by Cronk, LN
“Yeah,” he nodded. “That’s been the hardest part. But it’s okay. Moving down here was the right thing to do – I know that. It hasn’t always been easy, but this is where we’re supposed to be.”
I nodded at him and then we sat quietly and watched the kids play. It would have been a good chance for me to talk – to tell him what was going on and why I was here.
But I didn’t. I just sat there. I wondered what Rhiannon was doing. I wondered what Charlotte was doing. I sat there and watched David’s kids playing in the back yard until his wife came home with bags of Chinese take-out.
And then we all went inside and ate.
The next morning, Savanna came over to watch the kids because David and Laci had their closing program at the local church with all of the youth groups who had spent the week with them.
“They all fly out this afternoon,” David explained, “and we just get them together one last time before they go.”
“I know,” I said, reminding him that he had made me come down here as part of one of those groups myself, just a few years earlier
“Why don’t you let me watch the kids?” I offered, but David insisted that Savanna was already planning on watching them.
“Besides,” he added. “I think you should come with us. It’s really . . . it’s good.”
“I remember what it’s like,” I told him.
What I remembered was people committing or recommitting their lives to Christ. I remembered a lot of emotion. I remembered people crying . . .
“I’ll just stay here and help Savanna,” I told him. “I promised Lily that we’d play Scrabble.”
That evening after the kids were all in bed, I went out onto the back deck and sat in the darkness. Eventually David walked out onto the deck and stood next to me for a long moment. Then he sat down in a chair next to mine.
Neither one of us said a word. I didn’t look at him, I just continued to stare off into the darkness.
Finally I turned and looked at him.
“Everything’s all screwed up,” I said.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on?”
“Charlotte left me.”
“She left you?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
I leaned back and looked off into the night.
“After I got to Chicago I ran into an old girlfriend,” I told him. “We started seeing each other . . .”
David shot me a look.
“Just as friends,” I interjected quickly. Then I paused. “But . . .”
“But what?”
“But, one day, I . . .”
“You what?” he urged when I didn’t finish my sentence.
“One day I kissed her,” I forced myself to say. I glanced at David in the dim light from the house.
“And?”
“And nothing!” I exclaimed. “That’s it. I kissed her. That’s all.”
“Do you love her?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “It doesn’t matter. She won’t even talk to me now.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m married,” I said, wryly. “She had a little bit of a problem with that.”
“She sounds like a smart woman,” David said.
I rubbed my forehead and sighed.
“And so Charlotte found out?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “And she moved in with this guy named Elias and now she wants a divorce.”
David furrowed his brow, apparently thinking.
“You only got to Chicago, when?” he finally asked. “A month ago?”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“And when did this kiss take place?”
“Ummmm,” I thought about it for a minute. “I guess about five days ago.”
“You kissed somebody five days ago and Charlotte’s already moved in with somebody and wants a divorce?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, looking at him knowingly. “Convenient, huh?”
He stared at me for a moment and then shook his head.
“No way,” he said, standing up and walking over to the rail. “No way. Charlotte wouldn’t do that.”
“Look, David,” I said, “I know you think your precious little Charlotte can do no wrong, but–”
“No, I don’t,” he interrupted, wheeling on me. “I know that Charlotte’s not perfect, but I also know that she loves you with all her heart. There’s no way she was already involved with this guy.”
“Well,” I said, “she must have already had feelings for him and was just looking for an excuse to act on ’em then because they’re living together now and she wants a divorce.”
“You can’t get divorced.”
“I don’t have much choice,” I explained. “She’s already served me with divorce papers.”
“Fight it,” he said.
“Fight it?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Don’t give her a divorce.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” he cried. “You know ‘why not’!”
I just shook my head at him. “It’s over,” I stated flatly.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “You’re telling me that a week ago everything was fine and now suddenly your only option is a divorce?”
“Well obviously everything wasn’t fine a week ago,” I said, “or none of this would have happened in the first place! I wouldn’t have kissed my old girlfriend and Charlotte wouldn’t have had someone all lined up just waiting to jump into bed with her!”
“So what went wrong?”
“I have no idea,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yes, you do,” he argued.
I sat forward, put my elbows on my knees, and rested my head against my hands, closing my eyes. I listened to the distant sound of traffic and planes and TVs. It was almost as bad as living in Chicago.
I finally opened my eyes and looked up to find Dave staring at me, patiently waiting.
“I only know what happened on my end,” I said.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Which is what?”
I hesitated for a long, long time before I decided to tell him.
“I got tested.”
In the dim light I saw him staring at me with a look of dismay on his face. It was a moment before he found his voice.
“No,” he finally said, shaking his head.
“Yeah.”
He turned away, gripping the rail and not saying anything for another moment. Finally he turned back around.
“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly.
I nodded and he walked back to the chair next to me.
“When did you find out?” he asked gently, sitting down again. He put his hand on my arm.
“I decided to get tested right after Christmas,” I said. “I found out in February.”
“How did Charlotte seem to handle it?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“You didn’t tell her?” he asked, obviously taken aback. He took his hand off of my arm.
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“Same reason I wasn’t sure I was even gonna get tested in the first place. What’s the point in knowing? It’s not like you can do anything about it . . .”
“So why’d you wind up doing it?”
“I thought if I found out I was in the clear, then we could have kids. And really? I didn’t think I was going to test positive. I mean – I know that’s stupid – I knew it was fifty-fifty, but . . . I don’t know. Somehow I just really didn’t think I was going to have it.”
“But you don’t have any symptoms?” he asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “And that’s just the thing. I may not have symptoms for . . . for thirty, forty years! Maybe never! I figured ‘What good’s it gonna do to tell Charlotte?’ What’s the point?”
“You have to tell her,” David said.
“Well, I’m not gonna tell her now!!” I insisted. “She hates me! She’d probably be glad to find out I’ve got it.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Or worse, she’d come back to me just because she felt sorry for me. That’d be the foundation for a healthy marriage,” I said sarcastically.
“I think you should tell her.”
“No.”
He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair.
“Does Tanner know?” he asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t want Tanner to know either – or my mom.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “So, what happened after you found out?”
“Well,” I said, “I thought I was handling everything pretty well, but then when I ran into Rhiannon a few weeks ago I wound up telling her about it.”
“And?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I guess it was bothering me more than I realized. It felt really good to talk with her about it.”
“So that’s why you kept seeing her?” he asked. “Because it felt good to have someone to talk to?”
“Maybe. I guess so.”
“Did you fall in love with her?”
“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that question.”
“Because you didn’t answer me the first time,” he said.
“Yes, I did. I told you I don’t know.”
“Do you still love Charlotte?”
“I don’t think so.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said, standing up again. “I don’t really care who you love. You’re married to Charlotte and you need to figure out how you’re going to fix things with her.”
“I can’t fix things with her,” I said. “She’s sleeping with someone else. I can’t just forgive and forget that.”
“She’s just trying to get back at you,” he insisted. “You hurt her and she’s trying to hurt you back. There’s no way she cares about this guy.”
“Right,” I said caustically. “She’s just sleeping with him. As long as she doesn’t love him then everything’s fine.”
“I didn’t say everything’s fine, but I know you two can get through this.”
“Do you think you’d feel the same way if we were sitting here because Laci was sleeping with someone else?”
“Have you thought about going to a marriage counselor?”
“Charlotte’s not going to go to a marriage counselor!” I spat. “She HATES me, David! She doesn’t want to be married to me anymore.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” he insisted. “She’s just mad and hurt.”
“No,” I said. “There’s no hope.”
“There’s always hope,” he argued.
“We never should’ve gotten married in the first place.”
“Don’t say that!”
“It’s true,” I said. “We’re told very clearly not to be unequally yoked . . .”
“You’re unequally yoked?”
“I try to put God first in everything,” I said. “You know I do.”
“I know you used to . . .”
“But, Charlotte?” I went on, ignoring him and shaking my head, “she . . .”
“She what?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “She’s just not . . . she’s not like . . .”
“Like Rhiannon?” he suggested.
“Yeah,” I nodded, leaning forward. “Rhiannon prayed with me and she prayed for me and she talked with me about God and His will for me and she shared Scripture with me . . .”
“You didn’t even tell Charlotte anything was wrong!” David protested. “How was she supposed to do that for you when you didn’t even tell her what was wrong?”
“Charlotte’s never been like that though,” I argued. “When we got married I tried to get her to pray with me and read the Bible together and stuff like that and she just . . . she wasn’t interested.”
“And so you stopped trying?”
“I guess so,” I admitted. “I mean . . . looking back, I see that I started getting further and further away from God once I got together with Charlotte. That’s why we’re told not to be unequally yoked, because this is exactly the kind of thing that happens!”
“It sounds to me like you let yourself drift away from God and now you’re trying to blame Charlotte for it.”
“No, I’m not!” I insisted. “But I am saying that if I’d been prayerful about it before I got married and asked God what He wanted me to do, I probably would have realized that marrying Charlotte wasn’t a good idea.”
“And, so now you think God’s just giving you a chance to start over and get yourself a hard-prayin’, God-fearin’, Christian woman?”
“Maybe . . .”
“No!” David said, almost shouting. “This is not about you being happy and finding someone who fulfills your every need! This is about your responsibility to Charlotte – as her husband – and this is about your responsibility to GOD! If Charlotte’s not where she needs to be spiritually, then who do you think God’s expecting to be the one to lead her to Him?”
I didn’t answer him.
“You think you get to just ride off into the sunset and leave her behind?” he asked.
“I’m not the one who asked for a divorce,” I said angrily. “She is.”
“But it sounds like you’re only too happy to give her one.”
“The Bible’s pretty clear about when divorce is allowed,” I reminded him. “She’s been unfaithful to me.”
“You drove her to it!” he argued.
I shook my head. “You don’t understand.”
“No,” he said. “You’re right. I don’t.” And then he walked back into the house.
~ ~ ~
IT HAD BEEN a mistake to come down here. A big, big mistake. I should have stayed in Chicago and given Charlotte a divorce as quickly as possible. Why had coming down here seemed like a good idea? What made me think that David was going to understand for one second how I was feeling? He wasn’t the one who was going to come down with some devastating neurological disease . . . his wife wasn’t the one who was sleeping with another man. How had I not seen that David would take Charlotte’s side? What had made me think for one second that he was going to empathize with anything I was going through? I tossed and turned for most of the night and the last time I looked at the clock, it was after four in the morning.
When I finally emerged from my bedroom the next day, the house was quiet. David’s office door was closed and Laci was sitting on the couch in the living room, waiting for me.
“Do you hate me, too?” I asked, looking at her.
“Of course not,” she said, looking back at me sympathetically. She patted the couch next to her. “And David doesn’t hate you either.”
“He’s blaming me for everything,” I said, sitting down beside her.
“No, he’s not,” she said.
“Yes he is,” I argued, looking at her again. “He thinks Charlotte walks on water. He always has.”
“No, he doesn’t,” she said with a small smile. “If anything he thinks you walk on water.”
Somehow that just made me feel worse.
“He loves Charlotte,” she admitted, “but he also knows that she can be . . . a handful.”
“That’s not how he acts,” I said quietly. “He acts like it’s all my fault.”
“No,” she assured me, putting a hand on my back. “He doesn’t feel that way.”
I sat quietly for a moment and then I buried my face in my hands. Laci rubbed my shoulders.
“I hate my life,” I choked.
“Jordan,” she said. “Don’t say that.”
“I do,” I said, my voice rising as I turned to look at her. “I hate my life. I hate everything about it.”
She pulled me into her arms and I put my head down on her shoulder and started sobbing like a little kid. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried like that, but I sobbed and sobbed against her shoulder while she held me in her arms.
Either David didn’t hear or didn’t care or figured that Laci could handle things on her own. He sta
yed shut up in his office the whole time I was crying. Eventually I managed to sit up and pull myself together.
“Are you hungry?” she asked after a moment. She was still running her hand along my shoulder.
I shook my head.
“I know you,” she smiled. “You’re always hungry.”
I tried to smile back.
“Get cleaned up,” she said, nodding toward the bathroom door. “We’ll go grab a bite to eat.”
“Don’t you have to work today?”
“They can live without me for a few hours.”
I looked at her for a minute and then I nodded and went into the bathroom to take a shower.
Thirty minutes later we were sitting in a restaurant with our drinks, waiting for our food. I picked up my knife and used it to make little cuts around the edge of my paper placemat. Laci watched me quietly.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said.
“For?”
“Everything.”
I nodded my head and kept cutting my placemat.
“Jordan,” she said, reaching over and putting her hand on mine. I stopped cutting. “You have to try and fix things with Charlotte.”
“She wants a divorce,” I said.
“She doesn’t want a divorce,” Laci said. “She’s just saying that.”
“Maybe I want a divorce.”
“Maybe it’s not about what you want,” she said. She was beginning to sound just like her husband.
“That’s real easy for you to say,” I argued. “You and David have a perfect marriage.”
“Ha!” she scoffed. “Try again.”
“Look, I know every relationship has problems,” I admitted, “but you and David were meant to be together. You’re like soul mates. You really have no idea what I’m going through with Charlotte.”
“I’ll agree that David and I were meant to be together,” she said, “but we’re definitely not soul mates.
I looked at her, questioningly.
“If it was up to me,” she said, “I never would have married David in the first place.”
Now I looked at her, shocked.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I didn’t love him,” she said, bluntly. “I was in love with someone else.”