Once Upon a Family (16 page)

Entering the cooler interior, Peter scanned the well-maintained area, the scent of animals and hay permeating every corner. He realized more and more the kids were taking care of the pets, not him, since the foundation ate into his extra time. But what was so nice to see
was Sean and Chad stepping up to take charge. The healing power of animals was working on Laura’s son, and yet Peter felt something was bothering the teen. The anger, like Friday night, was still there waiting for a spark to ignite it. Why was he so angry? Was it his father’s death or something more?

A sound from the last stall caught Peter’s attention. He moved toward it. Inside Sean held a puppy, the runt of the litter, against his face, tears running down his cheeks and into its fur. For a moment Peter considered backing away and leaving the boy alone. Then Sean glanced up, saw him and scrambled to his feet, the animal still in his grasp, now against his chest. With his free hand he swiped his tears away.

“What are you doing here?”

The fury in Sean’s voice battered at Peter. For an instance the exhaustion in him wanted to lash out at the teen. But his matching anger wouldn’t solve the problem. He’d learned that from Paul. “I wanted to thank you and Chad for doing this.” He kept his voice calm and steady even though Sean’s face squinched into a scowl.

Laura’s son pressed his lips together and glared at him. Both of the boy’s hands now cradled the puppy against him as though the animal was a lifeline. And perhaps it was. Peter opened the gate and stepped into the stall.

“You’ve really taken a liking to this puppy.”

Still Sean didn’t say anything.

“How’s Lady doing?”

“Fine.”

“Maybe your mom will let you have another dog. This one could use a good home, too. I can talk to her about it if you want.”

“Leave my mother alone!”

Whoa, this was worse than he had thought. Coupled with what had happened Friday night, Peter knew that Sean didn’t want Laura to get involved in a relationship with him. Or was it more than that? A relationship with any man? After what Laura had revealed this morning in the chapel, he understood where Sean’s feelings were coming from. Laura thought she had shielded her children from a lot of what Stephen had done, but he wondered how much Sean really knew was going on.

“Your mother told me what went on with her and your father.”

“It’s none of your business!” Sean’s shouting scared the puppy who began to wiggle. He looked down at it and stroked it. “See what you made me do,” he continued in a lower voice. He placed the animal on the ground and stormed toward the gate.

Peter followed Sean out into the center of the barn, a breeze blowing through the building and carrying an earthy smell. But its cooling effect did nothing to cool off Sean, who faced Peter, his hands fisted at his sides.

“My mom doesn’t need a man. I’ll take care of her and my brothers and sister, too.”

The man of the house.
He’d played that role for a while until his mother had died and left him completely alone. “What happens when you leave home after high school?”

“I’ll—I’ll…” He stared away from Peter, unclenching then clenching his hands.

“What’s really going on here, Sean? What happened in St. Louis?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Maybe you should. Something is eating you up inside. Keeping it bottled up won’t solve your problem. Believe me, lately I found that out for myself. I had to forgive someone who caused me a great deal of pain.”

“I’ll never forgive him. Never!” Sean shouted, a ferociousness on his face that reminded Peter of a rabid animal.

“Who?” Peter schooled his voice and expression into calmness as if he were taming a wild horse.

“Dad.” The anger seemed to siphon from the teen as he collapsed onto a hay bale near him. He buried his face in his hands. His whole body quaked.

Peter kept his space, instinctively sensing the teen would bolt if he came any closer. “What did your father do?”

“He hit Mom, pushed her down the stairs. He hurt her, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I should have been able to.”

Sean’s revelation knocked the breath from Peter. Laura had told him about the verbal abuse, but she hadn’t said a thing about the physical. That realization hurt. She didn’t trust him with her heart after all they had shared. “What happened?” he managed to ask, knowing he couldn’t pass up this opportunity to help the boy even if he was shaking inside.

“They got into an argument. Mostly my dad yelled at Mom, said mean things to her, but this time she got angry back at him. I wanted to stop them, but I was
afraid of what Dad would say. I was downstairs in the hallway. They were upstairs at the top of the landing. He yelled a lot those last months before he died. I just stood there and listened. They didn’t know I was in the house. I’d come home early from a friend’s.” Sean lifted tear-saturated eyes to Peter. “The next thing I knew he’d slapped her and she’d fallen down the stairs. He ran out. I couldn’t get to Mom in time to stop it. I think for a moment I just stood shocked that my dad would do that to Mom.”

The picture that materialized in Peter’s mind wrenched his heart. “What did she do when she saw you?”

“She was so upset I didn’t say anything to her. She never knew I heard their fight. She thought I had just come in the back door, and I let her think that.”

“How did she explain her fall?”

“She just said she’d stumbled, but she wouldn’t have if he hadn’t slapped her. I got Cara next door, and she drive Mom to the emergency room while I stayed with the twins and Alexa at Cara’s. That evening instead of going home we went to a shelter.” Sean sniffed and scrubbed at his face, wiping away his tears. “I know we went there because she didn’t want him to find where we were staying.”

“So you’re angry with your father?”

“Yes!” Sean surged to his feet, the fury returning to make his body tense, his expression fierce. “I should have been able to protect her! Mom doesn’t need a man to treat her like that.”

“I agree. But not all men are like that.”

Sean snorted. “I used to hear her cry herself to sleep
on the nights Dad was gone. For a long time I thought it was because she missed him. Now I know it was because she was relieved he wasn’t around. Why did she stay with someone like that?”

That was the heart of the problem for Sean besides the feeling of helplessness he’d experienced when he couldn’t protect his mother from getting hurt. “You need to talk to your mom and ask her that question. Don’t keep this in here.” Peter laid his hand over his heart. “You can’t run from it. You have to face it and deal with it.”

“Why should I now? I could have helped, but she never said anything to me.”

Sean’s last sentence confirmed whom Sean was really irate with. Yes, he was mad at his father, but Laura was the main target of that pent-up anger. “I imagine your mother was protecting you and your siblings. But you should talk to her. Your mother deserves that much. Give her a chance to explain her reasons for not saying anything.”

“Sean. Peter, what’s going on here?”

The sound of Laura’s voice behind Peter brought forth his own anger, disappointment mingling with it. Why hadn’t she told him everything this morning? Why did she continue to keep him at arm’s length? What other secrets did she keep from him? he wondered as he pivoted toward Laura.

P
eter strode toward Laura, paused in front of her and said, “You two need to talk, then come up to the house.”

“But won’t you be asleep?”

“No,” was his clipped reply, then he left the barn.

Laura watched Peter stride away, every line in his body transmitting anger. When she faced her son, he, too, conveyed how upset he was in the narrowing of his eyes, the tense set to his mouth and shoulders. There was nothing casual about his stance. He looked like a soldier, standing guard.

What did they talk about? Alarm skittered down her spine.

“What’s happened?” she asked, covering the distance between her and her son.

“You told him about Dad!”

The accusation hit her with the force of a gale wind. “Yes.”
Some of it but not all.

“Why? It’s none of his business.”

“Because sometimes a person needs to talk to another about what they’re feeling.”

“You could have come to me.”

One day Sean would understand some things were hard to discuss with a son or daughter. But right now, no matter what she said he wouldn’t appreciate her reasons. “You can come to me, too.”

“He knows about Dad hitting you.”

Laura gasped.
He does?
“Hitting me? I didn’t tell Peter that.”
How do you know? What have you been keeping from me?
That was something she hadn’t wanted anyone else to know except the counselor at the women’s shelter, a stranger she had been able to walk away from. Not even Cara knew what really caused her to tumble down the stairs. Her alarm metamorphosed into panic that quickly spread throughout her.

Sean pulled himself up another inch. “I did. I told him that Dad slapped you and knocked you down the stairs.”

“You knew about that? Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

He lifted his chin as though to challenge her. “Why didn’t you?”

Because somewhere in the back of her mind she hadn’t wanted to admit that her son might have witnessed that humiliating scene between her and Stephen. She’d finally stood up to her husband and had ended up at the bottom of the stairs with thankfully only bruises and aches. “I didn’t want you to think badly of your father. He was still your dad, no matter what happened between us.”

“How often did he hit you?”

“That was the first time.”

“I hate him!” Sean’s voice thundered through the barn.

“That’s why I never wanted you to know. I don’t want you to hate your father.”

“After what he did to you, why shouldn’t I? He doesn’t deserve my love.”

“A wise man recently told me that if I can forgive someone who has harmed me, then I’m free, no longer bound by my anger. I don’t want you to be held down because of your rage toward your father.” As she spoke those words to her son, she saw the wisdom in letting go and finding the peace in forgiveness.

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.
She remembered the verse from Matthew and realized that in forgiving Stephen, maybe then the Lord would wash away her guilt at being responsible for her husband’s death.

Sean paced a few feet away then spun around. “He tore our family apart. We had to leave our home. We stayed at a shelter, hiding from him.”

“That was only temporary until I figured something out. For years your father was a good one who provided for you all. He’d gotten himself in way over his head and that had affected his thinking.” At least toward his children. His opinion of her hadn’t really changed, only worsened. “He loved you all. Don’t ever doubt that, Sean.”

Suddenly her son’s rigid stance deflated, and his furious expression crumbled. “I killed him. If I hadn’t argued with you about going to see Dad that night, he would still be alive.”

“What do you mean? Your father drank half a bottle of whiskey and then took some pills. That’s what killed him. That had nothing to do with you. It was his choice.”

“You could have been there to stop him from killing himself if I hadn’t gotten so mad.”

How many times had she thought that very same thing never realizing Sean had, too? “I don’t know if he committed suicide or not. But regardless of that, what happened was not your fault. You had nothing to do with it.”
I did
. She strode to her son and drew him to her, praying he wouldn’t reject her comfort because she needed to feel him in her arms.

“I couldn’t protect you! He hit you! I never wanted to see him again. I didn’t want you to.”

The anguish-drenched words wrung her heart. She framed his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. “It’s my responsibility to protect my children. Listen to me. You are not to blame for a single thing. I’m beginning to discover how destructive blame can be. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t even blame your father. Let it go, honey.”

The fight and anger emptied from Sean, and he sagged against her. Sobs racked his body and her heart. Nothing was worse than a mother seeing her child hurt so much. A child who had a difficult time letting her inside—too much like his mother. Her eyes stung with her own emotions clogging her throat. Wet tracks ran down her cheeks unchecked.

When his tears abated and his trembling eased, Laura quickly composed herself, then pulled back enough to look him in the face. “You did nothing
wrong. You must believe me.” If she did nothing else, she had to make him see that. She would protect herself and her children. Amazingly she was discovering she was strong enough to survive the hardships from a bad marriage.

“But I wanted to help you.”

“You are, Sean. I’ve been so proud of you this summer taking on more of the responsibility of the project, working with the other kids and the animals.” She cupped his face again, needing to make sure he understood. “I can’t change the past. All I can do is move forward and learn from my past mistakes and believe me I have made some whoppers.”

He blinked the last tear from his eye. A ghost of a smile graced his lips. “Not any bigger than some of mine.”

“What a pair we make.” Her laugh came out shaky but the tension in the air dissolved.

“Pair! I was supposed to help Chad in the pasture. Some animal is making holes, and we don’t want the horses or sheep to hurt themselves. We’re gonna fill them. I’ve gotta go. Are you coming back to get me or staying?”

“I need to see Peter. I’ll be up at the house. How long do you think you’ll be?”

“Thirty minutes, maybe a little longer. Chad’s got half of them filled by now. He’s probably not too happy with me right now.”

“Just tell him I waylaid you and that I’ll take you two to lunch. The pizza is on me.”

With shovel in hand, Sean loped toward the back entrance. “That’ll do it.”

The second her son left, Laura sank onto a hay bale, her legs quivering. Sean had known all along about how bad it really had been that last day at the house with Stephen. She should have realized it. But when her son had appeared out of the blue after her tumble down the stairs, she’d been so distraught she hadn’t been thinking straight. Then when he didn’t say anything, she assumed he’d just come home and thanked God that he hadn’t witnessed the fight. But he had and had kept quiet all these months, his rage festering inside him.

Thankfully Sean had never heard what Stephen had said to her on the phone when he had begged her to come back home that evening he had died. Her son was already dealing with enough. He didn’t need to shoulder any more guilt. That seemed to be her job. But no more!

Laura pushed to her feet.
Because I want to put Stephen and my marriage behind me. I can’t move forward until I do. I’m tired of that man still controlling my life. I’m taking charge. Now. Today.

She strode from the barn and toward Peter’s house. He deserved to know the whole story.

She knocked on his back door, and five seconds later, he opened it as though he had been waiting for her in the kitchen. On the table sat a cup of coffee, its aroma pervading the room.

When he saw her looking at it, he asked, “Do you want any? I just brewed it. I had to have something if I wanted to stay up.”

“No.” She moved farther into the room but didn’t take a seat. “Why do you have to stay up? You should have come home and immediately gone to bed.”

“We need to talk.”

The dreaded words she’d known were coming dangled between them, taunting her resolve. For this she needed to sit down. After settling into a chair, she said, “I know that Sean told you about Stephen hitting me.”

Peter paced to the pot on the stove and refreshed his coffee. “Why didn’t you? I thought we had shared something today in the chapel. Funny how that illusion vanished when Sean started telling me about you falling down the stairs.”

Sarcasm peppered each word, and she couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. If their roles had been reversed, she would have felt as he did. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t. It isn’t something I’m proud of.”

He leaned into the table, his palms flat on its top. “You didn’t do anything wrong with Stephen. He’s the one who hit you.”

“Don’t you understand for years I was used to hiding his verbal treatment of me behind a cheerful front? I didn’t want my kids to know. I didn’t want my parents to know that my husband found me lacking in every way. I never could do anything right. That kind of behavior doesn’t change overnight.” Yes, she was beginning to see she had a lot to offer others and like Peter she wanted to spend her time helping children in need.

“But Sean knew.”

“Yes, he did. I wish he didn’t. He blames himself. Stephen caused so much damage and I let him. I don’t know how I’ll be able to forgive myself, let alone him.”

“Until today I was sitting where you are. I don’t ever want to go back to that way. Do what Alice did. Read
the Bible on forgiveness and then search your heart. You need to forgive Stephen, not for him, but for yourself. Once you do, you can forgive yourself.”

“After talking with Sean in the barn and pointing out to him how important it is that he forgive his father, I agree with you. I’m tired of holding this grudge against my husband. It takes too much energy I would rather spend somewhere else.”

Surprise scored his features. “I was prepared to say more, but you took the wind out of my sails.”

She stared at her clasped hands in her lap, feeling the drill of his gaze on her. “I have more to tell you. You might as well know the whole story and Sean doesn’t even know all of it.”

He sank into a chair across from her but didn’t say anything.

“I’d been gone for a few days after the incident on the stairs. I took the kids and stayed at a women’s shelter. I needed to decide what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want Stephen to know where I was. I did know I couldn’t go back to Stephen. Verbal abuse was one thing, but not physical. When he hit me, I finally figured out there was no way to save my marriage, that no matter what I did he would never be happy with me. It had been over a long time.” She lifted her head and reestablished eye contact with Peter, afraid of what she would see in his gaze. She knew now the abuse hadn’t been caused by something she had done, but for so many years she’d always wondered what she’d done wrong. If nothing else, Peter had shown her how a relationship between a man and a woman should be.

An unreadable expression greeted her inspection, actually giving her the courage to continue. “I needed to talk to Stephen to make arrangements to get our belongings when he wasn’t there. I intended to take Cara and her husband with me so if he decided not to be gone I would have someone to intervene for me. But he wasn’t there, so I had to leave a message for him to call me back on my cell. He did hours later, drunk.”

A nerve in Peter’s jaw twitched, his features hardening into an unyielding look. “What did he do, threaten you?”

“No, he was crying and begging me to give him another chance. He kept telling me he loved me over and over. I told him no, that I couldn’t come back home.”

“Good for you.”

“It took me a while to get a backbone, but I was determined not to go back to him. The shelter had a wonderful support system in place. I knew if I went home he would hit me again and again until—” she shivered, hugging her arms to her chest “—until he put me in the hospital or the morgue.”

His jaw took on the appearance of a piece of granite.

“But when I told him no, he began saying he would kill himself if I didn’t come back to him. He had nothing else to live for.” Tears glistened in her eyes. She didn’t want to cry again. She’d shed so many in the past year and a half. “I decided to go see him. I guess I had thoughts of getting him some help. I just knew I couldn’t let the father of my children hurt himself because I knew that when he was sober he wouldn’t hurt himself. He was too selfish.”

“Alcohol has that effect on people.” Peter cradled his mug in his hands and brought it to his lips.

She noticed the slight tremor as he put it down on the table and peered at her, nothing revealed in his eyes although she’d heard sympathy in his voice. “Sean flew into a rage when I told him I had to leave to go see his dad. He pleaded with me not to go. Out of all my children I knew Sean was the most aware of Stephen’s verbal attacks. I thought that’s why my son didn’t want me to go home. It took me fifteen minutes to get him calmed down enough that I felt I could leave. I went to my minister’s house to get him. He was great at counseling, and Stephen needed it whether he would acknowledge it or not.”

Thinking back to that night chilled her. She pushed to her feet and crossed to the coffeepot. After pouring herself a mug, she held the ceramic between her two hands, desperately seeking the heat emanating from the beverage. “When we got there forty minutes later, he was dead from mixing the alcohol with sleeping pills. There was a gun on the table nearby.” So cold. She sipped at the hot liquid, but it did nothing to warm her. She took another drink. “I don’t know if he intended to really kill himself, but if I had gotten there earlier, just left without saying anything to Sean, gone directly to the house instead of getting my minister, he might still be alive. I—I—” The tears spilled from her eyes and ran down her face.