Yesterday's Embers

by Deborah Raney

  Since he’d moved out of the bedroom and into Landon’s room, they’d lived like polite strangers with each other. Sometimes she thought she would prefer the arguments they used to have. At least then she had some kind of relationship with him.

  But true to his word, he had treated her with kindness, and though she sometimes worried that he was suffering from depression, she’d never once seen him lose his temper the way he had with Kayeleigh that day.

  She was grateful he’d started meeting with Phil Grady twice a month. Doug never talked to her about those counseling sessions with Pastor Grady—or much else, for that matter—but lately, it seemed like he came home from those meetings in a good mood, at peace.

  All she could hope for now was that they might become friends again. She was learning patience like she’d never known it before.

  Sighing, she went around the side of the house and gathered a collection of flowerpots and flats from the trunk of her car.

  She spent the next two hours digging up some of her favorite plants and flowers to transplant to Doug’s place. She’d resigned herself to staying with him. For the kids’ sake. And if that was where her life was going to be, she had to find something there that gave her pleasure. Besides the kids, of course.

  She’d decided to start a new flower garden behind the farmhouse—on a smaller scale, at least for now. They couldn’t really afford to buy all new plants, so today she dug up dianthus and gaura and phlox from her yard, and filled pots with several varieties of the sedums that thrived on the rocky hills she’d built against the corners of the fence.

  It wasn’t the best time of year for transplanting, but she kept collecting plants and loading them into the trunk and backseat of the car until she could barely get it closed. She had the whole weekend to get them into the ground. If even a few of the plants survived, she’d be content. Even here, in her protected garden, it had taken several tries to find the perfect spot for some of these specimens. But given a chance, their roots went down deep into the Coyote County clay and clung fast. Once they were established, even a Kansas prairie fire couldn’t have kept them down. In fact, sometimes it seemed they flourished in adversity.

  When she pulled into the driveway, it was almost suppertime. She tooted the horn and got out to open the trunk.

  The kids spilled out of the house, all talking at once. “What did you get, Mickey? Hows come you’re all muddy? What’s for supper?”

  “Come here, guys.” In turn, she filled their little arms with pots. “Set everything in the backyard by the shed. We’ll plant it tomorrow.”

  Landon and Kayeleigh grumbled, but not too loudly, she noticed. The garden would be great for the kids. It was something they could do together, and if they planted a few vegetables next spring, it would save some money on the grocery bill, too.

  But the flowers came first. Her fingers itched at the thought. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her garden.

  She smiled at the image of Harley toddling through leafy rows of green, then cringed at a vision of the little squirt picking off all the flower buds before anything had a chance to bloom next spring. Oh, but wouldn’t Harley have a grand time digging in the dirt? They all would.

  Her heart swelled at the thought of her kids. If she and Doug had grown distant, his children had wormed their way into her heart until she could scarcely tell where she ended and they began.

  Oh, she and Kayeleigh still had their moments, but she had a feeling even Kaye would have tangled with her headstrong oldest daughter.

  Her kids. Mickey had begun to feel like an honest-to-goodness mother to Doug’s precious children. And in that privilege, along with her work at the daycare, she felt God had given her purpose in life. Not in the way she’d always dreamed of. But she’d slowly come to accept that she may never understand why things had worked out the way they had. It wasn’t a bad life. And most of the time, she felt genuinely happy.

  Did she long for Doug to be her husband in more than name only? Every single night. She lay in bed and yearned to have his arms around her, his sweet words in her ear. She hoped God didn’t get tired of her praying that Doug could learn to love her. And that perhaps, someday, they could have more than the polite friendship they shared now.

  “Where do you want these empty pots, Mickey?” Landon stood in front of her, balancing a stack of terra-cotta pots. He would be as tall as she was by next summer if he grew as much as he had this year.

  “Be careful with those, buddy. They’re breakable.”

  Sometimes she had to push away dismal thoughts of the future. The twins would start school in the fall, and in another short year Kayeleigh would be in high school. Time was fleeting, and it was a little frightening to think about a day when the children wouldn’t need her anymore. When she wouldn’t have a reason to stay.

  “Wow.” Doug’s voice broke through her thoughts. He stood, hands on hips, staring at the overflowing trunk. “Why didn’t you borrow the pickup? You could have just brought the whole garden home.”

  She didn’t think she was imagining the hint of a twinkle in his eyes. But she was almost afraid to respond, lest she break the spell and see that wary sadness creep back into his eyes.

  Catching her breath, she decided to risk it. Working to keep a perfectly straight face, she gave a little nod. “I told them I’d be back for the rest tomorrow.”

  He froze in his tracks as if he might actually have bought her line. But she couldn’t keep a straight face, and a split-second later, he was laughing at himself.

  Reaching for a flat of flowers, he winked at her over the top of the twins’ heads. “Good one, Mick.”

  For one enchanted moment, she dared to hope again.

  If she resented the life he’d trapped her in, she never showed it.

  Chapter Forty-six

  The leaves on the trees along the Smoky Hill had started to turn, bright spots of crimson and burnt orange against a patchwork of wheat stubble, rich cultivated ground, and fields of milo ripe for harvest. A more beautiful autumn than Doug could remember, yet with each day he felt himself sinking deeper into a pit of despair.

  The anniversary was approaching. Thanksgiving Day would mark a year since he’d lost Kaye and Rachel, and it seemed the closer the day drew, the more he dwelled on the tragedy.

  He and Phil Grady had talked about this at length. Over the weeks since he’d begun counseling, his pastor had become a friend. “Anniversaries are hard,” Phil had said last week. “But look at it this way: each day brings you a little closer to the anniversary being past—a hurdle crossed.”

  It was probably good advice, but somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Though how this Thanksgiving could possibly be any more horrible than the last, he couldn’t imagine.

  Over and over, alone in his truck or on the tractor, and in his prayer time with Phil, he’d asked God to take away the illogical fear. But sometimes it seemed the harder he prayed, the larger his fear loomed.

  Most of his pastor’s counseling had consisted of him allowing Doug to talk about what happened, to relive his marriage, agonize over his regrets. But this afternoon Phil had caught him off guard with a new tack. He’d opened his Bible to the book of Philippians and looked at him hard, not mincing words. “You’ve been in a long season of mourning, Doug, and that’s been necessary and understandable. But I think you’ve come to a point where it’s counterproductive for you to work so hard at mourning, dwell so much on what you’ve lost.”

  Phil read a passage, aloud, about not looking only to one’s own interests, but also to the interests of others. “I think,” he told Doug, “that it’s time for you to start consciously moving away from self-centered thoughts. It’s time to cultivate a servant’s heart.”

  At first Doug had felt defensive. Wasn’t that why he’d come to Phil for counseling in the first place—because he’d put everyone else’s needs first and not taken the time to grieve properly? The kids, the farm, his
job, Harriet, and then Mickey—they’d all kept him from doing the hard work of grieving.

  Then the thought rang false inside him, and he acknowledged that it wasn’t true. In his desperation to avoid his grief, he’d allowed himself to be distracted by all those things. But in recent months he hadn’t put anyone but himself first. Not really.

  Then Phil read the end of the passage: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…who made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.”

  The words had soaked into him as if he were a thirsty sponge. And in that moment something happened inside him—and he was still trying to process it.

  Phil had looked up from his worn Bible. “I’m going to give you an assignment, Doug. This week I want you to make a conscious effort to reach out to other people, to see where they might be hurting, where they could use help. Every time you start thinking about that anniversary, about Kaye and Rachel, I want you to stop and find something, some way—no matter how small—to serve someone else.”

  But here he was, not fifteen minutes out of his session with Phil, and he was already back to dwelling on that anniversary date, that fear.

  He pulled into the garage, determined to take Phil’s assignment seriously. Maybe one of the kids would need help with their homework. That was something Mickey usually did, since often he wasn’t even home until it was almost bedtime for the kids.

  Mickey. If he thought about it too hard, he would be eaten up with guilt over what he’d done to her.

  He hung his jacket in the laundry room on the hook beneath his name. “I’m home,” he announced, stepping into the kitchen.

  “Daddy! Daddy’s home!” The twins and Harley scrambled to be first for hugs. Landon was into shoulder punches these days. Doug was happy to oblige them all. He never grew tired of the welcome his children gave him.

  “Where’s Kayeleigh?”

  Mickey was at the sink scrubbing a skillet. “She’s spending the night with Rudi. I hope that was okay?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  “You’re early,” she said. “Dinner won’t be ready for a little bit.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “You want something to drink?”

  “I’ll get it.” He went to the refrigerator and grabbed a pitcher of iced tea.

  “There’s no sugar in that yet.”

  “I’m on it.” He pulled the sugar canister from the cupboard and scooped a couple of spoonfuls of sugar into his glass. Mickey didn’t like sugar in her tea.

  “Sarah,” Mickey said, “you and Sadie, come and dry these dishes, would you? I need to take the chicken out of the oven. Do you want a salad, Doug?”

  He shook his head. “Not tonight, thanks.” If she resented the life he’d trapped her in, she never showed it. They’d grown into a comfortable pattern with each other, talking only about the kids or household matters. Living separate lives in many ways.

  Three Sundays a month they went to church together at Community Christian, and the first Sunday of each month Mickey had dinner in Salina with her brothers. She’d given up asking him to go with her a long time ago. He didn’t know what she’d told her brothers and she didn’t offer.

  If there was a school activity for one of the kids, he went and she stayed home with the others. They rarely went to anything together, and if they did, the kids served as buffers. He didn’t know what was said about them—about their marriage—around town, but he could imagine. He’d quit caring a long time ago.

  But sometimes, like now, watching Mickey at the sink, laughing with the girls, he remembered those first days when he’d thought he was falling in love with her. When they’d taken the kids bowling or to the movies every Sunday afternoon, or sat out on her deck in town and talked.

  In an odd way he wished those days back. Under different circumstances, of course, but sometimes he found himself daydreaming that he had only recently met Mickey. How different things might have been had he only given himself a chance to grieve Kaye before jumping into marriage again so quickly. Phil had told him, “In a way it was a compliment to Kaye that you wanted to get married again so soon. Kaye made marriage look like a good deal.”

  He understood what Phil was saying, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d made a terrible mistake. And Mickey was paying the highest price for his mistake. How he wished he could change all that. The night he’d confessed to her that he didn’t, couldn’t love her the way she hoped, she’d led him to believe she still loved him. But a lot of water had passed under the bridge since then. They’d lived these separate existences for four months now. Yet it seemed like a lifetime. He didn’t know how she felt about him anymore. And part of him was afraid to know.

  An emotion swept over him—one he couldn’t quite identify, except that it was a familiar feeling. He felt the way he’d felt as a boy when his parents dropped him off for a week at summer camp. He was homesick. Except the cure for homesickness had always been coming home. But he was home, and he had the worst case ever—with no idea how or where to find a remedy.

  Sighing, he went through to the living room, looking for the newspaper. He rarely had time to read more than the headlines and the weather. Maybe he’d finish it while he waited for dinner.

  Mickey’s cat sat in front of the sofa, staring at him.

  “What?” he said aloud, as if the cat might actually answer.

  “What’d you say, Doug?” Mickey yelled from the kitchen.

  “Nothing. I was talking to Sasha.”

  Mickey and the girls giggled at that.

  He opened the paper and heard Phil’s words in his head: “Find some way—no matter how small—to serve someone else.” He looked through to the kitchen where Mickey was working, hustling between the stove and refrigerator and attending to Harley. She’d worked all day at the daycare, yet she came home and made dinner and cared for the kids. She did it all without complaining, cheerfully even. He did his best to help her on the nights he wasn’t working late in the fields, but the truth was, she got the brunt of the housework and the childcare and—

  “Ouch!”

  Mickey’s cry and the sound of the oven door slamming shut urged him from the sofa. “What happened?”

  She stood at the sink, holding her hand under a stream of cold water. He could tell she was trying hard not to cry.

  “What happened?”

  She winced. “I burned myself…on that stupid oven.”

  He leaned over the sink. “Let me see…”

  She held up her hand. An angry welt was already starting to blister on the back of her hand.

  Without thinking he lifted her damp fingers to his lips and kissed them, the way he might have if she’d been one of the little girls. When he realized what he’d done, his face grew warm and he waited for her to pull her hand away.

  But she didn’t. Their eyes met and something—something that frightened him and thrilled him all at once—passed between them. It reminded him of that first time she’d brought the kids home from daycare because he was late, and she’d stayed to eat with them. Except this time there was no guilt for the stirrings inside him. This was his wife.

  He inspected the wound. “Looks painful. You should keep water on it for a while.” He reached for a clean dish towel. “Come here…”

  Still holding her injured hand, he led her down the hall into the bathroom. He turned on the faucet and tested the temperature, then gently placed her hand under the slow stream of tepid water. She held her hand there while he rummaged in the medicine cabinet for something to put on the broken blister. After a minute of scanning labels and not comprehending anything he read, Mickey reached around him with her other hand.

  “Here, try this.” She shut the door to the cabinet.

  As she held out the brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, he caught her reflection in the mirror. She was watching him with bemused curiosity. “Um…didn’t you used to be an EM
T?” Her grin came into full bloom, her eyes alight with a sparkle he remembered from a long time ago.

  He took the bottle from her, and uncapped it, feeling clumsy and inept. “Apparently I am seriously out of practice. Here…give me your hand.”

  Their eyes met again in the mirror, and her expression turned serious. “Thanks.”

  She looked away and he carefully patted her hand dry around the burn, then assessed the damage. “Well, I have good news and bad news.”

  “Oh?”

  “The good news is, I think you’ll live.”

  “Whew, that’s a relief. And, um…the bad news?”

  He held her hand over the sink and tipped the bottle. “This is gonna sting like crazy.”

  She winced in anticipation. “Oh…ouchie, owie…owie!” But the tremulous, unmistakable smile in her eyes let him hope that she was feeling something beyond the pain. That she was feeling the same stirrings as he was inside.

  He blew across her hand in short little breaths, and for a reason he didn’t quite comprehend, with every breath his spirits lifted. Higher and higher…until he thought he might float right up to the ceiling.

  This was something different, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. And it worried her.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Mickey wiped off perfectly clean kitchen counters, feeling a little guilty for eavesdropping on Doug’s conversation—even though he made no effort to keep his voice down.

  “Okay, sure. See you then. Thanks, Harriet.” He hung up the phone and looked at her. “Harriet wants the kids for the whole weekend. You okay with that?”

  “Sure.” Kaye’s mother came from Florida every few months, staying at her sister’s house in Salina. Doug always arranged for her to see the kids as much as possible whenever she was in Kansas. But it was unusual for him to ask Mickey’s permission about plans.