by Stacy Adams
She slid his supply of over-the-counter medicine and malaria pills into plastic zipper bags, tucked his first-aid kit in the suitcase’s interior pouch, and made sure he had his passport.
Rachelle closed the oversized bag and placed it in a corner, near the bedroom entrance. She was preparing to organize her shoe closet when she heard Gabe climbing the winding staircase.
His slower than usual pace cued her that he was ticked off.
By the time he reached the upstairs landing and leaned against the bedroom door, her heart was racing. She looked up from her task and returned his glare.
“What ’s going on with you?” Gabe uttered more of a challenge than a question.
Rachelle walked over and paused in front of him, taking in his thin lips, now frozen in the straight line they always made when he was angry. She gazed at the thick eyebrows that Tate and Taryn had inherited before allowing her eyes to skim his angular face and chiseled chest and wander down to his hands—miracle hands, he called them—that were now perched at his hips in frustration.
She was average height, but having to look up to him always made her feel smaller. She moved in close enough to feel his breath on her face and inhale the intoxicating cologne she had given him for his birthday, but she still didn’t answer him.
Rachelle was tempted to try again to express all that she had been feeling over the past few weeks, but thought better of it. When had he ever cared to understand her perspective about anything?
Lately, the few times she had tried to be romantic or give him extra attention had only led to more frustration. The dinners she prepared for just the two of them had grown cold while she waited for him to get home from the hospital or his office, without even a call to let her know he had been delayed. When he did come home early enough to spend time with Tate and Taryn and retire with her for the night, he’d be too weary for pillow talk about her day or the kids’ activities. Before she could finish a thought, he’d be fast asleep. Why bother to broach a subject about something more meaningful, like her restlessness? Instead, she would beat him at his own game today: his questions didn’t deserve her answers.
“What do you mean?” she asked and looked into his eyes. “I’m doing my ‘wifely duty,’ aren’t I? Your bags are all packed for the conference and even for this mission trip you’re so excited about.” She tilted her head. “Wonder what your partners would say if they knew you could care less about those poor children in Africa, other than what they can do for your résumé.”
Gabe narrowed his eyes. “Don’t change the subject, Rachelle. You left me stranded downtown, at a hotel restaurant frequented by people we know. Do you know what that looked like? My picture appears in the paper for a feature on the upcoming mission trip and my wife walks out on me days later in a public place? Don’t you know this could get back to the other docs and be very damaging?”
Rachelle willed herself not to cry. “I wish I knew what was going on, Gabe. All I can say is that I’m tired. I’m not happy with myself or with us, and I’m sick of pretending that everything is perfect. It takes too much work.”
Gabe moved around her and turned toward the mahogany dresser, where he pulled out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
“Nothing is good enough for you, Rachelle—not this big house and a maid, not the new car you have to have every few years, not even your access to enough money to do whatever you want, without having to work. And let’s not even talk about the two gorgeous kids. What’s the problem?”
Resentment churned in her gut. “There you go again, listing things,” Rachelle said. “Actually, I went through childbirth, so I gave you the kids, Gabe. And, if you’ll recall, I never asked to be a kept woman. I’m an optometrist, remember? I enjoyed the few years I worked in my field. I became a stay-at-home mom because that was what you wanted. But I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve ever really given me what mattered most—you. I’m wondering if you even know what that means, or if I do.”
He frowned at her and stepped into his jeans. “Where is all of this coming from? Why are you talking about optometry when you haven’t practiced in almost a decade? What is wrong with you?”
Rachelle shook her head. She walked over and stood in front of him and continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I was just a ‘right’ choice, Gabe, wasn’t I? Like all the other choices you made to fit into your parents’ world. Right career? Medicine. Right family? Pretty wife and kids. Right neighborhood? Tanglewood. When have you ever done something just because you decided on your own that it was important or special, without worrying about what your parents wanted or about keeping up with everyone else? Have you ever done that?”
Rachelle saw that she had hit a nerve. Gabe was speechless. He quickly recovered, though, and rolled his eyes.
“Girl, you sound like you’re having a midlife crisis,” he said. “You’re too young—snap out of it. After this conference, I’ll be gone for just about three weeks. That’s enough time to get yourself together. Maybe you can get a part-time gig at that boutique you love while the kids and I are out of the house. Or find another volunteer opportunity to whet your appetite. Or maybe you and your girlfriends should go to that spa you like in Austin. Just don’t do what you did this morning. Ever again.”
Rachelle surprised herself when she grabbed his arm before he could walk away.
“If we’re going to fix this, you have to be present, Gabe,” she said. “You can’t keep barking orders and disappearing.”
He chuckled and shrugged out of her loose grasp. His disdain struck her like a slap in the face.
“You know what? I need some time to myself right now, so I can think clearly,” she said.
Gabe gave her a quizzical look. “What does that mean?”
She didn’t answer.
“You can’t change the past, Rachelle,” he said. “You’re married to me now.”
She shifted her gaze. Hadn’t that always been one of their issues? Lingering shadows from her past?
Gabe mistook her silence as surrender and changed the subject. “I need to be at the airport in the morning by six a.m. for my flight to New York. The other docs are meeting me in front of the Delta terminal so we can check our bags all at once. And knowing Stevens, he’s going to want to pray or something before we board the plane. I need you there.”
She hesitated. That was the least she could do. But the good angel that usually sat on her shoulder continued to bat zero today. “How about I ‘pray’ for you now? I need to take care of me. I’m leaving for a while.”
Stunned by her own boldness, Rachelle turned away from him before her eyes betrayed her. What was she talking about? She wasn’t scheduled to fly to California until Friday—two days from now. At that moment, however, she decided not to waver. She obeyed whatever her heart told her to do these days. God forgive her if this time she were wrong.
3
Gabe laughed and walked away. “You ain’t going nowhere.” He folded his arms and paced the bedroom floor. “You’re married to one of the top cardiac surgeons in the nation. I chose you, and now you’re trying to step out? Please.”
He bent over to grab his shoes and chucked them in his closet, then walked out of the bedroom. Rachelle knew where he was headed—to the third level of the house where he could unwind with his wall-length flat screen TV, his Wii, and his wet bar.
In a few hours, he would be so tipsy he might not remember this conversation. Or at the very least, he’d have an altered memory of what their argument had been about and how it had been resolved. Happened every time they had a fight.
Rachelle returned to her closet and grabbed a canvas bag to hold a few pieces of clothing and toiletries.
She plodded down the stairs and into the kitchen, where she looked around and took a deep breath. Her heart pounded so frantically she was sure Gabe could have heard it, if he cared to listen.
She opened the door leading from the kitchen to the three-car garage and put her luggage on the backseat of her silver
Lexus.
She slid behind the wheel and sat there for a few minutes. Was she really doing this? Did she know what it could mean?
Years ago, she would have probably paused to pray, but she hadn’t talked to God in so long that now she wouldn’t know what to say. No matter what her Aunt Irene always said about him being on time, Rachelle was almost certain that rule applied only to dues-paying servants.
She brushed away those thoughts and pressed the garage door panel near the windshield of her car. She knew Gabe was blasting his music or the TV and wouldn’t hear her leave. He’d go ballistic when he realized she hadn’t been bluffing.
The thought made her smile. Finally, she had found a way to shake him. His cell phone rested on the charger in the kitchen. She called it instead of the home phone so Gabe would receive the message later.
“I’m going away for the night, to clear my head and take care of myself,” Rachelle said on his voice mail. “Have a nice flight to New York and enjoy the conference.”
She didn’t say whether she would see him when he returned. In the rush of actually doing something independent of him, she wasn’t sure she wanted to reassure him. Gabe needed to feel some of the conflicting emotions she had been wrestling with for a long time. She had reached her limit.
Just before sunset, Rachelle pulled in front of one of Houston’s fanciest downtown hotels and ended a winding, two-hour drive across the metro area. She checked into the Magnolia with the travel bag that contained her sleepwear, a jogging suit, and her iPod.
She entered her suite and flung herself across the bed, onto her back. She stared at the patterned ceiling and shook her head. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
She lay there for half an hour and let her thoughts wander. She should call her parents to make sure the children had arrived safely. She should check in with Gabe, but then again, why bother?
When she finally sat up to survey her quarters, Rachelle zoned in on a set of double doors that led to a well-lit bathroom the size of a large walk-in closet. Inside, she found scented candles and complimentary bubble bath awaiting her.
She filled the Jacuzzi-style tub with the lavender-scented gel and warm water. When water lapped near the edge, she peeled off her clothes and slowly slid inside. Rachelle positioned her shower cap–covered head against the tub’s ledge and reviewed how she had gotten to this place, both physically and emotionally, and why she was throwing her security to the wind.
Had she really left her husband sitting in a restaurant this morning with no ride home? Was she really leaving it up to him to get himself to the airport tomorrow? Rachelle Mitchell Covington? Miss Goody Two-Shoes?
She laughed out loud. It was short and quick, tempered by a pang of regret.
Just because she could act so foolishly didn’t make it right. She sat there, considering what her options would be if she stayed with Gabe and what she might face if she chose to leave. Soon, the tears came, first a trickle and then in buckets.
Why, she wasn’t sure.
Maybe for Jillian. Or for herself. Or for Gabe. Or for what could have been that maybe never would be.
When she was spent, Rachelle sat up in the tub and shivered. She’d been there so long that the water had turned cool. She reached for the spigot for a fresh surge of wet warmth, but realized that what she really wanted was out of her control.
Adoration from her husband, maybe? A joint effort to reduce this gap of nothingness between them before he left the country? She wanted . . . She needed . . .
Sadly, this was the issue. She wasn’t sure where the empty place deep inside of her resided. That meant she also wasn’t sure how to fill it.
Could it be that this isn’t about Gabe at all?
Rachelle banished that frightful thought without giving it full consideration. She rose from the tub and wrapped herself in an oversized towel. When she was dry and dressed in a peach silk nightgown and matching robe, she strolled into the sitting area of the suite and curled up on the sofa. She stared out of the fourteenth-floor wall of windows at the starry sky.
Was there really a God up there?
The notion of a loving higher power was understandably attractive for those who needed a way to connect with other people for a common cause, but if you were self-reliant, some of what most churchgoers called faith seemed like mindless devotion. That was one thing upon which she and Gabe still agreed.
Soon after they married, she had joined the church he had grown up in, and they had attended during holidays and other special occasions to make his mother happy. But since Geraldine’s death several years ago, Gabe hadn’t suggested that they return.
“My mother never liked the minister anyway,” he had replied when she asked why they no longer went. Rachelle had secretly enjoyed the sermons and the music whenever they visited, but she knew if she insisted on attending, Gabe would run faster in the other direction.
Sundays had been filled with golf outings, brunch with friends and colleagues, and weekend getaways with other doctors and their wives. Church became an afterthought. So much so, that Rachelle had all but forgotten what was so meaningful about regularly attending services and worshiping an unseen force.
Tonight, however, she peered into the darkness and pondered whether there was something to this faith that her favorite aunt and uncle had always raved about when she visited them during her years in college. She wished she had something or someone here now, to guide her.
Do you have any answers for me, God? If you’re real, can you show me?
Claps of thunder didn’t rattle her ears and the sky didn’t part. Rachelle sighed. That would have been too simple.
Her cell phone rang and she dashed to pick it up before the call was routed to voice mail.
“Mommy, where are you?”
Tate’s high-pitched voice made her smile. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said. “How was the flight?” She wiped her eyes and focused on her son’s responses.
“No turbulence this time. And Gram was so happy to see us. She took us for pizza, and then we went to the park to watch the sunset.”
Rachelle grinned. Tate had already forgotten the complaints he had spouted all the way to the airport this morning. Gram got an A-plus for wowing him on the first day of his stay.
“I’m glad you had such a good day, baby. Sounds like your visit is off to a great start. Behave yourself, now.”
“Okay, Mommy. But why did Daddy tell me to call you on your cell phone? Where are you?”
Rachelle hesitated. “What did Daddy say?”
“He just said to call you; you had to go out and do something.”
“Daddy’s right, sweetie,” Rachelle said softly, thankful that Gabe hadn’t brought their son into this.
She asked to speak to Taryn and reminded her daughter to listen to Gram and to have a good time. “I love you, little lady.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
When had this eight-year-old become too grown up to call her “Mommy”? Rachelle’s heart sank.
She ended the call and glanced at the digital alarm clock next to the bed. It was 9:30 in Philly and 8:30 p.m. here in Houston.
Rachelle rose from the sofa and stretched. She walked over to her bag and pulled out the outfit she planned to wear tomorrow. She slipped out of her nightgown and into the navy blue stretch pants and matching pullover top.
This has been the shortest, and as a result, the most expensive, hotel stay of my life.
Something was leading her home. Nothing had changed, really, but after hearing her babies’ voices, she knew that this couldn’t be all about her. She had to do right by them.
She picked up her cell phone and dialed the house.
It rang until the call was routed to voice mail. Rachelle was surprised, but surmised that Gabe was probably blasting his music or taking a shower so he’d be ready to catch his pre-dawn flight. Or maybe he was so mad that he was ignoring her call.
She plopped onto the bed and sat there, Indian style, debating he
r options.
If she left for home now, Gabe would be asleep by the time she arrived and not realize she was there. When he awoke to prepare for his trip, he’d see her and believe he had won—she had returned, just as a submissive, grateful wife should.
She pictured the contempt in his eyes and saw his smug smile.
Why wouldn’t the wife he owned show up to do her duty and get him to the airport?
The more Rachelle thought about it, the less she wanted to go.
She wished she had some answers, some direction on what to do. She wished she could talk to someone about it—her mother, her sister, or even her friends.
But Mom wouldn’t understand—she believed you got married and you stayed married, whatever it took. Alanna was too man-hungry to see straight, let alone to offer levelheaded advice. And her friends? None of those divas could hold water. If she confided in any one of them, she might as well be ready to see her woes on the front page of the Houston Chronicle.
Rachelle reached for her iPod and turned to the songs she had downloaded in recent weeks—Beyoncé’s “Listen” and Jennifer Hudson’s “I Am Changing” from the movie Dreamgirls.
She played them over and over as she lay across the bed with her eyes closed, dressed but unsure of what to do.
Finally, sleep won.
With heavy eyes, she pulled back the covers on the queen-sized bed and crawled underneath, fully dressed. She was too old to be this lazy, but oh well.
Rachelle reached over to the bedside nightstand to set the alarm clock and turn off the light. A blue, hardcover Bible caught her eye.
For a second, she was tempted to pick it up and open it.
You won’t understand it anyway.
That unbidden voice was right. It was probably written in the King’s English, and right now, she doubted she could decipher Ebonics. Sleep couldn’t come fast enough.
Unless she felt differently in a few hours, she would go home and offer to drive Gabe to the airport. For now, she was going to rest.
Rachelle drifted to sleep with the image of Jillian’s party invitation before her, as it had been most of the nights since it had arrived in the mail:
