“Ah, yes. The Bible does say that, doesn’t it? But like so many who read that and misuse it to demand their conjugal rights—is there such a thing?—you’re not getting the big picture. A marriage license isn’t a license for carnality, even if it is just between the two spouses. Just because both husband and wife agree to watch porn together doesn’t make it right. This passage isn’t talking about your right to own and have access to your wife’s body. It’s talking about giving of yourself to the one you love in a way that’s pleasing to the Lord, in a way that builds one another up. So, answer me this. Do you feel like the sex you’re having with your wife right now is wholesome and pleasing to the Lord? Do you believe it’s the way God designed it to be, or do you think that perhaps it’s carnal, and self-serving, and motivated by lust and anger and lack of self-control? Do you think—”
“Okay, okay. I get it. Wow. I’m totally screwed up.” Jake dropped his head in his hands. “Four weeks it is. What kind of torture is Rule Number Three?”
Pastor Rob chuckled sympathetically. “Rule Number Three. Get a job.”
“I have a job.” He hated how defensive he sounded.
“Okay. Let me rephrase that. Get a job that makes you some money. And before you respond to that,” Pastor Rob held up his hand, palm out, stopping the words that were erupting from Jake’s mouth. “Let me explain where I’m coming from.” He picked up the worn, leather-bound Bible from his desk and opened it before reading from it.
“In his first letter to Timothy, this is what Paul says in chapter 5, verse 8. But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” The pastor turned the Bible around so Jake could read it himself.
It burned, seeing those words in front of him. He was working so hard at making things happen, but it just hadn’t panned out into any money yet. Did that mean he wasn’t providing for his family, though? The fact that he was there for them was so much more than many men gave their families. And he still believed his business would take off at some point; he just hadn’t reached that point yet.
“It doesn’t matter what it is, Jake. Find work that pays, even if it’s not enough to pay all the bills. Start looking as soon as you leave my office.” Pastor Rob’s voice brooked no argument.
Jake’s eyes skimmed the page, trying to find anything around verse 8 that would support his stance. When he read back two verses, the burning turned to molten lava in his veins. “Wait. What about this? What about what she’s doing?” He jabbed his finger at the page, then sat back in his chair, his hands clenched on his knees. He wanted to leap up and punch something; the wall, the door, even the man in front of him for being so calm.
“But she who gives herself to wanton pleasures is dead even while she lives.” Pastor Rob read the verse out loud.
“Yes! According to the great and mighty apostle Paul, my…wife is a walking dead woman.” Jake choked on the word, his mind tormenting him with visions of her giving herself to wanton pleasures in someone else’s bed.
“You’re right, Jake. However, you’re not here to fix Nora. You’re here to work on you. This brings us to my fourth rule.”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Jake leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands, shoving his fingers through his already disheveled hair. He wasn’t sure what he was referring to; that he didn’t want to hear the sounds his mind was conjuring up, or that he didn’t want to hear what Pastor Rob might say next.
“Pay attention to this, son.” The man waited, and finally Jake looked up at him.
“I’m all ears,” he muttered, sullen and defeated. This was not going at all the way Jake had thought it would. He’d come here needing someone to tell him he was right, that he was the good guy, and he deserved to be angry. He thought Pastor Rob would at least call Nora out, demand she come see him. Sure, Jake knew he had some things to work on, but so did she.
For some reason, though, he was pretty sure this last rule wasn’t going to have anything to do with her.
He was wrong.
“You must protect Nora’s reputation at all cost. Do not speak of this to anyone without prayerful consideration. Do not discuss this situation with anyone who will not respect both you and Nora, and hold your confidences sacred. If you are serious about even the possibility of a restored marriage, then you will do all that is in your power to protect your wife’s name. In a full-circle way, you will also be protecting yourself and your future. If you go spouting off and badmouthing Nora, if you air all your hurt and pain and anger to the world, she will know that you are not safe, and she will have no reason to come home to you. Do you understand me, Jake? Do you realize how important this is?”
“I don’t know.” The pressure sitting on Jake’s chest at that moment had him clutching at the front of his shirt.
“Then you’ll have to trust me. Can you do that?” Jake studied the man sitting a few feet away from him. His graying hair was combed neatly back from his face, and his wire-rimmed glasses sat perfectly straight on his face. A button-down shirt and khaki slacks made the guy look the epitome of trustworthy.
“I guess so.” The words fell from his mouth like stones.
“Good. Go talk to Nora, invite her to be here, but whether she chooses to come or not, I want to see you back here in a week. We’ll see how many of the rules you’ve broken by then.” Pastor Rob smiled kindly, but Jake realized he wasn’t really kidding. Somehow, that made him determined to do his best to keep all four rules. They prayed together, Pastor Rob laying his hand on Jake’s head in blessing, and Jake had to hold his breath to keep from breaking down and weeping.
He’d met with him again just yesterday, proud of himself and his efforts to be the kind of husband Nora wanted to come home to. He told Pastor Rob about her illness, about caring for her, about how he was praying faithfully, every day, for wisdom, and that he already sensed a change in the spirit of their home.
Now here he was, not even twenty-four hours later, and he wanted to make love to his wife so badly he thought he might die if he didn’t. And for the first time in weeks, it seemed like it might be for the right reasons. He wanted to love her, he wanted her to love him. No anger, no jealousy, no uncontrolled lust, just acting out physically what he hoped for emotionally and spiritually. She felt so soft and lovely in his arms, so right.
Three rules out of four was pretty good, wasn’t it?
30
The sun was pouring in the window when she awoke, and she was feeling much better, but Nora decided to stay in bed and rest anyway. She would take it a little slower than she had yesterday. Jake was up early as usual, and gone before she was even conscious, so she turned over and brought his pillow to her face, breathing in the lingering aroma of her husband. It was something she did often right after they were married, when he left the house long before she did in the morning. The act now stirred up fiery tendrils of desire in her. Last night, falling asleep in Jake’s arms, his body warm and familiar behind her, had been like coming home. She brought her knees up, curling her body around his pillow, as a deep ache filled her, a longing for what once was, for the wide-eyed hope they’d once shared. How far they’d come from the star-crossed lovers they’d been. What was to become of them?
A soft tap on the door interrupted her spiraling thoughts. “Come in!” She hoped she sounded brighter than she felt.
Jake pushed open the door, two coffee cups in his hand, and a gentle smile on his face. “Good morning,” he greeted her.
“Good morning, sir.” She sat up and propped her pillow behind her so she could lean comfortably against it.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, as he crossed to her side of the bed and held out one of the cups to her.
“Much better, actually. Thanks.” She accepted it, and took a careful sip of the hot brew. “Mm. Yum. Coffee.” For some reason, she felt almost shy around him this morning. “How about you? Did you sleep okay, or
did I keep you awake with my sleep-talking?”
Jake, still standing, looked down into his coffee. “I’m fine,” was all he said.
“Come,” Nora said, patting the bed beside her. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. It’s too late to try to avoid getting sick.”
Jake went around and sat down on his side of the bed beside her, his back against his own pillow, stretching his long legs out on top of the comforter. Considering the consequences, and throwing caution to the wind, Nora nestled up close to him, and rested her head against his shoulder. “Thanks for being so nice to me this week, Jake. You’ve been a real trooper.”
He smiled and put an arm around her. They sat that way in silence for a while, drinking their coffee, lost in their own thoughts, until Nora took his from him, set both cups on her nightstand, and turned so that she was pressing into him.
“Jake,” she whispered, her heart in her throat. “I miss you.”
~ ~ ~
“The kids will be up soon, Nora. We have to talk.” They were snuggled close together under the covers, her head tucked under his chin, her fingers toying with the wiry hair on his chest.
“Yeah.”
“We can’t do this anymore, not until we figure stuff out. I can’t. It hurts almost worse afterward, because I know it doesn’t fix anything. Although it should,” he vehemently declared. “The way it feels, it should fix everything.”
Nora smiled sadly, understanding that her week at home, her sabbatical from her confusing and painful life, was officially over. “I know,” she murmured. “I know.” She stretched up and kissed him tenderly on the cheek, appreciating the scratchy burn from his unshaven face, then began searching for her discarded clothing. “Can we just talk in here until they wake up? They’ll find us.” Nora didn’t want to leave the sanctuary of their room, not yet. “You get us some more coffee, and I’ll make the bed.”
They sat side-by-side on the floor, facing the door, their backs up against the footboard. “I’ve been meeting with Pastor Rob,” Jake began.
“Oh. Well, good. I’m glad.” She wasn’t sure what else to say.
“He wasn’t very encouraging.”
“Oh. Well, that’s not good. Maybe I’m not glad.”
“No, it’s all right. He was encouraging in a different way than I expected, that’s all.” Jake set his cup down on the floor beside him and turned so he could look at her face. “I told him that I would stop having sex with you for a while.” He looked sheepish. “I didn’t do so well, did I?”
“Stop? As in, none at all? What does ‘a while’ mean?”
Jake laughed. “You sound like I did. Kinda. Four weeks, he’s asking. And then we’ll decide if we need to go longer.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
“Then I guess we should avoid bedrooms and other places like this.” She tried to make light of it, but her heart was doing odd things inside her chest. She didn’t want to avoid places like this. And it wasn’t about the sex, not really. She was relishing in this new version of Jake. He seemed more stable, somehow more secure in himself, someone she might be able to lean on, and count on.
“Yes,” he agreed. “We should. His reason, though, is good. He wants us to figure out all the rest of the stuff, and he says sex prevents us from being objective and really seeing things clearly. It kinda blurs the lines.”
“I guess I can see that.” And she could, but she didn’t know that she fully agreed with it. If they could manage to make love like they had an hour ago every time, she didn’t know how that could possibly be a hindrance toward a better marriage. Her body and spirit still hummed from the euphoria of it.
“Yeah.” Jake laced his fingers with hers, his thumb rubbing back and forth over her wedding ring. “Me, too. I don’t like it. And this morning reminded me just how much I’m not going to like it.” He grinned ruefully, and brought her hand over to press his lips to the back of it.
“So. We should probably talk about our plans.” She sighed, hating that word. Plans. It sounded so flippant, so lightweight for such a heavy thing. Future plans. Big plans. Short-term plans. Long-term plans. What kind of plans were they going to discuss today?
“Okay. I’ll go first. Do you—well, I…. Okay.” Jake laughed nervously and shrugged his shoulders. He reached for his coffee cup and took a sip. “Maybe a little caffeine.”
“You’re doing great so far,” she teased him, patting his knee reassuringly.
Jake took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and started again. “Nora, I don’t want a divorce. I want you to know that up front. If there’s a way we can fix things, I want to find it. I don’t want to give up without fighting for us.” He didn’t look away this time, but held her gaze, looking into her eyes as if hoping she could read his mind. “Will you stay and fight with me?”
Nora giggled, and Jake rolled his eyes. “Okay. That wasn’t quite what I meant to say, but I’ll even take that if it’s the best we can do for now. But I really want you to stay and fight for us with me.”
She drew her legs up and crossed her arms on her knees, resting her chin on her forearms. “I know.” She’d thought about this all day yesterday as she sat in the sun listening to her little family doing life around her. She’d thought about it this morning when he brought her coffee in bed. She’d thought about it in the aftermath of making love, and even now as she listened to him speak so vulnerably.
She squinted at her unpolished toenails so she wouldn’t have to see his reaction to her words. “Oh, Jake. I don’t want to fight for what we had. It’s not enough.” She turned and looked at him then. “Is it really enough for you?”
Jake’s expression was almost unreadable, but she saw the flicker of pain at the back of his eyes, and she knew her words had hurt him as badly as she thought they might. But she continued anyway, needing him to understand. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore, but I know I will if I settle for just getting back what we had.”
Jake shook his head, slowly at first, then more forcefully. “What makes you think I want what we had? Why would I want a wife who isn’t satisfied with me? Why would I want to fight to be little more than your utility man again?”
“My utility man? What is that supposed to mean?” Nora cocked her head to one side, beginning to feel a little defensive.
“That’s how I feel, Nora, like your utility man. I’m the boring old stand-by guy. I clean your house, take care of the kids, wash your clothes, pleasure your body. They’re all things I want to do, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like I’m just the ‘meet your basic needs guy,’ the utility man. When you decide you want the deluxe version, the extra flare, the super service, you look elsewhere, because no matter how much I do, or how hard I try, it’s never enough. I’m not enough for you.”
Nora didn’t know quite how to respond. First of all, she’d never thought of him as serving her before, but if she was honest with herself, she could understand why he might feel that way. Yet his assumption that she went looking for more because he wasn’t enough, turned her into a fickle, shallow, selfish animal of a woman. Was that how he thought of her?
“Help me understand, Nora. I can see you pulling away inside your head. I don’t want to lose you, so help me understand what you need.” He reached over and brushed a finger down the length of her forearm.
“I don’t want a utility man, I know that much. I don’t want to be served and maybe that’s been the problem for a while. I want a partner, not a servant, Jake. But if that’s how you see yourself, then how am I supposed to see you any differently? That’s a role you took upon yourself. I never asked you to serve me. Never.”
“Then what do you want from me? How do I be your partner?” He was getting frustrated, she could tell, and she could sense the weapons being sharpened in the background of their conversation
“I want you to be a man, that’s what I want. I want you to be strong on the inside, a man I can depend on, who will be there to support me and encourage
me, so that I can support and encourage you. I want you to be a man who will not make me lead, but will lead me in such a way that I will want to follow you anywhere. I want you to be a man I can honor and be proud of.” She paused a minute, remembering something her father had once said to her about choosing a husband. She spoke quietly, tentatively. “I want you to be a man who loves the Lord more than you love yourself. Or me.”
Jake stared at her for a long time without speaking. Finally, as though making up his mind about something, he stood up, putting several feet of space between them. “Okay. So let me ask you something.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and Nora tensed, sensing things were not boding well for either of them in this conversation. “Is this… this Tristan all that? Does he love God more than he loves you? Is he strong on the inside? Dependable? Is he honorable?” His sneer became more pronounced with each question.
Nora took a deep breath and pushed herself up off the floor so she was at least on equal footing. “No, Jake, he doesn’t love God at all. And he isn’t dependable or honorable. That’s why I’m not with him. But then, the same goes for you.” She shrugged slightly and tried to look unaffected, but she knew she was having a hard time pulling it off. She heard his voice in the back of her mind, “There was this waitress….”
“Well, what about you? Are you honorable? Dependable? Are you a woman I can be proud to claim? Are you a woman who loves the Lord more than you love yourself? Let me see.” He held up the fingers of one hand and ticked them off one by one. “Honorable? Nope. Dependable? Nope. Make me proud? Nope. Love the Lord? Not that I can tell. Zero for four, Nora. Not a very good score.”
“Don’t be such a jerk, Jake. You asked me what I wanted. Now you’re beating me up for answering your question. Wow.” She leaned her hip against the footboard, her still recovering body beginning to tremble. “I need to lie down. Can you take me back to the cottage?”
Waters Fall Page 23
