On her way out the door, Carol grabbed a handful of fresh tissues, and with nothing more to say, Alex led the way to his car.
He opened the passenger door, noticing how she avoided any possibility of their accidentally touching as she climbed inside.
The tension inside the car made the air almost too thick to breathe. He could hardly stand it and he wondered how she could.
When he braked at a stop sign, he decided to make one last effort.
“Carol, please, how many times do I have to tell you how sorry I am? I made a mistake. I behaved like a jerk. Tell me what you want me to do, because I’ll do it. Anything you say. I love you! You’ve got to believe I’d never intentionally do anything to hurt you.”
His pleas were met with more of the same strained, intolerable silence.
In frustration he pressed his foot to the gas, and they shot ahead. The seat belts were all that kept them from slamming forward with the car.
The fiercest argument of their courtship now ensued, and the crazy part was, neither of them uttered a word. Every once in a while, Alex could hear Carol drag a breath through her lungs, and he knew she was doing everything in her power not to cry. Each tear she shed, each sob she inhaled, felt like a knife wound.
He was losing her, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. It wouldn’t be so tragic if he didn’t care for her so much. After Gloria’s death, Alex had never truly believed he’d fall in love again. Even when he’d made the decision to remarry, he hadn’t expected to find the depth of emotion he’d experienced with Carol.
And now it might be too late.
“Hey, Mom, did you and Mr. Preston have a fight or something?” Peter asked the following morning.
“W-why do you ask?”
Peter popped two frozen waffles in the toaster, then stood guard over them as though he expected Carol to snatch them out of his hands.
“I don’t know. Mr. Preston was acting strange last night when he picked us up from the movie.”
“Strange?”
“Sad. Mr. Preston’s usually loads of fun. I like him, I mean, he’s about the neatest adult I know. He doesn’t treat me like I’m a kid, and he likes the same things I like and—I don’t know—I just think he’s an all-around great guy. Fact is, Mom, men don’t come much better than James’s dad.”
“He is…nice, isn’t he?” she agreed. She tightened her fingers around the handle of her coffee mug and looked anywhere but at her son.
Peter leaned toward her and squinted. “Have you been crying?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said lightly, trying to make a joke out of it.
“Your eyes are all puffy and red like you have an allergy or something.”
“Pollen sometimes affects me that way.” Which was the truth. It just didn’t happen to be affecting her eyes at that particular moment.
The waffles popped up, and Peter grabbed them, muttering under his breath when he burned his fingers. He spread a thin layer of butter on them and followed that with a puddle of syrup. Once that task was complete, he added two more waffles to the toaster, then sat across the table from Carol.
“I kind of thought you and Mr. Preston might’ve had a fight,” Peter said, obviously feeling it was safe to probe some more. “That would’ve been too bad because on the way to the movie he was telling us that he wanted to make this dinner the most romantic night of your life. Was it?”
“He…tried.”
“How did the Baked Alaska taste?”
“The Baked Alaska?” Carol made a nondescript gesture. “Oh…it was great.”
“Mr. Preston made everything himself. Right down to the salad dressing. James told me he’d been shopping for days. It would’ve been terrible if you’d had a fight and ruined it…. You love Mr. Preston, don’t you?” Peter asked earnestly.
Carol closed her eyes to the emotion assaulting her from all sides. She would be lying if she didn’t admit it. And her heart refused to let her lie. But no one seemed to understand that love wasn’t a cure-all. She’d loved Bruce, too—or thought she did—and look where that had gotten her.
“Yes,” she whispered. She’d averted her gaze, but she could hear Peter’s sigh of relief.
“I knew you did,” he said cheerfully, slicing into his waffle. “I told James you were wild about his dad and that whatever happened at dinner would be okay in the morning.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Carol murmured.
An hour later, Carol was working in the garden space Alex had tilled for her several weeks earlier. She was cultivating the soil, preparing it to plant several different herbs that afternoon. She’d done her homework and discovered a wide variety that grew well in the moist climate of the Pacific Northwest.
Her back was to the kitchen, and she hadn’t heard the doorbell. Nor was there the usual commotion that occurred whenever Peter let someone in.
Yet without a doubt, she knew Alex was standing in the doorway watching her. She felt his presence in the same way she experienced his absence.
Running her forearm across her damp brow, she leaned back and removed her gloves. “I know what you want to say,” she said, “and I think it would be best if we just dropped the whole issue.”
“Unfortunately that’s a luxury neither of us can afford.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” she sighed, awkwardly struggling to an upright position. The knees of her jeans were caked with mud and the sweat was pouring down her flushed face.
There’d probably been only two other times in her life when she’d looked worse, and Alex had seen her on both occasions.
With the cultivator gripped tightly in her fist, she walked over to the patio and sank down on a deck chair. “All right, say what you have to say.”
Alex grinned. “Such resignation!”
“I’d rather be working in my garden.”
“I know.” He flexed his hands a couple of times. “I suppose I should start at the beginning.”
“Oh, Alex, this isn’t necessary, it really isn’t. I overreacted last night. So, you made a mistake—you’re only human and I forgive you. Your intentions weren’t exactly honorable, but given the circumstances they were understandable. You wanted to take me into your bed and afterward make an honest woman of me.” She made quotation marks with her fingers around the words honest woman. “Right?”
“Something like that,” he mumbled. Although of course the issue was much more complicated than that….
“The thing is, I’ve been made an honest woman once and it was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m not planning to repeat it.”
“What was your husband’s name?” Alex asked without preamble.
“Bruce…why?”
“Do you realize you’ve never told me?”
She shrugged; she never talked about Bruce if possible.
“Tell me about him, Carol,” Alex pleaded, “tell me everything. Start with the minute you noticed each other and then lead me through your relationship to the day you buried him.”
“I can’t see how that would solve anything.”
“Tell me, Carol.”
“No.” She jumped to her feet, her heart in a panic. “There’s nothing to say.”
“Then why do you close up tight anytime someone mentions him?”
“Because!” She paced the patio. Stopping abruptly, she whirled around and glared at him, angry all over again. “All right, you want to know? I’ll tell you. We were teenagers—young, stupid, naive. We made out in the back seat of a car…and when I got pregnant with Peter we got married. Bruce died three years later in a car accident.”
An eternity passed before Alex spoke again. “That’s just a summary. Tell me what really happened in those three years you were married.” His voice was soft and insistent.
Her chest constricted painfully. Would nothing satisfy him short of blood? How could she ever hope to describe three years of living in hell? She couldn’t, and she didn’t even want to try.
Alex wouldn’t understand, and nothing she could ever say would help him. What purpose would it serve to dredge up all that misery? None that she could see.
Slowly she lowered herself onto the deck chair again, trying to still her churning thoughts, to nullify the agonizing memories. The pain was so distinct, so acute, that she opted for the only sane solution. She backed away.
Alex reached for her hand, holding it loosely. “I know this is difficult.”
He didn’t know how difficult.
“Bruce and I were married a long time ago. Suffice it to say that the marriage wasn’t a good one. We were much too young…and Bruce had…problems.” She bit her lip, not willing to continue. “I don’t want to drag up the past. I don’t see how it would do any good.”
“Carol, please.”
“No,” she said sharply. “I’m not about to dissect a marriage that ended thirteen years ago simply because you’re curious.”
“We need to talk about it,” he insisted.
“Why? Because I get a little panicky when you start pressuring me into bed? Trust me, any woman who’s gone through what I did would react the same way. You know the old saying—once burned, twice shy.” She tried to make light of it and failed. Miserably.
For the longest time Alex said nothing. He did nothing. He stared into the distance, and Carol couldn’t tell where his thoughts were taking him.
“I never expected to fall in love again,” he said.
Carol frowned at the self-derision in his words.
“Gloria knew I would, but then she always did know me better than I knew myself.” He paused for a moment, and he gave a sad, bitter smile. “I’ll never forget the last time we were able to talk. The next day she slipped into a coma, and soon afterward, she died. She knew she was dying and had accepted it. The hospital staff knew it was only a matter of time. But I couldn’t let go of her. I had such faith that God would save her from this illness. Such unquestionable trust. He did, of course, but not the way I wanted.”
“Alex…” Tears were beginning to blur her vision. She didn’t want to hear about Gloria and the wonderful marriage he’d had with her. The contrast was too painful. Too bleak.
“Gloria took my hand and raised her eyes to mine and thanked me for staying at her side to the very end. She apologized because she’d been ill. Can you imagine anyone doing that?”
“No.” Carol’s voice was the faintest of whispers.
“Then she told me God would send another woman into my life, someone healthy and whole who’d love me the way I deserved to be loved. Someone who’d share my success and who’d love our son as much as she did.” He paused and smiled again, but it was the same sad smile. “Trust me, this was the last thing I wanted to hear from my wife. First of all, I was in denial, and I refused to believe she was dying, and second, nothing could have convinced me I’d ever love another woman as much as I loved Gloria.”