What She Left for Me

by Tracie Peterson

  “Usually,” Rob had said, “I find that critical people are the ones who are hurting the most. They use their attitude to cover up the pain so that no one can get too close.”

  “But why wouldn’t they want people to be close?” Jana had asked.

  Rob had looked at her as if she were missing some big mystery of the universe. “Because being close to people makes you vulnerable. And being vulnerable means you can get hurt.”

  Jana looked around the kitchen again and nodded. “At least you spoke the truth on that one, Rob.”

  It was late that night before Jana finished dragging the yard sale stuff to the front room. She had spared no feelings for nostalgia as she parted with framed replicas of artwork she and Rob had loved. She tried not to think about where she’d gotten the knickknacks she would sell for pennies on the dollar. It was all so unimportant anyway. With Rob gone, living his dream life, none of it mattered anymore.

  If only there were time to sort through the situation and approach Rob about reconciliation. Jana had witnessed such breakups in marriages, only to find that in a week or two the lust and enthusiasm for the moment had worn off and the repentant spouse had returned home for a second chance.

  “But would I give him a second chance?” It was a question Jana hadn’t explored. Mainly because deep in her heart, she had concluded that Rob would never ask for a second chance.

  She sank to the couch, her hand falling naturally against her stomach. There was no external sign of the child that grew inside, but just touching that area made her think of the baby to come. Would Rob want to come home if he knew about the baby? Or like he’d done with his marriage, would Rob determine the baby didn’t matter to him?

  “You’ll matter to me,” she whispered. “I won’t treat you as my mother treated me. I’ll want you no matter whether you’re a boy or a girl. I’ll love you whether you please me or fail me. I promise you: I won’t be my mother. I won’t leave you alone and frightened. I won’t tell you to get over it when you’re sad. And I won’t ever tell you that you had a horrible father who betrayed me and left me to raise a child all alone.”

  She wiped a tear from her cheek and added, “Even though it’s the truth.”

  Three

  Jana had nearly finished putting price tags on the items crammed into her living room when the doorbell sounded. She startled, wondering who in the world could be calling. Her heart began to race. Maybe Rob had come home to apologize and tell her it was all just a horrible mistake.

  She looked in the mirror that leaned against a stack of boxes and checked her appearance. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Her hair lacked any kind of luster or sheen because she hadn’t washed it since coming home from Africa. And her blue-and-white-striped shirt was hopelessly dirty from long hours of work. Jana shrugged and muttered, “It can’t be helped.”

  She went to the door and opened it without looking out the peephole. If by some chance it happened to be Rob, she didn’t want to see him through a peephole. She wanted to face him—to make him face her.

  Instead, Kelly Campanili stood on her doorstep, a small cooler in hand. Kelly was the wife of one of the elders. She smiled. “I knew you’d be swamped and probably not have time for cooking. I’ve brought you some small meals that you can just pop in the microwave.”

  “I don’t have a microwave anymore,” Jana said with a shrug. “Rob took it.”

  Kelly frowned. “Figures,” she said sympathetically. “Well, it doesn’t matter. We have an extra one at home. I’ll have Joey run it over when he gets home from work.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. I’ve only got two more days here, however. You might not want to bother.”

  Kelly shifted her cooler. “No problem. You need to eat.” She glanced past Jana. “May I come in?”

  Jana sighed. She hadn’t wanted company, but what could she do? If she said no, it would sound incredibly rude. “I suppose for a minute. I’m in the middle of getting things ready for the sale and don’t have a lot of time for talk.”

  “What sale?” Kelly asked as she followed Jana into the house.

  Jana turned and offered to take the cooler. “I can put this away if you like.”

  “Just lead the way to the kitchen and we can do it together.”

  Jana nodded. She wondered what Kelly would say when she saw how stark everything appeared.

  “So what’s this about a sale?” Kelly asked as she put the cooler on the table. She opened it and began stacking several pieces of disposable plastic containers on top of one another.

  “I have to be out by Saturday,” Jana explained. “But I assume you know that. I’m selling everything because I’m moving in with my mom and great-aunt. They have a fully furnished house, and since I needed the . . .” Jana stopped. She didn’t want Kelly worrying about her lack of financial means.

  But Kelly already understood. “You need the money.” She met Jana’s eyes and smiled sympathetically. “Joey told me Rob left you without any financial support. I’m really sorry. If it helps at all, none of us saw this coming.”

  “It doesn’t help, but thanks anyway,” Jana said, slouching against the wall.

  Kelly closed the refrigerator. “I see you’ve already got the kitchen cleaned out. You always were one of the best housekeepers I’ve ever met. Especially for someone so young.” She looked back at Jana and shook her head. “I hope I didn’t offend you. I meant it as a compliment. Goodness, but I don’t think I could even keep a decent house until I turned forty.”

  “No offense taken. My mother was such a stickler for order, I had no choice but to learn how to keep a perfect house. If I had so much as a sock out of place, my mother knew about it. I think she had some kind of special sense about those things.”

  “A kind of ESP?” Kelly asked, laughing.

  “Something like that.”

  Kelly motioned to the chairs. “Could we sit for a moment? I promise I won’t stay long.”

  Jana dreaded talking with anyone at this point. “Well, I have to finish tagging everything for the sale. I advertised it to start at seven tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll only keep you a minute. I promise.” The pleading in Kelly’s voice caused Jana to give in.

  “Sure. Do you want something to drink? I have water and . . .” She tried to remember if there was any soda left in the pantry.

  “No. I don’t need a thing. Please . . . just sit a moment with me.”

  Jana did as the woman requested. She glanced at the ceiling, a bad habit she’d picked up whenever she wished she could be somewhere else.

  “Jana, I want you to know that I care about you. I know we aren’t all that close. I never felt like Rob ever wanted you to be close to anyone in the church.”

  “He said it was better that way. In case problems broke out and disciplinary actions were needed,” Jana muttered by rote.

  “Too bad he never understood that you have to have a genuine relationship with people in order to have them respect your discipline. Sure, you can have the authoritative official who stands to represent law and order, but it isn’t the same as, say, a parent who loves her child. If Rob had thought it through, he might have understood that the congregation would have come to respect his direction more if he had shown them more love.”

  “Well, apparently one person in the congregation was getting that kind of attention,” Jana said without thinking. She felt her cheeks grow hot. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You have a right to be angry, to be hurt. I’ve been there before and I completely understand.”

  Jana looked up at her. “Joey?”

  “No. I was married before. My husband left me for his secretary. He was a lawyer. I noticed he had an awful lot of late-night work sessions. Big cases, he told me.” She sighed. “It’s not easy, even now after fifteen years of a good marriage to a solid Christian man. My first husband and I weren’t saved. We didn’t care about anything but ourselves. We were selfish, and it cost us our marriage.” />
  “I didn’t know.” Jana suddenly realized she didn’t know much of anything about the women in her church.

  “I don’t tell just anyone,” Kelly said. “It serves no good purpose and seems to stir up discord. The Bible says that God hates divorce; well, so do I, but that didn’t mean people understood my situation any better. I was probably more condemned by people who called themselves Christians than by anyone else. I thank God there were no children involved. Otherwise, they would have suffered too.” Jana cringed inwardly and looked at the table.

  Kelly continued. “When he left me, I turned to God for strength to endure. The first church I went to was rather large and pompous. When they found out I was a divorcée, they wanted no part of me. They told me I needed to reconcile my marriage or I’d go to hell for all eternity.”

  Jana’s stomach twisted at the comment. No doubt some people would say such things to her.

  “I couldn’t bear the judgment, so I tried a smaller church right in my own neighborhood. They welcomed me with open arms—gave me love and encouragement. They also showed me what God was all about. I felt I finally understood what was missing in my life.”

  “But I already had God in my life,” Jana said without emotion. “And it didn’t do me a whole lot of good.” She waited for Kelly to react in shock, but instead the blonde nodded.

  “I can understand your feeling that way.”

  “You can?”

  “Jana, everyone feels confused by things from time to time. Everyone even has moments where they feel confused by God. It doesn’t make you a bad person, and you aren’t going to knock me off my feet by saying so. Let me tell you, when my boy David was dying from leukemia, I had plenty of times when I questioned God. Ranted and raved at Him, too, I’m sorry to say.”

  “I didn’t know you’d lost a child.” Jana felt a wave of sadness wash over her. How many people had she seen Sunday after Sunday and not really known?

  “It happened about five years before you came. It was a true test of our marriage, and it was hard on the other kids too,” Kelly said, her eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t think God cared anymore. I couldn’t understand why He would allow such a bad thing to happen when we were trying so hard to put Him first. David was just a little boy . . . how was that fair? How could I possibly make sense of it, except to say God had somehow turned against me?”

  Jana wanted to deny she felt that way, but she was sure one look into her eyes would tell Kelly everything she needed to know. And so Jana said nothing.

  Kelly reached out and covered Jana’s hand with her own. “Don’t let this separate you from God. He truly does care and He’s there for you, even though this is hard. We’re here for you too. The ladies of the church love you, Jana. They really do. They’ve only wanted an opportunity to get close to you.”

  Jana didn’t know what to say. It was all too much. She would leave Saturday—there was no sense in getting close to anyone now. “It seems a lot of time was wasted,” she finally murmured.

  “Just don’t waste the days to come,” Kelly said firmly. “You’ll be tempted to, but don’t.”

  “I don’t know what I’ll be doing. Right now I don’t want to think about any of it.”

  “I understand; you don’t want to think about it, you don’t want to deal with it. It’s okay to give yourself a little time away from it. But you will have to come back to it. It will make all the difference in the world if you actually deal with the problems and hurts rather than simply pretend they don’t exist. I speak from experience on that one as well.”

  Jana didn’t want to listen anymore. She was already overwhelmed with emotion and frustration. She kept remembering the joy of learning she was pregnant and of all the plans she had for the future. Now those plans would never be. “I really need to get back to work.” She pulled her hand away from Kelly’s and got to her feet. “I hope you understand. I appreciate the food you brought, and if I’m not here when Joey brings the microwave, tell him the back door will be unlocked.”

  Kelly stood. “I’ll tell him. Will you let me know if you need anything?”

  Jana gave a sort of laugh, but it sounded more like a cough. “I need everything to sell at the yard sale tomorrow. If you can make that happen . . . well . . .” She shook her head. “Never mind. Either the stuff will sell or it won’t. It isn’t your problem.”

  Kelly reached out to touch Jana’s shoulder. “We want to help bear your burden, Jana. Don’t forget that we care.”

  Jana nodded. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

  ****

  Thursday morning dawned clear and beautiful. It was one of those early summer mornings that might have sent Jana and Rob to the mountains for a hike or to the lake to just enjoy a leisurely rest. But instead, Jana was hauling box after box of stuff onto her front lawn.

  She arranged things the best she could and then went to put up a sign on the front porch post. It advertised larger pieces of furniture in the house. If people wanted to buy them, and hopefully they would, they would need to make arrangements for getting them moved. If they didn’t sell, Jana would simply leave them behind—she had no other choice. She could only take with her what would fit in her car.

  By eight o’clock the sale was already proving to be a success. More than twenty people had stopped by, and all of them had purchased something. One man had even made her a generous offer on most of the furniture in the house, promising that he would come Saturday morning to clear it out. At least this way she would have a bed in which to sleep and a place to sit.

  To Jana’s surprise, a dozen or more women from the church arrived at around eight-thirty. Kelly led the way, with Roberta Winsome running a close second.

  “We’re here to help,” Kelly announced. “We’ve brought some baked goods for you to sell. We figure once word gets out that Roberta’s coffeecake is for sale, you’ll have an even bigger draw.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say nothing at all,” Roberta declared. “We take care of our own.”

  The words warmed Jana, but she found herself putting up a wall nevertheless. She didn’t want to feel to obligated to these women. And she certainly didn’t want to care for them—and then feel another loss.

  Throughout the day, however, the love of her church family was clear. People she had hardly gotten to know showed up at her sale and purchased nearly every item she offered. By the time Jana boxed the final items remaining, she had netted herself over fifteen hundred dollars.

  “I’ll take that to Goodwill if you like,” Kelly said, pointing to the box Jana held.

  “I suppose that would be a good idea.” Jana wanted to say something more but struggled to know how to express her gratitude.

  Kelly stepped forward to take the box, but Jana held it tight for a moment. “I don’t know what happened here today, but thank you.”

  Kelly met Jana’s eyes. “One of our members was in need. We wanted to come and help as much as we possibly could. That’s what true Christianity is all about. Jesus loved us, and we’re to love one another.”

  Jana nodded, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever really understand. All her life love had been such an obscure thing. It had never been offered as freely to her as it had been on this day—by these people who had nothing to gain in the giving.

  Jana let go of the box and Kelly smiled. “We won’t stop caring about you, Jana. Please keep in touch with us. We want to know what’s happening in your life.”

  Jana thought of her unborn child and nearly opened her mouth to tell Kelly, then thought better of it. She didn’t know how the church might react if they knew about the baby. They might want to go find Rob and tell him—demand he return to his wife. Frankly, Jana wasn’t sure she’d take him back even if he did show up. The trust was completely broken, just like her heart, and Jana wasn’t sure that could ever be regained.

  Four

  The next morning, as Jana was packing up the final remains of
her life in the parsonage, a knock sounded. Again she found herself flustered in anticipation that it might be Rob returning. How would she react if it turned out to be him? She smoothed her newly washed hair and went to answer the door. A man she didn’t know stood on the other side.

  “Are you Jana McGuire?”

  She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  “This is for you.” The man thrust a large envelope into her hands and turned to go.

  Jana looked down at the packet. She was certain she knew the contents, for the return address held the name of a well-known law firm in Spokane.

  Divorce papers.

  She knew without opening the envelope that it had to be this. Rob had said he had the entire matter taken care of. She turned in defeat and closed the door.

  “So this is it.” She carried the packet almost ceremonially to the kitchen and placed it on the counter.

  The thing that bothered Jana most was that Rob had had months to plan, to get used to the idea of leaving her. He had gone through each detail in his mind—had imagined how it would be. Rob had spent time developing his choices. This was all new and fresh to her, yet so many other people seemed to have already dealt with the problem and resolved it in their own way. The elders had a new pastor to run the church. Rob had his mistress, and a divorce was in the works. But the whole situation was only a few days old to Jana. It made no more sense now than it had made that first morning.

  “Why is this happening?” she questioned. She looked up toward the ceiling. “God, are you there? Are you listening?” Her anger mounted. “Why would you do this to me?”

  Jana swept her hand across the counter, sending the divorce papers to the floor. “What good does it do to trust you if you aren’t going to be there to protect us from the bad things in life? I was faithful. I was doing your work. I was sitting in the middle of the African bush teaching children about Jesus. Why would you let my marriage fall apart?”

  She stormed from the kitchen, down the hall, and into the living room. Here she had begun packing the last remnants of her married life: her photographs. Picking up her wedding album, Jana began ripping the pictures out of the expensive leather binder. She’d paid top dollar for the best pictures she could get. She’d thought this marriage would last forever.