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“Your dad and I have talked about that…”
“Oh, you mean about Pastor Harris?” Ro
“Ro
Ro
For the first time, her mom seemed genuinely taken aback. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “What exactly did your dad tell you?”
Ro
She stared at her mom, recognition dawning even as she spoke. “It wasn’t Dad who had the affair, was it?” she said slowly. “It was you.”
Her mother’s posture didn’t change, but she looked stricken. The realization hit Ro
Her mom had the affair, not her dad. And…
The room suddenly felt suffocating as the implications became clear. “That’s why he left, isn’t it? Because he found out. But you let me believe all along that it was all his fault, that he walked out for no good reason. You pretended it was him, when it was you all along. How could you do that?” Ro
Her mom seemed unable to speak, and Ro
“Was it with Brian?” she suddenly demanded. “Were you cheating on Dad with Brian?”
Her mom stayed silent, and again Ro
Her mom had let her believe it was her dad who had left for no reason at all. And I didn’t talk to him for three years because of it…
“You know what?” Ro
“Who’s not leaving?” Jonah interrupted. He’d just walked into the room, holding a glass of milk, and he turned from their mom to her. She could hear the panic in his voice.
“Are you staying here?” he asked.
It took a moment for Ro
He put his glass of milk on the dresser. “Then I’m staying, too,” he a
Her mom looked suddenly helpless, and though Ro
“I know you want to stay, but you can’t,” she said gently.
“Why not? You’re staying.”
“But I don’t have school.”
“So what? I can go to school here. Dad and I talked about it.”
Their mom moved toward them. “Jonah…”
Jonah suddenly backed away, and she could hear the panic rising in his voice as he realized he was outnumbered. “I don’t care about school! That’s not fair! I want to stay here!”
34 Steve
He wanted to surprise her. That had been his plan, anyway.
He’d played a concert in Albany; his next performance was scheduled in Richmond two days later. Normally, he never went home while on tour; it was easier to maintain a kind of rhythm as he traveled from city to city. But because he had a bit of extra time and hadn’t seen his family in two weeks, he caught a train and arrived in the city as the lunch crowd came streaming out of their office towers in search of something to eat.
It was pure coincidence that he saw her at all. Even now, the odds seemed so remote as to be impossible. It was a city of millions and he was near Pe
His first thought, when he saw her, was that the woman looked exactly like his wife. She was seated at a small table wedged against the wall, across from a gray-haired man who appeared to be a few years older than her. She was dressed in a black skirt and a red silk blouse and was ru
He wasn’t sure what to do, but thinking back, he couldn’t remember feeling much of anything. He knew they’d been distant with each other, he knew they’d been arguing too much, and he supposed that most men would have gone into the restaurant and confronted the two of them. Perhaps even made a scene. But he wasn’t like most men. So he shifted the small carry bag he’d packed the night before to his other hand, turned around, and headed back in the direction of Pe
He caught a train two hours later and arrived in Richmond late that evening. As always, he picked up the phone to call his wife, and she answered on the second ring. He could hear the television in the background as she said hello.
“You finally made it, huh?” she asked. “I was wondering when you were going to call.”
As he sat on the bed, he pictured the stranger’s hand on the small of her back. “I just got in,” he said.
“Anything exciting happen?”
He was in a budget hotel, and the comforter was fraying slightly at the edges. There was an air conditioner beneath the window, and it rattled, making the curtains move. He could see dust coating the top of the television set.
“No,” he said. “Nothing exciting at all.”
In the hospital room, he remembered those images with a clarity that surprised him. He supposed it was because he knew Kim would be arriving soon, along with Ro
Ro
Everything about this scared him.
He’d been praying regularly in the last couple of weeks. Or, at least, that’s how Pastor Harris had once described it. He didn’t clasp his hands or bow his head; he didn’t ask to be healed. He did, however, share with God the concerns he had regarding his children.
He supposed he wasn’t much different from most parents in his worries for them. They were still young, they both had long lives ahead of them, and he wondered what would become of them. Nothing fancy: He would ask God whether He thought they would be happy, or continue to live in New York, or whether they would ever get married and have children. The basics, nothing more, but it was then, at that moment, that he finally understood what Pastor Harris had meant when he said he walked and talked with God.
Unlike Pastor Harris, however, he’d yet to hear the answers in his heart or experience God’s presence in his life, and he knew he didn’t have much time.
He glanced at the clock. Kim’s plane was leaving in less than three hours. She would leave from the hospital to go straight to the airport with Jonah sitting beside her, and the realization was terrifying.