Reconciled for Easter (2 page)

“You call me whenever you want to,” Abigail told Mia. “I’ll always have my phone on.”

“I know.” Mia pushed her glasses up more securely on her little nose.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said to Thomas, who had hooked the strap of Mia’s case on his arm. The little purple case was weirdly incongruous next to his well-tailored clothes and cool composure, and the contrast was so unexpectedly endearing that her heart contracted briefly. “You’ll be staying for the recital?”

Thomas’s mouth tightened. “Of course.”

There was no “of course” about it. For the first few years of Mia’s life, Abigail had fought a futile battle to get Thomas to prioritize his wife and daughter. It never happened. He’d been starting a surgical residency at Duke when they’d met. His work as a surgeon was stressful and consuming—no doubt about that—but it had slowly become the priority in his life. Abigail had spent so many nights crying alone in their bed that she still ached at the memories.

She’d kept hoping things would change when his residency was finally over, since they’d been making plans to move to Willow Park, where he could work at a small, relatively low-stress hospital. Her own education was kind of piecemeal, with graduate work in both Appalachian Studies and Historic Preservation. So, when she’d been offered her current job—at a historic estate in the mountains of North Carolina—she’d felt like it was a gift.

It wasn’t far from Willow Park, where Thomas had grown up, and they’d planned to settle down here, since it seemed best for the entire family, even though he’d been getting multiple offers from much more prestigious hospitals.

But then he had changed his mind. He’d decided not to move here. He hadn’t wanted her to take the job—or any job, for that matter. His career had been more important than anything she and Mia needed from him. He hadn’t been willing to budge in the slightest way, and he refused to acknowledge she might have reason to be upset by it.

That had been the last straw in their marriage.

Given his history, anyone might doubt his attendance at his daughter’s ballet recital the following day.

She reminded herself he’d been trying harder lately, and then she gave him a little smile, which he returned.

With that little tension smoothed over, she tried to shoo them out the door, since she was running very late now. She almost groaned when Thomas began an extended conversation with Mia in the doorway about her sparkly new shoes, and she had to physically push him outside when he stopped to take a call before he’d fully left the house.

Finally, she got them on their way, and she ran for the bathroom, having only a half-hour to shower, dry her hair, apply make-up, find something to wear, and get dressed before she left.

If she didn’t know better, she would have said that Thomas had been stalling on purpose, but he wasn’t a petty man.

Abigail had met him when she was a senior in college. He’d been several years older, and they’d both been attending a very small, conservative church. Back then, Abigail had still been trying to please her authoritative father, who had picked out that church for her to attend when she’d started attending college. As soon as Thomas showed up one Sunday morning, the whole church seemed to decide almost immediately that the two of them should get together.

She’d thought Thomas was the smartest, funniest, most attractive man she’d ever met, and she’d been shocked and delighted when he seemed to want to get to know her. They shared the same faith, and for a while they seemed to want the same things out of life. They’d started dating as soon as she graduated from college, and they were engaged shortly afterwards.

Not long into the marriage, Abigail had realized that Thomas wanted something very different from the wife than she could be to him.

When she got out of the shower, she dried off and went to get underwear out of her top drawer, noticing the framed picture she’d stuck in there because she didn’t know what else to do with it.

She pulled it out now, looking at her and Thomas on their wedding day. Thomas had been skinnier then, not yet fully filled out after his scrawny boyhood, but mostly he looked the same. Her eyes lingered on his familiar face and the affectionate, almost protective look in his eyes.

She wanted him to look at her that way again. She wanted to feel the way she had that day, believing she could trust him completely, give herself to him completely, know he would never let her down. She’d been convinced there was no other man in the world as brilliant and funny and dear as he was.

She still believed that. If only they could live together.

Her eyes shifted over to her own image in the picture. Thomas might still look mostly the same, but she didn’t look the same at all.

Her light brown hair had never been cut back then, since her father hadn’t allowed it, so it was long and thick and a little frizzy. She hadn’t worn any makeup—even on her wedding day—and she’d been wearing her glasses, since her father hadn’t approved of contacts either. Her mother had made the dress, and it was pretty and modest and old-fashioned.

She looked like a different person now, with shoulder-length hair, contacts, make-up, stylish clothes, a career, and a lot more confidence. She felt like she was finally really
Abigail
.

Her father hadn’t said a word to her since she’d walked out on Thomas. That was to be expected. But the thing that hurt the most was that Thomas had evidently only wanted the sheltered, compliant girl in this picture, and not the woman she really was.

There was nothing to do but accept it. She’d spent so many years of her life anxious, self-conscious, and paralyzed by feelings of never being good enough. God had taken her through that, and she wasn’t going to return to that place—not even to get her husband back.

Abigail was twenty-eight now. Once their six-month break was over, they would start to work on their marriage again, hopefully no longer too exhausted to invest in the process.

And part of her still hoped that, one day, Thomas would want who she really was as a wife.

***

The following day, Abigail sat a railroad crossing, waiting for a slow-moving train to pass so she could get to the highway.

If it didn’t clear quickly, she was going to be late for Mia’s ballet recital.

Torn between cursing the train and praying for it to hurry up, Abigail was also thinking about texting Thomas to make sure he’d gotten Mia there all right and on time.

She didn’t want to nag, but she also didn’t want anything to go wrong.

Before she could make the decision, her phone rang. She hesitated when she saw who was calling, but she ended up connecting the call. “Hello.”

“Hi, Abigail. It’s Jessica Duncan. Daniel’s wife?”

Abigail knew who Jessica was. She’d met the other woman several times when Mia had participated in children’s events at Willow Park Presbyterian, Thomas’s hometown church. Jessica was the wife of the pastor.

It was the church Abigail would have joined had Thomas not already had first rights to it.

“Hi, Jessica.” Abigail smiled into the phone, since she’d always liked the other woman. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“No, no. I’m waiting for a train. I’ve got nothing to do but mutter under my breath.”

Jessica laughed. She was quiet and intelligent and reserved, but she had a really good sense of humor.

“Oh, you had a baby recently,” Abigail said, as she remembered. “How is everything?”

“Great. His name is Nathan. We haven’t gotten any sleep for a month, but otherwise things are going well.”

“That’s great.”

“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you long from your muttering. I was actually wondering if you would be interested in joining a book club I’m in with some other women. We’ve lost a couple of members, and I immediately thought of you.”

Abigail was taken aback by the invitation, since she’d on purpose avoided socializing with people she considered part of Thomas’s circle. He had his own life, and she wanted to give him his space, to make sure he didn’t think she was intruding. “Oh. I…I don’t know. What is it like?” She was mostly stalling for time, trying to think of a good excuse that wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

“We meet once a month. We read all different kinds of books—not just normal book-club books. And not everyone always reads the whole book each month, so it’s fine if you get busy. It’s just fun to get together. We have snacks and dessert and wine. We have a really good time, and we’d love if you could join us.”

“How many people are in it?”

“Not too many anymore. Just me and Alice Duncan—Micah’s wife—do you know her?” When Abigail said she did, Jessica continued, “Sophie Miller. You might not have met her yet. Oh, and Lydia is it in too. That’s all for now. It’s a good group, and I think you’d fit in.”

“I don’t go to the church or anything—”

“That’s totally fine. It’s not a church thing. It’s just a group of us, talking about books.”

Abigail actually thought she might enjoy the book club, but she always felt a bit awkward around people who were close to Thomas. In another situation, they probably could have been her friends.

But both parts of a separated couple couldn’t really be part of the same circle of friends, and this had been his community first. Plus, she was the one who had left Thomas.

“You can think about it, if you need to,” Jessica said, evidently recognizing her hesitation and kindly giving her a way out. “I’ll email you the information, if that’s okay, and you can let me know.”

“That would be great,” Abigail said, relieved at the reprieve. “Thank you so much for inviting me.”

“Of course. I really hope it works out for you to join us.”

As she hung up, Abigail sighed and closed her eyes, since there was no sign of the end of the train yet.

She would have loved to go to the church in Willow Park. It was the only church of her denomination within a half-hour of where she lived. The people felt like her kind of people, and Daniel was an excellent preacher.

Instead, she was attending a church down the road. The teaching was solid, and the people were nice, but it still kind of felt like she was visiting there. She was so busy with her job and Mia that she’d never really gotten involved. She was just as committed to her faith as she’d always been, but some weeks, she didn’t even go to church.

Her father would have strongly disapproved of her church attendance.

She pushed the thought from her mind, since she was determined not to be constantly shaped by her insecurities from the past.

If things started to go better with Thomas, she could join the Willow Park church too. And, if that never happened, she could be happy where she was.

This was the life she’d chosen to have, and it wasn’t a bad one. It wasn’t perfect, but nobody’s was. Better to be Abigail, even without a husband, than to be who she’d been before.

***

Twenty minutes later, she rushed into the crowded auditorium, checking her watch for the twentieth time. Two minutes until four o’clock.

She’d barely made it in time for Mia’s ballet recital.

Breathlessly, she scanned the rows of seats filled with chattering parents, searching futilely for an empty place with a decent view of the stage. Mia’s lessons were given by the only ballet school in the county, so the recitals were always dreadfully long and very well-attended. The auditorium was packed.

Abigail let out a relieved sigh when she saw Thomas’s distinctive profile and forehead.

Despite the milling crowds, he’d seen her and was gesturing her over toward the front.

She hurried down the aisle and shook her head in dry amusement when she saw that he’d managed to snare two of the best seats in the house. Near the front but not so close you had to crane your neck to see the stage. And on the side aisle where it was easy to duck out to run to the bathroom or stretch your legs.

The seat next to him was empty. She didn’t know if he’d been saving the seat for her or if he’d pretended it was taken so he wouldn’t have to sit next to anyone. Either way, it was really nice of him to let her have it.

She smiled at him gratefully as she climbed over his legs to sit down. “Thanks.” Then she noticed that in the next seats were his sister, Lydia, and her husband, Gabe. “Hi, there,” she told them with a grin.

She liked Lydia, who was a no-nonsense, forthright kind of woman. She was the kind of woman Abigail always tried to be now—confident and sure of herself. Lydia had married Gabe just last fall, so Abigail had only met him once or twice before.

“Is Ellie nervous about the recital?” she asked.

Ellie was Gabe’s daughter from his first marriage—a few years older than Mia—but she took ballet lessons from the same school.

“Yeah. She’s so competitive that she’s afraid she won’t do better than all the other girls in her class.” Lydia smiled, obviously finding this trait in her stepdaughter funny and understandable both.

“She’s not afraid of messing up,” Gabe added with a slow smile. “Just that she won’t be the best.”

Abigail laughed and said, since it was on her mind, “I was just talking to Jessica on the phone. She invited me to your book club.”