A Marriage Carol (10 page)

The steam sizzled and fizzled and Rue stood by my side, watching the last of the snow vaporize into the air. I placed the pot by the hearth and took a breath. Anxious thoughts swirled like the raging storm. I ran to the back window looking for any sign of life or light. I found neither, just darkness. I checked the phone again. Dead. I found my flashlight and checked the garage. Jay’s car was gone and the door was still up. Snow had piled and drifted over three feet deep with a set of tracks down the middle of the driveway. In the other bay sat a Suburban, and I assumed it was four-wheel drive.

Helpless, I watched Rue run up the steps and disappear around the corner at the top. I followed, my footsteps echoing throughout the house. The wooden floor was slick and cold as I crept along. Using my flashlight I checked the hall and found on either side of it were rooms with six-panel, closed doors. Instead of numbers there were words on each. “Goodness,” “Peace,” “Patience,” and several others words I recognized in the list of fruits of the Spirit. (I don’t know a lot about the Bible, but I remembered those.) I opened one that said “Joy” and peered at a bright, cheery room with a yellow comforter on the king-sized bed and wallpaper patterned
with sunshine and rainbows. Just looking at it made me smile. A handcrafted needlepoint depicted a basket of fruit and underneath said, “But the fruit of the Spirit is … joy.” A healthy number of books about marriage lined the shelves, as well as a few novels.

I closed the door and moved to the end of the hall where another door stood open a few inches, just wide enough for Rue to slip through. On the outside was the word “Peace.” A thin sliver of light hit the hallway floor and I paused to listen. A whispered voice inside floated about the hallway like a snowflake too light to fall. It sounded like a prayer from a person straining with each breath. “Give me the strength to face this trial,” the woman said. Then more I couldn’t hear.

After a moment of silence I called out, “Hello?” Rue trotted to the door and looked out, his ears straight and pointed. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“Come in,” she said. Her voice was like gravel.

I pushed the door open and Rue stepped back, then hurried to a chair in the corner and jumped onto the bed. There was a fire in the hearth and the room lit with a golden glow. I turned off the flashlight and held it at my side. Another comfortable chair sat by the fire and
a nightstand held a worn Bible. More books lined the shelves along a wall. I recognized the dresser immediately, for it was the same kind my mother had handed down to me. The wallpaper was sky blue, and the firelight made the room feel warm and cozy.

“You must be Marlee,” the woman said, her white hair barely above the comforter line. She was snuggled into a mountain of covers.

“And you’re Jay’s wife?” I said, moving closer.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said. “He told me what happened. Pull the chair over here so I can see you as we talk.”

“I can’t stay. I just wanted to ask if I could take your other car to look for my husband. Jay left to find him and I’m concerned.”

With much effort, she pulled herself up to a sitting position. It was darker on this side of the room, but I could make out her features in the flickering light. Her hair was white and her face wrinkled, like the crumpled paper of a perfectionistic writer. Her hands were knuckles and veins, and the skin hung on her like an old coat. Her face was pallid and she licked her lips with a tongue that seemed swollen and searching for moisture.

“Would you mind handing me that glass of water?” she said, her finger shaking as she pointed to the nightstand inches away.

I held it for her and she drank a few sips from a straw like a child, smacking her lips and nodding. She took a deep breath before she said, “Thank you.”

I returned the glass to the stand and she asked if the storm had slowed. When I turned back, there was something about her face and the concern there that seemed familiar. A spark in the eyes that moved me with a flicker of recognition.

“I don’t think it’s slowing at all. And I’m worried about my husband. Yours, too.”

“You can use the car. He usually keeps the keys on a pegboard in the garage.” Her words came slowly, with effort, as if she wanted to say something more but held back for some reason.

When I turned to go she stuck out an arthritic hand and took my wrist. Something electric shot through me, a sensory experience I had never felt, as if some forbidden conduit of mercy had taken hold.

“What is it?” the woman said. “Something’s troubling you. Something you’ve seen.”

Searching her eyes was like looking into a rising ocean. Her eyebrows raised before I could speak, then came a knowing smile.

“So, my husband has shown you the power of snow.”

“Yes, and I’ve seen something awful.”

“You saw the future?”

“The third pan. I put the snow in it by mistake …” My voice trailed and the room felt as if it were spinning. “The last scene of the present showed an accident and in my hurry, I got the wrong pot.”

“It’s all right. I’m just sorry you had to go through that alone.”

“I n-need to know,” I stammered. “Is what I saw what
might be
or what
will be?
I want to know if it has to be this way, or if the future can be changed.”

“And you want to know if it can change, how do
you
change it?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

She blinked, like a female Yoda, then closed her eyes and lifted a finger in the air and traced something unseen. “Just one snowflake changes the construction of the water. One choice changes the construction of a life. What feels like an accident changes everything. Like
that snow globe you broke on your anniversary.”

“How did you know about that?” I said. I hadn’t told even my closest friends the story. And we bought a replica of the globe and never told the owners the truth.

She kept her eyes closed and her hand fell to rest on the comforter. The woman moved her legs under the covers and Rue stretched and curled his tongue, his legs shaking as he extended every inch. Then he snuggled close again.

When I looked back at the woman’s face, she was smiling, showing aged teeth, and it was in that smile that I finally recognized. The chipped tooth. The faded brown eyes. Her face was a mirror that projected forward in time.

I saw myself
.

I stepped back, trying to breathe, questions swirling. “This can’t be … you can’t be …”

“I am.”

“But, if you are … then Jay … is Jacob?”

“He is.”

“But why didn’t I recognize him? How could I have been so blind?”

“Remember the story of the two on the road to
Emmaus?” she said.

That sounded biblical. Something about a post-resurrection appearance and travelers, but I couldn’t place it.

“They didn’t recognize the one they loved as they walked along,” she said. “Their eyes were closed because of their own pain. And then they sat down by a fire and He kept speaking to them. He opened their eyes with His words and their hearts burned within them.

“Tell me,” she continued. “Did the things you saw in the melting snow make your heart yearn for another chance? For a different outcome to your life?”

“Yes,” I choked.

She looked inside my soul and held out both hands. “Then this is it. What you see here is just as possible as what you saw in the snow. Neither is reality yet. But you can choose.”

I sat on the bed, the air escaping the room. “But there’s so much hurt. So much distance between him and me. It’s not like we can just start over.”

“You think I don’t know that? I know what you’ve been through.”

I stared at the fire, wondering why it didn’t flicker and die. You have to have wood to keep a fire going. You
have to have hope to keep a marriage intact.

“So, you’re not real? You’re just like the woman I saw who married Erik?”

Though her body had been ravaged by time, that could not steal the sudden sweetness to her face or her words. “You have been given a gift few are open to receiving. You have seen two different futures, two differing paths for what may lie ahead.”

“May
,” I said. “So it’s not determined. The future can be changed.”

“Yes. But what might be, never will be, unless you make the choice to move toward your husband. What could be, will never be known if it’s abandoned. You’ll never experience the joy and tenderness of a lifelong love unless you fight for it. I know that now. The question is, will you? Or will you settle for something else?”

“The children,” I said. “What will their lives be like in your version of the future?”

“Children struggle no matter what you choose,” she said.
“Their
choices matter as well. But I can assure you they will be affected by what you decide tonight.”

Something warm but terrifying spread through me, like hot chocolate … or more like radiation. And fear
rose up with the fallout of my thoughts.

“I’ve been trying so hard. I’ve been working at the relationship for so long.”

“It’s not about trying harder. In the end, it’s not really about you doing the right thing or him responding in the right way. It’s letting go of your own limited vision. This is not about what you can dredge up from the floor of your imagination. It’s allowing God to do something you can’t. That’s what it’s always been about. For the two on the road two thousand years ago, and the men on the road tonight.”

“So I have a chance to get this right …” She shook her head. “Not get it right. It’s about making good choices. It’s putting one foot in front of the other on a good path, one that will lead you to a place down the road you can be proud of, no matter what response you get.”

“I’m confused. You’re not promising a husband who buys a dog and serves me soup? A man who wants to help other struggling marriages? You can’t be sure that will happen?”

“There are two futures and infinite possibilities ahead. You can move toward one or the other right now, with
every choice you make. But you will never know what might become of your marriage, what life you might give to others, if you don’t take a step.”

Rue sat up on the bed, his ears pricked again, looking out the window. Through the blinding snow I saw a hint of yellow flashers lighting the darkness.

“Who chose his name?” I said, nodding toward the dog.

“Jacob,” she said. “One of the regrets he had. Just shows that a regret can become a good thing when a good choice is made.”

I gave the dog a pat on the head and placed a hand on the woman’s arm. “I don’t understand all of this. But thank you.”

She smiled. “Now hurry along. Get to them. You’ve already made your choice. I can tell.”

I looked back once at the doorway, the dog spread out on the covers and her hand on top of its head. A picture that stayed with me as I ran down the stairs in the dark, the fire in the living room hearth nearly out. My shoes were dry, and I hurried and wrapped myself in my thin coat. I found the keys and managed to get the garage door up, hitting the manual release. The huge vehicle
moved through the deep snow like a turtle, then gained speed and went off the edge of the concrete driveway as I slipped and slid down toward the road. With the Suburban in four-wheel drive, I spun the wheels, trying to give myself enough momentum to move, but not so much that I would lose control.

The road was deserted, the previous tire tracks almost completely covered by the blowing snow. In my rearview mirror I noticed the soft glow of light coming from the second-floor window, and then the house disappeared through the trees and the curtain of snow. It took several minutes to find the main road, then I took the right turn too quickly and my back end fishtailed. I spun into the turn and slid, then regained control and moved back to the middle of the road and down the hill.

Her words, my words, echoed as I drove. One choice changes the construction of a life. You’ll never experience the joy and tenderness of a lifelong love unless you fight for it
.

Snowflakes, like choices, splashed on the windshield. I hit the high beams and the view was no better. It was actually worse, the flakes descending in waves now, the wind whipping them sideways across the covered road. I have never heard of a snow tsunami, but if there was
such a thing I was in the middle of it.

I hit the brake down a steep slope and went into a slide to the right, pine trees by the edge of the road coming dangerously close. I let off the brake, thinking I was headed over the embankment, but the car held and righted itself. I was concentrating so hard on keeping my momentum without plunging over the edge that I didn’t see the yellow flashers until I was on top of them. Only two choices—I could swerve or hit the brake and hope. Instinctively I hit the brake pedal.

The road dipped to the right and as soon as I put my foot down, the car slid toward the curve, toward the flashing yellow. Windshield wipers going full tilt, my front end pulled to the right and my headlights shone on the overturned car in the field, more flashing yellow.