Down the concrete steps, careful not to slip, I follow the path past the covered pool into the garden toward the methodical sound of metal making violent contact with wood.
He’s by the toolshed, the outside light illuminating the pile he’s created and the anguish on his face. He grips the handle of the axe, jaw set, eyes fixed on the task he’s determined to complete. Snow falls softly, landing on his windblown hair and blue wool sweater. On the other side of the shed, out of sight, there are piles and piles of wood.
Meticulously stacked monuments that pay homage to years of pain and anger and sorrow so deeply embedded in our souls but never shared.
I know this now.
I’ve learned more about Kevin in these months of being apart than I knew in a lifetime of living together.
Some people face their trials with drink. Others medicate with drugs or food or maxing out their credit cards or they gamble away the pain.
My husband chops wood.
I find an old abandoned lawn chair, wipe the snow off, sink into it, shove my hands deep into the pockets of my coat, and wait.
CHAPTER 27
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
—1 CORINTHIANS 13:13
Kevin is not a talker. Never has been. But perhaps this needs to change.
“Go back inside, Savannah.” He brings the axe down hard, catching my eyes with his. “You don’t need to be out here.”
I wait until there’s a break in the chopping to reply. “No. I don’t need to be.”
Kevin stills the axe, lowers it to the ground, and leans on the handle, breathing hard.
I shrug at the questions sitting silent in his eyes and wonder how best to answer them.
“Do you remember the verse we read at our wedding?” I came across it quite by accident this morning. I was sorting through drawers in an old dresser in the basement. I don’t know why really, whether I was looking for something in particular or just needed something to do, but I found the old piece of paper with the handwritten words on it and stared at them a long time.
Kevin sets the axe aside and sits on the sawdust-covered stump. His breath curls around him in the cold air. “Corinthians something or other.” He scratches his head and tosses me a grin. “I was never very good at memory verses.”
“Neither was I.” We didn’t have a church wedding. My mother didn’t think it would be appropriate under the circumstances. But I know God was there anyway. “‘Love never gives up,’” I begin, almost afraid he’ll shoot to his feet and walk away like he would have not so long ago. But he doesn’t. He sits in silence as I speak again. “‘It never stops trusting. Never loses hope and—’”
“‘Never quits.’” He lets out a shaky breath and stands. Turns his back to me and bends over his knees a little. When he finally stands and walks toward me, the light catches the tears in his eyes. “Savannah . . .”
I meet him halfway.
Kevin threads his fingers torough my hair and holds my gaze. For a long moment, all I can do is stare at him. Then I find the courage to ask him what I must.
“I need to know something. And I need you to answer honestly. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Do you blame me for Shelby’s death? Do you think it was my fault, Kev? Because I went inside, I wasn’t watching her, I—”
“Don’t.” He presses two fingers against my lips and stops the rush of words that wring out my soul and lay it bare before him. His hands move slowly upward, over my hair, lifting a strand off my face, brushing tears and snowflakes from my cheeks. “If it had been me, would it have been any different?” he says softly. “Would I have gotten distracted by something, forgotten she was out there for a moment? What if your mom had been watching her? I don’t know, Savannah. Maybe it would have happened anyway. But second-guessing doesn’t do any good. And no, I never blamed you for it.”
“But . . . I thought . . .” Years of confusion and guilt barrel toward me in a tidal wave of grief ready to suck me under.
“I know what you thought.” He pulls me against him and I fit neatly into his embrace the way I always have. The comforting smell of his cologne, wood, and wool wrap around me in welcome and make me wonder why I fought this so long.
“I’m sorry, Kevin.” If I don’t say it now, nothing will ever change. “I wasn’t willing to take any blame for what went wrong with our marriage. I was too angry with you. Too hurt. But now I understand how I made you feel. I’m willing to own that now. And I’m truly, deeply sorry. More than you’ll ever know.”
“It wasn’t just you.” Kevin presses his lips to my forehead and groans in frustration. “You thought I blamed you for Shelby’s death, and that infuriated me.” He leans back a little to look at me. “But I never really told you I didn’t. I figured you were hell-bent on blaming yourself anyway, might as well take me along for the ride. I couldn’t get past my own grief to see what it was doing to you. And in the end it seemed easier to walk away.”
“And I thought it would be easier to let you.” My gloved fingers grip his arms. “I got tired of trying to make you stay. Trying to make you love me.” The arguments come flooding back, us yelling so loud that the kids would go running for their rooms.
Nights I’d lie awake and wonder how two people in the same bed could be so far apart. Nights when all I could do was cry and listen to him out here. All the times we could barely look at each other. The last few years, after my attempted suicide, conversations were sparse, stilted, and of very little significance. “In the back of my mind I always wondered . . . if I hadn’t gotten pregnant with Shelby, whether we’d have stayed together.”
“What?” Astonishment widens his eyes. “You think I wouldn’t have married you anyway, Savannah?”
I’ve asked him to be honest. I’ll do the same. “I never knew for sure. I always felt like I trapped you somehow. That you thought marrying me was just the right thing to do. So maybe part of me wasn’t all that surprised when you finally found someone else.” Words I’ve never been able to say suddenly tumble out like clothes from a dryer opened too soon. They scatter around us and fill the air with truths that cannot be ignored.
Kevin lets me go and makes a slow circle in the snow. He kicks at it with the top of his boot and sends a white shower of flakes upward. I catch my breath and watch them dance in golden-yellow light. After a moment he walks back to me, shakes his head, and shivers slightly.
“You were my best friend.” His eyes glisten intently, filled with feelings he’s never expressed. “I loved you more than I ever thought possible to love anyone. You were my life. I never could have walked away from you. Didn’t you know that?”
Maybe I did then. I’m not so sure I know it now. Not so sure it’s still true.
“So what changed?” The hollow ache in my chest reminds me again how far removed we are from those early giddy days of our relationship.
“Me, I guess. You. Circumstances.” He exhales and swipes a hand across his face. “We stopped talking to each other. Stopped listening.”
“I guess we forgot about the ‘love never gives up’ part.”
“I guess we did.” He closes the space between us and wraps me in his arms again. “I forgot a lot of things.”
I rest my head against his chest and stay in the moment. I’m afraid that when I step back, when I walk away, this closeness I feel will be gone. He was my best friend too. And I never thought I’d lose him.
“What are we going to do, Kev?” Since making the decision that Adam will return to school, neither of us has brought up the question of what will happen once both kids are gone. But now I have to know.
“Can we . . . start over?” He lets the question fall into the surrounding darkness. His piercing eyes beg me to give him another chance. To give us one more shot.
“Kevin. I . . .” What? I actually have no argument. No good reason to refuse. “I’ve got to close up the house up north. I need to see how
. . .” I can’t finish. It doesn’t seem right somehow, to say his name. To try to explain what I still don’t understand.
Clarice has called almost daily the past week. Brock isn’t doing well. He seems to have accepted his fate. Given up.
And he’s refusing to talk to me.
“I know.” He nods, brushes my hair back. “I know what you need to do. But after that, when you’re ready, will you come home? To me?”
The overwhelming urge to put my arms around him is more than I can bear. So I hold him close and listen to him breathe as he waits for whatever I’ll say next. Silently pleading with me to agree.
“It won’t be easy.” I meet his searching eyes again. “I don’t know how long it will be before I can fully trust you again. You know that, right?” I break his gaze and study the snow around my feet. I don’t want to make promises. Don’t want to give false hope. It wouldn’t be fair.
“Yes.” Kevin’s hands are cold as they cup my face and force my eyes up to meet his. “I know. But I’ll do whatever it takes to get us there. Whatever you need me to do. Don’t give up on me, Savannah. On us. I promise I won’t let you down this time.”
And I nod, because, somehow, with everything in me, I believe him. “Maybe we can start by being friends again.”
“Friends, huh?” His breath warms my face and I laugh a little. A delicate tingling like tiny butterflies in flight stirs within and takes me by surprise. The fluttering hints that despite my cautious heart, there is hope here. Because I know what I’m feeling—that familiar tug, the wanting, the need—the very obvious signals that tell me I still desire my husband.
If I’m not mistaken, he’s feeling the same. And there’s a look about him that says the whole friends thing is so not going to fly.
“If that’s what you want.” He raises a brow, eyes glinting a little dangerously. “For us to be friends.”
Well then.
I don’t remember his voice ever sounding that sexy. Don’t remember ever feeling this kind of anxious anticipation. “I suppose we have to start somewhere.” It’s a lame response, and nerves rain like hail against the wall of my stomach.
“We do. Have to . . .” Kevin angles his head slightly and his lips part in a scandalous smile that slays me. “Start somewhere.” His mouth is mere inches away. Then he brushes his soft lips over mine in tentative exploration, flirting a little, not quite sure what I’ll do.
When I don’t protest, his hands thread through my hair and he pulls me closer into a smoldering, heart-shattering kiss. One that steps over decorum and stakes its claim quite clearly. The things he’s doing with his mouth send rivers of molten fire into every part of my trembling body.
We pull back just a bit and stare at each other.
The shiver that rips through me has nothing to do with the cold.
He’s never kissed me like that before. With such desperate, deliberate intent.
There’s a smidge of hesitation in his eyes, like he might have crossed the line. But I meet his lips this time and chase it away. His mouth is warm, familiar, and unyielding as he crushes me against him, groans into me, and draws me even further into that soul-deep connection I believed we’d never share again.
Kevin breaks the kiss with a guttural moan that implies his need for so much more. “Whoa, Savannah.” He rests his forehead against mine and lets out a shuddering breath. “Sorry.”
“Really?”
“Not in the slightest.”
I giggle like I’ve had one too many glasses of champagne, still trying to steady my breathing. “Well, that was quite a start.”
“Yes, yes, it was.” His satisfied smile reaches right through me, pushes aside the hopelessness I’ve clung to for so long and replaces it with something new. “And, uh, I don’t kiss any of my friends like that. In case you were wondering.”
“Good to know.” I breathe a happy sigh. “Just your wife, huh?”
“Only my wife.” He kisses me again, this time with a little more determination, a little more promise, and a sure hope unfurls in my heart and unleashes a fierce, passionate response that almost brings me to my knees.
“Okay . . . time out.” I break away this time, exhale, and smile at the laughter in his eyes. It’s like we’re suddenly seeing each other for the first time. “We should probably go inside.” My mouth is still tingling, but my heart is singing an old familiar tune.
“That sounds like a plan.” Kevin’s smile suggests things I’m not yet prepared to investigate.
I roll my eyes and give him a little push, then pull him to me again. “Slow. Okay?”
“You call the shots.” He runs a finger down my nose, still smiling. “Whatever you want.” Kevin shuts off the light above the shed, puts an arm around me, and holds me close as we walk toward the house in step. It’s a practiced rhythm we’ve forgotten somehow, but it has not forgotten us.
“Zoe will be okay. She doesn’t really hate you.” It’s the reason I came out here in the first place, I remember, to tell him that.
“I know.” He sighs and rubs the back of my neck with cold fingers. “I’ll talk to her tonight.”
“Good.”
We talk as we walk. He tells me about the lady who lives in the apartment beside the one he’s been renting in the city, an elderly black woman who’s quite convinced Kevin is her long-lost son. Easy laughter passes between us and I suddenly feel lighter than I have in years. We head up the steps and I stop, seeing two pairs of eyes peering out the window at us.
Our children.
I can’t imagine what they’re thinking, but if the surprise smacked across their faces is anything to go by, I’d say they weren’t expecting this.
They weren’t the only ones.
The thought makes me smile again.
A chuckle rumbles from his chest as Kevin shoots me a sidelong glance. “We could really give them something to talk about.” His grin edges on evil and I clear my throat.
“Oh, no you don’t. I think we’ve all had enough surprises for one night.”
“Spoilsport.” He laughs, but doesn’t try to kiss me in front of them.
For which I am eternally grateful.
I think.
But I’m also a little mystified. Because the truth is, I really wanted him to.
CHAPTER 28
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
—MARK TWAIN
Out-of-the-blue surprises are the best kind.
The kids make no comment as we enter the kitchen, but they grin and share looks that tell me they’re jumping to all sorts of conclusions. Part of me wants to run for the car and hightail it out of here as fast as I can. To run back up north where things are safe. Because, what if this doesn’t work out? What if we fail again?
How will we survive that?
Zoe suggests a game and we sit around the kitchen table playing Scrabble, eating popcorn, and enjoying the hilarity in the air. When the clock chimes eleven, my daughter declares herself the winner and says it’s bedtime. I tell her good-bye because I always do the night before she leaves. It’s a ritual we have, the hugging and noisy kisses on the cheek and hugging again until she laughs and tells me to suck it up, Buttercup.
Kevin follows her upstairs and I shoot up a prayer for that conversation.
Adam helps me clear the table and put the last of the supper dishes away. Then he leans against the counter, sighs, and sends me a heart-melting smile.
“I love you, Mom.”
I blink through the myriad of emotions those words stir up. He doesn’t say it often. He’s always been that way. Like Kevin. Just a little too reserved with his feelings.
“Adam.” I draw him into a long hug. “I love you too.”
“I know.” He grins, sidles away, and shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “So you’re going to give the old man another chance, huh?”
My smile falters but I nod anyway. “I think so. We’re going to try.”
/>
“Figured you would.” He paces the kitchen with slow steps. “That’s good. Good.” Then he faces me with a brave smile. “I wanted to tell you, before I go back to school. I’m sorry. Sorry for what I did. It was a lousy thing for me to do to you and Dad.”
“Oh, honey. I understand.” I breathe it out, afraid to take the next step, but knowing I must. It’s time to face the past for what it was, and time to let it go. Release the claim those wounds and stark memories have on me once and for all.
“Adam, there’s something you need to know.” I head for the table and smile at my son. “Come sit a minute.”
For some reason I can’t really sleep.
The events of the evening replay in my mind over and over, and truthfully, I’m still a little giddy. And sad at the same time. Because although nobody wants to say it, we all know we’re like Alice, at a crossroads, wondering which way to go. Wondering whether there will truly be a happily ever after at the end of it.
Adam listened to my story, nodding, both of us crying a little, but I’m glad I told him. Glad he knows now. There are no more secrets between us. In a way, it’s like we’re all starting over, not just Kevin and me.
I stare at the ceiling and pray the weather will be good in the morning. I ask for Zoe to get back to Princeton safely. I’m pleased she and Tim seem to be working things out. I mentally prepare myself to drive Adam back to school and say good-bye. My mind wanders to Brock. I hate the thought of him in pain and I wonder if it’d be all right to pray for a miracle, because the thought of Maysie growing up without him breaks my heart.
The floorboards creak outside in the hall.
It’s after 2:00 a.m. Apparently Kevin can’t sleep either.
I know the pattern of his pacing. He’ll stop, adjust the pictures on the wall, pick up his pace again, and walk back and forth until he gets sleepy. I shiver slightly and pull the covers up tight. I listen for more movement and there is none. Maybe he went back to bed. But then I hear a sound coming from the room next to ours.
Where Hope Begins Page 25
