Ransomed Dreams (33 page)

“I bet you never thought you’d ever say such a thing in this lifetime.” Calissa laughed.

“Well, now that you mention it—” she snickered and bumped her shoulder against Calissa’s—“no.”

They sat on a bench in the deserted town square in front of the inn, drinking coffee from travel mugs that Sheridan had carried down from the house not long after sunrise. Her sister and brand-new brother-in-law planned to leave soon, after only three nights in Topala.

Calissa sighed. “I’m going to miss Mercedes’s coffee. And sopies.”

“‘Sopies.’ You are hopeless.”

“So is Bram. Shouldn’t you go inside and help him check out?”

“He’ll be fine. José, the inn owner, speaks excellent English.”

“Excellent to you is ‘Huh, what’d he say?’ to us.”

“Does this mean you’re never coming back?”

Calissa looked at her. “Oh, Sher, we will. I promise. And you’ll come visit us.” She paused. “Now that we like each other.”

Sheridan couldn’t return her sister’s giggle. Loneliness crept in. Long tendrils of it wove their way through her and spread the ache that had lain dormant since Luke first showed up to take her back out into the world, the world where she belonged.

“You know, Liss, I really don’t think I could travel to the States alone. I’ve only taken one major step: I rode the el downtown. Whoop-de-do.”

“It
is
a whoop-de-do—a big one.”

“I don’t even think I’m ready to be by myself again here in Topala.”

“Now that’s a different kettle of squid. Think of what’s changed here. You and Eliot talked through the tough things.”

“Nothing’s exactly settled except that it’s all out in the open.”

“Aside from that, it’s a good, solid start. And you’ve set new boundaries, like giving yourself a break from his needs and letting Mercedes or someone else take over. Then the crème de la crème happened when you hosted your first dinner party. Trust me, you are going to be just fine.”

“If you put this pep talk in writing, I could pull it out whenever I needed it.” Sheridan’s smile faltered. “The bottom line is that this situation is not what I signed up for. Alone in the middle of nowhere. Not working in my field. Not working in any field. Nursing an invalid.”

“And Eliot
did
sign up for those things?”

“You’ve been defending him a lot.”

“I’m tired of being angry at him.” Calissa inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. “Tell me, Sher, how does being in a situation that you didn’t sign up for nullify your marriage vows?”

Sheridan wasn’t sure she heard correctly.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m an expert now since I just said them myself.”

“Liss, there can be all sorts of extenuating circumstances that nullify them. For one, he hasn’t been up-front with me since the day we met. I’d call that an abuse. Emotional, psychological, whatever. I’m supposed to forget it and go back to life the way it was? I don’t think so. It’s time we made some major changes. First and foremost we need to find some normalcy in life again. That won’t happen in Topala, but he says he can’t leave. Can’t . . . or won’t.”

“Nothing is going to happen if you don’t forgive him, Sher.”

“I’ve forgiven him.”

“No, you haven’t. And that’s okay. It’s too soon. But if you take off now, leave here without him, then . . . well, then you’ll cheat yourself out of the best that life can offer.” She rolled her eyes. “Okay. I mean, you’ll cheat yourself out of the best that God can offer. And wants to offer.”

“Now you’re channeling Mamá?”

“Oh, get over it. What I’m saying is that Bram never gave up on me. Even when I pushed him away, he was on my side. He’s always been my biggest fan. His love is what’s kept me going all these years.”

“You’re saying Eliot is on my side.”

“No. I’m saying Eliot needs you on
his
side. He needs a cheerleader. He needs to know you’re not going to give up on him. And now I’ll tape Big Sister’s mouth shut.” She pursed her lips and then opened them right back up. “Except to say that Bram is God’s best. He is the most beautiful person I know. The more he gives, the more God fills him up with extra goodness so he can give even more to me and everybody else. Sher, don’t you see? You’re like Bram. I’m the whiny, needy one like Eliot.”

“That’s not true. You gave up everything to take care of me.”

Calissa shook her head. “Not willingly. Now I’m a forty-seven-and-a-half-year-old pushy dame who sets people’s teeth on edge.”

They looked at each other for a silent moment.

Sheridan sighed. “But you’re a pushy dame with a gorgeous new ring and a beautiful husband.”

“True.” She wiggled her hand until the sunlight bounced off the diamond in a myriad of dancing colors. “Unlike you and Mamá, I’ve always liked diamonds. But I am glad that Bram bought one he could trace to its origin.”

“Hopefully no one was hurt along the way.” Mining, trading, smuggling . . . Sheridan didn’t want to think about it, not any of it. The world was overwhelmingly full of pain. She might after all welcome back the off-the-map gig in Topala for the remainder of her life.

Calissa grinned and stood. “Here comes that beautiful husband of mine now.”

Smiling, Bram walked to them from the inn. Sheridan could tell he was happy to be leaving, eager to begin his new season of life with Calissa. They planned to regroup. He would step down from his CEO role; she would put her campaign on hold.

Sheridan tried not to envy their freedom. At the moment, it was a losing battle.

The dreaded good-byes began.

Bram held her tightly. “It’s a fun place to visit, hon. Don’t stay too long.”

Calissa blubbered and held Sheridan’s face between her hands. “Don’t forget what I said. And one more thing: remember who you are.”

As they drove away, Sheridan comforted herself with the changes they’d put in place. Calissa and Bram now had her and Eliot’s real mailing address. They had Mercedes’s aunt’s phone number, the one Sheridan called from Chicago. They even knew their way from the Mazatlán airport to her house.

Another whoop-de-do. The fact was they still lived thousands of miles away and could not speak directly with her at the drop of a hat.

She thought about their conflicting advice. Bram more or less said to set a deadline for leaving Topala. Calissa said stay because her place was with Eliot.

“Jesús, what do You say?”

* * *

Sheridan took a long walk around the village, swinging three empty travel mugs in her hands, listening, listening, listening. She went up and down the steep inclines, past Davy’s restaurant, partway down to the highway, beyond whistling distance.

Not a word came to her.

At least she worked off the compulsion that had nearly propelled her into the backseat of Calissa and Bram’s car. If she didn’t get home soon, Eliot might imagine she’d done just that. Surely he sensed her ambivalence about staying.

It was the one thing they hadn’t talked openly about yet.

Hot and sweaty, she entered the kitchen, set down the mugs, and filled a glass from the bottled water dispenser. She drank it and filled it again, hydrating and procrastinating.

Dabbing her face with a hand towel, she finally went into the study.

Eliot looked up from the sofa where he was reading. Except for the sight of the nearby walker, he appeared healthy. Why was he on the sofa and not in the recliner? He never sat on the sofa. Upright, he looked almost chipper.

Suddenly her marriage vows came to mind. She and Eliot had promised the traditional ones about never leaving or forsaking, about staying together in health and in sickness.

She wanted to spit.

Instead she said, too brightly, “Alone at last.”

“You must feel awful, Sher. What can I do for you?”

She stared at him, rooted to the floor. His words knocked every defensive, angry, hurt wind from her sails.

“It must be God’s timing.” He smiled gently and removed his glasses. “I’m at a two on the scale and experiencing a rare sense of clarity. It won’t make up for the year and a half I’ve missed of being there when you needed me, but I’m here now. For you.”

She couldn’t move or speak.

“You’ll notice I did not dash across the room to embrace you and dry your tears. Evidently I’m ‘here’ in a limited capacity.”

“I’m not crying.”

“I thought you might, once it sinks in that you’re all alone again with the deaf-mute.”

“Oh, Eliot.”

He gestured, putting his hand out as if offering her a gift. “Sher, I won’t push you away this time.”

What had Calissa said about herself and Bram?
“Even when I pushed him away, he was on my side.”

With Eliot, his physical avoidance of her was related to his injury. In the hospital she could hardly find a place to touch him that was not bandaged or hooked up to some tube or wire. Later his body cried out in pain when she hugged him, and so she had stopped. Even hand-holding caused discomfort, and so she had stopped.

He’d curled up inside himself, perhaps because of those things he could no longer do, and avoided even her kisses, never returning or initiating them. Their physical contact began and ended with her massaging his back and exercising his legs.

She hesitated. Did she want a hug from him? It wasn’t going to change his deception. It wasn’t going to change the situation of living in the middle of nowhere.

Then reality crashed all around her. Calissa and Bram were gone. A void yawned inside her. Her first inclination was to run upstairs to her room. She could lie down on her bed, one pillow against her aching stomach and one at her cheek to catch the flow. It was a familiar scene established the day they’d moved into the house.

The thought of reenacting it hurt worse than her sister’s absence.

Sheridan walked over to Eliot and put her hand in his. He drew her nearer, onto the sofa beside him.

Turning toward her, he embraced her. His movements were stiff. “Sorry. I’m a little out of practice.” He sighed. “Well, that and the fact that things just don’t work quite the same as they used to.”

She sank against his frame, lankier than ever, her head at his shoulder, near enough to feel the echo of his heartbeat. Words she had held in for months and months tumbled out.

“I’ve missed you, Eliot. I’ve missed you so much.”

Chapter 55

Thank You, God. Thank You, God.
Eliot held Sheridan, his cheek against the top of her head, as she sobbed uncontrollably.

How often had she cried by herself? In the beginning, right after the shooting, friends could not get to her. Perhaps strangers held her, security and medical people. Luke Traynor. Later, in Houston, others came. Calissa. Malcolm. Friends in the foreign service who were in the States at the time.

He smoothed her hair. She was warm from walking up the hill. In the past, when she played volleyball or ran with him, he loved the rosy glow on her face. Sometimes she would tease, announcing no hugs until a shower. And then she would lead him into the shower.

Well . . . best not to go there.

He felt her tears on his neck. Sheridan did not often succumb to weeping such as this. Not before Caracas, anyway.

He had listened to her stories about students who questioned her apparent hard-heartedness. She would teach them about the need to separate themselves from the utter despair they would encounter in social work. If they wanted to just sit on the floor and bawl with an HIV-positive, pregnant fifteen-year-old bruised from a boyfriend’s beating, then they should consider changing majors.

The first time she had needed Eliot in this way was when they lost the first baby. It was in Honduras, two years or so after they married. Sher was only a few weeks along.

The second time was two years after that. They were in D.C., in between overseas assignments, an extended stay that meant a stateside birth. The pregnancy was going well until her fifth month. There were complications—too many. A hysterectomy followed the miscarriage. She was only thirty-five. They buried a daughter. For a while after that, Eliot knew she had stopped trying to hear the voice of Jesus.

He felt her grow still now.

Wiping at her face with a kitchen towel, she looked up at him with a wobbly smile. “So what’s going on? Where’s Eliot?”

“You mean the deaf-mute. He’s taking a break.”

She searched his eyes. “He’ll be coming back then?”

“I—I can’t say.” He wanted to kiss her. Her face was mere inches from his, rosy and wounded. The distrust in her voice, though, paralyzed him.

“Why did he go away?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who are you?”

“I hope the real Eliot.”

She let that sink in for a moment. “I hope so too. I like being noticed as a flesh-and-blood woman for a change.”

Eliot never had a problem understanding why his wife’s former students asked about her apparent hard-heartedness. She did not shy away from speaking hard truths.

He said, “I’m sorry for the long wait.”

“You didn’t have a choice, did you?”

He shook his head. “But I do right now, in this clearheaded moment. A part of me wants to kiss you. A part of me believes you won’t let me. I’m a cripple who’s deceived you and I do not deserve your affection.”

Her forehead creased. “Oh, Eliot. Is that why you avoid me?”

“Most often it’s because of the pain. Oh, blazes. Yes, it is why I avoid you. I admit it. At first it was the intense pain. However, in recent weeks, when I’ve had less pain, my focus has been on myself. I don’t deserve you, so I should back off. Padre Miguel says that’s pride. It puts all the attention on me, myself, and I.”

She stared at him as if at a loss for words.

He smiled. “Padre Miguel is a treasure, isn’t he?”

A short laugh burst from her. “And to think you always ducked when you saw him coming.”

“Maybe change is in the wind, Sher. I know the deaf-mute is on hiatus because Padre Miguel prayed for me to have strength for you today.”

“The man has been praying like that for months.”

“But that was before. Once I confessed my sin of deceiving you and my sin of pride, the wall was removed between me and God.”