Tomorrow and Always

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  * * * * *

  Karissa slept badly. In the night, she awoke with a start, reaching over to the empty space where Malcolm should be. The hurt came back in a wave. Betrayal, that’s what it was. She’d smelled the smoke on his clothes and thought it was because of the men on his camera crew, or perhaps it came from clothes Maggie hadn’t gotten around to cleaning on her tri-weekly visits. But no—he had lied.

  She came heavily to her feet, glad sleep had a numbing effect on her emotions. Dark encompassed the room and hallway, but Karissa knew the way to the greenhouse without light. Many times when sleep eluded her, she would come here to think. Here she was free to wander among living things and wonder what might have been.

  She sat on the cement curbing that surrounded the sand. Moonlight filtered in through the double layer of thick plastic, and the plants reflected a dark green color. Lush, verdant, living, growing—her womb could not compete. Though it had not started out so, the greenhouse was her private prison, her personal acknowledgment of the sin, and a constant reminder that she would never be whole.

  No one had ever guessed why. Not even Malcolm.

  A single tear watered the sand.

  Faint steps sounded in the laundry room where she had left the door open. Karissa stiffened, thinking it was Malcolm.

  “Camille?” a soft voice called. “Are you in here again?”

  “It’s Karissa. What are you doing awake?”

  Brionney gave a low laugh and patted her bulging stomach. “I was hungry, what else? I came down to the kitchen, and saw something moving out here. I thought it might be Camille. I’ve found her here twice before in the middle of the night.”

  “We’ll have a sleep out soon,” Karissa said.

  “They’ll like that.” Brionney paused. “Well, goodnight.” Her feet shuffled, but she didn’t leave. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Karissa nodded. Maybe Brionney could help her decide what to do about Malcolm.

  Brionney sat beside her. In her hand, Karissa saw a piece of the deer jerky Malcolm had given them. The other woman saw her gaze. “I’m craving salt,” she explained apologetically. “I always do when I’m pregnant.”

  “I don’t like deer jerky much,” Karissa answered. “Malcolm does.” She wondered how to begin.

  “You don’t like Kodiak at all, do you?”

  “I—I’m thinking about leaving.”

  “I thought Malcolm loved it here.”

  “He does. I’m thinking of going without him.”

  Brionney caught her breath. “You want to leave Malcolm?”

  “He’s smoking. He lied to me.” Karissa could barely force out the words. To herself she wondered where all the emotion came from. Once, she had been able to handle things more calmly. “I don’t know if I can take it.”

  “Is that all?” Brionney asked.

  “You knew?”

  “I found out tonight. Jesse saw him at it this morning.”

  “Malcolm knew how important this was to me. How could he do this?”

  “I’ve seen him with the girls. It’s important to him, too.”

  “Then why?”

  “Maybe he’s not as strong as you are.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving.” Karissa stood abruptly. “There’s nothing for me here.”

  “Wait!” Brionney jumped to her feet. Her white hair reflected the moonlight, giving the appearance of a halo. “So what if he’s smoking? It’s not as if that’s the worst sin a man ever committed. He could be cheating on you, he could be abusing you, he could be a murderer, or worse. Give him time.”

  The words stung deeply. For all of Malcolm’s deception, he was cleaner than Karissa. If it hadn’t been for her sin . . .

  “You have to do anything you can to save your marriage,” Brionney continued passionately. “I know it might hurt. Believe me, I know. But you have to give it everything, or someday you’ll regret it. You’ll ask yourself if things could have been different if you tried harder.”

  Karissa sighed and sat again on the cement curbing, reaching out for a handful of sand. “Did you try to hang on to your first marriage?”

  “With all my heart,” Brionney said. “I believed our sealing would last forever.”

  “It’s not as if we were married in the temple.” Karissa let the sand drop.

  “Does that make your commitment to him any less? When you got married, did you say to yourself, ‘Well, if it doesn’t work out I can always get a divorce’? I hope not. That’s not commitment. Commitment to marriage is doing everything in your power to keep things together. So what if you’re not very happy with him at this moment? Maybe you even hate him a little. That’s all right. But don’t throw out your entire marriage on this one issue.”

  “What if I don’t love him anymore?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Brionney said, tossing her head back. Her hair rippled like waves of light. “The point is you can love him if you try. Commitment brings an even stronger love, the eternal kind. Right now, it seems easier to walk away. But if you don’t try with all your heart, you’ll regret it in the end.”

  Karissa remembered how Malcolm’s chiseled features had been harder than usual when she had caught him smoking. He hadn’t seemed to care about her feelings at all.

  Brionney looked down at her in the moonlight. “You may not be married in the temple, but you want to be. I can see that, even if you can’t. I don’t know what’s been holding you up—it certainly wasn’t smoking—but I want you to know I’m here for you, that when you’re ready to talk about it, I’ll be here to listen. And I’ll love you no matter what.”

  “I don’t think Malcolm would.”

  “How do you know if you don’t give him a try?”

  “He wouldn’t,” Karissa said dully. “I know.”

  “You can’t leave him, not yet.”

  Karissa knew that Brionney spoke the truth.

  “Malcolm’s a smart man. He knows what he’s doing is wrong. Why don’t you go back to bed and sleep on it? Things always look better in the morning.” She grimaced. “At least they do when I’m not pregnant.”

  “I will,” Karissa said. “Thank you.”

  Commitment and love. According to Brionney, they weren’t necessarily the same thing. Was she committed to her marriage? She had been once. Was Malcolm? Maybe tomorrow they could find out.

  * * * * *

  The house was silent when Karissa awoke Sunday morning. Brionney and Jesse must have taken the kids to church, and that meant she and Malcolm were home alone. The room was bright, despite the shades covering the window. Her heart didn’t feel as heavy as the night before, as if the morning sun had burned away the shadows in her soul.

  She showered quickly, not wetting her hair, and dressed in a gray sleeveless sweater and loose gray pants, pinstriped with alternating lines of white and jade. Then she brushed her long hair methodically and pinned it up. A few loose tendrils escaped along her jaw, softening her face.

  “I’m ready,” she told herself.

  Malcolm was in the kitchen, sitting on a bar stool and staring at a bowl of the Grapenuts she’d bought yesterday at Safeway. He stirred the cereal listlessly, as if waiting for the milk to soften the hard kernels. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he said, looking over at her. He hadn’t shaved again, and his black-covered jaw worked as if trying to keep the words steady. Before he looked away, she saw a shimmer of tears in his eyes. “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of it.”

  Karissa heard the plea in his voice, as well as a note of resignation. “I wanted to,” she said slowly, rounding the bar until she was opposite him. “I don’t like you very much right now.”

  His eyes met hers, waiting for the rest.

  “But I’m committed to our marriage. I made you a promise when we married, and I want to do everything to make it work. But I need to know if you’re committed. You don’t have to love me exactly,
you just have to be committed.”

  Malcolm stood and took a few steps around the bar. “I am committed, Karissa. And I do love you.” His tone seemed to imply that they were one and the same. “Don’t you love me?”

  She lifted her hands helplessly. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. At this moment, I can’t tell you what I feel, except numb. But I don’t want to end our marriage, not without trying.” There was pain in his face, but she couldn’t take back the words. “You give up smoking if you want,” she continued. “I want you to, but it’s your choice. But if we . . .” She looked away from him. “If we decide to stay together and we have a baby, you have to promise not to smoke around him.”

  “I promise,” he said immediately. “Does this mean you want to put off having a baby?”

  “Maybe it would be better.” Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall.

  “That’s some commitment,” Malcolm said lightly.

  She turned toward him. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to love me again.” His voice was choked. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

  She hadn’t really loved him for a long time; the smoking had only been the proverbial straw that had broken the camel’s back, or rather her commitment. At least until Brionney had glued the pieces back together.

  “I wish I could have stopped,” he continued. “I wish I could change things. Can’t you love me a little?” He rubbed at his face, and his hands came away wet.

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  He approached hesitantly, and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her neck. His new beard, now dotted here and there with single white strands, was long enough to tickle without being sharp. Her hand went up and smoothed the gray at his temple. He’d always had those streaks of gray even before they were married, and she adored them.

  “I know what,” he said, drawing away. Karissa’s neck felt moist where he’d pressed his face. “We need to get away, just the two of us. You’re up for vacation time soon, aren’t you? Take it early and we’ll go this week, as soon as you can get away.”

  “Where will we go? Camping?” she asked without much enthusiasm. Though she enjoyed camping, it was not her idea of relaxation.

  “No, we’ll go to an honest-to-goodness hotel right here on Kodiak.” He snapped his fingers. “I know. We’ll go to Kalsin Inn. It’s right on Kalsin Bay, and it’s beautiful. Yes! You’ll love it there. It’ll be like a second honeymoon. Say you’ll go.”

  His excitement was catching. “Okay,” she said with a smile. “But I’ll have to go in tomorrow and get things ready to leave.” She also had to have her blood tested in conjunction with Dr. Taylor’s orders, though why he wanted the tests was beyond her. Something about early detection to see if her body was not making the proper levels of hormones to sustain pregnancy. Each time her ovulation cycle was over, she had submitted to the test only to find out absolutely nothing because she wasn’t pregnant.

  Malcolm practically ran to the phone, blind to her thoughts. “We’ll have the time of our lives. I’ll even teach you to fish, if you want.”

  Karissa laughed and felt the rest of her doubts evaporate. Maybe she had overreacted. Malcolm was a good husband. If only she dared to tell him the truth.

  Chapter Eleven

  Water rushing in the river filled Malcolm’s ears. Occasionally another sound penetrated—the call of a bird or a rustling in the leaves made by a Sitka blacktail deer—but there was not a trace of another human being. In their chosen spot along the river, he and Karissa were completely alone.

  The sky overhead was a bright, perfect blue, the kind of blue Malcolm liked to film before launching into a less pleasant aspect of nature in one of his documentaries. The blue stretched as far as he could see, until the green trees blocked the view.

  Karissa gave a deep, throaty laugh, and Malcolm found it irresistible. It was as far removed from her tight, quick laughter of late as Kodiak was from her hometown in California. Knowing her so well, he recognized that the laugh signaled her happiness, deep in the essence of her soul. She’d laughed that way once, long ago. When had it stopped? And why hadn’t he noticed when it had stopped?

  Hooking his pole between two stones, he left his line dangling in the river and went to sit beside her on a large rock in the shade. The love in his heart had never been so strong; it seemed to even stem his desire to smoke. He was down to less than half a pack a day now and beginning to feel hopeful about quitting altogether. What a wonderful surprise for his precious wife.

  “Hey, I thought we were trying to fish here,” she protested weakly as he put a casual arm around her. In her slender hands she held his best fishing rod.

  “We’ve done enough fishing.” Today was Saturday, the last of their five days of vacation at Kalsin Bay. All week they had sailed, hiked, fished, or just sat together. Karissa had laughed at his jokes, had made a few of her own, and not once had either brought up his smoking or their possible separation. At times, Malcolm was sure there was love in her emerald eyes. But there was something else too, a hidden mystery in the way she acted, seemingly emphasized by the hollows in her cheeks. What could it be? She was quieter than usual, and several times he had caught her gazing off into nothingness, as if deep in reflective thought. When he called her back, she stared at him in a sort of haunted fear. Was he only imagining it? When he tried to probe, she would become remote and almost hostile, so he backed off. What else could he do? He couldn’t force her to share her feelings. He’d have to wait until she was ready to broach the subject on her own.

  “Stop jerking my line,” she said.

  “I’m not—” He broke off, seeing the way her line bent toward the water. “Uh-oh, it’s a big one.”

  “Good!” Karissa jumped up from the rock, her ponytail swinging. Her long legs were tanned from a week of wearing cut-off Levis, and her face and arms were also kissed to a tawny brown by the ever-present sun. Malcolm thought the color looked good on her.

  “Now pull back gently. Don’t let the line snap.” He wiped the sweat from his hands onto his shorts.

  “I know, I know.” The lean muscles in her arm flexed as she pulled back. “Oh, no! He won’t come.”

  “Give him some line.”

  Karissa did as he directed, her smooth face scrunched with concentration. Minute beads of sweat appeared across her hatless brow.

  “Now try to reel him in. Slowly . . . slowly. Why’d ya stop?” he asked.

  “My cheek itches.” She grinned at him.

  “Here, give it to me.”

  She held the rod out of his reach. “Oh, no. This baby’s mine. I’m going to win our bet. A week of back rubs is almost mine.”

  From the angle of the line, Malcolm knew she was probably right. “What about your cheek?”

  “You scratch it. Right here, under my eye.” She moved her right cheek to show him.

  “Do you know how funny you look?”

  “Scratch it,” she ordered. So he did. “Thanks.” She began to reel in the fish again.

  “Not too fast,” he warned.

  “Who’s got this fish, you or me?”

  Malcolm laughed. Karissa had taken to fishing better than anyone he’d ever seen. She remembered what he told her and followed his advice exactly. Why hadn’t he taken her years ago?

  “There he comes,” she said triumphantly. Malcolm could tell by the size that it outweighed his biggest catch of the week by at least ten pounds.

  “It’s heavy,” she said.

  “Can I help?”

  She looked at him. “I still get the back rubs?”

  Malcolm grinned. “You caught him.” She nodded her consent, and he waded into the river to heft the fish. The water felt cool against his bare legs. “This’ll feed an army.”

  Karissa watched him from the side. “I think we’re going to need it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I might be pregnant.” Her green eyes glittered.
>
  He stared at her, as though frozen in the water, too hopeful for words. And he also felt a relief; perhaps this explained the secret he sensed in her manner. Maybe now she would open up her heart to him.

  “I took a blood test Monday at the hospital. It was positive. But I still have to take another test to make sure my body knows how to keep it.”

  Malcolm finally found his tongue. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He wanted to drop the fish and go to her, but he wasn’t sure what her waiting meant.

  She looked down at the fish, then back to his face. “I wanted to be sure, that’s all. About us.”

  “So did you find something about me to love?” he asked casually. Too casually. Both knew how important the answer was.

  Karissa regarded him without speaking for what seemed an eternity, as if she weighed and measured him with her eyes. It occurred to him that he could choose to be offended, but he thrust the emotion away. At this moment, games or hurt feelings didn’t matter. At least she was committed to making things work—for now.

  She continued to study him. Suddenly the fishy smell of the salmon in his arms reached his nose, and he felt unclean and completely self-conscious under Karissa’s penetrating gaze. A flush rose in his face, and it took great effort not to look away.

  “I love the way you fish,” she said. The words were measured like her stare, her voice serious. “I love the way you taught me to fish. I love your talent of making things out of wood. I love the way you are with Brionney’s girls, and I love the way you’re looking at me right now.”

  “But do you love me?”

  She gazed at him blankly, as if not understanding the question. “You are all these things, and I love them.”

  Malcolm hesitated. Women liked to complicate matters. A man either loved a woman with his whole heart, or he didn’t. At times he might not think about the love, but it was always there, sometimes blazing, sometimes banked like a fire in the night. To a woman, there were shades between love and hate. He didn’t understand it, but there it was.