A Morning Like This

by Deborah Bedford

  This, she could show Samantha. She could gather her towel and her dry clothes and her Teva sandals fast, if David wanted. She could. She waited, her hand frozen in midair, her breath in her throat.

  But David didn’t invite her. He watched her for a moment with his head slightly turned, as if he knew they had no other choice but this one. He didn’t tell her good-bye. She remembered the first morning when he’d left, when he hadn’t kissed her. How many of their partings had been like this since then, with him leaving, or turning away? As if it didn’t matter to him what she did at all?

  That afternoon while the children were gone floating Flat Creek, it began to rain at the house.

  Heavy drops began to pelt the dust and the metal roof; water ran in rivulets down the window. Abby looked out the front door and worried. Storms could be spotty in this valley, one square mile doused with rain, another never out of the sun at all. David had a bad way of being caught in the wrong place during storms.

  Outside the front window, ominous gray clouds hung like scalloped, thready valances over the mountains, obliterating any view of the Tetons. Town would be busy today. Campers from Yellowstone would drive all the way into civilization just to get warm and dry. They’d wait in line for hours at Bubba’s for a hot plateful of ribs and, since they’d been forced out from the wilderness, they would do laundry at the Soap Opera Laundromat and make use of the time.

  Abby was scrubbing the condensation off the front glass when she heard the sound of a car. That’s how it came to be that Abby was watching when Susan Roche parked far away on the road, as if she didn’t know whether or not she was allowed to drive close. She didn’t get out of her car.

  Abby opened the front door and held Brewster back by the collar. For long moments she waited, while Brewster barked low and hard, warning her of danger. For long moments, Abby didn’t move, issuing a challenge, making herself visible to the woman parked on the street. Beside her feet on the walkway by the steps, the handprints they’d joyously smashed into the cement when they’d first built this house—David’s big hand, Abby’s medium one, Braden’s tiny splayed fingers—sparkled with rain.

  I have a right to confront her in anger. Lord, I have a right to accuse her of sleeping with my husband.

  A figure in a white cotton sweater and a pair of jeans finally unfolded from the driver’s side and came moving up the driveway in the mist. The woman’s blonde hair was streaming, a magazine unfolded, crooked to keep the rain off, over her head.

  Abby shoved Brewster back inside the front door and shut him away to make him be quiet. Through the heavy wooden door, she heard him still going at it, his deep voice frantic.

  The word came from someplace deep inside her, somewhere unguarded and surprising, an entire thought unformulated and unbidden.

  When you ask for My love, beloved one, you ask to set more of yourself aside.

  I’m angry, Father. I’m hurt.

  You aren’t asking not to be angry, are you? You’re asking Me to take charge.

  Here the woman came, and the two of them stood face to face in the rain. “Is David Treasure here? Is this his house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he inside?” A step forward that Susan Roche had no right to take.

  “You’re looking for Samantha?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll be back in a little while.”

  “They? Who’s they?”

  “My son,” Abby said. “My husband.” A hesitation in which they each held the world in their eyes. “And your daughter.”

  Susan still held the magazine, a current issue of Better Homes and Gardens, high over her head. She laughed self-consciously, brought it down, and folded it wetly beneath her arm. “Abigail? Is it you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, hello.”

  Neither of them knew what to say. So Abby did the only thing she knew to do: she brought Susan in out of the rain.

  While the woman took time drying off in the bathroom and Brewster prowled suspiciously through the house, Abby opened the freezer door and stared inside. She thought, she’s here, and surely I can’t be expected to cook for her. Of course, there was that frozen Stouffer’s lasagna. David hated frozen lasagna. That would be the perfect thing.

  Abby zipped open the box and read the instructions, which proved indecipherable in her state of mind. Remove film cover from tray. Bake on cookie sheet in center of oven. Let sit for five minutes for best flavor.

  She leaned her head against the cabinet. No. No.

  And turned to find Susan standing behind her, watching.

  I choose to give this to You, Lord. I do. I choose. Take it.

  “I could ask you to forgive me,” Susan said defensively, “but it wouldn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

  For a long time, Abby stood silent, her teeth biting into her lower lip.

  “I’ve gotten my daughter out of it. I don’t regret one moment.”

  Abby pressed her knuckle against her mouth.

  “The prayer was nice,” Susan said. “And you probably expect me to ask for forgiveness, but I’m not going to. I’ve raised a wonderful daughter.”

  For a long time Abby stood waiting, not trusting herself to speak. That’s beside the point, she wanted to say. Then words, from somewhere other than herself, began to pour forth.

  “I don’t expect anything from you, Susan,” she said quietly. “I know you feel like you need to say something or explain, but I want you to know that you don’t have to.”

  “You don’t—? I don’t have to?”

  “No.”

  Those two sentences, and it seemed as if some dam inside Susan had come crashing open. Her face crumpled. She stopped trying to make herself clear. Instead, “I was so young then,” she said, crying, free to react from her heart. “Oh, Abigail. That was when I thought everything in the world belonged to me.”

  “I see,” Abby said. “I see.”

  That’s exactly where they were standing when Abby’s husband entered the house with his children, and looked from one woman to the other.

  David took off an hour early from the bank the next afternoon to cut firewood for the church. He stopped by the house, where he knew Abby wouldn’t be, loaded up a dented can of gasoline, and set out to tune up his cherished Husqvarna chainsaw.

  He removed the bar guard, found his sharpening file, and ran it with smooth precision over each blade along the bar. He worked the choke and adjusted the throttle, hit the Smart Start feature, and tested the chainsaw’s center of gravity.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about his daughter, how much he loved her already, how sick she was.

  He couldn’t stop thinking of Abby and Susan in the room together, a portrait of his infidelity, a divided house.

  He gave the engine a test run. As the chainsaw rumbled, David searched for reprieve in all 6.1 horsepower of the engine in his hands, the way it revved to the speed of 12,000 rpms. He pointed the bar at a two-o’clock-angle and closed his eyes, enjoying the smooth, powerful vibration before he switched it off. He set the throttle lock, replaced the bar guard, loaded it into the back of the SUV along with the little pouch of sharpening tools, and started on his way.

  He and the kids had come back to the house yesterday, never having seen a lick of rain, as boisterous as blackbirds, as wet as otters, with Wyoming mud splattered all over their legs, ready to tell Abby stories.

  And there had stood Susan Roche, as if she belonged in their living room, talking to Braden, hugging Samantha, wagging that little girl back and forth in her arms, while Abby stood to one side, looking stricken.

  He didn’t begrudge anything Susan had done, except not telling the truth sooner.

  He was grateful to her for raising Samantha.

  But she’d told him she was staying at the Elk Country Inn. He’d never pictured what it would feel like to walk into his home and find Abby playing hostess to her. These were the rooms where they had built their lives together. This house had lon
g been their place of joy and safety. Good things and bad things both, he was the husband. He was the one who had unlocked the door and let everything in.

  Mosquito Creek Road was bumpy as a washboard and filled with ruts. The farther David bounced along on it, the more distressed he became. Seeing Susan sitting with Abby was like seeing every transgression he’d ever committed. Seeing the two women standing together, each with her own child, was like seeing his mistakes magnified and projected on a screen bigger than the one at the Spud Drive-In. Much bigger.

  David found a spot with deadfall trees and parked. He revved up the chainsaw. With every winter-kill tree he found and felled, with every length of pine and spruce he severed and shoved into the cargo bay of his Suburban, he worked to absolve himself of his wrongdoing. With every log he lugged and every woodchip he scrubbed out of his eyes with his knuckles, he fought to release himself from the horrible tug-of-war in his spirit.

  David staggered, bearing a massive log that he lugged over and pitched into the SUV. The shock-absorbers gave way an inch or so beneath the weight of it. His muscles burned. He stood back and gauged the space. He might cram three more small sections in, then he’d head down to the Christian Center to unload before he came up for a second installment.

  And maybe a third.

  Two cords he could take credit for, if he could get that much in before dark.

  But, all that measuring, and David didn’t make a move toward the next piece of wood. He stood with his feet straddled wide and his solemn gaze directed toward the bare branches in a dead-standing tree. No matter how hard he worked, no matter how many pounds of firewood he hauled in, he couldn’t make the sick regret and the longing go away.

  I didn’t have any right to be defensive with Abby. Every criticism she’s heaped on me, I’ve deserved.

  Deadfall trunks lay in haphazard disarray around David’s feet. He picked his way through them until he came to one he had hewn, one that looked like it would fit perfectly into the space left for it. He lugged it over and began to shove it into place.

  How many years have to go by—

  The log barely budged. He put his shoulder to it and heaved.

  —before a man is forgiven?

  David pushed with everything he could muster.

  Lord, why did You wait this long—

  The log slid in.

  —to let me be proven guilty?

  The back filled, David hammered the forest-service permit into one log, slammed the gate, and brushed sawdust off his palms. He headed down the jarring road, keeping his foot off the brake as much as possible, gearing down because he conveyed a heavy load. After he arrived at the church and parked in the Hulls’ driveway, he began pitching everything onto the grass, hurrying so he wouldn’t get caught before he could make another run. But here came Nelson across the yard.

  “Need a hand?”

  “Naw. I got this. You’ve probably got plenty of other things to do.”

  “Sure. I’ve got plenty of other things. But nothing else I’d rather do.” Nelson stepped up to help him and, for a long time, the two friends labored side by side, the flying chunks of wood hitting the ground with hollow, splintery thuds. For a long time David waited before he said what was forcing itself out from him, everything that was on his mind.

  “You think she’s going to die because of my sin?” David asked.

  Nelson curled his arms around a huge section of wood and thunked it on top of the others.

  “You think God’s doing it this way to make me pay?” David didn’t stack two logs in his arms this time. He stacked three. “Christians get forgiven for what they did before they got saved.” His muscles strained. He let the logs roll off onto the pile, thunk thunk thunk, by themselves. “But what about this? I did it after.” Nelson paused and measured the width of the sky with his eyes. David straightened and crossed his arms. He stood with his legs wide apart and his face turned up toward the pale summer sky and the clouds that drifted across it like cotton wadding.

  “Maybe,” Nelson said to the air above them, “He wants you to stop struggling. Maybe He just wants you to be.”

  “I’m a man, Nelson. I can’t just be.” David turned to the cargo bay and started pitching logs again. “And what about Sam, Nelson? What about all this awful darkness in her life?”

  “What about it, David?” Nelson propped a foot on a stump and hesitated. “You don’t think Christ dying for you was enough?”

  Ridiculous. “Of course it was enough. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “A sin as devastating as adultery, David. Thinking your mistakes are different from everybody else’s, that they’re somehow bigger. That, because they’re yours, they’re unpardonable.”

  More logs hefted, more logs thrown. Nelson kept up, right beside David, chunks of rotten bark covering his yellow shirt.

  “He’s bringing you to yourself, David.” Nelson scrubbed sawdust from his eye with one finger. “Humans love us because of what we are. God loves us because He knows our full potential. Because Jesus Christ died for us, the Father looks at us and doesn’t see us as we are. He looks and sees everything He created us to be.”

  “Oh,” David said. “Oh.” And felt the tears coming to his eyes.

  “For God is light,” Nelson said, “and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

  Sunday morning at the Jackson Hole Christian Center and two children sat side by side in the chairs, nibbling on peanut-butter cups that their father snuck them, each of them busily drawing their own separate sketches on a church bulletin.

  Braden drew a soldier crouched in a warrior’s stance, with a huge belt, a sword drawn for battle, and an upheld shield.

  A little boy’s picture.

  Samantha drew little creatures, round and cute, with antennas. Some of them were happy, some were mad, and some were dancing.

  Not the type of picture either Abby or David had expected a little girl to draw at all.

  Abby did not stand at her chair for the praise music. She sat with her head lowered, her hands curved over the seat in front of her, as if lifting her eyes to the Lord would have revealed something inside her that she herself didn’t want to see. Something scraped raw, bruised, broken.

  David sat with his knees crossed, his chin propped on a thumb, his pointer finger curved in a cee beneath his nose.

  Nelson Hull took the pulpit when the music ended. While everyone waited, he attached a small, cordless microphone to his lapel. His auburn hair never looked quite as ragged on Sunday mornings. He smiled at everyone with his entire face.

  Just when he did, Braden touched his mother’s arm. “Mom,” he said, louder than a whisper. “There’s something I have to do. I have to find out if it’s okay.”

  “Sh-h-hhh.” She narrowed her brows at him. “Not right now. Later.”

  “No, Mom.” He shook his head. “Sam and I have to do this. This is the chance.”

  “The chance for what?”

  Their conversation was disturbing others. Several people glanced in their direction. Abby leaned in close so he could whisper in her ear. And when he did, her fingers draped loosely over the pew in distrust.

  During the past three days, they had all begun to know Samantha. If they had tried not to, she would not have given them that chance. “Do you want to know about me?” she’d asked Abby as they walked along the bank of Fish Creek looking for muskrats. “I just finished reading a book about Squanto. I like to French braid my hair, but only when my mom has time to help me. If I do it myself, it gets too messy.”

  “It’s fun hearing about girl stuff,” Abby had said. “Your hair.”

  “My favorite drink is Dr. Pepper and my favorite food is cotton candy. My favorite movie is The Great Outdoors. My mom bought me the video.”

  “What else?” Abby had asked. “Tell me.”

  “I always wanted a dog but, instead, I have a cat that’s mellow.”

  “Mellow? Is he a calm cat?”

  “No. That’s h
is color. You know it. Kind of orange with stripes, and white yellow. Mellow.” Then, a pause. “Do you ever wonder what heaven’s like?”

  “Yes,” Abby said.

  “Well,” Samantha said. “Maybe I’m going to get to see it before you do.”

  No. Abby had faltered right then. She realized how tired this was making Sam, just walking along the creek-side with them, searching for forget-me-nots and water animals. The little girl had gone pale from exhaustion and there were deep circles beneath her eyes. “Hey,” Abby said. “We’ll go back to the house. Call your mother to come over from the motel.”

  And now, this. We haven’t arranged it. Nelson is already in the pulpit.

  Lord, is it You who wants this? Does this family have to be so… so transparent together?

  “Mom,” Braden whispered again, his voice growing frantic. This time, he gripped Samantha’s hand. “We want to do this.”

  Oh Lord Oh Lord Oh Lord.

  If Abby searched for one spark of peace inside, she couldn’t find it. She felt shaky, with nothing solid, nothing stable, to hold on to. Her heart ached with panic. Across the heads of the children, she sought David, even though they hadn’t talked in weeks.

  If I could catch David’s eye.

  But David was staring straight ahead, as lockjawed and undistractable as a soldier standing at attention.

  “It might make a difference.” Samantha, who was always braiding the fringe on things, was now braiding the straps on Abby’s purse. “If you don’t mind him doing it.”

  Abby stepped forward onto something that she didn’t know would hold her. “Of course we’ll do it. Of course it will make a difference. Wait here.”

  Loving in secret was one thing. Loving in public was another. As Abby sidled the length of the pew and came out into the aisle in front of a settled congregation, her fear did not dissipate. As she walked forward toward the altar and motioned for Nelson to hear her, Abby knew what she had to do to be right.