A Time to Dance/A Time to Embrace

by Karen Kingsbury

  “Hmmm. I love the trees. Especially this time of year.” Abby fell in place easily beside Beth and in no time the cabin was out of sight. “Like they’re shouting the fact that summer is here.”

  Beth chuckled. “That’s my sister. Always the writer.”

  They walked in silence for a moment, stopping to spy on a family of deer drinking at the lake’s edge. The evening was cooling quickly, nightfall descending like a quiet blanket over the woods. Abby’s heart beat so loud she was sure Beth could hear it. Do I tell her now? Should I wait?

  “Beth, I—”

  “So what’s the—”

  They laughed because it was something they’d done since they were children, rushed into conversation at the exact same moment. Abby nodded toward her sister. “You go.”

  Beth’s smile faded. “What’s the deal with you and John?”

  An alarm sounded near the surface of Abby’s heart. If Beth could sense a problem, what had the kids been feeling? Had she and John been that obvious? “What do you mean?”

  Beth raised one eyebrow sardonically. “Look, big sister, I’ve been around the block a few times myself. Back at the house you and John were the only people still stuck in winter, like you were afraid you’d catch something if you exchanged so much as a passing glance.”

  Abby was silent, horrified that Beth had seen through what she and John thought was a perfect act. “We . . . we have a lot on our minds.”

  Beth said nothing, just cast Abby the look of a younger sister waiting for the whole story. She resumed walking and Abby joined in beside her. They went on that way for another five minutes while Abby’s stomach churned with the truth. When she could take it no more, she stopped and hung her head. The tears weren’t something she thought about, just an overflow of emotion that had gotten too great to contain.

  Beth saw the first teardrops splash against the gravel below and she reached out, wrapping Abby in a hug that felt safe and warm and familiar. It made her miss the fact that she and Beth hadn’t been closer over the years, and with a suddenly sure realization she understood that the distance had been her fault. When Beth and her husband divorced, Abby had basically written her off. What kind of Christian woman couldn’t make things work with her husband? Abby had wondered. And there had been nothing in the past decades to indicate Beth was drawing closer to God, so Abby had chosen to let the relationship wither.

  The truth of her own judgmental spirit was almost more than she could bear, and in Beth’s arms Abby’s tears became heart-wrenching sobs that tore at her and uprooted all that remained of her belief that things worked out for the best.

  “Tell me, Abby, it’s okay . . . what’s wrong?” Beth, normally tough and flippant, was now—in their own private world on the backside of the lake—as kind and caring as their mother would have been.

  “You’re . . . you’re right about me and John.” Abby kept her face hidden in Beth’s shoulder. “Beth, we’re getting a divorce.”

  As many times as she would have to say the words in the months and years to come, this was perhaps the only time when her statement needed no explanation whatsoever.

  “Oh, Abby, I’m so sorry.” Beth stroked Abby’s hair and, thankfully, refrained from saying anything even remotely sarcastic. “Do the kids know?”

  Abby shook her head. “We’re waiting until after the wedding.”

  Beth exhaled through pursed lips. “Boy, Abby, I don’t envy you.” She paused and shook her head. “I mean who’d have thought . . .”

  After a few minutes, Abby’s tears subsided and she pulled away, wiping at her wet cheeks, unwilling to make eye contact with Beth. Was this how she would always feel when someone asked her about her failed marriage? Like she had let the entire world down?

  Love is patient and kind . . . love never ends.

  The words from 1 Corinthians 13 ran through her head as they had so often these past months, and Abby shook them off. No matter how she had prayed about her marriage in years past, this time love was ending. Her husband wanted to be with someone else. It was over and there was no turning back, nothing to do but figure out a way to go on.

  “Is there someone else?” Beth angled her head so she could make eye contact with Abby. “For either of you, I mean?”

  Abby shrugged. “John’s been seeing someone at work, but honestly our marriage died before she came into the picture.”

  Beth shuffled her feet absently in the gravel along the path. “You, too? Seeing someone, I mean?”

  Abby thought about her editor. “No, nothing like John’s situation.”

  They moved on in silence, more slowly than before. “Men can be such scum.” Beth’s statement wasn’t meant to belittle Abby or the marriage that she and John had shared over the years. She was merely sharing her heart on the matter. “Still . . . you and John? I mean, I could sense something was wrong but I had no idea . . .”A sigh eased from Beth’s lips, and she stared up through the trees as she walked. “Makes you want to warn Nicole, doesn’t it?”

  Abby’s defenses reared up at Beth’s suggestion. No, she didn’t want to warn Nicole! Marriage was still a good thing, the right thing for most people. What had happened to Beth and her husband, what was happening now with Abby and John, was still the exception. It had to be. Abby couldn’t imagine a world where all hope for lasting love was nonexistent. “Nicole and Matt’ll be fine.” There was certainty in Abby’s voice, and Beth raised an eyebrow.

  “I thought you and John would be fine, too.”

  “For a lot of years we were.” Abby picked up her pace. She was suddenly anxious to be back with Nicole, to a place where new love still seemed full of promise and the reality of her divorce was weeks away.

  “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Abby sighed and stared out at the lake, her feet finding their own way as they rounded a bend. She’d had months, years to think about that question but still the answer did not come easily. “I think it was the year Nicole made the Select soccer team. John was busy with football and the boys, and Nicole and I were gone almost every weekend.”

  Beth nodded but said nothing.

  “We were so busy with the kids, so caught up in our separate lives, that when we were together . . . I don’t know, it was like we were strangers or something. I’d get frustrated when he didn’t ask about the kids’ games or the articles I was writing; he’d feel the same way when I didn’t ask him about practice or Friday night football games.” She paused. “I don’t know. He’d leave clothes lying around, and I’d forget to make dinner every night. We started getting on each other’s nerves. Like too much had happened since the last time we were together and there was no real way to catch up. Things I used to rush home and tell him seemed not so important anymore and . . . our conversations became more functional small talk than anything else.”

  Abby felt the tears again and blinked so she could see clearly. “I can’t really put my finger on it, Beth. It was like overnight all the things we used to laugh at weren’t funny anymore. The details he used to share with me about football went unsaid. Our time together on the pier—where we used to talk just the two of us—was forgotten. Things like that. I knew it at the time and I guess that made it worse. I didn’t want to hear about his players or the training routine; I was tired of caring about which sophomore might make varsity and which senior had the best shot at a blowout year. It just didn’t matter. I wanted him to ask me about my day, act a little interested in what I was writing and which magazine was buying.”

  There was quiet for a moment as they kept walking. Finally Beth drew a deep breath. “You and John had something most people never get in a lifetime.”

  A wave of overwhelming sadness washed over Abby, and she stopped in her tracks, wiping her eyes and trying to get a handle on her feelings. “When I think back to the man he was, the man I fell in love with . . . I can’t believe we’re going through with this.”

  “But the truth is you’re not the same people you
were back then, even I can see that.” Beth made it sound so matter-of-fact, as though people like she and John simply changed and marriages like theirs died every day of the week. It made Abby want to scream, made her want to stop the madness, race home, and shake John until both of them realized the mistake they were about to make.

  But was it a mistake?

  He was in love with Charlene now and he hadn’t so much as asked about Abby’s day in more than a year. The truth that Beth was right made Abby even angrier. “Let’s get back.” Abby felt like she was carrying John and Nicole and Kade and Sean squarely on her shoulders, knowing that the burden would only get heavier, not lighter in the days to come. She wiped away the last of her tears and began moving forward once more. “Nicole’ll be wondering where we are.”

  “I won’t say anything. Obviously.” Beth reached out and squeezed Abby’s hand once. “I’m here for you.”

  Abby managed a smile. Beth meant well, and though Abby had spent a lifetime convincing herself she had little or nothing in common with her independent, cynical little sister, the days were quickly coming when they would share more similarities than Abby cared to think about. “Thanks.”

  They walked the remainder of the trail in silence and soon were back at the cabin. Abby opened the door, then stopped cold at what she saw. Jo and Nicole were sitting cross-legged on the same bottom bunk, facing each other and holding hands as they bowed in prayer. Beth caught a glimpse of them and moved back outside to a distant chair on the front porch.

  But Abby couldn’t bring herself to turn away. Here was her only daughter, the girl she herself had taught to pray, the one she had prayed over on countless nights year after year, now joined in prayer with a virtual stranger. A woman who until a few months ago was a divorcée who didn’t know the first thing about having a relationship with the Lord. Yet here was Nicole praying with that very woman.

  Probably the kind of prayer she might have prayed with Nicole back before . . . well, if things were different. Abby realized then that she had lost something of herself, the part that years earlier would have been sitting where Jo was. Another casualty of our dying marriage. Through her tears she wondered how—by what awful, miserable twist of fate—she had switched roles with the woman before her. And whether there was any way she could ever rise again from the pit she occupied to that graceful, peaceful place Jo Harter had somehow found.

  The moment the van was out of sight, John set aside the bicycle gearshift he’d been working on, washed his hands, and wandered into the family room to his old easy chair. Sean had ridden his bike halfway around the lake to a friend’s house, and Kade was working out at school, trying to gain another ten pounds before college.

  The house was quieter than it had been in days.

  How had none of them noticed? Wasn’t it obvious that he and Abby hadn’t so much as touched in front of the kids in months? John let the question hang in the rafters of his mind and it occurred to him that he was thirsty. He made his way through the dining room into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. As he filled it, his eyes fell on the phone.

  “I’ll be home . . . call me if you want . . . call me if you want . . . call me if you want . . .”

  Charlene’s words played in his ears until he could feel himself being pulled toward the receiver. Help me out of this, God . . . Please. I promised Abby . . .

  Love bears all things, My son . . . love never ends.

  The thought rattled around in his tinny heart and set his feet in motion, moving back through the dining room, away from the phone. Halfway to his chair he spotted a paper on the table and stopped to read the cover.

  “Merits of the Eagle—A Senior Class Project by Kade Reynolds.”

  Kade had aced the paper and for days now he’d been harping on John to read it. He reached down and picked it up, opening the first page and scanning the table of contents. “Traits of an eagle . . . What makes the eagle different . . . The eagle takes a mate . . .” The paper was ten pages long and looked tedious.

  Read it, son . . . read it.

  He was drawn to the report by something he couldn’t see . . . couldn’t explain. A silent voice almost like God’s had once been, back when they had spent their days in conversation . . . but why would God want him to look at Kade’s report?

  Then another voice echoed through him.

  Don’t waste your time. Who cares about the eagle? You’re a week away from moving out and you have the house to yourself. Make the most of it.

  As the thought slithered across his conscious, John pulled his eyes away from the paper in his hand and stared hard at the telephone.

  “I’ll be here . . . call me, John . . . I’ll be here.”

  Without giving it another thought, he dropped the paper on the table once more. Refusing to think about promises to Abby or what kind of man he’d become, John lifted the receiver. But just as he was about to dial her number, the phone rang. John drew back as quickly as if Abby had walked into the room. He pushed a button and held the phone to his ear, his heart beating wildly. “Hello?”

  “Dad?” It was Nicole, her voice dripping with tender nostalgia. “It’s me. I’m on the cell phone at our old campsite. Can you believe it reaches from way out here?”

  John’s desire to call Charlene disappeared instantly. He forced his voice to sound normal, as though he’d been sitting around the living room watching ESPN. “Hi, honey. You having fun?”

  “Yeah, we’re gonna play Scrabble and stay up all night talking.” She paused, and John could almost see the sparkle in her eyes. “Mom said I could call real quick and tell you good night.”

  A thin layer of sweat broke out across John’s forehead and he gulped back his anxiety. “I’m glad you’re having a good time, sweetheart.” Should I say it? “And, uh, tell Mom I said hi.”

  Nicole sighed at the mention of her mother, and John had the feeling she was debating whether to speak. “Dad, I’m praying for you and Mom.”

  John’s anxiety level doubled. “For . . . for us?” What had Abby told her? And why now, with her wedding days away?

  Nicole giggled. “Parents need prayers, too, Dad. I figure as long as we’re gone for a few days talking about love and stuff, I might as well pray for you guys. Maybe watching me and Matt get married on your anniversary will make you feel like newlyweds again. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

  There were a hundred things John wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure he should voice any of them. To defend their marriage was to lie to her, but to say nothing was to admit there was a problem. John drew a deep breath. “It never hurts to pray.”

  “Well, I gotta run. I just can’t believe that a week from now I’ll be on my honeymoon. It feels like my days of being a little girl are ending, you know?”

  John’s heart felt as if someone had ripped it from his chest and stomped on it. Dozens of snapshots of Nicole raced through his mind: toothless on her first day of kindergarten, decked out in blue and gray at one of his football games and cheering alongside the big girls, booting a soccer ball over the heads of three defenders in a tournament game her eighth grade year, playing the piano in her cap and gown hours before her high-school graduation. Where had the time gone? And what would happen to Nicole’s smile in two weeks when the news was out?

  There was a lump in John’s throat, and again he had no idea what to say.

  “Dad? You still there?” The connection was breaking up and Nicole sounded concerned.

  “I’m here, honey. Try to remember it isn’t so much an ending as . . . a new beginning.”

  “Right . . . that’s what Mom said, too.” Thank goodness she was too excited about being married to spend much time reminiscing. “Well, I’ll see you in a few days, Dad. I love you.”

  John closed his eyes and dropped into the nearest dining room chair. “Love you, too, Nick.”

  He disconnected the call and left the receiver on the table, imagining the fallout that lay ahead. Before he could decide what to do
next, the phone rang again. What’d you forget this time, Nicole? “Hello, honey, I’m all ears . . .”

  There was a pause, then Charlene’s voice sounded coolly on the other end. “That’s nice . . . expecting me or someone else?”

  John’s head began to spin. He hated the crazy, confused web that his life had become. “I . . . I thought it was Nicole.”

  “Nicole.” Charlene’s voice was flat. “Not Abby, though, right?”

  That was it. “Look, get off my back. I don’t have to defend myself to you, Charlene.”

  He sighed and massaged his temples, his eyes closed. Nearly a minute passed in silence. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. I just don’t want to talk to you right now . . . I need time.”

  There was a pause, and then he heard a sniffling sound. Great, now I’m making two women cry. Strangely Charlene’s tears only frustrated him more. “I’ve gotta go.”

  She cleared her throat. “Call me when you’re ready . . . and not until then, okay?”

  An odd sense of relief flooded John’s soul. “Okay.”

  When he’d hung up, John planted his forearms on the kitchen table and stared out the window into the dark night. What had he almost done? Why was he going to call her in the first place? And how could he feel so strongly for her one minute and barely able to tolerate her the next?

  It had never been that way with Abby, not in the beginning at least. Not after ten years, for that matter. With Abby he’d always looked forward to their time together. They’d shared a chemistry that had not let up with time. So why’d you stop loving me, Abby? Why’d you lose interest in everything about me?

  His eyes fell on Kade’s report still lying on the table, and he could hear his son’s voice. “Take a look at it, Dad. I’m leaving it right here until you read it.”

  Fine. Charlene wouldn’t be calling again; he was alone for the night. Why not? He picked up the report and moved across the kitchen to his easy chair in the next room. When he was comfortable he turned to the first page. The report was well-written and informative, and despite every other emotion that warred inside him, John felt a surge of pride. Kade would do well at the University of Iowa, and not just on the playing field.