The lack of tension in this house was so welcome after these past few weeks. Perhaps something about Jennie being home made them all relax.
Ava walked into the living room and took the baby from Bryant. “That was nothing, Lenora. Not compared to what Grandma and Poppop used to put me and Aunt Jennie through.”
Leah’s smile faded. Were all of her warm, romantic memories things of the past?
Oliver passed behind them on his way to the guest room, messing up Jennie’s hair as he went.
“Hey.” She flung a hand at him, but he sidestepped her easily and slipped into the hallway. She huffed at missing out on clobbering him, though she couldn’t quite hide her smile. “I never did want a brother, you know!”
“Papa?” Ava walked in toward the table and began to secure Lenora in her highchair. “Why don’t you come wrap up the leftover pork for you and Mama to take home?”
Leah glanced over at the empty cutting board. Hadn’t they eaten it all?
“Sure, I can do that.”
Ava grabbed her mother’s hand. “And why don’t you come meet up with him over here?”
And just like that, she was pressed up against Bryant, one wet, soapy hand against his chest, mistletoe hanging above them.
Unable to breathe.
“It’s a Christmas law, you know. If there’s mistletoe…” Ava’s voice barely registered from somewhere behind her. “You have to kiss under it.”
Leah closed her eyes. If she’d realized a second sooner what her daughter had been up to, her face wouldn’t be on fire right now. She’d not kissed Bryant in so long…but to kiss him after all this time in front of their girls? Of course, half of her wanted to kiss him, but would that do her any good?
Yet God wouldn’t want her to withdraw from him forever, so if feelings wouldn’t come on their own, maybe—
Bryant’s breath tickled her ear, sending a familiar thrill down her neck. “It’s up to you.”
She swallowed hard and opened her eyes, tried to nod, but her entire body was frozen.
His hold on her tightened, and her heart hammered.
Seconds ticked by. Did he not want to kiss her? They’d slept in bed together two nights in a row now, and he’d not once pressed his lips against hers. Was his desire for her extinguished whenever he saw the marks of his sins marring her face?
She clamped a hand around a fistful of his shirt. How could she face a future of no more good memories with a man she couldn’t live without—no matter how badly he’d wounded her?
She glanced over at Ava, whose face didn’t appear as jolly as it had before. Then she looked back to Bryant. She forced herself to nod this time.
He leaned down, gave her a peck on the lips, then broke away.
“What was that?” A dishcloth hit her in the shoulder as Ava huffed. “Papa, that kiss wasn’t worth the coal you’re going to get in your stocking.”
He cleared his throat and pulled farther away. “Well, there are rules governing the use of this plant. One being, you can’t outshine the host and hostess under their own mistletoe.”
Leah tried not to wilt. He’d made that excuse up for her. Even if this mistletoe had been theirs, she feared he’d not have kissed her any differently.
She was the reason for the disappointment coursing through her right now.
Bryant gently moved her to the side so he could get through the doorway, then headed for the table. Upon spotting the empty cutting board, likely realizing the pork had been a ruse, he took the board to the sink, then gave both his girls a kiss on their foreheads. “I need to head home.”
And out of the kitchen he went. Why hadn’t he asked to walk her home?
Leah took off her apron. “I’ll go with him. And I’ll work on reading your book tonight, Jennie. Maybe I’ll be able to discuss it with you tomorrow.”
“All right. Good night, Mama.”
After the obligatory round of kisses, she rushed after Bryant.
“Wait.”
He stopped just outside the door and eyed her stiffly, but then came back in to grab her coat and held it open for her.
The second she stepped into the crisp evening air behind him, she clutched his sleeve. “Thank you for whatever it was you said to Oliver. He really tried with Lenora tonight. Nothing I’ve said has gotten him to do as much.”
Though Bryant allowed her to thread her arm around his, he didn’t draw her closer. “Sometimes a man needs another man to tell him bluntly how bad things are—or how bad they could become.”
“Is that what happened to you? No one told you things weren’t going to end well?”
“No, I was just an idiot, trying to avoid a blow to my pride. At least Oliver’s getting practice in letting go of his pride now. Hopefully that’ll help if he gets himself stuck in a rough spot in the future.”
Moments passed, but he said no more.
She shuffled along beside him in the dense quiet of fresh snowfall, nerves jittering at the thought of bringing up what else had happened at Ava’s. But not telling him would only save her from losing some of what Bryant had just succeeded in getting Oliver to lay down. “I know why you barely kissed me under the mistletoe.”
He stiffened.
“To spare my pride.” Hopefully that was all it was. For if he no longer found her attractive… “Uh, thank you for taking my feelings into consideration, but you don’t have to…” She swallowed hard. “You don’t have to wait for permission to kiss me if you want to.”
He stopped, but didn’t look at her, nor pull her closer. Just stared down the street toward the rising moon.
Was she wrong to think he was holding himself back? He’d always been the more affectionate one. What if he no longer wanted her like that? “You must have noticed that I’ve come to bed the last two nights, my trying to touch you more. You’re allowed to touch me back.”
He didn’t move. “Are you saying this because you want me to, or because you’re trying to trick yourself into liking me again?”
She staggered back a step. How had he figured that out?
“If you’re talking about being intimate—”
His clipped voice startled her out of her thoughts.
“I’m not going to push you for that. Please—” His voice cracked. “Please don’t try to force yourself into being intimate with me. Even if that means we’ll never…”
She looked sharply up at him. Never?
He turned to face her, clamping his hands around her upper arms. “I know how things can be between us, and I don’t want the counterfeit. And so you know, kissing you like that under the mistletoe was more for my sake than yours. If I allow myself too much of you, I’ll be hard-pressed not to ask for more. But if you’d only do so out of duty…well, a young, single man might be willing to recklessly pursue that kind of pleasure, but I’ve known the love of a woman who’s cared for me from the depths of her soul.”
He released her, and her limbs grew heavy, her body having a sudden need to slump. His statement should’ve lifted the weight from her shoulders, but it hadn’t.
“Besides,” he spoke barely loud enough to hear. “If you’re only pretending, how will I ever know if you’ve truly come to care for me again? So I’d rather wait, even if it’s for years. That way, I can be certain that when you do come to me, you’re doing so wholeheartedly.”
Bryant tilted his face toward the stars that were just beginning to appear. “But if you’re feeling better about…us…” The vulnerability that had stolen into his voice was heart-rending.
She put a hand on him, but only lightly. “I’m not sure I can say that…not yet.”
He turned back to her. “I will care for you regardless of whether you ever can ever care for me again. Because I still love you. I always have and I always will, and not only because you’re beautiful—”
She couldn’t hold in her incredulous huff.
He grabbed her chin. “You’ve never scoffed before when I’ve said that.”
She couldn’t meet his
eye. “I haven’t ever looked or sounded like this before.”
With his hand cupping the side of her face, his thumb slowly trailed down the puckered scar, which cut a line through her left eyebrow.
The gentle caress left her weak in the knees.
“There’s a portion of your beauty that lies on the surface, yes.” His soft voice puffed warm against her frozen cheek. “And that’s been marred—I cannot lie. And I hate that I’m responsible for it. Yet, the part of your beauty that shines out from the inside has always enhanced what’s been on the outside—and that’s still all there.”
She pulled away from him, shaking her head, forcing him to drop his hand. “With how I’ve treated you lately—?”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “You still care about others, Leah. And though you’re having a hard time doing that with me right now, the way you care for our children, the way you humbly do the things everyone else overlooks—I’ve always loved that about you. I love you.”
Though something inside her urged her to say those words back, words that months ago she would’ve repeated without thought, the knot in her throat wouldn’t budge. Instead, she leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him, hoping to transfer some of those precious feelings into herself.
Though she was not the woman he claimed to see at this very moment, she wanted to be. She wanted to do what was best for others—including him.
He tucked her up against himself, and then pressed a single kiss atop her head. He rested his cheek against her hair. Despite his warmth, the chill of the wind blowing the snow around them soon caused her to shiver.
Bryant shifted. “It’s too cold to stand out here any longer.” And yet, a minute went by before he pulled himself from her and tucked her arm back around his, starting again for home. “Have you read Jennie’s book yet?”
The sudden change of topic—to something that wouldn’t fix what was broken between them—made her throat ache. But if he didn’t want to talk any longer about that, she wouldn’t press him since he didn’t press her. “No, I haven’t even finished the first chapter.” Which was pretty awful, since the book wasn’t even a hundred pages long. If only she could keep her mind on the words, but keeping focused proved difficult when her world felt upended.
“It’s good. I think we should come up with ways to help her. Her stories make you realize what you have and that you should take none of it for granted.” Gaining their porch, he stepped up to the front door, but didn’t go in.
What was he waiting for? “You’re wanting to do more than buy copies and give them to friends?”
“Maybe.” He then opened the door and ushered her in. “I guess we can talk about ideas in the morning.”
After hanging up her coat for her, he frowned at her when he realized she’d remained behind him.
He’d likely expected her to have already taken off, to claim some countertop was in desperate need of a midnight scrubbing.
She shifted her weight, having difficulty looking at him. “In light of what you said earlier about not wanting too much of me, would you rather I return to the guest room?”
“Please, no.” His voice quavered. “I don’t know how I’d survive if you took away what you’ve already given me—even if it’s only for a few hours when you don’t have to look at me.”
“Bryant—”
He stopped her words with the back of his hand against her cheek. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
With that, he strode from the room and into the kitchen, a door shutting soon after. How long would he spend at the woodpile and tending to the firebox and coal stove? Likely a good amount of time with the way he’d just left.
She crossed over to the empty kitchen and frowned at the back door. This afternoon, as she’d stared at the Gethsemane glass, she’d resolved to do what was uncomfortable in hopes of doing what was best for them both, perhaps even giving her emotions a much-needed jouncing. But if that wasn’t what Bryant wanted, what should she do now?
When he’d wrapped his arms around her and the girls at church this afternoon, whispered in her ear under the mistletoe, and held her in the moonlight-laced snow, she’d longed for what was missing, even though part of her still hesitated.
After marching up to the guest room, she searched her Bible for answers. Half an hour later, with the house much warmer than before, Bryant’s heavy tread scuffled past her door. Down the hall, their door whined open, then shut. His footsteps didn’t return. Laying aside her Bible, she readied for bed, then forged out into the hallway, but turned right back around to find her warm socks. Tomorrow, she’d pack up everything and drag it back down the hall.
By the time she entered their room, Bryant was snoring softly.
Slipping in beside him, she pressed herself closer than she’d allowed herself last night. Surely soon she’d be able to tell him she loved him with just as much meaning as he’d put into those words earlier—to feel again what she now wished she still did.
Deep down, she still loved him, but to feel that way again…
Would those feelings lie dormant until she forced them to engage? Was it naïve to expect the resentment and bitterness she’d nursed for half a year to fade away? She moved to press a kiss to his neck. Maybe if she warmed him up.
But then flashes of the nights she’d lain in this spot, sleeping in her clothes because she’d been too sore to undress, the days she’d sold cherished items to buy food, and the afternoons he’d not been there to hold her when she’d been in pain thwarted her attempt to stoke that momentary spark of desire.
With a huff, she rolled back and stared up at the ceiling. Whatever passion she’d just fanned into existence had sputtered out.
He deserved what he’d asked for—a woman who desired him out of love—not in search of it.
Making no attempt to wipe away the tears dripping down her cheeks, she spent the next hour listening to Bryant’s breathing while praying for a new heart, a heart that overflowed with desire for her husband.
Chapter Nine
Jennie handed Bryant another length of twine as they sat by the fireplace, wrapping the presents he’d helped her buy earlier. Only a few more days and Christmas would be over, and his sweet daughter would be heading back to Chicago. He turned toward her, waiting for another piece of twine. “I finished your book.”
She continued to pull string through her fingers, measuring by feel, staring somewhere to the left of him. With how she’d tilted her chin, he could tell she was waiting for him to say more.
“I thought it was well done and insightful.” He wanted to reach over and sweep back the dark hair that had fallen over her eyes, but he’d learned yesterday she no longer appreciated him ‘babying’ her. She wanted to appear just as she was, for she couldn’t have parents following her around at all times, making sure she looked presentable.
She cut the next piece of twine and handed it to him. “Do you think anyone will buy it?”
He shrugged. “They should, and I hope for your sake, they will. But a publisher should know—”
“I’m going to sell it myself.” She nodded decisively. “A few of my friends from the blind school attempted to get a publisher, but no one succeeded. A press printed it for them though, and they’ve gone around to different towns selling their books. So that’s what I’m going to do, along with singing guest solos at churches.”
Bryant’s hands froze against the Christmas package he’d been working on. His girl intended to travel alone? “Uh, no.” He shook his head harder than she was shaking hers and repeated, “No.”
“Papa—”
“Who’s going to protect you?” She had no idea how enticing a vulnerable, pretty woman could be to riffraff.
“I plan on hiring someone at each place, who can—”
“That won’t do. You don’t know people in every town.”
“I can ask at the churches—”
“And how are you going to get to the church without someone taking you there? And that som
eone might be—”
“I’m old enough to choose how I live my life.” She folded her hands in her lap and sighed. “I’ve lived away from you almost longer than I’ve lived with you.”
She might as well have stabbed him in the heart. “That’s because—”
“I’m not blaming you, Papa.” She raised her hand to stop any further contest. “I’m grateful you sent me to school. It was far better than staying here, stuck in a corner.”
“Honey—”
“Don’t take that as chastisement. I understand no one knew what to do with me, that you were trying to protect me, and that sending me to school was because you didn’t want to see me stuck in the corner any longer—and I’m not. I’m ready to go out into the world, and the school gave me the ability to do so.”
She might be ready, but he wasn’t, not one iota. What to say that wouldn’t dampen her courage, or relegate her back to the corner, yet get her to see how dangerous this idea was.
God…
His heart thumped. He immediately knew the answer to his unfinished prayer.
He’d already promised he’d do whatever God told him to do to support his wife financially—but he’d received no peace about staying. However, he’d been unable to fathom how leaving would be a good thing.
Now he knew. Leah didn’t need support, but their girls did—which had been Leah’s exact objection to leaving Armelle. She hadn’t wanted to abandon Ava. So if their oldest needed Leah, and Jennie was going out all alone…
He hung his head.
He’d told God he’d lay down his life for his wife, but he’d do so for his daughters as well. Surely God wouldn’t want him to leave the most vulnerable member of his family to fend for herself just because he wished things were better between him and his wife. He’d told Oliver they ought to strive to be men that sacrificed the future they’d hoped for to do their best by those they loved.
Distance couldn’t stop him from sending Leah whatever money he could spare or from writing letters. “I’ll do it.”
Jennie tipped her head. “Do what?”
“Take you around the country. Help you sell your books. For as long as you want.”
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