Between Octobers Bk 1, Savor The Days Series (45 page)

Her hair was pulled into a thick braid and
twisted into a bun on the back of her head. She was still in her
bathrobe but had her make-up done. All she had to do was slip on
her work clothes. She must have gotten up early this morning . . .
or maybe, like me, she hadn’t slept.

Hoping she might see something I missed, I
explained everything to her exactly the way it happened. What was
said, how I reacted, my plan to evict Sheri, how she beat me to the
punch and was one step ahead of me the entire time. My inability to
think on my feet had cost me.

“I never should have left her with him. I
should have been the one there when he woke up.”

“It’s probably better that you weren’t,” she
said, handing me a cup of ginger tea. She lowered herself
gracefully into the seat beside me, placing a hand over mine.
“Grace, I think it’s time for you to start letting go.”

“I’m not getting a divorce.” I crossed my
arms. “I won’t be the single mother of three children from two
different men.”

“Oh, honey. That’s just silly pride. Grace,
infidelity is the only acceptable reason for divorce. It says so in
the Bible.”

My eyes filled. “But he denied it.”

“You want to believe him, I know.” Her
disbelieving expression softened. “Have you asked Sheri about
it?”

“She wants me to believe he did, and that
makes me doubt all the more.”

“What did she say?”

“That he did what any man would do in his
situation.”

“Your face is getting red,” she warned,
sliding from her seat and into the freezer for a bag of vegetables.
I placed the icy bag of peas and carrots on the back of my neck. It
helped with the headaches.

“There’s something unsavory about her, isn’t
there? Something I can’t quite put my finger on—aside from the
obvious.” Lily mused.

“What is ‘the obvious’?”

“You know,” she drew her cup of coffee to
her lips, “that she doesn’t want the two of you together because
she’s in love with him.”

I nearly spit my tea on her. “Who told you
that?”

She took an irritatingly long drink. There
was nothing but half-melted ice in the bottom of her glass when she
set it back on the table. “Think about it. She hates everyone
except him, he treats her like crap and she still does everything
for him. I told you this before.”

I strained to recall the conversation.

“Not that it changes anything.”

“What do you mean? This changes everything.”
I insisted.

“Grace, she’s not the problem. He is.
Sheri’s no more than an inconvenient leech.”

“What’s wrong with hoping?”

Her voice lowered as her brows pulled
together. “Honey,” her eyes watered, “You may have left him second,
but don’t forget he left you first. I know how madly you love him
and how terrible you are at accepting that things have turned out
this way, but it’s affecting your health. You can make the feeling
go away if you want to. You just have to
really
want to.”

After Lily got divorced, she’d spent months
trying to make herself stop loving Daniel, her ex. I’d thought she
was crazy—love being such an unconquerable thing. It took some
time, but she managed. But then Lily always was much stronger than
me.

From the other side of the living room,
Nigel whimpered. Lily sweetly scooped the puppy from his basket. As
she stepped out to the back porch, my hope dissolved.

“Mom, can I talk to you?” Noah was standing
next to the table, still in his pajamas, though his eyes contained
no trace of sleep.

“Sure, baby. What’s up?”

He sat in his aunt’s chair, looking nervous.
“Well, see . . .” he struggled, mumbling through the words he found
uncomfortable. “I used to talk to him about stuff and when you guys
started fighting, he quit calling me, thinking that I was mad at
him, too. I kind of was, but then I got Marcus’ number from Aunt
Lily and called him. He gave me Evan’s number. At first, it was
weird, you know, because I didn’t know why you guys were fighting,
and I didn’t want to get in the middle of it. We agreed not to talk
about it.” He paused. “Here’s the thing—” I closed my eyes, bracing
myself. Everything I thought I knew about Evan turned out to be a
lie. Nothing should surprise me.

“Mom, he’s weird. I mean, I like him
and all, and he’s always been good to me and Caleb, but he
does
not
want kids of his own.
I never asked, but he mentioned it a couple times. I know it’s none
of my business, but I’m tired of seeing you hurt so much over
him.”

Was I really so pathetic that my teenage son
felt he had to give me advice?

“Noah, you don’t need to worry about me. But
thank you, I appreciate it. Will you do me a favor?” He took my
hand set on his shoulder. “Please help Caleb get ready for school
and make sure he gets his lunch on the counter. He has a field trip
today. I’m going to bed.”

As I walked towards my room I heard him say,
“I’m sorry, Mom.”

I took a deep breath and gave him my best
smile. “I love you, Noah. And it’s not your fault, baby. This one’s
all on me.”

I wouldn’t be taking the kids
trick-or-treating this year, either. The doctor put me on bed-rest
so Lily was taking Caleb, and that was so depressing. One bright
spot was that I had convinced Noah to dress up. I gave him the red
clown nose I’d been carrying around in my purse and told him how it
would cheer me up to think of him wearing a costume, having fun
with his friends, while I was stuck on my back. Basically, I
guilted him into it.

Preeclampsia—pregnancy-induced
hypertension—was my little gift for the constant worrying. I’d been
on bed rest for the last four weeks. No salt, no activity. No end
in sight. I was retaining water and the headaches started every
time I got out of bed. I had to avoid stress at all costs, but it
seemed everywhere I turned, there it was, waiting to pounce and
maul me.

The
freaking
video and of course,
him
. Always
him
. Evan—my infinite and temporary love was
ever-present—the reluctant reason behind every decision I made, or
lack thereof. Seeing him that night at the hospital had pulled me
back to an emotional square one. I wanted to know what he was
doing, who he was with, and if he was happy. Anything and
everything. I’d been constantly consuming every bit of information
I could get—disregarding the tidbits I didn’t like and savoring the
ones I did. I couldn’t ask anybody what was true and what wasn’t
without revealing my desperation.

I’d been feeling more and more desperate
since Pastor Tony called to inform me that my services at The
Kitchen, the soup kitchen I volunteered at, were no longer needed.
That was my last connection to the outside. I’d started
volunteering there after that painful confrontation at the
hospital. Evan knew, so there was no reason left to hide and I
needed the distraction that service had always provided.

And being relieved of that volunteer
position was entirely my fault. Though I couldn’t tell the Pastor
that I was sorry for what I did. Maybe I should have been, but I
just wasn’t.

I’d been placed in
the serving line. I was doing my job, taking every ones
tickets and putting dinner rolls on each plate before handing them
out. But my heart was barely in it. I was still bleeding. I felt
trampled on, beaten down, and I think that’s why I reacted so
keenly.

I was in a bad mood. My shoulders were
squared as I faced the people, determined to focus on the hurting
faces seeking consolation in a full belly. I was there for them and
most looked as if they hadn’t eaten in a week. It multiplied me
pain, made me hurt for them, too. My heart seemed to break for each
one.

I’d noticed the other volunteers further up
the line were openly chatty with one another, not really looking at
the people they were serving. I huffed a little, offended by the
apathy, but kept my focus and my haughty attitude to myself. As the
line shuffled by, I tried to appreciate each person and wondered
what circumstances had brought them to that place.

Among the shuffling line I spotted one
familiar face. It was the homeless mother, the one Evan and I first
saw at the shelter and then again downtown, when we visited the
star of James Dean on the Walk of Fame. She was propped against the
side of a building across the roadway. We’d talked that day and I
tried to help her, but she was resistant. Suddenly, I wanted to
know how she and her daughter were doing.

I wasn’t sure what to say, or even if she’d
know me, so I waited until she passed by. When I handed her the
plate of food, her eyes widened, looking too big for her thin
face.

“I remember you,” she said.

She had no orange ticket. I wasn’t supposed
to give her a plate without one, but let it slide.

“I remember you, too. How are you?”

She tilted her head to one side. “I been dry
a couple weeks now, but my daughter . . .”

“Esther.” I recalled, “How is she?” I held a
readied plate to the man behind her. He dropped his ticket in my
open hand, took it, then went to sit down.

“I don’t see her much.”

“Baby steps,” I leaned in, aiming to
encourage her. “Anything worth having is worth fighting for,
right?”

Suddenly, her shoulders sank, her eyes
wandered from me to my side. The voice of Kathy Bederman chimed
from behind me. She was the soup kitchen volunteer coordinator. She
also acted like she was allergic to humanity, which I could usually
overlook without a problem.

“Is something wrong?”

The homeless woman turned her eyes to the
floor and walked off.

“Everything’s fine.” I took the next ticket
and passed the next plate and dinner roll.

“It is very important that you remember,
everyone must present you with an orange ticket. Do not serve
anyone who doesn’t have it.” Kathy spoke low and close.

“May I ask why?”

She smirked, clearly impatient with my
naiveté. “We have a system. The ones who attend the church service
get the orange ticket. It guarantees a place at the front of the
line. It wouldn’t be fair to serve those who did not attend the
service and disregard those who did.”

“What if there are leftovers?”

“There are never leftovers. Please, just
stick to the system, and make sure they have the ticket before you
hand them the plate. Not after.”

I saluted her. She was running the show,
after all, and who was I to come in and try to do things different?
She probably had very good reasons for running things the way she
did.

“Keep the line moving,” Kathy
instructed.

As she turned, I heard a snarky
comment—obviously directed toward one of the volunteers further up
the line—about the wardrobe choice of someone they’d been
watching.

The woman from the shelter had been wearing
a bikini top and a short skirt. I was instantly offended on her
behalf, even though they could have been talking about anyone.

“Maybe her church clothes are at the dry
cleaners.” I bit back.

And it was all downhill after that.

Basically, Kathy Bederman and her usual
circle of volunteers weren’t at all happy that Pastor Tony was
allowing me to serve with them. They’d all heard about my quickie
marriage to a movie star and assumed the rumors floating around
were true. Of course, they had all heard about that dang video,
too. And none of them wanted to be seen with the likes of me.

Right around the time Kathy insinuated that
I was having an inappropriate relationship with Pastor Tony to gain
his favor, I decided I’d had enough and gave back the giant bag of
dinner rolls they had me handing out. Only I did it with a little
too much gusto and knocked Kathy Bederman on her butt.

I blamed Evan and prenatal hormones for all
of it. I was still so angry with him sometimes. He was rejecting
the very best part of our time together—the one good thing to come
out of the whole mess that was our intense, brief relationship. But
he did say he didn’t want his own kids.

That was the part that ate away at me. Was
he so full of antipathy that he’d reject any tangible part of
himself? If that was the case, then it explained why he was
rejecting me. Every part of me was physically and symbolically
attached to him. Inside, outside, everywhere.

I recalled very clearly the hate in his
voice as he screamed in the hospital. Those spiteful words would
forever be a part of me, etched into my flesh as a reminder that I
could not trust my own judgment where he was concerned.

In the beginning, the more I learned about
Evan the more I loved. Now, here I was, alone and pregnant,
desperately striving to deal with the consequences of marrying a
beautiful stranger who had turned out to be little more than a
figment of my imagination. The shadow of an enigma that was never
really there. How could I have been so blind, so willing to brush
aside anything to have what I wanted? The consuming love never
allowed me to see him for the absolutely beautiful liar he was.

I’d had a hard time making sense of his
actions. He wanted a divorce, but wouldn’t file. He knew about the
baby, but had not called me to ask a single question. It had been
months with no word. Didn’t news like that warrant a phone
call?

I would have to be the one to call him.

It was utterly pathetic (and hopefully all
raging hormones) but I wanted him back. But how could I lay all of
myself at his feet, offer up this family he never wanted? What if
he said no? But I wouldn’t relax until I knew.

I needed to simply put myself out of my
misery and just call him. Let whatever was going to happen, happen.
Then, I could stop worrying about what he was doing and start
getting over him. But I’d have to be smart about it and call Marcus
first to get a feel for where Evans head’s at.