Waters Fall (15 page)

His phone rang and he smiled, recognizing the special ringtone he
’d assigned to Nora. Maybe she’d sensed he’d been thinking about her. “Hey.” He answered casually, but his pulse quickened.

“Hi, Jake.
Look, I have to meet my iron guy out at Renee’s this afternoon. Are you going to be around? I need a favor.”

Did she want him to go with her? Did she need help assembling or mounting pieces? There was a time when she borrowed his muscles on a regular basis, but it had been months since her last request. Maybe things
were
getting better. “Absolutely, Nor. How can I help?”

“Well, it may take a while because I need to oversee the project. We’re hanging a huge chandelier in her front entry, and it needs to be done right. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you don’t have any plans for the afternoon. I need to drop the kids off with you after school.”

Jake tried not to let his disappointment seep into his words as he replied, “That’s not a favor, Nora. They’re my kids, too. Of course I’ll be here, especially if it will help you out.” He tried desperately to hold his tongue, but the words forced themselves out anyway. “Are you sure you don’t need any help with the chandelier? I’m at your beck and call, you know.”

There was an awkward pause, and Jake closed his eyes, wishing he could scoop the words up and shove them back in his mouth. He sounded needy even to his own ears, and he was sure she was hearing the same thing.
“Never mind. Forget I asked. I’m here. Do you want me to pick them up, too? Would that help?”

“No. I’ll pick them up. That way I’ll still get to see them this afternoon. I may not be back until late this evening. Once it’s hung, all the crystals have to be put up, and Renee is insisting I oversee that as well. There are hundreds of them, Jake. It could be a late night.”

“Will you be home in time to eat dinner with us?”

“I’m not counting on it. That’s why I called it a favor. You’ve got to do it all tonight. I may not even be back before their bedtime, so you might get stuck doing that on your own, too.” Her voice sounded tight, like she was upset by his question. What was wrong with asking her if she’d be home for dinner? “Is that okay, Jake?” she asked, when he didn’t respond immediately.

It wasn’t okay, but he didn’t say so. She rarely left him with the children while they were awake, so he was already thinking of ways to make the afternoon and evening special for the three of them. He just wished he could plan a special evening for all
four
of them. He imagined her sharing a meal with the bawdy Renee and a bunch of muscled iron-workers, and scowled. It was definitely not okay with him.

“I almost wish we were fighting again,” he muttered to himself after he said goodbye. “At least I’d know better what she was thinking.” He glanced over at his untouched Bible where it was being used as a paperweight for a stack of leftover door-hangers he’d purchased to advertise his services in some of the nearby housing developments.
The book that had once beckoned him, when he was a new believer, inviting him into a conversation with God. Reaching out, he ran his palm over the leather cover, his fingers tracing the lettering that spelled out ‘Holy Bible’, leaving trails in the dust that had collected there. Guilt made his stomach clench slightly, and he picked it up, wiping the cover clean with the hem of his shirt. “You got something for me today?” He asked the question quietly, not really expecting an answer.

Opening it to the page marked by a black ribbon, he skimmed through a couple chapters in Galatians until he came to a verse that practically leapt off the page at him.
“Let us not lose heart in doing good,” he read aloud. “For in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”

He rested his head against the back of his cushioned office chair, and spun slowly, his eyes fixed on the recessed light above his head.
“Well, that’s what I’m doing, God. I’m doing good to Nora. But shouldn’t she be doing the same to me? Shouldn’t she be here doing good to me tonight?” Then his thoughts honed in on the last words of the passage.
Do not grow weary. Do not grow weary.
Had Nora grown weary? Was that it? Was she weary of him?

Jake leapt up, his chair rolling away from him across the plastic chair mat, and he grabbed it to keep it from tipping over once it bumped up against the edge of the carpet. He wasn
’t willing to focus too long on that thought. He would be ready for her when she came home tonight. He would ask how her day had been, he would help her unload her car, he would be kind, considerate, and sensitive to her needs, and most importantly, he would be awake. He would not let himself grow weary
.

1
8

“
Oh, Jo. What am I going to do?” Nora moaned. It was
the end of the day, and they were sitting at a table together in a little sandwich shop a few blocks from their building. The waitress came by to refill their coffees a second time, but Nora still had no compulsion to go home.

Jo leaned back in the wrought-iron bistro chair and scrutinized the younger woman.
“Nora, I’m going to say this because you already know I’m thinking it, okay? Here goes.” She took a deep breath. “I told you so! Why on earth do you not listen to your elders? Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”

Jo was the only person she could talk openly to about her crisis, the only friend who knew the sordid details of all that was going on. Renee was a ready and willing alibi when she needed one, but she was too caught up in her own love affairs to care much about the details of anyone else
’s heart problems. Although Jo disapproved vehemently of the double life Nora was leading, and didn’t hesitate to say so, she also understood the emptiness Nora was trying to fill, and was a willing sounding board for her. “You can’t keep this up, Toots, being in two places at once. You’ll go crazy, I guarantee it.”

“Crazier than I already am? Is that even possible?” Nora shook her head. Almost every waking moment was spent keeping track of her story, and her dreams were even more distressing. The more time she spent with Tristan, the harder it was to go home and pretend like she didn’t want to be somewhere else. Yet while she was with him, she missed her family, she missed
being
a family. Granted, she could hardly stand being alone with Jake, but she missed the camaraderie they had once shared, the four of them doing life together. They’d been a family far too long for her
not
to miss it.

“Not in a million years would I have imagined that I would be the one to be unfaithful. I thought it would be Jake, if either one of us was to go down that road, because I’ve always considered his drinking to be an affair of sorts. He was much more interested in the woman at the bottom of the bottle than he was about me and the kids when he drank.” When he quit drinking, the doubts waned dramatically in light of the relief Nora felt, but every once in a while, they resurfaced, usually due to some erratic behavior on his part. In the last few years, she admittedly found herself doubting him more often, wondering what he did with the unaccounted hours in his days. Although she never found evidence to support her fears, neither did they ever quite go away. “Which is why I wasn’t surprised when he told me about his little waitress the morning after he came home plastered, back in September.”

“Why didn’t you leave him then, Nora? Even your church would have supported you back then. But not now. Now you’re the bad guy, not him.”

Jo
’s words mocked her somehow. This wasn’t a game they were playing; she wasn’t trying to one-up Jake, or point fingers. She knew they were both at fault before the waitress
or
Tristan came on the scene. But the truth was that she, Nora Anderson, had always been the rock in their marriage, the stable one, the dependable one, the stalwart enabler, and she was still having a difficult time believing that she, and not Jake, was having a real-life, full-blown affair.

She was even more surprised at how easy it was to lead the double life.
At first, anyway. She put distance between her and Jake as a result of his night out, and it worked to her advantage as she indulged in her new relationship with Tristan. The increased time she spent with the children by taking on their transportation needs and extra-curricular activities eased her conscience somewhat, but as Tristan demanded more of her time, she found she was having a harder time juggling everything. Jake was aware of her weariness and frustration, she knew, but he didn’t question her when she attributed it to being overwhelmed with work. He willingly helped when she let him, but instead of freeing her up, it just weighed her down with guilt.

The turmoil was affecting her work. She was having a difficult time concentrating and paying attention to details, and some of her customers were beginning to notice, not just Renee. At the beginning of her illicit romance with Tristan, she
’d been radiant, glowing with passion about everything from paint colors to bed linens, and her clients were ever so responsive to her suggestions. Now she felt stretched so thinly she thought she might be see-through in some places, just like Jo had said so many months ago, and she sensed her customers’ loyalties beginning to waiver. Heaven forbid that Jake, or even worse, the children, should happen to see through one of those transparent places to what was really going on.

“I just can’t make myself leave him, even though I know it’s not fair to him that I stay.”
Her voiced cracked as she spoke from her turmoil. “Sometimes I actually hate him for needing me so much, but I’m tired of carrying around his fears. He’s afraid of losing me. He’s afraid of making me angry. He’s afraid of not meeting my needs. He’s always,
always,
asking me if I’m okay. I can’t stand it!” She felt tethered to him, tied down, a ship held fast by an anchor in the middle of the ocean, never able to make it to any port.

“Huh. Sounds like pretty good reasons to leave, if you ask
me.” Jo toyed with the yellow fringed plastic on the end of the toothpick that had held her sandwich together.

“You don’t get it, Jo. Sometimes, I need him, too. I know what to expect of him, and I know what he expects of me, and sometimes that’s exactly what I need.” She frowned.
“This sounds terrible, but he’s like my favorite pair of jeans. I know where his worn spots are, and I’m usually comfortable with the way he fits.”

In contrast, with Tristan, everything was an adventure; new, uncharted territory. His confidence and self-assurance excited her, and she was caught up in the whirlwind of his world. The way he abandoned himself into his art, exposing himself in fearless brush strokes and vivid, bold colors, made her heart ache with something she couldn
’t define.

Guilt and shame warred with passion and self-indulgence, and she was beginning to hate herself for the constant state of compromise in which she lived.
“But
what
do I do? How do I get out of this now? I don’t want to lose either one of them. I get nauseous when I think of giving up Tristan, and I have panic attacks when I consider leaving Jake. I…I think he might die if I do. Besides, I can’t even imagine how it would affect the children.”

“If you didn’t have kids would you still be with Jake?”

“I’ve asked myself that question, too, but we
do
have kids so it doesn’t really matter what I might or might not do if we didn’t.”

“Are you still sleeping with him?”

Nora cringed, disgusted even by the thought of it, even more so by the
truth
of it. “With Jake? Yes,” she admitted, shame tightening her throat around the words. “It’s so wrong, Jo. Sometimes I go from one bed to the other in the same day because I can’t say no to either one of them.”

“Tristan knows that you go home to Jake, and he’s okay with that?” Jo scowled, her disapproval unmasked. The toothpick snapped in two, and she tossed the pieces onto the table between them.

“I don’t know that he’s okay with it,” Nora said. “We don’t talk about it. But he knew I was married when we started seeing each other, and he didn’t make any demands then. Maybe he just doesn’t think about it.” She shrugged and stared down into her half-filled coffee cup. “Or maybe he avoids asking because he doesn’t want to know the truth. I don’t know.”

“What kind of guy is okay with screwing you and then sending you home to your husband to be screwed by him?”

“Wow, Jo. Thanks for putting it so delicately.” Nora frowned at her friend.

“Hey, I’m not the one warming two beds, Toots. There’s nothing delicate about your dilemma, except for the way you have to maneuver yourself through it. You’re going to trip up. It’s inevitable.” Jo wiped her mouth with her napkin, folded it neatly and tucked it under her cup. She smoothed on a fresh coat of lipstick, dropped the tube back into her purse, and began to dig for her keys. “You know how I feel about Jake, that I think your marriage is pretty hopeless, and that I think you deserve so much better.”

“You’re always so encouraging, Jo.” Nora’s sarcasm didn’t go unnoticed, but Jo pressed on even harder.

“Yep.
But the way I see it, your Tristan isn’t any better a man. He sounds fun and charming and passionate and all those good things, but he also sounds selfish and immature to me. He’s getting his cake and eating it, too, but he doesn’t have to pay a penny for it.” She reached across the table and put her hand on Nora’s arm. She continued in a more gentle tone, but her words were just as harsh. “Of course he’s not asking questions or making demands, Toots. Why mess with a good thing, you know? He—”

“Okay!” Nora interrupted, pulling away from Jo’s touch and covering her ears with her hands. “With friends like you, who needs enemies?” She grinned wryly, trying to lighten the blow of her outburst, but Jo wouldn’t let her off the hook so easily.

“I’m being honest with you
because
you’re my friend, and I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t want to see you hurt anyone else either. But if you don’t figure things out, like I said, it’s inevitable. There are going to be a lot of hurting people in this town. You’re the only one who can do anything about it. You know that, right?”

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Jo finally spoke again.
“You want to know what to do? Really?” She waited until Nora responded with a nod. “Just do the right thing. I know you know what that is.”

Nora dropped her eyes to the table cloth, her shoulders slumping, but didn
’t say anything. Jo stood and came around the table to hug her friend.

“Go home, Honey. Go home until you sort things out.”