People were already lined up at six o’clock on Friday morning. When we opened the doors at eight, a steady stream of buyers flowed through the house all day. Saturday was more of the same.
Race had packed two boxes of books to move and then donated three carloads to the college. What was left was arranged on the bookshelves in his study ready to be sold. A time or two during the sale, Race would take one of those books off the shelf and I would see him standing in a corner reading.
When his old leather chair sold, he went upstairs for a while, but soon he came back down and together we watched the things that represented twenty-five plus years of our life being carried out the front door.
Our neighbor Lillian reported for duty with an apron on, and she proceeded to make deals like a trader on the floor of the Stock Exchange.
Race’s dad did his share of dickering, taking it upon himself to raise prices on some items. “Surely you could get a couple more bucks for that toaster,” he said to me when I came up behind him and caught him in the act.
Race’s mom rearranged the merchandise as tables, counters, and shelves emptied, all the while fighting back the tears. Of all the people I left behind in Texas, Anna Coleman would be the person I would miss the most.
My brother Frank was there to help. As the furniture sold, he and Race loaded the pieces in the new owners’ vehicles and the two of them delivered some of the furniture in Race’s dad’s truck. The tension between my brother and my husband was uncomfortable.
My Grandma Gitta once told me, “A wise woman never gripes about the ones she loves at the well, because she knows the heart can forgive faster than the head.”
My family and friends didn’t all agree with my decision to reconcile with Race. Their heart wasn’t in it the way mine was, but they tried to support me, which I know wasn’t easy for them.
My brother loves me, and even though he’s nine years younger than I am, he’s always thought it was his job to protect me. What happened between Race and me put Frank on the defensive. And he was hurt too.
Frank had always looked up to Race. He was only thirteen when Race and I were married, and he was thrilled to have an older brother. When he was a boy and even into his college years, we flew him to Texas in the summers and during Christmas breaks to spend time with us. Race taught him to drive and to fish. They were really close. And, just like I did, Frank had enjoyed being taken into the wild and crazy Coleman family. It was a stark contrast to what we had grown up with.
By the time Frank flew back to Alaska, he and Race seemed to have come to an understanding, although I didn’t think it would ever be quite the same between them. Consequences have staying power.
The sale was a great success. On Sunday afternoon a few odds-and-ends were left but not a stitch of furniture and not more than would fit in a few boxes that we took to Goodwill.
After we counted up the money, Race and I looked at each other amazed at the total and then I cried—a combination of sadness, relief, and fatigue.
Race held me and said, “A clean slate. Well done, Mrs. Coleman.”
That night on a pile of bedding on the floor, under the Tuscan Love ceiling, we made love in our bedroom one last time, Race whispering in my ear the way I love, making me tingle head to toe.
Then we drove to the furnished apartment near campus that we would be renting until we left for St. Gabriel in the spring. The things on my keep-list were in the backseat of Race’s Jeep with the addition of all the cards and letters Race had written to me, the book All for Love by Tasha Tudor with my graduation-day rose and letter inside, and my favorite gardening shirt. My wedding ring was on my finger.
Without the distractions of keeping and maintaining a big house full of stuff, living in that small apartment was like being newlyweds again. It took me all of thirty minutes to whip through and clean the place.
Race and I spent our evenings going for walks, riding bikes, and Race reading to me with both of us on the sofa, him sitting and me lying down with my legs stretched across his lap, all the things we did when we were first together before life took over. Quality time is important to Race. Looking back, I can see how he had tried to tell me that I was too busy for it.
While Race was teaching, I spent my time that winter planning for the restoration and eventual operation of The Lake Lodge. I made lists of what needed to be done, and in what order, and what would need to be purchased and delivered to the island.
On my new cell phone, I contacted the carpenters, electricians, and plumbers from the list James had sent to me. I had some interesting reactions.
“Look, lady, I live on the mainland as it is. I don’t want to take the ferry and then ride all the way out there.”
All the way is four point seven miles. But I was learning that’s a great distance when you don’t have an automobile to transport yourself and your tools.
Two of the responses went something like, “Not interested. That place is haunted.”
I did eventually make arrangements with an electrician and a plumber to check out the basics in the cottage on the hill. We would be having everything updated the following spring and summer, but I wanted to make sure we had running water and lights when we moved in. In addition, the plumber would install a water heater in the cottage, and I wanted all of the light bulbs in the lodge and the cottages replaced.
When I asked the electrician for a recommendation of someone to clean the chimneys, he made the offer that his son and he would take care of it. I would see how this plumber and electrician worked out and wait to hire the renovation crew until we could meet face to face.
I wrote to George and told him I would be having the electricity turned on, and that I would also be having the chimney cleaned and the electrical and plumbing checked out in the cottage on the hill. I asked him if he would buy another horse in the spring so that the dray would be available to move our things from the dock to the lodge. If you can do this, call and tell me how much it will cost, and I’ll send you a check.
George called and asked, “You want a doer or a laster?” I’m sorry to say I had to ask for clarification. “One that will do or one that will last,” George explained.
“Oh, get a good horse, George. Not show quality or anything but a good, strong horse, and ask him if he likes brunettes from Texas.”
I drew plans for the addition of bathrooms for each of the guestrooms and two downstairs in the lobby. I planned the gardens and played with what to do with the space in the attic, all the while thinking how I needed to find a way to keep our life from becoming frazzled again.
All of this planning was helped along by a gift Race had given me a few years before. On my forty-fifth birthday, he excitedly watched me open a digital camera and a laptop computer. I didn’t know how to use either and really had no interest in taking pictures with anything other than my good old Cannon AE-1.
But Race was so excited about the possibility of getting his archaic wife to enter the twenty-first century that I had picked up the camera and began snapping shots. I soon grew to love taking as many pictures as I wanted without worrying about the cost of film or developing, but the laptop remained a sort of electronic photo album.
Preparing for the move to St. Gabriel spurred me to embark on a new frontier with my computer: the Internet. Daily, I looked up the weather on St. Gabe, and I became quite proficient with search engines. I researched hotel and restaurant management and studied about gardening in the island’s zone, which is of course much cooler than Texas with a much shorter season.
One night Race and I were sitting side-by-side in bed, each of us with a laptop open in front of us. I was researching. I had planned on ordering a washer and dryer that I would have delivered and installed before we moved to the island in April. We would also need a new mattress. Having sex on the ones in the lodge or in the cottages could wake up the neighbors. But then again there were no neighbors, except for George. I couldn’t forget George.
I was reading through a co
nsumer comparison site about the latest in sleep technology, and Race was entering grades and checking e-mails when I asked him, “Should we get one of the new space foam mattresses? They’re supposed to be so motion proof that we can do jumping jacks on the bed and not wake each other up.”
Race didn’t respond and when I looked over at him—his face was pale and his gaze frozen on the screen.
“Race, what is it?”
“It’s an e-mail… from Sarah.”
My initial thought was, Why is Sara writing you? And then I realized he meant the evil Sarah. My heart went thud. “What’s it say?”
“Cammy, it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me, Race. I want to know. What does it say?”
Race gave me a look, Okay, but I don’t think this is a good idea. Then he turned the screen to face me.
She wrote that she missed him, loved him and that it wasn’t right that they weren’t together. She never used my name; instead, she referred to me as her or she, You only went back to her because you felt guilty because of your children. She doesn’t love you or appreciate you the way I do. She begged for Race to meet with her. He owed her that.
She had only been with Race for a few months and she thought she knew all about him, what he wanted, why he did things, and that Race owed her something. How dare she try to tell Race how much I loved him? And what did Race tell her to make her think I didn’t appreciate him? Huge question marks, I was furious. And then I read the line that pierced my heart, I know you meant it when you told me you loved me.
“You told her you loved her?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Oh, Race.”
“I am so sorry, Cammy. I hope someday I will understand why I let myself get so off track. I am so sorry.”
“You told me it wasn’t love.”
“It wasn’t. For a short time, I thought it was, but it wasn’t. I promise you, Cammy, it was not.”
“Has she been e-mailing you? Have you seen her?”
“No, I would have told you. I’m not going to do anything or let anything happen that will jeopardize us being together.”
And then I asked the questions I had avoided in all my probing of Race, questions about my confrontation with Sarah Burns at her job and about the letter I had written to him, The Beg, The Big Plead.
“Did she tell you I came to the bank to see her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she read the letter I wrote you? Did you let her read it?”
“No, I didn’t even tell her you wrote it. I wouldn’t have done that, Cammy.”
“Well, Race, there are a lot of things I wouldn’t have thought you’d do, but you did.”
I got up and took my pillow from the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“To the sofa. I need to not be here right now.”
“I’ll go. You stay.”
“No, stay here, Race.”
I left the room and the grief, the dull ache that was constantly looming, waiting to pounce was filling every part of my body. I was so angry that Race had let that woman into our life. We had lots of ups and downs after we got back together, but that night was a biggy—down, down, down.
The next morning when I got out of the shower, Race was sitting at the little table in the kitchen and he held out his hand to me. “Come here, sit down, okay?” He pulled out a chair. I sat down, and he slid his open laptop in front of me and said, “I want you to read this before I send it.”
Sarah,
I am afraid that when I left, I did not emphasize strongly enough how I felt about my mistakes and why I was leaving. Therefore, I am writing to be as clear as I possibly can be and to respond to the e-mail you sent. I want you to know exactly what I feel and that there is nothing between us nor will there ever be.
What we did was wrong. It should never have happened. The deepest regret in my life is that I got involved with you. If I could take it all back, I would, including telling you that I loved you. I did not and I do not love you. What I allowed to happen between us, kept me from seeing things clearly and made me think what I felt for you was love. It was not.
I love Cammy with every ounce of my being. I am back with her, my wife, not because of guilt but because I can’t imagine my life without her. She is the most beautiful, talented, loving woman I have ever known and nothing will ever take me from her again.
Although you were no more innocent than I was in what we did, I am still sorry if you are hurt by what has happened, but I assure you that any pain you may feel cannot compare to the pain we have caused Cammy, pain that she does not deserve.
I do not owe you anything. You knew exactly what you were doing when we got involved. Cammy has been my wife, my partner for over twenty-five years. It is her I owe, her I love.
You and I both made wrong choices and will suffer the consequences of those choices. Do not try to contact me again. I will not respond if you do.
Race
When I was done reading, I looked at Race with tears in my eyes and saw the tears in his, and he asked, “Okay?”
I nodded and Race hit send. The phone calls and hang-ups stopped after that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Race and Cammy
I was back on the invite lists or should I say I was back on the lists with Race, but we didn’t attend the events we had in the past. It wasn’t that I was hiding, I just wasn’t interested anymore. And Race had never cared about the recognition dinners, balls, and fundraisers. “Can’t we just write a check?” he would ask. He had only attended because I wanted to, or I thought we should, or I was on the event committee.
I was missing St. Gabriel terribly. The day that I looked up the island’s weather and saw that the first snow of the season was falling, I found myself resenting Race. I wasn’t on the island because he was still teaching. I know I was the one who said we would wait out the winter in Texas so he could finish the semester, but the resentment was part of the tug-of-war that came with trying to forgive Race.
Why didn’t he come to his senses sooner before the semester began?
I even had moments when I suspected he had timed his coming home so that we wouldn’t be able to go to St. Gabriel until the spring, and by then, he was silently hoping that I might change my mind. Not that when Race wanted to come back to me, he had any intention of agreeing to move to an island or any idea about ferries that would stop running because of ice. But I had no need for rational thinking.
Some days the wound in my heart just wanted to be angry and bitter like biting down on a toothache. Some days Race would leave a perfectly pleasant wife in the morning and would come home to a sullen, accusatory one in the afternoon.
If the actual Stages of Reconciliation were observed and written out, I think they would look something like—relief, joy, anger, anxiety, doubt, and then joy again, followed by more anger, relief, resentment, thankfulness, anxiety with a little bitterness mixed in. It would be a pretty jumbled cycle.
Race listened to me, comforted me, reassured me, and apologized to me more than any human being should have to, to another fallible human being. No matter which way my mood was swinging, Race was steadfast. Had he not been, I don’t think we would have made it through those first few months.
I was ready for him to say, “Cammy, I’ve had enough of this. What’s done is done. Get over it.”
If he had, I was prepared to pack my bags and walk across the ice of Lake Brigade. My heart was trying to wash away the grief by testing him, not intentionally, but I can now see that’s what was happening. And he passed the test. The way Race continued loving me, when I was far from acting lovable, went a long way toward healing our marriage.
In December the college insisted on giving Race a retirement party—that’s what they called it, which Race didn’t like at all. He was leaving his position but retire from teaching? Never! The party planners didn’t acknowledge the fact that Race and I had been separated the previous year and why. So, whe
n the powers that be planned the event, the Board members were all invited, and I prepared myself to see Sarah Burns.
The night of the party, I stood in front of the mirror inspecting myself.
How could I compete with Sarah Burns?
That’s one of the things infidelity does to a person. It instills an insecurity that drives you to try and compete with the other person or at least with the idea of them.
I had managed to keep off the weight I had lost on the Jilted Wife Diet. I exercised regularly since then, and had been more aware about everything in my life, including how many cookies I ate when they came out of the oven.
I was wearing my olive-green satin dress, and it fit perfectly. Race loved that dress. He said it matched my eyes and made them look, as he would say in a Gaelic brogue, “Green as the Irish Moors.”
Many questions were posed to Race, to me, to us that night. “You’re moving to an island, is that right, and you’re going to run a lodge?”
“What would you want to move there for? Don’t you know this is God’s country?”
And then there were the well-meaning souls who took it upon themselves to make sure we knew how cold the winters would be up north. “You’re gonna freeze your titties off,” warned the always subtle Mamie Montgomery.
Isn’t it wise how God didn’t give us all a penchant for the same place on the earth? We’d all be living on top of each other if he had.
Despite my preoccupation with my appearance and my constant watch for the arrival of Sarah Burns—if she was in the room, I wanted to know where she was and what she was doing—I’ve got to tell you that I was proud of myself. With my head up, I visited with all of the people Race and I had known for the last twenty-six years, laughing at the stories of the good old days, enjoying the crowd just as I always had.
And I was so proud as David Cook, the college president, recounted Race’s quarter century of teaching at the school, “Race Coleman’s contributions have made the English Department one of the most well thought of in the state.”
My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) Page 14
