Desert Gift (33 page)

He lifted her hand from the sheet and kissed it. “I don’t know, Jill. For today we are at bacon, church, the meet and greet with my parents, dinner here, prepared by yours truly. We will take it one step at a time.”

We will . . .
It was a statement, not a question, not even a suggestion. Good news, in a sense. It meant he was breaking out of the maze and making his own decision, not trying to please her.

The bad news was that he hadn’t rescinded that other breakout decision, the one that had to do with divorce.

* * *

In the end they decided that Jack would skip the bacon and meet them all later at church. His early morning presence in the same clothes he’d worn the night before might be a bit much for their son, who, like most kids, really did not want to consider what the parents were up to in private.

“I almost forgot.” Jack winced. “I have to feed the cat too.”

“Cat?”

“It’s Sophie’s. I offered to catsit while she nurses a stray back to health. The two felines did not get along.”

Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.

With a shake of her head, Jill dismissed the office manager and the fact that Jack did not care for cats. She would instead think about the past few days with Jack. Most especially she would think about the past eight hours with Jack.

Warm fuzzies came over her, and yet . . . it was almost a bit much for her too. Had they done something wrong? What activities did estranged spouses engage in? Her focus had always been on married people living together. This was brand-new territory. What author or counselor might offer insight to her and her listeners?

That sounded close to note taking.

She trailed behind Jack as he went downstairs. Michelle was the only one to see him slip out the front door.

She smiled at Jill. “Progress, no?”

“Progress,
oui
.”

I hope it is anyway.
Jill wasn’t exactly sure. They had taken a step, no doubt about that. An enjoyable, sweet, affirming, restorative step. Was it toward reconciliation? or simply a short detour off the path of their current situation?

Chapter 49

They went to church. It was their first Sunday back since that awful day when her world flipped upside down.

Greetings and welcome-home hugs were showered on them. Jill kept a check on her emotions and a close eye on Jack. Either one of them might fall apart at the attention. She detected no heads tilted askance, no expressions of concern. Jack did get an extra big hug from Lew. He seemed to handle it fine.

Connor and Emma shone, typical young people wearing infatuation like another layer of skin. No tongues tsked at the news that Pastor Mowers was not marrying them. The Trudeaus attended as well and won everyone’s smiles with their friendly conversation.

So far, so good.

After the service they went to Charles and Katherine’s place. Jack’s parents loved Connor and were as sociable as Philippe and Michelle. A short visit was not going to happen. Jill rode with Jack to get take-out lunch for everyone.

They sat outside the restaurant on a bench in a patch of sunshine, waiting for their order. No trees were budding yet, but recent warmer temps had thawed the ground and filled the air with an earthy scent and faint sounds of trickling water through drainpipes.

Jill said, “Your mother—” she closed her mouth and then she opened it again—“looks well.”

“Yes, she does.” Jack paused. “I overheard what she said to you.”

“Oh.” Jill thought she had stopped herself in time to miss his radar, but he knew her too well.

She had decided that morning that for once she would not tattle on her mother-in-law. Katherine was not overly fond of Jill. Jill had come to accept that truth about the time Connor was five years old and had his first crush on another girl. But still, the woman remained an issue for Jill. Typically Jill unloaded her frustrations about his mother on Jack.

He said, “She told me the same thing a few weeks ago, that it’s up to me to fix us. I don’t know how she managed to make that your responsibility today, but she did.”

Jill knew exactly how she did it. Katherine had said,
“You realize, Jill, that marriage is not a two-way street. You don’t want to travel in opposite directions. If you simply turn and go the same direction he is going, then you’ll be able to respond to him. He can’t fix things without you right there at his side, giving him your full support.”

It came from page 23 in Easy Eggs, chapter 2 of
She Said, He Heard
. Verbatim.

Jack said, “So tell me about these knights in shining armor. How do I join up?”

She stared at him. His face was turned upward toward the sun, eyes shut. He leaned back against the brick wall.

Self-doubt plagued her. It had been escalating ever since his divorce announcement. The past week and especially last night should have been a confidence boost. Right?

Wrong.

Instead his tenderness only added to the unraveling of Jillian Galloway, teacher, speaker, author, marital expert. It snowballed at church. Hugs from old friends and whispered encouragement hadn’t helped. Singing praises to the God who had forgiven her for turning her home into a laboratory hadn’t helped. Katherine’s echo of her own drivel clinched her demise.

Who did Jill think she was?

“Jill.” Jack was looking at her now. “I don’t want you to stop talking. Silent is not who you are.”

“Oh, I think it’s high time I got very silent. I told God just this morning that I would stop providing answers. We were singing that song about giving everything up to Him.”

“I don’t know that He would ask you to give up, to quit.”

“You did.”

“Not the same thing. Not even close.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I just didn’t want answers for questions I wasn’t asking. But now I’m asking for one. How can I be a knight?”

She turned toward the parking lot. Dirty snow piles were melting. Puddles were all over the place.

“Jill, last night you said I was your knight because I was your husband. But I get the feeling that I’ve missed the mark in this department. I mean since you had to tell me, I assume I don’t get it.”

“I suppose it’s one of those things we lost along the way. Honestly, Jack, I don’t know what came first: if you gave it up or if I took it from you by my lab experiments.”

“So knighthood is a husband’s role which he might choose to abdicate?”

She glanced at him. “Do you want to listen to a program about it? I can give you the date it aired. I probably have the CD at home.”

He smiled softly. “No, I’d rather hear this firsthand.”

She studied his face. “You don’t look like a rat running around a maze.”

“I’m not. I really am asking you for an answer.”

“Okay.” A lump was forming in her throat. Unwittingly he was leading them back to Hollywood, to the reason she so desperately wanted to revisit their meeting place. Long before his divorce announcement, she had planned for them to go there because she knew they needed to touch base with this very thing.

She swallowed. “You were a knight in shining armor the day we met. You noticed me. You spoke to me. You teased about my hands not fitting Shirley Temple’s prints but later you understood that there was more to the idea that I wanted to be like her. You smiled like you cared, with the corners of your mouth all dimpled in. And then, wonder of wonders, out of the blue you asked me to dinner. You knew exactly what you wanted and you went for it. You were confident but not arrogant.”

“What did I want?”

She held in an exasperated sigh. “What do you think?”

“You looked like an angel. I wanted to get to know you.”

“Yes. Which made me feel so special and so desirable. It made me feel like a damsel in distress.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“It is, in a quirky sort of way. At the time I was independent and basically happy living and working with Viv. But then you walked up and suddenly, fireworks are going off inside. On some level, I was in distress.”

“Love at first sight. Nobody can live in that space all the time.”

“No.”

“Then how does a guy keep functioning as a knight?”

She took a deep breath. “He notices his wife. He speaks to her. He smiles a special smile just for her. He knows her deepest heart, the place where she dreams big dreams. He confidently does whatever is for her best. He intuits that she is always in distress because that’s just the human condition. But he alone can comfort and console and make life easier for her.”

Jack stared at her for a moment. “That is one major daunting job description.”

“Shining armor and a white steed help.” She shrugged. “I’m not blaming you, Jack. Like you said, we kept going our separate ways until this wedge developed between us. No more knight and damsel.”

“How do we get back to them?”

About sixteen ideas scrambled to be spoken first.
Counseling! Move back home! Tell me you love me! Take a vacation with me!
But Jill pressed her lips together. She didn’t think Jack really wanted an answer this time.

He took her hand and squeezed it. “Lots of water over the dam in twenty-five years. I better go inside and get the food.”

On second thought there was probably only one answer: they both had to
want
to remove the wedge between them.

* * *

“Mom.” Connor caught Jill’s attention at the dining table. Then he turned to Jack. “Dad.”

They both stopped talking to Michelle and Philippe.

Connor smiled. “Promise not to freak out, guys.”

“Uh-oh,” Jill said. He never included his dad in that request and certainly not others. This must be major. She set her fork with its last bite of cherry pie on her dessert plate.

Emma placed her elbows on the table and batted her big brown eyes. “
Maman et Papa
, please, do not freak out. Promise.”

Her parents exchanged baffled looks, a few words in French, and shrugs.

Connor smiled. “It’s good news, really.”

Emma nodded enthusiastically.

Oh, dear. They are pregnant.
Jill cut her eyes to the girl’s physique. Did she seem plumper? Hard to tell in the baggy turtleneck.

“We’ve been offered jobs, beginning in August.”

Parental cheers almost drowned out the shared sigh of relief. No baby! Income to take over when the grants and scholarships ended!

Connor went on. “As museum curators.”

Emma pouted.

He chuckled. “I just don’t want them to worry.”

She shook her head and kissed his cheek. “Finish.”

“Okay, not exactly curators. Our official titles are something like assistants to the junior assistants. We’ll probably run errands and answer phones. I’m part-time; Emma’s full-time. But it is a foot in the door, and it’s in art, and it’s in New York.”

The happy chatter stopped. “New York?”

Emma nodded, a sad-happy smile on her pretty face.

Connor said, “We had interviews lined up before we left Italy. That was our first stop when we arrived in the States. At the Cloisters Museum and Gardens. It’s a branch of the Metropolitan that specializes in medieval art and architecture.” He sighed. “We just heard on Friday. And, well, we accepted.”

Michelle pushed back her chair and hurried around to embrace her daughter. “Congratulations!” She hugged Connor. “It is not Paris or Chicago, but neither is it Moscow or Sydney!”

Jack laughed. “Well, that’s true.”

Jill got in line behind the fathers to offer her congratulations. She hoped her heavy heart did not dim her smile.

Connor hugged her for an extra-long moment. “Thanks for not freaking out.”

“Oh, Con. I am happy for you. This is what you’ve always wanted, to work in the art world and to paint. Maybe part-time hours will give you both.”

He nodded. “You always told me I could do whatever I put my efforts toward.”

Her smile felt forced. The son she wanted to hold on to forever was truly not coming home again.

* * *

Jill poured detergent into the dishwasher, closed it, and turned it on. Beside her, Jack towel-dried a saucepan. She watched him look at the empty rack above the stovetop as if pondering whether or not to hang the pot there. It was a favorite that he’d brought over from his apartment for that night’s dinner.

He shoved it into a cupboard.

It seemed a noncommittal choice.

He said, “It sounds like Con and Emma are still talking in the front room.”

“Mm-hmm. We should’ve put in a back staircase years ago.”

He gave her a fleeting smile. “Jill, I think I’ll go home—uh, to the apartment. Tomorrow is Monday. I need to work this week. You said you need to work. Viv and Marty are coming in a few days. The kids have more premarital sessions. The Trudeaus said they’ll entertain themselves.”

“And Saturday is the wedding.” She and Jack had already talked about the week’s agenda. It wasn’t his point. “What are you saying?”

He folded the dish towel, avoiding eye contact. “I’m saying it’s been a great few days. Fun and hectic. The next few will be full. It’s probably not the best time to make any decisions about us.” He laid the towel on the countertop and looked at her. “I’m sorry to table our situation, but I think it’s best for now.”

Jill placed the heels of her hands behind her on the countertop and leaned against it, all open and relaxed. “What I heard you say was . . . Do you mind if we do this exercise?”

He shook his head.

“It’s a helpful tool for me.”

“I know.”

“Okay.” She gathered her jumbled thoughts, willing herself not to freak out. “What I heard you say was that there are too many other things going on that require our full attention, which makes it impossible for us to properly address our marital needs at this time. Did I get that right?”

“Yes.”

“Is there more?”

“No.”

“So you’re saying that you are not moving back home?”

He hesitated before replying. “No. I mean yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Are you . . . are you saying this—this
thing
is not over yet?”

“I guess—yes, that’s what I am saying.” He stepped over and embraced her. “Oh, Jill, I am sorry. Those are not things a knight would say to a damsel in distress.”