Wildflowers from Winter (17 page)

She closed the door before he could respond.

SEVENTEEN

T
he rational part of Robin’s brain knew better. But grief had obliterated her ability to think rationally. Grief was the royal flush in a hand of poker. It beat everything.

Nestling deeper inside the closet, she pulled at the sleeve of a dress shirt and brought it to her cheek, inhaling the scent of Acqua di Gio still clinging to the fabric. She brought her knees to her chest, placed her hand on the weathered Bible resting near her toes, found the wall with her back, and let the dangling clothes hide her. Light from their bedroom crawled across the carpeted floor, stopping just short of her slippers. For a moment, she wished she could melt into the shadow of Micah’s clothes and disappear, but her hand moved to her abdomen, and she pushed the thought away. This baby threw her grief into chaos.

Robin pulled the sleeve closer to her face and inhaled again. The scent whispered his name.
Micah … Micah … Micah …
She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the wall, and imagined him sitting beside her. They were underneath the willow tree—the one that grew over the pond near the bike path winding past her old home. The tree she and Bethany had spent an entire summer climbing and swinging in. The tree they’d sat beneath after Robin’s mother died their sophomore year in high school.

She’d brought Micah there once. The day before their wedding. Six years after her mother’s death. They sat beneath the dangling branches of
that tree, and she told him how much she still missed her mom, how much she missed not having her there, helping with the wedding plans. Micah called the place a canopy of grace. He said she didn’t have to cry there. He said the branches wept for her. But now Micah was gone, and the same grief she’d felt after Mom died pierced her all over again. Only this was somehow sharper, and there was no Bethany to sit with under the tree.

A tear trickled down her cheek. She brought Micah’s Bible to the tops of her knees and let it fall open. Even through the semidarkness, she could see his slanted, miniscule scrawl decorating the margins of Proverbs in different colored inks. As she flipped through the thin pages of that particular book, she couldn’t find a single stretch of white.

Oh God …

She didn’t know what else to pray. Where else to start. Her body had a puncture somewhere. Everything was leaking away, and she didn’t know how to plug it up. She didn’t even know how to locate the leak. She closed her eyes and let a long, slow breath brush across her lips.

How am I supposed to do this?

She waited for an answer. A small sign. A burning bush. Something to assure her that she would get through this. Because on this side of the pain, it sure didn’t feel like that would ever happen. She wrapped her arms around her legs and laid her cheek against the Bible.

The nightmare that had shattered her sleep blasted through her. Micah on the surgery table, opening his eyes. Only it was too late. The surgeons had already removed his organs.

She squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to press away the image. The doctors had assured her Micah was gone. That nothing would bring him back. But still …

What if they were wrong? What if she’d given it some more time? What if next month, or next year, they discovered a way to reverse extensive brain damage? Or what if she’d insisted he stay home from work that day to
nurse his headache? She’d done nothing except get the bottle of aspirin and tell him to take two. Maybe if he’d stayed home she would have insisted on taking him to the hospital before the bleeding did so much damage. Maybe then she’d be rejoicing with her husband over their pregnancy instead of crouched in the back of their closet, hiding from a pain that was much too quick to find her. She knocked the back of her skull against the wall, trying to tap away the direction of her thoughts.

She had gone into the closet to find a way back to Micah. She’d heard somewhere that smell was the only one of the five senses that bypassed the rational brain. Smell traveled straight to the limbic system. She wanted to drown herself in Micah’s scent and forget he was gone. But her brain wouldn’t cooperate.

I need Micah. He was my partner. My best friend. My everything. I can’t do this on my own. I can’t work my way through this grief and raise a child at the same time. You’re asking too much. This burden is too heavy for one person
.

She envisioned Jesus, scars on His hands, reaching out, inviting her to lay her troubles on His shoulders. He was strong enough to take them. She knew that. But her heart wouldn’t listen. Her heart needed someone tangible. Someone she could touch and feel.

Jesus, how do I give You something when You aren’t here to take it?

Her hand fluttered to the Bible. She clutched it to her chest, curled into a ball, and lay on the floor. The fuzzy carpet rubbed against her cheek. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the appealing call of slumber.

Somewhere in the distant recesses of her mind, a baby cried. A high-pitched wail she couldn’t soothe. And then a doorbell.

Her doorbell.

Robin bolted upright, brushing hair from her face. She wasn’t expecting any visitors. Bryan, Amy, and the kids had flown back to Arizona yesterday. Bryan had to get back to his job. And with the funeral over, there
was no reason for them to stay. Loraine and Jim were still in town, staying at Gavin’s until after Christmas, but they always called before stopping by.

She crept out from underneath Micah’s clothes and made her way down the steps, wiping her tears away with the crumpled sleeve of her sweatshirt. When she reached the door, she drew in a shaky breath and attempted to look composed. Attempted to look like she hadn’t just been hiding in a closet, sniffing Micah’s shirt sleeves. She blotted her face one last time and opened the door.

Bethany stood on the other side.

Robin brought her hand to her chest. She’d expected one of the women from her Bible study, another ready-made casserole in hand. The last person—aside from Micah himself—she expected to find on her doorstep was Bethany. “I thought you left.”

“May I come in?”

Robin stepped aside, thankful for the unexpected distraction. If someone had told her two weeks ago that Bethany Quinn would be standing in her living room, she never would have believed it. But then, she wouldn’t have believed she’d be a pregnant widow either. She pulled long sleeves over her hands and redirected her thoughts. Even though Bethany wore tailored clothes and had straightened her posture, her face and body looked just as they did ten years ago. Robin clung to the familiarity as if it were a life preserver. “Is everything okay?”

“I should be asking you that question.” Bethany didn’t frown or cock her head or look at Robin like she’d swallowed a bomb. She had a way about handling grief. A way that soothed Robin in high school after her mother died. A way that soothed her now.

Robin had the sudden urge to take Bethany’s hands, lead her into her living room, and sit knee to knee the way they’d done so often as girls. She suddenly wanted to tell Bethany everything. How she had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. How she spent the majority of her days with
her nose buried in Micah’s pillow. How she wasn’t sure she wanted the baby. And how this last thought consumed her with a grief more powerful than losing her husband. She settled on something a bit more simplistic.

“Trying to take one day at a time, I guess.” She walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “Can I get you something to drink? We have water.” She disregarded Micah’s iced coffees lining the top shelf. Those were his. She looked from the dinners her church family had cooked over the past two weeks to the side panel and found three cans of Pepsi. “Or pop.”

“No, thanks. I’m not thirsty.”

Neither was Robin, but she grabbed a bottled water anyway. Before she left the hospital, the doctor made her promise to drink plenty of fluids throughout the day. When she twisted off the top, the dripping faucet caught her attention. Five drops splashed into the basin of the sink. Her stomach clenched tighter with each one that fell. Before his collapse, Micah promised to fix that leak. She pried her attention away and caught Bethany staring at her. “What did you say?”

“I asked if we could talk.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”

The two of them settled on the sofa in the living room. Robin took a sip of her water.

Bethany clasped her hands in her lap. “I really hate to ask you this. And you can totally say no. I won’t blame you at all for saying no. But I need a place to stay for a few weeks. Evan kicked me out. And you know I can’t go stay with my mom in that trailer. So I thought I’d ask if—well—if maybe I could stay here. It’s really not a big deal if I can’t. I’ll understand if you want your privacy.”

Robin stared for an extended moment, mouth agape, waiting for the sluggish synapses in her brain to process the information that had tumbled from Bethany’s mouth. “Evan kicked you out?”

Bethany nodded.

“I thought you were going back to Chicago.”

“I was. But we met with Dan’s lawyer after the funeral. Apparently, Dan left me his farm. And by the time the meeting was over, the weather was too bad to drive back.”

“Dan left you his farm?” Robin didn’t mean to sound like such a parrot, but she was having a hard time keeping up. “Then how could Evan kick you out if it belongs to you?”

“Dan left Evan the house.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The bottle crackled inside her grip. “Why would he do that?”

Bethany looked toward the closed blinds. “I’m sure he had a reason.”

“And you
want
to stay in Peaks?” Robin’s eyebrows knotted together. Bethany had spent most of her life trying to escape this town. She didn’t see why Dan’s farm would induce her to stay. “What about your job? What about Dominic—that’s your boyfriend’s name, right? Whenever I talked to your mom, she made it sound like you two were pretty serious.”

Bethany stared hard at something on the floor. “I lost my job. My lease is up. And Dominic’s moving to Atlanta. I mean, it would almost be funny if it wasn’t so sad. This train wreck of things going wrong.” Her cheeks tinged with color, as if she realized, as soon as the words left her mouth, that maybe her train wreck wasn’t as bad as Robin’s. “Anyway, I need a place to stay while I figure out what to do.”

Robin’s brain was fuzzy from lack of sleep. And grief—piles and piles of grief. She rewound. Went back to the beginning. Forced herself to focus on one thing at a time. “Why did Evan kick you out? That doesn’t sound like something he’d do.”

“He said if I stayed there, I’d drive him insane. He also said I’m not a nice person.”

Robin almost laughed. Almost. The sensation felt odd, as if she hadn’t experienced such an urge in years instead of weeks. “So you’d like to stay here? With me?”

“Just for a few weeks. I’d understand if you didn’t want me to.”

Robin studied the woman sitting next to her. This was Bethany. And even though she’d shut Robin out of her life over the past ten years—for reasons Robin understood—Bethany had come back when it mattered. Robin blinked away the gathering tears. Just a few moments ago, she’d sat in a closet and told God she couldn’t carry this burden alone—this awful, heavy, unbearable burden. That she needed somebody to help her.

Is Bethany Your answer, Lord?

Despite her traumatized mind, the irony was not lost on Robin. Only a confident God would use Bethany—a woman who wanted nothing to do with Him—to comfort one of His broken children. The sheen of tears thickened, blurring Robin’s vision. She wanted Bethany to stay. Regardless of whether this was God answering prayer or just her gasping for a breath, she suddenly needed Bethany to stay. She’d told God she couldn’t do this on her own. Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Not completely.

“You can stay as long as you like.”

Bethany did something then. Something surprising yet altogether welcoming. She took Robin’s hand and squeezed. “Just until I figure out what I’m doing. I promise.”

Robin found herself hoping the task would take longer than Bethany expected. “What do you think you’ll do with the farm?”

“Sell it. What else can I do?”

Robin wondered what Evan thought of that idea. He loved farming. And over the past five years, she and Micah had watched him fall in love with Dan’s land and make peace with his past. She wanted to ask Bethany to reconsider. She wanted to suggest that maybe she could rent the land to Evan. That farm held many fond memories. She would be sad to see it go. And sad to see Evan lose it. But now that she had Bethany back, she didn’t want to lose her again so quickly. So instead, she closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.

Lord, if it’s not too much to ask, I’d really like Bethany to stay
.

EIGHTEEN

P
erched on the sleigh bed in Robin’s guest bedroom, Bethany leaned against the oak headboard, her laptop open, legs extended, a small blue ring spinning in the middle of her screen. The Internet didn’t usually take so long to load. She double-clicked on the icon, letting out an impatient sigh. She wanted to post her résumé and search for local Realtors who specialized in farmland. She couldn’t do either of those things without the Internet.

She crossed one leg over the other and jiggled her foot, her mind ambling from one bad thought to the next. Dominic. Dan. The farm. Her empty desk at Parker Crane. The humiliating way she’d broken down—not once, but twice—in front of Evan. She clicked on the spinning blue ring, attempting to block out their most troubling encounter. After seeing the vet pull out those two syringes, she’d lost it. Everything Evan and that lady had said touched too close to a past she’d rather forget.

The blue ring disappeared. Her display changed from Chicago’s skyline to a white screen.
Internet Explorer cannot find web page?
She checked her wireless connection. It was on. She shifted her laptop from her legs to the bed and crept down the hall, the carpeted floor creaking in several places. She flinched each time, especially when she walked past Robin’s room, the half-opened door revealing a curled-up lump in bed. After Robin had helped Bethany get settled in earlier this morning, she disappeared inside her room and fell asleep. Bethany didn’t want to wake her up.