancy was twisting everything around. It wasn’t only the lies Maggie had told. It was the reality. The fact that she’d been with another man—a man like John McFadden—before they were married. It was something Ben couldn’t stomach even if he—

  “Ask yourself this, Ben. Would you have married Maggie if she’d told you the truth? Would you have married her if she’d confessed she wasn’t a virgin on your wedding night?”

  Ben twisted his face in confusion. “I don’t know … I’d saved myself for Maggie, and she was supposed to do the same thing. I always thought I’d marry a—”

  “A virgin.” Nancy finished his sentence. “Exactly.” She paused a moment and studied Ben through disappointed eyes. When she spoke again her voice was barely more than a whisper. “And you wonder why she lied?”

  Forgive, My son, as I have forgiven you …

  No, Lord, I don’t want to. None of this was how I planned it and now my whole life is ruined, changed forever—

  For I know the plans I have for you … plans to give you a hope and
a future and not to harm you.

  Ben pushed out the quiet whisperings in his soul so that he could think about his next step. Where in the world did he go from here? Should he call Maggie and tell her he knew the truth? Tell her he was in agreement with her plans for a quick divorce? Maybe initiate the proceedings himself before—

  “I’ll be right back.” Nancy stood and slipped into the kitchen. When she returned she handed Ben two white envelopes. One looked slightly yellowed, as though it had been sealed years earlier. The other was bright and new. “I think you should have these before you go, in case I never see you again.”

  His anger subsided briefly as he studied the envelopes. “What’s this?”

  Nancy pointed to the older envelope. “That’s a letter I wrote Maggie years ago when my husband died. I didn’t know where to send it so I held on to it.”

  Ben was confused. What was he supposed to do with it? Especially now, with Maggie refusing his visits. Was he supposed to wait until they were in divorce court and then hand them to her? In Nancy’s presence he felt like the villain, as though she unconditionally accepted Maggie and her choices and somehow blamed him in the process. It was easy for her to stand in judgment of him, assuming he had driven Maggie not only to lie but also to give up her child.

  She doesn’t know me, Lord. What’s happened isn’t my fault.

  Nancy reached out and ran her finger over the yellowed envelope, then brought her eyes up to Ben’s. “After my husband died, I realized Maggie never should have given that baby up for adoption. She loved that little girl more than life itself. But somehow she was bent on making you happy.”

  Ben’s head reeled once more. Girl? Maggie’s baby had been a girl? “Did you say the baby was a … ”

  Ben checked his heart and wondered at the strange sensations coursing through him. He chided himself for his reaction. It didn’t matter whether Maggie’s baby was a girl or boy. The child belonged to another man. Besides, she was adopted more than seven years ago. She might live in another country by now for all he knew.

  So why was the knowledge of her existence, and the fact that she’d just been made more real by the identification of her gender, causing a lump in his throat?