Tomorrow and Always

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “Have you and Malcolm talked?”

  She knew Damon wanted to know if she and Malcolm would stay together, but that he wouldn’t come right out and ask or announce his feelings—not after the way she’d reacted the last time. “No.”

  “He’s not treating you right.”

  “Maybe not. But I’m not treating him right eith—”

  Damon’s hair flew as he shook his head. “For crying out loud, Kar, you didn’t damage him by what you did. Can’t you leave it in the past?”

  “I know the Church is true.”

  “Well, that’s a start. So do I. But what does that have to do with Malcolm?”

  “Everything.” She chose her words carefully. “It was you who made me realize that the Lord loves me despite what I did. And knowing He expects me to make the best of my life means that I will fight for Malcolm.” She stared into his tear-filled eyes, praying he would understand. “The easy thing to do now would be to run, to not have to see the accusation in his eyes—or the disgust. But if I did, I would be breaking my marriage covenants, and I can’t do that, not when I know how strongly the Lord feels about marriage. I’ve been honest about that with you from the very beginning.”

  Damon’s face crumpled. “Kar,” he whispered. And then, “What if he leaves you anyway?”

  “I’ll face that possibility if and when I come to it. But I won’t let him go easily.”

  He nodded slowly, and a tear slid down his cheek. “You’re right.” He hit his chest. “But it hurts right here.”

  She laid a hand on his cheek, cupping it slightly to fit the strong curve. “You gave me something I desperately needed. I will always be grateful for that. I think your love saved me when I was about to give up.”

  He grabbed the hand on his cheek and held it to his face tightly. “What am I going to do now?”

  She wondered if he’d spent the last week allowing himself to hope, despite her earlier warning. Karissa was reminded vividly of how Damon had declared that he was willing to go through hell for her. It seemed that now he would. She wished she could ease his pain as he had once soothed hers. “Go home to your children,” she said gently. “They need you.”

  “And you have Malcolm.” The words bordered on bitterness.

  “And I have Malcolm.”

  For a long while after Damon left, Karissa thought about his last statement. Did she have Malcolm? Or was he truly lost to her? One thing she did know was that the fight had only begun. Whatever craziness Malcolm might be prone to give in to, she was not going to let their relationship die so easily. They’d come too far for that. As with Stephanie, she would spend the rest of her life making it up to him. Maybe by doing so, she could atone in even some small way for her sin. She might not make it to heaven, but she would make sure her daughter and husband did.

  * * * * *

  After hours of pleading on his knees in a broom closet, in the men’s rest room, and finally in a stopped elevator, Malcolm found the revelation he searched for. Each time someone interrupted his praying he’d moved on, not thinking twice or even caring about what those he encountered might say about him.

  In the broom closet, he’d remembered the words Jesse had used when blessing him to abstain from smoking. “You must also love your wife and remember that she is a special daughter of God. Cleave unto her and no other.” The words hadn’t made much sense then, but they did now. The Lord had been preparing him to learn about Karissa’s past.

  Knowing this still didn’t make it any easier to accept what had happened, so Malcolm prayed on.

  In the men’s rest room, he began to understand that he didn’t love Karissa with his whole heart as he’d always assumed. He had set rules: he loved her only as long as she was the person he had believed her to be. Karissa had no such reservations. When he’d refused to quit smoking initially, she’d kept on loving him, though she believed it might prevent her from having the baby she longed for. Women were perhaps more complicated than men, but apparently it took a woman to love a person in spite of his faults.

  In the stopped elevator, he realized that Jesse was right. It wasn’t his place to forgive Karissa, but the Lord’s. Malcolm could only help Karissa find her way back. But was it even possible? He’d always believed that abortion was murder, and how could anyone be forgiven for that? How could they build an eternal life together when one of them was barred from entering the celestial kingdom?

  “There has to be a way.” Malcolm pictured Karissa as she had been that morning, thin and white, with black shadows under her eyes and deep hollows in her cheeks. Emotion for her filled his heart so completely that it almost hurt. He loved her! And he needed to protect her, to help her.

  Malcolm determined to put his ego behind him—and his judgments. The Lord would be both Savior and judge, not Malcolm. As the patriarch of their family, Malcolm would fight to answer to the Lord in her place. As her husband.

  “Please,” he begged. “Please let us find a way. I’ll do anything. I know I haven’t been much of a husband lately, but I was wrong. I’ll gladly take upon myself her sins, and spend the rest of my life trying to atone for them and make it up to her. Please, dear God. She’s suffered so much. Please!” As he said it, a pure, powerful love flooded his entire being, larger and more encompassing than he’d ever felt. The feeling held no pain, only exquisite joy. Suddenly, in his mind, he saw his wife as the Savior saw her—and she was clean!

  Pure, divine love filled Malcolm’s soul, replacing all the anger and bitterness and betrayal he’d previously felt. His life with Karissa wasn’t over—far from it. They could yet build an eternal marriage. He wanted to laugh and shout and scream for joy, but his limbs were so weak with emotion that he could only kneel on the floor of the stopped elevator and sob. The Savior’s atonement could repair his life—and more importantly, Karissa’s.

  But how to convince her?

  He’d seen the devastation in her eyes and knew it wouldn’t be easy. Especially after the atrocious way he’d treated her, his precious wife. The woman he should have protected and supported. “I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make her happy,” he vowed. But how to begin?

  How could he make her see that she was still a beloved daughter of God who would be welcomed home with open arms?

  Then he saw it, written in bold black and white on the floor in front of him, where the Ensign magazine lay open to a conference talk by Elder Boyd K. Packer.

  Here was the answer!

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Malcolm didn’t return until long after Karissa and the other mothers in the room had turned down the lights in order to catch a few moments of rest while their babies slept. Ominous shadows taunted Karissa. What if Malcolm wouldn’t forgive her?

  He’ll come for Steph, she thought. Then I’ll make my case.

  Some hours earlier, her lower stomach had begun to ache, but the dull pain was nothing compared to the anxiety in her heart. How she wished she could change the past.

  When Malcolm finally arrived, he wasn’t alone. His mother was with him, her ebony hair swept up into a pile on her head. It was dark enough in the room to hide all the new gray streaks and the age in her face, revealing a younger, prettier woman. Karissa wished she could ask her how she could regain Malcolm’s love and trust.

  Malcolm’s gray eyes were black in the dark, his chiseled features softened by the shadows. “Karissa,” he said, his voice low. He took Steph from her arms, kissed her, and handed her carefully to Faith. “Mother will watch over her. Come with me.” Malcolm took both her hands in his, pulling her to her feet. Then he put an arm around her and led her to the door. Why was he being so nice? Was this how divorce began?

  The ache in Karissa’s stomach began to resemble the pain in her heart. To make it worse, her pulse throbbed in her temples, making her head feel on fire.

  The waiting room was empty, and they settled themselves on a dark green couch with a ruffled skirt at the bottom. Its pillowed back felt comfortable af
ter the stiff easy chair in Steph’s room, but Karissa couldn’t relax. She was unable to read her husband’s expression as she normally could, and it unnerved her.

  “I’m sorry,” she began before he could speak. “I know I wasn’t what you expected, and I’m sorry for everything. I know you may not forgive me or love me like you did. That’s okay. I just want you to stay. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll make you happy. I’ll be a good mother to Stephanie. I’ll—”

  Malcolm was shaking his head. Oh, dear Father, she thought. What if all she could do wasn’t enough? What if he still left her?

  “We can make it work, Malcolm. I’ll make it up to you! You can’t throw ten years away without giving me a chance. Give me six months. Then you can leave if you’re not happy.” She touched his arm frantically, her voice rising to a higher pitch. “You can finish your movie. I’ll help you. I’ll do anything!”

  “Stop,” Malcolm said, his voice firm but gentle. “Stop for a moment and listen to me.” He held her hands again in his. They felt cool to her touch. “I don’t want you to prove yourself to me. I want you to be my partner.”

  She stared, wondering if she had heard him right. She decided she hadn’t. “Steph needs both a mother and father,” she continued. “You have to at least—”

  “This has nothing to do with Stephanie,” Malcolm said, knitting his brows. “This has to do with us. I love you, Karissa. I always have, and I always will.”

  She’d opened her mouth to begin another round of convincing arguments, but now it snapped shut. She swallowed twice. “You do?”

  He put his cold hands on either side of her face and looked deeply into her eyes. She noticed that there was more gray in the short hair near his temples. “Yes, I love you, Karissa. And I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. There’s no excuse. Not a single one, except that I’m a man. I’m so very, very sorry.”

  “You forgive me?” she asked, not quite believing. “But what about the . . . about what I did? What about what I put Steph through?”

  “What you put Stephanie through?” Malcolm made a noise in his throat, letting his hands drop. “You can’t believe Stephanie went through all these troubles because of your sin. Don’t you remember? ‘We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.’ Sure, we’ve learned a lot, and maybe the Lord even allowed this to happen because you and I needed to learn these lessons. But I believe what Damon said. I believe Steph chose you as a mother, despite the trials she would have to go through, and you will be the best.”

  Happiness seeped into Karissa’s heart at the power in Malcolm’s voice. “Thank you, Malcolm. I just wish I hadn’t messed up so . . . so permanently.”

  He shook his head. “You’re being too hard on yourself. You’ve already suffered so much. And you aren’t the judge of where you’re going after this life. Don’t you think a man murdering in cold blood is different from a scared little girl doing what she sees as her only option?”

  “Not really.” Karissa looked away. “The result is the same.”

  “Look at the experience you had during Stephanie’s operation. Doesn’t that show the Lord’s forgiveness? Why would He allow an unworthy person to have such a revelation? He wouldn’t. That means you’re on the right track.”

  She longed to believe him. The happiness she glimpsed just beyond her grasp made her want to collapse on the floor and weep with grief.

  “Here, look at this.”

  Malcolm reached around to his back pocket and pulled out the Ensign Delinda had given her. It was bent now at the bottom where he’d rolled it to fit into his Levis, and the tattered pages were worn and used. He opened the magazine to the article he wanted.

  “It says here in this talk that He will forgive. Listen! ‘I know of no sins connected with the moral standard for which we cannot be forgiven. I do not exempt abortion.’ ” Malcolm smiled and touched her hand. “There’s more, tons more, but the bottom line is that the Lord knows you and your heart, and He knows how much you’ve suffered. I believe he has forgiven you.”

  Blood rushed to Karissa’s head. “It can’t be,” she heard herself murmuring. She grabbed at the Ensign. Sure enough, the words Malcolm had read were there, staring her in the face. She felt exactly as the apostle described—a soul caught in a concentration camp of guilt. Yet now the Lord was telling her through this same apostle of God that her sins could be forgiven. Everything! Her world seemed to suddenly burst with possibility as she allowed a small portion of her soul to believe. Even though abortion was wrong and horribly evil, perhaps with enough repentance—perhaps with enough suffering and remorse—it was possible to obtain forgiveness.

  “But how?” she asked.

  “You’ve spent years atoning for this, haven’t you?” Malcolm slid off the couch and onto his knees in front of her, taking her hands in his. “I’m so sorry I added to your pain. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. But I will be there now—forever. Will you let me?”

  Karissa couldn’t believe what he was saying. “I always believed you had to restore what was taken. How can I restore that life?”

  “Only where possible.” Malcolm tightened his grip on her hands. “What matters is that the Lord understands and forgives.” Tears now wet Malcolm’s entire face, and his jaw trembled slightly. “I believe Steph chose you because she knew you would need her. Because this way she could heal us both and bring us back to the truth. Isn’t that what she’s done? Haven’t we returned to the Lord because of all this? You and Steph have a special bond, Karissa. I’ve felt it so strongly that I was afraid that if I lost Stephanie, I might lose you, too.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Karissa. None at all.” Malcolm was still on his knees in front her, holding her hands and crying silent tears. “We’ll have to go to the bishop, and it’ll still be painful. But we’ll see it through together—with the Lord. He can do anything, don’t you believe that? He made me see how wrong I was—what an idiot I’ve been. That’s an even bigger miracle. Please believe, Karissa.”

  Intense hope flooded Karissa’s heart, obliterating the searing pain. Like an illness cured by medicine, her sin had been cured through sincere repentance. For the first time in her life, she felt with certainty her Father’s love and acceptance. I won’t let You down, she vowed.

  Malcolm stood and pulled her to her feet. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close and kissing her. She slipped her hand around his head to the longer strands of hair in the back, enjoying the thick feel of it against her flesh. His two-day-old beard scraped against her cheeks.

  The kiss deepened, and Karissa felt dizzy. For some reason, the ache in her head and stomach hadn’t left with the pain in her heart. Fire seemed to consume her.

  “Karissa, you’re burning up.” Malcolm’s voice came from a distance, but she felt his arms tighten around her.

  “Steph,” she muttered. Then blackness swallowed her world.

  She and Steph picked lingan berries on Pillar Mountain. Steph’s face was stained with bright red as she stuffed more of the sweet berries into her mouth than into the little silver pail. The little girl ran behind a bush.

  “Don’t go too far away,” Karissa called.

  Steph emerged from the bush and came toward her, riding on a huge brown bear. She smiled and laughed at Karissa’s surprise.

  “Stephanie, get down!” Karissa said in a panic.

  The little girl grinned, waving in triumph, her other hand buried in the bear’s fur.

  Karissa knew it was a dream and that it would end as all the others—with Steph dying because of her neglect. She glanced down desperately to find something to save her child, but all she saw were her hands, stained blood-red.

  “It’s okay, Mommy,” Stephanie said, sliding off the bear’s back and coming to stand behind her mother. The bear gazed at Karissa with his sad eyes, then licked the berry juice from her fingers before disappearing once more into the bushes.

  Steph hu
gged her. “I’m okay, Mommy.”

  Karissa looked at her hands and saw that they were no longer stained red, but washed clean and white. In that instant, she knew that by being willing to give up her daughter to the Lord, she had somehow saved her. Stephanie would live!

  “She’s coming around,” a voice said.

  Karissa opened her eyes to see Malcolm approaching the bed. He leaned over and held her hands, bringing his face close. “You scared me,” he said, his voice gruff.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m kissing you, and the next thing I know, you faint in my arms.”

  “What an effect you have on women.” She grinned weakly at him, wishing her head would stop pounding. “Thanks for catching me.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Any time. I’m always going to be here for you.”

  Karissa knew he meant it. Malcolm hadn’t been the perfect husband, nor she the perfect wife, and they might not make it to that level for many years—if ever. But things would never be as they had been before. With the gospel and Stephanie in their lives, everything could only be much better. Hand in hand with each other and the Lord, they would carve out their happiness, every step of the way.

  “How’s Steph?” she asked, though because of the dream, she felt she already knew.

  “Great. Mom’s still with her, but they might agree to move her in here with you in the morning if she keeps recovering so well. The doctor wants you to stay for a day or two. He thinks you have an infection in your uterus, but they seem to have it under control now.”

  “I guess I overdid things.”

  “Well, I’ll be taking the night shift from now on, and we’re going to let your parents and mine help. That’s what they’re here for.”

  “I feel kind of woozy.”

  “That’s the drugs. Do you want me to call a nurse?”

  “No, I just want you to hold me.”