“I can’t believe you’re having an affair.”
“It’s not an affair.” He ground the words between his teeth. “We go to CrossFit together.”
“And have coffee dates.”
“They weren’t dates. She needed someone to help her with her finances.”
“And you were all too eager to help.”
“Yeah, well. It’s nice to be needed every now and then.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t need me, Camille! You have everything under control. The whole world under control. You certainly don’t need my help. Let’s be honest here. The only reason you’re upset is because you won’t be able to send out your perfect little family Christmas photo this year.”
His words smacked her across the face. So sharp, so unexpected, so cruel, she stood there in frozen, breathless shock. She hated him. She hated him with total and complete hatred, just like she hated Jasmine Patri.
In that moment, she hated them so much she felt capable of murder.
Neil shook his head, dragged his hands down his face. He looked disgusted. With her. With them. With all of it.
Well, yeah! she wanted to scream. She was disgusted too. And why didn’t he just file the papers already? If he wasn’t coming back, then what was he waiting for? But she couldn’t say that. She was terrified of saying that.
“Tell Taylor she did a great job, all right? I’ll see her next weekend.”
Forty-Two
December: Six Months Until the Color Run
It was a relief to sit. To be away from the lobby, away from the fake smiles. Had they always been that way? Or just now that hers felt so fake?
She set her coat and purse on the empty seat beside her. Neil used to take the aisle seat. He would stretch one long leg to the side of the chair in front of him. Then Austin, then Taylor, then Camille, because Paige still went to kid’s church, and Camille never minded sitting shoulder to shoulder with a friendly stranger. Now it was only her and her coat. Her kids were gone for another weekend with their father.
As people around her settled in, Camille pretended to look through her bulletin. It advertised the women’s Christmas event next weekend, as well as the Christmas Eve services, which would be at three, five, and midnight. The words and numbers trembled in front of her; her hand was shaking. Camille grabbed it with her other and ordered it to stop, right now. The way she would her squabbling children. But it wouldn’t stop. So she clasped her hands and shoved them between her knees.
The congregation stood to sing.
Then they sat to listen.
Camille had a hard time. Her pastor was preaching from Ephesians 6. He was pumping them up to put on their armor and prepare for battle. But Camille was too tired for battle. Camille didn’t have the energy to strap on belts and breastplates and helmets.
She kept thinking about Christmas. They usually celebrated the holiday at home. She and Neil had been adamant ever since Taylor was old enough to understand Santa Claus that their children would wake up in their own beds on Christmas morning. They would open presents and stay in their pajamas and decorate a birthday cake for Jesus. Neil’s mother would come over in the afternoon. They would eat an early dinner much too lavish for the six of them. Her mother-in-law would overstay her welcome, but when she finally did leave, they’d cuddle up downstairs to watch whatever Christmas movie best suited the ages of their children at the time. Last Christmas they watched It’s a Wonderful Life.
This year, Camille would be getting on a plane with her three children and flying to California. They didn’t go for Thanksgiving, so her parents insisted they come, which meant she would spend the holiday with her two younger sisters and their intact families. It was going to be the first time Camille saw any of them since Neil left.
She picked at a hangnail. She found out over Thanksgiving that he still took the kids to church. Not their church, mind you. He wasn’t brave enough for that. But a church. She wondered how he could go. How could he sit there on Sunday morning and not suffocate beneath the pressing weight of his own sin? Didn’t he feel any conviction at all? She didn’t understand, and her anger had lost its edge. It came in fits and starts. But she couldn’t sustain it. Inevitably, the red heat would ebb, leaving a gray, listless loneliness in its wake.
Despite everything, she wanted him back.
Not just because she was tired of being the object of pity. Not just because she loathed the weekends when he had the children and she was left to wander about in a house too big for one. But because she was starting to miss him. At night, alone in bed, she longed for him. Neil. At least, the Neil she’d fallen in love with.
As their pastor asked his congregation to turn to a psalm and Bible pages crinkled all around, Camille traveled back in time to when she and Neil were newlyweds living out the Song of Solomon, euphoric on love and the fact that they could consummate it whenever they wished. They could consummate it, and the angels would sing.
Her heart sure did.
A tangle of sheets. A lazy Saturday morning. A trail of kisses from her hipbone to her ribcage as overnight whiskers tickled her skin. Neil’s strong hands, which had calluses because he still went rowing, and then the interruption of a phone call. A loud, piercing ring that stole the moment away.
Neil saw his mother’s number on their caller ID and fell back into bed with a groan. “Why in the world is she calling us at eight o’clock in the morning on a Saturday?”
“Because you’re her only child and she needs you,” Camille said. His mother was a lonely widow. His father died when Neil was eighteen—a tragedy that left his mom overstepping all reasonable boundaries between a mother and her son. Back then, Camille found it heartbreaking. Back then, it had drummed up her sympathy. “You should answer it.”
He did.
Neil sat on the edge of the bed, talking his mother through whatever crisis had befallen her. Camille slid behind him and wrapped her arms and legs around his torso. Neil slept without a shirt, and his skin was deliciously warm in the morning. She pressed her ear against his bare back, listening to the deep sound of his voice between each steady heartbeat. Even though his mother drove him crazy, he never lost his patience with her. His tone remained gentle and respectful.
After he said goodbye, Camille ran her fingers through his messy hair. It was still thick and a rich, golden blond from their honeymoon in Hawaii.
“You know what I love about you?” he said, bringing his chin to his shoulder.
“Do tell.”
“You’re nothing like my mother.”
“Oh?”
“You’re strong. And independent. Incredibly decisive.”
“Some people call that bossy.”
“I call it…appealing.” He turned around and slowly leaned her back onto the bed, where they would enjoy the rest of their Saturday morning as husband and wife.
Camille swallowed the memory. It tasted like ash on her tongue. Somehow the things Neil loved about her became the things that drove him away. He didn’t find her decisiveness, her independence, so appealing anymore.
“Stand up,” the pastor said.
Camille blinked.
“If you’re too weary to fight this battle on your own, if you don’t even know the words to pray anymore. All you have to do is stand. We will gather around you. We will place our hands on you. And we will stand in the gap like we are called to do.”
Camille’s heart began to thud.
“Don’t be afraid. This isn’t a therapy session. You don’t have to talk or make any confessions. All you have to do is stand.”
Slowly, people did.
A few here and there scattered throughout the sanctuary.
“This is why we’re called the body. When one member suffers, we all suffer. Let your weary soul be lifted.”
Oh, her soul was w
eary.
And her heart was pounding.
Quicker and quicker.
Three rows ahead, a black man and a black woman stood. They were holding hands.
“Look around. You aren’t alone.”
The couple holding hands looked around.
Camille looked around too.
Several people were standing. Among them, an elderly black man toward the back. Another black couple across the aisle. They stuck out—the only black congregants in a sea of white.
And they were standing because they were weary.
Camille was sitting because she was afraid.
“If someone beside you is standing, I want you to go to them. Go, and pray strength and truth over them. Let’s lift up our brothers and sisters who are tired and weary, church. Let’s do what the saints were meant to do. Let’s lift them up.”
Forty-Three
January: Five Months Before the Color Run
Jen lay in bed with her shoes on, exhausted but glad to be home. Ever since Mom called her up and said in her singsong way, “I purchased your tickets!” Jen had been dreading the trip. It was hard enough living under the same roof as her parents for a week. Having to parent Jubilee under the same roof as her parents for a week had taken the whole thing to a new level. It was a relief to have it behind them—their first trip home, their first holiday season, and all its accompanying stress. She might have eaten her weight in Mom’s homemade lefse to help her through it.
“I feel gross.”
“You don’t look gross.” Nick tossed the last of his dirty clothes into the laundry basket and climbed into bed. “In fact, you look very, very un-gross.”
He kissed her neck.
“What if I turn into my father?”
“You aren’t going to turn into your father.”
“I’m on my way to getting as big as him.”
“You’re nowhere even close.”
“He wasn’t always so heavy.” Jen had seen the proof with her own eyes. Once upon a time—long, long ago—before type 2 diabetes, before Jen was even an apple in Mom’s eye, her father had been quite the athlete. “Don’t you think it’s maddening how my mother worries about his health all the time when she’s the one who keeps feeding him all the unhealthy food?”
“It is a little ironic.” Nick crooked his elbow and rested his head on his hand. “I think it’s more maddening that she lets Jubilee drink a carton of milk every day.”
“It was good to see Leah though.”
“Her kids are getting big.”
“I almost told Mom about Brandon before we left.” He’d finally contacted Jen via text message. His number hadn’t changed.
“It’s probably good that you resisted the urge.”
“Do you think we made a mistake? Should we have sent him some money?”
“Jen…”
“I know, it’s just…”
“He’s your brother.”
“He’s my brother.” Her invisible, nonexistent brother. Because her parents pretended he didn’t exist. They acted like talking about the problem was the same as having the problem. “Do you think he’ll ever get clean?”
“We’ll keep praying.” Nick turned over onto his back. They lay side by side, staring up at the same ceiling. He took her hand. “And you would still be beautiful.”
“What?”
“If you got as fat as your dad.”
Jen gave his stomach a playful thwack.
He let out a groan and rolled back over to his side.
“He’s never taken care of himself, you know. Sometimes I think I might have learned that from him.”
“So…?”
“So I was thinking about a New Year’s resolution.”
“You’re going to become one of those people, huh?”
“I was thinking of taking up running.”
Nick quirked his eyebrow.
“I could train for the 5K.”
“The one your BFF is organizing?”
Jen tried to thwack him again, but he blocked her. “Leah said she’d train with me. She said PJ and her and the kids could drive up for a visit the weekend of the race. Y’all could cheer us on.”
Nick pulled her close. “I would love to cheer you on.”
* * *
“I loved when my oldest could finally drive.”
Everyone turned to look at Deb.
She shrank back a little. “Of course, I don’t mean to imply you shouldn’t be upset. You have every right to be upset.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t even talk to me about it. He bought her a car for Christmas like it was no big deal, and then he took her to the DMV behind my back and got her a license.” Camille was still fuming over it. “If something happens to her, it will be on his head.”
“I’m sure nothing will happen to her,” Deb said comfortingly.
“She’s not old enough to drive.”
“According to the State of Missouri, she is.”
Camille shot Rose a sharp look. “Of course, Neil’s nothing but a hero right now. According to Taylor, he hangs the moon. I really could kill him. Ugh. And after I went out of my way to take his mother out for lunch.”
“You’re a saint.”
“I’m not a saint. I did it for Paige.” And Camille was glad she did. Since moving into the retirement home, her mother-in-law was going downhill at an alarming rate.
“Were you at least able to relax in the California sunshine?”
Camille sighed.
Her time in California had not been relaxing.
Taylor talked to her aunts but acted like Camille wasn’t there. Austin kept asking to FaceTime with Neil, and Paige cried at church because her one-year-old cousin’s vegetable pouch exploded all over her pretty red dress before pictures, which meant Daddy wouldn’t see how pretty she looked. Camille almost started crying too. It didn’t help that her mother kept going on and on about how thin they all looked, as if Neil left them destitute and starving. Her sisters couldn’t get over her hair, which had grown out some, but was still much shorter than they’d ever seen. And her dad and brothers-in-law kept patting her on the shoulder and saying things like “I’d like to knock some sense into him.” Camille wanted to leave Neil and all conversation about him in Missouri. She certainly didn’t breathe a word about the private investigator and all she’d learned about Jasmine Patri.
“Let’s just talk about registration.”
“Yes,” Kathleen said. “Please.”
“The New Year’s resolution ads were a fabulous idea.”
“Thank you, thank you.” Rose took a regal bow. “Every year you freak out that we’ll never be able to top the year before, and every year you freak out for nothing.”
“I think everyone is really excited to have our very own color run. Speaking of which, I ran the numbers. We will save so much money if we do the color ourselves.”
“Won’t that be a headache?”
“Not if we get enough volunteers. We’ve never had a problem drumming them up in the past.” Camille bent to reach inside the refrigerator and pulled out the hummus.
“Are you wearing a gun?” Rose asked.
“You can see it?”
“Am I not supposed to?”
Camille turned to Rebecca. “I must have it on wrong.”
Rebecca stepped over baby Harper. “Here, let me see.”
“Why are you wearing a gun right now?”
“I’m trying out Rebecca’s harness. She thinks I should wear it. I think I prefer the special purse I bought.”
“You won’t be able to get to the gun as quickly if it’s in your purse.”
Rose wrinkled her nose. “Do you think you’ll run into a situation where you’ll need to get to a gun?”
“Someone broke into her nei
ghbor’s house in the middle of the day, Rose.”
“That was over four months ago.”
“And they haven’t caught the burglar.”
“So she’s going to shoot a burglar? What happens if one of her kids surprises her and she thinks it’s a burglar?”
“You guys are making me nervous,” Deb said, her attention swiveling between Rebecca, who had removed the gun and was adjusting Camille’s harness, to little Harper, sleeping soundly in her car seat on the floor.
She was all bundled up in pink fleece and a matching bow, her fist curled by her plump cheek as she suckled in her dreams. Camille read once that men’s pupils dilated when they saw a naked woman and women’s pupils dilated when they saw a newborn baby. She had no problem believing the scientific tidbit. Babies did funny things to her chest. Even when they were crying, Camille’s heart still constricted with longing. She never thought, Thank goodness that’s not me anymore. She’d take a tiny wailing infant over a hostile teenager any day.
Rebecca must have noticed Camille’s adoring gaze. “You can hold her if you want. She needs to wake up soon anyway; otherwise she won’t sleep tonight.”
Camille didn’t have to be told twice. She had Harper out of her car seat and nestled against her neck quicker than it took Rebecca to adjust her harness. Harper smelled like talcum powder with a hint of sour. Spit-up. Camille inhaled deeply. She actually missed the smell of spit-up.
“Remember when ours were all cute and cuddly and didn’t hate our guts?” Camille said to Kathleen.
“I’m not sure I remember what that’s like.” Kathleen bit into another carrot. “Not with my oldest, anyway.”
“Things aren’t getting better with Cody?” Deb asked.
“You’d think it would, with the season over and done with, but the guys are still giving him a hard time.”
“At least they didn’t win state,” Deb said, and then her face turned red. No doubt she felt horrible for suggesting the state championship loss was a good thing. Rose’s daughter was a cheerleader, after all, and had taken the loss quite hard.
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