The Snow Angel (17 page)

I called Sarah almost immediately after Cyrus went to bed for the day. Because I couldn’t be sure if he was listening on the other line, I tried to keep the conversation perfectly innocuous, but I could tell by her tone that Sarah realized the gravity of the situation.

“I’m so glad Cyrus made it home safe,” she said. What she meant was, What are we going to do?

“Me, too. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel
our meeting this morning. I should be home if Cyrus needs me.”

“Of course. I’ll let everyone know.” I’ll tell Max you’re not coming.

“Oh, and Lily wanted me to ask you if she can take us out for ice cream after school. You know, as a thank you.”

“Sure. I’ll ask David if he can keep an eye on the twins. Shall I expect you at three?” I’ll be counting the minutes …

The day seemed to drag on forever, and when I pulled up at her house a little before three, it struck me that Sarah thought so, too. She was waiting for me on the sidewalk, pacing up and down as if she couldn’t keep still. The moment I stopped, she slid into the passenger seat of my car and leaned across the console to give me a squeeze. “Hey,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“Fine.” I smiled thinly. “But I don’t know how I can keep going to Max’s. Cyrus definitely suspects that there’s something going on.”

“Did he…?” Sarah’s eyes searched mine, but she couldn’t bring herself to finish.

“Did he hit me?” I said. “No.” I glanced over my shoulder and pulled away from the curb, angling the car toward Lily’s school. “It’s fine, Sarah. Really. Everything is just fine.”

“No, it’s not!” Her vehemence surprised me. “Come on, Rachel, you know everything is not just fine. Look at you:
You’re scared. And you can’t see Max … Don’t you get it? This isn’t okay.”

“Of course I ‘get it,’” I said coolly. “It’s my life, remember? I’m living it.”

“Sorry.” Sarah sighed. “I’m not very good at this. It just drives me crazy that he has such power over you. And honestly, I don’t understand why you let him have it.”

“I don’t expect you to understand. I expect you to be my friend.”

“I am your friend.”

“You’re also a pastor’s wife,” I reminded her. “And marriage is supposed to be sacred. How can you counsel me to go against my husband’s wishes?”

Sarah put her hand on my arm, but I kept my eyes on the road. “Rachel, listen. Marriage is sacred. And the Bible says that God hates divorce. He hates it because he wants better for you. He never intended for you to have a broken marriage or a broken home. He loves you.”

I made a little sound in the back of my throat because even though I did not doubt Sarah’s sincerity, I doubted her message.

“Oh, don’t do that,” she said softly. “I don’t care what Cyrus has made you believe. You are beloved.”

It was very hard not to roll my eyes. What did I know about love?

But Sarah didn’t push me. Instead, she changed tack.
“You’re not safe, Rachel, and neither is Lily. Cyrus needs help, but I don’t think he’s going to come to that realization on his own.”

I almost laughed at the thought of Cyrus admitting that he needed help. I believed that God still performed miracles, but in all my years of marriage, I had been given no indication that there was one forthcoming. And yet, was it wrong to hope?

“You sound like my dad,” I said dryly.

“Your dad?”

I hadn’t even realized I had spoken aloud. I waved my hand as if to rid the air of my words. “He used to say that all the time. That Cyrus needed help.”

“Your dad sounds like a wise man.”

My cheeks flushed with shame and I rushed to change the topic. “Maybe Cyrus will change,” I said hesitantly.

“Maybe you have to give him the opportunity to.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, considering all the things I could say to her. But we didn’t have time for a philosophical conversation—I was already pulling up to Lily’s school. I put the car in park and gave Sarah my full attention. “I know you’re my friend. But I need you to understand that I don’t take this lightly. I feel very, very trapped, and I don’t know how to get myself out of this mess. It’s too big. Too complicated.”

“But don’t you think if we just—”

“Hi, Mom,” Lily chirped, swinging open the back door and flinging herself into the seat. “Hi, Sarah.”

We both pasted on smiles and abandoned our heated discussion. “Hi, honey,” I said. “Where to? This is your show.”

“Ice cream,” she said firmly. “I want to go to the Dairy Stop before it closes for the winter. And I want to eat it at Oak Grove.”

“The lady knows what she wants.” Sarah winked at me. “Who are we to argue?”

We all got soft-serve, twist cones from the Dairy Stop, and then I made the five-minute drive to the park. Oak Grove was a little nature reserve with hiking trails and secluded corners for romantic picnics that squatted in the low hills just a few miles outside the Everton city limits. It was the perfect place to be alone, and I could guess why Lily chose it: She wanted to be able to talk freely.

I drove down the winding, tree-lined road and parked on a gravel turn-off near my favorite trail. It was an unusually warm late October day, and though the trees were stripped and bare, their leaves littered the ground ankle-deep. We crunched down the path, kicking up leaves and losing our way. But I knew where we were going, and eventually we came around a bend and were afforded a view of our destination: a giant slab of basalt rock that sunned itself on the side of a hill.

The rock was as large as a house and rose in jutted columns that were perfect for climbing. I had taken Lily here many times before, and she ran the rest of the distance, then scrambled up and away toward her favorite spot, half-eaten ice cream cone still clutched in one hand. Sarah followed with a laugh, and soon all three of us were stretched out on a smooth, flat section, enjoying the way the black stone was warm beneath us.

“Thanks for the ice cream cone,” Sarah said, nudging Lily with her shoulder. “It’s just what I needed today.”

“The Dairy Stop closes on Friday,” Lily told her seriously. “We have to go five whole months without soft-serve ice cream.”

“And Dairy Dogs,” I sighed.

“And chili cheese fries.”

“It’s a tragedy,” Lily confirmed. And in spite of the tight knot of fear that existed where my heart should be, I loved the fact that my daughter thought the temporary closure of a mom and pop roadside stand was a tragedy.

We were quiet for a few minutes, licking our cones and watching the way feathery strands of high, white clouds trailed across the stark blue sky. I wished that we could just remain in this place of silence, of peace, but when Lily swallowed her last bite of cone, she turned to me with a decidedly businesslike air.

“So,” she said. “What are we going to do now?”

“You mean now that Dad’s home?”

She shook her head. “Now that he suspects something. I saw that look in his eye. He’s going to be watching us like a hawk.”

“Max is just going to have to finish without us.” I tried to sound indifferent, but I couldn’t keep the regret out of my voice.

“He can’t,” Sarah piped up. “I stopped by there this morning after you called and he looked positively heart-sick. We still have five full suits to go and the order needs to be shipped by December 1. Max can’t do it alone.”

“He’s got you,” I reminded her. “You can help.”

“I’m hopeless,” she argued. “I can run a steamer, that’s about it.”

“So he’ll be a little late.”

“Mom.” Lily gave me a dismayed look. “It’s Mr. Wever’s last order. He’s counting on that money for retirement. You know that. He can’t work anymore with Mrs. Wever gone.”

“What would you have me do?” I cried. “If Dad finds out he’ll go ballistic. And you’re right, he knows we’re up to something. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Maybe you can take a little break. Stay away from Eden for a week or two, then when Cyrus lets his guard down you can go back and help Max finish,” Sarah said.

I bit my lip, considering. “That might work.”

“It’s our only choice.” Lily nodded as if that settled it. Then she twisted her mouth into an anxious little bow. “It is our choice, right? I can still come, can’t I?”

I hated to do it, but I had to. I shook my head. “I’m so sorry, honey. I can’t drag you into this. If your dad finds out what I’ve been doing, that’s fine. I can deal with it. But if you’re tangled up in it …” I could hardly bring myself to consider the possibilities.

“That’s not fair!” Lily’s attempt at fury was thwarted by the tears that instantly sprang to her eyes. “You can’t stop me from seeing Mr. Wever!”

“It’s not what I want either,” I said, reaching for her. But she yanked away from me.

“Then do something about it! I don’t get it. Why don’t we just leave?”

It was a question I had asked myself a hundred times since the day I said, “I do.” Am I done yet? Is it time? But is the time ever right to leave your spouse? The man who swore to love and protect you, even if he broke those same vows in a thousand different ways?

Although it seemed unbelievable, even to me, I could come up with a list a mile long of all the many reasons to stay. My daughter deserved a daddy, even if he wasn’t going to win any dad of the year awards. Besides, I had nowhere to go, nothing to do. My whole world was the tiny town of Everton. And if I left, everyone would know that my entire
life had been a sham. Really, life with Cyrus wasn’t that bad. It’s not as if he regularly beat me or anything like that. He called me names. Every once in a while he was more forceful than necessary. It was nothing I couldn’t handle.

As I mentally went over my laundry list of reasons, I came to the bottom of my logic, to a place that I hadn’t visited in many, many years. Somewhere, buried in a forgotten corner of my heart, I came to the unexpected realization that some small part of me still loved my husband. Feared him, yes, but whether the memory was fresh or not, there was a time that he looked upon me with a gaze so filled with passion it took my breath away. And there was something inside me that still longed for that: for someone to love me the way that Cyrus did back when he first fell in love with me. I hadn’t imagined it, had I? We had been in love once.

Maybe, if I stayed, he’d remember.

I fell in love with Cyrus at my senior prom.

It was an accident, something that I never intended to happen. But I was raw and reeling from a fight with my dad, and I suppose that even if it had nothing to do with love, I would have fallen one way or another that night.
Sometimes, the only thing to do when you’re hurting is to let yourself go headlong.

My dad had given me money to buy a prom dress, but when I came home with a gown that made me feel like a princess, he made me feel like a slut.

“You can’t wear that,” Dad said when I came out of my bedroom in the pink, strapless sheath.

“Why not?” I smiled, sure that he was on the verge of teasing me. Perhaps he would say that I looked too pretty, that I was bound to steal some poor guy’s heart. I knew that the blush of the dress was perfect for my skin, that it made my hair glow like fire.

“Because it’s totally inappropriate.”

“What?” My smile quirked a little. It wasn’t quite the response I expected.

“It’s …” Dad fumbled for words, but I could see that he wasn’t amused.

I smoothed the fitted waist with my palms, confused. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

“It’s too tight, too low, too revealing …” Dad fanned his hands as if he could hardly stand the sight of me. “You can’t wear it.”

“What?”

“You are not going to wear that dress. I won’t allow it.”

A wave of hurt washed over me, but before I could
drown in it I felt a strong, unexpected undertow of fury. It was a lethal combination. “Excuse me?” I bit off the words even as I choked back tears. “It’s a beautiful dress.”

“The dress is fine—”

“So it’s me?”

“No,” Dad sputtered. “It’s you and the dress. You in the dress.” He closed his eyes and shook his head as if to clear it, and when he looked at me again there was steel in his expression. “You may not wear the dress. That’s final.”

“What am I supposed to wear?” I nearly shouted.

“Find another dress.”

“It’s too late to find another dress! Prom is less than a week away. I’m lucky I found this dress.”

Dad thinned his mouth into a hard line and turned away from me. Apparently the conversation was over, but I was still left standing in a dress that I had believed only minutes before was the most gorgeous thing that I had ever had the good fortune to wear. When I had tried it on in the store, I didn’t even care that I was going to the prom solo. Who needed a date when I had a dress that made me look like a movie star?

“Do you want me to stay home?” I cried. “Is that it? You want to ruin it for me?” Dad stiffened, but he didn’t rise to the bait. I tried harder. “Or maybe you can’t stand it that I actually look pretty. You always wished I was a boy, didn’t
you? ‘It’s so hard being the single father of a daughter …’ At least, that’s what you tell your friends. Maybe you’d like it better if I wore a tux to the prom!”

Dad shook his head sadly, but instead of arguing with me, he left the room. I teetered in the middle of the living room floor, my high heels sinking in the shag carpet, and felt a surge of defiance so powerful I was stunned at my own capacity for rebellion. All my life I had been a fairly compliant child. Easy to manage, if a little prone to random acts of disappearance. But suddenly it was as if all my years of quiet obedience had finally burst the seams of self-control. I was tingling, heartbroken, and downright livid.