Bossy Bridegroom (3 page)

Jeanie’s hands stopped in mid-punch. “What?”

Their eyes locked.

“I knew you doubted that you were smart, because Buffy was such a genius. I knew how your dad went for your intelligence when he wanted to hurt you. I knew that drew blood and you’d never defend yourself.”

She couldn’t look away. She’d never demanded respect. Never figured she deserved it. Now here he was admitting it. In effect handing her his best weapon.

“I knew you based every bit of your shaky self-esteem on your personality and looks. You were so popular and pretty and you worked so hard at both. I wanted it for myself. And once I had it—had you—I set out to take that bit of confidence away from you.”

“Go away, please.” Jeanie tore the huge, smooth circle of dough into three equal pieces and began forming loaves. Her hands worked automatically. She’d done this a hundred times in the six months she’d worked at the center. Twenty-five people for lunch, each loaf fed about twelve. Crust pieces were hard to chew, so that took away six.

Michael’s right hand settled on her shoulder, and she couldn’t ignore him anymore.

She narrowed her eyes at him, doing her best imitation of a woman with courage. “Oh, are you still here?” She held his gaze.

“I talked to Pastor Lewis last night for about two hours.”

Jeanie gasped. “It was already late when you left my place.”

“I was too desperate to wait.”

“Too impatient, you mean.”

Mike shook his head. “I was awful to you last night. I had all these plans about proving to you that I’d changed, and then I just fell right back into the same old habits. But that was one night. I went straight to talk to the pastor. I was clear about our breakup being all my fault. He agreed to be a marriage counselor for us.” Michael grabbed the receiver of the black wall phone and punched in numbers while Jeanie tried to process what he’d said.

“Marriage counseling? No, we’re not doing that. We’re through.”

“Hello, Pastor Bert? It’s Michael. I’m at the senior center with Jeanie right now.”

“Michael, hang up that phone!”

Michael obeyed her, which threw Jeanie for a loop.

“He was on his way to town for coffee anyway. He’ll be here in about five minutes.”

Jeanie resisted the urge to smash one of her lovely loaves right in his face.

Michael seemed to sense the direction of her thoughts. That didn’t make him a genius. It wasn’t as if she was trying to hide her rage, after all.

“So, do you work all morning to get the noon meal ready, or do you have a break?”

The nerve of the man almost choked her. “Are you serious about trying to breathe life back into our marriage?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Michael came up to face her.

She turned and nestled each spongy dough ball in the greased loaf pans. “Then you’re doing it just exactly wrong by forcing your way into my life and dictating that we’ll go to marriage counseling. How am I supposed to think anything but that you’re the same tyrant you always were?”

“So, if I’m doing it the wrong way, then there must be a right way. So you’re saying we can fix this marriage.”

“I’m saying get out. I’ve said that any number of times, but as usual you’re calling the shots.” Relentless jerk. That’s how he’d convinced her to marry him right out of high school. He’d been a senior when he’d asked her out at the end of her freshman year. All through college he’d pressured her—in every way.

He’d pursued her, loved her, flattered her. She’d been thrilled and honored, and when he criticized, she’d twisted herself into a pretzel to make him proud.

“I’m not interested in healing this relationship. I’m finally learning to respect myself.” Well, she intended to learn … someday. No luck yet.

“You told me you don’t want a divorce.” Michael-the-Deaf-Man settled on a chair at the rectangular kitchen table and scooted another chair out a bit. For her. She considered using it on his head.

She set the loaves in a sunny window, covering them with a dish towel to rise. It chafed that Michael was exactly right about one thing. She had nothing to do for about two hours.

She perhaps should speak a little louder. “Get out, Michael. We’ve got nothing to discuss. Unless you want to start divorce proceedings. I’m not going to do it, but I will go along with it if you wish. I made my vows before God, and I intend to keep them.”

“I agree. We took vows, and they’re eternal. Our marriage is for life. Sit down.”

More orders. He was trying to be nice, and he still couldn’t stop.

“That’s wonderful.” Hands clapped together in glee.

Jeanie jumped. The hardy voice turned her around.

“If you’ve got a good grasp of God’s plan for marriage, you can make this work.” Pastor Lewis was here. And he’d gotten just exactly the wrong message.

Michael stood and extended a hand to Jeanie’s pastor. The two greeted each other like old friends. They back-slapped and smiled, and Jeanie felt it happening. Already she was being pushed aside, the submissive wife, the troublemaker who didn’t want to fix her marriage. She washed her hands, trying to figure a way out of this trap.

“Pastor, we talked about this last night, but I want to repeat it in front of Jeanie, with you as a witness. I abandoned her and our daughter. I take full responsibility for the mess we’re in. The reason I want you here is because I’m a tyrant, unkind, unloving. I’ve found Jesus since we broke up, and I’m here to try to make up for all I’ve done.”

Jeanie felt like she was hearing words that she’d only imagined in her wildest dreams. Hanging up a hand towel, she shook her head a bit, trying to make sense of what he’d said.

“I thought I could come here and make things right.” Michael shoved his fingers into his hair just as he had last night. Acting agitated, unsure—it was a completely foreign gesture. “But the first words out of my mouth were said in anger. Then later I started bullying her and, worse yet, enjoying it. I don’t think we can handle it without professional help.”

Michael turned to her. “I’m sorry about last night. When I was born again, I felt the anger lift off of my heart and I thought I was healed. But yesterday I found out it’s still there, dormant for a while but still close at hand. I’ve got a long way to go, and even if you promised to be strong and keep me accountable, I’m afraid we’d slip right back into the same patterns. That’s why I want the pastor involved.”

He said it like their marriage was fixed. Like they were only working out details.

Tears burned at her eyes.

Pastor Lewis, a rotund man, tall and full of gruff kindness, rested one of his huge, gentle hands on her arm. “Sit down, Jeanie. I told Michael that you and I have talked about your fears many times and the pain of your marriage and giving Sally up. I understand how hard you’ve struggled. I just want us to talk together for a while and see if we can find a starting place. I don’t expect a few minutes of talk to settle years of strife.”

Jeanie looked from the pastor’s red-cheeked face to Mike’s chiseled, tanned profile. Both of them were strong men. She knew Pastor Lewis was her friend and a wise counselor. But he was trying to bend her to his will just like Michael did.

Or maybe he just thought this was the right thing to do.

She sank into the chair Pastor Bert pulled out. Michael, straight across the small table while the pastor sat on the end between them, reached out to clasp her hands as if she’d just declared her undying love and agreed to forgive him everything.

She moved to shake his grip away when the pastor said, “Let’s join hands and pray.”

With an exhausted, tearful sigh of defeat, Jeanie let Michael hang on even as she knew his grip would pull her under and destroy her.

Michael fought down the triumphant sense of victory as he held Jeanie’s hand.

“Jesus said we are to forgive seventy times seven,” the pastor began.

Seventy times seven equaled four hundred and ninety, and Michael knew he was already way over. He’d probably needed forgiving four hundred and ninety times before their one-month anniversary.

When the prayer ended, Pastor Lewis focused on Jeanie. “You’ll notice my prayer was one of forgiveness, from God and for each other. It’s not just Michael who has sinned here, Jeanie. When one partner is the more dominant personality, the problem isn’t just that he’s calling the shots; it’s that you’re letting him. He gets in the habit of not listening to you, and you get in the habit of not even telling him what you want.”

Pastor Bert reached in the breast pocket of his suit coat and pulled out … an inflatable baseball bat. “I want you to hit Michael with this every time he tries to bully you.”

Jeanie lifted her head. Her shoulders squared. She jerked her hand loose from Michael’s and reached for the bat. She ripped its cellophane wrapper open and began blowing it up with a vengeance.

“Uh, Pastor Bert, I’ve never heard of this before.” Did he carry one with him at all times? How often did he recommend this technique?

The pastor ignored him and kept talking to Jeanie. “And this is just for him overruling you, being a bully, demeaning you, insisting on having his way without consulting you or respecting your opinion, hurting your feelings in any way. If you ever feel like Michael is
angry
at you—we’ve talked in counseling about the fear you lived with. If you feel that, call me anytime, day or night. I will personally come to your place and throw him out.

“H–her place?” Michael’s heart started pounding. Was the pastor going to recommend they live together? Michael wanted that so badly he was afraid to hope.

“Yes, you need time together to fix this, and I believe you can do that best together, platonically for now.” Pastor Lewis’s eyes narrowed, and Michael wished the man would go back to talking to Jeanie. “But if your wife calls me, even
once
, I will personally come and throw you out, at which point you will do your counseling from separate addresses. And we will begin counseling immediately. Together for now, the three of us, at least once a week. I may decide you need individual counseling as we go along. I can come here early in the morning or whenever is most convenient. I’m not leaving Jeanie to contend with you on her own.”

Knowing these were rules he needed, Michael agreed quickly.

Jeanie was too busy blowing up the bat to voice what Mike was sure would be a protest.

Maybe she was looking so forward to whacking him and throwing him out, she’d actually let him move in. Then all he had to do was be perfect, and he could stay. Praying silently for God to renew the miraculous healing of his temper, Mike knew it wouldn’t be easy.

God, You know I need supernatural control. Help me to be a better person. Help me to find joy in kindness. I need You to be with me every second of every day
.

“And now, Michael, we’re going to talk about your sinful treatment of your wife, one of the smartest, sweetest, hardest-working women I’ve ever known. She has a beautiful heart for the Lord, and her gift is to serve others, one of Jesus’ highest callings, and you’ve taken advantage of that.”

The pastor was off, and by the time he was done telling some hard truths, all based on Michael’s own confessions of last night, Michael felt like a worm—which he was.

“True strength doesn’t come from anger and domination. True strength comes from self-sacrifice and patience. Jeanie is much closer to true strength than you. You think it proves you’re strong when you bully her, but it doesn’t. You’re a weakling.”

Michael was squirming in his chair, humiliated in front of his wife.

Then the pastor turned his fire and brimstone eyes on Jeanie. “And you think he’s strong and you’re weak. But there’s nothing weak about the woman I know. You’re a child of God, a precious creation. God calls us to be humble, but true humility doesn’t mean you allow denigration and abuse. It means you stand strong enough against Michael to not
allow
him to sin.”

He included them both as he finished. “The point of the bat is to
remind
Michael he’s off track. It’s Jeanie trying to help you. She could do that as well by holding up her hand or leaving the room.”

“But that wouldn’t be as much fun.” Jeanie clutched the bat and looked at Michael until Michael was almost afraid to move. She was just looking for an excuse to whack him.

“And it doesn’t matter if you think she’s wrong, if you think she’s being too harsh. The whole point of this is to
hear
her, to
listen
, to respect her feelings. Right or wrong, she’s entitled to voice an opinion. If she’s feeling controlled, then you need to figure that out and stop whatever you’re doing and apologize and shape up.”

“Now, I’m going to give you an assignment to work on tonight. Write down all the things you love about each other and share those lists while you’re alone.”

“That won’t take long.”

Michael didn’t remember Jeanie having such a sarcastic sense of humor.

“Now, let’s pray.”

When the pastor finished, he said, “Michael, you’re going to spend the day with Jeanie. I know Monday is a busy day for her, and you’ve admitted you’re unemployed.”

Michael flinched. Pastor Bert made it sound as if Michael were a homeless vagrant. He’d made a fortune selling his company. With building contracts stretching out two years, there’d been a bidding war to buy it. Plus he’d inherited more from his well-to-do parents. If he was smart, he could live comfortably for the rest of his life. And Michael knew he was, indeed, very smart.

Pastor Bert glared at Michael in a way that made him feel stupid. He had to fight to keep from sliding lower in his chair. “I want you to spend the day being a witness to your wife’s beautiful servant’s heart. So, whatever she does today, wherever she goes, you go along.”

Then the pastor turned to Jeanie. “Bring the bat.”

She hadn’t whacked him yet, but neither had she spoken to him.

Pastor Bert accompanied them to the Cold Creek Nursing Home and stayed through the first half of the Monday morning worship service. The social room of the nursing home was a brightly lit place filled with people who were, for the most part, sleeping.