Trusting Him to Lead

by T. K. Chapin

  A light laugh escaped his lips as he nodded slightly. “Then let’s start a family!”

  Rachel could hardly contain her excitement as she waited for West to arrive home from his new job seven months later. He was hired on as a software tester at DigiTech a couple of weeks before. That wasn’t the only good news for them, for in her hands was a little plastic stick that would change both of their lives forever.

  The front door opened, and she jumped off the couch, rushing over to him. He pulled her in close and kissed her, excitement on his face.

  “Hey, honey. You seem perkier today than usual.”

  Rachel nodded excitedly and showed him the stick. His eyes grew and then connected with hers. “You’re pregnant?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Like . . . with a baby?”

  “Yes!”

  Lifting her in his arms, he twirled her in a circle. “Does it feel like a boy?”

  “It feels like the stomach flu right now.”

  He laughed. “Okay. So, we need a crib, diapers, bottles. Oh! A binky! A stroller, a car seat. Sippy cups. Wait, do babies need sippie cups? No, that’s older, I think. Like toddler age. Right? I need books. I need a book on how to be a dad.”

  Rachel placed a hand on his chest. “It’s going to be okay. We have time to get everything.”

  He smiled and nodded. Picking Rachel up again, he carried her into the living room and gently put her on the couch. Laying her back against the couch cushions, he smiled. “Mrs. Kirkland, you’re going to be a momma!”

  “Mr. Kirkland, you’re going to be a dad!”

  Leaning in, he kissed her. Then he kissed her again, deepening the kiss as he brought a hand up to caress her cheek. “I love you so much. God really knew what He was doing when He made you.”

  Her heart radiated with warmth, and she pulled him in, kissing him deeply. West was perfect in every way possible, and she couldn’t imagine her life without him in it.

  Pausing, West pulled back and stood up from the couch. Holding out a hand, he lowered his gaze to meet hers.

  “May I have this dance, my lady?”

  Tossing her head back, she laughed. “Why, yes, my good sir!”

  Placing her hand in his, he lifted her from the couch. Walking over to the bookcase with a radio on it, he turned it on to classical rock and they began to sway to the music in the living room. As she leaned into West’s hold, she felt like she was in heaven on earth. His hold and his embrace were like nowhere else, and she never wanted to leave it.

  Chapter 3

  Sending the kids off early the next morning for school, Rachel shut the front door and went about her daily housework. At eleven o’clock, she got a call from her sister, Brittany, asking about the digital photos of their grandfather, Ralph, that Rachel was supposed to email her last night. Brittany wanted to surprise their mother, Linda, with photos she didn’t have of Ralph from his last Christmas alive.

  “Sorry. West and I had a fight and then I went to sleep.” Setting the laundry hamper down onto the bed, she looked at the doorway of the bedroom. “If West’s office is unlocked, I’ll get them over to you right now. Otherwise, it won’t be until he gets off work tonight.”

  Brittany let out a long-winded sigh on the other end of the phone. “Why does he lock his office?”

  Exiting the bedroom, Rachel headed down the stairs. “I don’t know. Doesn’t want children messing around in there, I guess. I’ve never really thought about it.”

  Crossing through the kitchen, she headed down the hallway to his office. Grabbing the doorknob, she found it unlocked.

  “It’s unlocked.”

  “Sweet!”

  Rachel’s sister’s over-the-top reaction caused her to smile. Opening the door, she went into his office. West’s oversized oak desk held four computer monitors and two empty cups of coffee. Notepads with jotted down notes and phone numbers littered most of the surface. “How do men live in such filth?”

  “What?” Brittany’s voice was filled with confusion on the other end of the phone call.

  “West’s office. It’s trashed. I don’t understand how he gets anything done in here.” Reaching down to the computer tower tucked in a hideaway spot under the desk, she pressed the power button and sat down in the executive leather chair. “Wow. This chair is comfy, though.”

  Brittany laughed. “You’re a goof. Men don’t care about cleaning. I remember my ex-boyfriend Jason’s apartment always had pizza boxes and empty takeout containers all across the counter. I tried to clean it up once and he said not to. He liked it that way.”

  “Organized chaos, I guess.”

  The computer screens lit up and booted to the Windows login screen. She tried to click ‘log in’ but it prompted for a password.

  “Password protected?” Pressing a hand against her forehead, Rachel tried to think of a password he would use.

  Brittany made a ‘tsk’ sound with her teeth. “Locked down, eh? Never a good sign, Sis.”

  “Oh, shut it. It’s security.” Typing in his birth year and her birth year, she hit Enter.

  Wrong Password.

  Glancing around the desk, she saw a photograph of their family from a vacation they went on three years ago. She typed in Maui.

  The login screen began to load.

  Smiling, she thought to herself, We think alike.

  “How about those pictures?”

  “It’s coming. Hold on. Had to get logged in.”

  Navigating to the Photos folder on the desktop, Rachel skimmed the photos. Arriving at the end of the photos, she shook her head. “Not here.”

  “Great.”

  “Wait. I know they’re on this computer.” Moving the mouse, Rachel went down to the search bar in Windows and typed in Grandpa. There were no results. “Hmm . . . how do I find all the photos? I’m having problems locating them.”

  “I don’t know. Google it.”

  Opening up a browser window, Rachel navigated to Google. She began to type problems finding photos but had begun to misspell problem—P-o-r.

  Google’s suggestion based on previous searches revealed the word Porn.

  Rachel gasped. Her heart felt as if it stopped.

  “What?” Brittany’s voice pressed for information. “Did you figure out the problem?”

  Covering her mouth, tears started to trickle down Rachel’s cheeks. Stammering, she said, “I have to go.”

  “But what about—”

  With a trembling finger, Rachel hit End Call.

  Joining his team for the meeting in the conference room after lunch, West was high-fived by Jake.

  “The hot fix worked flawlessly, man. You’re some sort of genius. You know that?”

  Sitting down in the chair beside Jake, West shrugged and held out his hands. “Perhaps I just do what I do well.”

  Soon, the conference room filled with everyone on the team, including West’s boss, Mr. John Peterson. As John walked by West, he grabbed his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze.

  “Nice job on that hot fix.”

  Peering up at John, he tipped him a nod. “Thanks.”

  The meeting went over the team’s new project they were heading into that would integrate cell phone technology into a new tee shirt design. The shirt would be outfitted with sensors that monitored stress levels and heartbeat and could provide bio feedback to the end user. West was nominated by a few of his fellow team members to be the project lead. He gladly obliged. As the meeting wound down, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Slipping the phone slightly from his pocket, he looked at the screen. It was Rachel. He ignored it and continued listening to John.

  A minute passed, and she called again.

  He ignored it again.

  Then she texted him.

  Rachel: Call me now. Urgent.

  Furrowing his eyebrows, he discreetly texted back.

  West: In a meeting. Can it wait?

  A few minutes passed. She texted again.

  Rachel: I know about
the porn.

  West’s heart sank, and suddenly, he was unaware of anything going on in the meeting.

  “West.” John’s voice boomed from across the conference room.

  Shaking his head, he looked up. “What?”

  “What are your thoughts?”

  “I have to go.” Standing up from his chair, he took a step away from the conference room table.

  “What? Where are you going?”

  “I have to go home. Family emergency.”

  “Oh, um.” John rubbed his face for a moment, then nodded toward West. “Of course, go. I hope everything is okay.”

  “So do I.”

  Exiting the conference room, he hurried back to his cubicle and grabbed his jacket and car keys. As he turned to leave, he came face to face with Steve.

  “You okay?”

  “No, Steve, I’m not. You should probably get back to the meeting.” Side-stepping Steve, the last person he wanted to see right then, he continued through the office toward the exit. Steve caught up with him out in the parking lot. Turning around to him, West held out his arms as he furrowed his eyebrows and his tone grew sharp and serious. “What?”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  West came unhinged and closed the few steps separating him from Steve. He shoved him backward, causing Steve to stagger. “You can back off!”

  As West headed to his car once more, Steve said, “I’ll be praying for you.”

  Turning around with a cocked arm, he swung and punched Steve in the face, sending him crashing to the cold, slushy pavement.

  “Ouch, that hurts way more than it looks in the movies.” Turning around, West shook his hand and got into his car and left.

  As West drove, his heart pounded inside his chest. His secret had been found out. Imagining the look of disappointment on Rachel’s face crushed his heart to dust. She’d never be able to look at him the same after this, and it was nobody’s fault but his own. By the time he turned into the neighborhood, tears were running down his cheeks and his hands were trembling at the thought of what would happen next.

  Pulling into the driveway, he parked beside Rachel’s red sedan. Shutting the car off, he peered through the windshield at the drawn curtains of the living room.

  “God, I have no idea what’s on the other side of that door. I know You probably don’t care for how scared I am. I was wrong. There’s no way around it. I messed up.”

  He dropped his forehead onto the steering wheel.

  “I’ll take whatever I have to deal with, but don’t let me lose my wife or family over this. Please.”

  Composing himself, he got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Stopping at the door, he looked at the brass doorknob of his house. His heart was pounding so violently in his chest that he thought he was about to have a heart attack. He thought about their life together, thought about their marriage and their home. Everything was tossed up in the air, and he had no idea how it’d fall from that point onward.

  West opened the door and walked in.

  Hearing the front door open as she sat at the kitchen table, Rachel lifted her swollen eyes toward the entryway of the kitchen that led into the living room. Her broken heart felt as if it couldn’t hurt any deeper, and that was proved wrong when West walked in. Tears moistened his cheeks, his shoulders were slumped, and remorse filled his expression.

  He crossed slowly over to the table and sat down across from her. Opening his arms out onto the table, he tried to reach for her, but she pulled her hands away.

  “Please don’t touch me right now.”

  “Listen, I am so sorry, Rachel.”

  Hearing him bark the command of ‘listen’ to her in that moment swapped out the sadness in her heart for pure rage and anger. Her eyebrows furrowed.

  “You don’t tell me to listen!” Standing up from the table, she pressed a hand to her forehead as she walked away from him and toward the stove. Her voice weakened as her heart ached. “You don’t tell me to listen, West. I’ve been listening for years! I’ve been raising our children and loving you for far too long! I stood by your side and trusted you, defended you even when people suggested you were unfaithful! But all this time, you were. All this time, you were unfaithful! What a fool I am.”

  “It wasn’t all the time, and it wasn’t like I was cheating.”

  Rachel crossed the kitchen floor back to the table and pointed a finger in his face. Her voice firmed. “Don’t you dare try to defend yourself to me! I saw the browsing history. I found the files too. You thought hidden files were safe, but I figured it out. Google is great like that. It’ll teach you everything you need to know when it comes to figuring out your husband’s dirty little secrets. I could also see time stamps on the files. It’s been years, West! Years of my life—possibly a decade—wasted with a lying, unfaithful husband.”

  Her voice went back to soft and her legs and body felt washed in weakness. Sitting down across from him, her eyes glinted with tears as the sorrow deepened in her heart. “You know what the worst part of it all is, West?”

  Bringing his gaze up from the table to meet her eyes, he raised his eyebrows a fraction.

  “The worst part is that I thought you loved me.”

  “I do love you, Rachel.” Quiet filled the next moment, followed by his slamming the table with a hand. “I made a mistake!”

  Disgust filled her expression and heart at his words. “How are we ever supposed to get beyond this? My heart is broken, and so is my trust. Every time I see your eyes close, I’m going to suspect you’re elsewhere! Why wasn’t I enough for you? Why weren’t our vows enough?”

  She began crying uncontrollably, and West stood up from his seat at the table. He came close to her and tried to place his arm around her shoulders, but she swatted him away. Sending an elbow up toward him, she connected with his nose. Her eyes still downcast, she could hear him begin to let out a string of curse words.

  “You don’t get to be angry right now. You only get to be sorry!” She screamed as she lifted her gaze from her hands. Her eyes landed on red blood gushing from West’s nose. He tried to stop it with a cupped hand. Her heart dipped and she was startled out of her anger at the moment.

  “Oh, no!” Running over to the sink, she grabbed a paper towel and came over to him as he sat down in his chair at the table. “Tilt your head.”

  “Okay.” He tilted his head. “I don’t think it’s broken. I can move it.”

  Relief filled her. “Thank goodness for that. Here, hold this.”

  Rachel went back over to the sink and moistened a washcloth. Then she came over and helped clean up the blood on his face and nose. Soon, his nose stopped bleeding. Returning to her seat at the table, her anger hadn’t reignited. All she felt was numbness.

  Her voice was soft, her eyes puffy and red as she looked at West.

  “I don’t know what to do, but I know I can’t deal with this right now. I’m going to my sister’s house.”

  “When? The kids are going to be home in thirty minutes.”

  “I’m going to head over there in a few minutes.”

  “But the children?”

  Swallowing, she nodded. “It’s your turn. You can handle it for a day while I figure out what to do from here. I can’t hold it together enough for them right now.”

  Standing up, she went upstairs and grabbed the suitcase from the top shelf of the bedroom closet. She began to pack it with clothes. It wasn’t long before West found his way into the bedroom.

  He came closer, his words stammering. “I can’t take care of . . .”

  Turning toward him, she raised an eyebrow. “You can’t take care of your own children?” She shook her head, a sarcastic laugh escaping her lips. “I’ve been taking care of them for years on my own.”

  West’s words firmed. “I’ve been here. Every single day, just like you. There was a time in which you didn’t do anything! Do I need to remind you of that little time in our life?”

  Stopping as she
dropped a folded shirt on top of a pair of jeans, she looked over at him. “You would go there, wouldn’t you? Hold the past against me . . . unbelievable. Fine, do it. But guess what? You haven’t been involved in your family for years, West. Wake up.”

  Zipping the suitcase, she grabbed it by the handle and walked out of the bedroom. She took it out to her car and threw it in the backseat. Turning toward West as he stood in the doorway of their house, she raised her eyebrows. “Tell the kids Mom is just staying with Auntie Brittany for a little while. They’re young enough that they won’t ask a lot of questions.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Opening the car door, Rachel got into the car and turned the key over. Looking once more at her husband, she looked away quickly and put the car into reverse.

  As soon as her car was out of sight, West slammed the front door as hard as he possibly could. The walls shook, sending picture frames full of memories on the wall crashing down behind the couch.

  “I can’t believe she left.” Raking a hand through his hair, he started to think about how his work life would be impacted. He would have to be late every day that passed until Rachel came home. His frustration grew and he kicked the side of the couch.

  “What now, God?” Staring up at the ceiling, he kicked the couch again. This time, the top of his foot caught the underside of the couch, painfully scraping it. He groaned.

  West went into the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cupboard. Running the water in the sink, he filled his glass and took a long drink.

  Pulling out his cell phone, he saw he had five minutes until the children arrived home from school. The carpool would be arriving any minute, and it was all on him.

  Breathing deeply, he tried to calm himself down. The image of Rachel pulling out of the driveway flashed in his mind just then, and he swept his arm up and then down, loosening his grip of the glass and sending it into a million pieces across the floor. He knew what he had done was wrong, but for her to just leave like that? Where’d that leave him? Where’d that leave their family? Their life?