That made her father laugh. “You don’t need me for legitimacy, sweetheart. You need Jesus for that. Tell Neal to call me soon. Do you still have company?”
“Wait. You know about that?”
“I do talk to Neal quite frequently. I think I’ve even talked to your guest a few times. I’d like to talk to you more, too, if you’d let me. I’m flying down that way for a conference soon—”
“Maybe, but can we talk more about this first? Mr. Chaise wants you to work with us—me. I’m not sure about the position. I know you’re still preaching when people ask. Maybe we can work out a consultant position. The bottom line is that I need you, Daddy. Please. I know I can be less than kind but—”
“Okay.”
She stared at the phone. “Okay? Just like that?”
“You asked. Nicely. I know what it’s like to need something. Just pray that we won’t regret it.”
“You won’t. I promise.”
“Even you can’t make those kinds of promises, Queen D. Talked to your mother lately?”
Dyanne took a deep breath. She talked to her mother even less than her father. Though she’d been an adult when her mother remarried, something about it just didn’t seem right. Her times with her mother and her new husband were always polite, though. Painfully so. “No, I haven’t talked to Mom. You?”
“I had lunch with her and Norman other day. They’re doing well. They both asked about you. Give them a call.”
Right, lunching with your ex-wife and her new husband. One big happy family. “Things are really busy, but I probably do need to call her. I’d better go. Thanks for agreeing to help me.”
“Thank you, Dyanne. For calling I mean. I know that you needed something from me but it still means a lot. You mean a lot.”
Wow. This was much further than she’d planned to go. “Ditto.”
She pressed the button and put her head down on the desk, overcome with tears.
“I’m really proud of you,” Dyanne said as she watched the final page of Fallon’s daily pages curl out of the printer. She’d been more than skeptical about being able to finish the book in such a short amount of time, especially without the usual outline to go by, but somehow Fallon had managed to make things flow.
“Well, thank you. I’m trying. I struggled a bit when the children were away, but I wanted to get back in the groove so that Judah and I can try out some new recipes for Ryan’s birthday party.”
Dyanne tapped the stack of pages on the edge of the desk. She’d missed Ryan’s company, too, but it’d forced her to think about her own life and make some connections of her own. She’d talked to both her parents in the past two days, something that rarely, if ever, happened. “So they are having a party for Ryan? I’m glad. I was hoping to do something for him.”
“You still can. If you mean Karol and Rob, I don’t think they’re doing anything. At least not that they know of. Ryan would probably be the one to ask and since it’s his birthday, he really can’t. So Judah and I are planning a party!”
Blinking rapidly didn’t help Fallon’s words sink in. “While I’m glad that you’re making progress, we’re nowhere near ready to present this book to Steve Chaise. It’s wonderful that you’ve been helping us with the Simon kids but the reality is work has to come first. We may have to let them know that we, you and I at least, won’t be able to go on much longer.”
“Dee Dee. It’ll get done. Now relax. You’re going to drive yourself—and me—crazy. What I want to know is if there’s any news yet.”
“Last I heard, sales were slowing but steady. About four or five hundred copies a week this past week. It’ll pick back up once the tour starts.”
Fallon’s earrings jingled as she shook her head. “Oh, girl, you are so dense sometimes. I wasn’t asking you about news on book sales. I’m asking you about news about you. You know, woman news?”
Dyanne pushed her glasses off her eyes and into her hair. Her mother had asked the same question a few hours before. “Do I have some kind of biological clock tied around my neck or what? Am I ticking that loud? There is no news, Fallon. I told you before, we’ve decided to wait.”
“The question is, has God decided to wait?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Fallon’s eyes narrowed as she peered out the window overlooking the front yard.
The look on her friend’s face said it all. Someone or something in the front yard did not belong. Fallon didn’t seem upset about it, whatever it was. Dyanne turned in time to see a Mercury sedan pulling into the drive with Ohio tags. Forest-green. “What in the world?”
In her haste to get downstairs, Dyanne knocked a few pages off Fallon’s stack. Fallon toppled the remaining pages when she tried to keep up, forgetting the sleeves of her caftan. She ran on, not slowing down a bit as she called out to Dyanne from behind.
“Who is that? He’s gorgeous. And not young boy hot, either. Gray-headed Ed Bradley kind of fine. The kind of fine that I don’t see often.”
As she opened the door, Dyanne rolled her eyes at Fallon, and then smiled at the man on the other side of the door, which must have become revolving without her knowledge there were so many people coming and going. Still, she couldn’t help but reach out and give her guest a hug.
“Hey, Daddy. Come on in.”
Neal set a personal record for his four mile run. He’d seen the green Mercury from a long way off and though his iPod had quit a mile back and his legs felt like cement, the thought of seeing his father-in-law kicked something into overdrive. By the time he dashed to the porch and pushed the Stop button on his heart rate monitor, he’d made it home in record time. He hated to greet Reverend Kelvin Stokes in a sweaty running suit and muddy shoes, but he forgot all that when the faint scent of licorice and lime caught him in the doorway. Fallon and the reverend. He smiled at the former and ran toward the latter.
“Dad!” Neal said, running straight to the older man, who looked even better than the last time they’d seen each other. He held out a fist and his father-in-law did the same. They pounded hands in greeting but the reverend pulled him close.
“You’d better hug your old man, boy. You know you’re as much my son as anything. I told your father that on the phone the other day.”
Fallon’s hand reached between them with a towel and a cold bottle of water for Neal. Both men paused to look at her, and then look at each other. What he saw in his father-in-law’s eyes made Neal shake his head: first, wonder and then, awe. That Fallon. There wasn’t a man alive she didn’t have some effect on, but this was a first.
“I see you’ve met our guest.”
Dyanne’s father, who was never without a ready word, failed to make a coherent response. “I—uh—yes, Dee introduced Dr. Gray and I—”
“Just call me Fallon. For now anyway. I have a feeling that you might be one of the few people who calls me by my real name. Do you like Ferris wheels?”
The reverend swallowed hard. “Yes, well. It’d be an honor to know you better and yes, I love Ferris wheels.”
Just as it seemed Fallon would pounce on the man, she swept a sleeve in Neal’s direction and headed toward the kitchen. “Well, you two have fun. I’m going off to start dinner. Again, nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
Dyanne, who sat on the couch, silent and stunned, paused to join the two men watch as Fallon walked into the kitchen with the grace of a much younger—and smaller—woman. Spinach, mangoes and Southern sun was a combination to be reckoned with, evidently. Dyanne looked as though she could use a cup of one of Fallon’s juice drinks.
She held up her hands when Neal, still smiling, gave her the what’s-going-on look. “He’s here to work on the Christian line. Evidently Steve Chaise told him to come on down, too. This is the South’s newest bed-and-breakfast, I guess. Not that I’m not glad to see you, Dad. I am.”
“Obviously.” Her father, who still hadn’t quite recovered from Fallon, raked a hand through his almost-white hair. Though usually in contr
ol of any situation or conversation, the man couldn’t seem to understand what had just happened.
Neal sipped the water he’d been given and peeled off his shirt and headed for the laundry room. His father-in-law had been single for a very long time and had totally lost touch with his effect on women. Neal’s own mother had caught her breath the first time she’d seen Dyanne’s dad. The gasp hadn’t been lost on his father, who, though he laughed and joked with Reverend Stokes, wasn’t as fond of him as he let on. Probably because Dyanne’s father made it so obvious how fond he was of Neal. The feeling was mutual.
“Dad, I’m going to clean up. Then I’ll be right down. We’re glad to have you in any capacity, but I’m really excited about your working on the line. I’ve read several of the titles ready for the fall lineup and to be honest, I have questions. A lot of them.”
That shook the man out of his confusion. “Questions? Wonderful. Take all the time you need. I’ll go up and get settled into the guest room. That’s where your guest—I mean Fallon—said to put my things.”
A worried look passed between Neal and Dyanne, but she said nothing. She was definitely out of it, but Fallon seemed to have taken up her slack quite nicely.
Knowing how modest the reverend was and how, well, not-so-modest Fallon could be, Neal felt compelled to say something. “I think you’d be more than comfortable upstairs, Dad, but with so many ladies up there, you might like it better down here,” Neal said, pointing out the larger downstairs bedroom.
Reverend Stokes forced a finger into the collar of his guay-abera shirt, one Dyanne had bought him on her last trip to Miami. He seemed to be making room for his answer, which shocked everyone.
“Upstairs is fine. See you in a few minutes.” With that, he turned and went upstairs, pausing only to take a whiff of the magical scents coming from the kitchen.
Neal pulled his wife against his bare chest and began to pray. He’d thought moving to Tallahassee would slow things down. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
The Gift
Long after the china breaks
Vows stretched, bent
Routine fits and starts
Of all-the-same days
There comes the gift
Ripe and shiny in
The corner of your eyes
A reflection of all the
Love I’ve ever known
Flung against all
You are. This morning
You smiled at me
And I was twenty again,
Stupid and breathless
For your kiss.
Tonight, I will unwrap
Our love with wiser fingers,
Knowing it is both fragile
And strong.
—Karol
Day 15 on the way home from Hope and Singh’s
Chapter Fourteen
“Are things any better?” Karol pressed her eyes shut for a moment, preparing for the response from her old friend. Things hadn’t been going well for Hope and Singh.
“Not really.”
“Did you visit the church Rob found? Did Singh go to the support group?”
“Yes and yes. The church is nice, actually. It was good to be back in fellowship. That much seems right. Everything else, well, it’s just going to take time, I think. There’s been a lot of damage done. The children, bless their hearts, don’t know what to think of us.”
“Nobody’s perfect, Hope,” Karol said with experience and conviction behind her.
“I know. Now. I can see that I tried to be perfect, tried to have heaven on this earth. This wretched, sinful earth. Oh, look at me, I’m doing it again. Being negative. It’s just that, well, nothing makes sense. He says it’s not because of me, but it has to be, doesn’t it? If that’s what he wanted, why would he let me believe—why would God let me believe—”
“We’re human, Hope. We mess up. You are a beautiful woman, a wonderful wife. He doesn’t want anyone else. It’s the enemy trying to destroy your beautiful family. You all have touched so many lives, especially ours. You can get through this. You’re coming for Ryan’s birthday, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Let’s just focus on making it until then, focus on today. There’s grace enough for today. Pick one thing you want to do…today.”
“Pick blueberries with the children.”
“Okay. Do that. Have fun. Take pictures. Make pie. Smile. And trust God for tomorrow. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“All right. Let’s talk soon.”
“Karol?”
“Yes?”
“I love you. So much. I’m so sorry. For everything.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“Don’t stop writing. I was wrong before. You have a gift. It will make room for you.”
The phone clicked softly in Karol’s ear. Before they’d left North Carolina, Rob had sprung into action, finding a local pastor and support group that Singh felt comfortable with. Singh seemed to be glad to be tackling the problem with a group of strangers.
Hope had ups and downs, also, but by the time they’d left, things seemed to be off to a good start. Now it seemed things were unraveling again. Karol worried for her friends, but these days it was her own marriage that concerned her.
She’d been so ready to believe in Singh, but thought the worst of her own husband. Karol had allowed others to talk her out of the trust that had once been the foundation of her marriage. And yet, she was more afraid to trust now than ever. Though Rob wasn’t the one struggling with pornography—at the moment—the realization that it could have easily been him, or any other Christian man she knew, was sobering.
The best way to explain it was to just say it, so she did. She walked outside to the shed, where Rob was putting away his tools.
“I’m afraid. If that happened to Hope and Singh, it could happen to us, too. I’m not the best wife in the world. My mothering skills won’t win any awards. I think the reason I’ve felt discouraged about being a mother is because I don’t feel secure as a wife. It’s not your fault really. It’s just that marriage seems so, so…”
“Disposable?” Rob kissed her forehead.
“Yes. That’s a good word. Maybe I understand my mother a little better now. When I was younger, I thought that you’d always love me, that I didn’t need to work hard at our relationship.” She rubbed her husband’s shoulders, knotted from carrying the younger kids to bed a few minutes earlier. They’d been working hard all day, making a tree house of their own.
He smiled at her touch, but not at her words. “I will always love you, Karol. And you do work hard at our relationship. Sometimes people are so busy ‘working on their relationships’ that they get sick of each other and mess the whole thing up. You are here and you believe in me. Thinking that you didn’t for a while is what made things hard. I said some things I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry if I made you feel insecure. You have no idea how much I’m into you.”
Likewise.
Just before a tide of kisses carried them away, Karol spoke again. “You did get to me when you said that you’re attracted to other women sometimes. I didn’t recognize how much of a battleground marriage is. For me, it’s my emotions, for you, maybe it’s more physical.”
Rob leaned against the shed before taking her hand and starting for the house. “I think it’s both for both of us, just at different times. People try to make it seem as though women are all one thing and men are all the other, but the physical struggle came from me feeling like you thought less of me. You’ve always seemed so, I don’t know, proud of me. That still gets to me even though I’m an everyday guy. I want to be better.”
Karol fought back tears as they went inside, started up the stairs. Here she’d been blaming some Internet model for the problems in her marriage when she’d been the thorn in her own side. “I think that I felt like I wasn’t enough for you anymore, like I needed to have a destiny outside of the family to keep you interested.”
Rob laughed. “Oh, no
, babe. I’m interested. I don’t think there’s anything wrong in having things you love to do. You’re a great mom and wife. You’re a great teacher and writer. There are lots of other things you haven’t worked hard enough at yet to know whether you’re good at them. I just want you to be happy when I get to you. Mia’s getting older. You’re about due for a dose of me-time.”
“But what about you?”
“Karol, I get to do what I love everyday. Then I come home and hammer and build on things. And you don’t bug me about it. You know I love these things—”
“It’s just how you’re wired, to build things. Whether it’s a computer or a birdhouse, you just get how things work.”
Rob pulled his wife to his chest. “Exactly. And you get how words work. I think that where we went wrong was trying to be Hope and Singh instead of being ourselves. We’ve got to find our own way.”
She wiped her eyes. “Ryan said that.”
“Smart kid.”
“Yes. He is. What are we going to get him for his birthday?”
“A little brother?” Rob said in a mocking voice.
Karol punched him lightly. “Be serious.”
“Okay, he’s a deep kid for eleven, but he is going to middle school now. A tool set, maybe?”
“He’s not you, Rob.”
“Right. A book then. Some kind of rare and precious book. You’d know what better than I would. Unless…” He got up and turned on the light.
“What?” She watched in horror and amazement as her husband pulled the boxes of her poems and unfinished stories from under the bed. There were two huge boxes full. She held the sides of the mattress. “No way. Don’t even think about it.”
“Why not? He loves your writing. A rare and precious book. Your book. I could edit for you, do the cover, whatever you need.”
“There’s no way. It’s impossible.” Karol fell back on the bed. Talking about their marriage had been hard enough, but her sharing her writing with her husband, too? No way.
With a notebook in hand and a plea in his eyes, Rob sat down beside her. “Nothing is impossible with God, Karol. Nothing. You just told Hope that before we left. You’ve told me the same many times. It’s still true. Besides, this stuff is amazing. I could kick myself for letting you shove it under the bed all these years.”
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