Be Sweet (33 page)

Eyes boring into her, I say, “Spare me the details.”

Linda sighs. “You're not making this very easy.”

“Easy? You want me to make this easy, Linda? He was my husband.
My
husband. We lost a child together. We were both hurting—and we handled it . . . differently. I retreated into myself. He had an affair. With you.”

“I had some challenges of my own at the time.”

“Oh, and so that makes it all right to steal another woman's husband?” What is wrong with me? I thought I had worked through all this, that I had forgiven both of them. Poison is dripping from me like spoiled sap from a tree.

A filmy haze shadows her eyes. “What do you want from me, Char? Blood?”

No, I get queasy at the sight of blood. But I might settle for broken bones.

She sighs and turns the ring on her finger. “I know I can't undo what's been done, but, well, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for the pain I caused you.”

The way she says it takes the fight right out of me. I want to be angry—to free all the words that have festered in my heart, but when I look at her at that very moment, I feel pity. She made a bad choice that hurt a lot of people, but it takes two to tango, as Mom always says. And now Linda is hurting the way I did, because another woman stole Eddie from her.

“I'm sorry I bothered you.” She starts to get up.

Suddenly, revenge doesn't seem so sweet. I grab her hand. “Wait.”

She looks at me and sits back down.

“Look, this isn't easy for either of us. We won't get through it without lots of prayer, but I'm willing to try. It's in the past. Let's leave it there.”

“Have you?” There is no accusation in her voice. She asks the question as though she really wants to make sure she's forgiven.

“I've tried to.”

“I'm not sure if anyone has told you, but I've moved back, and Eddie is remarried.”

“Yeah, I heard. You're better off without him.” Eddie's left his mark on both of us.

“Will I get there one day, with the forgiveness, I mean?”

When I look into her eyes, I realize I'm seeing myself not so very long ago. Wounded and bleeding. Who am I kidding? That's still me. “You'll get there.”

She nods. “How long did it take you?”

A knot swells in my throat. I merely shrug.

“Thank you, Char. Thank you for giving me closure. For bringing peace.”

This is so not the way I saw this play out in my mind over the years. Doesn't she need to know the pain she has caused me? The endless nights when I cried myself to sleep? Yet somehow when I look at her and see the shadows in her eyes, the dark circles, I realize . . . she does know.

Linda takes a drink from her cup. “This has been awful hard on Carissa.”

“I'm sorry.” And the thing is, I really am. I'm thankful I never had to put a child through that. Funny. That's something I hadn't thought of before now. I've been so caught up in the pain of being childless that I never saw it as a blessing. Still, the idea of it causes my heart to stumble. “I'm sorry, too, for how I acted when we bumped into each other.”

She lifts a weak smile. “We deserved it. By the way, I was going to talk to you last night when I saw you, but you were with that guy, and I didn't want to interrupt.”

“That's all right. He's just a friend.”

“I'm sure Russ will be glad to hear that. He's crazy about you, but then I guess you know that. I ran into him here last night too. Did you see him? He was upset about something, but wouldn't say what.”

My heart leaps here. It makes me feel better to know Russ just bumped into Linda out here last night and that he didn't tell her what he was upset about.

Maybe I will call him back.

Though it 's late and cold, I walk to the woods to
clear my head. The thing that keeps me from weighing five hundred pounds from all the cookies I eat? Walking. Though I don't do it for the exercise benefit, that's just a bonus. It clears my head and settles my nerves. And right now, my nerves pretty much resemble porcupine needles.

The calm wind makes the cold air bearable. A flutter of bird wings in a nearby tree startles me as I wind my way through the trees. Having grown up here, I have no fear of getting lost. I know this forest as well as I know myself. Although right now, I'm not doing so great on that part.

All these years I've been satisfied with my spiritual journey. I survived that whole affair thing, after all. Who wouldn't be a little bitter? It didn't seem out of line; it seemed
human
—or so I told myself. Still, the seedling of bitterness took root in my heart and began to grow, while I tended to other things and hardly noticed.

I step over a fallen branch. Who am I kidding? The only “thing” I tend to is work. It's not as though I help out anyone, really. Oh, I might offer a token lunch now and then to a friend, but when is the last time I took dinner to someone who was sick, picked up groceries for some-one homebound or watched children for a tired mom?

Twigs snap beneath my feet as I stop at trees here and there to check the bags of sap. Darkness has settled over Tappery, and I suppose I should make my way back to the house, but I need this. Oh, how I need this time alone. To reflect. To rethink some things. To pray.

It's time to call it as I see it. Bitterness has stripped me of valuable family time and memories. It's held me captive in Maine, kept me locked far away from Tappery.

I love my family. And although my mom and I don't see eye to eye on hardly anything, I love her too. She's ornery, so we've got that much in common. Her expectations make her a bit bristly as far as I'm concerned, but I know deep down she loves me. She has to. I'm her daughter. Besides that, it's a commandment.

Stopping beside a maple, my fingers rub across the bark, and I think again about how the tapped tree heals itself through the year before the next tapping season. Though the hole is gone, the scar is still there.

That's me. I've been fooling myself into thinking the wound was gone, but it wasn't. Layers of denial, bitterness, and anger simply grew over it. Funny, I didn't see that until this visit back home. How could I have been so blind?

A sweet, woodsy scent stirs with the night air, calming my spirit as I talk with God about my wasted years.

Wiping my blurry eyes after prayer, I notice a shadow moving in the distance. Another wipe and glance confirm I'm not imagining things. Breath clogs in my throat. I'm not one given to paranoia or fear, but my nerves are on edge, and the shadow causes my feet to freeze in place.

Branches snap as the shadow moves once again. My eyes strain in the darkness to make out the figure. No one should be out here this time of night. I don't remember seeing Janni and Daniel's car when I got home, so I figure they're still at the movie. That means the shadow is probably a wild animal—and with my luck, most likely a squirrel. Probably a rabid one. I'm not completely out of shape, so I could make a beeline for the house, but curiosity—or stupidity—holds me in place.

The shadow moves again, and this time moonlight glints on a face. Janni's. The breath I was holding comes out with a burst. “Janni Ort, what are you doing here?”

“Hello? I could ask the same of you.” She steps over to me, laughing. “Just like the closet days, huh?”

“Except that now I'm a breath away from a pacemaker.”

“What are you doing out here?” she asks as we walk along.

“Let's go down by the oaks so we can sit on the bench,” I say, leading the way.

“Well? You didn't answer my question. What are you doing out here?”

“Excuse me, but I asked you first.”

“How come you always get your way?”

“It's the one perk that comes with age. I thought you and Daniel were going to the movies.”

“Someone got hurt at the store, and he went over to the hospital. I don't think it's anything serious, but he always has to check those things out. Don't know the details yet.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Janni.”

“Yeah, when it rains, it pours. Speaking of which, that rain earlier today made it a little muddy out here,” she says, revealing the mud caked on the bottoms of her shoes.

“So why are you walking around in the woods?”

“To tell you the truth, I'm worried about how to tell Mom and Dad about Stephanie.”

I can see her point. Mom won't take this lying down.

“Mom may throw a fit at first, but she'll come around. You know how she is. She'll adore having a granddaughter. Just stand back when you first break the news.”

“Yeah, watch out for the belching volcano.” Janni chuckles, then sighs. “I sure hope you're right.”

When we sit down, the cold steel of the bench seeps through my pant legs and causes me to shiver.

“It's your turn,” she says.

I tell her about running into Linda and our discussion.

“Wow, that's tough, Char. I'm sorry. But I'm glad you two talked about it.”

“You know, I am too. I think it's the first step toward true healing for me.” I turn a dried leaf in my hand.

Janni smiles and pats my hand. Something catches her attention. “What's that?”

“What?” My gaze shoots up, and I squint through the darkness to where Janni is pointing.

“I saw something through the trees, right over there,” she whispers.

“Good grief. I've been in this woods a thousand times and never met up with shadows—until tonight.”

“There it is again.”

My eyes refocus toward the area of the shadow, and thanks to an almost-full moon I see something that puts me in mind of Gollum from Lord of the Rings. A gasp escapes me. “What do you think it is?” I ask, my heart kicking into a jogging pace.

“I have no idea. Can't be Daniel, since he's at the hospital.”

“The forest is our friend,” I say, trying to convince myself. “Friendly shadows.”

“Well, if it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon leave the
friendly
shadows behind and head for the house. Come on.” Janni creeps from the bench to a nearby tree. I hate to point this out, but, well, it's not hiding her all that well. She's spilling out the sides like pancake batter in too small a griddle.

Normally, I never experience fear in the woods, but with the current state of my nerves, things are starting to get to me, that's all.

“Where did the shadow go? I lost sight of it,” Janni whispers to me over her shoulder. She's shaking so badly, I'm thankful we're not standing under a coconut tree.

“I don't know, but I don't think it's following us.” I'm hearing
Pink
Panther
music in the background as we tiptoe from tree to tree. “One tree can't shield both of us at the same time. We need to separate. I'll head up to the house that way, and you go over there,” I say, pointing.

Janni turns to me and gasps. “You want to separate?” In that instant the whites of her eyes light up the forest.

“Come on, you can do it.” Before she can argue, I dart off to the nearest tree.

Night has thickened around us like maple syrup, making it difficult to see anything. If I could get to a clearing, the moonlight would help me, but a cluster of trees is cutting off the light.

A rustle of leaves. The hoot of an owl causes panic to slice through me. This is crazy. What has gotten into me? More rustling. A scream rockets up my throat, but I clamp my jaw tight and make a mad dash for a nearby clearing, running for all I'm worth. Picture Olympic runner, arms in motion, legs moving at such speed my feet barely touch the ground, and I'm blowing out short, cloudy breaths like a chimney with hiccups. At last I thump against a wide tree and bend over, taking in huge gulps of air.

“What are you doing here?” I whip around just as moonlight lands upon my mother's face in a ghoulish glow. For the first time in my life, I'm understanding that whole need-for-Depends thing.

twenty-eight

“For crying out loud, Mom, what are you doing
walking in the woods at night?” My tight throat attempts to hold the words captive, but they seep through. A tinge of anger traces my voice, and I'm good with that.

“Yeah, Mom, what are you doing?” Janni's shoes crunch fallen twigs as she stomps over to us.

With lips pursed tightly, Mom takes a Superman stance. “I could ask the same of you two.”

Just like that? That's her explanation? If ever I wanted to pile Mom's suspense books in a burning heap, it's now.

“We were taking a walk,” I say.

Janni looks at me, blows out a sigh, and the three of us walk back toward the house.

“Wait. This isn't about us. It's about you.” More steps. “And what's that in your hands?” My eyes narrow to slits when I see the suspense book.

Mom shifts the book to her other hand, and her nose points so high it makes me wonder if she's having a nosebleed.

“She was retrieving her hidden book from the woods,” Janni says dryly, stepping over a large rock in the path.

My feet stop in their tracks, and my jaw dangles. “What? You hid a book in the woods? That's just pathetic, Mom.”

“Charlene Marybelle, you watch your tongue. I'm still your mother.”

Walking again, I sigh. “Mom, we're only trying to keep you from reading those books to help you through this paranoia thing.”

Mom stops, stiffens, stretches from four feet eleven to a full five feet before our very eyes, and points that frightening finger just under my nose. “I am not paranoid. Your father was trying to kill me.”

“Then why isn't he trying now?”

“He and Gertie probably split up.”

Oh, please. I roll my eyes at Janni. She stifles a giggle. “Mom, Janni needs to talk to you.”

Janni shakes her head fervently at me. When Mom turns to her, she stops midshake and smiles.