Coming Home

by Julie Sellers

  Early on in their marriage, they had loved to just get in the car with a tent and a sleeping bag and see where the road took them. Lillie remembered their adventures and smiled as she adjusted the visor to defuse some of the bright sunlight peeking over the trees. But her career demanded much more now, as did Jonathan’s. They found it harder and harder to get away. Either that or they weren’t trying as hard to make the time for one another. She knew it was the later, and it alarmed her. She vowed to slow down when the school year was through and urge her husband to go away for the two weeks in July he had free.

  Lillie planned on bringing in either a partner or an assistant when they were finally able to start a family. She didn’t want to stop working completely, but she knew she hadn’t gone through all of this to have her child raised by strangers.

  Lillie left the main road and sped up the lane to her mother-in-law’s home. She noticed several big potholes left from last year’s spring thaw and made a mental note to call and have some stone delivered to smooth the driveway. Coming to a halt before the house, she extracted her Blackberry from its pocket in her tote and added the chore to her “to do” list while awaiting the potential homebuyers.

  She penned an email to her broker regarding a pending counter offer, checked her voice mail and logged the messages to be returned into her calendar. Remembering the receipts she had found earlier, she pulled up the Excel file that contained the spreadsheet she used as a check register and chose the tab for their household account. While she waited, she entered several of her husband’s transactions she found in the change dish between the seats and on the floor. She noted fast food, the birdseed she had asked him to pick up for her backyard feeder, salt for their water softener and gasoline. As Lillie finished the entries and put her Blackberry back in the outer pocket of her tote and brought her attention back to the last receipt.

  It listed gasoline purchased the day before and wondered if Jonathan had remembered to file an expense report with the school. Preferring to err on the side of caution, she decided to keep the receipt. She retrieved it from the fast food bag in which she had placed it upon finishing her entry. An address caught her eye. The receipt read “I-90” toll plaza, Hammond, Indiana. Interstate ninety was the toll road that crossed Indiana at its northernmost point. Indianapolis was completely the other direction.

  She retrieved her phone and double checked the date. Yes, yesterday was October twentieth. Jonathan said he was going to a teacher in-service in Indianapolis. This receipt indicated he had actually traveled at least forty miles in the opposite direction. It made no sense.

  At just that moment, the potential buyers pulled up next to her car. They were beaming, and she could tell from the looks on their faces they were here to write an offer. Lillie forced herself to put her worries aside and concentrate on her buyer and obtaining the best possible price for Donna’s home.

  In the car, on the way home after the deal had been signed and sealed, she remembered the receipt and wondered again at Jon’s deception. Any wife would question her husband, but Lillie trusted Jon. She tried to push the tiny inconsistency out of her mind and took several deep, cleansing breaths. Stress could hinder conception, she’d learned, and Lillie tried to relax. If she’d read it once she’d read it a thousand times in all of the pregnancy and fertility books. She was sure there was a reasonable explanation.

  Christmas was coming. It would be just like her husband to be planning something special from the city. Yes. That was it, a surprise, not a secret.

  Lillie arrived back at her house where her husband and mother-in-law waited with Molly. Donna and Molly were scheduled to meet Lillie back at their house where they were waiting out the showing after Molly’s therapy at the community swimming pool early that morning. Jubilant, she ran up the front walk to share her good news. She was bringing Donna a solid offer on the property, and she knew they would be pleased.

  * * *

  “Are you coming to bed?” Lillie asked her husband who was sitting at the computer. “You can’t be writing the new show yet,” she said only half teasing. The LaSalle Marching Panthers captured their first ever State Marching Band championship title, just last week. They’d all worked so hard, Jon especially, and Lillie was looking forward to a break in the band activities.

  “No, I’m just, uh, shopping. Why don’t you go ahead to bed? I’m not tired. I guess it is just a little left over adrenalin.” He smiled but didn’t meet her eyes.

  She hoped things would slow down for a little bit, but their life had been anything but calm lately. Last week the state title, then Jon’s mysterious trip out of town and today accepting the offer for his mother’s home had worn Lillie out. All of the activity had the opposite effect on her husband.

  “It’s okay. I’ll wait for you,” Lillie offered and snuggled into the room’s solo armchair with her ever present book.

  Before long, Lillie was yawning into the back of her hand. “Baby, go to bed. You are nodding off in your book,” her husband encouraged.

  Lillie decided to take his advice. Tuesday, when she had been at the mall, she had picked up a little something…and boy was it little…at Victoria’s Secret.

  She made her way around the desk and plopped down on the arm of Jonathan’s chair hard enough to make the chair twirl around. He quickly stabbed the minimize button on the Word document he was working on as they twirled. It registered for a fleeting moment, that Jon had said he was shopping on line, but the kiss she gave her husband quickly wiped everything else from her mind.

  Jonathan pulled her down onto his lap savoring her lips. He held her firmly, but gently in his arms, as if he was afraid she would ascend from his grasp if he did not hold on tightly or she would flitter away on the breeze if he did not detain her.

  Lillie’s heart swelled, and she felt for the first time in months they were connecting again. She whispered a suggestion into his ear that would have made her blush had she not been alone with her husband.

  He smiled at her as she extracted herself from his grip but did not comment. “Give me five minutes.” Lillie held up her hand to indicate the time and tossed her hair playfully as she trotted to their bedroom.

  Lillie was a woman on a mission, and she was pulling out all the stops. Her second miscarriage had been months ago. The doctor had long since given them the green light to make love, but Lillie hadn’t been interested. Now that had changed.

  For a moment, she felt guilty, remembering her promise to herself to put baby-making on the back burner for a few months. But her thirty-fifth birthday was rapidly approaching and the tick of her biological clock was so loud it surprised her it did not keep Jonathan awake nights.

  Lillie was anxious to try again. Even Dr. Carsten could find no cause for the miscarriages. It was just a fluke, they said. Well, that fluke had nearly broken her heart, but Lillie didn’t have it in her to give up. There had been enough delays to parenthood already. She had checked the ovulation calendar where she’d secretly recorded her temperature every day. She knew tonight was the night.

  Now all she had to do was get her husband to come to bed. Victoria’s Secret would do the rest. She rummaged in the back of the closet for the bag she’d hidden in the pocket of a wool suit jacket of Jon’s. She had to wrestle him into a suit on most occasions, and she knew that he wouldn’t look there.

  She easily located the jacket and the closet seemed particularly sparse. There must be a mound of laundry awaiting her at the end of the chute in the basement. Most of Lillie’s work clothes went to the dry cleaner so it was easy for her to miss when she got behind in that area. She detested laundry, and Jonathan often completed the task if she put it off long enough.

  She pushed the past-due chores from her head, located the small package and extracted the contents. Stuffing them under her baggy pajama top she skipped across the hall to the bathroom and performed her normal evening routine. Then she added a tiny bit of apricot lip-gloss, perfume to her pulse points and fluffed her hair. Lil
lie slipped into the flimsy garment and redressed in her flannel pajamas before scurrying back across the hall.

  She returned to their bedroom, slipped out of the pajamas, tossed them into the closet, and closed the door. She hurried to light the thick white sandalwood candles that dotted the room and breathed deeply of their soothing fragrance when she was finished. When she passed the full-length mirror on the back of the door she paused to study her reflection.

  She looked darned good, even if she did say so herself. Her hair was sun streaked with only a little help from Amy at her salon and worn in a golden curtain past her chin. Her breasts were full, but still high and round as they had yet to nurse a baby. She was slim but not skinny, her body well-toned from being outdoors.

  Lillie peaked out the door and around the corner at her husband in the den. Still staring at the computer screen, but no longer typing. She contemplated calling out to him, but decided against it. Better to ambush him, she chucked to herself as she lay down atop the comforter with her paperback, to wait for her husband.

  * * *

  The light was streaming through the windows when Lillie awoke the next morning. She stretched like a cat as she threw her arms above her head and arched her back. At some point Jonathan had covered her with the chenille throw from the foot of the bed and extinguished the candles.

  She stretched and shifted from side to side. She heard the crackle of paper and reached out to Jonathan’s side of the bed. She figuring she had fallen asleep on her book again, but her hand found neither her paperback nor her husband. He must already be up and gone.

  She covered her eyes with her palm to help defuse the glare of the morning and looked around. She’d fallen asleep and missed her big chance. She must have been really tired for Jonathan not to wake her when he came to bed. She made a mental note to take her temperature as soon as possible. She prayed it was not too late and they would not have to wait another month.

  She propped herself on one elbow and heard the crackle again. Instead of her book, she saw a single sheet of paper, now wrinkled with the impression of her elbow. She blinked her eyes to clear the morning fog and tried to focus on the typewritten page. She grinned as she considered the note from her husband. In the early days of their marriage he had often left her in the morning with a love note. Sometimes they even included a scavenger hunt to a romantic breakfast or fun way for them to spend the day together.

  Lillie was still smiling with expectation as she began to read. Her smile faded abruptly as the words he had left her began to register and she bolted upright in bed.

  Dear Lillie,

  I know this letter will shock you. If I were a more courageous man, I would have stuck around and told you this in person. But I am not brave. I hope you believe me when I say that for that and everything else, I am profoundly sorry.

  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and I have come to the conclusion that I am not the right man for you. You deserve someone strong, someone you can count on. We are simply not the fairytale you have always made us out to be.

  There is nothing that will change my mind about this. I am resolute. Thank you in advance for respecting my wishes. Please don’t try to find me. Doing so would simply cause you unnecessary pain.

  Jonathan

  Lillie was not sure how long she sat on their bed with Jonathan’s letter in her hand or how much time had passed since she had awakened; she only knew that she couldn’t move. Her entire world hung precariously on its axis, and it felt like any shift she made would topple it. There was a ringing in her ears, and she felt as though she was deep beneath the sea where the pressure of the depths made it difficult to push air in and out of her lungs.

  The trill of the phone brought her out of her trance. She would have ignored it but it occurred to her it might be Jonathan. Lillie reached for the phone, bobbling it and nearly dropping it onto the floor. She finally got the phone to her ear only to realize she could not speak.

  “Hello? Hello? Lillie? Jonathan? Hello?”

  “Cassie,” Lillie managed in a whisper.

  “Lillie? Are you OK? What was all that banging?” Lillie asked with concern.

  “No,” was Lillie’s only reply.

  “No, what? Lillie? What is going on?”

  “Jonathan’s gone,” Lillie finally managed in a whisper.

  “Gone? To school? It’s Sunday.” Cassie was getting more confused by the minute.

  “No, gone. As in, left me,” Lillie managed before she began to sob.

  “What? Lillie, that’s not possible!”

  “Yes it is. I’ve got the letter in my hand,” Lillie said between sobs.

  “Get a grip. This is just not possible!” Cassie said.

  Lillie lost all control at this point and replied, “I have the letter in my hot little hand. Shall I quote it to you? 'Don’t try to find me. It will just cause you unnecessary pain.'”

  “I’ll be right over.” Lillie heard the phone clatter to its cradle, cutting off Cassie’s harried yell for her car keys.

  * * *

  Cassie let herself into the house with her own key and began searching the house for Lillie. The loud pinging of the unhooked phone led her to the bedroom where she found Lillie sitting on the bed with the phone still in her lap.

  Cassie eased the receiver out of Lillie’s tight grasp and returned it to the cradle on the nightstand. “I tried to call you from Ben’s cell phone all the way here. No wonder I’ve just been getting a busy signal.”

  She noticed the letter clutched in Lillie’s other hand and gently pulled her fingers free. She began to read while pulling the blanket around Lillie’s shoulders in an effort to quell the shaking of Lillie’s limbs.

  Cassie nearly dropped the single sheet of paper as she read and had to juggle it to keep it from falling to the floor. Not knowing what else to do, Cassie helped her friend dress in a fleece warm up set and led her to the kitchen.

  Cassie settled Lillie at the kitchen table and reached for the coffee beans and grinder. Cassie was nearly into her third trimester and had to forgo all caffeine, but desperate times called for desperate measures, she supposed, and proceeded to prepare coffee.

  She returned to Lillie’s side and sat down. A single tear trailed down Lillie’s cheek as Cassie leaned in to hold her tightly. She took a deep breath and let it out in a sob. She finally let go and cried and cried like there was no tomorrow. Indeed, Cassie feared that for Lillie, there was not. At least no tomorrow she was used to.

  Cassie believed the resolution in Jonathan’s words and there was no doubt in her mind that he was serious. She’d known Jonathan longer than Lillie had. Jon, her husband’s best friend since forever had been the best man in her wedding. He wasn’t just angry. He wouldn’t be coming back.

  Lillie cried for what felt like hours, often speaking unintelligibly as Cassie wiped her face and spoke soothingly. Her hands were like ice, so eventually Cassie got up to fetch a cup of coffee if only to warm her frozen fingertips. Lillie gripped the cup, but her hands shook as she cried pitifully. As time passed, she worried Lillie might never quiet. Cassie stood and left the kitchen for a moment to retrieve a bottle of brandy stashed above the laundry in a converted rear porch. The long forgotten gift from a grateful client would come in handy now.

  Lillie had never been much of a drinker and Cassie debated the amount to pour into the glass. She poured a hefty juice glass of the liquid and muttered, “Any port in a storm,” by way of apology to her friend and added another slosh of liquor to the glass.

  Cassie raised it to Lillie’s lips and said, “Drink.”

  Lillie didn’t respond. Trading the juice glass with the coffee mug she still clung to, Cassie said, more firmly this time. “Drink or I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

  To Cassie’s surprise, Lillie took hold of the glass and drank a large gulp like an obedient child. She sputtered, but the fog over her eyes lifted, just a fraction.

  Before Cassie could bark another order, Lillie
, still quaking with the initial shock to her system, raised the glass again and finished off the remaining contents without stopping to breathe. When she finished, she set the glass gently on the table. Cassie hoped the fire of the brandy would spread outward from her throat to her outer extremities. As the warmth made it to her brain, she was finally able to speak and said, “Jonathan’s not coming back.”

  It occurred to Cassie that she could lie. She should soothe her friend who was in such a state with calm words of assurance. But she could not be untruthful. The letter sounded so final. While it was difficult to believe that Lillie’s husband had abandoned her, in her heart, Cassie knew the words Lillie spoke were true. He wasn’t ever coming back. “I don’t think so, honey.”

  Because Cassie couldn’t fathom what could have happened between them to cause Jon to leave so abruptly, she asked, “Did you have an argument?”

  Lillie replied in a quiet voice, “No, we took Donna and Molly out to dinner to celebrate accepting an offer on her house.” Lillie attempted to drink again from the brandy glass, but found it empty and switched to the now tepid coffee.

  Cassie added several more shots of the brandy to the coffee while Lillie continued, “We drove up to New Buffalo to that place at the beach, Brubaker’s,” Lillie named a casual establishment situated just over the state line in Michigan. Nestled next to the sand dunes of Lake Michigan the views of the lake were as big a draw as the world famous hamburgers.

  “What happened after that?” Cassie asked trying to assimilate the shear negligee Lillie had been wearing when she arrived this morning.

  “We dropped off Donna and Molly. I wanted to see a movie so we went to the drive-in because it was such a nice night to check what was playing,” Lillie took another sip of the coffee brandy mixture before continuing. “We'd had to wait for a table for quite a while so it was nearly nine and the first feature was already underway so we left, stopped at the Blue Moon for ice cream and came home.”