Desert Gift (37 page)

Barring a surprise call from Jack announcing that he wanted to kiss and make up, she had only one task left to do.

She phoned Sophie at home.

“Sophie, it’s Jill. Galloway.”

“Mrs. G! Oh, how are you? I have been so concerned.”

“Uh, thank you.” What a nincompoop she’d been to waste energy being jealous of this woman simply because she happened to work in Jack’s office and saw him more than his own wife did. Jill could have worked in Jack’s office if she’d wanted to. She hadn’t wanted to.

“Sophie, I have a favor to ask, for Jack.”

“Anything. You two are, well, you’re just really important to me.”

Yes, major nincompoop.
“Thank you. I taped a program today and I’d like Jack to hear it. It’ll be aired on the twenty-seventh.”

“His birthday, at eleven o’clock?”

Again Jill was taken aback. Sophie knew the date of course, but the time of her program? “That’s it. Do you think you could arrange for him to listen to it?”

“No problem.”

“Wow. Just like that?”

“I run the place, Mrs. G.” There was a smile in her voice, no conceit. “I am the keeper of the schedule. If you want him in his office by himself with the radio tuned to your station at that time on that date, consider it done.”

Jill sighed. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

“Will you try to tell me?”

She heard the worry in Sophie’s voice. “What has he told you?”

“Not much. He went home last Monday looking ill. He said he remembered the day of the accident. Dr. Baxter and I considered that a good thing, although probably exhausting. He called in sick on Tuesday. On Wednesday, a week ago today, he met with me and Dr. Baxter. He told us that he . . . that he was not moving back—” sniffling noises came through the line— “back home. Since then he’s been his regular self. Well, sort of. It’s hard to explain.”

That about summed it up. It was all hard to explain. Jill had not talked with Jack since that night. He had left one voice mail, saying that if it was all right with her, he wasn’t ready to discuss divorce details. He had opened his own bank account but would continue to deposit his salary in their joint account. He named a small sum that he would keep to cover his own rent and expenses.

His tone had been nondescript, as if he were talking solely about banking and not the splitting apart of the life they had shared for almost twenty-five years.

Jill said, “This program was my last one.”

“Oh, Mrs. G.”

“Will you call me Jill, please?”

“O-okay.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I can’t exactly keep up this show about how to make marriage work when my own isn’t working.”

“I always thought it was more about how to communicate better.”

Jill felt her eyes widen.

“I mean, you know of course that I’m single. But I picked up priceless gems on how to relate better with my parents and friends. Even patients. And now I’m dating this guy and, well, thank you.”

“You listen to the program?”

“Some. Not all the time. I have to admit that it was intimidating to hear you on the radio, knowing your voice was broadcast all over Chicagoland and beyond, and then to take messages from you for Dr. G.”

“Hm.” She had no other response.

“What will you do now?”

It was the question that woke her up in the night. The answer never changed. As Nan had announced, she was taking a sabbatical. It couldn’t happen in Chicago in her house with no work, no Connor, no Jack.

She cleared her throat. “Just between us? I have to be the one to tell Jack.”

“Not a problem. You have no idea how much I don’t tell him. For his own good.”

Jill had to smile. “I’m going out to California. Indefinitely.” Definitely no more than two weeks at Viv and Marty’s, though. She was already apartment hunting online. “I’ll help out my sister in her tour business for a while.”

“That sounds like a break you probably need, but I hope you’ll write and speak more. Your book is fantastic. And I’m not just saying that because you’re my boss’s wife.”

Jill shook her head in surprise and smiled. She had wanted to burn all the copies, but the publisher refused to pull even one off the shelf. It was selling. Gretchen thought current blog gossip about the Galloways’ breakup accounted for some of it.

Sophie said, “I’ve started my own recipe collection for talking with patients.”

“You have a cookbook in the works!” Jill laughed. “Tell me more.”

They chatted, the old barriers of jealousy and intimidation melting away to nothingness.

Chapter 57

Jack checked the caller ID on his ringing cell phone, saw Jill’s name, and took a quick internal survey.

It seemed a stupid habit, this emotional temperature check. He hadn’t felt like snapping in a long time. Was that because he hadn’t lived with Jill for two months and hadn’t talked to her at all recently? or because he had confessed everything to her and neither she nor God had struck him dead?

He muted the television. “Hello.”

“Hi, Jack.”

Silence—on both ends.

He scratched his head.

“Awkward moment between the ’rents.”
For good reason. Where could they pick up after their last conversation in which he said he wanted out of the marriage and she said, “Leave the key”?

She said, “How are you?”

“Okay. You?”

“Okay. I’m sorry about the key. It’s just that you scared me that night.”

“I know. Actually I still have a garage opener.”

“Oh.”

Household details like this were unending and driving him nuts. Bank accounts, bills, credit cards, some of his clothes still there, some cookware, tools, boots, golf clubs.

He said, “I won’t come inside without telling you first.”

“It’s still your house too. I was just scared.”

“All right.”

“Well, I, um, I called to tell you that I’m in San Diego. Just arrived. So you can go inside the house whenever you want.”

“San Diego? Why . . . ? What . . . ?” He couldn’t get his mind wrapped around what she had said.

“The truth is, Jack, you can move back into the house. I don’t want to live in it.”

“But where would you live?”

“Out here. I’m staying out here for a—a while. I can work with Viv. She’s coming into the busy season.”

“Jill, why would you do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You don’t live with me. Connor’s moving to New York.”

“But your work here—”

“Is changing and that’s not your fault. It’s time for me to talk less and listen more. Jack, I want to say once and for all that I forgive you for keeping the abortion a secret. I understand why you couldn’t tell me. I never meant to make you think that you had to be perfect, but I know I did. I hope you can forgive me. I do love you, but I’ll sign divorce papers. Send them to Viv’s. And . . . and that’s all. Good-bye.”

He felt dazed, as if her rushed words circled his head, searching for a place to land.

“I said good-bye, Jack.” She hadn’t hung up.

“Uh, uh—”

“I have to go. Viv’s here now.”

“Uh, okay. Bye.”

Now she hung up.

“I forgive you. . . . I hope you can forgive me. . . . I do love you. . . .”

Jack set down the phone. He didn’t feel anything like a rubber band stretched to its snapping point. He wasn’t sure what he felt besides empty.

He hit the Mute button on the television remote and let his attention drift again into the history of wildlife on the Mississippi River.

* * *

In the harsh light of morning, Jill’s news struck him like the proverbial two-by-four to the side of the head.

Their marriage was over.

The sense of finality chilled him to the bone. It filled his veins with ice water.

He cut himself twice while shaving. He dropped his full coffee mug. It shattered and splashed across the kitchen floor. He let it go and sat on the couch. He stayed there for at least an hour, unmoving, his thoughts frozen in place.

And then he called Lew Mowers.

He sat now in the pastor’s office. There had been no waiting for an appointment for Jill Galloway’s husband. Lew and his wife adored her as did hundreds of congregants.

Why didn’t Jack?

Lew was a big guy, a man’s man with steel gray hair cut in military style who somehow exuded an almost-feminine compassion. His jovial smile had yet to appear. He nodded and hummed agreement throughout Jack’s story.

Jack ended with Jill’s news. “It’s what I wanted. But it’s not what I wanted. I sound like an adolescent.”

“Or, some would say, like a man having a midlife crisis. I don’t like labels myself, but you are in midlife and you are having a crisis of identity.” He shrugged. “Back up to the time period you and Jill interacted while preparing for Connor’s wedding. What was it like between the two of you?”

Jack felt himself blush. They had been intimate. Biological need or loving response to their shared days? “Uh, we put the divorce question on hold and focused on other things.” Not counting that one night. “And, uh, Jill was in a good place.”

“Her usual self?”

Her usual self. As in freaking out, stressing out, bossing others, interviewing-slash-interrogating everyone, recording ideas for future lesson plans? No.

“No, she was not her usual self. There was a . . . softness about her. She was relaxed.”

“She’d been through a lot up to that point. Your wanting a divorce. Connor and Emma’s surprise. The accident and seeing her friend die. Planning a wedding, which throws most women into a tizzy. What was up with the relaxed persona?”

“I have no idea.”

“Stress like she experienced usually brings out the worst in a person. Unless it breaks them and God works a healing.”

Jack blinked. Jill had not been at her worst, but . . . “It seems a little pat.”

Lew shrugged again. “At any rate, it’s her story, not yours. God can remake her until the cows come home but that’s not going to change your story, is it?”

Jack returned his gaze for a long moment. “My story being that I blame her for my guinea pig lifestyle and now it’s her fault that my only feeling toward her is a rubber band stretched to its limits.”

“Oh, it’s already done snapped, Jack. It’s over. The past is over. From here on out is your choice. Choose life with or without God’s forgiveness and healing.”

Tears sprang to his eyes. “How do I choose with?”

Lew smiled. “Spend some time on your knees and then do what He tells you to do. Want me to help you get started?”

* * *

“Dr. G!” Sophie practically jumped from her chair as he entered the office. She called out across the counter into the waiting room, “Where have you been? It’s ten forty-five!”

“I left a message—”

“Hours ago!” She was behaving un-Sophie-like again.

Jack stole a glance at the gawking patients and hurried through the door into the back area. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

Strands of hair had escaped the bun and hung about her mottled face. “And where is your cell phone? It’s in your pocket, isn’t it? Turned off, isn’t it?”

“Oops.” He pulled the phone from a deep pocket of his raincoat and glanced at it. Eight missed calls, most likely from Sophie. “I’m sorry. What did you need?”

“You! Just go.” She shooed him down the hall. “Oh. Happy birthday.”

“Birthday—It’s my birthday. I hadn’t given it a thought. Thanks.”

Sophie pointed toward his office. “Hurry.”

Smiling, he walked down the hall. Sophie was flustered because it was his birthday and he was behind her surprise schedule. She remembered everyone’s day with something special. He expected to find balloons tied to his chair, a wrapped gift and a cake on his desk, a homemade carrot cake.

He entered his office and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Odd, but then everything had seemed odd since kneeling with Lew earlier. Odd and amazing. The world looked different, almost off-kilter and yet more right than ever. He’d never be able to describe it to Baxter.

Jack wasn’t quite sure how to transition into doctor mode. He hung up his overcoat and put on his lab coat. Maybe that would help.

“Knock, knock.” Baxter entered his office, a radio in his hand, Sophie on his heels.

She shut the door. “Happy birthday, Dr. G.”

“Oh yeah,” Baxter said. “Birthday greetings, bud.”

“Thanks. Is that my gift?” He nodded at the radio.

“It might be.” Baxter smiled and set it on his desk.

“Sit, Dr. G.” Sophie nudged him toward his chair while Baxter plugged in the radio. “Now—” she took a deep breath and smoothed back her hair—“since you are so late, we have to skip over staff gifts and go straight to this.” She pointed at the radio. “This is a birthday gift from Mrs. G. She asked me to make sure you heard her program today.”

Jack sank into his chair. Jill had set something up for him? And he thought his time with Lew was a surprise.

Baxter turned on the radio and adjusted the volume. “We’re going to listen with you.”

Jack gave them a puzzled look.

Sophie sat and straightened her skirt over her knees. “Because we don’t know if this is a good thing or not. She didn’t tell me that part.”

Jack smiled. “Of course it’s a good thing. It’s from my wife.”

* * *

It was both a good thing and not.

Jack’s smile waned a bit as he met Sophie’s tearful gaze and Baxter’s somber expression. He said, “She loves me.”

“It was her final show?” Sophie sounded as if she could not believe her own ears.

Jack said, “I think she meant it. That she still loves me in spite of everything.”

“Her final show?”

Baxter said, “Sophie, you’re repeating yourself. Change is part of life. If we’re not changing, that means we’re dead and somebody ought to bury us.”

Sophie frowned.

Jack said, “She told me the other day that her work was changing and that it was not my fault. Although my actions did have an impact, she is okay with moving on.”

“How about you?” Baxter said. “What are you going to do?”

His smile returned, an involuntary action caused by a sense of unfathomable serenity. “Remember those weeks of vacation I didn’t take?”