by Nancy Rue
I expected to hear the TV murmuring cartoons, but the living room was empty and the television sat dark and mute. Even Chris’s bag appeared to be gone.
And when I went into Ben’s room, so was my son.
Nineteen
I WENT THROUGH A FRENZY of ridiculous motions. Ripping back Ben’s covers to discover neither him nor Lamb there. Peering under the bed. Calling out his name in shrill tones as I whipped back the shower curtain, searched the closets, ran down the steps to scour the yard. It was there I realized that Chris’s BMW was missing, too. Large pieces of my sanity began to tear away.
Ethel poked her head out the back door of her screened porch.
“Somethin’ wrong, honey?” she said. “You are just a-screechin’ out here.”
“They’re gone!” I cried. “He’s taken Ben!”
“In that little fancy car? I saw them leave about twenty minutes ago.”
“Did you see which way they went?”
“Thatta way,” she said, pointing.
Of course. We were on a cul-de-sac; there was only one way to go. With a twenty-minute lead, there was no chance I could catch them. But I had to try.
“You all right, Toni?” Ethel called after me.
I didn’t answer as I tore back up the steps and hoped to heaven I knew where I’d put my keys. I was ransacking my purse when I heard two things. One was the now pointless admonition, Let go of control, Toni. Give it to Me. The other was the sound of tires on gravel below.
I skidded to the window, one hand still clawing at the bottom of my purse, and saw the Beamer. Ben was in the front seat next to Chris, still in his pajamas.
You had better have an explanation for this, Christopher Wells, or so help me God—
Then listen to it before you explode.
It may have been the most impossible thing God had asked me to do yet.
But I turned from the window, closed my eyes, and took several deep breaths. The amount of torque in my jaw was excruciating.
“Mommy!” Ben cried out from the stairwell. “Look what we got.”
He pranced through the still-open door, carrying a Krispy Kreme box bigger than he was and beaming as if he were bearing the crown jewels. “Donuts!” he said.
“That is just wonderful,” I said through clenched teeth. “Where’s Daddy?”
“Miss Ethel’s down there yellin’ at him,” Ben said matter-of factly. “Can I have a chocolate one? I’ll eat it ’stead of Fruit Loops. I told Daddy you won’t let me have that much sugar.”
“You can have two, as long as you stay in here while I talk to Daddy in the kitchen.”
Ben looked as if he had just been given a governor’s pardon and chomped into an oozy chocolate donut as though the pardon were about to be rescinded. I turned on my bare heel and headed Chris off at the door.
“Donut holes,” he said, holding up a bag that smelled of 100 percent sugar. “I know you like them.”
“In the kitchen,” I said between my teeth. “And you better have a good explanation or those are going right up your nostrils.”
Chris looked a little bewildered as he backed into the kitchen still holding up the bag as if he were making a delivery for Ed McMahon.
“Didn’t you see my note?” he said.
“What note?”
“That one.”
He nodded toward the kitchen table, where there was nothing but a bowl of apples.
“I don’t see a note,” I said. “Suppose you tell me what it could possibly have said that wouldn’t have driven me off the deep end.”
Chris leaned over and picked up a piece of paper which lay facedown on the linoleum. “Must have fallen off. ‘Mommy: Daddy took me to get donuts while they’re hot.’ See—he wrote his own name.”
I smacked the note aside and sank to a chair at the table. My hands were shaking so badly, I couldn’t have held onto it anyway.
“I thought you took him,” I said.
Chris let the bag of holes drop to the table and yanked a chair out where he could sit and face me.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said.
“Why not? You thought about filing a custody suit—although I guess your girlfriend talked you out of that one.”
“My girlfriend?”
“On the phone last night.”
He blinked at me. “That was Greg. Greg Ritchie. He’s my spiritual director.”
It was my turn to blink. “You have a spiritual director? I don’t get it.”
“You going to let me tell you this time?”
“What do you mean, this time?”
“I’ve tried to tell you twice, but you assumed I was full of baloney and cut me off. Just listen to me, Toni.”
“I’ll listen. As long as it’s the truth.”
His eyes sharpened at me. For the first time since he’d arrived, he lost the confused fear. I assumed we were headed for the courtroom.
“Look,” he said, “like I tried to tell you last night, you aren’t the only one who can change.”
I grunted, but I motioned him on.
“I got pretty screwed up after you left,” he said. “I was at a Kiwanis meeting one afternoon and Greg Ritchie came up to me—you remember him from the church?”
“Vaguely.”
“He told me if I ever needed to talk to come over. When all this started to go down—when Sid and Bobbi were first arrested—I felt like I wanted to kill somebody, so I figured what the heck and I went in to see him.” Chris shrugged. “We got to talking. We clicked—he made sense. And I was getting it, getting God for the first time in my life. The weekend you were calling me, I was on a retreat with him, just trying to put it all together.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I think we’re on the same page as far as God is concerned.
It’s the only way we’re going to get through this. It’s the only way we’re going to get through life.”
I leaned forward, searching his face for signs of insincerity, for the slightest trace of something that wasn’t genuine. I found nothing, except his eyes doing their own searching of me for some hopeful hint that I believed him.
“When I said that to Greg on the phone, I was just grasping at straws,” he said. “Even before Greg told me I was nuts, I knew that wasn’t what Jesus would do in this situation. He never manipulated.” He licked his lips. “I see this life you’ve built with Ben, and I know I’m not part of it. I know that’s my own fault, but I want to be with you and help Ben, and all of us change and grow together. I think that’s what God is saying to me.”
“What am I supposed to do with that?” I said.
“You don’t have to do anything.”
A swell of rebellion rose up in me. I had God telling me to give up control to Him, and I had Chris saying God was telling him something I didn’t think I could do. I wanted to pick up the bag of donut holes and throw them against the wall. Only Ben’s happy chuckles over Veggie Tales in the living room held me back.
“So I’m just supposed to turn it all over to you now,” I said.
“No—that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying we turn it all over to God. At least, that’s the message I’m getting.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“You’ve made all the hard choices you need to make,” Chris said. “After you went to bed last night, I realized it was my turn to make one. I talked to Ben—”
I came halfway out of the chair. “You did not ask him to make this decision!”
“For Pete’s sake, Toni, cut me some slack! No, I didn’t. I just asked him if he liked it here and why he didn’t want to go back to Richmond. And the kid made sense—he made perfect sense. So I have no choice.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m moving down here, Toni. I have enough to live on and support you two until I can get hooked up here in Nashville.”
“You’re going to leave Bailey-McPherson? You’re building a career there!”
/> “Weren’t you doing the same thing at Faustus?”
“Faustman.”
“How is this any different? I’m doing what I have to do for my son.” He leveled his eyes at me. “For my family.”
“I can’t let you move in here with me.”
“I’ll get my own place, nearby. Although I hope you’ll help me set it up. I meant it when I said I really like this place, and I like you—this real you.”
I opened my mouth. He held up his hand. “You’re a different person now—I’m a different person now. I know we can make it because finally we have the same foundation. But I’m not going to push you.”
Something gave in me, like ears clearing at high altitude, so that I could hear again. And I could speak what was suddenly so clear to me.
“Then here’s what I think,” I said. “Let’s start by being mother and father. If we’re still supposed to be husband and wife, God will tell us that, too.”
The slow smile began its appearance. “God’s already told me. Now he’s working on you.”
My hands went to my face to cup my jaw, but there was no pain. I was suddenly sleepy, the kind of sleep I could welcome.
“You’re really going to give up everything and move down here,” I said.
“My bag’s in the car. I’m going to head back to Richmond and start making arrangements. Shall I put the house up for sale or rent it out?”
“I vote we sell it.”
“Done.”
I leaned against the chair and let my head fall back so that my tears blurred the ceiling. “Chris—thank you. I know it’s hard to give it all up.”
“No, baby. It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
We sat down together with Ben to explain the plan. He balked at having to turn off Veggie Tales, but when it began to dawn on him that he could stay in Nashville and have Daddy, too, he lost all interest in Larry Boy and Bob the Tomato and gushed forth with a fountain of questions.
“Can we play baseball every day?
“Are you gonna go to Doc Opie’s every time?
“Are you goin’ to Sunday school with us?
“Are you gonna sleep in Mommy’s room with her, or are you gonna share my room?”
Our answer to that last one—which I let Chris field completely—puzzled Ben a little.
“If you’re gonna be my mommy and daddy, how come we can’t all live together?” he said. “Oh, it’s ’cause you fight too much, huh?”
“We’re not going to fight any more,” Chris said. “Right, Mommy?”
“That’s right. There’s no point in fighting. We’re just going to let God tell us what to do. Of course, it’s not like God just comes right out and talks to us, but—”
“How come?” Ben cocked his head, slightly bemused. “Jesus talks to me.”
Chris was fighting back a smile. We avoided looking at each other.
“Really, Tiger,” Chris said. “What does He say?”
“He told me it was okay to go get donuts with you. He said you weren’t gonna try to take me away from Mommy.”
I felt my jaw coming unhinged.
“That’s it,” I said to Chris as I walked him down to his car. “From now on, I’m checking everything out with the kid. He’s got a better in with God than I do!”
“I think that’s what you’ve been doing all along.” Chris tossed his bag into the backseat and then seemed afraid to look at me.
“What?” I said. “Look—no more secrets, or none of this is going to work out.”
“Then promise me you’ll check it out with me, too.” His voice finally broke, and his face crumpled into the weeping he had been fighting back for two days. “I love you, Toni. I’m sorry I ever hurt you—I’m sorry I didn’t help you—I’m sorry I was unfaithful. I broke every vow I made to you before God, and I will make it up to you. I will.”
He started to climb into the car, but I caught his arm. He wouldn’t turn to look at me; I had to speak to the cowlick that broadcast his vulnerability to me and to Ethel, who I was sure was peeking at us through her curtains.
“I’m sorry, too, Chris,” I said. “And I forgive you.”
He nodded and sank into the seat. Neither of us spoke before he drove away. Something ached in me as I watched the Beamer disappear out of the driveway, but it was an ache I knew would heal. I could feel God telling me it would.
Epilogue
BY THE TIME BOBBI WENT TO TRIAL February 1—after several continuances requested by her attorney, who said she was too unstable to stand trial, then too ill to stand trial, too thin, broke a nail, whatever—by that time, Chris had moved into a small apartment about a half-mile from us, was working for Stiller and Barnes downtown, and was gearing up to help coach Ben’s soccer team. It took longer for lawyers, judges, bailiffs, and court recorders to get their acts together than it did for my husband to shift from Mr. Wall Street Journal to Coach Wells the Wonderful. I suspected he’d taken a crash course in soccer somewhere along the line.
The trial itself took four weeks, though Chris and I decided to stay away from its daily dealings. We believed it was much more important to concentrate on Ben’s continued healing—and our own—than to run back and forth to Richmond. I did make a trip up the second week in February with Wyndham and Dominica and Hale so Wyndham could testify. I was thankful the court agreed to use Ben’s videotape instead of putting him on the stand, especially after I watched the defense attorney grill my poor niece for a day and a half. Several times I wanted to leap to my feet and tell the judge this pin-striped idiot was going too far, but Dominica always had her hand on my knee at just the right time.
“You don’t need to be taken in for contempt of court,” she whispered to me.
I was exhausted from watching Wyndham cry on the witness stand as she hung her mother out to dry—and from watching my mother bore her eyes into her granddaughter as if the girl were Benedict Arnold—and from watching Bobbi stare at her own daughter without an ounce of emotion. Although Wyndham looked to me from time to time for a reassuring nod, neither Mama nor Bobbi would meet my gaze. Stephanie was the only one left who was speaking to me.
I wasn’t able to spend any appreciable amount of time with her because I wanted to be there to support Wyndham during off-court hours, but during one of the breaks I made it a point to meet her in the hallway. Mama was evidently in the restroom or I’d never have caught Stephanie alone.
“Can we talk?” I said.
“Of course!” Stephanie threw her arms around me. I didn’t even try to hold back my tears.
“I was afraid you were completely on her side,” I said.
“I’m giving her what I can.” Stephanie pulled back and looked at me with eyes full of conflict. “Mama’s slowly going off the deep end. I’ve told her to take a break from this for a couple of days, but she refuses to stay home when Bobbi is up there ‘going through hell.’”
“Like Wyndham isn’t. What about the twins?”
Stephanie looked furtively over each shoulder and moved in close to me. “Mama doesn’t know this, but I’m working on getting custody of them if Bobbi does go to prison. I’m only continuing on at her house so I can be with them. Once it’s time for a custody determination, all my paperwork will be in order. I already have a three-bedroom townhouse I’m paying rent on, even though I’m not living there.”
“Promise me you’ll get them into therapy,” I said.
“They’re already in therapy. Mama had to agree to that or the state was going to take them away.”
“Thank God.” I put my arms around my sister again. “You are such a good person. Please think about coming to Nashville to live when this is over and you have the kids.”
Stephanie laughed weakly into my hair. “I’m going to have to. There isn’t going to be room in this town for Mama and me once she finds out what I’m doing. The only thing she and I have in common right now is our total ecstasy that Sid has already gone down.”
I nodded. The Feds,
unlike the Commonwealth of Virginia, didn’t mess around. Sidney Vyne had been in a federal penitentiary since mid-September. Ben asked me every day if I was sure they had plenty of locks on the doors at that place.
Stephanie suddenly stepped back and whispered, “Here comes Mama. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Once again I tried to catch my mother’s eye, but she did a full turn when she saw me and marched herself back into the ladies room. Gone was the flow, the flawless hair, the impeccable makeup. She had aged twenty years since the day I’d dropped her at the airport, when our worst conflict had been her insistence that I get back together with Chris. Ironic how things worked out.
I didn’t go back to Richmond until the last day of the trial. Although Chris and I promised Ben we would be gone only a day or two, he was so devastated at the thought of both of us being out of town at once that Doc Opie suggested we take him with us. That took some doing, but with the promise that he would stay with Chris’s parents while we were in court and that he would never have to even go near Bobbi and Sid’s house, he calmed down enough for us to get him onto the plane.
Our first stop the day of closing arguments was a park not far from the courthouse, where Chris and I had arranged to meet Stephanie and the twins. My stomach was a tangled mass of anxiety when we pulled up.
“I’m just afraid they’re going to be so damaged I won’t be able to stand it,” I said to Chris.
“They’re in therapy and they’ve got Stephanie. God hasn’t abandoned them.”
“They also have my mother. She could probably run God out on a rail.”
“Not gonna happen.”
I caught my breath and curled my fingers into Chris’s jacket sleeve. Stephanie was pulling up in her Honda, not six feet away. I could see Emil and Techla’s dark four-year-old heads craning out either window in the backseat, eyes huge on their pale faces.
“Dear God,” I said.
“What?” Chris said.
“They look just like Ben did a year ago.”
“Guess they’re going to need all the love they can get then.”
I gave him a long look before we got out of the rental car. He was still surprising me with the things he came out with. Sooner or later I was going to have to believe that he couldn’t have been putting on an act for six months. He—and God—were patient.