The Shadow of Your Smile (23 page)

His words reverberated through the truck.

Still, Kyle couldn’t quite decipher . . . “What did you say?” His voice came out even, cool, as he glanced at Emma.

She glanced back, something of shame on her face, before she looked away. Swallowed.

Oh . . .

“Dad and Mrs. Nelson were having an affair. For a couple of
years
.”

“Kirby—”

“I just got in a huge fight with Derek in front of the entire town. He accused Dad of it in front of everyone and Dad just stood there.”

“And Lee?”

“She slapped Derek. But everyone knows, Kyle. Everyone knows.”

Everyone. “Mom?”

“She ran away. She just . . . left. You gotta come home, Kyle.”

“I’m on my way.” He closed the phone, his heart pounding, jamming through his ribs. Silence descended between him and Emma. Then, quietly, “You knew.”

She drew in a shuddering breath.

“Sheesh, Emma, you knew about my dad and your mom?”

Her voice emerged small. “I don’t think it was as big a deal as you’re making it out to be—”

“They were having an affair! That’s a big deal—”

“No, Kyle, it wasn’t like that. Your dad just kissed her—”

“He kissed her, and you knew? And you didn’t tell me?”

“What was I supposed to say?” She was crying, her eyes red. “What—that your dad came on to my mom, and she freaked out and that’s why I left town?”

“I’m taking you home. I gotta go back to Deep Haven.”

“Why, so you can solve more problems?”

He put the truck into gear and pulled out. “Yeah, maybe. My family’s falling apart, okay? So someone has to figure out what to do.”

“Maybe you should leave it alone. Let your parents handle it.”

“My dad’s a jerk, and my mom’s lost her memory. I think maybe they need me.” He banged his hand on the steering wheel. “I knew I shouldn’t have left.”

She folded her arms. “No. You should have never left Deep Haven. Because clearly, it’ll fall apart without you.”

For a man who had spent most of his life learning to control the impulses of his tongue, to curb his anger, to keep a steady head in the face of every situation, Eli had really blown it.

Coach Seb still had Kirby and Derek in his office, his grim expression betraying his emotions. Eli watched him through the glass, dressing down the two boys, who never looked at each other.

He leaned against the wall and let the fight with Noelle rebound in his head. He’d made some quick choices, standing there in the school hallway, his life, his mistakes, stripped bare before the town with Derek’s accusations.

Worse, he’d looked at Lee, and the truth of Derek’s words had burned in his chest.
Maybe he thinks she won’t remember that he had his paws all over you. That he was going to leave her for you.

He hadn’t actually planned to leave Noelle—though yes, he’d let himself care for Lee. Too much.

But he couldn’t choose her over his wife. So he left Lee there to deal with the fallout and sprinted after Noelle. He’d chased her out into the parking lot, where the sky drizzled into the night, turning the black asphalt into an ice rink, glaring under the streetlights.

He closed his eyes, even now seeing Noelle round on him, the rain smashing her blonde hair to her head, tearing down her face. “You deceived me, Eli.”

“I know; I’m sorry. I don’t love Lee—”

“It doesn’t matter if you love her or not. You made me believe we had this perfect life, that we were in love, that we had an amazing family despite our wounds. You showed me a world that I wanted to live in again.”

“I never said we were perfect. In fact, I remember warning you that you might not like what you found.”

Her eyes turned sharp. “So it’s true, then, about Lee. You
were
having an affair.”

“No—it wasn’t like that.” He’d shaken his head, not sure where the truth was. “I cared—care for her, yes. She needed my help, and it felt . . . Well, I could actually
do
something for her. And you wouldn’t let me in.”

“Did you even try, Eli? Did you wrap your arms around me, hold me, cry with me?”

He looked away, her words like fingernails scraping his heart. “No.”

“I wondered about that.” She shook her head. “The fact is, if you had, I might not have lost anything, including my memory. I keep asking myself—what was I doing in Duluth? My life is here. Was I shopping? Going to the doctor?”

Feeling her reeling out of his grasp, he wanted to lie.
Yes, you were shopping.

“Did I know about the affair, Eli? Did I know and go to visit a divorce lawyer?”

Her words stung him, and that’s when he lost possession of his thoughts, when they spiraled out until his dark fears, his anger, grabbed hold. “I don’t know where you were, Noelle, because you didn’t tell me. Like you didn’t tell me about the art colony. Or Eric.”

She didn’t flinch, didn’t move. Finally, as the rain saturated his skin, turning his body to ice, she said, “Who’s Eric?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Oh, that’s fair. I’ll just dig around in my vault of memories.
Who is Eric,
Eli?”

He looked away from her, gritting his teeth. “I don’t know, okay? He keeps calling our house and leaving cryptic messages. Maybe he’s your lover.”

The minute he said it, the sentence ripped a hole through him, and he couldn’t breathe.

She stared at him like he might be a stranger. Perhaps, in that moment, he was, even to himself.

“You’re a jerk, you know that?” she said, her voice shaking. “I should have followed my instincts back at the hospital when I told you to
stay away from me
.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I should have just left you there and come home to a woman who could actually
remember
me.”

Oh, what was wrong with him? He felt his life, the last month, especially the sweetness of the past two weeks, shattering.

No. He softened his voice. “Noelle—”

But it was too late. “Have at her, baby,” Noelle said icily. Then she turned, stalking toward his truck.

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Away from you. Far away, where I can forget you and Deep Haven and start over.”

Like an idiot, he’d watched her get into his truck. But she didn’t have keys, so—

The truck started up. Eli searched his pockets, found nothing. Then he remembered. As he had for twenty-five years, he’d handed Noelle his keys to store in her purse during the game.

He stood there in the parking lot, rain sluicing down his back as he watched her pull out. Her taillights, like little red eyes, glared at him until they disappeared into the night.

By the time Eli returned, Lee had vanished too.

Seb finished his lecture, and Kirby exited the office without a glance at his father. Eli followed him to the Neon, glad for the silence between them.

“Where’s Mom?” Kirby said when Eli slid into the passenger seat.

“At home.” He hoped. Where else did she have to go? But her words thundered through his head.
Far away, where I can forget you and Deep Haven and start over.

Kirby drove in silence.

“It’s slippery out. Be careful.”

His son said nothing. Finally, “This is my fault.” His hands were white on the wheel as he took a long breath.

“No, Son—”

“Dad, I started the fight.” His voice emerged small against the pattering of the icy rain.

Oh, please, let Noelle be at home.
He hated to think of her driving in this. “What do you mean?”

“I was mad at Derek for missing the pass at the end, for letting the other team get the ball. So I called him a name and said something about having bricks for hands.”

Eli considered his son. “What did Coach Seb say to you?”

“He said that I betrayed the team.” When Kirby glanced at him, Eli bit back a suggestion to keep his eyes on the road. “He said that we are always about unity, that we have each other’s back, that we’re stronger together than we are on our own, and that we have to stay committed to that, despite our mistakes. He said we have to believe in each other, believe the best, and believe the highest. He’s always telling us how we can be amazing if we reach for it, and that no matter what, we believe in the good intentions of our teammate, that he’s giving his all.”

Kirby shook his head. “We’re supposed to love each other. Forgive. And be patient. And make sacrifices—like our pride. I didn’t forgive him, Dad. I was angry that he biffed the catch and that we lost the ball. I heard the crowd and I wanted the win. I wanted it for me. I was angry for me—not seeing how he might be angrier with himself than I was. I betrayed Derek, and I betrayed our team.”

He looked at Eli again. “I was the one who told Derek about Mom’s memory being gone. I don’t know what happened with you and Mrs. Nelson, but we almost had Mom back, Dad.” He didn’t say any more, but the words came loud and clear.

Eli had betrayed his team too.

He hadn’t stayed committed to Noelle, hadn’t believed in her, hadn’t encouraged her. And most of all, he hadn’t loved her. Hadn’t been patient, hadn’t forgiven. Hadn’t truly sacrificed. He’d just wanted to be left alone, to handle his grief on his terms.

But marriage didn’t work that way.

In fact, it seemed as if he’d heard Kirby’s words before.

It’s vulnerability to the one person who you trust most. It’s saying, “Here’s my ugly, battered, wounded heart. I’m going to let you see it and trust you with it.”

Pastor Dan’s words rose from where he’d pocketed them inside.

It’s how we’re supposed to be with God—trusting Him with all our fragile parts.

But Eli hadn’t trusted God with his broken places. It felt too vulnerable to let God inside, to let Him see his mistakes, his shame. His wayward heart.

He’d wanted to fix everything on his own.

“Do you still love her, Dad?” Kirby had braked, now was turning up their road.

“Of course I do, Son.” But the words came too easily, without emotion. Did he? He watched Kirby’s headlights scrape against the dark forest, cut over the dirt road.

Bringing Noelle home, letting her back into his life, had been like that. Light cutting through the darkness. He’d discovered the woman he’d forgotten, her laughter, the way she could make him feel young and fresh and whole.

He’d wanted to be the one in the living room, dancing with her.

And finally for the last month, he’d been the husband he’d wanted to be with her. Protective, nurturing.

Yes, he loved her. She had woven herself back into his heart, balmed all the wounds, reminded him of who they’d wanted to be together. Resilient, committed, joyous.

For the first time in years—even when he’d been a cop, long before Kelsey’s death—he felt like the man God wanted him to be. A man built to bless his wife. To love her intimately and be loved back just as well.

Like the psalmist had said, God had heard his broken heart and answered. He’d given Eli back his wife, though he hadn’t deserved her. Indeed, God had been faithful even when he hadn’t.
I’m sorry, Lord. I’m sorry for my stubbornness, my pride. Help me be a man—a husband—who seeks to bless his wife, not himself.

“She’s not here.” Kirby pulled into the driveway. No truck parked in the garage, the house lights off.

Eli got out of the car, saw fresh tire tracks, footprints. She’d been here.

He opened the door, probably with more force than necessary, and heard the panic in his voice. “Noelle!” But only the dog greeted him. Not bothering to shuck his boots, he bounded upstairs to their room.

The dresser drawers had been flung open as if she’d yanked out clothing. The bathroom drawers were empty, her makeup and toothbrush gone.

He stood in the chaos of the room and noticed, in the middle of the bed, the gold glint of her wedding band.

Eli scooped it up, closed it in his palm.

His brain plowed through destinations as he walked downstairs. Maybe her art studio? Or . . . no, she wouldn’t go to Lee’s house. Who else did she know? Or rather, who else did she remember? Maybe she’d called Kyle.

Kirby stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets.

Eli couldn’t look at his son. He pushed past Kirby for the answering machine.

The messages had been erased.

“Where’s Mom?” Kirby asked, his voice weak.

It was time for Eli to do more than just show up. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find her.”

Of all the cosmically ironic moments to get a flat tire. Lee wanted to scream as she rounded her car and opened the trunk, the rain plastering her parka to her body, turning her wool hat soggy, freezing her to her core.

The tire had been sinking for days—why hadn’t she changed it? Sometimes, in the back of her head, she still operated as if she were married.

Clay could have jumped out, changed the tire, pulled her out of the ditch, kept her on the road.

But Clay wasn’t here anymore, was he? Just Lee and the dark highway, her Jeep crippled in the ditch.

A mile to home. She could walk. Or unbolt the tire, jack up this wretched car, try to change it. But even the jack seemed to weigh a thousand pounds as she pulled it from the trunk.

She threw it back inside, slammed the hood, and hated her life. Of course she had to hoof it home on this lonely stretch of pavement in the darkness. Maybe she’d get hit by a car. Or run over by a moose.

Grabbing her purse, she locked the door and pulled up her collar.

Water dribbled into her eyes and she brushed it away, Derek’s filthy words scraping through her mind.
You make me sick. Do you even notice that Dad’s gone, or has Eli filled in so well it doesn’t matter?

She’d stood there, naked in front of the community she’d known her entire life, watching her son unravel, and knew he’d seen right through everything. It only made it worse when Eli didn’t deny it. Then Noelle turned, pushing her way through the crowd, and Lee wanted to be ill right there.

But what hit her hardest, like a blade through her sternum, was watching Eli run after Noelle.

Oh, Lee had lied to herself. She’d believed, somewhere in her bandaged heart, that Eli cared for her, that she had been noble to push him back to his wife, to sit elsewhere in the stands, to smile on the edge of the crowd, watching Noelle and Eli hold hands.

She told herself that it was just for show.

Lee started into a jerky, slow run.

He loved Noelle. Not her.

As she had stood there, seeing Eli chase after his horrified wife, as Coach Seb grabbed Derek and Kirby and hauled them into his office, as the crowd dispersed around her . . .

No one spoke to her.

She’d been abandoned by Deep Haven.

Lee slowed, her breath sawing in her lungs. She wanted to scream, to hit something.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

She and Clay were supposed to grow old together in the house he’d built her. They were supposed to cheer on Derek as he played college basketball and walk Emma down the aisle. They were supposed to enjoy their grandchildren, go on vacations, rekindle their romance after so many years raising children.

He wasn’t supposed to walk into the gun of a punk kid.

She turned and flung her purse out toward the lake where it frothed onto shore. She watched it bounce, settle on the beach, out of the reach of the waves.

“Why did You do this to me?” Lee looked up at the starless night, rain spitting on her face. “Why did You do this? Why couldn’t You have spared him?” She wanted to curse, but the power of her anger frightened her. She cupped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t expect an answer—she had stopped listening years ago.

Shoot, she’d probably broken her purse. When she stepped into the crusty snow lining the highway, she nearly fell, the ice scraping her ankles, but she plowed through to the beach. The shiny stones crunched under her footsteps. Her purse lay like a dead goose; she picked it up and smoothed her shaking hand over it.

It wasn’t fair. None of it. Noelle had a perfectly good man she couldn’t even remember. And Lee had no one. Not even her hometown.

She closed her eyes, sank onto the ground and pulled up her knees, not caring that the stones turned her to ice. She’d spent three years trying not to break down, and . . .

Her own sobs had the power to hollow her out.

She sat there, shivering, not caring that she might get sick. Why care? No one else did.

Lee pulled her hands into her sleeves. She couldn’t feel her fingertips. Exhaustion wrung through her. Oh, she was tired. So very tired of trying to survive.

She closed her eyes, put her forehead on her sodden jacket.

Listened to the waves churning on the shore, the water pelleting her coat.

Listened to the steady thump of her heart.

So very, very tired.

Get up.

She raised her head, listening. Not a voice, more of a sense.

Get up.

She stared out over the lake. Far off in the distance, a row of lights revealed a laker, probably headed to Duluth. The lights pierced the darkness like eyes.

Go home.

What if Derek was there waiting for her?

She found her feet, trudged back to the road, her entire body sopping wet now, so cold she’d begun to tremble.

Go home.

She stared at the pavement as she forced one foot in front of the other.

Lights spilled over her, along with the sound of a motor creeping up behind her. She didn’t turn, not wanting to see anyone she might know. Anyone who might confirm the awful sense of abandonment as they splashed past her.

The car pulled ahead of Lee, veered to the shoulder, stopped. The driver’s door opened and a figure got out. “Is that you, Lee?”

Lee stared at the woman in the darkness. “Liza?” She ran a pottery shop next to the bookstore in town. Lee had an entire collection of her seagull pottery at home, the ones with Bible verses scrolled into the design, and had at one time taken classes from her. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m house-sitting for Edith Draper up the road a ways.” Liza came closer, squinting as the rain doused her. “You’re soaking wet, and—” she reached out, grabbed Lee by the arms—“you’re shivering. Get into my car right now.”

Lee’s teeth had started to chatter and she put up no fight as Liza drew her around to the passenger side, all but shoving her inside. She hated to turn the interior of Liza’s car into a swimming pool. It was an older model, a Bonneville, maybe, with plush velvet seats and the defrost cranked to high. Liza turned the heat up to blazing when she got in. She took Lee’s hands and held them in her warm grip. The kindness of the act warmed Lee more than the car’s radiator.

“You’re freezing to death,” Liza said. “What are you doing out in this storm?”

Lee’s teeth had reached a low-level buzzing. “I . . . I wassss . . . attttt . . . the game.”

“Was that your Jeep I saw back there?”

Lee nodded.

“Wow, I’m glad I came along. You’re a mess.”

“Th-th-thank you.”

Liza grinned. “I meant that in the nicest of ways, of course. Let’s get you home.” She pulled out onto the highway. “By the way, I was at the game too. Great game. So sad for the boys. Derek did a fabulous job.”

Liza was at the game? And . . . afterward? Lee looked at her, searching her face for judgment. “Did you hear . . . the fight?”

Liza said nothing for a long moment. Finally, “I think it doesn’t matter what the town thinks, Lee. What matters is that you were on the road alone tonight, in the freezing rain, and you didn’t call for help.”

Oh, so she had been there. But really, who did Lee have to call? Besides, she was tired of being needy. Needy got her humiliated by the entire town.

She held up her hands to the heat pumping from the vents, not answering.

“I remember when Mona married Joe. I was secretly devastated. We were best friends, did everything together. Worse, I had to find a new place to live and fix it up myself. I was so angry at her—and angry at myself for being angry. How could I resent her for her happiness? It wasn’t her fault. But I was angry that God hadn’t given me a man, too.”

Liza shook her head. “Men are a little hard to come by up here in Deep Haven. But God’s given me something beautiful while I wait. I’ve had an intimacy with Him, because I’ve needed Him so much, that I might not have had if I were married. Yes, of course I’d like to get married. This world is designed for couples. But God has filled that empty place, overflowed it, even. That was when I started my white line of pottery, vases and pitchers and coffee cups with Psalm 16 written on them. David says to the Lord, ‘Apart from you, I have no good thing,’ and that God fills him with joy in His presence. It helps me remember that I’m not alone.”

She braked as they came to Lee’s driveway. “This is your road, right? I remember when Clay ordered that pottery set for you for Christmas. I delivered it here.”

Lee nodded.

“God never intended for us to go through life alone. It feels like it sometimes, but every time I get that urge toward self-pity or desperation, I think of it as an invitation for a deeper relationship with God. The point of life, in marriage or singleness—even widowhood—is that it should bring us to that intimate relationship with God. And that relationship should fill us—all the way up to our secret and ashamed places—so that we are overflowing with love for Him. Then we stop searching. Then we are filled with joy.”

Joy. Lee hadn’t felt it in so long that she’d forgotten the feeling. The joy of holding her newborns, the joy of seeing Clay after a long day on the job, the joy of standing on the lakeshore on a summer night, the waves on her toes, Clay roasting marshmallows at the fire pit.

Joy was what she’d had. But joy could be her future, too. She had survived—nobly, but not well. Perhaps it was time to lean near to God, let Him be her provider, the husband to the widow.

I’m sorry, God, for not letting You in to heal me. For substituting everything else for Your intimate love.
The prayer pulsed inside her, only the beginning of what she had to say.

Liza pulled up to Lee’s house. Derek stood at the window. As Lee reached for the door, Liza grabbed her hand. “I don’t want to find you out in the freezing cold ever again, Lee. You hear me?”

Lee smiled, but Liza didn’t. She dug into her pocket, still holding Lee’s hand, and slipped a card into it. “And if you start to think you’re alone, I’m happy to remind you that you’re not.”

Lee managed a trickle of a nod. She got out, and as Liza backed down the driveway, Derek opened the door. He stood silhouetted in the light, grief on his face. Then he ran out, barefoot, onto the driveway. “Mom!”

She met him at the end of the walk, let him throw his arms around her, let him apologize into her ear.

“Of course I forgive you, Derek.”

He held her as the night cried over them, and Lee realized that she was no longer cold.