Apart at the Seams (29 page)

“Hi. Something going on here?”

Dan was looking at me. So was Hodge. He curled his fingers into a fist, but still, he didn't move.

“Who's this? Your boyfriend? Bobby told me about him. Boy, you just couldn't wait until I was out of the way, could you? Slut.”

“Don't you call her that!” Bethany shouted, shifting back to the right. “Don't call her names!”

I twisted my neck so I could see her and said softly, “It's okay, baby. Just stay behind me, all right?” When she complied, I turned around again and spoke to Hodge. “Dan is a friend of mine.”

“I'll bet.”

Dan had moved into a position on the opposite side of Hodge, about the same distance from him as I was. “You seem pretty upset,” he said calmly, “but there's nothing to be gained in this.”

He pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans so Hodge could see it.

“I know Ivy has a restraining order against you. If I dial 911 right now, the police are going to show up, clap you in cuffs, and take you back to jail. I don't think you want that to happen, particularly with your son watching. I don't want that either.”

Hodge snapped his head toward Dan, and when he did, in the light that came from the porch, I could see there were tears in his eyes.

“What do you know about it? What do you know about my son?”

“I know he's a really nice kid,” Dan said evenly. “I know that he'd like to get to know you better, but right now, you're making that kind of hard. You coming over here when you're not supposed to, yelling at his mother, and calling her filthy names isn't going to do anything but drive him away. Understand? I think you should leave now before things get any worse.”

Hodge looked at Bobby, still sitting in the car with the window rolled up, then at Bethany, who was half-hidden behind me. The light was getting dimmer, and it was harder to see his eyes, but it seemed to me that he was actually thinking over what Dan had said.

After a moment, and to my shock, his fist unclenched, and his hand dropped to his side. “All right,” he said.

And then, not to me but to Bethany, he said, “I'm sorry.”

He started walking away, down the driveway and around the corner, his shoulders drooping. For a minute, I almost felt sorry for him. But I was also happy to see him go.

When he was gone, Bethany started to cry, and so did I. Relief, I suppose. Dan came toward us, crossing the now muddy grass with big, manly strides, oblivious to the fact that his shoes were being ruined, and hugged us both, wrapping one arm around my shoulders and using the other to squeeze Bethany, who was clinging to him for all she was worth.

“You okay?” he asked anxiously. “Did he hurt you?”

I shook my head and sniffled. “No. I honestly think he was trying not to.”

“Do you want me to call the police? He's walking. They can pick him up on the road.”

“Don't. I'm going to have to talk to Arnie and Franklin about what happened, but let's not call the police unless we have to.”

“Are you sure?” Dan said, peering into my eyes.

“He wasn't always like this,” I said quietly. “Nobody is born that angry; somebody made him that way. I'm not going to let him hurt me or my children, but I don't want to hurt him either. Not unless I have to.”

“Well,” Dan said, “if he'd taken one more step toward you and Bethany, I'd have no problem hurting him, but I guess this is your call.”

He kissed me, and I kissed him back, wanting more but breaking away, feeling Bethany's eyes on us.

Dan ran his hand over my scraggly wet hair. “You're a mess,” he said with a soft laugh, and then, “Let's everybody go inside and have some ice cream. We picked up a gallon of chocolate chip on our way home from the bowling alley.” He looked back toward the truck. “Bob-O! Bring in that ice cream, will you, buddy?”

Dan bent down and, as big as she was and as soaked as she was, picked Bethany up. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and rested her head on his shoulder. Bobby, who had jumped out of the truck, ran up behind carrying a plastic grocery sack. “Hey! I want a ride too!”

“Not right now,” I said. “You'll break poor Dan's back.”

“No, he won't,” Dan said, and crouched down. “Hop on, buddy!”

Bobby did, scrambling up Dan's back and clinging to him like a baby orangutan. We walked toward the house, Dan lumbering along with his heavy load, his shirt getting soaked from Bethany's sopping hair and swimsuit. I ran ahead to open the screen door for him.

As they walked across the threshold, Bobby, his face beaming, turned back to look at me. “See? He can do it, Mommy! Dan is superstrong!”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, he is.”

O
ver the following two days, I must have left a dozen messages for Brian, but he didn't return any of my calls.

Obviously, he was angry with me, and really, I couldn't blame him. I wish he had told me the truth about where he was going and why, but I also wish I'd given him the benefit of the doubt before assuming the worst about him. If I had, none of this would have happened. I'd apologized at least ten times via voice mail, once or twice even calling back a second time because I got cut off before I could finish. I think it's really over this time.

I called Libby Burrell and told her to put things on hold for now; I won't be the first one to file. Even so, every time I hear something outside, I think it's someone coming up the driveway to serve me with papers. Nothing so far, but the writing is on the wall. It's just a matter of time.

I called Brian yet again this morning, more from habit than hope. While I was in the middle of the call, I heard a beep, indicating that someone was calling in, and clicked over to answer, hoping that Brian might have seen my name on the screen, relented, and returned my call while I was still leaving a message.

But it wasn't Brian. It was Lanie. As usual, she launched right into her monologue without even saying hello or giving me a chance to get a word in.

“Congratulations,” she said. “I'm glad to see you've
finally
come to grips with reality. I know this is hard for you, Gayla, but it's the smart move; it really is. And things will get better with time, you'll see. Say, after you get packed up and back to the city on Friday, why don't you stay with Roger and me for a few days? We've been invited to a party at Josie and Jerry Dane's place on Saturday. You should tag along. Josie's brother is coming. He's head of the derivatives division at Allied National.
Very
handsome and recently divorced, ripe for a rebound.”

What? Was she seriously talking about setting me up? I wasn't even divorced yet. I wasn't even in the
process
of getting divorced yet. Okay, it was probably inevitable at this point—I'd said as much to her when we talked the day before—but trying to set me up with single men was jumping the gun and a little insensitive, even for Lanie.

“Lanie. I'm not ready. Really. And it's nice of you to want me to stay with you, but I really just want to get home, unpack, and lie low for a few days. Maybe reorganize my closets. Cleaning always makes me feel better.”

“I'm sure it does.” She chuckled. “But you can't tear your closets apart right
now
. You've got to keep your place pristine, at least for the next few days. I don't think it'll take longer than that; the market is really heating up. But until then, it'll be easier for you to stay somewhere else.”

I shook my head, utterly confused. “What won't take longer than that? Why do I have to keep my place pristine? Lanie, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

She sighed impatiently. “I'm
talking
about the apartment.”

“The apartment? What about it?”

“Oh, come on, Gayla. You don't need to be coy with me. True, I was a little miffed when I looked through the new listings this morning and saw you'd gone with another Realtor, but I figured that Brian had insisted on using someone else. Men can be so spiteful during a divorce. But who cares? The main thing is to sell your place, find a new one, and make a fresh start.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, feeling dazed and a little panicky. “Brian listed the apartment for sale?”

“Yes. Didn't he tell you?” She clucked her tongue and said, “I can't believe he did that without telling you. What a louse. Maybe the Realtor was pushing him to get it on the market before the weekend and figured they would get your signature on the paperwork when you got back to town on Friday. Still, they shouldn't do it that way. It's unethical. Be sure to tell Libby about this when you talk to her next.

“I was thinking that we can start looking for new apartments for you over the weekend,” she went on. “I already made a couple of appointments for showings, assuming the places I have in mind are still for sale by Saturday. The market is hot again: If you see something you like, you've got to be ready to make an offer that day. It may be a little soon for you, but I spotted this great one-bedroom on East Eighty-sixth—”

“Lanie, I don't think—”

“I know, I know,” she said. “It's on the other side of the city and Eighty-sixth is a high street. But the neighborhood is nice, and the apartment is huge! It's even got a balcony so you can grow some plants if you want.”

My head was pounding. I covered my eyes with my hand to shut out the light. “Lanie, I just can't talk about this right now. I have to go. I'll call you later.”

“Okay, but don't—”

I hung up the phone without saying good-bye. I couldn't bear to listen to any more.

 

I went out to the garden and sat down on one of the benches.

The hydrangeas were in full bloom now; the fluffy white flowers, really a congregation of hundreds of smaller blossoms, reminded me of elongated popcorn balls. The butterfly bush, now grown nearly as high as my chest, was blooming, too, the dark-purple blossoms doing their job well, attracting the attention of three beautiful monarch butterflies that flitted languidly from flower to flower, having their fill of sweet nectar.

Though it was only in its first year and the hedges were still stubby, and the roses only just beginning to climb the lattice of the arbor, it was a beautiful garden. I had put a lot of myself into its creation and care. This time next year, it would be more beautiful still, but someone else would be sitting here watching the butterflies. I hoped they would love it as much as I did.

I heard the sound of a car coming up the driveway. I got to my feet with a certain resignation, thinking that whoever was in the car had come to serve me with divorce papers. But I was wrong.

Philippa had the top down on her red Jetta convertible. She waved to me as she came up the driveway.

She got out of the car and walked toward the garden. “I was hoping to find you at home. You're headed back to New York at the end of the week, right?” She walked beneath the arbor, her shoes making a crunching sound on the pea gravel path. “I just couldn't let you go without saying good-bye. May I?” She tilted her head toward the bench.

“Is this an official visit?” I asked, looking at her white clerical collar.

“Well, I thought I'd dress for the occasion.”

I scooted over to make room for her.

“Tessa said that you weren't in the mood to see anyone, but that was a few days ago. I thought you might need someone to talk to about now.”

She was right.

After my conversation with Lanie, I knew there was nothing I could do to prevent the divorce, so I wasn't looking for anyone's advice. At this point, it was what it was. But I did feel the need to process the events that had brought us here and come to grips with my role in that. I wanted, in short, to make my confession.

And when I had finished, Philippa asked, “Do you believe you truly forgave Brian?”

I took in a big breath and let it out again, considering her question. “No. I
said
I did. I think I even believed I had. But no. Everything was fine as long as Brian was nearby, taking me to dinner, coming up every weekend, picking up the phone ten times a day, so I knew exactly where he was every second, but the minute he was out of my sight, I was sure he was back to his old tricks. I was an idiot.”

“No, you weren't,” Philippa replied. “Brian had given you cause for suspicion before. It was perfectly reasonable and right for you to feel the need to keep tabs on him at first. Gayla, you wouldn't be human—or very smart—if his behavior hadn't raised some red flags in your mind,” she said, twisting slightly on the bench so she could look me in the eye.

“Contrary to the old adage, forgiveness
doesn't
mean forgetting or turning a blind eye. In some instances, doing so can actually mean enabling someone to engage in unethical or sinful behavior, which can be a kind of sin unto itself. Jesus told us to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.”

I lifted my brows and gave her a skeptical look. She laughed.

“Yeah, I know. That's a tough one to get your head around. My point is, when we truly forgive another person, we don't pretend that nothing happened. We just choose to believe the best about them until we're faced with proof of the worst.”

“I wish I'd done that with Brian,” I said, giving a heavy sigh. “If I had brought my suspicions to him right away and asked him what was going on, we wouldn't be halfway to divorce court now. Of course, I'd still have chewed him out for not telling me the truth from the start,” I said, still irritated that he hadn't done so.

“And you'd have been justified,” Philippa said evenly. “You deserve complete honesty from Brian, just as he does from you. That has to be a nonnegotiable for the two of you.”

“Yeah. I'll remember that next time,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “Not that there's going to
be
a next time. It's too late for us now.”

“Well,” Philippa said in a regretful tone, “if what you're telling me is accurate, that's probably true. Even so, it's not too late for you to forgive Brian.”

I shot her a look. Hadn't she been listening? Brian wouldn't answer my phone calls. He'd put our apartment up for sale.

“My marriage is over,” I said. “What's the point?”

“Forgiveness isn't just something you do for someone else,” she countered. “It's something you do for yourself as well. Forgiveness has a lot more practical value than most people realize.”

Seeing my confusion, she tried to explain.

“In the book of Matthew, there is a parable about a king whose servant has incurred an enormous debt. He owed his master ten thousand talents, which basically translates into hundreds of millions in today's dollars, an astronomical amount. Even so, the king decides to forgive the debt. Why? Because the king is just incredibly noble and selfless? Because he doesn't care about money?”

She looked at me as if she actually thought I might have an answer to this. I gave it my best guess.

“None of the above?”

She smiled. “Right. The king forgives the debt because he knows that there is no way in the world that he can collect on it. Some debts are just too big to be repaid.

“You see,” she continued, shifting her weight and pulling one knee up on the bench, “this king was smart enough to realize that if he insisted on repayment, not only would he never live long enough to see the debt satisfied; he would spend the rest of his life worrying and thinking about that debt. By releasing his debtor, wiping the slate clean, he was really releasing himself.

“Brian owes you an unforgivable debt. Nothing he can do or say can wind back the clock or make his offense disappear completely, not even divorce. Even though Brian has done all he can to make things right, he can't. Think about it. What could he possibly do to balance the scales?”

“Nothing,” I said softly, letting my gaze drift out over the garden.

“Right. Which means that, finally, logically, the job of forgiveness lies with you. No one else has the power to release this debt.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” I said, spreading my hands. “I get it in theory, but how does that really work?”

“It's a process; I can tell you that,” she said, tilting her head slightly to one side and giving me a sympathetic look, as if she truly understood the challenge she was putting before me. “When those stray thoughts, doubts, and suspicions come into your head, you have to shout them down, say, ‘No. That debt is paid. I'm not going there. I chose forgiveness.' If you do, those thoughts will become less frequent. In time, they'll disappear completely.”

“But what if you forgive someone, and then it turns out it was a mistake?” I asked. “What if they go out and make a fool of you again?”

Philippa nodded slowly, her warm brown eyes filled with compassion. “Well, that's what it all comes down to, isn't it? When someone betrays us, we feel like fools, and so we want to hold them accountable to prevent them from doing it again. But the thing is, if someone is determined to betray you, they will, no matter how tightly you hold the reins. Think about it; you were trying your very best to keep tabs on Brian every moment of every day, but it isn't possible, is it? Not for any length of time. And so, the second he slipped from your control, you went into a tailspin, causing yourself all kinds of unnecessary anguish and anxiety. And if it turns out that your forgiveness was undeserved, it only proves that he was the foolish one, not you.

“Don't you see, Gayla?” she asked urgently, leaning toward me. “If you truly release Brian from the burden of a debt he has no possibility of repaying, you're not just freeing him but freeing yourself. There's no profit in doing anything else. Every debt we choose to hold on to actually has a hold on us.”