War Room

by Chris Fabry

“I do love you, Danielle,” he said.

  “I love you too, Daddy.”

  He kissed her on top of the head and walked away, as light as a feather. She followed him outside with her jump rope and did some warm-ups, explaining their routine and what Trish had been teaching them. When she sat on a step beside him, he decided to pick up the subject again.

  “Danielle, is there anything I could do better? Something that would tell you how much I love you?”

  She made a face and got wrinkles in her forehead. It was clear this wasn’t a question she’d considered. “You mean like buying me a present?”

  “I guess it could be that. But I was thinking more—is there anything we could do together that you’d like?”

  She shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

  It was another moment of unbridled childhood. She couldn’t think of anything and that was okay. He had offered a lamp with only one wish attached and she didn’t seem to want to rub it at the moment.

  Tony smiled. “All right. You think about it. If something comes to mind, you let me know.”

  Elizabeth came outside and sat beside him, and they watched Danielle jump rope. With all of his anger at his wife, all their bickering, he had forgotten how beautiful she was. No, he hadn’t forgotten—he’d just pushed the truth aside and allowed the clouds of life to cover it.

  “Your little girl seems happy with her daddy again,” Elizabeth said.

  “It honestly doesn’t take much. I just asked her to forgive me for being such a cruddy father and she said yes like it was the easiest thing she’d ever done.”

  “Kids will give you a second chance. It’s the grown-ups who have a harder time.”

  He looked at her. “Is that so?”

  She smiled. “What?”

  “One of my big fears in asking you to forgive me was that you’d hold all the stuff I’ve done over me. And you’d come back in a day or a week or a year and bring it all up again. You haven’t done that.”

  “Well, it hasn’t been a week or a year, either,” she said.

  “No,” he said, “I can tell you mean it. I can tell this is not about me getting everything right and living up to some list of rules and regulations.”

  “I’m glad you said that,” she said, digging into the pocket of her jeans. “I just came up with a list this morning.”

  They laughed and he realized it had been so long since they had genuinely laughed together. He couldn’t remember the last time. It had probably been the last time they had . . .

  Danielle stopped jumping and caught them talking together. She ran to them, out of breath, and jumped in front of them. “Kiss her, Daddy! Kiss her!”

  “Now don’t rush things,” he said, laughing and waving a hand at her. “Your mama and me are working on not fighting. That’s the first step.”

  “Kiss her!” Danielle said, swinging her rope and jumping. She got into a rhythm and sang, “Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her . . .”

  Tony shook his head.

  Danielle stopped and her face turned glum. “You asked me to tell you one thing you could do, didn’t you? Well, this is it.”

  Before Tony could object again, Elizabeth said, “Go ahead and give the girl what she wants.”

  He raised his eyebrows and leaned back, looking at Elizabeth’s face. She turned her head to offer a cheek and he leaned in and gave her a peck.

  “On-the-lips,” Danielle said, talking in time with her jumps. “On-the-lips!”

  Tony looked in his wife’s eyes, studying them. He didn’t want to take things too fast. He wanted to give Elizabeth time to see his genuine heart.

  “Kids these days,” he said playfully. “They ask so much.”

  “You’re the one who asked her the question,” Elizabeth said, matching his gaze. She moistened her lips with her tongue.

  He leaned closer. “It is cheaper than a new jump rope.”

  He kissed her on the lips. It wasn’t the longest or most romantic kiss of their marriage, but the feelings it stirred inside Tony surprised him.

  “Yay! Yay! Yay!” Danielle said, continuing her jumping. “Do-it-again! Do-it-again!”

  Jennifer and her mother drove up. Tony put an arm around Elizabeth and they walked to the car, greeting Jennifer’s mom.

  “It’s Sandy, right?” Tony said.

  The woman smiled.

  Elizabeth knew real estate was kind of like marriage. You could have the best house in the world but if you didn’t have an interested buyer, you’d sit alone at the open house. But you could never tell what a new day would bring. The right person in the right situation who came along could make all the difference. One phone call from someone driving around who saw a nice neighborhood and a sign was all it took. A friend of a friend knew somebody who was looking and suggested they call. It was all part of an unseen network of people and needs and wants.

  The kiss from Tony was one of those things the new day had brought. The feeling lingered all day. The touch of his lips, the closeness she felt. Kissing was as much about the heart as about the lips, and her heart had done a backflip when he leaned in and connected with her. Still, she felt some reservation. She had been grateful that Tony had turned to God, but she’d also been hurt by what he’d revealed.

  Elizabeth had wondered about Tony’s decreased interest in intimacy in the past year. When they had first been married, she worried that she and Tony would have different levels of longing. She heard married women talking about husbands who wanted sex every day, and that had sounded good at the time. But the wives had complained, at least most of them. A few had said their husbands didn’t want sex at all, and that troubled her. Would she and Tony be compatible in this area?

  That question was quickly put to rest when they discovered both had a fairly equal level of desire. But after Danielle was born, things changed. Her body changed. Her energy level fell and she was emotionally tied in with her daughter. She supposed it was hormones and all the changes her body had gone through.

  Soon she and Tony got in a groove as a couple and moved forward. They were at least going in the same direction. They would find each other occasionally—nothing planned—and enjoyed each other, but their intimacy was hit-or-miss at best. In the last year Tony had backed away from her and had thrown himself into the gym, working out and staying fit seeming to fill some inner need. She read articles online and found a book at the library on the subject, but the content troubled her. It said a husband who backed away from his wife sexually could be a flashing light on the marriage dashboard. Maybe he was getting toned for someone else?

  That night, after Tony had gotten Danielle to bed, he came to Elizabeth as she sat on the chair in her bedroom. She had picked up the marriage book she’d been reading but lowered it when he walked into the room.

  He knelt in front of her. “I need to tell you something.”

  She closed the book. The look on his face telegraphed a message she wasn’t going to like.

  “Sounds ominous,” she said. She meant, It sounds painful.

  “Not really,” he said. He took a moment, then looked her in the eyes. “I think we need to see somebody.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like a counselor. A pastor. Somebody who can help us take the next step.”

  Elizabeth searched his eyes. She’d been in enough Bible studies with other women who had marriage problems to know that getting a man to go to any kind of counselor was like getting a wild horse into a minivan. Through the window. And the seat belt buckled. That he was suggesting it felt like a huge gift.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I just think there are some things a third party could help us work through, you know? Somebody who’s been through this kind of thing before.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’m in. You choose.”

  “I was thinking of calling the church,” he said. “They have a family pastor, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, Pastor Wilson.”

  “Good. I’ll c
all in the morning.”

  She put the book on the edge of the chair and balanced it. There was something behind this. It felt like the tip of the iceberg was showing above the choppy waters they’d been through. “Is this because there’s something else you need to tell me?”

  Tony said he hadn’t been unfaithful. But he’d been on the road a long time. Elizabeth had prayed earlier that day that God would help both of them uncover their hidden thoughts and feelings so they could get them out in the open and deal with them. Kind of like finding the edge pieces of a puzzle. If you got those on the table and connected, you could find the middle easier.

  “I know you heard about Raleigh,” he said. “The lady I had dinner with. When I came back from the trip, I saw the message from Missy.”

  “You looked at my phone?”

  “It was out when I was getting changed that night and the phone dinged. I saw what she said and the whole conversation. I wasn’t trying to spy. I didn’t go through all your messages, trust me.”

  “That’s what this is about, Tony. Trust. And I’m working on forgiveness and trying to build that trust, but when I hear you saw that and never said anything about it . . .”

  He sat back on his heels. “Look, don’t read too much into it. I’m telling you now, okay?”

  “Don’t tell me what to read into something. I’ve been fighting for you, for our marriage, and this hits deep. It’s one of the things I know we have to work out.”

  He set his jaw. “This is what I’m talking about. This is what I’m afraid will happen. I come to you, I try to talk, and you throw up a wall.”

  “You built the wall yourself, Tony.”

  Her heart was racing now and she could tell this could go really badly. She took a breath, tried to find a way to go that they hadn’t been before. Tried to see the good in him rather than just look at the bad.

  “Look, I know you’re trying,” she said. “I think you have a good heart and you’re turning toward us.”

  “You think?” he said, a little hurt, like a kid who thought he had done well at making a bed that turned out lumpy.

  Before she could respond, he put up his hands in defense. “You’re right. You’re always right.”

  “I’m not trying to be right here.”

  “But you are. And I see that. This is why I’m suggesting we go to the pastor or whoever. I want to work this out. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove you can trust me. We just need a referee. Somebody who can help us hear each other and not fight the same battles over and over.”

  She nodded and her heart calmed. She liked those words. They were strong and comforting. And they matched the same way she felt.

  “So who was the woman in Raleigh?” she said. Her mouth felt dry from the emotion that throttled her. Part of her didn’t want to know. Part of her wanted to just move on and forget the past and tell herself it had no bearing on the present or future. But the other part, the bigger part, wanted to know everything. Had to know everything. She braced herself for the truth.

  “She works for Holcomb,” he said. “She was handling the contract we had signed.”

  Was that all? Elizabeth thought, but she didn’t say it. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him, waiting for the truth.

  “We were going through the contract together and she had a meeting scheduled, so I suggested we go to dinner.”

  “Is that something you’d done before?”

  “Every contract is different—”

  “No, I mean, with women you worked with. Have you gone to dinner with other women?”

  He thought for a moment, and that unnerved her. He looked like a little boy who had stuck his hand in the cookie jar just as his mother walked into the room.

  “I don’t recall going alone. I mean, there were times when a group would get together at a conference. This was the first time I’d actually . . .”

  “You’d actually what?”

  Tony took a breath and threw his shoulders back. “It was the first time I’d actually felt like I wanted to pursue someone else. I don’t do one-night stands, Liz. I’m not that dumb. But I think I’d finally given up on you and me. And this woman was attractive and I thought I would test the waters.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t been prepared for the pain those words would bring. He was talking about the night she’d prayed so hard. The night she’d really believed that God was working.

  “Go on,” she said. “What happened that night?”

  “We were at a restaurant having our meal. I thought it would kind of break the ice between us. But there was no ice to break, really. She was ready. After dinner she suggested we go back to her place and open a bottle of wine.”

  Elizabeth’s jaw dropped. “And what did you say?”

  “I said I was fine with that. I mean, it surprised me because she didn’t seem like the type who would just jump at somebody.”

  “I guess you were wrong,” Elizabeth whispered. Her heart was heavy now and the forgiveness she had offered seemed more conditional with each word that slipped from his mouth. This was going to be a lot harder than she thought. “What’s her name?”

  “Veronica.”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Veronica? You were going to fall for a Veronica?

  “What does she look like?” she said.

  “She’s a little younger than us. Pretty.”

  “You mean younger than me, right?”

  “Elizabeth, don’t get defensive.”

  “Don’t tell me how to get. I can react to this, okay?”

  “I agree—you can react, but I want you to know nothing happened.”

  “What do you mean nothing happened? You were at a restaurant alone together. You talked and laughed and maybe played footsie under the table. Then you went back to her apartment for wine.”

  “I didn’t go back with her. I got sick. Right after the meal—it was the craziest thing. I can’t explain it. We finished the meal, she was ready to go, and I got this feeling in my stomach. I barely made it to the bathroom before I tossed my cookies.”

  That made her feel better. The image of Tony in the bathroom heaving his expensive dinner made her wonder if it was food poisoning or something God had done. Did food poisoning work that fast? Jesus had turned water into wine and calmed a storm, so He could certainly turn a stomach. That almost brought a smile to her face.

  “I stayed in the bathroom for a while—and when I came out, I told Veronica I couldn’t go with her.”

  “But you wanted to.”

  “Liz, don’t hold this against me.”

  “I’m trying to understand what you’re telling me. I’m sorry if this gets a little messy, okay?” She was raising her voice. She put up her hands and waved them down, like she was bringing a plane in for a landing. “What did she say?”

  “She wanted me to come to her place anyway. She said she could take care of me.”

  The bile rose and Elizabeth wanted to scratch the woman’s eyes out. Another woman trying to take care of her husband. But she couldn’t have said that if Tony hadn’t initiated the dinner.

  “She knew you were married?”

  “I didn’t bring it up, but I didn’t take my ring off. And I mentioned we were having problems.”

  “That was convenient. Alone on the road, your marriage in trouble, a lonely man, and a woman named Veronica.” She said the name like it was a curse word.

  “Liz, I feel terrible. I haven’t wanted to tell you. I want it to just go away.”

  “But you know Missy saw you. And she told me.”

  He nodded. “Right. But I would like to think I would tell you this at some point whether you had found out or not.”

  “I’d like to think that too,” she said. “But we can’t know that, can we? We’ll never know if you would have told me because we don’t live in a world of alternate choices. You can’t step in a time machine and come home.”

  “No. All I can do is tell you the truth and pray that you’ll forgive me and give
me a chance to let you trust me.”

  He could have yelled at her and told her she was being obtuse or overbearing or unforgiving. That had happened before. Seeing him here on his knees showed there really was progress, but there was no getting around the hurt she felt. She kept picturing him with Veronica at the restaurant. Veronica who wanted to nurse him back to health. Veronica who had a bottle of wine chilled and waiting.

  “How could you go out with somebody else while we’re still married?” she said.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know how I could go for anyone but you. I guess I thought we were over. I thought our marriage was hopeless because every time we were with each other, we fought.”

  “You promise nothing happened?” she said.

  “Baby, nothing happened but me losing everything I ate that night and then some. I was miserable. I can’t even look at fettuccine on a menu and not feel queasy.”

  You poor thing, she thought. “Has she called you? Did you get in touch with her the next day?”

  “I was going to text her and apologize, then I deleted it.” He pulled out his phone. “Wait. It’s still in my drafts.” He held the phone out to her and she read the message. “I never sent it. And I never called her back.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think it’s because I knew it was wrong. I knew it wasn’t good for me or her to go down that road.”

  “What if she calls? She’s going to call, you know. Veronicas always call again once they’ve been stood up.”

  “I won’t answer. That’s not an option anymore. And I don’t need to be in any more meetings with her because I don’t work with Holcomb.”

  The last words seemed to bring a curtain down on his face. Then he looked up with some new thought. “Listen, if you want access to my phone, if you want to check to see if I’m telling the truth, you can look at it anytime you want. E-mails. Facebook. Whatever. I’m an open book from here on out.”

  She nodded and looked at the book balanced precariously on the chair’s arm. This was a good way to build trust. How long it would take, she didn’t know. She wished she could turn the pages to that chapter, after all this was done and over, but life wasn’t like that. You couldn’t skip ahead. You had to live it.