by Sheila Walsh
Ten
MONDAY MORNING, AVA DROVE TO THE HIGH SCHOOL TO MEET with the principal and Coach Ray. A Crock-Pot of stew sat in a box in the passenger seat for the funeral of Private Grant being held in a few hours. She told herself that no matter what happened at the meeting, she had a lot to be grateful for. Their family was going through a trial, but it was nothing compared to what Private Grant’s family was facing. Still, this was a first—she’d never met with school officials about disciplinary action for either of her children.
Ava pulled up next to Dane in the school parking lot. She locked her car and slipped into the passenger seat of his luxury SUV. She didn’t look at him and barely grunted a greeting. She knew little of his trip to New York that had stretched beyond his promised Sunday afternoon arrival. He’d come to the school straight from the airport.
“I think we should pray,” Dane said before she could utter a word. Ava turned toward her husband, wondering if she’d heard him right. She was the one who brought up prayer. With her irritation high over his many disappearing acts, Ava hadn’t thought to pray before this meeting.
“You’re worried he’ll be off the team?” she asked, irritated.
Dane leaned back in his seat. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately. I know it appears I’m consumed with work. But having the company in trouble, it’s made me think about what’s really important.”
“And what is that?” Ava wanted to take this in, but her anger and suspicion weren’t easily abated.
“Our family. Us.” He studied her face in a way he hadn’t done in such a long time that she shifted in the seat, wondering what he saw. Did he notice the lines around her eyes, the tiredness in her face? Dane had grown better-looking with age as some men did. He could turn the heads of women half her age, and surely did, while Ava struggled with an extra fifteen pounds and didn’t work out as much as he did.
Ava turned away with her head against the headrest, savoring the scent of Dane’s cologne and the warmth inside his vehicle.
“I guess we should get inside,” she murmured.
“Or we could make out in the backseat and pretend we’re in college again,” he said with a slight smile.
“What?” she said, surprised by his words.
He took her chin with his fingers and guided her face toward his. His kiss was long and tender, awakening a surprising amount of feeling throughout her body.
“Where did that come from?” She scrutinized his face. “Are you having an affair?”
“What?” Dane leaned back surprised.
“Tell me the truth. Are you?” Ava studied his face, searching for the lie. Dane’s lips curled into the edge of a smile as if barely holding back a tumult of laughter.
“Why would you ask me such a thing?”
“So you are.” A cold shot of adrenaline raced through her.
“No, I’m not. Why would you say that?”
Ava wasn’t sure she believed him. “Then are you looking at pornography online? Or something like that?”
“Ava. What is this?”
“When a man is having an affair or doing something wrong, anything wrong, he starts acting differently at home. First, his schedule changes. Then often he starts complimenting his wife, buying her gifts or flowers. It’s the guilt. A classic sign of a man’s betrayal is suddenly becoming a good husband.”
“I’m glad I haven’t bought you flowers.” Dane laughed, only making her angrier.
“It’s not funny.”
“Listen, I’m not having an affair.”
Ava heard a bell ring across the school grounds.
“We’re going to be late for the principal,” Ava said and opened the car door to a spillway of cold air. Something was wrong. Something had changed. A man didn’t make such fluctuations overnight without something happening.
Before she could rise from the car, he leaned across, his body pressing against hers as he reached for the door and closed it shut.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re going to pray. And then I’m going to kiss you again.”
“Then do it,” she said in annoyance, and something else— respect, fear, excitement.
Dane took her hand and prayed for Jason, for them as parents, for their family, and finally for their future.
“Everything is shaky right now. Whatever path you have for us, help us to know it and have the strength to take it.”
Could prayers be amended? Ava wondered. “Whatever path” sounded too open-ended with the growing unrest in their family.
Dane held the door open, then followed Ava inside the administration building, humming a death march. Ava didn’t find it humorous but tried smiling anyway.
“We have an appointment,” Ava said, but the receptionist rose from her chair as she recognized them. The older woman’s grim expression further unsettled Ava’s stomach.
“Go on in. Principal Landon and Coach Ray will be there shortly.”
Through the glass window Ava saw Jason already sitting in a chair off to the side and slumped low in the seat. She had an instant vision of him as a five-year-old in kindergarten. She’d been called in because he’d freed the classroom lizard.
“He hated that cold cage and wanted to play outside on the playground,” he’d told her, not understanding why he was in trouble.
“Hi, honey,” Ava said as they walked into the office. Jason raised his head as they sat beside him.
“Hi, Mom,” he said in a low monotone.
Dane greeted their son, but Jason didn’t respond. Before either one of them could remind Jason to respect his father, the door reopened as the coach and principal arrived.
“Hey, buddy,” Dane said, shaking Coach Ray’s hand. The coach didn’t respond with his usual quick humor and hard slap on the back.
The greetings became more subdued as they pulled up seats, with Principal Landon moving around his desk and opening a file.
“Sit up, son,” Dane said in a firm tone. Jason sighed loudly and slid up a few inches in the chair.
“We know why we’re meeting, but do you have any questions?” Principal Landon asked.
“What kind of drugs?” Dane asked, more to Jason.
“The test doesn’t specify. But from talking with Jason . . . Do you want to tell them?”
Jason shook his head. His eyes didn’t leave his shoes.
Ava wanted to burst into tears. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
“It seems there has been an instance of marijuana and a somewhat regular use of prescription drugs,” Coach Ray said.
“What?” Ava and Dane said in unison, with Dane much louder.
“You’ve been taking prescription drugs?” Dane said, his face red with anger. “And smoking pot? When did this start? Are you an idiot?”
“Dane!” Ava said, putting her hand on Dane’s arm. Jason winced at Dane’s anger, but made no other response.
“I know this is tough to hear,” Coach Ray said. “My middle son went through something like this, and yeah, I pretty much lost it. But let me finish.”
Dane leaned back in his seat, his body rigid with the pent-up fury.
“He’s been taking scripts—as the kids call it—because apparently he hurt his knee at football camp.”
“But he did physical therapy and is fine now,” Ava said, glancing between Jason and his coach.
“Not as fine as we thought,” Coach Ray said.
“So what’s going to happen?” Dane asked, cutting to the point as he often did.
“He’s out for the rest of the season.”
“Out?” Ava asked. “You mean off the team. Completely?”
“Yes. You should know that this is a huge blow to the entire team. We need Jason. He’s let us all down. As well as himself.”
“And he’s suspended from school for the next week,” Principal Landon stated.
“We have a zero-tolerance drug policy. One more instance of this, and he’s expelled.”
“W
hy, Jason?” Ava heard herself say.
“Mom—” Jason began, and she could see the tears filling the corners of his eyes. He looked at his coach. “Do I have to be here?”
“You can sit outside, if your parents don’t mind.”
“Fine. Whatever,” Dane said.
Jason rose from his chair and tossed his backpack over his shoulder, quickly leaving the room.
“Honestly, I know Jason is a good kid,” Coach Ray said.
“His teachers all say so,” Principal Landon echoed.
“Obviously something is wrong,” Ava said, though her voice sounded far from herself.
“He could have a dependency problem. I think he was medicating to keep playing. The pot, well, I don’t know why he was messing around with that. He knows we do the random testing, all the guys know it.”
Dane leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the ground while the coach spoke.
“After the money we’ve donated to the sport program, you can’t do us a favor?”
“Dane, we can’t ask things like that,” Ava said.
“Of course, that was wrong of me to ask. I’m sorry.”
Coach ran his hand through his thinning hair. “I’d like to do something, I really would. But the news is already out. Once the team knows and the community starts to hear, we have to follow the rules or we open ourselves up for a lawsuit.”
“No, it wouldn’t be right anyway. Rules are rules,” Dane said.
Jason waited on a bench outside the door. As they walked out, he returned for a moment into the office. Ava thought she heard him apologize to the two men, but she couldn’t be sure.
The three of them walked to the parking lot together. Jason’s suspension began immediately.
“You’re grounded from all extra activities at home as well,”
Dane said. Ava could see his expression soften as he studied their son. “This is very disappointing. But you’ve let yourself down most of all. You may have ruined your college career with this move. But in the end . . . it’s gonna be all right, buddy,”
Dane said, wrapping an arm over his shoulder.
Jason shook off his arm and walked ahead of them.
Her son didn’t speak as Ava drove them away from the school. Dane had rushed off to work with more empty promises that he’d tackle their home problems soon.
When she dropped off the stew for the funeral of Private Grant, she could no longer gather up gratitude. Jason didn’t want to leave the car. Ava thought it might be good for him to see the grieving family, but she didn’t want to subject the family to her moody son.
Ava found Barbara, another member of the ministry team, organizing food in the kitchen. She gave Barbara the stew and then returned to Jason in the car. As Ava drove away, she thought of the gratitude of the families they helped.
Ava’s involvement in women’s ministries had led her to start a program to help people during times of crisis. She had three other women who worked with her consistently, and a list of volunteers for when a greater need arose. They didn’t do earth-shattering work. They didn’t build wells in Haiti, save victims of natural disasters, or rescue children in sex-trafficking stings, but she hoped what they did mattered to individuals in need. People called when they were going through anything that could be described as heartbreaking: divorce, abuse, abandonment, death, or loss of any kind.
Once when a car hit a little girl’s dog, they sent the girl a stuffed animal dog and a gift card to Chuck E. Cheese. A contact of Dane’s had the governor of Texas sign a card to the girl, and he included a story about how he lost his childhood dog in a similar way. He wrote that he hoped their dogs were in heaven together.
Ava enjoyed helping children the most. They dealt with pain on such different terms. It broke her heart to see their tears, to hear their questions, and yet they had such innocent belief. Ava knew that this precious hope would wane in the years to come. Ava hoped to leave them with comfort, with hope that might soothe. She understood childhood pain.
Ava let her friend Kayanne do more of the dealings with the adults. Kayanne wasn’t moved by their anger, by flowers being tossed in her face with harsh words like, “Is that all God is going to do for me, have someone bring flowers? Why won’t God give me my son back?”
The ministry reached beyond the church membership to most anyone touched by tragedy in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. Ava was busier in this role than she wanted to be.
As she rode with Jason slumped in silence beside her, she realized that helping others had taken a lot of her time in the past few years. Her son was going through something serious, and she had been completely oblivious.
She could help other families, but she didn’t know how to help her own.
When Ava called Sienna, her daughter was stunned by the revelation, no longer offering assurance that this wasn’t serious.
The next night, Ava found Dane in the kitchen when she returned home from a late planning meeting where she’d removed herself from helping with the Christmas program.
“Have you talked to Jason?” she asked.
“He won’t talk. I think it’s his form of rebelling or something. But it’s only going to prolong his restriction.”
“Restriction’s all well and good, but how are we going to deal with the drug problem? We don’t even know if he’s addicted, if he needs rehab, or what. And does he need more physical therapy for his knee?”
Dane carried a bowl of ice cream with sprinkles on top and sat down at his computer on the dining room table. Sienna and Dane always put sprinkles on their ice cream, it was one of their “things” and brought on the missing of her daughter again.
“I know. I’ll get him to talk. He might just need a couple days.”
“I’m worried about this family.”
Dane nodded, and she saw the weariness in his features. Ava realized that except for the other day in the car, he hadn’t looked at her the way he used to in a long time. He walked around as if with blinders on his eyes. He didn’t say she looked beautiful or seem to notice anything outside of his narrow vision.
“Would you tell me if you were seeing someone else?” she asked.
Dane’s head shot up with a surprised expression that turned comical.
“Why do you find that so humorous?” she asked, annoyed at his response.
“Because if you could see inside my head and follow me around all day, you’d see that someone other than you is the last thing on my mind.”
He set down his bowl of ice cream and rose from his chair. He took her hands, pulled Ava toward the couch until she was sitting on his lap. She rarely did that anymore.
“Then what is happening?” she said, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around his neck.
He took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. People asked him if he was a pilot or a former football player. Ava studied their family photograph to see if she was outdistancing him in age, but she couldn’t judge.
“I haven’t wanted to worry you.”
“Me worry? I could have prayed. Have you been praying?”
Dane set his spoon down. “I actually have. Not as much as you would. But yes.”
“Wow, it is bad,” she muttered as a joke, but there was truth there. Dane attended church with them, and he gave money religiously, but he was the first to admit that God wasn’t front and center in his life.
“Yes, it is. But we’ll figure it out. I know God isn’t going to let my company fail. I’ve been praying too hard about it. He won’t let this family fall apart either.”
Ava nodded. She didn’t remind Dane of what she kept thinking lately. That God didn’t always do what we thought was best for us. In fact, He rarely did.
This appeared more like the wild ride, the unknown, the untidy that kept creeping into her thoughts like dark clouds gathering on the horizon. Ava had run from the image, yet that had never stopped a storm. There was no time for preparation— the tempest gathered at their doorstep.
Eleven
THOUGH AVA’S MOTHER DIED DURING AVA’S KINDERGARTEN YEAR, her daddy’s sermon topics stemmed from her mother’s betrayal for many years to come. Seemingly out of the blue, he’d preach messages around the unfaithful or villainous women of the Bible. At times he’d mention Leanne by name, lamenting about how his own wife had gone the way of Delilah and Jezebel. His eyes would fill with tears as he expressed how he prayed for her soul.
She’d divorced him, left them for a man who told her all about the world and promised to show it to her. She and her new boyfriend were killed in a car accident on a highway outside of Chicago. It was God’s hand of judgment, the church members murmured, as if to console Daddy.
That Daddy was flawed and full of mistakes only served to make his congregation love him more. Over half the women swooned over him, married or not, from teenagers to the elderly. Ava never questioned if he slept with any of them, at least not then. She didn’t think of such things as a child. No one accused him of it except a few disgruntled husbands.
Even after he was convicted, most people in his congregation stood by him, believing the devil had come in to destroy a wonderful man. His stiff sentence given during a time when Texas was being stricter about law enforcement was another sign of Satan’s devious plan.
He was sentenced to life, though everyone said it would be appealed or he’d one day get paroled.
Ava breathed in the October air as she sat on the bench in what she called her private Garden of Gethsemane, located behind the modern three-story church building built for Sunday school and youth events. Ava and Dane had attended this church for fifteen years, first coming because of the great children’s program and warm welcome of the congregation. Over time the closeness had been lost with the growth of the church from the hundreds into the thousands, but Ava knew that every church underwent stages of growth, decay, renewal, change, reassessment, even crisis.
Today she’d taken an hour between a leadership meeting and a private meeting with Tammy Blake, a woman she mentored in planning her first charity ball for kids with health issues. The little garden was an oasis between conversations, worries, planning, and schedules. Here she could reflect and breathe, eat her lunch with the sound of birds singing. She could pray without thinking about what she was actually saying. Her “poured out” prayers happened in solitude like this. Today, her thoughts overruled her prayers as she thought about Daddy and his sermons about Mama. Ava hadn’t thought of that in years, and she wondered why so many childhood thoughts kept returning lately.
