by Rebeca Seitz
With that plea filling his heart, he turned and asked Jason Walker to say the closing prayer.
Twenty-three
Jamison fought to control his anger while Meg talked to the other churchgoers. They hadn’t seen her in months, so everyone wanted to stop and chat. All Jamison wanted to do was punch something. Instead, he sat in the pew and fumed. Soon he’d have to go get the kids. If he didn’t, though, the workers would just bring them to him. Members of the Sinclair clan always got stopped by congregants after service, so the workers had learned to bring the kids out rather than waiting forever.
Someone in the family had to have seen him talking to Karen and told Jack. No way would Jack preach a sermon like that just by coincidence. Had he just been called a Nicolaitan?
Someone thought they had something on him, thought they had witnessed him doing something wrong and, instead of coming to him to talk about it, had gone to Jack. He couldn’t decide if he was more angry at the someone or at Jack, who could have called him for a private conversation on the phone rather than preaching a sermon on the matter.
And who did Jack think he was, telling husbands they shouldn’t have friendships with women outside of their wives? This wasn’t 1950. Granted, the values and morals they believed in were timeless, but the way they expressed them changed with the times, right? Right. Which meant what was taboo in 1950 was perfectly acceptable now. Shoot, back then a man couldn’t be seen with a woman unless he’d declared formal intentions to court her and asked her parents.
These days women had two and three dates in one night! The times had changed, and Jack hadn’t changed with them. Harmless flirting happened all the time. Meant nothing. Just a style of conversation in today’s world.
Of course, that didn’t explain the overwhelming sense of guilt building in Jamison, but he pushed that down and focused on the anger. Twice Jack had looked directly at him during the course of his sermon. And if Zelda had craned her neck any further, she’d have given herself a neck sprain. The entire congregation saw it and, with the way people in this town loved to talk, he knew some of them had put what they thought was two and two together and come up with five. He hadn’t had an affair or done anything other than have conversation with Karen.
Conversation you should have had with Meg.
He shoved the thought away again. Conversation was nothing. Words. Just words. A respite for a man whose wife needed time and space to heal. Jack didn’t understand. He’d have a nice, long conversation with Jack—when he didn’t fantasize about throttling him—and all would be understood. Karen had done him—done them all—a favor.
He saw the kids as they came through the back sanctuary door and pasted on a smile.
“Daddy, look what I made!” Savannah held up a picture.
Jamison peered at it, trying in vain to determine what his daughter had drawn.
“Isn’t it the most beautiful giraffe you’ve ever seen?” The teacher winked at him and Jamison smiled.
“It is, indeed. Good job, sweet girl.”
“I made one, too.” Hannah pushed a piece of construction paper into his hand.
Jamison held it up, needing no help once he saw the cotton balls glued to the page. “What a gorgeous sheep, Hannah!”
James rolled his eyes but said nothing.
“How was your church, James?” Though too old for the nursery, the church had set up an alternative worship service geared specifically to eight- to twelve-year-olds.
“Good,” James mumbled.
Jamison didn’t have the patience to draw the boy out right now. When he calmed down, he’d go back and have a conversation with his son.
“Glad to hear it.” He turned to the nursery worker. “Thanks for bringing them up, Nancy.”
“Don’t you worry about it.” Nancy walked down the aisle toward the front doors of the church.
“Meg—” he touched her arm to interrupt her conversation with Miss Rose—“you about ready?”
“Stars alive—” Miss Rose placed a tiny, gloved hand on her chest—“here I am rattling on about the weather and you’ve got your three young ones to get home and fed and off to bed for a nap, I’m sure. Don’t let me keep you, hon.” She adjusted the small hat on her bed of white curls.
Meg hugged the short, older woman. “Nonsense. Thanks for stopping to talk. I’ve missed seeing you.”
Miss Rose went the way Nancy had gone.
“Thanks for the rescue.” Meg’s mood had shifted again, he realized, watching her gather up her Bible and purse. Was she the reason behind Jack’s sermon?
“Don’t mention it. Ready to go or do you want to tell one more person that you’re fine, recovering well, and thankful for their prayers?”
“Jamison Fawcett! I am grateful for their prayers and I don’t mind talking to them. I haven’t seen any of them in ages.”
“Yeah, well, I’m tired and hungry and ready to get home.”
“Add grumpy to the list.”
“That, too.”
“Everything okay?”
“Fine.” He had no way to tell her that her dad’s sermon had left him filled with fury. If he did, she’d want to know why and he didn’t want to have an argument with her over nothing. Over stupid breakfast in a stupid diner. Or else she already knew and had chosen to go running to her daddy rather than to him.
She looked at him for a second, then let the matter go.
He picked up Hannah and prepared to race through the downpour still falling outside. Why didn’t they just stay home? Smart people stayed home, safe and dry under their rooftops when it rained outside. But, no, they had to not only get dressed but get the kids dressed and drag everybody outside in this mess.
And for what? To be humiliated in front of the entire congregation. At least Meg didn’t seem mad anymore, which he hoped meant she hadn’t put the dots together. Despite her finding a receipt from Wimpy’s, she may not even know there were dots to put together.
Because there weren’t. There were dots if people with their minds in the gutters wanted to think there were dots, but there weren’t. And if Jack had just called him instead of preaching that sermon, he would have known that.
They got the kids buckled into their seats as fast as possible, but still dripped with rain by the time they situated themselves in the front seats.
“Don’t we look a sight?” Meg laughed. “A family of drowned rats.”
“I told you we should have stayed home.” Too much anger there. Tone it down.
Again, she looked at him for a moment, but let the matter go.
Maybe the post-surgery Meg had a streak of patience the presurgery Meg had not. Because the old Meg might have let it go once, but she wouldn’t stand for his temper without an explanation a second time.
Unless she knew why he was mad. Unless she’d talked Jack into preaching that sermon.
He put the van in drive and left the church, happy to have it in his rearview mirror and certain he’d be happier when he couldn’t see it at all.
“You know, I think we should visit a new church soon.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” He warmed to the idea, surprised he hadn’t thought of it once in all these years. “We’ve gone to your dad’s church forever. Maybe it’s time we visited some other churches, made a home for ourselves somewhere other than under your dad’s authority.”
She turned on the radio and soundly ignored him.
Not the right time to discuss changing churches. Shut up, Jamison.
They rode the rest of the way home listening to the radio and keeping their mouths shut. Should he be grateful or suspicious that Meg let his strange behavior go without a comment?
He hadn’t decided by the time they’d pulled into the garage.
Better to let it go and pretend nothing happened. Make her bring it up if she wants to.
He unbuckled the kids on his side of the van and went into the house. A good book. He needed a good read, something grand and faraway like Dune. A
story that had nothing to do with his life or even the planet on which he lived.
Meg and books went hand in hand. He found time for them two or three times a year. But when he needed a book fix, he knew from experience it wouldn’t go away until he’d found a fantastic read.
And right now he’d had it with his life and trying to be the right man all the time. Even with Meg better, things were a muddled mess. Thinking it through seemed pointless. He’d tried to think it through, for goodness’ sake, and had gotten nowhere.
Putting it out of his mind sounded like the best option. And only one way existed to do that—an excellent read.
Maybe Koontz. While Koontz’s characters stayed on this planet, they dealt with circumstances not of this world’s making. And if he picked up the next book in the Odd Thomas group, he could even have a character with otherworldly powers of perception.
Warming to the idea, he hurried to his study where he knew a Koontz book awaited. He’d purchased it the last time they were up in Cool Springs shopping but hadn’t had time to read it since.
* * *
MEG WATCHED JAMISON all but sprint to his study and let him go without a word. Daddy’s sermon had touched a nerve, that was plainer than the nose on her face. But Jamison didn’t know how to deal with the emotions the sermon had churned up, and a conversation with an ill-tempered, unsure man was about as wise as wearing control top pantyhose a size too small on a ninety-degree day.
So she went into the kitchen to fix them all some lunch and sent the kids upstairs to play. Hannah didn’t want to go—she loved to play in the kitchen—but Savannah got her attention with a Barbie and off they went.
Meg got a bag of frozen chicken nuggets out and dumped them on three plates. The kids would one day tell their spouses that all their mother ever made them were chicken nuggets.
They’d be about seventy percent right.
She punched buttons on the microwave and pressed the big silver Start button. As the machine hummed to life, she got drinks ready for the kids and considered what she and Jamison might eat.
You know what? Let the man get his own lunch. He’s been getting his own meals for a while now without you knowing about it.
She finished fixing the kids’ lunches and put all their plates and drinks on a tray. They could eat in their rooms today if they wanted. Jamison wasn’t the only adult in the house who needed a little space and time.
She got the kids settled in front of a movie in James’s room, happily munching away, and went back downstairs.
They’d be content for at least an hour. By that time, maybe she’d have figured out what to do about their daddy.
Because she had to do something. Letting his behavior go not once, not twice, but three times in the past hour hadn’t been easy and wasn’t something she planned on continuing. Eventually they’d have to talk. And when they did, she needed to be ready with sorted out emotions and clear arguments.
She wandered into the living room and sank down into the recliner. As she rocked, she considered all she and Jamison had been through in their marriage. Until her surgery, there wasn’t much. A spat here or there, the sleepless nights of parenting a newborn, the adjustment each time they added a child to the house—that was it. No threats of divorce, no raging furies, no worry that one would leave the other.
Until now.
Now she’d seen her husband all but flirt with another woman. Admitting it to herself helped a little bit. Gave her a reason for the fear and anger fighting within her heart. The fear made sense—losing Jamison or even having to fight another woman for Jamison filled her once-certain future with uncertainty. The anger made more sense because Jamison’s flirting broke the trust they had. It broke them. Even if he’d only flirted—and she prayed to God he’d only flirted—he’d still crossed a line.
A line that, until now, it had never once occurred to her that either of them would think of crossing. When they’d stood before God and all the members of Grace Christian and vowed to love each other for better or worse until death parted them, they meant it. They’d just never had that promise tested until a tumor made her someone she hadn’t been the day of their wedding.
Did that make his actions understandable? Pardonable, even? Should she be grateful all he did was flirt—please, God, let him have only flirted—and let it go?
No. Not only because he still went there even now, when she had made it to the other side of recovery, but for another important reason. Because when they swore those vows, they also said in sickness and in health. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t had to experience real sickness before her brain tumor. It only mattered that when sickness struck her down, he went somewhere else.
So it had gotten hard—really hard—for him for awhile there. Did he think she’d been strolling through the park on a vacation? No, she’d been fighting for her very identity. Struggling to figure out where the woman went that she knew and had been happy to be. Anybody could stick to a marriage in the good times. The bad times gave each of them the opportunity to prove their love.
It spoke volumes that he chose the dark days to form a friendship with another woman. Had he done this in their sunny times, she might not even have thought twice about it. But he’d chosen another woman to make him smile, to laugh with, while she stayed at home fighting demons in her mind. What kind of husband did that make him? What did it say about their marriage? What did it say about his commitment not only to her, but to their family?
Had he thought of James, Savannah, and Hannah at all while he sipped coffee and shared stories with that woman? Or had he only been grateful to be free of them for a few stolen minutes?
She’d never questioned Jamison’s inner strength, always believing they shared an inner core that would come through if ever a day called for such. But that day came and Jamison wasn’t the strong husband she needed. No, he pretended strength at home and then drank from another woman’s well of happiness to ease the thirst his wife no longer quenched.
She ought to stomp in there and demand some answers, whether he was ready to give them or not! Just walk right up to him and tell him she knew all about his little waitress and what in the world had he been thinking? Seeing the surprised look on his face might help.
Then again it might not.
What was she really after here? Did it matter more that he feel pain or that they make it through this with their marriage intact? Three little ones playing upstairs depended on her to fight for the latter. They needed a mom and dad.
She sighed, resolved to wait until Jamison came to her. But when he did, he’d better be ready for the whole enchilada.
Because she was ready for a conversation.
Twenty-four
Throughout his morning routine on Monday, Jamison fought with himself. By the time he slipped out of the house and into his car, he wondered if he’d become one of those people with split personalities.
On the one hand, he wanted breakfast at Wimpy’s this morning. Meg hadn’t been to the grocery store in over a week, so they were out of a lot of stuff at the house and he hadn’t found anything for breakfast in the pantry other than cereal.
Who would choose cereal when they could drive for a few minutes and be served an entire breakfast platter? Which he could also get at Clay’s, of course. He really should go to Clay’s instead of Wimpy’s. But a part of him wanted—craved—that smile on Karen’s face. Hearing her voice and sharing laughs gave him a good start to his day.
Why did he even hesitate? Because of that stupid sermon of Jack’s. Because Jack wanted them all to act as if they lived in 1950. Because Jack was out of touch with the current social structure. Because Jack had to share his opinion with the entire church body so that now Jamison worried about church members seeing him at Wimpy’s.
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Talking to Karen … Well, okay, he could admit to a twinge of guilt over not even kissing Meg good-bye before he jetted out the door to see Karen. To get breakfast.
He
blew out a breath and turned on the radio. His thoughts were so mixed up he might as well ignore them and listen to the news. Morning Edition on NPR kept him occupied until he pulled the car into the Wimpy’s parking lot.
He greeted the old-timers on the porch with a smile and wave and hurried into the diner. His stool sat waiting for him. He ambled over to it, catching Karen’s eye on the way. She smiled a good morning, finished her conversation with the customer in front of her, and came over to him.
“Morning.” She poured coffee and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“Good morning.”
“Got big plans for the day?”
“Just playing around with numbers.”
Karen scrunched her nose up. “Not my kind of day.”
“And what is your kind of day?”
She tapped a finger on her chin and thought. “Oh, I don’t know. A beach, a hammock, a good book, and a glass of ice water would be a good start to it, though.”
“Good plan.”
“There’s a difference between plans and reality.”
“What’s that?”
“Plans are what you make to get through reality.”
He laughed, the tension in his chest easing a bit. See? Easy conversation. Nothing wrong here. “In that case, I’ll get to work on a plan.”
“Your reality not as easy as you thought?” She quirked an eyebrow. “Is your wife okay?”
The tension coiled once again at the word wife on Karen’s lips. “She’s doing very well, thanks for asking.”
“Glad to hear it.” An old-timer down the counter raised a finger and Karen nodded. “Be right back.”
While he waited for her return, Jamison sipped his coffee. If Meg was doing better, then what was he doing here? If he could answer that question, then life—and he himself— would make sense again.
But he had no answer. Or did he and he wasn’t willing to admit it?
He’d begun debating with himself again when Karen reappeared, this time holding a platter of breakfast food.
“You looked hungry this morning.”