Chapter Five

David

I followed Jan back to the house. Maybe I wanted to be certain she actually went home, but then I told her I’d be back later. She said she understood. I drove aimlessly with no particular destination in mind. I listed emotions I knew I should be feeling, but there was nothing. Just blank . . . confusion.

Jan said this had been going on since Maddie was small . . . Maddie was almost an adult now. That meant it had been almost our entire marriage. What would make her. . .? I could understand a certain level of curiosity, and yes, I could grasp stumbling upon images like that, but I could not wrap my head around doing it the second time. And the third. And all the times after that.

At that point, she knew what she was doing. Choosing. But why? Why would a book, or an image on a screen, why would that be more appealing than a real person? A real relationship?

She said not to assume I knew anything about her. She was alternately defiant and desperate. Searingly honest then completely closed. Professing her love while detailing her betrayal.

I felt like I was buried in the sand up to my neck as the waves crashed over me, one after another. I couldn’t breathe. And I had no idea what to do next.

I pulled into a parking lot and got the Bible from the glove box. Psalms. That’s what I needed. I needed to give a scriptural voice to everything going on inside me. I needed to order it, to make sense of it. That wasn’t what came out.

God, You saw her. Why didn’t You stop her? Kill the electricity, or the internet connection. You could have done something.

I ended up reading Psalm 55. “For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; then I could bear it. . . . But it was you . . . my companion . . . we took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God . . .”

My chest felt tight the whole time I was reading. The worst, the deepest wound came from the betrayal. Betrayal adds the shame of being duped to the pain of rejection. Then it stirs in anger and a desire for vengeance. I confess I felt all of those toward my wife. God help me.

 

Continue reading UNDONE Chapter Five

(I apologize for not getting a chapter posted last week. We took my son for a college visit and ran out of time before I ran out of items on the to-do list. UNDONE has been through the editing process and is now with the interior designer. That means the finish line is in sight, which brings up the question: What to write next…?)

 

Chapter Four

Jan

Friday, September 10

I woke up at six and quickly showered and dressed. Today was Friday, which meant Maddie had a football game. It would be very hard to avoid David and his mother and Neil. However, facing them would be easy compared to seeing Maddie. I could only imagine what David told her, what she must think. I wanted to reassure her that it wasn’t as bad as her father made it out to be. I’m not sure she would believe me over him.

In some ways, I am jealous of their relationship. He is gentle, soft with her. He reassures her, supports her, and encourages her, whether it’s in her schoolwork, or band or boys. The way David treats our daughter proves he can nurture and shelter. Deeper than that, it made me hunger for something I never had. A dad who loved me.

My father was no saint, that much was certain. By the time I was twelve or thirteen, I had figured out that he loved work, and beer, and golf and almost everything else more than he loved us. So I took his place. Not literally, but I made sure Scott had someone to play catch with. I made sure there were pictures of Lynette’s recitals. I checked their homework. I investigated their friends. When I was old enough to drive, I took them for ice cream.

And my mother, who never acknowledged that I filled in any gaps, seemed as bitter toward me as she was toward my father. Now my parents live on opposite coasts, four thousand miles apart. I haven’t seen my mother in fifteen years. I haven’t seen my father in twenty-seven. I think we all prefer it that way.

Scott and his family are in Oklahoma. Lynette and her husband are all the way in Pennsylvania. Alienating David and Maddie, and maybe even Grant would trim my circle down to one. I headed downstairs before thoughts of being all alone took over my imagination.

I stopped by the front desk. “I’m in 413. I think I’m going to need two or three more days.”

“Let me check,” the desk clerk said, then she frowned. “I can do tonight, but we are completely booked Saturday night. I can put you on standby for cancellations.”

“Thanks. Do that.”

I walked out to my car, lay my bag on the passenger seat and pulled out my phone. I had stuffed it in my bag after I hung up on David last night and left it there. I didn’t want to hear his pleas if he called back and I didn’t want to read any text messages from him. No one else would be calling me.

David had called almost two hours after we talked. No message though. Good. So I took a long, deep breath and called my son. He was a swimmer, and by this time of the morning he’d have already finished his laps and was probably dry. I knew better than to call him in the afternoons, but I could always catch him in the morning.

“What were your times?” I asked when he answered.

“Just over a minute for the fly and a minute five on the breast.”

“Not too shabby.”

“For high schoolers maybe, but this was just a light workout. I could shave off ten seconds if I had to. But I doubt that’s why you called.”

“Are you coming home this weekend?”

“Thinking about it. Why?”

I hated doing this over the telephone. “Your dad . . . He knows.”

There was a long silence, then he asked quietly, “What’d he say?”

“He said I had cost him his ministry.”

“A little melodramatic.”

“Maybe I have, I don’t know. I told him I wanted a divorce.”

“Also dramatic. Unless you mean it.”

“I might. We’ll see.”

“On second thought, I may have a lot to do this weekend.”

Call waiting. There’s no way I was checking it. No way. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want to come home. It’s up to you. You should know, I spent last night in a hotel.”

“Wow, that’s major. He probably thinks you’re bluffing.”

“He’s going to be surprised then.”

“How’s Maddie?”

“I haven’t talked to her.”

“She’ll be all right once she gets over the shock,” he said.

Not the most encouraging words. “Listen, I’ve got to get to work and pretend everything is fine. Have a good day.”

“Bet mine’s better than yours.”

Yes, Grant knew my secret. There was a day last summer, I don’t even remember when. Maybe it was during band camp. I know Maddie was gone and, of course, David was at the church. He and Grant had had words that morning because Grant had opted not to get a summer job and the tuition bill had come in the day before. Grant goes to Fischer College, a small, Christian college, one David handpicked, knowing exactly what the tuition would be. He stopped just short of calling Grant lazy and ungrateful.

What David never took the time to hear was how hard the first year away had been on Grant. He was homesick. The classes were difficult, the environment strict and his circle of so-called friends seemed bound to compete for the most pious. Or at least most hypocritically self-righteous. When Grant got home in May, he was depressed, burned out, questioning his faith and the faith of everyone around him. He needed time and space to heal, and seizing that opportunity last summer was the only thing that enabled him to go back to Fischer.

That morning, I had told Grant I was going to pay some bills. I never heard him on the stairs. I never realized he was in the room, until he cleared his throat. There were no believable lies to concoct, so I stuttered through an apology.

“I don’t care,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“I’m not sure everyone would agree with you.”

“Everyone won’t hear it from me.” He slipped out of the room without ever saying why he came upstairs, and we left it there.

When Grant hung up, it was tempting to drop my phone in my bag and ignore the missed call, especially since I suspected it was David, but curiosity got the best of me. The call was not from David after all. It was from Donna.

I knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t give up, so I swallowed two or three times so I could talk, and I called her back. “I would like to meet you for lunch,” she said. “Is that possible?”

I could easily say no, but that would be prolonging the inevitable. “I need to double-check my schedule. If you could, give me the freedom to cancel later.”

“Oh, of course. I’ll meet you at that deli, what is it? Strohm’s? Close to your office there.”

“About twelve fifteen should work.” I started to hang up, but she stopped me.

“Jan, Neil and I love you very much. That hasn’t changed. We won’t abandon you.”

And I burst into tears.

 

Read the rest of UNDONE Chapter 4

 

 

 

 

 

I’m glad to be back online! We made some very necessary security upgrades on my website, which unleashed a host of web gremlins. We vanquished the last of them (I hope!) this morning, but if they kept you from seeing Wednesday’s  post on an old hymn, Like a River Glorious or Thursday’s post on our mission as believers and reconnecting with it, I’d love for you to check them out. A personal note- On October 1, the church voted to call Jon as pastor. That makes me a pastor’s wife.

 

But now Chapter 3

 

I collapsed onto the bed in the hotel room. That should have signaled the emotional release. I was safe. I was removed from the immediacy of the situation. The tears should have come. But they didn’t.

I felt numb instead. Numb. Empty. Dead inside. Maybe I wanted to keep it that way. Maybe that’s why I flatly refused David’s suggestion that we find a counselor. Deadness was too familiar and the pain of feeling was far too great to risk awakening it.

Besides, there was only one counselor on earth I would even consider talking to, and he’d been dead for fifteen years. David’s father, Phil. Phil had a way about him, a gentleness that made you believe that those promises he preached about were true, especially the promises that God was good, and that He loved you.

Phil cherished his wife, Donna. I’ve seen him catch her eye across a crowded room and his smile would cause her to blush. He spoke her name softly with love in his eyes. I have never understood how God could separate them.

Once, in the early days of their marriage, Donna left him and went home to her mother. Phil drove through the night to be there when she woke up so they could work things out. My husband didn’t even ask where I was going.

I could imagine David at this very moment crying out to God about this injustice, this attack from Satan, this betrayal. He was probably poring over the Psalms, calling for God’s vengeance on his enemies, praying for a change in my heart, praying for my repentance, asking God to help me see the depths of my sin and pull me out of the darkness.

But I wasn’t an addict. I wasn’t scouring the internet right now. I didn’t need to sneak a glance at a picture to get me through the day. No. I was filling the empty spaces from a nonexistent relationship with my husband. Years ago, when he grasped the fact that I didn’t fit the traditional pastor’s wife profile, nor would I ever fit it, that was the end of us. Maybe someday I’ll write a book and call it When the Other Woman is the Bride of Christ.

We both poured the best of ourselves into our work, but he got to claim the high ground because he’s a minister. Then I was supposed to be so thankful for the emotional leftovers that I would be more than willing to meet all his desires. Yes, he was the desire-generator and I was the desire-meeter. That’s called a partnership.

When we met, when we first began to date, it wasn’t that way. In those days, when we talked, he hung on every word I spoke. He valued me, my input, my observations. That was one of the things I loved about him, that he fell in love with my mind first.

I loved the fact that I could be sure he would always be good to me and treat me with dignity and respect. I knew he would never abandon me. I knew he would never divorce me. Even now he won’t. Even though I said I wanted a divorce. David just doesn’t believe in it. In fact, I don’t think he’s forgiven his brother for divorcing his first wife fifteen years ago.

And if he hasn’t forgiven Michael, there’s not a snowball’s chance he’ll forgive me.

 

Read the rest of UNDONE Chapter 3

Quietly in the background, I have been putting the finishing touches on UNDONE, the third book in the Encounters Series. You got to see the opening scene at the end of EMBRACED. Here’s the full first chapter. (Be aware, it hasn’t been to thru the final edits yet, but I’ve waited as long as I could stand it to share.)

 

Chapter One

Jan

Thursday, September 9

I knew. As soon as I looked into Roger Huddleston’s eyes. Before I saw David’s laptop clutched under Roger’s arm. Before I saw the stunned, anchorless confusion on David’s face. Before the stammered, awkward words fell out. I knew. But it didn’t help.

I had no plan, no alibi, and there would be no reputation-saving heart attack or aneurysm to divert anyone’s attention in that moment. I can’t run. I can’t hide. The earth will not open up and swallow me, nor will lightning strike.

Instead, I had to stand powerless as a nightmare unfolded.

“Pastor . . . I . . . Nancy opened your office. We were looking for the budget for next year. The finance committee meets next week, you know, and . . . we weren’t snooping, mind you.” He set the laptop on our coffee table, and gingerly opened it.

The image was vivid, wrenching . . . and familiar.

A single bead of sweat trickled down David’s forehead. Roger paled. “The folder was called ‘finance,’ David. I . . . what was I supposed . . .?” He swallowed and locked his eyes on David’s in painful accusation. “There are dozens of them.”

“They aren’t mine.”

Of course, they weren’t.

“But—”

David slammed the laptop shut. “I’m telling you, they aren’t MINE!”

I flinched.

David never raised his voice. Never. Not with the children. Not at the dog or the referees on television or even the drivers downtown.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I didn’t download those pictures! I don’t do that kind of thing! I’m happily married! I’m a pastor, for crying out loud!” Then he turned to me. “Jan, tell him!”

Speak? He couldn’t understand what he was asking. This was the end.

“He’s right, Roger,” I managed to say.

I think that’s when David knew. I saw a flash, a shadow that passed in an instant, in the way the corners of his eyes drooped. ‘Don’t say it, Jan.’ He didn’t want it to be true, and we both realized as soon as the words were out that we’d never go back to the ‘before’ again. I owed it to him, though. Roger and everyone else had to understand that David was innocent. At least innocent of . . . this. “Those pictures aren’t his. He would never—”

“Jan, I understand this . . . is a shock . . . hard to hear, but the evidence is right there. He obviously—”

“The pictures aren’t his,” I said again. Firmly. Confidently. But I couldn’t bear to look at David. “I know that . . . I know because they’re mine.”

Read the rest of Chapter 1