The Perfect Life (8 page)

“Thanks.” She stepped toward me and took hold of one of my hands.“Why don't we go sit in the living room? I'd like to pray for you and Dad. Then we'll have the lunch I promised you.”

“Couldn't we just eat? I'm famished.”

My desire to refuse prayer took me by surprise. Perhaps it was because I—the woman with the perfect life—had been the one who always offered to pray for others. I couldn't recall the last time I'd requested prayer for myself. At the close of Bible study each week, when the women went around the room, sharing prayer needs and writing them down, I asked on behalf of others:
“Please pray for my mother who is planning to sell her home
in Arizona . . . Please pray for Harvest's pastors and their wives
as they go on retreat . . . Please pray for our church's missionaries
in the Philippines . . . Please pray for my friend Susan to come to
know the Lord.”

If Emma guessed the real reason that I asked to eat first, she didn't let on. And she didn't give in either. “It won't take long for us to pray. Your stomach can wait.”

As we neared the living room, I heard the soft chime on my cell phone that told me I'd missed a call. Emma must have heard it, too, for she turned to look at me and gave her head a slow shake.

“I need to look,” I told her, “or it will keep beeping at us.”

I reached into the pocket on the side of my purse and withdrew my phone. With a punch of a button, I displayed the missed calls. Three of them from Brad.

“Come on,Mom.” Emma took the phone from my hand and dropped it into my handbag. “That can wait.We need to pray.”

I'd spent most of my life surrounded by people of faith, and I knew a few things about prayer. I'd participated in twenty-four hour prayer vigils, fasted, visited the sick and dying. I'd approached God's throne with the awe and respect that was due the Almighty, memorizing Paul's prayers from Ephesians for revelation and spiritual empowering, asking to be clothed in the full armor of God, seeking to be filled with the knowledge of His will. Sometimes I'd prayed the Psalms aloud, loving them for the poetic richness of language. No, I was not ignorant about the spiritual discipline of prayer.

But my youngest daughter's prayers were nothing like mine. Never had been. There wasn't anything formal or poetic in the words she used when talking to God. I imagined her crawling into Jesus' lap the way a small child does with her daddy, holding up the pinky that hurts, asking him to kiss it better.

That was how she prayed for me—with passion and abandon and complete confidence that her Father in heaven heard and would answer.

Ten

“
LOOK.
DAD'S
HOME
EARLY.”

As Emma turned her car into the driveway, I saw Brad step out of his pale-green Tribeca and close the door. He stopped when he saw us.

The same emotional exhaustion that I felt was written on my husband's face. In any other circumstance, I would have hurried to his side, wanting to encourage and strengthen him. But this wasn't any other circumstance. This was what it was. Wishing wouldn't change it.

Emma turned the key in the ignition. The engine fell silent. From the corner of my eye, I saw my daughter glance at me but I didn't move, didn't acknowledge her. I sat still, scarcely breathing.

Emma got out of the car and walked toward her father. She stopped in front of him, said something, and then hugged him, holding him close, turning her head and pressing her cheek against his chest.He leaned down to hide his face in the curve of her neck and shoulder.

Brad and Emma had enjoyed a special bond from the time she was a toddler. I never minded. I loved seeing how close they were. I was thankful for it when Emma entered the teen years and began to push boundaries, sometimes annihilating them altogether. Back then it was Brad who could most often help her see reason, Brad who was able to stop her from running headlong into disaster.

Today their closeness bothered me. It bothered me because I was afraid she would believe anything he said. Believe him without question.

The way I've always believed him.

I reached for the handle and opened the door. Brad lifted his head, meeting my gaze as I stepped from the car.

“I tried to call you,” he said. “I got worried when you didn't answer.”

Emma turned to face me, one arm around her dad's back. “I took Mom over to my house. We put together the baby's crib and had lunch together.”

“Sounds like you had a good time.”

If I opened my mouth, I would begin to bawl. I could feel the tears behind my eyes, waiting to break loose.

Brad glanced toward the street.“Maybe we should go inside. The press were hanging around the office this morning. They might show up here next.”

Those words turned the blood in my veins to ice water. I hurried toward the front door, reaching into the side pocket of my purse in search of my keys. Where were they?

“Here, Katherine. I've got mine. Let me.” Brad placed a hand on my shoulder as he reached for the door with the other.

I pulled away from his touch.

He looked at me, and I saw my pain mirrored in his eyes. I was sorry for that, but it couldn't be helped. The door swung open before me. Brad took a step back, giving me plenty of room to enter without getting close to him.

I lowered my eyes. “Thanks.”

Nothing had changed in the house in the hours I'd been away, and yet it felt strange to me—the home of another woman, another couple, another family. I'd spent years decorating it to my tastes, painting these walls and selecting each piece of furniture throughout the house, perusing catalogs, shopping for bargains. I'd chosen the new carpet when the old needed replacing. I'd worked hard to make this a home for my family and a reflection of Brad's success. But now it seemed foreign to me, a place filled with secrets.

Had I lost all the happiness I'd known here? All the joyful memories? Everything that made my life what it was, what it was supposed to be?

In the kitchen, I set my purse on the counter next to the small TV. A light blinked on the answering machine. One message, the tiny window told me. I pressed the Play button.

“Katherine, it's Betty Frasier. Listen, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I know this must be hard on your entire family. I'll be praying for you. But I'm afraid I'll need to miss the Bible study for a while. Maybe I can return in the fall. We'll have to see. But I'll let you know. Take care and know I'm thinking of you. Bye, now.”

So Betty was the first to leave. Would there be others?

I felt abandoned and alone.

I turned to find Brad standing in the kitchen doorway. Had he heard the message? Did he understand what was happening? But then, maybe I didn't understand either.

“Where's Emma?” I asked.

“She went home. She said she'll you call later.”

I took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with ice and water from the refrigerator door.

“I talked to Mike this morning,” Brad said.

“Sorenson?” Our pastor.

“Yes. I'm going to meet with him late this afternoon.”

To confess?
Oh, the traitorous thought.

I pressed the glass to my lips to take a drink, but my hand shook so hard I couldn't tip it upward. I set it on the counter instead.

“Will you go with me, Kat?”

“Maybe you should meet with him alone.”

Brad sank onto one of the chairs at the table. “I need you there.”

How was I supposed to respond to that? A part of me wanted to hear what he would say to our pastor. Another part wanted to remain ignorant. Because what if the truth was worse than what I imagined?

The truth would set us free, so the Bible said. I shouldn't be afraid of it.

I would have to go. It was my place to be at Brad's side in times of trouble. We'd pledged to be together for better or worse. I was his wife. If he asked me to go with him, I should go. I had to go, if only for appearances' sake.

“What time?” I asked softly.

“Four o'clock.”

“What time do we leave?”

“About three thirty.”

“I'll be ready.”

That was a lie. I wouldn't be ready. Not for the meeting with Mike Sorenson. Not for what might appear in the paper next or on Channel 5 next. Not for what our neighbors thought. Not for what our friends thought.

Not even for what, God forgive me, I thought in the depths of my heart.

I would never be ready. Never.

Emma

EMMA CRIED ALL THE WAY HOME, HER HEART ACHING FOR
her parents. With everything in her, she believed in her dad's innocence, but she also believed things were going to be hard for them. Maybe hardest for her mom because she was such a perfectionist. She cared so much about appearances and what other people thought. In Emma's opinion, her mom cared too much about those things.

When she arrived home, she went into the living room and sat cross-legged on the floor next to the ottoman, her back against the couch. With a tissue, she dried her cheeks and blew her nose.

She thought about calling her sister again, then decided against it. Hayley was too angry right now. She'd decided their dad was guilty and thought their mom should leave him now before things got uglier, and nothing Emma had said to Hayley could change her mind.

She didn't understand her sister's reaction. How could she doubt their dad, of all people?

But maybe Emma knew why. She suspected Hayley wasn't as happy in her marriage as she made out to be. She and Steve fought a lot. Emma had heard them on more than one occasion.

It was funny, in a poignant sort of way. Hayley had always been the golden child, the favored one, the daughter who could do no wrong. She'd been the best student with the top grades, had excelled in both music and dance lessons, and had married a rising young attorney from a family of established, wealthy attorneys. Hayley hadn't caused her parents one moment of worry.

Emma, on the other hand, had tried single-handedly to turn her parents' hair gray and had given them more than one sleepless night. She'd pulled when told to push, gone right when told to turn left. And when she fell in love, it was with a guy who spent his first years after high school as a missionary and now worked in an electronics plant.

Emma closed her eyes and whispered a prayer of thanks for her parents. Without them—especially her dad, who'd shown her unconditional love through the hardest of times—who knew what would have become of her? Then she thanked God for Jason. Many well-meaning friends and family members had warned them not to marry so young; on their wedding day, Emma had been nineteen and Jason twenty-three. But all of those people had been wrong. Every day their marriage grew stronger and their love multiplied.

Ironic, wasn't it, that the family's wild child should be the one with the healthiest marriage?

Ironic and sad.

Eleven