The Perfect Life (13 page)

“God, make it stop. This is too hard.”

Oh, the wretched silence.

I'd never been bothered that God didn't speak to me the way He seemed to speak to others. The way He apparently spoke to Brad. A part of me thought believers were putting on airs when they claimed to have heard God's voice. I'd never made such a claim. I thought it presumptuous. I did my best to walk in obedience according to the Scriptures. I knew that pleased God because the Bible said so. That should be enough.

Shouldn't it?

I thought of the way Brad looked sometimes after a period of worship or following his prayer time. A look of joy that spoke of something beyond my reach.

Maybe my obedience wasn't enough. Maybe there was more.

The telephone rang, but I ignored it. I didn't want to speak to anyone, friend or foe, loved one or stranger. If I answered and heard the wrong voice, the wrong tone, on the other end of the line, I would shatter. I knew I would.

The ringing stopped. The caller hung up without leaving a message on the machine. That was a relief.

I sat upright and reached for a tissue to dry my eyes. I hated these tears. I hated the emotions that careened out of control. This wasn't me. This was someone pretending to be me.

“Katherine!”

The urgency in Brad's voice brought me to my feet.

“It's Hayley.” He held up the cell phone in his hand. “She's bleeding. Steve's taken her to the hospital. Grab your purse while I put on my jeans and shoes.”

I'm not sure how I made it from point A to point B, but sometime later I found myself in the passenger seat of the Tribeca, hurtling down the road toward St. Luke's Regional Medical Center.

“Father, keep her safe,” Brad prayed. “Protect her, Lord. Protect the baby.”

Please . . . Please . . . Please . . .

When we arrived at the hospital, Brad dropped me near the entrance to the ER and went to park the car. I dashed inside, looking right and left for someone who could tell me

where my daughter was. Before I could ask, I saw Emma hurrying toward me.

“Is she here?” I asked. “Is she all right?”

“She's here, Mom. She's okay.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “But she lost the baby.”

“Where is she?”

“We'll have to wait. They didn't want anyone back there besides Steve.”

I feared my knees would buckle. It must have shown on my face, for Emma put an arm around my back and escorted me to the nearest chair. I sank onto it without encouragement.

I thought of Job at the beginning of his Old Testament story, one messenger after another arriving with worse news than the one before.
Job, your donkeys were stolen and your farmhands
killed. Job, fire consumed your sheep and all the shepherds, too. Job,
raiders stole your camels and killed your servants. Job, a wind swept
in from the desert and collapsed the house, and all your sons and
daughters are dead.

Like Job, I felt like tearing my clothes in grief. I felt like falling to the ground and crying out that all God gave me had been taken away. But Job ended his lament with, “Praise the name of the Lord!”

Could I do the same? How did one praise God in the midst of so much loss? Once I would have thought I could do it. Today there was no praise in my heart. Only terror and despair.

Emma stepped away from me. “Dad.”

I raised my eyes to watch his approach.

“Have you heard anything about Hayley?”

“She lost the baby.” Emma took hold of both of his hands. “She'll be okay, but the doctor may want to admit her overnight.”

Father and daughter embraced, Emma pressing her cheek against Brad's chest. He looked at me over the top of her head. I saw my own heartache mirrored in his eyes.

I envied Emma, believing there was safety in her father's arms. That security had been stripped away from me. I longed for its return.

Jason came through the ER doors, and Emma moved from her dad to her husband.

“I'm sorry, babe,” he said as he brushed fresh tears from her cheeks.

“I wanted our babies to play together as they grew up.”

“I know.”

“I thought they would be great friends as well as cousins.”

“She'll have other babies.”

“But they won't be the same age.”

Jason kissed her lips, then her forehead. “I know.”

Brad sat next to me. I thought for a moment that he might take my hand. He didn't.

“Do you know what may have caused it?” he asked me.“The miscarriage.”

I shook my head. “I haven't talked to anyone but Emma. Steve's still with Hayley.”

Emma stepped back from Jason and turned toward us. “She told me she didn't feel well all day. Then when she got off work, I guess a reporter was waiting for her. Something happened, but she didn't tell me what. She was crying by that time, so I stopped asking questions.” Emma fell silent as she lowered her eyes to a spot on the floor.

Could stress about her dad have caused the miscarriage? Brad's gaze told me he wondered the same thing.

I felt another part of what used to be “us” shrivel inside me.

Because of complications with the miscarriage, a D&C was performed, and Hayley was admitted overnight for observation. Only once she was in her room were we allowed to see her.

My heart felt like stone as I went to the bed and took one of my daughter's hands in both of mine. “I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm so very sorry.”

Her face was pale, her eyes ringed in gray shadows.

“The doctor says you should make a speedy recovery. You'll be fine in no time at all.”

She nodded. “That's what he told me too.” Her gaze moved to her dad, standing beside me.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Okay.” Her voice sounded flat and lifeless.

“Is there anything we can do for you?”

“Keep it out of the news if you can.” She turned her head on the pillow, closing an invisible door between herself and her father.

I didn't allow myself to look at Brad. I didn't want to see how he reacted.

A part of me felt sorry for him. He was a good father, a man who loved his daughters and was devoted to them. As busy as he'd been when they were growing up—especially while he was running his construction business plus getting In Step off the ground—he'd made time for his girls. He'd attended their school programs and made it to every parents' night, from kindergarten through high school. He'd helped them with their homework and encouraged them when they were down.

But another part of me questioned what I thought I knew about him. It questioned my memories and everything he'd ever done or said. Perhaps he wasn't the good husband and the good dad I'd credited him with being. Perhaps he was someone I didn't know at all.

Brad's hand touched my shoulder. “We should go.”

I hated to leave, but I could tell Hayley wouldn't rest as long as we were there. “Yes. We'll go.” I bent low to kiss Hayley's forehead. “I'll come again in the morning. You try to get some sleep.”

“Okay,” she whispered without opening her eyes.

Out in the hallway, I hugged Steve and told him to call if he needed anything.

“I will.”

Brad gave him a pat on the back, expressing sympathy without words. Then he took me gently by the arm, and we walked down the hospital corridor. We were outside, halfway to the car, when I began to cry. Silent tears, streaking my face. No sobs. No whimpers.

And yet, somehow,Brad knew. He stopped, turned me toward him, and pulled me to his chest, his arms enfolding me.

Odd. It was what I needed and wanted, but still I tried to pull away.

He didn't let me go.

“Why?” I whispered. “Why did God take our grandchild?”

“I don't know.”

“Why is He letting this happen to our family?”

He didn't answer. I sensed him pondering the question, testing his reply. But in the end, he only said, “I don't know.”

Why, God? Why?

I wanted an answer, needed an answer. I wanted things to make sense again. I wanted to trust my husband. I wanted to have faith in the goodness of God, in the plans He had for me, for us, for our daughters and their husbands.

“Let's go home, Katherine.”

Home. It used to be a place of joy. But now—

“It'll be all right. God hasn't forsaken us.”

I wasn't so sure.

Seventeen

THERE HAVE BEEN OTHER SORROWFUL OCCASIONS IN MY
life. My father died from a heart attack when I was in high school. A dear friend was killed in a car accident when we were in our early twenties. My favorite aunt and uncle went through an acrimonious divorce after forty years of marriage.

I'd been saddened by those events and shed tears over them, but I'd never let my emotions overwhelm me. Now everything overwhelmed me. The world had turned ugly, and I wanted to hide from it. Deciding what to eat for breakfast was too much to handle. Leaving the house seemed unthinkable. I moved around it in a kind of daze.

“You're depressed, Katherine,” Susan said in her usual direct manner when she dropped by later in the week. “It's only natural, with all that's happened.”

“I don't get depressed.”

“Girlfriend, we don't get to decide what we feel. Feelings are feelings. They happen to everybody. And trust me. You're depressed.”

I looked away from her, staring across our backyard at the bright-colored tulips that bloomed along the fence. Brad and I had planted those bulbs the first fall we were in this house. How many years ago was that now? Fourteen? Fifteen? I wasn't sure. Funny that I couldn't find the answer to such a simple question.

I wished Susan would leave. I was tired and wanted to lie down, to be alone. Besides, shouldn't she be at work? It was Thursday. No, Friday.

“You can't go on like this, you know.”

“Like what?” I asked, looking at her again.

She motioned at me as if that were explanation enough. “Like
this
. You need to talk to somebody. A counselor or your pastor or somebody. It's no crime to need help working through a crisis.”

I shrugged.

Susan leaned forward on the patio chair. “Kat, I'm your best friend. I care about what's happening to you. You've always been as solid as a rock for yourself and everyone else. We both know that. But you've been through a lot in the last few weeks. You need to let out all the pent-up fear and anger you've got going on inside.”

I wanted to deny that I was afraid. I wanted to protest being called angry. But I couldn't seem to open my mouth.My throat had closed up, keeping me mute.

“I know you're worried about the investigation at In Step and heartbroken about Hayley's baby, but I don't think that's what's eating at you. You've lost faith in everything you used to trust. You've got to start believing in something or someone again.”

I hoped she wouldn't start spouting psychobabble at me.

She laid her fingertips on my knee. “Do you believe Brad or do you believe Nicole?”

The breath caught in my chest.

“Do you believe God or do you believe Greta St. James?”

I stood and moved to the edge of the patio, my back to Susan, blood pounding in my temples.

She had a lot of nerve, saying that to me. I'd been sharing my faith with her since we were schoolgirls. Susan was the one without any faith. Not me. How dare she imply that I didn't believe God?

“Kat, I love you more than anybody. You know I do. We've been best friends forever. You tolerate me when I'm PMSing and when I just want to be ugly. You even put up with me during those awful days before and after my last divorce. Remember what I was like?”

Yes, I remembered.

“So hear me when I tell you this. I've been through it. I know what I'm talking about. You won't begin to feel better until you discover who you believe and what you want. Limbo is no place to make camp. You need to start working your way back to the real world, kiddo.”