The Snow Angel (21 page)

In the beginning of our marriage, Cyrus was always repentant when he raised a hand to me. But as the years progressed, it was almost as if I could watch him fall out of love with me. It happened a degree at a time, until one day Cyrus shoved me out of his way and didn’t look back when I fell. Even though I was physically fine, that one push hurt more than if he had pummeled me with his fists. It seemed to mark the moment that our relationship died.

All that changed in the bathroom on Thanksgiving night. Before I could even cry out in pain, Cyrus was on his knees beside me. He didn’t apologize, but he lifted me carefully to my feet and guided me downstairs. When I was settled in the car, he went to check on Lily, then rushed me to the emergency room, where he acted like it was pure agony to watch me suffer.

I believed him.

A part of me was dying to ask Cyrus why he could suddenly look on me with tenderness. But a much larger part was content to bask in the longed-for attention, to smile shyly and keep my mouth shut. Maybe my newfound confidence had changed me in my husband’s eyes. Maybe this was a new beginning.

Although Cyrus and I never talked about what happened, in the weeks after the Thanksgiving fiasco we enjoyed a tenuous peace. I was brave in ways that I had never been before, inviting Sarah over for coffee a few afternoons, and even serving homemade pizzas at the granite island in the kitchen one night. Cyrus looked a little taken aback by the casual meal—it was a far cry from our customarily grand suppers around the dining room table—but he didn’t complain.

The only thing that I did not have the confidence to do was mention Max in any way. I missed his company, especially with Christmas approaching, but things were going so well between Cyrus and me that I couldn’t bring myself to broach the topic of my forbidden relationship. What if I dredged up all of our old bitterness? The mere thought of reverting to where we had been made my heart wring inside my chest.

“I don’t get it,” Lily said one afternoon as we were
curled up on the couch. It was the first day of her Christmas vacation and we were watching
The Sound of Music
, a tradition we had started when she was in kindergarten.

“What don’t you get?” I asked absently, reaching for another handful of popcorn. I smiled to myself as I tossed a few kernels in my mouth. Popcorn on the couch on a Wednesday afternoon? It was unheard of in the Price house.

“I don’t get what happened between you and Dad.”

I pursed my lips for a moment, trying to think of a way to explain. Eventually, I gave up. “I don’t get it either!” I laughed. “But I’m not going to overanalyze it. I’m happy, Lil. Things are good.”

Lily cocked her head a little as she studied me. “You’re happy?” she asked.

“I am.”

“But I don’t think things are good.”

I shifted on the couch and gave her my full attention. “What are you talking about? Things haven’t been this …” I cast around for the right word, “untroubled in years. Look at us! Your dad will be home in twenty minutes and I haven’t even started supper. Granted, we’re having stir-fry and I have to do it last minute, but still.”

Lily looked pointedly at my wrist.

“It was an accident,” I sighed. “No, it wasn’t.”

“Well, that was before. This is after.”

“What about Mr. Wever?” Lily crossed her arms over her chest.

“What about Mr. Wever?”

“Why can’t I go visit him? It’s almost Christmas; he shouldn’t be alone.”

I plucked at a frayed end of the afghan we had spread over our laps. “Max is a touchy subject,” I said. “I’m not sure that I’m ready to bring him up just yet.”

“What about grandpa? Maybe if we can’t see Max we could—”

“Lily, stop. We can’t track down your grandpa.”

“Why not?”

“Because—”

“Then nothing’s changed,” Lily interrupted. “This house is still full of rules I don’t understand. Things we can’t say and things that we’re supposed to say … I don’t get it. I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

“I have a feeling we’re on the verge of something new,” I said, weaving my fingers through Lily’s. “Something new and good.”

She crinkled her nose doubtfully. “I sure hope so.”

I should have known that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is. A few nights after I assured Lily that our lives were about to be made new, I forgot a load of Cyrus’s dress shirts in the washing machine. My Bible study had decided to deliver Christmas goodies to the local nursing home, and instead of keeping up with the laundry I abandoned a load in the middle of a cycle. What can I say? It completely slipped my mind.

When Sarah told me we were headed to the manor, something inside my chest collapsed. My father had been relocated to a care facility years ago, but the Everton home was too expensive and he had been forced to leave. The scant information I gathered about my dad’s whereabouts came via infrequent updates from my uncle, but even those brief messages had stopped a few years back. Suddenly, the mere thought of visiting a nursing home had me in knots.

My father was out there somewhere. Was he lonely? Did he think of me? What would he say if he knew that Lily wanted to see him? That she harbored a quiet longing to meet the man who shared her blood?

As I walked the halls of the care home, passing out decorative tins filled with shortbread cookies and walnut fudge, I caught myself looking for my dad in the face of every resident. I was leveled by my own response, the almost frantic way I searched their features for something
familiar. It had been a very long time since I thought of my father with anything but indifference, but the weeks of recounting my childhood for Lily had opened up a secret corner in my soul—a place I had worked hard to forget.

I wanted to see my dad. It was a shocking realization, and as we pulled away from the care home I found myself sobbing in the passenger seat of Sarah’s car.

“I think I miss him,” I confessed when Sarah pulled over and handed me a tissue. “I don’t know why … I mean, things were never very good between us.”

“He’s your father,” Sarah said gently. “Nothing can change that.”

“But we haven’t spoken for years.” I tried to blow my nose discreetly. “I can’t imagine why this is hitting me so hard right now.”

“It’s been a life-changing couple of months,” Sarah said with a gentle laugh. “You rekindled a decades-old friendship, lied to your husband, came clean with your daughter, spent hours recounting your past, had a massive blowout with Cyrus, and … finally reconciled?” Her voice tweaked upward at the mention of reconciliation. It hit me that my friend was as dubious about my happily-ever-after ending as my daughter was.

“Yes,” I said firmly. Then, with less conviction, “I don’t know. Things have been better between me and Cyrus, but it’s not like we suddenly have a fabulous marriage.”

Sarah looked like she wanted to press me further, but a fresh tear slid down my cheek and she seemed to think better of it. Patting my hand, she said, “Well, I for one totally understand why you would like to see your father after all this time. Your whole life has been one big upheaval lately and there’s nothing quite like a hug from your daddy to make the world seem sane again.”

Even though I could hardly remember what a hug from my daddy felt like, I gave a little nod.

“So,” Sarah shrugged. “Go see him.”

“It’s not that easy. I don’t even know where he is.”

Sarah’s eyes sparkled. “Ooh. A mystery. I love a good mystery.”

She dropped me off at home with a squeeze and a promise that we would track down my dad. It couldn’t be too hard, right?

My head was spinning with memories of the past and hopes for the future when I kicked off my boots that afternoon. I hung my coat in the entryway and left my gloves neatly folded on the hall table beside my keys, then I wandered into the kitchen where I began absently searching the fridge for something to fix for supper. By the time Lily got home from school I was busy rolling out the pastry for my famous beef Wellington, and the load of laundry that I had abandoned in the washing machine had been totally and completely forgotten.

Until the next morning when Cyrus got up for work.

I had just cracked two eggs into a hot frying pan when Cyrus stormed into the kitchen bare-chested and visibly upset. His skin was pink from the scalding water of his shower and his hair was still damp.

“Where is my blue striped shirt?” he demanded.

There was a vein bulging in his forehead, and I could feel the anger radiating off him. “Uh,” I faltered, trying to remember why his favorite shirt wasn’t hanging in his closet where it always was. It hit me in a rush. “In the washing machine,” I said, my stomach sinking. “We went to the nursing home yesterday, and I guess I never moved the load of colors to the dryer.”

“My shirt is in the washing machine?” Cyrus looked incredulous. “It’s the annual chamber Christmas brunch this morning. What am I supposed to wear?”

A drop of butter spurted from the hot pan and burned a pinprick spot on the back of my hand. My attention was drawn to the sizzling eggs. If I let them go much longer the yolks would be hard. Cyrus hated hard yolks. “I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching for the spatula. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t turn your back on me!”

I jumped a little when Cyrus yelled, dropping the spatula into the pan. One of the yolks spilled yellow across the teflon surface. My perfect morning eggs were ruined. “It was an accident,” I said, pulling the pan off the stove, trying
to explain. “My Bible study went to the nursing home, and it got me thinking about my dad …”

“What’s your dad got to do with this?”

“Nothing,” I blurted, surprised by the venom in Cyrus’s tone. I had been planning to broach the topic of my dad over breakfast, but apparently that wasn’t a wise move. “I’m just trying to explain why I forgot about the shirt.”

“I don’t need excuses. I need my shirt.”

“Can’t you wear another one?” I asked timidly.

“Can’t you have my laundry done when I need it?” Cyrus took a step closer to me and I backed up against the stove. “Seriously, Rachel. Is it so hard to get a load of laundry done? What do you do all day? I know you snuck around with Max for a few weeks, but I thought you got that out of your system.”

“You make it sound so dirty,” I whispered, shrinking into myself so that there was less of me for Cyrus to hate. “Max is my friend.”

“Your friend? You think a man who would encourage you to defy your husband is a friend?”

I closed my eyes for a second and berated myself for being so blind. So stupid. Of course, it was all coming out. Cyrus wasn’t the type to let anything slide, much less the sort of offense that I had perpetrated against him. Against our marriage. I knew the rules and I had directly disobeyed them. Did I really think I would get off scot free?

“I thought you had forgiven me for that.” I didn’t even realize I had spoken out loud until Cyrus gave a short, dry laugh.

“You never asked for forgiveness,” he sneered.

It didn’t seem the right time to mention that I believed that was the point of real forgiveness: It was freely given. Grace-filled. Unsolicited. Instead, it seemed the right time to edge away. To slip slowly from the room and try to find another shirt that my husband would find suitable for brunch with the Everton bigwigs. It was a shirt, for heaven’s sake. But I knew that Cyrus’s anger stemmed from somewhere much deeper. Somewhere that seethed with resentment over the years that had built up between us. The various and sundry ways that he was sure I had failed him.

“I really am sorry,” I said, reverting to survival mode. Maybe if I seemed repentant enough, Cyrus would calm down and remember that we were on the verge of patching things up. Hadn’t he looked at me with something akin to compassion only nights before? Of course, compassion was a far cry from love, but it was a start. I could still feel the warm graze of his lips against my forehead. Had that really happened? Or had I imagined it?

“Sorry isn’t good enough, Rach.” Cyrus caught my wrist and squeezed too tight for comfort. “I don’t ask for much, but there are a few things that I do require. I can’t
believe that after all this time you would let yourself be so lazy. Do you have any idea how hard I work for us? What it takes to keep a house like this up and running?”

I shook my head, afraid to meet his gaze. Somewhere, cowering deep inside, was the woman who had felt so confident only a day before. But she was terrified now, reminded of her position in this family and her own worthlessness. She was scared and ashamed, and she didn’t even flinch when Cyrus hit her.