The Perfect Life (24 page)

Softly, I said, “Why not tell me how you
really
feel?”

She laughed, and I managed a wry smile in return. More might have been said, but our waitress arrived with our meals. I was grateful, for by the time the girl left, I was ready to steer our conversation to carpet and wall paint and away from me.

“Tell me what's happened since you were last here,” the counselor said at the beginning of our one-hour session.

As I detailed the events of the past week—my run-in with Nicole at the store, my move into Emma's old room, our children's anger, the way I'd felt in church on Sunday, Brad's accident, my job search, Susan's less than gentle words of advice over lunch—I thought of Eeyore, the gloomy blue gray donkey from Winnie the Pooh. Was I starting to sound like him?

“Everything feels so out of control.” I reached for a tissue. “Susan says I'm waffling back and forth, that I'm just feeling sorry for myself. I guess she's right. I do feel sorry for myself. I want things to be as they were before all of this began.”

“Katherine, have you thought about why you distrust Brad when there is no evidence against him, except for Nicole's word?”

That seemed an odd question. Of course, I had. Hadn't I?

Donna gave me a knowing smile. “We can't always alter our circumstances, and we can't control how others behave or think, no matter how hard we try. Our focus must be on what we need to change about ourselves—our attitudes, our words, our actions—even if our circumstances and the other people in our lives remain the same.”

“What if I don't know what I need to change about myself?”

“Ask God to show you.”

Ask God. Yes, I should do that. I should pray about it. But if God answered, I feared I wouldn't know it. There was too much noise and confusion in my head these days to hear a still, small voice.

I arrived home around three o'clock in the afternoon. Emma's car wasn't in the driveway, which surprised me. She hadn't told me she'd be leaving early. I parked my car in the garage, gathered the carpet samples and paint chips along with my purse, and headed for the back door.When I opened it, I heard music playing on the stereo.

“I'm home,” I called.

No answer.

I stepped into the kitchen and dropped my things on the nearest counter. As I turned, I saw a bouquet of long-stemmed red and white roses on the table. I moved toward them. The air was thick with their sweet fragrance.

There was a small envelope in the clear plastic holder, stuck in the middle of the bouquet. It was addressed to me. I reached for it, wondering who would send me flowers and why. Then I opened the envelope and pulled out the gift card.

For the first 25 years. May we find even more happiness in the
next 25. I love you. Brad.

My eyes darted from the card to the wall calendar. How was it possible I'd forgotten our anniversary? I was the one who remembered all of the milestones in my family's lives. And to forget our twenty-fifth? Impossible! And yet it was true. No wonder Emma was mad at me.

From behind me came the sound of throat clearing. I turned to face my husband.

He didn't look much like the groom I'd met at the end of the church aisle on our wedding day. Not with the skin around his eyes tinted black, purple, and yellow. Not with several days of dark stubble on his jaw.

“You're home earlier than we expected,” he said. “Emma went to pick up a cake.”

I glanced at the flowers. “I didn't get you anything.”

“That's okay. I didn't expect you to.”

That made me feel worse. “You shouldn't have spent the money.”

“Maybe not. But I spent it anyway.”He rolled his chair toward me.“I wanted you to know how much I love you. I wanted you to know I'll be here for you. I'll do whatever it takes, Kat, to still be your husband twenty-five years from now.”

I thought of something my dad used to say when I was young:
“Katherine, today's the first day of the rest of your life.
You can change your future by the choices you make today.”
As a teenager, I'd thought the axiom hokey, but now I heard the wisdom behind the words.

A longing overtook me. A desire to reach out and stroke the stubble on Brad's jaw, to kiss his blackened eyes, to tell him I loved him too.

“Fish or cut bait,”
Susan had said
. “Be married or don't be
married.”

“Ask God to show you,”
Donna had said about my need for change.

“You can change your future,”
my father had said.

What was I supposed to do now?

Emma didn't stay long after she returned from the bakery with the cake—carrot cake with sour cream frosting, “Happy 25th Anniversary”written across it in red. She gave her dad a kiss, then gave me one too. I hadn't been sure she would.

“I'll see you both in the morning,” she said on the way to the door.

A few minutes later, I went upstairs and closed myself in Emma's room. I paced from the door to the dresser to the door to the dresser. A storm of thoughts, feelings, and memories rushed through me.

Then, emotionally spent, I dropped to my knees beside the bed. “God, will You show me?”

For the longest while, I waited, strained to hear His answer. But I heard no voice. I had no vision. It seemed I was not destined to hear God the way others did.

And then, ever so slowly, there came upon me a simple moment of knowing something I hadn't known before.

Since the day of Nicole's appearance on Channel 5, I'd wanted—no, expected—God to rescue me, to make the troubles stop and go away, to restore my life to what it used to be. But here in this room, on my knees, I realized that I needed God more than I needed rescuing. I needed to draw closer to Him
in
the storm more than I needed to be taken
out
of the storm. Perhaps the realization had begun when Susan said she envied me my faith, and deep in my heart—too deep to recognize at the time—I'd feared the faith I had was too little, too whispery thin, to be envied. Was it even the size of a mustard seed?

Tears dropped onto the bedspread.

Somehow I had to find Him before I could find any of the answers I sought.

Brad

BRAD HAD THOUGHT GIVING HIS WIFE FLOWERS WAS A
good idea. He'd thought the cake would please her. Now his confidence was shaken. He'd bungled things again. He'd failed again.

He rolled the wheelchair close to the window and gazed out at the back lawn. “What now, God? How do I fix things?”

Let go.

He stilled, waiting, listening.

Let go.

He released his breath, letting it out slowly, until he felt empty. No, not just felt it. He
was
empty.

Let her go.

That couldn't be God's voice he heard in his head and heart. God wouldn't tell him to let Katherine go. That couldn't be how his prayers would be answered. And yet he knew it was the Lord speaking to him.

“Brad?”

His heart thudded. It hurt to breathe, and it had nothing to do with cracked ribs.

“Brad?”

He turned the wheelchair around to face the entry to the family room. There she stood, looking pale and sad. She'd been crying again.

“I . . . I need to go away for a while. A few days. Maybe a week.”

Let go. Let her go.
The pain in his chest intensified.

“Will you call Emma after I'm gone? I know she'll come and stay with you until I get back.”

Are you coming back?
The question lodged in his throat.

Her smile was brief and tentative. Then it was gone. “She'll be mad at me, but ask her to please understand this is something I need to do.” She took a step closer to him. “I hope you'll understand too.”

He didn't understand, couldn't understand. But when he looked into her eyes, he saw the storm in her soul, and like it or not, he knew he had to release her if she was ever to find her way back to him.

He cleared his throat, hoping his voice wouldn't crack when he spoke. “Will you make sure someone knows where you are so we don't have to worry?”

Again that tentative smile. “I called Annabeth. She'll know how to reach me.”

Her words lessened his fear.

Katherine reached out, touching his cheek with her fingertips, little more than a whisper against his skin. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

He watched as she walked toward the door that led into the garage. There, she picked up a suitcase and her purse, then glanced over her shoulder at him. One last wistful smile, and she was gone.

After the rise and fall of the garage door, Brad closed his eyes. “Whatever else happens, Father, heal her hurts. Even if it means she never comes back to me, draw her closer to You and make her heart whole again.”

And so he let her go.

Thirty-one

THE CABIN NEAR
PAYETTE
LAKE HAD BEEN IN THE
Sorenson family for four generations. Annabeth offered it to me the instant I told her I needed to get away for a few days. Perhaps she could tell from the tone of my voice that there was a storm brewing inside me.