Repent! Remember the height from which you have—
John blinked away the warning. The trouble was, he didn’t want that kind of help. Not now. Not when his wife had turned into a shrew and his closest friend, a beautiful young woman thought the sun rose and set on him alone. What would God know of trouble like that?
A pain worked its way through his chest, and he became completely unaware of the others, their conversations about eagles and whether they were or weren’t involving him. I’ll probably have a heart attack and go straight to hell. John wiped a thin layer of sweat from his forehead and tried to understand how his life had gotten so completely out of hand. And how come the love of his life, the woman he had longed for since his childhood days, not only didn’t love him . . .
She hated him.
Abby had heard the phone ring and figured it was for one of the kids. Either way she wasn’t coming out of the office, not today. Her job as snackmaker was over, and now she needed to send in a piece for Woman’s Day. Her Internet connection was good on the first attempt, and the opening screen showed her she had mail. Two clicks later she was into a lengthy letter from Stan.
Everything about her editor was as surreal as the cyberworld itself. Stan was the divorced father of two and the senior editor at one of the largest magazines in the country, one she wrote for at least every other month. Though she had started her freelance career with bit pieces for small Christian publications, in time she’d worked her way up so that now the articles she wrote were read by more than a million readers and brought her thousands of dollars each.
Now and then she missed the chance to share her faith in print the way she had when she’d written for the Christian magazines, but then these days there wasn’t much to share anyway. Besides, she would need the extra income once she and John were living apart.
Her eyes found the beginning of Stan’s note.
Hey, Abby . . . maybe it’s my imagination but something told me this weekend’s been a little rough on you. John and the other woman, maybe? Just a guess. Anyway, I hope not. In fact, even though it sounds crazy, I really hope things still work out for you two. And if they don’t . . . well, I can think of at least one man who will celebrate the day you’re finally free.
She read his note again. Was there any doubt that this man was interested in her? At first his letters had been purely professional, but two years ago he asked about her marriage in a note that was clearly more personal than the others.
Abby had written back, “Let’s just say I’m not ready to give you an article on marital bliss.”
The next week Stan surprised her with a bouquet of flowers. The card inside read, “To the prettiest woman in Illinois . . . John doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
It had been easy to write even that off as professional flirtation, the kind of transaction that happened in the business world, a way to convince Abby to write primarily for their magazine and not another. Then his e-mails changed. There would be the usual discussion of her articles and developing ideas, but then he’d add a line or two that went far deeper, into territories of her heart that had been unexplored for years.
People who feel the most and deepest become writers . . . and inevitably they marry those who can’t feel at all.
Or another time: In the depths of my soul is a place unlocked only by the prose of a wordsmith. And you, my dear Abby, are the most accomplished wordsmith I know.
It wasn’t long before Abby began looking forward to his mail, signing on to the Internet twice a day in hopes that maybe there’d be a letter from him. Of course the timing couldn’t have been more perfect because that same season Abby began getting weekly reports from her friends.
“What’s up with John and Charlene Denton?” Rosemary from the booster club wanted to know. Rosemary was a blonde busybody whose very life centered around the happenings at Marion High. Her report was the first in a long line.
Next it was Betty from the school office, calling to say, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but rumor is that Charlene Denton has the hots for your husband. You know that, right, Abby?”
And in the football stands, Jill, one of the coaches’ wives, asked her, “Doesn’t it bug you that Charlene hangs out at practice each day? If she was after my husband the way she’s after yours, I’d get down there and tell her off myself.”
One parent to another in the school office: “Is Mr. Reynolds still married? I always see him with Ms. Denton. They sure make a cute couple.”
“They’re together every afternoon from what I hear . . .”
The comments continued like so many painful, pelting balls of hail until Abby would have had to be blind to miss the storm gathering in the not-so-far distance. Whenever she would bring it up, John would get frustrated and deny any wrongdoing.
“People want to see us fail, Abby,” he’d say. “Let’s not give ’em a reason, okay?”
After a month of knowing about Charlene and receiving more e-mails from Stan, Abby broke down and bared her heart to the man. She could still remember the letter she wrote the first time she let him see inside her soul. It feels like all our lives John and I have been creating this intricate quilt, stitched together with a hundred colors and patterns from stormy grays to brilliant yellows. And now, when it should finally be taking shape, we’re both standing by and watching it unravel.
Suddenly life is all about him, his work, his career. He’s too caught up in himself to notice that I’m balancing the house and the kids and my writing, all while picking up after everyone else. I feel like we’re becoming strangers . . .
She had seen Stan’s picture by then and knew him to be at least five years older than she with a full head of white hair and the average build of a professional. Certainly not the physical specimen John had always been, but then maybe that was better. Maybe beauty lasted longer when it came from inside a person.
Abby scanned the rest of Stan’s note and allowed her eyes to linger on the last few lines: I’ve been through it before, Ab . . . if things get really bad, don’t hesitate to call. I’m here for you always.
Here for you always . . . here for you always . . .
Where had she heard those words before? Maybe a million years ago from John, but weren’t they somewhere in the Bible, too? Wasn’t that one of God’s promises, that He’d never leave His people, never forsake them?
“Ah, but those words are for faithful hearts,” she whispered into the stillness of her office, barely aware of the enthusiastic cheers going up at the other end of the house where the game was probably heading into the fourth quarter. She closed her eyes and thought about the Lord, how sweet it had once been to meet with Him in private each morning and seek His plan, His way for her life.
She stared again at the note from Stan and her fingers began typing out a response. It was good to hear from you, good to know that someone, somewhere, cared enough to ask how I was . . .
Her fingers continued to dance across the keyboard, baring her heart, her soul, the deep-seated feelings she could no longer share with John. Other than their children, she shared nothing at all with the man she had once loved, the man she married. Because no matter what lies John told her there was no denying the truth—he was having an affair.
Yes, things were different now. John had made a choice to love someone else; he’d chosen on purpose to be unfaithful. She stared at the note she’d written to Stan and hit the send button.
The moment the mail was gone, she was hit square in the gut with the reality of their situation. No matter what lies she told herself, no matter how badly she wanted to blame John, the truth was suddenly clearer than water: John wasn’t the only one being unfaithful.
Thirteen
THE LAST THING ABBY WANTED TO DO THAT Thursday night was sit across the table from Jo Harter and listen to another monologue about Denny. But the idea of getting out of the house and finally finishing Nicole’s scrapbook was too appealing to turn down.
“This is my first time
scrappin’, Abby. I’ve cut out pictures and done some thinkin’ on it, but I haven’t actually started Matt’s scrapbook, so this is all brand new to me. In other words, I’m as wide open for suggestions as a great white at breakfast time. Just fire away any old time you have an idea, Abby . . .”
Not more fish stories, please.
Jo caught a quick breath and kept talking. It had been an hour of monologue while Abby painstakingly laid out the photos and news clippings and dance programs that made up Nicole’s eighth-grade year. Despite the constant rush of wind coming from Jo’s direction, Abby was grateful for a night away from John. Being near him left her torn between detesting him and longing for some far-off yesterday when they still loved each other.
Abby had just applied the glue to the final photo in a layout when Jo asked the question. It was the one everyone knew was taboo, the one friends and family alike had avoided for nearly two decades.
“Matt tells me you lost a little girl; is that right?”
As soon as the words were spoken, Abby’s hands felt leaden, unable to move, and her heart took an eternity to decide whether it might actually continue to beat. Matt tells me you lost a little girl . . . lost a little girl . . . lost a little girl . . . The words ricocheted in her heart, poking holes into a wound that had never quite healed.
Haley Ann.
Her face filled Abby’s memory until all she could see was their precious second daughter. Even with all the pain their separation was causing, those were easily the darkest days of her life with John.
Haley Ann. Sweet little Haley Ann.
Abby didn’t have to think about how old the child would be today if she’d lived. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name or the way home after a long vacation: Haley Ann would have been nineteen, as lovely as Nicole and more excited than any of them about her sister’s wedding. She’d have been maid of honor, no doubt. Nicole’s best friend.
Haley Ann.
The silence was deafening, and Abby realized Jo was waiting for an answer. She blinked back the tears that burned in her eyes and without looking up tried to think of the right words. “Yes. We did. She was . . . she was very young.”
Even Jo had the sense not to rush into a monologue on the topic of young, dead children. Instead she waited nearly a minute, and when she continued, her voice was softer than before. “I’m sorry, Abby. It must be harder than the steel trap over a sewer drain.”
Abby nodded, embarrassed that she was unable to control her tears. When Jo looked down at her photographs, Abby dabbed quickly at her cheeks, stopping the watery trail from landing squarely on her scrapbook and ruining pictures that would have been impossible to replace.
Haley Ann. Was that when Abby’s faith had taken a turn for the worse? It hadn’t seemed so at the time, back when her ties to the Lord had been her only assurance that one day she’d hold her daughter again, cradle her in her arms in a place called eternity. But really, now that she looked back, God could have given her second daughter more time on earth. What sense was there in allowing a precious angel like Haley Ann to be born into this world only to take her back four months—
“Was she older than Nicole?”
Abby wanted to curse at the woman, beg her to stop asking questions about the one place in her heart where no one trespassed. But logic told her Jo meant well. Abby summoned her strength, ignoring the way fresh tears blurred her vision, and without gazing up she searched desperately for her voice. “She was . . . she was younger. Eighteen months.”
Jo squirmed in her chair. “I know you probably don’t talk about her much, Abby, but since you and me’s gonna be family from here on out, I hope you don’t mind my questions. I never knew anyone who lost a child so young. Most people say it’s the death knell for a marriage. But you and John, I mean, look at you two. Still going strong after all these years. You’d never know the two of you’d been through something awful like that.”
Despite the photographs spread out before her, a different picture came into focus. She and John at the hospital emergency room saying good-bye to the lifeless body of little Haley Ann. SIDS, the doctors had said. Sudden death, a risk for any infant. And there was John, T-shirt and gym shorts, tears streaming down his rugged, handsome cheeks, cradling the baby in his arms as though he could somehow love her back to life. Abby could still see him, still feel the tears shaking his body, still hear his voice. “Dear God, I loved her.” She remembered how he wrapped his arms more closely around their baby’s lifeless little body, protecting her the way he hadn’t been able to when she lay dying in her crib. “Haley Ann . . . my precious girl, Haley Ann . . .”
The image of John and their second daughter stayed in Abby’s mind, burning its way into her consciousness until she couldn’t take it another moment. “Excuse me.” She pushed herself away from the craft table, hurried into a back bathroom, and dropped herself on the closed lid of the toilet. As real as Haley Ann been, there was no room in Abby’s life for thoughts of her now.
“Why did you take her from us? Why?”
The whispered question bounced around the tiled bathroom walls and came back to her. There were no more answers today than there had been back when Haley Ann died. And though that secret place in Abby’s heart kept Haley Ann alive, monitored her milestones and birthdays, she never allowed herself to drift back to the day when she found her baby girl facedown in her crib, motionless and not breathing.
Abby clenched her fists and the tears came with a force that was almost violent. Why here, God? At the craft store? Couldn’t she have had a neutral response to Jo Harter’s question? Would it take another twenty years before mention of Haley Ann didn’t ignite a bonfire of emotions?
Five minutes passed, then ten, and there was a soft knocking at the door. Abby’s heart rate doubled. Don’t make me explain myself, God, please. She swallowed hard. “What?” Her throat sounded thick from the effects of her tears.
“Abby? It’s me—Jo. You all right?”
If Abby had made a line of people she might choose to befriend in this, her season of letting go, Jo Harter would have most certainly been at the end. The woman was all frosting and no cake, too caught up in surface conversation to understand the workings of the heart. Still, they were about to be linked by the marriage of their children and Abby would not be responsible for doing anything that might alienate her. Even now, when all Abby wanted was to disappear through a crack in the mortar and find herself under the covers of their guest-room bed.
“I’m fine. I’ll be out in a minute.”
There was a beat. Make her believe it, please . . .
“All right. I was getting a little nervous out there by myself. Wasn’t sure if you were sick or something.”
Sick of your questions . . . “I’m fine. Really. I’ll be right out.”
When Jo had moved away from the door, Abby stood and splashed cold water on her face. There was no hiding the fact that she’d been crying, but most of the women would be too involved in their scrapbooking to notice her tear-stained face. Drawing a deep breath, she refused to think another minute about Haley Ann and the time in her life when she had needed John Reynolds just to make it through the day.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror. “Focus on the here and now, Abby.” Her heart seemed to toughen some in response. She could do this, go back out there and face Jo and whatever other questions she had, finish an evening of photo layouts, and make it home. She could do it all without giving in to the pressing urge to go back in time, back to Haley Ann’s birth and all that their lives had been that year.
Forget about it, Abby. Think about today.
With a resolve she hadn’t known she was capable of, she drew a deep breath and returned to the craft table. The rest of the night, despite Jo’s questions and well-meaning attempt to steer the conversation back to small talk, Abby hid behind her heart’s iron gates and refused to let herself feel.
Not until she came home at half past ten that evening and found her e
ntire family asleep did she do the thing she’d wanted to do since Jo first brought up the topic. Moving quietly so as not to wake them, she bundled into a parka that would protect her from even the most frigid temperatures. Then she wrapped scarves around her neck and head and donned a pair of thermal gloves. Grabbing a folding chair from the garage, she trudged outside through the snow to the pier, opened it, and sat down, gazing out at the moonlit reflection on the icy lake.
Had it really been nineteen years?
The cold made its way through a crack in her scarves and she pulled them more tightly. Whenever she needed time alone, space to think and dream and remember how to be again, Abby came here. To the pier: winter, spring, summer, or fall. The weather made no difference.
She remembered the dates like it was yesterday. Haley Ann, born October 24, 1981, an hour after the league football game against Southridge High. Dead just four months later, February 28, 1982. Nights like this it seemed as though Haley Ann had never really died at all, as though maybe she was asleep upstairs in the room next to Nicole, as much a part of their family as Kade or Sean or any of them.
Abby’s body adjusted to the cold, and she relaxed. Across the backdrop of the shimmering lake she watched pictures take shape, saw scenes come to life again as though they were happening for the first time. Her pregnancy had been a dream, and more than once John had whispered to her that this child, this second baby, would certainly be a boy.
“You know, Abby . . . to carry on the tradition.”
He’d been teasing of course, and as her due date neared he no longer even joked about having a boy. “I’m sure it’s a girl. As precious as Nicole and as perfect as you. What could be better than being surrounded by princesses?”
And sure enough, when he arrived at the hospital after the football game in time to join her in the delivery room, they learned together that he’d been right. There was nothing difficult or remarkable about the delivery, nothing that might lend even a shadow of foreboding that this little girl was anything but the picture of health. Her skin was pink almost from the moment she was born, and her cries came in short bursts that sounded more like the tinkling of her older sister’s laughter than the wailing of a lusty newborn.
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