A Marriage Carol (11 page)

In a split second, through the deluge of snow, I saw faces of my children, my mother and father, my sister and brother-in-law praying, and my husband. Jacob peered through the driver’s side window of the car. Beside him was Jay, the older, wiser, more compassionate version of him. They shrank back and braced for impact, and their two faces became one.

“No!” I shouted, unable to steer or stop the car. I threw
up my hands, covered my eyes, and for the first time in as long as I could remember released a prayer from the heart. “God help me! Show me what to do.”

That prayer was the last thing
I remembered before opening my eyes. The surroundings blurry, I recognized a voice before I saw any face.

“Mom!” Becca shouted. “She’s awake! She’s back!”

Becca wasn’t older with a crying baby, she was my daughter again. David and Justin were beside her, held back from the hospital bed, wide-eyed and struggling to get to me. They hugged me as best they could, through the wires and monitors. My head felt like it had been twisted around and smacked with a tire iron a few times. I lifted a hand to my face and felt a bandage that wrapped around my forehead. My mouth was parched and I reached an IV-laden hand to the nightstand to get a drink. Instead,
Becca got the glass and held the straw to my lips. The flash of memory was all I needed for my eyes to go blurry again, this time with tears.

“We were worried, Mom,” David said. “The lights went out and when you didn’t come home we were all alone.”

“Becca did a good job of taking care of us, though,” Justin said.

Becca’s eyes twinkled as she stood watching, pulling her hair behind one ear and feigning disinterest at what the boys said. It was like looking in a mirror at myself.

“You guys did great,” I said. “Bringing those covers downstairs and pulling the couches together.”

“How did you know that?” Justin said.

I paused. “Well, I just figured you did that.”

A nurse came in and the children moved back to let her check my vital signs. She wore a name tag that said, “Amanda.”

“How do you feel, Mrs. Ebenezer?” She strapped something onto my arm, listened with her stethoscope and looked me in the eyes.

“Really good, considering,” I said. “Really good. How long have I been out? What day is this?”

“It’s Christmas Day,” David said. “You need to come
home so we can open presents.”

“We’re going to check out your mom and make sure she’s okay first, big guy,” Amanda said. “Pulse is good. Blood pressure is good.”

“They say you have a percussion,” David said.

“Concussion,” Justin corrected.

“Is that so?” I said. “Well, my head feels more like a drum that’s been whacked, so percussion sounds right to me.”

“How’s the pain?” Amanda kept looking at my eyes. “On a scale of 1 to 10.”

“I’m about a 5.” I sat up slowly and my head spun. “And I think I want to go home.”

Amanda smiled. “We’re going to take care of your percussion first. Just lay back.”

I took her advice and put my head firmly on the pillow, turning to the window and watching a lazy snowfall outside. The blizzard was over and the remnant flakes fell like stragglers to the dance. Suddenly, a wave of panic swept over me and I glanced at Becca.

“Where’s your father? Is he all right?”

She put a hand on my shoulder and leaned close. “You were both in an accident, Mom.”

I struggled to get up, but the nurse held me back. “Where is he? Where’s Jacob?”

An alarm went off next to my head, and there was a commotion in the room as a nurse ushered the boys out. The noise leaked into my skull and reverberated off the edges of my brain. Becca was crying and I was shouting, “Where is he? What happened?”

“Marlee,” someone said. That voice.
His
voice. Older, younger, I couldn’t tell. I closed my eyes. Was it real or imagined? Was I back on the mountain or in reality?

“Marlee, I’m here,” Jacob said. “Open your eyes.”

A few abrasions and a bandage on his forehead. Five fingers on both hands.

“How do you feel?” he said.

“Come on, honey,” the nurse said to Becca, and the two of them exited. The alarms were silent. The room quiet. It was just the two of us.

“I’m okay, I guess.” I couldn’t help staring into those blue eyes. The crow’s-feet were mostly gone and the wrinkled skin and gray hair were as well. But it was the same voice. The same as Jay. I put a hand on his arm and there was more than static electricity that shot through me, just like the hand of the old woman. He must have
felt it, too, because he seemed to catch his breath and took my hand.

“I thought we had lost you,” he said.

“I thought the same about you. What happened?”

“You were right about taking County Line. I never should have chanced it. It was too slick. A truck broadsided us. Your side took the brunt.”

“I remember the truck. But then I woke up and you weren’t there. I got out of the car and tried to find you. And then I tripped over a rock … but it wasn’t a rock …”

His brow furrowed, he leaned closer and spoke gently. “It’s mixed up in your head. The truck driver came back for us. He pulled me out, but you were wedged into your seat. The paramedics had to get you out. And it took them a while just to get there. Do you remember any of it?”

I looked at the bedspread and the IV in my arm. “It was so real.”

“What was?”

“The snow. I climbed up a hillside to this house—it was a retreat center. There was an old man inside, waiting for me.”

He smiled and took my hand. “No, I’m sorry, Marlee.
You never left the car on your own—you had help from the paramedics and a stretcher.”

“Jacob, something has happened. I don’t think I can fully explain it, but it’s like I’ve been given a gift.”

“Same here,” he said with more compassion than usual. “Just having you awake on Christmas is a present for the kids. For all of us.”

“We didn’t sign the papers, did we? We never made it to the lawyer, right?”

“No. But he still has everything ready. What? Why are you giving me that look?”

“I have a question. Remember the marriage conference we went to a while ago? The one at the church.”

He named the speaker and the title of the weekend.

“That’s it. They had a conference notebook. Do you remember it?”

“Marlee, you need to rest.”

I sat up. “No, this is important. Stay with me. There was a conference notebook; we were supposed to take notes, write some things in there. Do you remember it?”

He nodded.

“You wrote something down during one of the sessions. Just one thing. What was it?”

“That was years ago.”

“Jacob, what did you write?”

He looked outside and then at his feet. He rubbed his hands and then looked at me with those blue eyes. “It was something the speaker said. ‘Marriage is worth fighting for.’”

Silence between us. He sat in the chair and I searched his face.

“I know we agreed the divorce would be the best thing for us and the kids,” I said. “But I’m wondering if we could give it one more try?”

His eyebrows went up and lines formed on his forehead, which he winced through, as he sat on the chair beside the bed. “You really did get knocked in the head.”

“It’s called a
percussion.”
I smiled. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“No, it’s just such a change. Like a Green Bay fan rooting for the Bears all of a sudden.”

“Something strange happened to me last night. I need to sort it out in my head and then I’ll tell you about it.”

He patted my hand. “Sure. We can do that. What about the apartment I’ve rented? What about me moving out?”

“I don’t think you should. Unless you want to. Unless you feel like you can’t stay any longer.”

He glanced out the window and I looked too, at the snow, swirling in the wind of a Christmas morning. The sun cast a golden glow off the surface of the white blanket that covered everything.

“You want to know the truth?” he said. “Having you back with us, after watching the ambulance take you away and not knowing what was wrong—not knowing if you were okay or if you were going to make it—made me do some thinking of my own.”

I searched his eyes and in that moment saw Jay, his older, mature self. “Thinking about what?”

“Us. Me. The things I’ve done to retreat from you.” His chest sank a little. “You know … the dance we do to keep the distance. To cut out communication and sharing our lives. So much of the time we focus on the kids and what it might do to them.” He paused. “But I have to tell you, I know my life won’t be the same if we split up.”

I sat up quickly, too quickly, and nearly pulled out the IV. “Let me ask you this.”

“Careful, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“If you could change one little thing about our family,
not a big, huge change, just one small thing, one small regret, what would it be?”

Jacob wrapped both hands around mine and lowered his head, tucking it between his outstretched arms. “There are so many.”

“Just one. What was the first thing that came to your mind?”

“It’s probably the pet thing the kids talk about. I’d let them have a dog.”

I sat back with my head on the pillow, closed my eyes, and a tear leaked out.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

I shook my head. “No. That was a wonderful answer. Really … wonderful.”

“What about you?” he said.

“I have a million regrets,” I said. “I’ve never told you how much I appreciate how hard you work for us … I don’t thank you for providing. Most of the time I’m just crabbing about your hours.” I sighed. “Or maybe it’s how I look at you. I see your faults instead of the real you—who you’re becoming … I always thought you were the one who needed to change and then I’d be happy. For the first time I’m able to see myself.”