Wildflowers from Winter (19 page)

I’m pregnant
.

She tested the words out in her mind, but they refused to transfer to her mouth. What was it about those two words? Why couldn’t she say them out loud?

“I’m positive. Wish Grandma and Uncle Jay a Merry Christmas for me.” She gazed at the clock. “I really have to go. Church is in an hour.” And she had to shower, maybe shave—both tasks took so much longer now than they did a couple weeks ago.

Thirty minutes later, Robin’s fingers shook as she brushed mascara on her lashes. By the time she was dressed and ready to go, the tremor in her fingers had spread to her hands and arms, landing somewhere in the pit of her stomach.

Bethany sat at the kitchen table, laptop in front of her as she clicked back and forth between her e-mail and AutoCAD—the computer software program they were using to design their potential café. At times, Robin caught herself growing attached to the project. The brainstorming and designing had become a much needed distraction. Something to take her mind off her new reality. With each passing day, the realization that Micah was gone—really gone—dug its nails deeper into her soul.

Robin poured herself a glass of milk and forced down a few sips.
Bethany stopped her typing and stared at the shaking cup. “You don’t have to go, you know.”

“Yes, I do.” She and Micah had gone to the six o’clock Christmas Eve service at Grace Assembly for the past eight years. There was no reason to stop now. “You can come with me if you want.”

Bethany looked at Robin as if she’d just invited her to go Christmas caroling with Pastor Fenton, then returned her attention to the computer screen.

“Any bites on your résumé yet?”

Bethany gave her head a stiff shake, clicked back to AutoCAD, and changed the dimension of the windows while Robin watched over her shoulder, more than half tempted to stay home and do some more brainstorming. Instead, she pulled herself away and said good-bye.

Evan had offered to pick her up, but she’d declined. She and Micah drove her Jetta to the Christmas Eve service. That’s how it had always been, and that’s how it would stay.

When Robin stepped inside the crowded church, several familiar faces turned to look at her. Micah’s parents smiled from across the lobby. One minute Loraine was talking to an older couple by the double doors near the south entrance, and the next she had taken Robin’s coat and wrapped her in a hug. Jim approached at a slower pace, delayed by chronic arthritis. He gave Robin a side hug before placing his palm beneath Loraine’s elbow. Amanda stood beside them. Evan and Gavin were missing from the ranks.

As if reading her mind, Loraine’s face seemed to lengthen, adding ten years to her appearance. “Gavin’s not coming, and Evan should be here any minute.” Loraine took Robin’s hand and squeezed. “How are you doing?”

A gust of cold wind saved her from answering. It blew into the lobby
and swept strands of hair into her eyes. A shiver ran up her backbone and spread to her shoulders as Evan entered through the double doors. He hugged her and searched her face, a question in his eyes. She gave her head a subtle shake. No, she hadn’t told anybody else about her pregnancy. She hadn’t been able to get the words out.

Jim collected her coat and went to hang it up. Several paces away, the sanctuary awaited—full of life and the beauty of Advent, when she felt gray and dead. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that Christmas Eve services were short. Just forty-five minutes. She could handle forty-five minutes.

Amanda looped her arm around Robin’s elbow. “We were thinking of sitting somewhere different this year.”

“We always sit in the balcony,” Robin said.

Jim rejoined them and took Loraine’s hand.

A lump filled the hollow space of Robin’s clavicle.

Why did it have to be Micah? Of all the husbands in the world, why hers? Why did Loraine get to hold Jim’s hand, when she was left with nothing but wispy memories? The sudden and fierce desire to rip their hands apart gripped her.

“We just thought it would be a good idea to sit somewhere else,” Jim said.

Robin peeled her eyes away from their hands and nodded toward the staircase. “I’m going to sit up there.” She and Micah sat in the balcony every single Sunday. They had their own special spot. His family could exchange glances all they wanted; she needed to be in the balcony now. She turned and walked up the stairs, and Micah’s family followed.

As the sanctuary filled to capacity, Robin played with the small white candle the usher had handed her upon entering, rolling it back and forth in her fingers until the music started—the slow, haunting melody of “Silent Night.” Micah’s family stood, but she stayed in her seat. She couldn’t stand.
She couldn’t sing. She couldn’t even breathe. Gravity had singled her out, gathering all its force to rest solely on her shoulders.

A couple of months ago, she’d talked to a woman in Bible study about God and how He had a plan for all things. She had believed that then, felt amazed by it. But now? She wasn’t so sure. Not with anger pulling her out to sea. With every crashing wave, it sucked her farther and farther away from shore, away from God, away from the Christian she’d become over the past ten years. While the Christmas music floated around her, she let herself drift away, unsure if she wanted to swim back. Unsure if she had the energy or the faith to fight against the forceful waves.

I can’t do this. I can’t, Lord. It’s too much
.

The pianist started another song. “Joy to the World.” But how could there ever be joy in a world without Micah? The gravity pressed harder. Her lungs could not expand. Her brain demanded she stand up. She needed to get her body out of the sanctuary. She no longer had control of herself. Nothing about her felt like her. It was as if her body had separated into disconnected parts. Her eyes and her lips and her arms and her legs. Each had become its own entity. She, as a whole, no longer existed.

Forcing her muscles to move, she rose to her feet, scooted past an eternity of knees, and hurried down the stairs. She didn’t let out her breath until the cold winter air splashed against her face. She sucked in gulps of it while she stumbled to her car. But even as she ran, there was no escaping the grief.

Evan slammed the car door, eying the silver Audi parked in Robin’s driveway, his heart giving an unwelcome blip. He knew Bethany was staying here. He just hadn’t prepared himself for a run-in with her tonight. He figured she was spending the holiday back in Chicago. With her boyfriend.

Over the past week, thoughts of the woman popped into his head more
times than he cared to admit. He liked to think it was because she held his fragile future in her hands. But truth was, he couldn’t figure Bethany out, and anytime he couldn’t figure something out, it drove him nuts. It was the same reason he’d spent an entire week as a kid twisting and turning Bryan’s old Rubik’s Cube. And that was just a cube.

He gripped the coat Robin had left at the church and walked toward the house. Unlit Christmas lights wrapped around the gutters. Micah always put the lights up at the beginning of November. They were
that
couple. The couple that skipped right over Thanksgiving in their eagerness to spread yuletide cheer. As far as he knew, the lights hadn’t been turned on since Micah’s collapse. Come January, Evan would be the one to take them down. He shook away the depressing thought, stepped onto Robin’s stoop, and pressed the doorbell.

Five seconds later, Bethany swung open the door, clutching the knob with one hand and the doorjamb with the other, as though blocking his entrance. “Yes?”

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” he said. “Have you decided what you’re going to do with the farm yet?”

“Is that why you came? To interrogate me about my plans?”

“I came to check on Robin.”

“Robin’s at church. I assumed you’d be with her.”

“She’s not here?”

A crease formed between Bethany’s eyebrows.

Great. Robin was missing in subzero temperature. Without her coat. He shouldn’t have listened to his dad. He should have gone after her as soon as she hightailed it out of the sanctuary. “May I come in?”

She hesitated.

Before he could remind her that this was his brother’s house, her hand slipped off the knob and she stepped back into the living room. Wearing faded jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, with her hair pulled back and messy,
she looked much more like a carefree college student than an overly ambitious professional. His eyes moved down the length of her body and landed on her unpolished, neatly trimmed toenails. She must have caught him staring, because she curled her toes and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Something warm tiptoed up his spine. He wasn’t used to seeing her like this, without her makeup, without her tailored clothes, without every strand of hair in its proper place.

It was refreshing.

Evan stepped inside, greeted by the smell of sugar cookies and the sound of Christmas music—a familiar melody without any lyrics. An opened laptop, a can of Coke, a crumpled napkin, and some papers littered the top of the coffee table. Bethany lunged at the mess and swiped up the can and napkin as if he’d caught her with a smoking gun. When she straightened, she ran a hand down her rumpled sweatshirt, then over the crown of her head.

The gesture was cute, but something about the sight of her listening to Christmas music all alone on Christmas Eve pulled strings in his chest that he didn’t want pulled. Nobody should be alone on Christmas Eve. Not even Bethany. “Do you know where Robin is?”

“I told you. She went to church.” She glanced at the wall clock and went into the kitchen.

He followed. “She left in the middle of a song. I wanted to check on her.”

Bethany threw away the napkin and peeked into the oven. The smell of warm sugar and butter escaped into the room.

“I didn’t peg you as the baking type,” he said.

She put on an oven mitt and pulled out a sheet of cookies—the cutaway kind with green Christmas trees stamped in the middle of each one. “I knew Robin shouldn’t have gone.” Bethany set the sheet on top of the stove. “She needs time to heal. Not go to church. Your family shouldn’t have pressured her.”

“What makes you think we pressured her?”

“Why else would she want to go to church right now?”

“I don’t know. Because that’s what she and Micah did on Christmas Eve. They went to church.” He looped his thumbs into his pockets. “Maybe she was hoping to find some comfort.”

Bethany shook her head, as if he didn’t have a clue. She used a spatula to scoop the cookies off the sheet and onto a cooling rack. “Do you want my opinion?”

“Since you’re so eager to give it.”

“I don’t think God is going to help her through this.”

He crossed his arms, intrigued. “Why not?”

“Not everybody needs a crutch. Sometimes the crutch just gets in the way.”

So that’s what she thought? She saw God as a crutch, helping weak-minded people like himself get through life. “Do you want my opinion?” he asked.

She stopped her scooping and raised her eyebrows at him. “Since you’re so eager to give it.”

“Everybody has a crutch.”

She shook her head again. “I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

He smirked and took a few steps toward her. “What about your career? Or your success? What about that fancy car out in the driveway? If all those things were taken away, you think you’d still be standing?”

“I’ve had a pretty rough go of it this month”—she motioned to her legs—“and I’m still on my feet. I stopped thinking about God a long time ago, and I’m doing just fine.”

“Are you?”

Her eyes flickered, but she turned away from him and scooped three
more cookies onto the rack. He came to her side, so close he could feel the warmth from the oven and smell the vanilla clinging to her skin. “You’re a duck, standing in a puddle.”

She furrowed her brow. “Did you just call me a duck?”

“Standing in a puddle.” He placed his palm against the countertop and leaned into it. “It’s something my dad used to say when we were younger. Whenever any of us would step away from God, he’d warn us not to go flying into puddles. You know, not to be like those ducks you see in town, standing on the side of the road, ankle deep in a puddle of water. He’d tell us to fly back to the pond.”