A Kingsbury Collection

by Karen Kingsbury

  She sat up, struggling to breathe. I’m dying! Sweat began to bead along her forehead and she climbed out of bed, moving quickly down the hallway to her parents’ room, where she knocked on the door. After a minute, the door opened slightly and her mother’s bleary-eyed face appeared.

  “Ellen? What’s wrong?”

  “My heart.” She shivered as she put a hand to her chest. “It’s racing a mile a minute and I feel like I can’t breathe.”

  Her mother led Ellen out to the living room and sat next to her. “You need to relax, dear. Take a deep breath and hold it.”

  Ellen did as she was told.

  “Now, let it out slowly.”

  The air seeped out of her mouth, and she felt slightly more relaxed. “Now what?”

  “Do it again.” Her mom rubbed her back, talking to her in a soothing voice. After five minutes, Ellen’s heart stopped racing and she was calm again.

  “Go get some sleep now, but I’ll make a doctor’s appointment for you tomorrow.”

  The doctor’s diagnosis was simple: she had suffered a panic attack.

  “Is there anything in your life making you feel out of control?” he asked.

  Ellen thought of Jake and uttered a short laugh. “You could say that.”

  “A boyfriend?”

  Ellen nodded sheepishly.

  “Well, young lady.” The doctor was in his late forties and had a fatherly way about him. “I’d say it’s time you remove him from your life before the situation compromises your health.”

  Ellen nodded again.

  After that she thought long and hard about her relationship with Jake.

  They shared what seemed like a lifetime of happy memories and she loved him more than ever. They rode bikes along the shores of Mackinac Island, sailed on Little Traverse Bay, and cuddled together at Magnus Park under the shade of the leafy maple trees. They made fancy egg omelettes and laughed until Ellen thought her sides would burst. He was charming and romantic and the ultimate challenge. Jake Sadler was the only man she wanted in her life. But his unfaithfulness was affecting her health and something had to change.

  The holidays passed and Ellen ushered in the New Year with a single resolution. She would give Jake an ultimatum. One more chance. If he couldn’t be faithful, they were finished.

  On a bright Saturday morning she drove to his house, prepared to share her decision. She was on break from the University of Michigan, but they hadn’t talked much for the past week. They’d both been busy—she working at a steak house on the beach in Charlevoix and he working construction in the days.

  Ellen pulled up in front of his house and saw that his parents’ car was gone. She was slightly disappointed. She loved Jake’s parents dearly and looked forward to seeing them. They had become like family to her.

  Still, if they were gone that meant Jake was alone. Ellen smiled at the thought. She looked at her watch as she climbed out of her car. It was only eight-fifteen. If his parents were gone, Jake would still be sleeping. She walked up the front steps and knocked loudly. When no one answered, she knocked again.

  “Come on, Jake, get out of bed,” she whispered.

  Suddenly the door opened and a leggy blond with tousled hair stood before her. She was wearing Jake’s bathrobe. Ellen was too stunned to speak.

  “Yes?” The girl had sounded annoyed, her voice raspy from sleep. She was definitely suffering the effects of a hangover. Ellen’s heart began to race and she felt faint.

  “Are you selling something or what?” the girl asked impatiently. She seemed anxious to be done with Ellen.

  “No. Nothing.” Ellen was in a fog of disbelief. She turned toward her car.

  “Who are you?” the girl shouted after her.

  Ellen ignored her and sped away. Angry tears streamed down her face as she drove aimlessly through the streets of Petoskey. She could not go home and face her parents’ questions but her heart was racing so fast she thought she might have a heart attack. She wrestled with the idea of driving to the hospital, then convinced herself there was nothing physically wrong. She was having another panic attack.

  She drove to Magnus Park and found a deserted plateau overlooking the freezing bay, a spot where she and Jake had parked a number of times over the years.

  “I hate you, Jake!” Her heart responded by beating even faster.

  She had trusted him, believed in him, given him everything she had to give. And he had betrayed her. No wonder her heart was racing. Her life was out of control and it was her own fault. She had stayed with Jake Sadler all these years, knowing that he wasn’t faithful. Now she had no one but herself to blame for what was happening. She drew a shaky breath and decided that control was hers for the taking.

  “It’s over, Jake.” She wiped her tears. It didn’t matter that she had said the words a hundred times. She felt like blinders had been removed from her eyes. And there was too much at stake—primarily her health—to turn back. “I mean it this time.”

  With that declaration, Ellen’s heart skipped a beat and then slowed considerably. The panic attack had left her tired and aching from the finality of her decision. Filled with a determination she had never known, she started her car and headed home. Her mother met her at the door.

  “Jake called.”

  “Thanks.” Ellen walked past her mother toward her bedroom. Her father intercepted her in the hallway.

  “Ellen? You’ve been crying, honey.”

  “Yes, but I’m okay.”

  “Jake?”

  Ellen rolled her eyes and released a sad, short laugh. “Who else?”

  “Honey, you need to let that boy go. He’s not ever going to change. Not even for you.”

  Ellen nodded and hugged her father. “I know, Daddy. Thanks.”

  When she didn’t return his phone calls for two days Jake appeared at her house late one night. He tapped lightly on the door. Ellen saw who it was and she summoned her determination. The time had come to tell him good-bye. She slipped a parka over her turtleneck sweater and went outside.

  “Hi.” Their eyes met and she looked away. He was no longer welcome to see into her soul.

  “Hi.” He stuffed his gloved hands nervously in his pocket. Two feet of snow covered the ground even though the skies had been clear for a week. At that late hour the temperature hovered just above zero. “Ellen, what’s wrong? You haven’t called me in two days.” Jake shivered and moved closer. “I’ve been calling you every few hours.”

  Ellen ignored him. She walked toward the porch swing and sat down. Jake followed. His eyes looked deeply troubled and Ellen guessed he probably knew what was coming. She thought about the years they’d been together, the memories they’d built, the love they’d shared.…

  She looked at him now and was still struck by the sight of him. Will there ever be anyone like you, Jake? They had planned to spend their lives together, raise children and take them fishing on the bay, camping in the wooded pastures of the Upper Peninsula. But now it was over. It had to be. Her eyes filled with tears and she stared at the ground between her feet.

  “Ellen, what is it?” Jake put an arm around her shoulders and she recoiled as if he’d slapped her.

  “Don’t touch me, Jake. Not now.”

  “Ellen, I—”

  “Don’t.” She held up a single hand and stared into his eyes. “I came by the house Saturday morning.”

  Jake’s body jerked as if he’d been slapped.

  “Don’t defend yourself.” Her voice cracked. She was neither angry nor hateful, only sad at what they were both losing.

  “I can’t keep doing this, Jake.” Her eyes were full of pain, and Jake looked away.

  “Ellen, I can explain. I was drinking with the guys and I had a few too many. It wasn’t—”

  She shook her head. She was twenty-one years old and she had listened to Jake’s excuses for six years. “I should hate you for what you’ve done to me, Jake, but I love you too much. Isn’t that stupid?” Fresh tears welled in
her eyes. She brushed them away and shivered as she stared intently at him.

  “I have something to say so listen to me, please,” she said softly. There was silence for a moment. “We’re finished, Jake. For real this time.”

  “Ellen, don’t do this.” His eyes grew watery. There was a fear in his eyes that Ellen had never seen before. “I can’t live without you, you know that.”

  “Yes, but I can’t live with you. I’ve tried, Jake. Really.” She pulled one hand from her lined pocket and touched his cheek gently with her freezing fingertips. “I love you. I’ll probably never love anyone the way I loved you. But you’ll never change, Jake. It’s time for me to go my own way.”

  “Ellen, why can’t you believe me? She was nothing—”

  “Jake!” Ellen raised her voice for the first time that evening. “Please. Don’t.” Tears streamed down her freezing cheeks but her voice remained unaffected, determined. “There’s nothing you could say to change my mind. It’s too late.”

  She stood up, and Jake rose to her side.

  “Can’t you just hear me out? Can’t we try—?”

  “Jake, go. Please.”

  He slumped in defeat. For a moment he stared at his feet, as though understanding for the first time the finality in her words. Then he came to her and circled his arms around her waist. For the last time she let him. “I love you, Ellen.” He clung to her.

  She could feel his heartbeat through their jackets, and suddenly she was terrified to let him go. She had to get inside before she changed her mind.

  “I’m a jerk. I blew it and it’s all my fault. But I’ll never stop loving you.”

  Ellen felt his tears on her forehead and she ached to tell him it was all right, they could try again. She closed her eyes tightly and held him a moment longer. Then slowly, for the last time, she pulled away.

  “Ellen, give me time. I’ll change and then at least let me call you.”

  “I need to go on with my life. I’ve spent six years waiting for your phone calls. So, please. Don’t make me promises. Not now.”

  “But … ”

  “Jake, go. Please.”

  He met her gaze, and it struck her that he looked as if he’d lost his greatest treasure. She understood. She felt the same way. In the end they had both lost.

  Without Jake in her life, Ellen’s panic attacks stopped immediately. She busied herself with extracurricular school projects and housecleaning. In the evenings, when she was sorely tempted to call Jake, she forced herself to visit her girlfriends, especially Leslie Maple.

  That year Leslie had become a Christian and there was something undeniably different about her—a joy, a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Two weeks after the breakup with Jake, Ellen spent a weekend with Leslie. The two prayed and read Scripture, and for the first time in Ellen’s life she understood that Christ desired a relationship with her. She cried, picturing Jesus on a cross dying a painful death while she, Ellen Barrett, was on his mind. That was a kind of love so real it was intoxicating. She had believed in God. She had gone to church and catechism and confession. But she hadn’t really known the Christ. That weekend, in those quiet, prayerful moments with Leslie, she understood that the physical relationship she had shared with Jake was wrong, not because of a list of dos and don’ts, but because God had different, better plans for his children. And now Ellen wanted nothing more than to follow those plans. That Sunday morning she went to church with Leslie and afterwards she accepted Jesus as her personal Savior in a way she had never done before.

  She’d never known the kind of joy that decision brought her. It surpassed anything she’d ever felt before. “Does this last?” she asked Leslie with a grin.

  Leslie smiled. “As long as you keep Christ your main focus, yes. But there are a lot of things in life that can come between you and your faith.”

  “There’s only one person who could come between me and the Lord,” Ellen admitted.

  “Jake?”

  “Jake.”

  “Well, girl, let’s pray about it.” Leslie grinned and took Ellen’s hands in hers. “God alone can help you where Jake’s concerned.”

  They did so. Ellen took the lead and asked God to protect her heart and to forgive her for the physical relationship she’d shared with Jake. She asked the Lord to teach her, to guide her, to show her how to keep anything from coming between her and him.

  When the prayer was over, Ellen and Leslie smiled at each other.

  “There’s a wonderful, Christian man out there for you somewhere, Ellen.” Leslie’s eyes were shining. “I’m sure of it.”

  Ellen joined a campus fellowship when she got back to the university and her heart soared with a joy she hadn’t known before. God loved her deeply and in that there was a freedom she hadn’t realized existed. She was his alone. There was comfort knowing that if she listened to his voice, he would lead her along the right paths. Her quiet moments talking to the Lord satisfied a need deep in her soul, a need not even Jake had been able to meet. She began telling her parents and siblings how powerful a relationship with Christ could be.

  “I only wish you could both join a Bible-believing church, Dad,” Ellen told her father one day. “The Catholic church has so many traditions and things that aren’t in Scripture.”

  John Barrett raised an eyebrow and pulled Ellen aside. “Let’s get one thing clear. We have no choice but to accept your decision about leaving the Catholic church, but don’t expect us to leave just because you did. Catholics love the Lord every bit as much as Protestants.”

  “I’m not talking about Protestants or Catholics, Daddy,” Ellen insisted. “I’m talking about Christians. Bible-believing Christians.”

  John Barrett smiled patiently. “Believe it or not, I, too, read the Bible. Nearly every day. It doesn’t matter what label you wear. What matters is that you know Jesus and have a relationship with him. There is one faith and one Lord, after all.” His voice had grown softer then. “You and Jake broke up and now you’ve found comfort in God’s Word. I’m glad for that. If you think you can be closer to God at a different church, then we accept your decision. Every day since you were born I’ve prayed that you children would grow close to God. But don’t go thinking your mother and I don’t love the Lord as much as you do just because we’re Catholic.”

  Ellen never again tried to convince her family to leave their church. Instead she prayed that their faith would be strengthened, and over the years she saw those prayers answered.

  Weeks after the discussion with her father, Ellen was back in Petoskey for his crash course in sports reporting. Six months later she met Mike.

  She and Jake saw each other just once after that, when they met by chance at Glen’s Market in Petoskey. Ellen remembered her prayer and managed to leave the store after barely exchanging greetings with Jake.

  That was nine years ago.

  Ellen picked at the damp grass around her. She wondered if he had changed, if he still had a string of girls or if he had finally gotten serious about life.

  A truck turned and headed down the street. Ellen’s pulse quickened as the vehicle came closer and finally stopped in front of her house.

  The truck was new, a full-size Chevy with an extended cab. A man climbed out slowly. Jake. She would have known him anywhere. He studied her as she stood up and brushed the grass off her shorts.

  “Hi ya.” The soft greeting was one she’d heard from him a thousand times before.

  “Hi.” She was thankful he couldn’t see her red cheeks from across the yard.

  He walked around and opened the passenger door, watching her carefully as she climbed in. He closed her door, walked around and climbed into the driver’s seat. He drove several houses down the block, then pulled over.

  “Ellen.” He turned to her, searching her face. Gently, he took her hands in his, but he said nothing. There was no need. Ellen could read his piercing blue eyes as easily as she had the day they’d met. They were adults who had shared
everything at a time when life was most impressionable and the memories were there for both of them.

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  Then without a word they hugged each other, bridging the awkwardness between them and erasing the years in a single instant.

  18

  Ellen pulled away first, smoothing her T-shirt and wrestling with her emotions. Jake stayed close. He stared into her eyes, watching her carefully.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered. “About your dad, I mean?” There was concern in his voice, and Ellen caught the scent of his cologne. Mixed with the smell of the truck’s new leather interior it was enough to make her flustered, unsure of herself—and her motives for calling him.

  Lord, what am I doing here? What am I looking for?

  As had happened so often lately, the only answer she received was silence. Drawing a deep breath, she steadied herself. Jake had spent so much time with her family that he would understand what she had lost. He had loved her father, too.

  And that, Ellen realized, more than any other reason, was why she wanted to see Jake after so many years.

  She wiped at an errant tear. “I miss him, Jake.”

  “He was something, wasn’t he?” Jake’s eyes were distant and sad. He looked at Ellen again. “You okay?”

  “I guess. It wasn’t a surprise or anything. I just … I just needed to talk to someone who would understand.”

  “Well, I have all night.” Jake started the engine and pulled back onto the street. “Why don’t you relax a minute and you can tell me all about it when we get there.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  She sank deep into the leather seat and studied him as he drove. He wore a blue tank top and athletic shorts, and it was easy to see that he was still lean, still remarkably fit. His hair was darker than before, cropped short at the neck and slightly longer on top. He was still tan, his eyes still as blue as the water in Little Traverse Bay. But there was something different. Something … more steady, more mature. He turned onto Mitchell, and Ellen saw he was heading toward the water. The silence between them was easy, and when she turned to watch him again he caught her gaze and smiled.