Heart of Clay (12 page)

He finally gave her arm a shove and took a
step back. In the thirteen years she’d known him, she’d never seen
him this angry and it frightened her.

Clay seemed huge and intimidating when he
was mad. His face was red, and a vein near his temple throbbed
riotously. Uncertain about what enraged him, she decided she wasn’t
sticking around to find out the cause.

With plans for escape, Callan ran toward the
front door. She’d give Clay time to cool down while she went to
Aunt Julie’s for a while.

Clay chased after her, easily catching her
in the living room. After grabbing her around the waist, he set her
down on the couch and pinned her in with one of his strong arms on
each side of her while his legs kept hers from moving. “I said
you’re going to listen to what I have to say, so just sit
still.”

Callan could never remember wanting to slap
Clay across the face before but she battled an uncontrollable urge
to smack him. How dare he manhandle her! Had he lost his mind?

She crossed her arms across her chest and
tilted her head, hoping he would stop leaning so close. “I’m
listening.”

“You were driving like a crazy person out
there.” Clay placed a hand over her mouth when she started to
protest. “Callan, I saw you streak through the light on Alameda
then weave in and out of cars. You had to be doing at least seventy
in a fifty-five zone. In case you haven’t noticed, we had snow
today and the roads are slick. I saw you almost wreck the car. You
could have really hurt someone. You could have hurt yourself. What
is wrong with you? What would you have done if you’d caused an
accident and killed someone? I’ve never known you to be so
irresponsible or so careless.”

The lump in her throat and the stinging of
tears in her eyes prevented Callan from being able to answer. Clay
was right. She had driven recklessly. Was she trying to get herself
killed?

Maybe.

The truth in that answer both frightened and
shocked her. Is that what her life had come to?

No.

She wanted to live, just not her life right
now. It was full of misery, pain, and unrelenting darkness.

Clay saw her struggle to hold back her
tears. Saw fear fly through her eyes. He wasn’t caving in this time
and hardened himself against her emotions.

“Don’t think tears will get you out of this,
Callan. They aren’t going to work this time. You might as well get
comfortable because we aren’t moving until we’ve come to an
understanding. I want my wife back. My real wife. I don’t want the
silent, stoic, unemotional wife. I don’t want the crazed,
screaming, out-of-control wife. I don’t want the cold, distant
stranger who huddles on the edge of the bed. I want my sweet,
loving, passionate, fiery wife back – all of her. I won’t settle
for anything less.” Clay continued leaning over her, his face just
inches from hers.

Callan sat as silent and still as stone.
“What if she doesn’t exist anymore,” she finally whispered,
furiously brushing away tears.

“She does.” Clay sat next to her, ready to
grab her if she tried another escape. He spoke quietly, trying to
calm down. “She came back for a holiday visit and I liked seeing
her very much. It made me realize just how much I missed her. I
want her back full-time. Where is she, Callan?” Clay picked up one
of her hands and started rubbing the back of it with his thumb.
“Can’t we find her again? Can’t we try?”

She continued to sit without speaking.

Clay shook his head. “I think you’ve taken
on too much and you’re going to have to let something go. You’ve
stretched yourself too thin, worn yourself out. I know you don’t
want to hear it, but I insist you give up this crazy event planning
business. Nothing has been right since you started it.”

Callan pulled her hand out of his grasp and
glared at Clay. How dare he try to take away her dreams? His dream
was to teach, and she encouraged him every step of the way from his
part-time teaching position right on through becoming dean of the
Ag department at the college.

“That’s not fair, Clay. You know that
business is my dream. You know I’m good at it. You know I can make
it work,” she said with as much calm as she could muster, which was
next to none. “You can’t take it away from me.”

“I can and I will. Even if it wasn’t a money
pit, it sucks up all your time. I’m tired of you always being gone
or busy. You never have time for me. If I’m on one of your to-do
lists at all, my name is at the very bottom.”

“That’s completely untrue. We could spend
more time together if I didn’t have to do everything around the
house. You don’t do laundry, you don’t clean, you rarely do the
shopping, and you don’t pay the bills. When you cook, you leave me
with all the mess to clean up. Instead of helping me, you go sit in
front of the television and watch your stupid sports shows. You
make the choice of watching television over spending time with me
when I am home.” Callan’s temper continued to rise.

“Maybe I’d be more interested in spending
time with you if you weren’t always so cold and detached, Miss Ice
Queen.” Clay regretted the flash of pain he saw in Callan’s eyes,
but the truth in her words both wounded and angered him. He lashed
back at her. “You hide out in your office and ignore me. Besides,
you’re a control freak. You want to be in control of everything.
You refold the laundry when I do it. You reload the dishwasher when
I put dishes in. You’re convinced I’m incapable of running the
vacuum correctly. In fact, you don’t trust me to pay the bills.
With me not seeing them, it makes it convenient for you to keep
your business expenses quiet.”

“Come with me.” Callan jumped off the couch
and stormed into her office, opening a desk drawer. She pulled out
a ledger and slammed it on top of the desk.

“Sit,” she barked and pointed to the office
chair. Opening the ledger, she tapped her index finger next to a
number on the first page.

“This is the amount of the original loan I
took out for my business. I accrued these credit card bills because
you wouldn’t co-sign for a larger loan. This number here is the
total debt I’ve accumulated with my business,” Callan explained in
a flat voice, devoid of emotion. She could talk business without
having a meltdown.

Clay gawked at the numbers in front of him.
Ready to blow his stack, he realized the amount of debt was worse
than he imagined. He knew she’d opened a credit card account just
for the business, but when had she charged up so much? They’d be
paying this off until they were well past retirement years.

“Before you say anything, let me show you
the last entry,” Callan said as she flipped through pages. “This is
the amount of debt I owed at the end of last month.”

As he looked at the last number in the
ledger, Clay could see that Callan had made sizeable dents in the
debt. Impressive dents in the debt. Maybe he wasn’t reading it
correctly.

“So this number, here, is your total debt
left to pay? For everything? Loan, credit card, other bills?” Clay
asked pointing to the number.

“Yes.” Callan pulled a bound report from the
drawer. “This is my business plan. If you care to look through it,
you’ll see that I project paying off the debt in a year to eighteen
months, if my business continues to grow as it has the past two
years. If you had the tiniest bit of interest in it, you’d know
that. Instead, you use it as the excuse for everything about me you
don’t like. As soon as I refused to borrow money from your parents,
you shut the door on my business and my dreams. You act jealous of
the time I invest in it. You’ve not supported it or me at all. I
finally quit talking to you about it, because you wouldn’t listen.
I had to do this on my own, Clay. I didn’t want to borrow money
from your folks because we both know they wouldn’t have made us pay
it back. I needed to do this on my own, to make it a success from
the ground up. With or without your help I’m going to make it
happen.”

Clay stood up and paced around her office.
Her statement left him unsettled and tense.

“Isn’t that what it always comes down to,
Callan? With or without me, you do what you want. Do I mean so
little to you? Has it really been so terrible being married to me?
Can you just cast aside the last thirteen years that easily and
choose your business over us?” Clay knew his words cut deep. He
could see it in her face, but he plunged ahead.

“There was a time when I knew without a
doubt that you loved me. I’m not so sure any more. You’re angry all
the time. You turn every little thing into a reason to be mad or
hurt. Seriously, Callan, what have you got to be that miserable
about? Is it that awful having a husband who loves you, a job you
like, a business you apparently manage very well?” Clay waved his
hand around the office for emphasis. “To have friends you enjoy, a
father who adores you, a nice home to live in? Is that what makes
you so miserable? Having a life many people only dream of?”

Clay stopped pacing and stared at Callan.
She appeared desperate to escape as remorse and misery flooded her
face. He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “What
is it? What’s making you so unhappy? Tell me, Callan. Tell me, once
and for all, what’s making you so miserable?”

“Killing our baby,” Callan whispered,
pushing past Clay as she ran out of the office.

There. She’d told Clay her darkest secret,
the one that had plagued her for three long years. Now he’d leave,
never come back. She would deserve it for destroying the precious
little life that would have been a constant reminder of the depths
of their love.

A love Callan was now convinced no longer
existed.

Clay caught her in the kitchen and swung her
around to look at him, holding her bent elbows in his hands. “What
did you say?” He was sure he misheard her.

Callan couldn’t look him in the eye.
Instead, she looked over his shoulder, tears streaming down her
face. “Killing our baby,” Callan whispered again.

“What baby?” Clay felt like he’d been
punched in the stomach as all the air rushed out of him. He
couldn’t believe Callan had been pregnant and not even bothered to
tell him.

“I didn’t plan on it, Clay, honest I didn’t.
I wasn’t feeling well, having some problems, and went to the
doctor. She confirmed I was expecting. I was about four months
along when I miscarried.” Callan stared down at the floor and spoke
so quietly, Clay had to strain to hear her. “You won’t have to
worry about having kids because not only did I lose our baby, there
won’t ever be another.”

They both stood quietly for a moment,
neither knowing what to say.

“When, Callan?” Clay finally managed to ask,
tightening his grip on her as she began to shake. “When did it
happen?”

Callan remained silent, looking anywhere but
at him. Finally, she drew in a ragged breath.

Clay knew if he hadn’t been holding onto
her, she would have collapsed to the floor. “Callan, when did it
happen?”

She took a breath and lifted anguish-filled
eyes to his. “Two weeks after mother died.” She turned and ran into
the bedroom, slamming the door.

Clay stared at the closed bedroom door. He
could hear Callan’s sobs, but was unable to move. Unable to go to
her, to give her the comfort he knew she desperately needed.

Two weeks after her mother died was that
very week. No wonder she’d behaved so erratically.

Callan, how could you not tell me?

Clay pulled onto the road and drove with no
direction in mind. He was so angry – with himself and with Callan.
How could she keep something so heartwrenching, so intimately
painful from him?

He worked hard to swallow down the lump in
his throat. When he and Callan first wed, neither one of them was
ready to start a family. They had career ambitions to pursue. Truth
be told, the two of them had been so wrapped up in the wonder of
their love, they selfishly didn’t want to have to share it with
anyone.

The years started to tick by and Clay didn’t
think a lot about it. He wasn’t in a hurry to be a father. He
assumed that when the bug bit Callan to become a mother, she’d say
something. Only she never did.

Clay couldn’t imagine life without Callan in
it, but he also couldn’t imagine life continuing like it had the
past several months. Looking back, he realized the problem had been
growing for years.

He’d been such an idiot. How could he have
been so clueless? Surely, there had been some signs he must have
overlooked. How had he missed the fact his wife was pregnant and
then lost the baby? How had he managed to ignore the fact that she
blamed herself and shut everyone out? The loss of the baby must be
why she dreaded January and grew so despondent during the winter
months.

“Oh, Lord, what am I going to do?” Clay
prayed, hoping for divine direction.

All the harsh, hurtful things he’d just said
to Callan echoed in his ears. Some of them were true, but others
were unfair. Like her hiding the bills. If they depended on him
paying them on time, they’d end up living in a cardboard box under
a bridge.

When they first wed, it was a mutual
agreement for Callan to handle all the monthly bills and paperwork.
He also knew she wasn’t hiding her business information from him.
He hadn’t wanted to know. If he’d been aware she did so well with
the event planning, he wouldn’t have been able to lay the blame on
her business for all that was wrong in their relationship.

Clay couldn’t believe he’d raised his voice
like that to Callan. He never yelled. Rarely lost his temper.

Had he really just manhandled her?

In all their years of marriage, he’d never
once done that.

Of all the times to choose to confront her,
why had he picked today of all days? The sight of her stricken face
as he pressed her to tell him what was wrong lingered in his
mind.