“I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“It doesn’t matter what happened. Just how it looks. You know that.”
For a minute, Andrea couldn’t speak or even breathe. Then she started to laugh.
“Andrea?”
“Oh, Michael . . .” She reined in her laughter long enough to speak, aware it had taken on a hysterical tinge. “I’d tell you what you could do with your VP position, but it’s not worth the effort. Tell accounting to send my final check to my home, and I expect a letter of recommendation from you along with it.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it will look very bad for you when my lawyer delivers an affidavit to the board of directors stating I was fired for defending myself against a client and for not sleeping with another like you implied I should.”
Now Michael sounded nervous. “You’ll never be able to prove that happened.”
“It doesn’t matter if it happened. Just how it looks. Isn’t that right, Michael?” She waited for an answer, but the line remained silent. “Just be glad I’m only asking for a recommendation. Juries don’t take kindly to accusations of sexual harassment these days.”
She rode the satisfaction of having the last word through her short wait at the gate lounge, but as she boarded her plane to Chicago, the sinking feeling crept back into her gut.
She’d just lost her job. Because of a man.
She swallowed down nausea as she found her seat by the window. She texted her arrival information to her sister, then shut off her cell phone. She didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to explain why she was coming home. She didn’t want to explain why she had nowhere else to go.
Andrea slept on the plane ride from London to Chicago and woke with a pounding headache as soon as the wheels touched the tarmac. She fumbled with her carry-on bag and walked zombielike toward her connecting gate while she flipped on her cell phone. Two messages.
The first was from Becky. She sounded worried about the abrupt change of plans, but she assured Andrea she would pick her up in Dayton.
The second was from James.
Andrea’s throat constricted again with unshed tears. She deleted the message before she could hear more than “Hi, Andrea, it’s James.”
She couldn’t. Not when she desperately needed to keep it together. She boarded her plane to Dayton and refused to let herself think of what he might have said.
She passed the short flight to Ohio in a daze and walked through Dayton’s stark steel-and-glass airport wrapped in a blur of exhaustion and jet lag. She could barely keep herself moving in a straight line as she made her way down to the ground transportation exit. Becky waited by the first baggage carousel as promised, dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, her long dark hair bound in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She chewed her nails fitfully as she scanned the passengers. Her expression shifted when she saw Andrea, changing first to relief, then wariness.
Andrea dropped her bag and went straight into Becky’s waiting embrace.
“Oh, honey,” Becky whispered, holding her tight. “What happened?”
Andrea blinked back tears. “Can we just go?”
“Of course we can.” Becky grabbed the handle of her bag and pulled it along behind her, linking her arm with her sister’s as they headed for the parking lot.
“Where are the kids?”
“At home with Dan. It’s nine o’clock.”
“Right.” Andrea rubbed her eyes. “I’m jet-lagged. I don’t even know what day it is. I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience—”
“Shh. I’m always happy to see you, no matter the reason.”
Becky led her to a white Mercury sedan and popped the trunk with the remote fob. Andrea walked to the left side of the car before she remembered she was back in the States and circled around to the passenger side. She climbed in and leaned back against the headrest with a long sigh.
Becky slipped into the driver’s seat and stuck the key in the ignition. Then she touched Andrea’s arm. “Andy, what happened?”
“I lost my job.”
Becky blinked in surprise. “Why? Does this have something to do with James?”
“He said he was in love with me.”
Despite the fact Andrea thought she couldn’t cry any more, the tears slid down her face and didn’t stop on the short ride back to her sister’s home.
Becky didn’t try to pry the story out of Andrea on the way back to her rambling brick ranch a few minutes outside of Dayton, for which Andrea was inexpressibly grateful. She followed Becky numbly up the front steps, the porch light blinding her gritty eyes while her sister unlocked the front door.
Becky’s husband lay on the overstuffed sofa in the front room, watching the news. His lanky build and messy blond hair contrasted with Becky’s dark, exotic looks. When they came in, he immediately rose and gave Andrea a warm hug.
“Hi, Dan,” she said hoarsely. “Sorry to intrude on you without notice.”
“It’s never an intrusion.” Dan released her and looked at his wife. “I made up the sofa bed in the basement.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.” Becky put an arm around her husband’s waist and lifted her face to accept his kiss. “Kids asleep?”
“For a while now.”
Andrea looked away from the affectionate couple, loneliness stabbing at her chest. The house looked like it always did: comfortable furniture, hardwood floors, toys and books strewn across most surfaces. She wandered toward the kitchen, where Becky had framed and hung the children’s artwork over the breakfast table. Every inch of it screamed home.
She’d thought going back to her empty apartment would be more painful, but now, surrounded by the trappings of her sister’s happy life, she wasn’t so sure.
“Are you hungry?” Becky asked from the doorway. “I can make you something.”
“No, thanks. I’d really just like to go to bed if you don’t mind.”
“Come on, then,” Becky said. “I’ll show you to your room.”
Andrea followed her sister down a flight of stairs to the basement, wondering what kind of scene awaited her. The last time she’d seen it, the lower level had just been an empty, cavernous space.
“Dan finished it last month.” Becky flipped a switch, flooding the space with light. “He did an amazing job, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.” It was now a cozy, carpeted rec room painted a buttery yellow, with built-in cabinetry for books, and a large TV. The upright piano that had once been in the living room—Andrea’s piano from their old home—now had a place of honor along one wall. She dragged her eyes away from it to the sofa bed, already pulled out and made up with clean sheets and a coverlet.
“Is that Mom’s quilt?”
“Yeah. I guess Dan thought you could use it.”
Andrea blinked away tears. “That was nice of him.”
“Andy . . . you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I just need to get away from my life for a while. Sort things out.” Andrea put her arms around her sister and squeezed her tight. “We’ll talk in the morning?”
“All right. You know where I am if you need me. Bathroom’s through the door over there.”
“Thanks, Becks. I’ll be fine.”
Her sister cast a final concerned look at her before leaving her alone. Andrea placed her suitcase on a coffee table that had been pushed out of the way of the foldout bed and traded her suit for pajamas. Then she flicked off the light, climbed beneath their mother’s old quilt, and closed her eyes to the tears that slowly seeped from beneath her lashes.
Andrea woke hours later, disoriented, and fumbled for her phone on the side table. In the windowless basement, she couldn’t tell if it was midnight or noon. She squinted in the glare from the screen and tried to make out the numbers. Ten in the morning? Surely that couldn’t be right.
She flipped on the lamp beside the bed, her heart pounding. Then she remembered James. The photo. Her job. She sucked in a breath and r
ode out the wave of panic. What had she been thinking? What had she done? Eight years of work, thrown away. For nothing.
Becky thumped down the basement stairs, a mug in one hand. “You’re awake!”
“Sort of. Is that for me?”
Becky handed her the cup. “Of course. I checked on you a couple hours ago, but you were out. I didn’t have the heart to disturb you. If the kids didn’t manage to wake you up with their racket, you must have really needed the sleep.”
Andrea sipped the coffee with a sigh. “A few more of these and I might feel human again.”
“Take your time. When you’re ready, get dressed and come up. I’ll make you breakfast. Dan took the kids to church, so it’s just you and me.”
“Thanks, Becks.” She was grateful for what her sister left unsaid. Becky had cleared the house so Andrea could spill her story uninterrupted.
She took her time getting ready, not anxious to tell the story even though she knew she had no choice. She took a shower in the small basement bathroom, blew her hair dry, put on some mascara and lip gloss. Then she pulled on the single pair of jeans she had brought from Scotland and a long-sleeved blouse and trudged up the stairs.
To her credit, Becky just asked casually, “You hungry?”
“Bowl of cereal maybe. I’ve probably gained ten pounds eating James’s cooking this past week.” The words spilled out so naturally the spike of pain that came with them took her by surprise. Somehow even the three flights from Inverness to Dayton hadn’t driven home the realization she would never see James again. She sank into a chair on suddenly shaky legs.
“So you spent a lot of time together.” Becky set a bowl in front of Andrea, followed by the milk carton and a box of cornflakes. “What happened?”
Andrea poured the cereal and milk, glad to have her hands busy. “I tried. I really did. I just . . . Maybe there are some of us who aren’t meant for the whole domestic scene.”
Becky pulled out a chair and sat across from her. “You didn’t tell me he asked you to marry him.”
“What? No! He didn’t.”
“So what’s the problem, then? You like him. He obviously likes you, more than a little. You fly to London all the time. Why can’t you just see where things go?”
“You don’t understand,” Andrea said miserably. “He’s not . . . He . . .”
“He makes you want more than that.”
Andrea pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “He wants more than that. And I don’t know if I can give it, should it come down to it.”
Becky reached across the table and grabbed Andrea’s free hand. “You were not meant to carry this burden for the rest of your life. Let it go.”
Andrea stared at her cornflakes. “That’s what he said.”
“You told him? About Logan and the baby?”
Andrea nodded.
Becky sat back in the chair. “Why him? Why now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You thought it would scare him off. Did it?”
Andrea met her sister’s eyes. “No.”
“I think none of this was any accident. I think you were supposed to go to Skye for this very reason.”
“To meet him, you mean.”
“No, sweetie. To make you see all you were missing. To make you think about what your life could be like if you’d just give it all up to God. This sorrow was never part of His plan.” Becky rose and gave Andrea a hug. “I’ll let you think about that. I’m going to go get dressed.”
Andrea ate her cornflakes automatically. Becky made it seem so simple. As if she could just decide to be done with it and move on. As if she could just throw off the guilt and the pain and live her life as if none of it had ever happened.
Why not? Why do you keep punishing yourself?
Wherever the thought came from, it raised gooseflesh on her arms.
Because it was my fault. Because Mom would have been ashamed of me, letting power and money seduce me into doing things I knew were wrong. If I hadn’t made bad choices, none of it would have happened. I could have a husband and family now.
I could have James.
She put her cereal bowl in the dishwasher and wandered toward the living room, which had been straightened up since last night. She bent to pick up a tiny doll and placed it on the end table. Tears pricked her eyes as she remembered playing with Emmy at the coffee table while James cooked. It was too easy to imagine a life like that for herself, even though it was impossible.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and headed for the basement stairs. She should at least check her e-mail. When she reached the bottom, though, it wasn’t her laptop that drew her. It was the piano.
She strode across the carpeted room, seated herself at the bench, and pushed back the fall board. As she started her warm-up exercises, she realized it had been tuned recently. Were the kids taking piano lessons now? Or had Becky just had it tuned for her when they moved it to the basement? It would be just like her sister to do something so thoughtful when all Andrea had done was reject opportunities to come back to Ohio.
When she passed the point of warm and still kept playing scales, she knew she was just avoiding matters. Her feelings had a tendency to spill out into the music. She started with Schumann, but somehow the song morphed and changed into the melody with which she’d experimented the day she’d told James her story. The day she’d kissed him for the first time. The day she’d finally begun to admit her feelings for him.
Three days ago. How could it have only been three days?
She couldn’t think about that. Instead she played. The music shifted, ebbed and flowed. It seemed to suggest the soft tempo of time on Skye, the lap of waves along the shore, the swift movements of clouds across the sky.
“We’re all broken. We’re only human. Some wounds only God can mend.”
She had rejected James’s words because they had hinted at something she couldn’t accept. But now . . .
She didn’t realize she was crying until the tears fell on the keyboard. She played until she couldn’t see the keys and then wrapped her arms around herself while choked sobs burst from her mouth.
Life should be more than just a catalog of business deals and signed contracts. She wanted to love and be loved. She wanted to be whole again.
She needed to believe there was something greater to hold on to.
“I’m sorry,” she prayed, her voice barely more than a whisper. “I lost my way. I’ve made so many mistakes. I’ve been chasing the wrong things, trying to prove I was worth something. Please . . . just . . . please . . .”
If she’d expected a rush of awareness or a light from heaven, she would have been disappointed. God’s presence flowed into her gently, filling the empty spaces that had lain barren for so long. It suffused her body like the quiet trill of birdsong, the lap of waves along the shore, the soft scatter of light along the water through the clouds overhead. She recognized those quiet moments of peace she had found in Skye, realized God had been with her there, bringing her to this moment. She braced her elbows on her knees and let her hair fall forward as the tears streamed down her face, taking with them the buried pain and loneliness of the past eight years.
When the tears finally subsided, she was free.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I don’t know about this.” Andrea looked at herself doubtfully in the mirror. The red-and-white flowered sundress was the last thing she would have chosen for herself, but it was one of the few items from her sister’s closet that fit her. It seemed silly to shop for clothes when she would be returning to New York in a few days. The past two weeks in Ohio had been a blessed escape from reality, but it was time to return home and make a decision about her future.
“You look beautiful,” Becky said.
“I look like June Cleaver.” Andrea didn’t really mind, though. Becky said she’d feel out of place wearing a suit in their casual church, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to throw on jeans in the house of God. She
thrust her feet into her red Jimmy Choos and slipped on a white cardigan, also purloined from her sister’s closet.
“I’m glad you’re coming.” Becky slipped an arm around Andrea’s waist and leaned her head on her shoulder. “It will almost be like old times, when we used to go to church with Mom.”
“Almost,” Andrea said. “I wish she was still here. I miss her.”
They piled into two cars, Dan driving the kids in their SUV, Becky taking Andrea in the white sedan. As soon as they pulled onto the tree-lined street, Becky asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“I’ve been thinking I might go out on my own. My clients know what I can do. They’ll give me recommendations. I can be up and running in a few months.”
“So you’re really going back to New York?”
“For now.” She knew what Becky was thinking, but James hadn’t called since leaving the voice mail she’d deleted. She spent every evening with her cell phone in hand, his number on the dialer. She would run her fingers over the scarf he’d given her and allow herself to remember what it felt like to be in his arms, convinced she’d made a terrible mistake in leaving. Somehow, though, she couldn’t bring herself to push the Call button. She’d forced him away, refused him in no uncertain terms. She wouldn’t blame him for never wanting to see her again. The measure of peace she had found amid a life still in upheaval was too tenuous to risk.
She realized Becky was waiting for her to finish her answer, so she said, “I still like New York. I’ll have to sell my apartment, but I can find something affordable while I build my business. Brooklyn, maybe. Or New Jersey.”
Becky looked so horrified that Andrea laughed. “Or maybe upstate. I don’t know, Becky. I’ll see where the Lord takes me.”
Her sister reached across the console and rubbed her arm. “You realize I never thought I would hear those words come out of your mouth.”
“Me neither. I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time over the last few years.”
“Call it a reminder to continue praying. I never lost hope.”
“I know you didn’t. Thank you, Becks.” Andrea reached into her purse for her lipstick, but instead of the metal tube, her fingers touched the sharp edge of an envelope. Frowning, she drew it out.
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