Reconciled for Easter (7 page)

Last week, she’d gotten the job offer.

“I know that,” Thomas said coolly, looking slightly annoyed by the reproach. “I’m not saying that won’t work out. But my job is more important than…” He trailed off before he finished the thought, but she knew exactly what he’d been going to say. “I just need to give this a chance before I make a decision.”

“But—”

“I have to go, Abigail.”

Anger spiraled up, momentarily overwhelming the doomed burden of acknowledgment underlying it. “So you’re going to decide on your own? What’s best for our family? You’re just going to decide on your own?”

“Abigail, please,” he said curtly, standing up, the release of his weight causing the mattress to shift. “Don’t be unreasonable. You know I hate when you’re emotional like this.”

Her first response was to hold her tongue, rein in her angry and crushing disappointment. And then she was furious with herself for that instinctive response, as if she’d been trained to always cave without question to a man’s will. “Unreasonable? Emotional? I’m so sorry my feelings bother you so much.”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“I will be sarcastic if you’re going to be so—”

He didn’t give her the chance to even finish the sentence. “I have to leave. I’ll give you a call when the plane lands. Give Mia a kiss for me.”

And then he just turned around and walked for the door.

“Don’t leave, Thomas,” she called after him, her voice almost a plea. “Please don’t leave me.”

Thomas closed the door quietly behind him, and the sound seemed to signal his final answer, the nature of their marriage, their entire future.

Don’t leave me. Baby, please don’t leave me
.

***

I can’t do this without you. I really can’t do this without you.

The words were still coming from outside her and then turning into something she said. This time, it was during the last of the marriage counseling sessions they’d done before Christmas.

Since they’d both quickly fallen into angry accusations today, Lorraine, the counselor, asked them to start using “I” statements.

“I understand what you’re saying,” Abigail said, slowly, working hard to keep her emotions under control. “But I can’t do this without you. I know I was always too jealous and insecure, and I know it wasn’t fair of me to blame you for it. But it’s one part of the whole picture of our relationship, so it’s not something I can work through on my own. I can’t fix this without you.”

“Am I asking you to fix it on your own?” Thomas’s shoulders were stiff, and his face was unrevealing—sure signs that he was upset and defensive.

Lorraine lifted her eyebrows, but before she could say anything, Thomas rephrased, “I don’t understand why you think I’ve expected you to fix it on your own. I’m here twice a week to work through this with you.”

Abigail thought for a minute so she could say what came next in the clearest way possible, her hands twisting in her lap. “I know you’re here. I really appreciate it. I know you want to work through this as much as I do. But every time I try to explain how I feel or what wasn’t working for me, I don’t feel like you’ve really heard me.”

“Of course, I’ve heard you.” Thomas’s voice was soft and rough, and his expression twisted slightly with impatience. “I’ve heard it over and over again for more than a year now. How many times do we have to go over it?”

The words—his clear frustration with her and the implication that she was the only one with the real problem—hurt so much she froze, focused down on her clenched hands.

Lorraine said gently, “Okay. Maybe you can explain to Abigail what it is you’ve heard from her about your marriage.”

Thomas took a ragged breath and shifted in the upholstered chair. “You left me because…” When Lorraine cleared her throat, he stopped and began again. “I understand that you left because you wanted more than you had.”

This was so unexpected—and so completely wrong—that Abigail stared at her husband. “I wanted more than I had?”

He’d been meeting her eyes, but now he looked away. “You wanted to work. You wanted this job. You wanted me to spend more time with Mia. You wanted more independence. I understand that. And I keep telling you that I’m okay with it.” His voice thickened with the last words, matching the tightly repressed feeling in his face.

“But you’re angry,” she began. Then remembered the “I” statements. “I feel like you’re angry about it—even now. Like you’re just going to put up with me so you can have a wife back, but it’s not really me you want.”

Thomas released a brief sound of frustration and rubbed his face. “I don’t care if you work. You never wanted to before we got married, but I don’t
care
. I’m not your father, and I’m really tired of you assuming I’m just as narrow-minded as he is.”

Abigail was again consumed with the reality that he wasn’t hearing her at all, he didn’t understand her at all. He thought all of this was just about her job and the time he spent with Mia.

He really believed that was their whole problem.

A tight shuddering had begun inside her, slowly spreading out through her body.

“Abigail?” Lorraine prompted. “Did you want to respond?”

She took several breaths before she spoke. “I know you’re not my father. The main issue isn’t even my job. That’s just a symptom of something deeper. And I still feel like you have no idea what the deeper thing is, no matter how many times I’ve tried to tell you.”

Thomas held her eyes, looking tense and overly controlled—almost stoic. “Then tell me again.”

Abigail made herself say it. “I feel like you see me only as a wife and not as a whole person, so you’re never happy when I’m not the wife you always wanted.”

“What the hell—” Thomas cut off his initial reaction, controlling himself even before Lorraine broke in. He visibly calmed down before he continued, “I don’t see how you can possibly say that, after everything I’ve done for you.”

Abigail just stared at him, her heart aching in her chest.

When she didn’t respond, Thomas went on, “I don’t see how you can possibly believe that. I moved here because of you. I gave up my career because of you. I sacrificed everything because you wanted me to—because you didn’t think you had enough. What else do you want me to give up for you? Exactly how much do you want me to suffer until you think I’ve suffered enough?”

He’d slowly lost his grip on his emotions as he was speaking, and she knew the words pouring out now were the absolute expression of his heart.

He believed it. He believed that she had no genuine reason to be discontent—that their marriage had been mostly fine and that she was blowing little things out of proportion.

The truth of it hit her so hard she was blinded, choked by it. She hugged her arms to her chest to try to hold the emotion in.

He thought she was making him jump through a series of hoops and he should now be rewarded for accomplishing them.

“You...” She cleared her throat as the word strangled in her throat. “You really think that about me?”

“We both know very well that it’s true.”

His voice was hard and cold, but her vision was blurred so she couldn’t see his face.

“Okay,” she managed to say, staring down at her hands. “Okay. That’s really what you believe. I’m the problem. You’ve done nothing wrong, and the problem really is that I’m not good enough. I’m selfish, irrational, and demanding.”

“I’m not saying that. I know I made mistakes before, but I’ve fixed them. I’ve
fixed
them. And now there’s nothing else I can do.”

She lifted her head to see him, and they might as well have been strangers.

He didn’t know her at all—he didn’t understand any of what she’d gone through over the last six years, all the ways she’d grown to understand herself more, to understand God’s love more, to understand that life was more than constantly striving to clean herself up.

He didn’t believe he could do anything better than he was doing right now. He didn’t know how much she was hurting. He thought she was just making a fuss over nothing.

Even as she heard Lorraine breaking in, telling Thomas that he should try to listen to what he’d just said, how it implied a marriage was nothing more than a series of tasks to perform, Abigail was suddenly so exhausted that she wasn’t sure how she could take the next breath.

They’d been in counseling for what felt like ages, and they clearly weren’t any farther along than they’d been at the beginning.

It was never going to be over, never going to get better, never going to get to a place where they didn’t have to desperately struggle for every step forward they took.

He was never going to really hear her, and she was never going to be able to be who he wanted.

Thomas sat just a few feet away from her, but it felt like there were vast endless miles between them.

Then there were more words out of the darkness, coming from even farther away. Words she’d never heard before.

I’m right here. Baby, I’m right here beside you. I’m not going anywhere. Please come back to me.

Instead of the muffled, echoing voices of before, voices from the past, Abigail heard only silence.

She was conscious of a fierce pounding of her head, and she saw nothing but blackness.

For a long stretch of time, this frightened her. The world had turned dark, silent, and unrevealing. But gradually she thought of something she might be able to do about it.

Very slowly, very carefully, she edged open her eyes.

The sterile light of the room hit her vision and caused a jolt of pain to shoot through her head. With a gasp, she squeezed her eyes shut again.

“Abigail?” The thick voice was soft, male, and familiar. It was clearly in the room now, not echoing through her head like before. But she’d never—not once—heard his voice sound like this. “Abigail, baby, are you there?”

He sounded so anguished she couldn’t bear not to answer. “Maybe,” she croaked, the one word ripping through her dry throat.

She heard another noise. It still seemed to come from his presence, but this one she definitely couldn’t identify. It was utterly foreign to everything she’d ever understood about him. It sounded choked, stifled, guttural. Broken.

But it confused and intrigued her enough for her to try to lift her eyelids again. She managed just the slightest crack, her eyelashes shading the worst of the light. This time, it didn’t hurt quite so much, so she raised them a little further.

Thomas sat in a chair beside her. His face was pale and damp, as if he’d been perspiring, but his expression was composed, just slightly strained.

“What happened?” She forced herself to shift her eyes around her, and she discovered she was in a hospital room. As instinct caught up to her before anything else, she gasped, “Mia?”

“Mia is fine. We were in a car accident,” Thomas said softly. “You took a significant blow to the head. You might not remember the accident. That’s normal.”

She tried to think back, recall anything about being in car accident, but it hurt too much to make her mind work that way. As awareness continued to come back to her, she was suddenly conscious of the way her whole body hurt.

She glanced down and saw bindings on her arm.

“You broke a bone in your arm,” Thomas explained. “And cracked a couple of ribs.”

“Oh.” She swallowed. When she was able to get her eyes focused on Thomas once more, something about his expression made her heart pound in fear.

He looked perfectly calm, perfectly stoic. But she saw some sort of pained emotion shuddering under the surface of his absolute composure.

“Am I...” She cleared her voice. “Am I all right?”

“Yes. Broken bones and some bruises. The hit on the head was the most serious thing.”

Despite his words, she knew it wasn’t that simple. Her hands started to shake under the blanket. “Am I...Am I disfigured or something?”

“No. You have some bruising and broken skin, but all of it will heal.” His mouth twisted slightly. “Does it feel like you’re disfigured?”

“No, but something is wrong. Why do you look like I’m dying?”

Thomas took a deep breath and exhaled it hoarsely. “You’ve been unconscious since the accident. We assumed it was a severe concussion and you’d shortly become conscious again.” He swallowed so hard she could see it in his throat. “You were unconscious for almost three hours. That’s a really long time for a concussion. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

And then Abigail understood. Thomas had been worried about her. Worried that she’d slip into a coma or even worse. That was why he looked so stiff and guarded.

The wave of emotion she experienced at this realization was almost more than she could handle in her current state.

“I think I’m all right.” She tried moving her arms and legs very slightly. Everything moved. It just hurt like hell, and she was on the verge of bursting into tears.

Thomas took another shaky breath and then asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I remember last night. You and me...” Despite everything, her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “And we talked this morning—I remember that. You said—” She gasped. “Oh no! You were driving! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Shaken up a little but not injured. You bore the brunt of the impact.”

She relaxed in relief, realizing how devastated she’d be if something had happened to Thomas. The thought was troubling, and it made her think about something else. “Mia? Where is she? You said she was fine.”

“She is fine. She’s still at my parents’. I didn’t want her to come see you until you’d woken up.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Yes. I told her you got hurt a little.”

“Was she scared and upset?”

Thomas nodded, his face still unnaturally grave. “Yes. I tried to tell her gently, but she’s so intuitive. I must not have done a good job. She was crying on the phone.” He glanced away, as if the memory pained him.

She closed her eyes, still feeling overly emotional—probably intensified by the head injury. She hated the thought of Mia being so upset and so far away from her.

Then she sensed a warm pressure on her upper arm that was strangely soothing. Thomas had reached over and put his hand on her arm. “She seemed all right when we hung up. I thought...I thought I should prepare her as much as I could. I didn’t know when you’d wake up.”

Abigail nodded, even though the small move hurt her brutally pounding head. “Thank you.” Her eyes burned with emotion she still tried to hold back. “They’ll come here?”

Thomas stroked her shoulder gently. “Yes. I talked to the nurse and Mia can see you. I can call as soon as you’re up to it, and my parents will bring her over.”

Abigail tossed her aching head restlessly and hoped Mia was okay.

With one last squeeze of her arm, Thomas cleared his throat and stood up. He reached for his phone. “I need to let someone know you’re awake. The doctor will want to check you out. But, if you feel up to it, I don’t see why you shouldn’t talk to Mia first.”

Thomas helped her position the phone next to her ear, and Abigail held it in place with her good arm, which unfortunately was her left one. She tried to smile her thanks at Thomas before he left the room.

On the second ring, a childish voice said, “Hello. This is Mia.”

“Hi, sweetie. It’s Mommy.”

“Mommy!” Mia’s voice broke in obvious joy. “Are you all right? Daddy said you got hurt. He acted brave but he was really scared. I knew. We’re coming to see you whenever he says.”

“I know, sweetie. I’ll be so happy to see you. I hurt myself a little, but I’m all right.”

“Does it hurt real bad?”

“Not too bad. I have a headache, and I hurt my arm. But I want to see you just as soon as possible.”

“Okay. I’ll tell Grandma now, and she’ll drive me right over.”

***

The doctor told Abigail she would need a lot of rest over the next few weeks, but she sure didn’t get any in the hospital. For the next hour, she was constantly interrupted. First by a nurse checking her vitals. Then by a doctor who performed an examination on her focus and motor functions and then pronounced her as having no signs of serious damage. And then by another nurse, checking her vitals again.

All Abigail wanted to do was hug her baby and then sleep. And instead she kept being nagged and poked and told to look at the light every five minutes.

And, to make it worse, Thomas wasn’t even with her at the moment to bully away the worst of the intrusions and make sure she was comfortable.

He had gone down to meet Mia and his parents, and she’d asked him to take them for a quick lunch so he could prepare Mia a little more for the way her mother would look in the hospital bed.

Abigail really didn’t want her sensitive daughter to be traumatized by her bruised and bandaged form.

She’d just managed to close her eyes when she heard a noise from the doorway and smelled a vaguely familiar male scent.

Before she’d shifted her eyes, she realized the scent didn’t belong to Thomas.

Jim Foster stood a few feet from the bed, smiling down at her.

She gasped in surprise, but it wasn’t an unpleasant sight. Just not her family, whom she’d really wanted to see. She managed a weak smile. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

“I heard you were in a car accident,” he explained, “So I stopped by to see how you were doing. Tell me if I’m intruding.”

“Oh no,” she assured him, waving with her good hand at the chair beside the bed. “I’m glad to see you. How did you know about the accident?”

“I have my sources,” Jim said with an ironic half-smile.

“I was just waiting for Thomas to return with Mia.”

“I’ll leave as soon as they arrive. I don’t want to get in the way at a time like this. I was just worried. I’d heard you were still unconscious.”

“You need to get more updated sources,” she teased. “I woke up about an hour ago.”

He reached out and put his warm hand on hers, which was resting on the bed beside her. “I’m glad.”

His hand on hers was comforting, pleasant, but her breath hitched a little. “Jim—”

“I know,” he interrupted with another wry smile. “You’re still married. I might want it to be different, but it’s not. Besides, you don’t really think I’d come on to you in a hospital bed.”

Something loosening in her chest, Abigail gave him a wobbly smile. “I don’t want things to get weird.”

“We’ll make sure they don’t.”

Abigail was so weak and so relieved that her job wasn’t in jeopardy by inconvenient feelings that she might have been smiling like an idiot. “So we’re good?

He took her hand to seal the deal. “Definitely.”

The sound a someone clearing his throat interrupted their conversation. Both of them turned to see Thomas in the doorway, Mia against his side.

Abigail’s expression broke out into a delighted smile at the unexpected sight of her family.

Jim stood up immediately and gave her hand one last squeeze. “I’ll leave now. Get better.”

Abigail was vaguely conscious of Thomas’s level, almost challenging gaze as the other man exited the room. But she was too distracted by Mia—wearing jeans and a pink t-shirt, little glasses slipping down her nose, and two, very tightly braided pigtails—to pay much attention when Jim quietly greeted the others and disappeared.

Mia’s blue eyes were wide and traveled from Abigail to the departing man.

“Mr. Foster came to say hello,” Abigail explained, “But he’s leaving now because he knows you’re the person I want to see most.”

“Oh.” Mia nodded gravely, as if this made sense to her. She walked cautiously into the hospital room, gazing around her with what looked like awe. “Daddy said I can’t touch anything that plugs into the wall.”

“That’s very good advice. Did you get something good for lunch?”

“Yes. French-fries and chicken strips. Daddy got me a great big root beer too.”

“Sounds like I missed out on a good lunch.”

“You did.” Mia stood next to the bed hesitantly, then looked nervously at the chair Jim had just vacated.

Thomas came over and silently lifted her up into the chair and then pushed it even closer to the bed. “This way you can hold Mommy’s hand if you want. It’s her other arm that’s hurt.”

Abigail reached out eagerly when Mia extended her little hand. “Oh, sweetie. I’m so glad you’re here. Were you very scared?”

“A little,” Mia admitted. “But I was very brave like Daddy told me. He said you have bandages on and you have bruises all over you, so you might not look as nice as you normally do. I thought you’d be wrapped up like a mummy!”

Abigail gave a weak chuckle. “So I don’t look like a mummy?”

“No. You still look pretty.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” Abigail looked over toward Thomas and saw him leaning against the wall with one hand in his pocket. She thought he looked more tired than usual and oddly distant.

It worried her.

***

Late that afternoon, Abigail was alone, since Thomas had taken Mia back to his parents’ to stay for the night.

She felt sore and drugged and uncomfortable and itchy, and her head was still pounding, and everyone in the world seemed to have abandoned her.

She was just telling herself not to be melodramatic when there was a tap on the door.

As she turned her head and blinked at the doorway, she registered a man standing there.

He was in his early thirties and attractive, and she recognized him immediately. Daniel. The pastor of Thomas’s church in Willow Park.

“Hi,” she said, her voice sounding strange to her ears. “Come on in.”

“I just stopped by to check on you,” he said. “But I don’t have to stay if you don’t feel up to company.”

“No, it’s fine.” She waved him weakly to the chair beside the bed. “I feel pretty bad, but I was also just lying here bored. It’s nice of you to drop by. How did you know I was in here?”

“Lydia called me,” he explained. “Thomas had told her, of course.”

For some reason, Abigail felt a little strange at this news. She didn’t like people talking about her, but she could hardly blame Thomas for telling his sister something like this. And news of someone in the hospital always got quickly to the pastor. It was normal. Nothing unusual about it. It didn’t speak of any particular intimacy remaining between her and Thomas.