Sage nodded, agreeing with the nurse. After a long flight, she needed to at least shower and change. But she could tell by the defiant look in her father’s eyes that getting him to leave would definitely be a problem.
She looked down at her mother sleeping peacefully. “She’s right, Dad. We both need to get some rest and be ready to come back first thing in the morning.” When he started to protest, she said, “Neither of us will do Mom any good being tired and worn out.”
For the longest time he didn’t say anything, and then he asked quietly, “Will you be coming to the house?”
A knot formed in Sage’s throat. She hadn’t really thought about where she would be staying, although staying at her parents’ place was the logical choice. “Yes, if it’s all right with you.”
Charles Dunbar crossed the room and placed his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. “Of course it’s all right with me, Sage. It’s your home and will always be your home.”
Sage nodded and reached up and covered one of his hands with hers. “Then, let’s go home, Dad, and make plans to return early in the morning.”
Reluctantly, he agreed. She then leaned down and kissed her mother’s cheek and whispered, “Dad and I are going home, Mom, and we’ll be back in the morning.” Sage wasn’t sure if her mother heard her or not but wanted to let her know in case she woke up again and they were not there.
She saw her father hesitate, then quickly concluded that he wanted to spend some private moments with his wife. “I’ll be right outside the door, Dad.”
“Thanks, Sage.”
They were back at the hospital before the first sign of dawn broke in the morning sky. The nurse from the night before met them after they had gotten off the elevator. “Mrs. Dunbar had a very peaceful night,” she said, smiling. “If she continues doing well, the doctor may remove the feeding tube to see if she can take solid foods.”
Sage smiled widely at her father. That was good news to hear. Seeing one less IV line hooked to her mother would mean all the difference in the world to her, and she knew her father felt the same way.
As soon as they had arrived home last night, she had showered and changed clothes while he had answered the many phone messages that had been left on the answering machine. And then while he had showered, she had done likewise, making sure her family, both near and far, got an update on her mother’s condition. Then she and her father had gone to bed. Knowing her mother’s condition was good, sleep had come fairly easy for her, but she’d wakened a number of times upon hearing her father move about, restless and unable to sleep.
The devil had been busy, and evil thoughts had consumed her mind while she’d lain in bed listening to him. She’d almost been convinced that guilt and not love was eating away at him, but then after saying a prayer, asking God to rid her mind of such corrupt thoughts, she’d held on to the belief that it was love.
She stopped short when they entered her mother’s room. Delores Dunbar sat propped against the pillow, awake, and she was no longer using the respirator. Knowing she could not give her mother the hug that she wanted to give her, Sage quickly crossed the room, but her father had reached her mother before her.
“Baby, you scared twenty years off my life,” he said, leaning down and gently framing her face in his hands, before placing a kiss on her lips.
Sage stood back and watched them, suddenly feeling like an outsider in her parents’ world. Evidently, during the time she’d been in Anchorage, their relationship had grown closer. A part of her wondered if her father had told her mother about his affair yet, and she decided she didn’t want to think about it. Making sure her mother was happy while her condition improved was the most important thing.
“Sage?”
She got pulled out of her thoughts at the quiet whisper of her mother’s voice. She walked over to the bed. She met her mother’s gaze and smiled, fighting back the tears she felt behind her lids. “You gave me a scare, too, Delores Dunbar.”
Her mother slowly nodded while keeping her eyes on her daughter. “I didn’t mean to.”
Sage took her mother’s hand in hers. “How do you feel?”
Delores smiled. “Sore.”
Sage chuckled. “Yeah, I can believe that.”
Since her mother was still in ICU, the time to visit was limited. The only good thing they had to look forward to was the fact that if her condition continued to improve, she would be sent to a private room on another floor where visiting restrictions would be lifted.
Relief rushed through Sage, knowing that her mother was healing. On the plane flight from Anchorage, she had been plagued with the fear of losing her, but now seeing her on the mend made her feel extremely better.
At least, a part of her felt better. There was still that small part lodged within her chest that ached—her heart. Although she didn’t want to think about it or, even worse, admit it, she missed Gabe.
She missed him a lot.
Two days later, Sage’s gaze settled on her mother’s smile. It had always been a generous smile that Delores Dunbar had reserved for everyone she knew, and Sage didn’t want to think about how close she had come to losing that smile, to losing her mother.
“Whatever you’re thinking about must be serious.”
Sage blinked, realizing that her mother had spoken and had caught her staring. Sitting up in the hospital bed, Delores was eating solid foods, something she had begun doing yesterday for the first time since being admitted.
“No, it isn’t too serious,” she said, crossing the room from where she’d been standing at the window for the past fifteen minutes. At first she’d been thinking just how vastly different Charlotte was from Anchorage, and that was based on more than just the weather. Even the shape of the skyscrapers was different, and there were no snow-covered mountains in the background, no wilderness trails and … no Gabe Blackwell.
“That serious look just got more serious.”
Her mother’s words startled Sage from her thoughts. She smiled and took the chair across from the bed. “Just thinking about some things.”
“Some things like your father?”
Sage lifted a brow. Her father had left half an hour earlier to drop off a package at the office. They expected him to return at anytime. He spent most of his days as well as his nights at the hospital. “Why would I be thinking about Dad?”
Delores Dunbar wiped her mouth with a napkin and pushed her tray aside. “Mainly because I couldn’t help but notice that your relationship seems to have improved, and I’m glad. The two of you had me concerned for a while.”
Sage nodded, not wanting to discuss this with her mother when she knew she was wrong as to the reason why her and her father’s relationship had gotten strained.
“He was right, you know, Sage. It didn’t really concern you. It was about me and him.”
Sage blinked. She wondered what her mother was talking about. Did she have an idea what was going on between her and her father and why? Sage met her mother’s gaze, and as if she was blessed with the ability to read her daughter’s mind, Delores said, “Yes, I know what happened, Sage, with your father and that other woman. He told me.”
“He did?” Sage whispered in shock, not so much that her father had finally admitted the truth to his wife, but that her mother was calmly sitting in bed as if it was no big deal to discuss the fact that her husband had committed adultery.
“Yes, he did. I’ve known now for a while, but I didn’t bring it up to you whenever we talked on the phone because I felt when the time was right for us to discuss it, then we would.”
Sage leaned back in the chair. “How can you sit there and be so calm about it?”
Delores chuckled. “Oh, trust me, I had my moments when he told me. For the first time during the thirty-one years of our marriage, I made him sleep in another room. That was all the time it took for me to analyze the situation.”
“And apparently forgive him,” Sage said brusquely, not sure she liked how accepting her m
other seemed to be about everything.
Delores shook her head, smiling. “No, the forgiving part came over time with prayer. A lot of prayer and an assessment of what I had and what I’d be throwing away, as well as what I could have done to prevent what happened.”
Sage frowned. “Surely you’re not blaming yourself for what he did?”
Delores smiled. Her daughter had a lot to learn which she knew she would if she kept right on living. “The woman in me couldn’t help but do that at first. No woman wants to know that her husband could not resist temptation. But then I had to realize that there is no perfect human being other than the Father. Man is weak, he is likely to sin many times over and if we love that person, we have to find it in our heart to forgive. As an individual, you have to let go of what that person may have done to you. You have to be responsible as well as accountable for that. Then that person who caused you harm and pain has to atone for his own transgressions.”
“So as far as you’re concerned, it never happened?” Sage asked. Her mother was too forgiving, too tolerant and way too nice, she thought.
“No, Sage, it happened; both your father and I know that. We just chose to move on in spite of it. We love each other deeply and wanted nothing or no one to destroy our marriage. The flesh is weak. As sinners we fall down, but then we get up. A person who is truly the child of God would not kick that person back down while he’s struggling to get up.”
Sage stood and walked over to the window and looked out. Sunlight was streaming through. It had rained earlier, and she could see a rainbow in the sky, a beautiful rainbow with a multitude of colors.
She turned back around to face her mother. “So you think I should have been as all-forgiving to Erol as you apparently are to Dad?” she asked in a voice more resentful than she intended it to be, but that couldn’t be helped.
“I’m not saying that, Sage. All I’m saying is that you should forgive Erol, but forgiving someone doesn’t automatically mean reconciliation with that person. It means reparation with that person, making amends, repairing. Although in a committed relationship, a marriage sanctioned by God, it’s not an option to walk away and not try to make things work. There was something in our vows that said ‘for better or for worse.’ You and Erol were not married, just engaged. You hadn’t exchanged any vows before God yet. So if you felt you were not suited for whatever reason, it was best that the two of you parted ways when you did.”
“We weren’t a good match,” Sage said softly.
“Evidently not. If you had been, you would have found it in your heart to not only forgive him, but to put it behind you and move on in spite of it. The love you had for him would have overlooked what he had done once you had forgiven him.”
Sage didn’t say anything for the longest time, deciding she’d rather concentrate on her parents than her and Erol. “So you’ve put what Dad did behind you and moved on?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t cry together, pray together and seek private counseling with Reverend Jones. But we had to take stock in what we had. We had a beautiful daughter we both loved, a lifetime of good memories and a future of just as many more. But what really convinced me was in knowing your father truly loved me, and in me accepting that the flesh is weak. That’s called loving in spite of—which is the same philosophy God uses on us. He loves us in spite of our wrongdoings, our transgressions, and He’s accepting that we’re weak and will make mistakes, a lot of them.”
Sage nodded and turned back to the window. Moments later she turned and met her mother’s gaze. “I wanted to hate him for what he did to you. He disappointed me, and I felt he let me down.”
“That’s why we can’t elevate men, Sage. Men are subject to fail and to sin. Your father has always been superhuman in your eyes. He walked on water as far as you were concerned, and I’m sure it hurt you to find out he can fall to the bottom like anyone else. So can I. What if it had been me that you saw that night instead of your father?”
Sage raised a brow, clearly unable to consider such a thing, and said as much.
“Well, it could have been. During my marriage, several men have approached me, and if I had been under the same type of stress your father had been under … Who knows? I may have yielded to temptation, too.”
“And just what type of stress was he under?”
Delores leaned back against the pillows. “He was going through a lot at work. You know how it is, some companies wanting to push out their older employees for a much younger staff. So your father had to work harder, longer hours to prove he still had what it took. I wasn’t as supportive as I could have been—and I can see that now. While he didn’t tell me everything that was going on with him at work, I felt something was bothering him, and I became concerned. But not concerned enough to start spending more time with him to get to the root of the problem. Instead, I became more and more absorbed in what I was doing—my church work, my charities, my frustrations with you for not wanting to move forward and make wedding plans, and my own job. I wasn’t there for him. Unfortunately, someone else was.”
Sage tipped her head back and smiled at her mother. Only a strong woman, a very strong woman, could admit as well as accept something like that. “You’re something else, you know that?”
Delores chuckled. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Right now I feel that you’re something else, too. It seems you’ve successfully moved beyond Erol just like you said you had.”
Sage nodded. “Yes, I have but decided that I’m not ready to get that involved with anyone again right now.”
Delores chuckled. “Well, it looks to me like you already have.”
Sage lifted a brow. “What do you mean?”
“It means that I can’t help noticing the number of times you’ve looked at those flowers that Mr. Blackwell sent, and the expression on your face when you look at them.”
Sage briefly closed her eyes. In addition to being all-forgiving, her mother was also all-observing. “Well, yes, I happen to think they are beautiful.”
“And what about the man who sent them?”
A visual of Gabe flashed into Sage’s mind. She couldn’t help but smile. “I happen to think that he’s beautiful, too.”
“But?”
Sage inhaled deeply. “But I’m not ready to fall in love again.”
Delores nodded. She couldn’t help wondering when Sage would realize that she had already taken the fall.
Later that evening Sage glanced around the room that had always been hers while growing up. Because her parents had been hard-working people, they had always provided her with nice things. She could certainly stand in the middle of her room and say that she had been truly blessed to have Charles and Delores Dunbar for parents.
She thought about the conversation she’d had with her mother earlier at the hospital, and again thought of how strong and courageous she was, as well as forgiving. Sage knew she had to find it in her heart and be just as forgiving. As her mother said, God loves us in spite of our wrongdoings, regardless of the countless mistakes we make. He also holds us accountable to find it in our hearts to forgive someone who has hurt us; and in turn, that person has to be the one accountable for his own transgressions.
Turning, she walked out of the bedroom to look for her father. She found him in the kitchen, standing at the window, quietly looking out at the backyard.
He evidently heard her approach, and without turning around he said, “I was just looking at that big oak tree and remembering the time I built you a tree house up there, although by the time your mother added those silly-looking lacy curtains and painted the walls pink, it became an elevated doll house.”
He chuckled. “She wasn’t too happy that I had built it in that tree and not on the ground. She just knew one day you would fall and break your arm or something. But I knew better. I knew just what sturdy stuff you were made of…. After all, you were a Dunbar.”
He slowly turned around. “But that tree house, or that doll house
if you want to call it that, became our special place. I remember climbing up there with you and reading Bible stories to you. And the one you liked the best was the story of how little David, with God’s help, slew the big and mighty Goliath. David became your hero.”
He inhaled deeply and looked down as if studying the tiles on the floor. “In recent months David has become my hero, too, because when faced with his wrongdoings, he asked God’s forgiveness. And when forgiven, he went on to be one of the greatest kings that ever lived. God showed him just how much he meant to him, in spite of the wrong he’d done, by having one of David’s heirs deliver his son into the world. That was a prime example of God’s mercy and forgiveness, and for David that was an awesome blessing.”
He lifted his gaze and met his daughter’s. “I’m not David, but I feel blessed to have a woman like your mother love me in spite of what I’ve done. She still believes in me in spite of the fact that I’ve hurt her and have caused her pain. I don’t know if you will believe this, but I intend to spend the remainder of my days loving her, appreciating her and knowing when things get rough for me again not to yield to temptation but to stay strong and depend on God to get me through any difficult time I encounter.”
He wiped his hand across his face, removing the traces of tears that were beginning to form there. “I know it will take time for you, but I’m hoping and praying that one day you will find it in your heart to forgive me, Sage. I never meant to hurt you, and you’ll never know just how much pain I’ve endured knowing that I lost your love and respect. My prayer each and every night is for God to make me a stronger person than before, a better person, and to never let me hurt the people that I love again.”
Sage inhaled sharply as she blinked back the tears gathering in her eyes. Her father had spoken from deep in his heart, a heart filled with regret for what he’d lost. Suddenly, her own heart began overflowing with love and tenderness for him, more than she thought possible. And she could no longer cling to the “wrongs” he had done when she could remember so many “rights.” He’d always been a good father, a supportive father, a kind and loving man.
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