A Time to Mend (9 page)
L
ate Sunday night, Claire climbed onto the lumpy mattress, Max’s voice still playing in her head.
“I’ll leave you alone.”
It was the scariest thing she’d ever heard. Shivering, she pulled the covers tightly around her shoulders.
Maybe she should call him.
And say what?
I don’t really want to live without you. I need you. Don’t leave me. Come and make this work between us.
She shook her head. “No, Max, that’s not it. I don’t want to depend on you to save me any longer. God saved me. One time, anyway. I wonder if He would again? God, are You still listening?”
Her aunt Helen had talked about Jesus, about His love for the whole world, including His love for little Claire Marie Lambert. He had seemed real at Helen’s house on the West Coast. At her parents’ house on the East Coast, He did not exist.
Cancer took Helen at a young age. Claire was thirteen and had visited her only twice. Within weeks of graduating from high school, Claire headed to college in San Diego, far, far from home. She harbored great hopes that the spirit of Helen existed in the city where she had lived and died.
The first eighteen months were hazy, the details insignificant. She made new acquaintances. She went to class. She worked on campus, in an office.
Then she met Max.
She smiled now in the dark. “Remember, Max?” she whispered aloud as if he were there. “It was trite as all get-out, the way we fell in love at first sight. I can still feel the butterflies. I don’t think I ate for weeks. You took me to that romantic hacienda where you grew up, and I met your parents. That was when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I wanted to marry you.”
He didn’t get along well with Ben and Indio, but Claire immediately liked them. “Family” and “Aunt Helen” were written all over their countenances. They were good, solid people she’d met within a year of BJ’s disappearance. He had joined the Navy, become a pilot, and fought in Vietnam.
That was another bone of contention with Max. Although he buckled down in college—quite a feat considering he nearly failed high school—he still could not measure up. After all, his brother went off to war. His brother was a real hero.
After BJ was declared missing in action, there was no way on earth Max could ever be good enough. He competed with a ghost. Who could win at that?
Claire didn’t understand much of that until later. What spoke to her, though, was Indio’s unwavering trust in Christ. Even as she reeled from the news of BJ and endured months and then years of not knowing what happened to him, she proclaimed God’s love for her.
In spite of Aunt Helen’s and Indio’s openness about their faith, Claire hadn’t been interested until sometime after she and Max eloped. Their marriage and their business had both been on the verge of col-lapse. She had nowhere else to turn. Guilt and despair were eating her alive. She went to church and found relief in the music, in the friendly people—and in hearing that Jesus forgave her. By then she’d had major things that needed to be forgiven.
Eventually Max joined her at church. They even sought counseling with the pastor. He helped them see that love was a verb, that they needed to forgive each other, reorder their lives, and promise never to walk out.
Simple enough. They embraced Christian rules that weren’t difficult to keep. They seldom missed church; they raised the children in it. They were kind and hospitable. They were generous with their money and material possessions.
The butterflies flittered away at some point, but she adored Max. Their dream to create a business to help people find jobs was coming true. Soon their first baby was on his way, another dream realized.
Things fell into place. Max was the head of their household. Claire was the epitome of a properly submissive wife.
And that was where it all went haywire.
How she had longed to be a good wife! She heard the key was in
submission
. So she listened to all the tapes and read all the books she could find on the subject and took copious notes. Her newfound knowledge could be lumped together under one title: “If Hubby Ain’t Happy, It’s Your Fault, Woman.”
Wacky as that sounded, it suited her. She liked following orderly steps and keeping rules.
“You know what, Max? I see now that I got the title totally wrong. But you know I willingly embraced it. And I took full credit for every unhappy moment you ever had.”
The absurdity of those words sank in. She yelped a loud laugh and smashed a pillow over her face to muffle the noise. “Good grief !” she squealed. “I need a shrink.”
When the giggles finally subsided, she removed the pillow and sighed. “Or I need You, Lord. Are You still with me? Indio would say yes. Okay, so here’s the thing: Max was only happy when he was working. Ergo, I let him work all he wanted. I took over more and more with the house and the kids. I tried not to whine or pout. Whenever he chose office over family, I let him off the hook. ‘Fine. See you when you get here! No problemo!’ A wife can’t go around embedding hooks in her husband and then expect happy smiles from him, can she?”
She exhaled heavily. “There’s more to it than that. While I was busy keeping him happy, my identity went away. It got all mixed up with his. I lost my own voice, my own opinion. I couldn’t be real. I wore a mask, always pretending life was fine. I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Is it?”
She shut her eyes and willed her mind to stop spinning. He prob-ably wasn’t even there, let alone listening.
C
laire awoke with a heart thud. On the bedside table, Beethoven rang out. Grabbing the cell phone, she glanced at the clock. It was four twenty-two.
The phone display lit up, and she saw her home number. Max was calling.
Anger flooded through her, an instantaneous bursting of a dam.
She punched the On button. “What?”
“Claire, I’m sorry.”
“You said you wouldn’t—”
“Claire, your dad called.”
The hot flush of wrath intensified. Her dad. Typical. He hadn’t thought to call on her birthday yesterday, wouldn’t bother to remember to send a card or—
“It’s your mom.”
Her mom. Claire went still. There would be only one message about her mom.
“Honey, she’s gone. I’m sorry.”
F
rom her window seat in first class, Claire eyed the passenger beside her. Wrinkled and tanned, chunky jewels on fingers and wrists, effusing a thickly sweet fragrance, the woman displayed obscene wealth with a flourish.
She was on her third whiskey sour.
And they were only halfway to Chicago.
Claire unbuckled her seatbelt and whisked her handbag off the floor. “Excuse me.” She shuffled around the woman, hit the aisle with a purposeful stride, and lurched to the back of the plane.
She was on her way to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to bury her mother. Literally bury her this time. The other time, many years ago, had been a figurative burial, a coming to terms with Alzheimer’s.
“Ma’am.”
Claire focused and saw she was at the tail end of the plane, along-side a galley.
A young flight attendant smiled. “That lavatory is available.”
“Oh, I don’t need— May I just stand here for a bit?”
“Sure. Are you all right?”
Claire nodded. Bald-faced lie.
Her mother was dead. Again. Still. For good this time.
Jenna and Lexi had offered to accompany her. They’d never known their grandmother, though. How could they? Claire hadn’t known her.
At least the woman had the decency to die the day
after
Claire’s birthday. Maybe that was supposed to cancel the horror she’d managed to thrust into every birthday Claire could remember from childhood.
From childhood? What about the horror of the other night? What about on her thirtieth? What about countless others since she’d married Max?
He had stepped in where her mother left off.
Claire shuddered.
Max was coming, but not
with
her. He would arrive Wednesday. He would come on the company jet as soon as he could. Certainly in time for the visitation, he said.
Typical Max snafu. He wasn’t with her
here and now
.
But considering the unfinished business between them, did she even want him there?
Claire had driven home before dawn; Max greeted her with a hug. She didn’t ask questions about the snores emanating from the guest room. Max simply said, “Phil.” While she packed, he went about making all the arrangements for her: a limo to the airport, the flight, the hotel, a limo for in between. Neither mentioned the cur-rent situation.
Their marriage cruised into limbo.
“Ma’am, are you sure you’re okay?” The flight attendant leaned toward her and whispered. “You’re awfully flushed.”
“I’m okay.” She touched her face. It was hot and damp. Her breathing was labored. Her legs shook.
Another woman—not a flight attendant—appeared at her elbow. “Why don’t you sit down here?”
“What?”
“You’re welcome to sit here.” She gestured at the last row, at three vacant seats.
“Oh.”
The attendant touched her elbow. “I’ll get you some water.”
“Thank you.” Claire turned and slid into the farthest seat. There was no window next to it.
“Please.” The woman spoke again. “Take the aisle seat.”
“No. Thank you. This is—this is . . . fine.”
“That seat makes me claustrophobic.”
“It’s fine.”
The attendant handed her a cup of water. “Here you go, ma’am. Let me know if I can get you anything else.”
“Thanks.”
“Remember to buckle your seatbelt while seated, please.” She rushed off.
Claire’s chin quivered. Water in one hand, handbag in the other, she felt helpless. She couldn’t take any more. She really couldn’t. A tear slid from the corner of her eye.
“Let me help.” The woman lowered the tray for the seat between them, relieved her of the cup, and set it on the tray. “Now you can take care of the seatbelt. You know how they are about that.” She smiled.
Claire stared at her. Her eyes were soft, a light blue. She wore a white blouse with tabs at the shoulders. She was a pilot. Maybe she thought Claire was a security problem. She should explain.
“My mother died yesterday.”
“I’m sorry. Had she been ill?”
“My whole life. She was an alcoholic.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Claire hugged her purse tightly and turned away to cry in private.
The kicker was not her mother’s life or death. It was that, in a very real sense, Claire had married her mother. Not that Max drank. In spite of Phil’s snores and the half-empty bottle of scotch she’d spied in the kitchen, Max did not drink. No. Max worked.
And he would work no matter what. No matter that it had taken him out of her birthday celebration. No matter that it left her to travel alone back to the hell of her childhood. He would work until the day he died.
Why, God? Why, oh why did You do this to me? I kept all Your rules and then some. I bent over backwards to keep Max happy. He still chooses work and everyone else over me. Just like my mother. Just like my dad, who never had the time of day for me.
Are You there, God? What is it You want from me?
Claire unfastened the seatbelt. She slid off her shoes, pulled her knees up to her chest, and scrunched herself into a tight fetal ball, wishing with all her might that the plane would just fly her to the moon.
T
he mere mention of Fayetteville, North Carolina, raised Max’s hackles like nothing else could. Spending half a day in the city almost put him over the edge.
At least he hadn’t punched anybody.
Not yet, anyway. He still had another twelve hours to go.
The main target of his animosity sat across the kitchen table from him. His name was George Lambert. Without a doubt, even at the age of eighty, he was the meanest son of a gun Max had ever met. He also happened to be Claire’s dad.
“Max.” She turned to him now, moving within the confines of his arm draped over the back of her chair. “What do you think?”
“Whatever you think is best, hon.”
Max had no idea what they were talking about. He’d assigned him-self specific jobs: take care of travel details, carry the luggage, remain by Claire’s side throughout the ordeal, not punch his father-in-law, and agree to anything that would hurry along their departure.
The light touch of her hand on his knee brought him back into the present. He looked at her. “Hmm?”
“You’re sure the extra weight is okay? It’s ten or twelve boxes.”
George set down his coffee cup. “Some are heavy.” His
are
sounded like
er
. “Doodads, books, all kinds of junk. Lou never could throw a thing out.”
Evidently George couldn’t throw out a
thang
either. Except when it came to human beings, like a wife. He’d stuck Louise in a nursing home at the first sign of dementia fifteen years ago. And then boxed up all her stuff. Why would he bother to save her
thangs
when he couldn’t hold on to her?
Max still had no idea how Claire had emerged from the likes of George, a bona fide jerk, and Louise, an alcoholic for most of her so-called sane life.
At the end of the table, Steve cleared his throat.
Steve was the number-two meanest son of a gun Max had ever met. He also happened to be Claire’s younger brother. The youngest, Jim, had headed back to Alaska about thirty minutes after their mother’s body was buried that afternoon. Jim was a sweet guy. Except for a few quick trips to San Diego, the funeral had been his first visit to the Lower 48 in decades.
Steve said, “The boxes are at my house. In the attic.”
“Okay,” Max said. “We’ll pick them up in the morning, on the way to the airport.”
“Won’t be there in the morning.”
“You or the boxes won’t be there?”
Claire squeezed his knee. “What’s a better time for you, Steve?”
“Now.”
“All right.” She looked at Max again. “So the extra weight won’t be a problem? If it is, I’ll sort through her things before we leave.”
“It won’t be a problem.”
