Falling for You Again

by Catherine Palmer

  At the thought of Esther in another man’s arms, Charlie winced. For nearly fifty years, he had believed Esther belonged only to him. She was his prize catch. His little woman. His darling wife. His better half. Esther was mother to his children, companion through good times and bad, and the only lover Charlie had ever known.

  Could she have kept a dark secret from him these many years? Had there been a time in their marriage when her heart belonged to an unemployed artist with curly blond hair and an apartment two doors down?

  “What are you looking at?”

  Esther’s voice at Charlie’s shoulder startled him. He made a stab at stuffing the sketch back into the envelope, but she was already beside him, gazing down at the picture of herself. And there at the bottom were the words he had read earlier.

  I will always love you, Esther.

  Charlie held out the sketch so his wife could see it. “George Snyder drew this. That fellow down the hall.”

  “Where did you find it? What were you doing in my dresser? You had no business rooting around there. That’s where I keep all my cards and letters and treasures. You should have asked me first.”

  “Why did George Snyder sketch you, Esther?”

  “He’s an artist. That’s what he does.”

  Charlie looked at her. Her words made it sound as though they all still lived in the same apartment building. Was Esther lost back in time, or did she still stay in contact with the man? Were George Snyder’s letters among those tied in ribbons in her bottom drawer?

  “When did he sketch this portrait of you?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, when do you suppose? It certainly wasn’t yesterday. I haven’t looked like that in years.”

  “So, did you sit for him? Did you pose?”

  “It’s not a pose. When people pose, the life goes right out of them. That’s what George always said. Do I seem lifeless to you in this picture?” She took it from Charlie’s hand. “I think this is the best portrait of me ever made. George captured the real me, don’t you think? That’s what he said when he gave it to me. He said, ‘This is the true Esther. This is your beating heart put down on paper.’ I’ll never forget that. Those were the very words he used—beating heart put down on paper. George always said things like that. Doesn’t it sound wonderful and imaginative? In the portrait, that’s exactly the way he captured me. See? I’m young and alive and fresh. Oh, dear. How time does fly!”

  She picked up the envelope and slipped the sketch inside. Then she slid the envelope back into the drawer and pushed it shut.

  “That was such a long time ago, wasn’t it?” Esther leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.”

  Every muscle in Charlie’s body went rigid at her words. “Esther, what did you do?”

  “All that garlic. I admit it. I truly believed those were pearl onions. I never should have argued with you about the pot roast, honey. And I shouldn’t have fought with you over the platter. You had to clean up the whole kitchen and then Boofer’s mess. All by yourself, you took care of everything. I didn’t help one bit. Can you ever forgive me?” Charlie let out a deep breath. “Of course I forgive you, Esther. Things like that don’t matter. You made a mistake, but who doesn’t?”

  “It was such a silly blunder when you think about it.” She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled. “What if we’d eaten that roast, Charlie? What if you hadn’t noticed those pearl onions were really garlic? I can just see myself at the TLC, knocking everyone over with my breath while I read the minutes! And poor Brad. What would he think when you arrived to help him with the house addition? He’d probably fall off the ladder!”

  By the end of this humorous little trip into her own imagination, Esther had left the bed and wandered into the bathroom. Charlie could hear her brushing her teeth and washing her face. Once again, he had failed to confront his wife. He was no closer to talking her into the artery cleaning. And he still had no idea how intimate her relationship with George Snyder had become.

  Almost as distressing, Charlie didn’t know what he would do if he did learn some terrible truth about Esther. Would it affect him now, so many years later, to discover that she had been unfaithful? Would knowing that secret earlier have made any difference in their marriage? Perhaps if she’d confessed back at the beginning, they wouldn’t even be together now—arguing over pot roast and arteries.

  On the other hand, what if she had kept a small part of her heart for George Snyder? What if Esther never had truly belonged to Charlie?

  The way she had been yelling at him lately made him wonder. Esther’s moods seemed to swing back and forth a lot more than usual. For a while, she would be her chirpy little self. And then, out of the blue, she would get irritable, cranky, and even furious. She’d dredge up something like that old doll he had thrown out with the trash. Or the Limoges vase he had broken. If he didn’t watch out, she might surprise him by throwing his venture to the strip club back in his face.

  Oh, that was a terrible memory. What a mistake. But he had been so young and foolish. Out with his buddies for a night on the town. Coerced into a bar for a celebration, Charlie had started drinking. So unlike anything he’d ever done before. And then somehow the men had wound up inside a strip club. Charlie would never forget staggering home and blabbing the whole thing to Esther. It’s a wonder she’d ever forgiven him.

  Maybe she hadn’t.

  “Peekaboo!” Esther’s head emerged from behind the bathroom door. She blew him a kiss. “I see you, Charlie Moore!”

  He looked up and couldn’t help but smile. This was one of their many secret codes. Esther’s arm snaked out into the bedroom, and she waved her chiffon bathrobe around before dropping it onto the floor. As usual, every thought and worry in Charlie’s head went right out the window.

  Sure Esther was moving up in years and her body had changed shape over time … but the minute she sauntered through that bathroom door in her all-togethers, Charlie’s heart began to thump.

  “I see you, too,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her.

  She tossed back her head and laughed. With a neat twirl, she fell into his arms and began kissing him. As Charlie slid his hands across the fragrant silken skin of his wife’s back, all he could think about was how much he loved her and how grateful he was that God had given him such a beautiful, wonderful, and downright delicious woman for his very own.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  You have the thickest hair I’ve ever seen on a man your age.” Patsy lifted a swatch between her index and middle fingers and scissored off an inch. “It grows so fast too. I can’t figure it out. This is like something I’d see on a kid. You don’t have a single white hair either.”

  Pete studied the pretty woman in the mirror as she worked on his latest cut. He had been due for a trim, but this appointment to sit a spell in Patsy’s salon chair wasn’t motivated by shaggy hair. They needed to talk.

  Their recent trip to the movies had been something Pete thought about night and day. The more he thought about it, the less he could do anything but keep on thinking about it. He supposed the obsessive pondering over the situation had something to do with his astonishment. And delight. And worry.

  In the darkened theater, Patsy had willingly slipped into Pete’s arms. She had welcomed his kisses. She had even kissed him back—more than once. In fact, that particular activity had taken up a significant portion of their evening. But only inside the theater.

  The moment they stepped into the lobby, all the zing went right out of Patsy. At first, Pete had thought the change in her attitude must have something to do with their unplanned meeting with Cody and the Hansen girls. Patsy seemed to have a way of embarrassing herself in Pete’s presence, and that night had been no different. In the bathroom mirror, he’d seen the pink lipstick on his mouth and cheeks, and he had a bad feeling his evening would not end on a high note.

  Sure enough, by the time they got into his truck for the drive back to D
eepwater Cove, Patsy had fallen silent. When he dropped her off at the door to her little house, he didn’t get even a peck on the cheek.

  That just wasn’t right.

  During the movie, Pete had confessed his love for Patsy, and she had definitely responded in a positive way. But they had not spoken about it since. The few times they passed each other in the parking lot or talked for a couple of minutes at Bitty’s Pop-In, Patsy didn’t mention their date or the intimacy they had shared.

  It might have been her sense of mortification over the lipstick incident, Pete admitted. Patsy had been mad at him plenty of times for drawing unwanted attention to her. But lately he was wondering if something else had triggered her silence and withdrawal.

  “I know you don’t color your hair,” she was saying as she trimmed his sideburns. “I can spot processed hair a mile away. But you ought to be thinning a little on top or at least sprouting a few silver hairs.”

  “It’s my bloodline,” he told her. “Cherokee. That’s what my daddy always claimed. Although my mother said it was the Welsh in her ancestry that gave us kids our dark hair and blue eyes. Either way, I’m grateful. I have enough trouble keeping my physique as fine-tuned as I do. Going bald would be painful.”

  “You have a fine-tuned physique?” Patsy said, tilting her head and grinning at him in the mirror.

  “Well, not as fine as yours, of course.”

  Her cheeks went pink. “Oh, hush, Pete Roberts. You know good and well I’m about to bust the seams on these slacks. Don’t you dare humiliate me in my own salon.”

  “I thought the name of this place was Just As I Am. You accept everyone just as they are—except yourself?”

  “Just as I am is how Jesus takes a person. You know the hymn. ‘Just as I am, tho’ tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt.’ When I was a little girl, I used to think it said man, ya doubt.” She giggled for a moment. “Oh, come on, you must have heard that song in church, Pete. Seems like we sing it every Sunday. ‘Fightings within, and fears without.’ Something like that.”

  “I’ve probably heard it, but I don’t recall.”

  She hummed and then began quietly singing the words. “‘And waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot … O Lamb of God I come! I come!’ It means God accepts us even though we’re full of sin and doubt and worry. We can come to Him no matter what. That’s how I try to welcome people here in my salon, too.”

  “What did you say about a dark blot?”

  “You know how it feels when you’ve been doing something wrong and your conscience finally wins out over your denial? That’s when you see your sin as one dark blot.”

  “I’ve got more than one,” Pete said.

  “No matter how many you have, God doesn’t care. He wants you; that’s all. He wants your heart, whether it’s just a little bit off track or black and evil and full of guilt.”

  “Does this have something to do with that ‘born again’ stuff we talked about on the dock a while back? In the Bible study group this morning, I got to thinking that I’d heard so many different things about religion, I couldn’t keep them all straight. Fishing for men. Being born again. Giving your heart to the Lord. All to Jesus I surrender. Just as I am with one dark blot. It’s confusing. Kind of makes me want to turn tail and run the other direction.”

  Patsy had begun to whisk snippets of hair off the back of his neck with her soft brush, and Pete could see that she was weighing his words. A little furrow ran between her eyebrows, and her lips were pinched tight. What had he gone and said now?

  As she took the cape from around his shoulders, Pete noticed the mural Cody had painted on the wall across from Patsy’s station. The lineup of women had a variety of hairstyles and colors, but they were all recognizable as Jennifer Hansen. No doubt about that.

  Cody was as smitten with Jennifer as Pete was with Patsy. But both women were equally out of reach to the men who adored them. The more Pete thought about this, the more he realized it was for the same reason.

  Jesus.

  Jennifer Hansen was planning to be a missionary. Her parents, her church, and her education had prepared her for a life that would take her to some far-off country where she could proclaim the gospel. At least, that’s what Patsy had told Pete. Even if Cody was as regular as the next guy, he didn’t stand a chance with Jennifer. She might as well be locked behind a big iron gate with one word stamped across it—Jesus.

  Same thing with Patsy. She had set high ideals for herself and everyone else. In the salon, she wouldn’t tolerate gossip or rough language, and she played Christian music all day long. She wanted people to march in the Jesus parade—onward, Christian soldiers, like the hymn said. No doubt any man Patsy dated would have to be as holy and perfect as she was. That sure didn’t describe Pete.

  He and Cody were both out of sync with perfection. Cody couldn’t help being kind of odd. Lately people were saying the young man was autistic. Pete didn’t know much about autism, but he did know that it wasn’t Cody’s fault. He was simply born that way. But Pete was responsible for messing up his own life. He couldn’t lay the blame for his dark blots anywhere but on his own two shoulders. He certainly couldn’t lay it on Jesus, no matter what Patsy was singing. Just as I am couldn’t include Pete Roberts. No way.

  “You’re not a coward, are you?” Patsy asked as she swept the floor around her chair. “You want to turn tail and run from God—even though He loves you just as you are? That’s about as lily-livered an attitude as I’ve ever heard.”

  “Patsy, honey.” Pete caught her arm as she tipped the dustpan’s contents into the trash can under her table. He lowered his voice. “We’ve got to talk. And I mean serious talk. At the movie, things happened between us. You know they did. I want you to give me a few minutes to square the situation away in my mind. Otherwise I’m going to go crazy trying to figure it out.”

  She glanced around the salon. “Pete, it’s almost time for the Tea Lovers’ Club to meet. I can’t talk to you today. I’m sorry.”

  “Now listen here, gal. If you’ve cleared your appointment book for the TLC, you can clear it for me. I’m at least as important as those women. That’s sure how it seemed the other night.”

  “You are important, Pete. But …” Again she swept her gaze over the room as if worried that someone might see her speaking to him. “Pete, I care about you. I truly do. But I think we ought to go on being friends. Nothing more.”

  The words every man dreaded. Pete felt like he had swallowed a rock. He slumped in the chair and looked down at his work boots. Friends. Nothing more.

  “Pete.” Patsy’s hand covered his. Her long nails glowed a frosty pink in the afternoon sunlight that shone through the salon’s big windows. Patsy’s hands were so pretty and perfect—just like her.

  “Pete, I’m sorry about the movie,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have let myself go like that. I have emotions and needs like every woman, but I know better than to surrender to my feelings. What I did wasn’t right. I stopped thinking clearly, and I led you on. Please forgive me. I do like you. I like you a lot. Maybe even more than that. But don’t you see? It’s not going to work out between us. It can’t.”

  “Why not?” He looked up at her, trying to gulp down the grit in his throat. “It’s because of my past, isn’t it? The divorces. Alcohol problems. Jail.”

  She sighed. “No, Pete. Haven’t you been listening to me? My salon is called Just As I Am. And like I said, that’s how Jesus accepts people, and it’s how I try to take them too. I realize you have a rough past, but I can live with it. I can see you’ve changed your ways.”

  “Then it’s because I don’t own Rods-N-Ends or my mobile home or anything. I’m nothing but a poor, dumb country boy.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I don’t care about that either. Some of my richest customers have been the mean ones. So persnickety and critical. It doesn’t matter to me whether a person is wealthy or poor as dirt. It’s their character that counts.”

&nbs
p; “So you don’t approve of my character?”

  “I think you’re a fine man, Pete. In fact, I admire you. You saw the error of your ways and pulled yourself up by the bootstraps. I’m glad you’re my neighbor here in Tranquility. I couldn’t ask for anyone better.”

  That left only one thing. Pete knew it already, but he’d been hoping it was something else that had pushed Patsy away. Now he had no choice but to spit it out.

  “I’m not born again,” he said. “I still have my dark blots. I haven’t been fished up by Pastor Andrew. I’m not what you’d call a committed Christian, and for you that’s a deal breaker. Am I right?”

  Patsy stroked her hand up Pete’s bare arm and then down again. Her gentle touch made him weaker than he’d ever felt in his life. He would swear that rock he had swallowed had suddenly started burning red-hot and melting him all over Patsy’s salon chair. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for the woman. Nothing.

  “I’ll get baptized,” he managed. “I swear I’ll be as good as gold, Patsy. I’m already going to church and Sunday school and the men’s Bible study. I’ll start buying canned peaches and giving them to the food pantry. I’ll sign up to shovel snow in the church parking lot this winter and mow the grass around the building next summer. I can be a decent man, Patsy. I really do believe I can keep going like this for the rest of my life. I wish you’d talk to me about what it is you want from me and what I can do to measure up.”

  Pete had noticed tears filling Patsy’s eyes as he spoke, but he didn’t trust them. More than once, he had provoked her too far and made her cry. But he meant what he had just told her, and he hoped to goodness that she understood.

  “Esther is already here,” she murmured. “Kim and Miranda Finley walked in while you were talking. And I see Brenda in the parking lot. Pete, I can’t walk out of here with you. This is not the right time to talk. I need to go to that meeting.”

  She wiped under her eyes, then bent toward the mirror. “Oh, why didn’t I use my waterproof mascara today? I’m such a mess.” With a tissue and some cream, she began working to remove the black trails on her cheeks and repair her makeup. “Pete, everything is complicated. I don’t know how to explain my heart to you, and I’m not even sure I should try. Why don’t you get on back to Rods-N-Ends now? Maybe we can talk on Sunday after church.”