The Two of Us

by Victoria Bylin

  I will never forgive myself for leaving you the way I did. There are no excuses. None. Believe me, I’ve tried to find them, but every time I point a finger at you, three are aimed back at me.

  People joke about a man having a midlife crisis, but there’s nothing funny about a man taking stock of his life and being bitterly disappointed. His dreams are dead. His hope is gone. And maybe worst of all, he feels too old to fight.

  That’s how I felt when I told you I needed to make a change. Vending and pinball machines are going the way of the dinosaurs. Our children don’t need me. And you, Claire . . . you didn’t seem to need me either. For two people who were hot to trot for twenty years, we sure fizzled out.

  “I have no business reading this,” Mia mumbled to herself, but she couldn’t seem to put down the letter. Claire stared at the envelope, mumbling, “Frank, Frank,” over and over while she traced her name on its front, her index finger trembling.

  Mia skimmed quickly to the end.

  You asked me when I left if there was another woman. I told you no, and that was the truth. You asked me if I still loved you. I told you no, and that turned out to be a lie. I don’t know why I thought leaving you and the kids would make me happy, but I was dead wrong.

  I don’t expect you to forgive me overnight, or because of this one letter. But I am asking you to give the two of us a second chance. I’ve gone back to church, Claire. Not in Echo Falls but here in the Springs. I’ll go to counseling like you wanted. I’ll do anything to save our family.

  But know this too. If your answer is no—if I’ve hurt you too deeply to regain your trust—I will let you go with all the grace I can muster. Your happiness means more to me than my own. I just wish I’d realized that four months ago.

  Love, Frank

  Mia’s heart hammered against her ribs. Frank Tanner, the most faithful, loyal man she had ever met, had walked out on his family. Why? Simply because he wasn’t happy; because his wife and children weren’t enough for him. He had sacrificed his marriage on the altar of “Me” and wreaked havoc with his wife’s emotions, and his children’s lives as well.

  Yet Frank and Claire had survived as a couple. Surely their recovery counted for more than the trauma? Be logical, Mia ordered herself. Look at the facts.

  But as Mia fought to suffocate her own fury and fear, Claire clutched her wrist with cold, bony fingers. Staring hard at the letter, she mewled like a crying baby.

  “Frank! Oh no. Oh no. Frank—”

  Mia dropped the letter against the back cover, closed the book to remove the pages from Claire’s sight, and restacked the photo albums. Later she’d sneak up and put the letter back in the envelope, but right now, Claire needed a friend.

  Mia pulled the distraught woman into her arms. “It’s okay. It’s over.”

  A silent prayer whispered in her mind. Lord, are you telling me something here? She didn’t think Frank’s letter was a sign from God like Gideon’s fleeces, but it flapped in her mind like a yellow caution flag. Marriage to any man would bring challenges. Love in any form came with risks. Was she willing to put her heart in the care of another human being, when even a man as sincere, loyal, and faithful as Frank could fail?

  Jake was human. And like all men, the son of Adam. Fallen. Sinful. Imperfect. Christian men stumbled all the time, even strong ones. Mia knew better than to expect, demand, or even need perfection. But in this one area, she desperately needed to feel secure.

  She stared at the wedding album while Claire wept herself into a silent shudder. Together in a dark place, where the past became the present and the future threatened to repeat the past, Mia plummeted into the shadowy recesses of confusion. She was sick of being unsure, undecided, and unsettled, but she couldn’t stop being the little girl whose daddy didn’t come home, or the heartbroken woman who had thrown herself at God’s feet, begged for a new purpose, and experienced the elation of seeing that prayer answered with an open door.

  Who was Mia to slam the door on Mission Medical? After reading Frank’s letter, she couldn’t do it. She needed to go home. Now. To pray. To think and decide.

  Claire, still shaky but no longer sobbing, blew her nose on a tissue. With the cookbook forgotten, Mia stood and offered her hand. “Let’s go downstairs.”

  When they returned to the kitchen, Lucy was at the counter peeling apples. As if nothing had happened, Claire went to the sink and washed her hands.

  “That took forever,” Lucy remarked as she put a fresh apple on the corer. “Did you find the recipe?”

  “No.” Mia slipped out of her Team Turkey apron and draped it neatly over a chair. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

  “Oh no.” Lucy frowned. “Is it work? An emergency?”

  “No. Well, yes.” To Mia, the pressure to decide felt like an emergency.

  “Are you coming back?”

  “Not tonight. Sorry,” she said again. She lifted her purse from a chair and moved toward the door.

  Lucy approached from behind and spoke quietly over Mia’s shoulder. “Did something happen with Claire?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the emergency?”

  Mia was a lousy liar, so she offered a bit of truth. “I heard from Mission Medical.”

  “Really?” Lucy lit up. “But you’re staying here, right?”

  “I don’t know. I thought so, but now—” She shook her head for what felt like the millionth time. “I just don’t know.”

  Lucy gawked at her. “Mia, that’s crazy. You belong here. You know that.”

  “What I know”—she dragged out the word—“is that God answered my prayers when I was at my lowest after Brad, and He did it in such a personal way. How can I walk away from that?”

  “It’s easy!” Lucy flung her arms out to the side. “You follow your heart! God opened this door too. Mia, you can’t leave.”

  Claire, still at the sink, watched them without a word, her eyes as dull as tarnished spoons.

  Mia couldn’t bear to look at her. Why did a man leave his wife after twenty years of marriage? How had Claire come to trust her husband again? Looking at the older woman now, Mia couldn’t help but wonder if love and surprises, good and bad, were really worth the risk.

  The question ballooned in her mind until it crowded her faith into a corner. No way did she want to see Jake now. He’d take one look at her face, see right through her, and dig for answers in that gentle way that tugged her up mountains. Head down, she dashed out the front door, down the steps, and plowed smack into his flannel-covered chest.

  “Whoa, there.” Grinning, he steadied her. “What’s the rush?”

  “I—uh—I—” Mia never stammered, except when her heart and mind locked up. “I have to go home.”

  His fingers tightened around her arm, holding her upright and trapping her at the same time. “Something’s wrong.”

  A high-pitched laugh spilled from her throat. An inappropriate laugh like the one in Mia’s favorite Mary Tyler Moore episode, where Mary couldn’t hold back hysterical laughter at the funeral for Chuckles the Clown.

  Jake studied her face. “I’m missing something here.”

  “Yes, you are.” With nowhere to hide, she clung to her constant life preserver—her career. “I heard from Mission Medical today. I got the job.”

  His eyes lit up in her favorite way. “And?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  The brightness drained from his irises, changing the color from the green of dewy grass to the dullness of weathered bronze. A lifeless expression she hadn’t seen in months rolled across his face, and his arms slid to his sides. “I’m surprised. I thought—”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Her tongue twisted and sparked like a downed power line. “I thought I knew what I wanted, but now—now I just don’t know. I’m surprised I feel the way I do. But I have to be certain.”

  “Yes. You do.” He clipped each word. “But something’s not right here. You’re not being honest with me.”


  “How—What—” Good work, detective. “Yes, I am!”

  He lifted a brow—telling her he didn’t believe a word she said.

  Mia bolted for her car, climbed in, and slammed the door. Speeding away, she saw Jake in the rearview mirror, hands on his hips as he let her drive away. But only for the moment. Mia knew how Jake thought. The fight wasn’t over, but she hoped he’d give her at least a night to pull herself together.

  Chapter

  25

  The instant Mia’s car vanished from sight, Jake strode into the house. Maybe Lucy knew what in the world had happened, because Jake sure didn’t. Mia hadn’t told him outright that she loved him, but she had sure acted like it.

  He made a beeline to the kitchen, his temper flaring. He took in the piecrust and peeled apples, Lucy at the counter in a turkey apron, and his mom in a matching apron seated at the table, a ball of pie dough and a cookie sheet in front of her. A third apron was neatly folded over the back of a chair.

  Lucy dropped her spoon in a saucepan of melted butter and rounded on him, her hands fisted on her hips and her tummy poking out. “Did you and my sister have a fight?”

  “No!”

  “Then why did she just leave like a crazy person?”

  “I don’t know. We saw each other last night. Everything was fine.” More than fine, considering they’d kissed for an hour on her couch.

  “I don’t understand it. I thought she loved it here—with us.” Lucy glanced at the apron on the chair and frowned. “It’s not like Mia to be so wishy-washy.”

  Or so scared. Going into cop mode, he sized up the evidence. There were two witnesses—Lucy and his mom. He glanced at Claire making cookies with the dough. Make that one witness.

  Sighing, he turned to Lucy. “Tell me everything.”

  She pointed to the peeled apples starting to brown. “We were looking for Claire’s apple pie recipe. When I said ‘cookbook,’ Claire went upstairs to look for it. Mia followed her.”

  “And then?”

  “I don’t know. They were gone about fifteen minutes. When they came down, Mia told me there was an emergency and she had to leave.”

  “What kind of emergency?”

  “She didn’t say, but it wasn’t for work. When I asked again, she blurted that she got the job with Mission Medical.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “Rattled. Upset.” Lucy paused. “You know that fake smile she puts on when she’s scared?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “That’s how she looked.”

  So the event that upset Mia had occurred upstairs. Claire, memory-impaired or not, was the only witness. Jake pulled up a chair and sat next to her. “Hey, Mom.”

  Claire looked up from the ball of dough in her hand. “Randy!”

  He didn’t bother to correct her. “I hear you’re making an apple pie.”

  “Yes, we are.” She seemed surprised he knew.

  “Did you find the cookbook?”

  “Oh—” She looked up from the dough. “Mama’s cookbook! I know where it is.”

  She pushed up from the chair and headed for the door, mumbling “cookbook” over and over so she wouldn’t forget. Jake followed her upstairs, staying a few steps behind to avoid distracting her. When they reached the master bedroom, she went to the couch and sat.

  Jake dropped down next to her, taking in the mess on the table. “Do you see the cookbook?”

  She scanned the clutter, then picked up a magazine, opened it, and showed him a picture of a bulldog wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat.

  Stifling a groan, Jake refocused on the table and tried to think like Mia. What would she see and pick up? The photo albums, probably. And his parents’ wedding album, definitely. He slid it out from under the stack, opened to the first page, and saw his mother’s radiant smile. Joy shone in her eyes, a sharp contrast to the vacant stare of Alzheimer’s disease.

  Had Mia opened the album, witnessed Claire’s decline, and been worried Jake would go down the same road? Was she running from the disease? Jake doubted it. Mia ran to hurting people, not away from them.

  Or did the wedding pictures evoke the memory of her broken engagements and stir up old fears? That possibility seemed more likely, but not by much. Surely she knew she could trust him.

  He flipped through the next few pages, pausing only to take in a shot of the wedding party that included his Uncle Randy. No wonder his mom mixed them up. Randy, roughly Jake’s age in the photograph, could have been his twin.

  He hurried through the photographs until he reached the back cover. There he saw a letter and an empty envelope. He picked up the pages, saw his father’s printing and the date, and knew he was holding the smoking gun behind Mia’s departure.

  His mother clutched his wrist. “Frank. Oh, Frank. No. No.”

  Desperate to protect his mom, he slipped a magazine into her lap. “Let’s look for a dog.”

  She glanced down at the old copy of Dog World, then back at Jake, then to the album again.

  “Let’s find a dog like Pirate. Or how about a white one like Peggy McFuzz?”

  She ignored him. “The letter—”

  “I know, Mom.” He would have given anything to erase the memory of that awful time, but all he could do was distract her. He turned the dog magazine to a new page and pointed. “Look. It’s a collie. They’re your favorite.”

  A faint smile lifted her lips, and she turned the next page on her own.

  Relieved, Jake skimmed the letter and returned it to the envelope. He’d been twelve when his dad moved out, and that summer had been pure misery. At first he’d been furious with his father, disappointed, resentful, and protective of his mother. But then his father had come home, and slowly the Tanner family had healed.

  For Jake, the past was just that—the past. He now admired his dad tremendously—not in spite of his failings, but because Frank owned his mistakes. Willing to sacrifice everything to save his family, he had won back his wife’s trust.

  Surely Mia could see the healing; or maybe she had reacted like a kicked dog. Either way, he needed to talk to her now—and in person.

  He slipped the dog magazine out of Claire’s hand. “Come on, Mom. Let’s go downstairs.”

  He helped her to her feet, guided her back to the kitchen, and told Lucy he was going to Mia’s house. Lucy gave him a big thumbs-up and an even bigger hug.

  Jake needed to tell his father he was leaving, so he headed for the barn. As he walked into the business office, Frank hung up the phone. “Jake. Good. Do you have a minute?”

  “Not really.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Mia.” He didn’t want to go into the details. “It’s a long story. But I can take a few minutes. What’s up?”

  “Westridge just called. A two-bedroom apartment opened up starting December first.”

  “That’s great news.” They would all breathe easier with professional 24-7 care for his mother.

  Frank leaned back in the old office chair until it squeaked. “I figure we’ll start to pack but stay here through Christmas. That’ll be less confusing for your mom.”

  “It’s a good plan.” And a painful one. Once Claire and Frank moved to Westridge, she would never come back to the house again. Counselors advised against it, because a visit would only confuse and upset her.

  Right now, Mia was confused and upset too. The one person who might have helped her understand was Claire, but Claire’s reasoning ability was long gone. On the other hand, maybe Frank had insights for Jake. “Dad, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  He told his father about Mia reading the letter and how confused she was about her future. “When she came here, she’d given up on dating and was a hundred percent committed to Mission Medical. But things changed for her—for us.”

  Frank glanced at a framed photograph on his desk. It was of Claire, a formal portrait taken on her fiftieth birthday, before she started forgetting words and putting her keys
in the cookie jar. Frank nudged the frame a quarter-inch to the left, then turned to Jake. “We’re happy about you and Mia. I mean, I know your mom would be happy too.”

  The we was an old habit, the kind of habit Jake wanted to form with Mia. “I wish I could tell you she’s staying in Echo Falls, but she’s having second thoughts.”

  “Because of the letter?”

  “I think so.”

  Frank slipped a wooden toothpick out of his pocket and started to chew. “That’s the problem when a man makes a stupid mistake. God forgives and we heal, but the consequences don’t disappear.”

  “I think she put you on a pedestal because of how you cope with Mom and the Alzheimer’s. You just got knocked off it.”

  “Well, good. I don’t belong up there, and neither do you. No man does.”

  “So what do I do?” Jake asked. “How do I convince her to trust in what we have?”

  “You don’t.”

  Jake loved his dad, but the cryptic answer made him grit his teeth. “But you did something, because here we are.”

  “By the grace of God, yes.” Frank tossed the toothpick in the trash. “But it wasn’t my doing. All I could do was pray.”

  “I remember that time, Dad. You did a lot more than pray. You and Mom went to counseling, and you stayed in church, even though you didn’t like it sometimes.”

  “You picked up on that, huh?” Frank gave a dry chuckle. “Sorry, but the pastor at that time didn’t help me at all. That’s not saying he wasn’t spot on for others, but I needed to hear more about Jesus and less about those potluck dinners your mother used to love. I thank God every day for preachers on the radio.”

  “You still listen to them.”

  “All the time. I’m a blessed man, Jake. And the biggest blessing of all is my family.”

  Amen to that. “I’m glad you and Mom worked things out.”

  “Me too, but don’t give me the credit. I’m the one who walked out. The decision to reconcile belonged solely to your mother. In the middle of it all, when I thought we didn’t have a chance, I promised to respect her choice, whatever it was. No pressure. That kind of love puts the other person first.”