Sweetest Desires (A Sweetest Day Romance) (8 page)

As Bethany got in a few minutes later and he helped her to buckle up, Carson smiled to himself. He’d avoided a conversation with Katharine.

Chapter 10

Katharine showered and dressed quickly,
deciding to forgo breakfast.

After stopping by the main office at the school to sign in and receive her visitor’s pass, she darted down the hallway to her son’s classroom and peeked through the narrow window in the door. She couldn’t spot CJ. He must be sitting somewhere in the back, she thought.

She turned the knob slowly, and the teacher, Ms. Cavacas, motioned her inside. The class was in the middle of a lesson.

Ms. Cavacas asked the class to silently read sp
ecific pages from the textbook while she spoke with Katharine. Her description of CJ’s behavior in class corroborated his after-school teacher’s comments.

Ms. Cavacas called CJ up to her desk while she continued her conversation with Katharine.

For a few seconds, CJ moped in his chair before getting up and dragging his feet along toward the front of the class. A freckled-faced kid, two rows in front of him, stuck out his foot, causing CJ to trip. Blood oozed from his mouth as he stood again. Apparently, his teeth had jammed into his lip when he hit the floor.

Without considering the presence of adults, CJ angrily charged into the boy, grabbed him by his shoulders, and wrestled him to the floor. Katharine grabbed CJ and pulled him off, saving the troubl
emaker from a black eye or a broken nose.

The freckled-faced kid reached his full height and brushed himself off. “Instead of calling you CJ, we should call you Pee J, ’cause you stink!” he taunted, attaching in a singsong, babylike voice, “CJ wets the bed.” As some of the students snickered, he added, “Hey, pee-boy, go home with your mommy.”

The students laughed harder.

CJ tried to jerk loose from his mother’s grip.

“That will be enough, Jeffrey!” Ms. Cavacas shouted.

Many of the students lowered their heads in e
mbarrassment or cast apologetic looks at CJ. Katharine could tell from their faces that only a few of the kids really liked Jeffrey, but most of them seemed to be afraid of him.

Katharine was glad of the chance to see firsthand what was causing her son’s problems. As Ms. Cav
acas apologized profusely to Katharine and CJ, Katharine wished for a moment that she’d let CJ go after the little bully. With all the anger built up in her son, that other boy wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Though Katharine accepted the apologies p
olitely, she resented the time, energy, and emotion she’d put into listening to Ms. Cavacas when she should have been defending her son.

“I need to take him home,” she sneered. “He’s hurt, and I don’t think he’ll be paying much attention in school today.”

Ms. Cavacas looked at CJ’s bleeding lip and nodded. She instructed him to retrieve his jacket and bookbag. Before bidding a farewell, she reminded Katharine to stop at the office to sign him out.

Putting her arm around CJ’s shoulders, they slid quietly down the hallway to the water fountain so he could rinse his mouth out.

She’d given him permission to sit up front. As they got into the car, Katharine immediately smelled urine. My poor baby, she thought. He must be humiliated being insulted in front of his teacher, his classmates, and his own mother. They were silent the entire way home. At a stoplight, she smiled and reached over to caress his knee.

She pulled the car into the driveway and gathered her thoughts. “CJ, I want you to take out a pair of jeans from your bottom drawer and a tee-shirt from your closet,” she instructed.

He looked at his mother with queried eyes. “Why?”

“Because I want you to take a shower first so we can go to your favorite place for lunch.”  She made it sound cheerful.

His brows shot up. “KidzWorld?” he grinned with a sudden burst of excitement.

A soft smile formed on her lips. “KidzWorld,” she repeated, suspecting that would perk him up a little.

While CJ was bathing, Katharine removed the soiled linen from his bed. She was angry with herself for not checking it that morning. She’d assumed Carson had everything under control. Just thinking about it made her even angrier with Carson. Then she realized Carson probably hadn’t noticed the odor underneath CJ’s clean clothes. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time CJ had gone to school smelling like urine. Those other times must also have happened when Carson was in charge while she was busy or away. She’d never allow CJ to leave for school unbathed if he’d wet the bed.

She stuffed the soiled sheets in the laundry ba
sket and scrubbed the wet spot on the mattress with a cleansing solution. Ordinarily, she’d use a blow dryer to speed up the process, but this time she allowed it to air dry.

After phoning her assistant to tell her that she would be working from home today, Katharine turned on the computer to do some research on the causes and effects of bedwetting. After reading several authoritative websites, she decided her son needed not only medical attention but also professional cou
nseling to deal with the embarrassment that caused his disorder, not to mention the tension between his parents and the annoying behavior of his little sister.

“Ready, Mom!” CJ breezed into the room, gri
nning. Katharine returned the smile. With a click of the mouse, she added the website she was reviewing into her Favorites folder.

“Me, too,” she said, exiting the program and turning off the computer.

* * *

After playing the video games and pinball m
achines, CJ sat at the table with Katharine to eat lunch. He admitted to being angry with the kids for making fun of his bedwetting.

“That takes a lot of courage,” Katharine said.

CJ shrugged.

“Remember the videos we watched on how the people taunted and treated Jesus badly, even though he caused no harm to anyone?”

CJ nodded.

“Well, what did Jesus do?”

“He, he didn’t fight back. He just prayed for the people.”

“Exactly, because nonviolence is the way of our Lord and Savior and we are to follow His example, right?”

“It’s hard, Mom,” CJ said, fighting to stay calm. “It’s hard to be peaceful when everybody’s teasing you . . . but I guess I’m okay.”

“We’ll get through your bedwetting problem t
ogether, sweetheart.”

His troubled expression told Katharine he was embarrassed to have this conversation with her.

“Okay?”

“I’m okay, Mom.” CJ turned away from her as if he wanted to say something more but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Katharine suspected there was something else worrying him. “Are you, CJ? Are you really okay? With all the good things you have going for yourself—the theater club, Boy Scouts, the Little League’s most valuable player award—you still don’t seem happy,” Katharine said. “You mope around like you’ve got something on your mind all the time. And each time I’ve asked you, you said, ‘I’m fine, Mom.’”

“But I
am
fine.” He turned back toward her with what he obviously hoped she saw was a happy expression.

Katharine dropped the conversation to finish lunch, but she wasn’t convinced.

“Sweetheart,” she said as they drifted to the car, “I want you to feel like you can ask me anything. I don’t want you to be afraid to talk to me about whatever’s on your mind. Okay?”

CJ nodded in his usual fashion.

“You’re not alone,” she added. “Everybody needs somebody. I need you and you need me and we both need God.” She smiled and gave him a tight hug for extra assurance.

“I’ll try to stop wetting the bed by not drinking anything after seven-thirty.” His bedtime was nine-o’clock.

Katharine noticed he didn’t promise to stop teasing his sister, probably because that was the fun part of his misbehavior.

As a special treat, she took him to Toys “R” Us and allowed him to buy a PlayStation Portable and a couple of games. She’d treated it as an advance birt
hday gift. CJ was so ecstatic, he asked if she could drop him off early at the after-school program to show off his new games.

Katharine was more than happy to fulfill his r
equest. She needed the quiet time to regroup. She reminded him to safeguard his new items.

After dropping CJ off, she found herself slipping into unhappy thoughts again. She tried to shake her gloomy mood on the ride home, but the thought of that little bully, Jeffrey, insulting her son publicly made her wince. It was just too much for an eight-year-old boy to be going through. He desperately needed the guidance and comfort of his dad, and Ca
rson wasn’t providing it.

When she reached home, she still hadn’t found a solution. Perhaps their pastor could counsel CJ, but with a huge congregation, he couldn’t possibly do it on such short notice. On second thought, many of the church members, especially the ministry leaders, were busybodies. Every now and then, even the pa
stor would indulge in gossip about his congregation and staff. If you can’t trust the church, especially your pastor, who can you trust? Before she even finished her thoughts, she knew the answer. Psalms 118:8: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.”

The verse reminded her that it had been weeks since she’d really read her Bible. Finding it buried under a stack of inspirational books and novels on her nightstand, she held it in her hands and prayed for help. Then she flipped the Bible open at random and started reading aloud, St. John 14:26: “But the Co
mforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

Convinced the Lord was speaking to her, Katharine thought,
Don’t put confidence in the words of others. Put your trust, faith and belief in the word of God
. He had always helped her before and He would help her again.

After marking the St. John passage with a slip of paper, she closed the Bible, deciding to take a short nap with the knowledge that things were out of her hands. God was in control, and He would fix all her family problems. With that in mind, she told herself that after her nap, she would do some Berkley work.

Two hours later, Katharine awoke all of a sudden, disoriented. She blinked her eyes, and Carson’s face swam into view. For a moment, her heart pumped with a new excitement that erased her exhaustion. But when she realized he was frowning, her happy smile faltered.

A trickle of sweat cascaded down her spine as she sat up and ran a hand through her hair. She squinted at the alarm clock. In another hour or so, she’d have to pick up the children.

Carson stepped inside the walk-in closet, and she heard the sound of hangers sliding across the metal rod. Coming out with his arms full of tailor-made suits and dress shirts, he laid them across the loveseat. His suitcase lay open on the bed.

Katharine watched in dismay as he packed his belongings, neither looking at her nor speaking to her, and the truth struck her like a blow.

He was leaving her.

Chapter 11

“What have I done?” Katharine
shouted, grabbing the back of Carson’s jacket, tugging at him, demanding he face her. “Please tell me. I’ll make it right. Whatever it is, just tell me.”

“It’s not entirely something you’ve done.” His voice was low, almost tender.

“Then why?” Tears crowded her eyes, blinding her to the futility of her appeal. “If it’s about me finding the magazines, honey, we can work through that.”

He listened in stony silence while he pulled socks and underwear from the drawers and tossed them into his suitcase. Finally, he responded with, “I respect you, but meddling in my personal business was over the top. Frankly, you don’t excite me an
ymore. You haven’t for a long time. Maybe our marriage was a big mistake.”

“You don’t mean that! How can you say such horrible things? If you loved me you wouldn’t be acting this way.”

“And if you loved me, you wouldn’t try to hold me against my will,” he said.

They looked at each other.

“I suppose,” she said, drying her eyes, “our marriage has been something of a pretense for the past two years.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “All we’ve been doing lately is arguing. Don’t we love each other anymore?” She hugged her elbows and rubbed her bare arms.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Maybe I’ve sensed that you don’t love me anymore . . . at least the way you used to love me . . . and I thought I could hold on to you.” She looked at him sadly. “I still love you. I’ve tried to make it work. Between my job, keeping house and the children, I’ve tried to find time to make you feel loved.”

“I didn’t mean it when I said our marriage was a mistake,” Carson said more gently. “You’ve given a lot to our children and to me.”

Katharine said nothing, squeezing her hands nervously and watching him, trying to read his thoughts.

His eyes slid slowly around to meet hers.

“Please,” she said and continued her appeal silently. Stop the packing. Take me in your arms. Hold me. But then she remembered. He hadn’t held her in months.

It seemed essential somehow that she touch him. She reached out with her left hand, resting it on the bare skin of his wrist.

His gaze dropped. She couldn’t bring herself to remove her hand.

He looked up at her with a melancholy expre
ssion, and Katharine held her breath as his eyes moved over her face.

He turned the narrow gold band on her finger. “Not a very fancy wedding ring.”

“At the time we couldn’t afford better.” She gave a false little laugh.

“I remember placing it on your hand.” He snapped out of his reflection and looked quickly at her. “I’m—I just need some space to think, and you’re in my way,” he said, as if he were telling her the sky was blue and the grass was green. “B
esides, you haven’t been that involved the few times we’ve made love.”

“Funny, I haven’t heard you complaining.”

Carson glared at her.

Katharine couldn’t hold back the question any longer. “How long have you been seeing her?” She could hear the shrillness in her voice, but she was helpless to control it.

“There is no her,” he said as he dashed into the bathroom and began to fill his shaving kit bag.

“What has turned you into a coward, Carson? You didn’t know I would be here. So, your plan was to let me come home and find that you’ve deserted your family?”

He wheeled on her. “I’m not a coward!” he said, slamming aftershave lotion into his bag. “I’m trying to look at the future like a grown man, not a bemused child! And besides,” his voice began to soften, “I wanted to spare your feelings and not have the children around to see this.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.

“You don’t have to leave.”

“Do you propose we continue to live like this? Clinging to the hope that some miracle will happen?”

“I believe in miracles. You used to. What’s ha
ppened to that?”

His silence was cutting.

“What about the children? What am I supposed to tell them?”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’ll be back in the morning to talk with them. In the meantime, I know you’ll think of something soothing to say. If you’d like, you can tell them I’m out of town.” He fi
nished packing his kit bag and zipped it up, grabbed his suitcase and headed for the bedroom door.

“Oh, so now you want me to lie to them?” Katharine challenged him.

“I want you to do what’s best for them—to spare their feelings at whatever cost,” he said, stepping to the doorway with his luggage in one hand and suits enclosed in a garment bag draped over his shoulder with the other.

Katharine tried to be brave and assured. “Carson, now is not a good time for you to be leaving. There’s too much going on with CJ, and—”

He rolled his eyes upward, let out a sharp breath and started to leave.

Panic and anger seized her and she blurted out, “Are you going to stay with that home-wrecking witch, Cindy?”

Carson’s mouth fell open.

Without another word, she slammed the bedroom door in his face and locked it. She held her breath for several seconds, waiting for his step on the carpeting, but she heard only a heavy thud as the front door closed behind him. As she heard his car pulling away, she released her breath in a bitter sigh.

She should have given him an opportunity to defend himself against her accusation, but what if he’d confessed that he was in love with Cindy?

Feeling a sudden pain near her heart, she lay back on the bed, rubbing her chest. She was going to die of a heart attack, and he wouldn’t even know till it was too late.

* * *

Pulling out her wedding album, Katharine opened it to a photo of herself and Carson wrapped in each other’s arms and cried uncontrollably.

After thirty minutes or so, exhausted and distraught, she phoned Natalie before picking up her children. She valued Natalie’s opinion and trusted her implicitly.