Marriage Seasons 04 - Winter Turns to Spring (21 page)

Pete shifted on the sofa. “I don’t know what Esther Moore would have said, but I can pretty much tell you what Charlie would say.”

Both women turned to him.

“He’d say Brad is a fool for hurting his wife that way and for thinking he could do it without her finding out. Charlie would say Brad deserves every bit of misery he gets. Then he’d tell you to go find your husband, talk to him, and see if you can work things out. He and Esther seemed like they had a perfect marriage, but Charlie said enough things at our men’s Bible study for me to know it wasn’t always rosy in the Moore household. The main thing was that they
tried
. They always kept trying. Working on their problems. Seeing if they could figure out a way to be happy together.”

“And forgive,” Ashley said softly. “Mrs. Moore told me forgiveness was important. But I don’t think she ever had to forgive anything as bad as this.”

Patsy felt Pete’s hand tighten on her own. Ashley was right, of course. This was it … the very worst. Patsy wasn’t sure she herself could pardon such a thing. Was such mercy even possible?

“I don’t know what the Moores would say,” Patsy told her. “But I think Cody might remind us of a verse in the Bible. There’s one that says the things that seem impossible to man are possible with God.”

Ashley’s eyes narrowed. “If God loved me, He never would have let something like this happen. I used to believe in God, Patsy. But not anymore. Now I know I never will.”

Brad opened his eyes. A stab of pain angled down through one side of his skull and into his brain. He couldn’t move his head. Where was he?

He looked up and tried to focus. The familiar ceiling over the sofa stared back at him. He was home.

“Ashley?” He managed to call out the word, even though the sound of his own voice intensified the throbbing in his head.

“Hey, Ash?”

When she didn’t answer, he tried to recall the events of the night before. It hadn’t been a good day—he did remember that. He and Ashley had fought in the morning. Then he’d gone to work. Finished early. Stopped at Larry’s.

Oh no.

With a groan, Brad watched the vague images of the previous night flash through his mind. Larry’s. Mack. Bubba. Yvonne.

Cringing, he rubbed his hand over his face. Yes, he had left Larry’s with Yvonne. He remembered now. And later, he had seen Ashley standing in the doorway of Yvonne’s apartment. His wife’s brown eyes had focused on him. Then she turned away.

Yvonne had laughed. Lit a cigarette. Tried to touch him. He shook her off. Fought her off. Shouted at her. She had pleaded, threatened, whined.

The night air had hit him like a blast from an open freezer as he staggered outside. Yvonne pulled on him. He looked for his car. She began screaming, throwing things at him. From another apartment, a man had hollered at them to shut up.

Somehow he had found his way back to Larry’s and his car. He had no memory of the trip home. He might have driven into a ditch. Or hit another vehicle head-on. But he hadn’t. Here he was. On the sofa.

“Ashley?” he called again. “Ashley, what time is it? Where are you?”

The house felt empty, and Brad knew why. She was gone. The puppy, too. She had taken Yappy. Afraid to leave the dog alone, she must have packed him up with her other stuff and left the house.

Fighting revulsion at himself, Brad pushed up into a sitting position. His ears rang, and his head felt like it might explode. What had he done?

What had he done?

The phone in his jeans’ pocket warbled. He fished it out and looked at the name. His mother. The digital clock on the side table read 2:00 p.m.

Letting out a breath, he hurled the phone across the room. This was
Christmas Day
. He was supposed to have eaten lunch with his parents. He and Ashley had argued about where to spend the noon hour, just as they’d argued about everything lately.

Where was she? He needed to talk to her. She would be at her folks’ place.

Rising, he realized he had no shirt on. He must have left it at Yvonne’s house. Yvonne Ratcliff. What had he said to her last night? Why had he gone to her apartment? How could he have been so stupid?

Beer. That was the culprit. He’d been drunk. Ashley would believe that. But could it make any difference? No. He had done this thing, this terrible thing, and his wife knew. Because of it, she had left him forever.

He picked up the phone and pressed the number for her parents’ house. Ashley’s mother answered.

“Where are you two?” she demanded at the sound of Brad’s voice. Peeved, she sounded like a gong inside his head. “I held the lunch in the oven until one, but then we gave up and ate. Let me talk to my daughter. I’ve been calling that girl’s cell number for hours. Ashley promised you would be here.”

Brad focused on the phone as he shut it off without responding. Ashley wasn’t at home? Where could she have gone? What if something had happened to her? Or what if she had … no. She wouldn’t have killed herself. Not over this. Would she?

Fear steered a course through his chest, reigniting the pain in his head. What if Ashley was dead? It would be his fault.

No, she must be at the Hansens’ house with Jennifer and her family. Ashley liked Jennifer, and she would have sought shelter with someone who cared about her. At the memory of his inappropriate thoughts and behavior toward Ashley’s friend, Brad winced. How could he call over there? By now, they would all know about his night with Yvonne. They would despise him.

Yet he had to find his wife. The phone book lay on the counter. He flipped it open and finally located Steve and Brenda’s number.

“Hey, this is Cody!” The answering voice was so loud that Brad flinched as sparks of pain shot through his brain. “I’m over at the Hansens’ house because it’s Christmas, and we opened presents and guess what! I got a big set of professional watercolor paints from Jennifer and cake mixes from Patsy, and lots of other stuff.”

“Is Ashley over there?”

“No, and I hope it won’t be bad social skills if I say good-bye. We’re getting ready to eat pecan pie. It’s not as good as chocolate cake, but—”

Unable to bear Cody’s chatter any longer, Brad again cut the connection. Ashley wasn’t at her mother’s house. She wasn’t with the Hansens. Where could she have gone? What might she have done?

Seeing your husband like that … in another woman’s bed … what would that do? Again he pictured Ashley’s luminous brown eyes staring at him through Yvonne’s doorway.

Nausea rising, he pressed another button on the phone. It rang just once.

“Hello, this is Charlie.” The voice sounded so familiar. So jovial. So sane.

“Hey, Mr. Moore.”

“Brad? Is that you?”

He sagged down onto the floor, his knees bent and his head hanging low. “Yeah. It’s me.”

“Well, this is a nice surprise! I’d wish you a merry Christmas, but you don’t sound so good. Are you sick?”

“Uh … sort of.” Looking up, Brad suddenly noticed the one unfamiliar thing in the room. A Christmas tree.

Branches fanning out to fill the place where the recliner had sat, the fragrant pine rose to the ceiling. From top to bottom, it dripped with beads. Ashley’s beads. Beads of every color and design imaginable. Beads strung together on wire and fashioned into stars. Beads crafted into the shape of snowflakes. Beads dangling from every twig, glistening in the slanting rays of sunlight.

Brad’s eyes brimmed, blurring the tree as he realized what Ashley had done. After shouting at him, telling him she hated him, insisting she didn’t need him, she had gone out and bought a Christmas tree. Then she had spent her whole day decorating it. For him. For them.

“Do you have a bad cold?”

“Huh?” Brad looked down at the phone.

“What’s eating on you, kid?” Charlie asked. “Did you pick up some kind of bug? I hope Ashley’s not sick too. Somebody needs to be there ladling chicken soup down your throat.”

Brad brushed at the damp spot under his eye. “No, I’m not sick. Not like that.”

“You sound like you’re at the bottom of a barrel. What’s going on, Brad?”

“Nothing, Mr. Moore. I’d better go.”

“Now, hold your horses there. You called me for a reason, and I’d like to know what it is. If you won’t tell me, put Ashley on.”

After a second’s pause, Charlie spoke again. “How long has she been gone, Brad?”

“She wasn’t here this morning. I think she left last night.”

“You
think
? Where were you? Not at that bar, I hope. Not on Christmas Eve.”

Brad couldn’t respond.

“I see. Well.” Charlie cleared his throat. “All right, boy. What happened? Give it to me straight.”

“We had an argument.”

“And what else? I know you two have been fighting like a pair of wet cats lately. That can’t be all there is to this.”

Brad shook his head. “No. That’s not all.”

“Did you do something wrong?”

“Yeah.” The word came out in an unexpected falsetto as waves of anguish began to push up through his chest.

“All right,” Charlie said, his voice softening. “Did you hit Ashley?”

“Worse.”

The silence on the phone was so final that Brad couldn’t stifle the sob. He bent over on the floor, curled into a ball of agony. Tears welled, spilled from his eyes, ran down his cheeks, dampened the carpet. He sucked down a choking gasp.

“Brad.” Charlie’s voice was calm. “I want you to tell me exactly what happened—every bit of it. Spit it up and get it out, because this is the only way to begin fixing it.”

“I can’t talk, Mr. Moore. I’ve gotta go. I don’t know where Ashley is. I can’t find her.”

“Start at the beginning. The last argument between the two of you. That’s as good a place as any.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Confession is good for the soul. Besides, you’re not going to get past this feeling you have in your gut right now until you talk everything through with your wife. You might as well practice on me.”

“Ashley said she hated me. She didn’t need me anymore.” The anger Brad felt in recalling that moment stopped his tears. “I haven’t been the best husband, but I didn’t deserve
that
. Man, I’ve tried, Mr. Moore. The problems between us aren’t all my fault.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop defending yourself and get on with it.”

Brad wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly poured out everything. Maybe it was because Charlie Moore was far away in California. Or because he was too honorable a man to gossip about what he was told. Whatever the reason, Brad outlined the previous day—all the way from the morning argument until the sight of Ashley’s face at the door of Yvonne Ratcliff’s apartment.

“So, you’re home now, and she’s gone,” Charlie said. “Any idea where she went?”

Swallowing, Brad rubbed his chin. “Wait—aren’t you going to yell at me, Mr. Moore? I mean, you heard what I did. I did that to Ashley. To my wife. Aren’t you going to say anything about it?”

“You already know what I think. The job now is to figure out where to go from here. First of all, you’ve got to find your wife. The two of you need to figure out how to stay married. No matter what, boy, you’ve got some serious apologizing to do. And I’m talking about groveling. None of this
I tried to be a good husband
nonsense. You committed adultery. You promised to love and cherish Ashley forever, and you cheated on her. In the eyes of God, the two of you had become one, but you tore that union apart. Now, anyone with a lick of sense knows these marriage problems go two ways. You both contributed to the trouble. But the bottom line is that you’re the one who violated your vows.”

At Charlie’s concluding statement, Brad felt sobs building up inside him again. “She’s not gonna take me back, Mr. Moore.”

“Do you want to go back? You sure haven’t been acting like it.”

“I don’t know. She’s … well, she’s a pain. Marriage stinks. It’s nothing like I thought it would be. Ashley is into her beads and her job and wanting to have a baby and all that. One time I tried to sit down and listen to her, and she never stopped talking for a minute. It was all about her and the ideas she was having and gossip from work and that kind of junk. She didn’t say or ask one thing about me.”

Charlie gave a laugh of disbelief. “About
you
?”

“What’s wrong with that? She used to always brag on me and ask about what I was doing and admire me, you know? Now she just talks about her own stuff. It took me about ten minutes to figure out that if I was going to listen to her ramble, I needed a beer just to sit through it. I went to get one out of the fridge, and she started screaming at me. She hates it when I drink.”

“You drink too much, Brad. Everyone knows that. You’ve got a couple of DWIs on your record. You hang out at that bar. And now you’ve gone and whooped it up with some woman you hardly know. All because you were drunk.”

“But it’s not as though I drink hard stuff. I don’t even like whisky.”

“Look here, boy, if you’re going to sit there and defend yourself, I don’t have time to listen. I haven’t seen my two grandkids in a long time, and we were playing a pretty interesting game when you called. So either stop talking about what a stand-up guy you are, or I’m heading back to the children.”