Winter Winds

by Gayle Roper

  Anger welled in her. “Don’t you make me the fall guy here, Paul Michael Trevelyan. I’m not the one who broke his vows.”

  “No, you’re the one who ran like a coward before I even had a chance to talk with you and work things out.”

  The word coward shot straight to her heart. She hadn’t been a coward. She had been a young wife who didn’t know what else to do. “You thought a few words would erase the betrayal?”

  “Betrayal? Don’t you think you’re blowing things a bit out of proportion?”

  Dori glared at him. The man had no shame, no sense of guilt, no life ethos. That she had pined for him for six years suddenly seemed the utmost in pathetic. “Just because you think Christ forgave you doesn’t mean I have,” she spat.

  “No, you haven’t.” He spoke through clenched teeth, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “You’ve wound your self-righteous hurt around yourself like Lazarus’s grave clothes, and just like Lazarus, you’ve begun to stink.”

  Dori stepped back as if she’d been struck. “How dare you!”

  Suddenly Jack whined. Dori frowned down at him. He looked from her to Trev and back, his agitation plain to see.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked the dog, her voice abrupt. Jack stared at her, his soft brown eyes full of worry.

  Then awareness hit and her head jerked up. She and Trev were fighting like fishwives right out on the sidewalk for anyone to see and hear. A great image for a pastor and his wife, but she refused to blush. She had right on her side.

  “Open the trunk,” she ordered. “I’ll get my suitcase and go inside.”

  “I’ll take it in for you,” Trev said, voice brusque.

  She threw a scorching look his way. “Don’t bother. I can manage fine on my own. I’ve done so for six happy, trouble-free years.”

  However it was quickly obvious that apart from a tug-of-war right here in the street, Trev was carrying the suitcases. She grabbed her laptop and followed, muttering imprecations all the way up the walk.

  He took her things upstairs to what was obviously the master bedroom, dropping them on the beige duvet that covered the queen-size bed. Jack hairs covered the duvet. Beyond the bed she saw the French doors and the white-railed porch. In other circumstances and seasons, it would be wonderful to lounge out there and enjoy the sea air, but not today. Now the chill outside was only slightly lower than that inside.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch in my office,” Trev said, his voice still stiff with anger. “I’ll clean my things out this evening,”

  “Good. You do that.” She was very glad he didn’t plan to share the room with her. She couldn’t deal with more nights like last night.

  “That’s Ryan’s room.” He pointed across the hall, then waved toward the room at the front of the house. “That’s my office.”

  She glimpsed the couch he’d sleep on against one wall, and turning her back to him, she began fiddling with her small roll-on. They stood, mere feet apart, as estranged as they’d ever been. She thought she heard him sigh. It was all she could do not to cry.

  “I’ve got to take Jack for a quick walk before I go see Barry and give Mary a quick visit.”

  She gave a curt nod. He hesitated a minute as though he had something to say, but on another sigh, he left. She listened to him and Jack thump their way down the stairs, and she heard the front door close quietly.

  She sank to the bed and buried her face in her hands. What had just happened? She and Trev had never said ugly words to each other before. Never. As adults they were behaving worse than they ever had as kids. Less than twenty-four hours together, and they’d attacked each other mercilessly.

  Feeling defeated and sad and unaccountably to blame—Wait a minute here. I’m the injured party!—she left the master bedroom and wandered slowly around the house. The only room she avoided was Trev’s office. It felt too personal, too private to invade.

  Ryan’s room was awash in strewn clothes and boy toys. A small TV sat on a card table with PlayStation 2 hand controls leaning against it. A pile of game CDs made a small Leaning Tower. Another pile of CDs, music this time, and a portable CD player had been thrown on his pillow. A backpack lay just inside the door, its sides bulging with books. A small wire bookshelf was filled with paperbacks including The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and several Stephen Lawhead, Randall Ingermanson, Kathy Tyers, and Karen Hancock fantasies. All were obviously read and reread.

  In the bathroom, ugly, mud-colored towels were tucked helter-skelter into racks, but at least they weren’t on the floor. Dori automatically straightened them. She noted that the sink and the tub were clean as were the toilet and the floor around it. A cleaning lady was the only possible answer.

  She slowly went downstairs. She’d been so upset and angry when she stormed into the house that she’d seen the living room through a red haze. Now she studied the dark green sofa and matching chair. They were angled to give a good view of the TV, a surprisingly old-fashioned unit.

  Beside the chair on an end table sat a pile of books, the top one open and splayed facedown to hold Trev’s place. For they were obviously his. Some were popular Christian titles she was vaguely familiar with, but several were theological books of a highly academic nature. She picked up the top one and read some of the parts he’d underlined in yellow.

  She replaced the book with a thoughtful frown. Never in a million years would the old Trev, the Trev she remembered, have read a book about the implications of the Incarnation. Or—she glanced at the second book in the pile—a book on bioethics and the evangelical community. In a flash she comprehended a fact she had acknowledged but not understood before.

  Paul Trevelyan was not the same man she had known and married.

  Just as she wasn’t the same woman.

  She sank into his chair and stared at the blank TV screen. What did these changes mean to her? What did they mean to the next six months?

  After a few minutes with no answers, she got up and wandered into what was supposedly a dining room but had been made into a weight room. A weight bench sat along one wall, the bar resting on its supports, large disks attached to the ends. Along another wall other weights of varying sizes lined a shelf shaped like a V.

  Well, that explained the broad shoulders.

  She walked to the bench, glanced over her shoulder even though she knew no one was home but her, and yielding to curiosity, lay down on the bench. She placed her feet flat on the floor and her chest under the bar. She gripped it with both hands and pushed upward. Nothing happened. She rubbed her hands together, gripped the bar again, and pushed. Nothing budged, not even an inch. Wimp! She climbed to her feet and turned to the kitchen.

  Again neat and clean but barren. She opened the refrigerator. A half-full half gallon of 2 percent milk. A container of Philadelphia Cream Cheese and a tub of cottage cheese. She pulled out the cottage cheese and checked the date. Only three weeks past. She slipped off the lid and found no interesting green growth inside. Somehow she felt tricked. There should be green slime, lots of it, so she could sniff at Trev and his life.

  On the kitchen table sat a leather-bound copy of Oswald Chambers’s My Utmost for His Highest. It was as obviously used as any of the books in Ryan’s bookcase, as the navy leather Bible Trev had read last night. She could see Trev sitting here each morning, his coffee beside him, as he read one of Chambers’s thoughtful devotions. Did he read them aloud to Ryan? Would he read them aloud to her? Did she want him to?

  What a warm, cozy, domestic scene that was, even in the starkness of the unadorned kitchen. For a minute its appeal was overwhelming.

  What are you thinking, woman? Taking herself firmly in hand, she opened all the cupboards and examined what was in them. The least she could do while Trev was off pastoring was go to the grocery store. She would show him that she was not a cowardly runaway but a competent woman who was more than up to the challenge before them.

  List finally compiled, she looked around the st
ark kitchen and thought of her warm, inviting kitchen in San Diego with its yellow and white gingham curtains, yellow plaid wallpaper above the countertops, and the white cabinets with their glass doors that showed off her yellow dishes. She thought longingly of the plants that sat on the windowsill above the sink and the African violets that bloomed continuously before the sliding glass door that led to her minuscule deck, where she grew containers of cyclamen, salvia, gerber daisies, trailing ivy, and petunias.

  She’d have to call Meg and make arrangements for the care of the plants while she was gone. Or should she have them shipped here along with Trudy?

  No, that was too much of a commitment, one she wasn’t yet willing to make. Not until Trev got down on his knees and begged her forgiveness.

  She eyed the phone resting on the counter. Should she call Meg on that phone or her cell? Put the bill on Trev’s tab or hers? She grinned. He might as well get used to paying for her. She didn’t have a job anymore to pay for herself.

  “Dori, sweetie!” Meg’s voice warmed the air waves. “I’m so glad you caught me. I was about to leave the shop in April’s capable hands for a couple of hours.”

  “You and Ron going out on the town?”

  “I wish. No, we were going to your place to pack it up.”

  “What?” Pack it up?

  “Randy has a gig in New York City starting Wednesday, and he’s going to drive all your things east for you rather than take a plane. That way you’ll have your car and Trudy in no time at all. And your clothes and plants.”

  Dori didn’t know what to say, but she felt panic rising in her chest. Why was everybody making her choices for her? And choices that seemed so final.

  “Randy and a musician friend will be coming together, so they can drive straight through.” Meg laughed. “They have to be in New York by Wednesday, so you’ll probably see them sometime late Tuesday, bleary eyed and weary. You can put them up for the night, can’t you?”

  “Sure,” she answered weakly.

  “They’ll be so tired that the floor will be fine,” Meg assured her. “Oops, got to go. Ron’s beeping for me.”

  Slowly, carefully Dori set the phone back in its cradle. Her hand was shaking. When had she lost control of her own life? And how had it happened?

  She felt like the prisoner in Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” when the walls started closing in on him. She shuddered. She had to get out of this house! But where would she go?

  The list fluttered in her shaking hand.

  The grocery store!

  She grabbed her coat, hat, gloves, and purse and was out the door before she remembered that she didn’t have a vehicle. With a snarl she went back inside and grabbed the phone book. She looked up car rentals and was surprised to find one in Seaside. She dialed the number.

  “Sure, we got cars to rent,” said the man who answered. “Come on down and look.”

  “If I could come down and look, I wouldn’t need to rent a car, now would I?” Dori said, the very soul of reason.

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  She waited for him to offer to bring her a car, but no such luck. “What kinds of cars do you have available?”

  “You name it, we got it,” he said with pride.

  It had been a long day, she was feeling ill-used, and he wasn’t helping any. “Do you have a Mercedes ragtop? In green?” She didn’t even know if there was such a car.

  There was a brief silence. “Uh, no. We only got American cars.”

  “How about a gold Cadillac convertible then?” Again she had no idea whether there was such a car. “Or a silver one. I’m not particular.”

  “Well, uh, uh.” He sounded frantic.

  Suddenly she regretted baiting him. “So what do you have?” she asked in a gentle voice.

  “Fords,” he blurted.

  “Fine. A Taurus would be nice. Do you have one available?”

  “Yeah. How long you want it?”

  “Until Wednesday. Then it will get driven to New York City.”

  “Well, I got a red one, this year’s model, great condition. And there are lots of drop-offs in New York. Cost you more though if you don’t return it to the point of origin.”

  “No problem. How about you deliver my car to—” She stopped. “Wait a minute. I have to run outside and see what the address is.” When she returned to the phone, panting, she was more than slightly surprised to find him still waiting. She gave the street and number. “Can you deliver the car right away please? I need it immediately.”

  “Can you pay me right away?” he countered. “I need the money immediately.”

  “Got my credit card right here.”

  In a half hour she had a red rental Taurus at rates that sounded like a giveaway after what she was used to in California. She drove the salesman back to his office, passing the grocery store on her way. She did the necessary paperwork, bid him good-bye, and returned to the store.

  As she pushed her cart up and down the Acme aisles, Dori tried to imagine what quantities she should buy for Trev and Ryan. How much did Trev eat? She remembered a teenager who consumed quantities that would have felled an ox. But how did he eat now? And Ryan. He was a small, skinny kid, but did he eat like the kid he was or the kid he would become, if and when he grew?

  She decided to get spaghetti because she could always cook more noodles and pour more sauce out of the jar. An extra bag of salad could also plug lots of hollow legs. And Amoroso rolls, good, crusty Italian rolls, the kind no one made on the west coast.

  She looked at her basket, pleased. One meal taken care of. What about a rump roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions? Add a green vegetable and you had a feast. Leftovers, if there were any, would make good hot roast beef sandwiches. And a Perdue Oven Stuffer Roaster. Throw in stuffing mix and a different green vegetable and bingo.

  Maybe this shopping bit wouldn’t be so hard after all. She threw in a loaf of bread, a carton of orange juice, a half gallon of milk, a box of cereal, and a twelve pack of Coke. She swung into the aisle where the cookies were and promptly bumped into a cart coming the other way.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, trying to get out of the other cart’s way. With an apologetic smile she looked up and found herself staring at Angie Warrington and her mother.

  Thirteen

  OH, HI,” DORI SAID, smiling brightly. “Imagine bumping into the only people I know in Seaside.”

  “Small world,” said Judy Warrington, her mouth pinched and hard. “And twice in one day.”

  Dori smiled, trying to project warmth in spite of the chill that flowed about her like the fog from dry ice. These women were very angry, and she felt pretty sure she was the reason.

  “Have you known Pastor Paul long?” Angie asked, her hands wrapped around the handle of the cart so tightly her knuckles showed white.

  “Pas—Oh, you mean Trev.” She grinned. “Forever, I think. Our families have been friends since our mothers met in college.”

  “Oh. I don’t think I ever heard him mention you,” Angie said, hurling the barb with obvious relish.

  Dori suddenly felt the need to move on. A catfight was the last thing she wanted. “Could be. I wouldn’t know.” She tried to angle her cart around the Warringtons. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  Angle’s move to block the aisle wasn’t subtle. Dori looked at her in surprise and saw genuine dislike mingled with true hurt. It was obvious that Angie cared deeply for Trev.

  “Pastor Paul has been in Seaside all week.” Judy suddenly entered the conversation. “When did he have time to get married?”

  Dori prayed her face didn’t reveal her panic. Or her anger at Trev. Instead of running out to care for his flock, he should have stayed home. He should have helped her figure out the questions people would ask and the answers they would give.

  Her conscience suddenly jibed. In all fairness, he hadn’t expected her to leave the house. But she had left, and she needed a fast but true answer, one that wouldn’t come back and bite them l
ater.

  “Getting married was an impulsive decision.” That was very true. “Spur-of-the-moment romantic.”

  “But how did you manage it so fast?”

  “We eloped.”

  “Our pastor eloped?” Judy managed to make it seem the equivalent of murder.

  “Pastors aren’t allowed to elope?” Dori asked with a mix of defensiveness and curiosity.

  “Pastors are to set an example.” Judy folded her arms over her chest. “A good example.”

  Dori swallowed her own rising anger. “What’s wrong with eloping? It’s not illegal, immoral, or unethical.”

  “You aren’t wearing a ring,” Angie said, accusation clear in her voice. She made it sound as if Dori didn’t have on any clothes.

  Dori held out her left hand and looked at her empty third finger. She had had a ring. Trev had married her with her mother’s ring, slipping it on her finger with vows of undying love and fidelity. They had talked about which ring to use, his mom’s or hers. They’d decided on hers because that left Trev’s mom’s for Phil to use some day.

  Dori had taken the ring off and placed it on the TV just before she left six years ago. Many times she’d regretted that move. Now she no longer had her mother’s ring, one of the few things she’d had to remember her by.

  “No time to get the ring,” she said brightly. That was true too. It dawned on her that Trev would have to give it back to her, and she would have to wear it for the next six months whether she wanted to or not. Somehow that seemed the most fraudulent of actions. Her parents had loved each other deeply. She remembered laughter and affection freely shared. To compromise what that ring represented seemed horribly wrong, criminal even.

  “Is he here with you?” Judy asked, looking around as if she expected Trev to jump out from between the Oreos and the Chips Ahoy.

  Dori shook her head. An easy question. “No, he’s visiting Barry in jail and Mary who has kidney stones.”

  “Some honeymoon,” Angie said, clearly pleased that Trev wasn’t with Dori.