Twilight

by Kristen Heitzmann

  Her mouth hardened and, for the first time, he saw her mother in her. Her tone, too, was defensive. “It’s what you’ve wanted.”

  He dropped his forehead to the crown of her head, drew her scent into his lungs. “Not it, Laurie. You.” Didn’t she understand? “I want all of it this time.” He spread his fingers through her hair. “Love, marriage, sex. I want you.”

  She pulled back. “Well, you can’t have that.”

  “Why?”

  She turned her face to the side. “I don’t love you.”

  It was worse than the ribs, worse than the burns. It topped any pain he’d known. No, she’d never said she did. But she’d never before said she didn’t. He had clung to the possibility like a drowning man to a splinter, and now she’d torn it away. Why now, after everything that had happened?

  She sniffed. “I can’t … love.”

  “You love Luke and Maddie.”

  Her face screwed up as she fought tears that came anyway. “That’s different.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s laying down yourself for someone else.” As he’d done for her.

  She swiped the tears from under her nose with the back of her hand. “I don’t have a self to lay down.”

  Not for him anyway. He wasn’t rich enough, famous enough. He couldn’t give her anything but a simple home … and his love. He wanted to strike something. Then he heard the utter hopelessness in her tone. “I don’t have a self to lay down.”

  The anger faded. Cal’s hands dropped to his sides. She was telling him the truth, not what he wanted to hear, not what he needed. But the truth. Did she have to love herself before she could love someone else? Maybe that was the hole in her he’d never been able to fill. He looked at her now, as beautiful as any woman he’d known, yet empty in a way he couldn’t fix.

  His voice rasped, “I’d do anything for you, Laurie, if I thought it would make any difference.”

  She looked away. “It won’t.”

  He dropped his chin, cocking his head to the side and fighting the ache. He stepped back, putting space between himself and the woman he loved, space that would only grow with time. “You don’t owe me anything. I’d have done what I did for anyone. It’s my job.” The words were a slap, he knew. But the hurt was burning out the one small piece of his own worth he had left.

  She closed her eyes, stood for a moment without speaking, then turned and reached for the door. Cal felt her absence as keenly as the cold wind that blew in. He dropped to the chair at the kitchen table and rested his head on his palms. He was insane, passing up sex with the woman he loved for some reason he couldn’t begin to understand.

  He picked up the phone and called Reggie.

  Reggie hung up the receiver and went out to Suanne in the living room. He glanced at the cross-stitched ornament she was working on. Would she mind if he …

  She looked up with her slanting cat’s eyes and knowing smile. “I know. God’s called Moses to the promised land.”

  Reggie grinned, then bent and kissed her forehead. “Like Moses, I am ill fit to the task. But God knows best.”

  “Mm-hmm. He sends them as are willing.”

  Reggie took his coat from the closet and pulled the knit cap over his head. “I’ve had a burden for this man a long time now.”

  “Don’t I know?”

  He picked up his Bible, leaned down, and kissed her on the lips. “Keep supper hot for me.”

  “I might even keep it for three.”

  Reggie nodded. “I’ll bring him if I can.”

  He drove to Cal’s and climbed the stairs with no more certainty of success than Moses in Pharaoh’s court. But Cal had called, and that was something. Reggie banged his fist on the door.

  Cal pulled it open. Was it unshed tears, alcohol, or just stress that made his eyes so hollow and bleak?

  “You clean, bro?”

  Cal nodded and turned back inside. Reggie followed him in and set the Bible on the small table. The kitchen was overly warm, and Reggie stripped his coat and hung it on the chair back. Cal walked to the refrigerator, pulled out a Coke, and handed it over. Reggie popped the tab and drank.

  Cal leaned on the counter. “You told me God had a time and a purpose for everything, an order to the universe. You said if I did things the r ight way, they’d work out.” His fists clenched and unclenched.

  “That’s not exactly what I said.” Reggie pulled off his cap and laid it on the table. “Yeah, you gotta do things the right way, but sometimes what you think should happen isn’t God’s plan.” He slid out the chair and sat. “What’s goin’ on?”

  Cal forked his fingers through his hair. “Laurie. She came to pay her dues.”

  “What dues?”

  “One night of great sex in return for saving her life.”

  Reggie frowned. He did not want to be hearing this.

  “And you know what?” Cal paced across the room, hands tight again. “I turned her down.”

  “Why?”

  Cal slapped the wall. “You tell me.”

  Reggie took the risk. “You knew inside it was wrong.”

  Cal turned, raised his hands, and dropped them. “Why? Seven years ago it wasn’t wrong.”

  “Sure it was. You just didn’t know it then.”

  “I was in love with her, Reg.” Cal spun the opposite chair and straddled it.

  “Then you should have married her.”

  He spread his arms. “She wouldn’t have me. She said no.”

  “So you took what you could get.”

  Cal’s head dropped heavily. “It wasn’t like that. Her grandmother died. Laurie was upset. She needed comfort.”

  “Comfort—not sex.” Reggie knew he was pushing, but somehow he guessed it was time.

  Cal’s brow contorted. “I loved her, Reggie. I did what came naturally out of that love.”

  “And then what?”

  Cal stood, took a step, and turned. “Then she … went berserk. We fought. She left … and married Mr. Drug Lord.”

  “Don’t you see? You betrayed her.”

  “What?” Cal’s look was sheer amazement.

  “You took what didn’t belong to you.”

  Cal shook his head. “I didn’t take it. She was just as willing.”

  Reggie indicated the chair and waited until Cal sat down. “She might’ve been willing. But it was your responsibility to protect her, from herself even.”

  “Come on, Reg. What kind of prosaic thinking is that?”

  “God’s thinking.” Reggie let that sink in.

  Cal folded his arms around the chair back in front of him. “So, because I slept with her one night, God took her away forever?”

  Now they were on treacherous ground. One wrong word could turn Cal away, set a root of bitterness in his spirit. “There are consequences to sin. The wages are death. You killed your possibilities by sinning with her.”

  Cal slammed his fist on the table. “It wasn’t sin!”

  Reggie didn’t let go. “Sex outside the covenant is wrong. You can deny that all you like, but it won’t change things. Here.” He took up his Bible, thumbed a tab, and opened. He flipped some pages and handed it over. “Read the story of David and Bathsheba. There was a man after God’s own heart, yet he stumbled in the same way you did.”

  “And God punished him?”

  “The consequences of his own sin punished him. And he paid the rest of his life for those consequences.”

  Cal glanced down at the page and back up. “Then what’s the point?”

  Reggie laid a hand across the page. “God’s sovereign mercy reunited David to Himself. Read it.”

  Cal read. Reggie waited, sipping on the Coke, and prayed. Cal read all the way through the murder of Uriah, the coming of Samuel, the death of Bathsheba’s baby, and David’s response. Then he looked up. “I didn’t murder, Reg. I didn’t take another man’s wife. Not knowingly, anyway.”

  Reggie nodded. “But the principle is the same. In God’s eyes all sin is abom
ination. Men label some acts worse than others, but not God. In as much as ye have lusted after your sister, ye have defiled her.”

  Cal crossed his arms on the chair back and rested his chin. “All right, so I’ve done things wrong. I’ve also done things right. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “Of course it does.”

  Cal raised his head. “Then why won’t God give me the one thing I want?”

  “Which is?”

  “Laurie.”

  The man was in pain. It came through his voice, his eyes, his stance. But Cal didn’t know what it was he really needed. Reggie opened one hand. “ ’Cause He’s got something better.”

  “What?” Cal’s brows scrunched together.

  “Life.”

  “Life.” Cal rubbed his palm over his face. “Look around you, Reg. Look at these walls.”

  Reggie looked. It was Cal’s place, a little tidier than he’d seen it at times. He returned his gaze to Cal.

  Cal spread his arms. “This is it. I don’t even have my work anymore, thanks to Dr. James.”

  Reggie shook his head. “She’s in a battle of her own.”

  “Well, I never signed on to her army.”

  “Yes, you did, bro. When you entered her world.”

  Cal’s face contorted. “She has the entire department believing I’m a nut. She and Chuck Danson. Now that’s a pair. Lock me up and throw away the key.” He stood up, stalked to the refrigerator, yanked out a Coke, and sucked it down.

  Reggie stood, too, crossed the narrow space to Cal, and rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Rita cares more than you know.” Cal shook his head. “Then why’s she in the crowd shouting ‘cru-

  cify him’?”

  “You’re not crucified, Cal. Jesus did that for you.” Regg ie wrapped an arm around Cal’s shoulders and led him to the couch. Then he sat down in the recliner across from him. “When I said life, I didn’t mean this one. This one is temporal. What God has for you is eternal.”

  Cal dropped his head back. “Then why won’t He just end it?”

  “He has a plan for you.”

  Cal sat quiet, matching Regg ie’s gaze. He spread his hands. “What plan?”

  “No one knows the whole of it. But I know the beginning. He wants you to give Him yourself.”

  “I did.”

  “When?”

  “In the fire. With Laurie. I told him to do what He liked with me.”

  A burst of excitement began inside. “That’s a start, bro. Did you tell him you were a sinner and make him your Lord?”

  “I didn’t really have time to go into detail.”

  “Then do it now.”

  “What’s the point?”

  Reggie crossed to the couch and sank in beside Cal. “The point is, until you give over control of your life to Jesus Christ, these walls are all you’ve got.”

  Cal’s brow furrowed and his jaw tensed. He dropped his face into his hands. “I just want to love her.”

  “You gotta do first things first. I don’t know where Laurie fits in. But you can’t jump ahead of God’s will. Right now, it’s you He’s concerned with.”

  Cal looked up. “So I surrender, and God delivers her, priority mail?”

  Reggie shook his head. “No promises. God wants you whether you ever see Laurie again or not.”

  “Kind of a one-sided deal.”

  “Not when you consider you don’t take a breath that isn’t God’s gift to you.” Reggie sat back. “I won’t argue, bro. You know.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “You know here what’s right. You decide.”

  Cal looked slowly around the room. “All right.”

  Reggie dropped to his knees. He could almost hear the angels singing as he led Cal in the sinner’s prayer. “You are set free, my man. Ransomed by the blood of Jesus.”

  “Does it include a get-out-of-jail-free card?”

  Reggie laughed. “I doubt it, but at least you know He’ll be right there with you.”

  Smiling, Cal leaned back into the couch. “Well, misery loves company.”

  “You can’t do this alone, Cal. You gotta find you a network, a church, a support system to uphold you when the enemy tries to steal your victory.”

  Cal’s throat worked. “You said Wednesdays and Saturdays?”

  Reggie read Cal’s thought. “That’s right. At Brother Lucas’s house. And he’s the Sunday pastor of a small fellowship, about twice those that meet for prayer.”

  “You and Suanne are there?”

  “You know it. And speaking of which, she’s holding dinner for us. Lasagna, if I smelled right.”

  Cal smiled. “Sounds like heaven if I know Suanne.”

  Reggie gripped his shoulder. “Amen, bro. Amen.”

  Weren’t things bad enough? Did the children have to make it worse? Laurie looked from Maddie’s face to Luke’s, both mouths tremulous and insistent, eyes pleading. She couldn’t. She couldn’t give them what they wanted. “Luke, some things are complicated. You just have to trust me.”

  Eyes condemning, he looked away, but Maddie wasn’t so compliant.

  “I want to.” She stomped her foot. “Fluffy has to say good-bye.”

  Maddie had no idea what she was asking. To face Cal after … Laurie pressed her fingertips to her forehead and glanced up at Mother. For once she seemed to have no opinion, at least not one she would share. What possible good would it do to see Cal? To let the children wring his heart as she knew they would?

  She had to leave, had to bring Brian’s body to his family, see to all the other affairs, the house, the will … Sergeant Danson had released her to go, released the body for burial. Everything Brian had was hers, or so she suspected. They’d laid out their wills accordingly. Death didn’t activate the prenuptial agreement as divorce would have. His estate was hers and the children’s, and she had to see to all of it. And she was glad. She couldn’t get out of Montrose fast enough. But Luke and Maddie …

  “Please, Mommy?” Luke touched her shoulder. “We didn’t get to say good-bye to Daddy.”

  Laurie’s heart seized. He was cruel, this child of hers, cruel and unfair. No, she was the unfair one. Luke was only earnest, only needing. He’d taken Brian’s death stoically, too stoically. Maybe in some way he needed Cal in order to act out his grieving for his daddy. Cal would understand. He’d suffer his own pain to help them through theirs.

  She sighed. “All right. I’ll call. But he might not … be able to.”

  Maddie beamed. “I’ll get Fluffy!” She ran to the den.

  “He’ll see us!” Luke chorused. “I know he will.”

  Laurie sighed. Of course he would.

  No promises, no guarantees, no expectations, no disappointment. Cal left the dishes in the sink. Neither had he shaved, but the single day’s growth wasn’t as disreputable as it might have been. Either way it didn’t matter. Laurie had told him plainly it was the children who wanted to come.

  They needed closure, she’d said. Closure. He drew a breath, caught it at the point of pain, and released it slowly. The problem would be seeing her. How could he control the electric connection that had jolted his system at the sound of her voice over the phone?

  Why did he open himself time after time to be electr ified, burned, electrified, and burned out. It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t right. But what could he do? Say no to two little children who had to be hurting and confused? He rubbed his jaw, went to the closet, and pulled out the box.

  He opened the flaps and dug through until he found the squirrel hand puppet and the water gun he’d used in a skit about safety around power lines. They would do. He had nothing for Laurie, but she’d accept nothing he had anyway. He pulled on his jacket, as it wasn’t cold enough for his heavy coat, and stuffed the toys into the pockets.

  Better to meet them on neutral ground, to make it easier for Laurie. He went down as the car pulled into the yard. Laurie climbed out and opened the back door. Maddie was first, dressed in a woolly blue jacket with pin
k lambs across the waist. Her legs in the pink leggings were impossibly small and shapely. Perfect legs on a perfect child.

  Clutching the stuffed dog he’d given her, she ran to him, her smile piercing his control as she held up her arms. Cal caught her up, closing his eyes against the pain, both the ribs and the heartache. He remembered her snuggled next to him at the cabin, her fear melting away as he soothed her. He recalled her laugh, and the way she’d balanced on his knee and hooked her arm around his neck. He wanted to be there for her, to be something to her.

  What was he trying to prove anyway? To be to one little girl the hero he couldn’t be to another? Or was it because she was Laurie’s, because he’d envisioned it differently? Maddie’s palm against the back of his neck had a spongy warmth and softness that made tears burn behind his lids.

  Cal opened his eyes and looked at Laurie. She wore an old flannel shirt over a turtleneck, and the knee of her jeans was frayed through. With no makeup and her hair in a ponytail, she looked like she had all those years ago when he’d gone to pick up his schedule and had first seen her. This was difficult for her, he could tell.

  Luke hung back at her side, and Cal looked down at him. He stooped and let Maddie down, then held a hand out to Luke. Luke came slowly. Cal could only guess the boy’s confusion and grief. He gripped him by the shoulder and brought him into his arms.

  Luke circled his neck and squeezed. “I wish you were coming with us.”

  Cal’s throat tightened. “I don’t know what to say to that, buddy.”

  “Could you ask Mommy?”

  Cal glanced up at Laurie, standing close enough now that he could smell her. Giorgio, not Beautiful. Cal studied her, trying not to memorize the line of her cheek, the shape of her eyes, the soft quiver of her lips. “I already did, Luke.”

  Laurie turned away.

  Luke started to cry, an almost silent crying so wrenching Cal held him close, fighting tears of his own. “You’ll be okay, Luke. You’ll be okay.”

  Now Maddie was crying and pressing close. The tears crested in Cal’s eyes. Well, what did he have to lose? He stopped fighting them and pressed his face to the children’s heads. “You’ll be all right,” he said again, rubbing his tears into their hair and just holding them. But would he? He stood and led them back to the car, saw them into the seat, and produced the toys. He smiled grimly at Maddie gripping the life out of the squirrel as he closed the door.