Song of the Brokenhearted

by Sheila Walsh

  But she just couldn’t cut it down.

  Nineteen

  AVA ARRIVED EARLY TO THURSDAY MORNING BIBLE STUDY. SHE walked through the garden, praying as she went, and then sat in the empty room well before the start time. Finally women arrived, greeting her and getting coffee and talking together. There was an air of uncertainty in some of the women—Ava knew those were the ones who’d heard about Dane’s company, or Sienna’s breakup, or Jason failing his drug test. They might wonder what she was doing leading a Bible study at all. Ava realized that everyone in her family was coping with a very personal challenge while also living with the effects of everyone else’s. Except for her—she didn’t have a personal issue to deal with on her own like they did.

  She turned the pages of her Bible and for a moment let the rest of the conversations in the room disappear around her.

  As a child Ava had loved her daddy’s Bible. Sometimes she’d crawl onto his lap during a Bible study meeting or when he was studying it in the morning with the Word sitting on the table in front of them. She’d lean against Daddy’s chest to hear the rumble of his voice as he talked about Jesus walking along the Sea of Galilee or of Moses climbing that great Mount Sinai or of Ruth following her mother-in-law to a foreign land, saying that Naomi’s people would be her people and Naomi’s God would be her God.

  Ever so gently, she’d rub the thin pages between her fingers and listen to the sound of them turning. Daddy turned the pages quickly with a swooshing sound, but he never once tore that thin paper.

  Ava would lean very close to the slim edge of gold that, when put together with all the pages as the Bible closed, made one solid gold layer. She’d touch the words in red and imagine Jesus’ voice speaking them. At first Jesus sounded like Daddy. Later He took on His own voice, a more humble and rich tone that didn’t get frustrated or pound the pulpit in anger or burst with emotions both up and down.

  “Who would like to open in prayer today?” Kayanne asked from across the table. Ava usually opened this way, and she realized that the women sat silently, waiting for her to begin.

  “We are praying for you and your family, Ava,” Jillian Latoya said with a sincerity that Ava appreciated. A few of the women wore confused expressions, others showed empathy, and one had the pruned up look of impertinence.

  “Thank you. And for those of you who don’t know, my family is experiencing a few challenges. Our daughter, Sienna, has decided to break off her engagement. Our son has made a few mistakes—high school, you know. And my husband’s company is . . . well, it’s not in the best place at the moment.”

  A few surprised gasps were heard and mumbles of, "That’s so hard." "Oh no. Poor Ava." "Oh we understand."

  Ava gazed at the faces of women she’d come to love through all their issues, flaws, and struggles. The weekly gathering had bonded them, not always in friendships that extended outside the doors, but in a deep, soulful way. For wouldn’t they be sisters forever?

  “Sometimes I try to be your fearless leader, and I forget that you don’t need me to be perfect or without struggles. We just need to be real with one another. I really do need your prayers and support.” Ava gazed around the room at the faces.

  “I see God working in our family through it all. This morning John 16:33 popped into my mind. ‘I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.’ Jesus was talking to His disciples, but don’t we all know that there are many troubles in this life.

  “Before this week, I didn’t think I could get tired of my husband being around,” Ava said with a laugh. “Let me just say, he’s driving me a little nutty.”

  Corrine cleared her throat from the other end of the long table as she always did before speaking in a group. “You shouldn’t criticize your husband just because he lost his job. It’s not about the money. You have to love him for richer or for poorer.”

  All eyes jumped back toward Ava with surprised expressions. Kayanne leaned forward ready to defend Ava when she interjected.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Ava said with her annoyance unchecked. “For twenty-six years, Dane has been at work during the day, and since Jason started kindergarten, I’ve had the house to myself during the day. Suddenly we’re tripping all over each other.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Leslie Hammond said, plopping her purse on the table and digging out her cell phone. “Look at how many texts I’ve been getting from my husband and kids since I got here. Ten messages in, what, five minutes? Jimmy has been out of work for seven months now, and I don’t know how much longer I can take of it. He actually told me that maybe I should get a job. What in the world would I do? I got a liberal arts degree and haven’t worked . . . well, ever.”

  “Oh, Les, that’s awful,” Jillian said with a look of horror. Ava saw Kayanne purse her lips to keep back a laugh. Leslie and Jillian had been raised wealthy and expected to die the same way.

  “Some of us in the room would be grateful for a husband,” Corrine added with a sympathetic glance toward Kayanne.

  “It’s not all fun and games over on the marriage side,” Shawna Normandy stated as she tapped her nails against the wooden table. “I’m ready to strangle my husband, and if he ends up strangled to death, none of you can tell the police that I just said that.”

  Ava chuckled, but with an edge of tension. Shawna was an avid hunter with enough firearms in her house to take out half the forest. Surely she was kidding about her husband.

  “Men are much worse out in the big, bad world though,” Kayanne said with a sigh.

  “You think so? Do you have to clean up the progressive messes of a man who leaves smelly toenails all over the bathroom floor and eats cheese with his ice cream?”

  “You’ve got me there,” Kayanne said with a laugh. “Though cheese ice cream is actually a flavor in some countries.”

  “But not here, and this isn’t cheese-flavored ice cream, it’s cheese in his ice cream.” Shawna shook her head in disgust.

  “Let’s rein ourselves back in. I want to say that I appreciate this group. I don’t say that enough,” Ava said. She held up the Bible study guide. “Chapter twelve this week.”

  An hour later, the women dispersed and left the room with Kayanne remaining.

  “What were you scribbling away about during Bible study? Your shopping list?”

  “I was making notes about the study,” Ava said with a smile, then held up her notebook as proof. She turned the page and revealed a list of to-dos. “But, okay, I also have this.”

  Ava usually tapped everything into her little techie devices, but during Bible study she only used pen and paper.

  “Why exactly do you continue to lead this Bible study? It’s not like you get anything out of it.”

  “I get a lot out of it, and I hope others do as well. Wasn’t that obvious by my rambling confession today? Why do you keep coming?” They walked from the room and down the hallway toward the entrance of the church.

  “Because I certainly need it. I’m a divorcee, I’m neurotic, I spend a disgusting amount of time plotting the ill-will of two other human beings, one of whom I promised to love and cherish until death we did part . . .”

  “You’re still plotting their ill-will?” Ava hoped Kayanne would somehow forgive her ex-husband for his affair, but Ava had no advice on that front. It had only been three years after twenty-seven years of marriage. Ava wasn’t sure how she’d forgive Dane if it happened to her, let alone the fact that Ava’s ex-husband and his mistress had married and moved to an island in the Caribbean while Kayanne was left with their small business that eventually went belly-up.

  Kayanne glanced around, and leaned closer to Ava. “. . . and I’m so tired of being single that I may run away with that older usher I always thought looked like a magician with his slicked-back, overly dyed hair and Liberace suits.”

  “He doesn’t wear Liberace suits—they aren’t th
at bad. But isn’t he in his late seventies?” Ava said in an exaggerated whisper.

  “My point exactly. See my desperation. Know my need for God.”

  Ava wrapped her arm around Kayanne’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, and I haven’t been a very good friend. Let’s pray about it.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Ava bit the edge of her lip to keep from laughing.

  “Really, let’s pray about it right now.”

  “See, this is why you don’t need Bible study,” Kayanne said with a sigh.

  “Believe me. I need it.”

  Someone cleared her throat, and Ava and Kayanne noticed Corrine waiting by the double doors that led to the parking lot.

  “Do you have a minute, Ava?”

  “Of course,” she said, meeting Kayanne’s eyes.

  “I’ll call you later,” Kayanne said, waving good-bye.

  Corrine waited with her arms crossed over her Bible and study guide.

  “Did you want to discuss the e-mail that you sent me a few weeks ago?” Ava continued walking toward the parking lot with Corrine coming beside her.

  “Not at this moment. I just want to first ask, have you and Dane been praying?”

  Ava frowned at the woman’s brazenness. “Yes.”

  Corrine stopped, forcing Ava to remain in the cold morning shadows outside the church. She shivered, thinking of her jacket in the car.

  “I just feel in my heart that something is wrong, that there is some unspoken sin that needs repentance.”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “I think the Spirit is leading me. God does reveal these things though others. Sins always come to light.”

  Ava had always been a woman who wanted the truth, no matter how painful. If Dane was doing something behind her back, she wanted to know.

  “How long have you been feeling this way?”

  “For a while,” Corrine said. “Maybe since last summer.”

  Ava tried to remember what significance last summer might have.

  “What specifically are you talking about?”

  “I have no idea,” Corrine said with alarm. “But I’m talking about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think I have some dark secret sin?” She racked her brain to be sure she hadn’t deceived herself.

  “I didn’t say that I think you do. But I’ve been trying to tell you, all these things you mentioned in Bible study and what I’ve been hearing, they’re happening for a reason. And I fear that reason is you.”

  By the end of the week, Ava’s cupboards begged her to fill them, with Jason seconding that request. “I can deal with stupid rumors about Dad’s work and about me and my supposed drug issues,” he told her, “but I can’t survive without food.”

  She ventured out to a grocery store across town to avoid seeing anyone she knew. In the checkout line Ava stared at the numbers growing on the cash register. She counted the cash in her wallet, looking at the row of useless credit cards tucked neatly in their compartments. When was the last time she’d worried about those numbers? Their first year of marriage, but more from habit than necessity. Before that, there were the lean college years, and her childhood that was more famine than feast.

  But for over twenty-five years, Ava hadn’t feared the checkout line. Sometimes she remembered the anxiety, the counting and recounting of what was in the basket before moving to the checkout, the horror of being short several dollars and having to put things back.

  The cashier moved each item over the scanner with Ava’s heart rate rising. She counted the cash in her wallet a fourth time and barely responded to the cheery small talk. Then the total, and Ava exhaled in relief. She had twenty dollars to spare.

  When Ava pulled up the cobblestone driveway to their two-story house that suddenly appeared taller to her, as if it were too much for them to keep, Dane was outside the garage waxing Old Dutch—the 1966 VW Vanagon.

  Old Dutch had joined the four-car garage after Dane’s father passed away.

  Every six months, Dane pulled the old bus out of the garage. He and the kids washed it and checked all the fluids. Then they piled in for a drive or sometimes drove it to church. It was a reminder to all of them that what they had was a gift, and that they’d worked hard to get it.

  “This was my dad’s first brand-new car,” Dane reminded the kids, though they’d heard it a hundred times. Their children had grown up with luxury cars. Dane bought Sienna a Volvo for her eighteenth birthday, believing he wasn’t spoiling her because he’d made her drive one of their cars for the two years prior. That was the life Dane had grown up in, and Ava just couldn’t explain the vast difference between hers and all of theirs. Could they ever grasp what it was like to ride a bus to school through high school, to buy clothes at secondhand stores, not because it was vintage, but because it was necessary, or to scrape off mold from a loaf of bread and eat it or eat nothing?

  The door to her section of the garage rose and she drove inside. Dane put a hand up as a lame wave, then continued waxing Old Dutch without helping with the load of bags she carried in her arms. She didn’t think he even noticed.

  She called him in to lunch. Instead of eating, Dane fussed over his food with a scowl on this face.

  “What’s wrong?” Ava buried her annoyance. Dane had never needed her sympathy or coddling. His moodiness was getting old. She realized the irony that she listened to people share their concerns and stresses all the time. She’d listened to women talking about their husbands going through a depression— the topic had grown in the past few years. Men who’d lost their jobs, who couldn’t find work, who had to work out of town. Why didn’t it irritate her to hear their stories, yet Dane’s moodiness was touching on her every nerve? And Kayanne wondered why she continued to do Bible study—she might need it more than anyone.

  Ava realized, too, that her life wasn’t tied to those women. She didn’t have to live with them or gauge their moods and have it affect her life. Advice and understanding were much easier to offer when it didn’t involve her and her family.

  Dane didn’t answer. He went to the French doors and stood gazing out at the pool.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m going to ignore the fact that you’re being rude right now.”

  He closed the sliding door. “How generous of you. You’re always generous, aren’t you? Generous to everyone else.”

  Ava glanced at the clock. This was the last thing she needed.

  “Why do we have all of this?”

  Ava set down her purse. “Why do we have all of what?”

  “This stuff. This house, the cars, the clothes, the toys.”

  “Because you earned it, and we enjoyed buying it. It’s less than you had growing up.”

  “It seems my work should amount to more than this. Not just stuff that people hardly use. Important things.”

  So this was what a midlife crisis looked like, Ava thought.

  Instead of buying a sports car, he wanted to get rid of everything and live like a hippie?

  “You’re unhappy. What do you want to do?”

  “I wanted to walk on the Antarctic, cycle across America, boat down the Amazon, go ice caving . . .” His voice drifted off, as if imagining each one.

  “You should have, and still can. I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

  “Yes, you would have stopped me.”

  “When have I ever stopped you from doing anything?”

  “You always have some irrational fear or reason why it won’t work out.”

  Ava couldn’t believe he was blaming her. “I offer some realistic thoughts—that’s all. And you’ve been so consumed with work for the past fifteen years, your kids would’ve never seen you if you’d become Mr. Adventure. Then you’d be sitting here with all of these excursions and great photos to prove it, but two children who didn’t know you. Would that satisfy you?”

  “See, you always knock down my ideas unless they’re ab
out work.”

  “I don’t.” Ava felt floored by his biting words. She picked up Dane’s plate and caught the scent of pastrami from the mangled remains of his sandwich. She set it on the counter, regretting that she’d splurged on the expensive pastrami instead of plain lunch meat.

  “You said you’d never marry a guy who wasn’t stable.”

  “When did I say that?”

  “Outside Grady’s Pub during that really bad hail storm.”

  Ava vaguely remembered them standing under the eaves of their favorite Irish pub in San Francisco. Her memory was of a romantic hour huddled together sharing their hopes and dreams. She’d thought Dane felt that way as well.

  “I was crazy about you. So when the guys asked me to do that Alaska expedition, I didn’t go.”

  It was as if everything she’d thought was wrong. The image she had of their courtship, marriage, and two decades together wasn’t the same as his. She thought it was like a photograph they could all view and see the same image. But their lives weren’t a photograph.

  “You act like I’ve ruined your life, when my entire life has completely revolved around you, your work, your activities, your everything.”

  He shook his head. “What are you talking about? My life revolves around you and the kids. Everything I’ve done has been to give you the best of everything. I was the guy who could have lived in a tent in the wild country, exploring the world or taking wildlife videos. But I went the corporate route for my family.”

  Ava wanted to shout, “Liar!” She thought about how much pride Dane took in his work, in golf and community activities. Now, suddenly, he was acting as if all that was for her? Maybe his favorite channels were Discovery Channel and National Geographic, but she hadn’t guessed that he watched them with a sense of loss about his life.

  “I guess this has all been a huge mistake,” Ava said, seething. Dane walked out without saying more.

  Saturday morning, Ava rose early to cook for the funeral of a young boy who’d died of leukemia. The parents had no extended family, so the women of the Broken Hearts were providing the food, and donations were helping with expenses. Ava usually spent her own money on meals, but this time she used ministry funds to buy the ingredients.