Marriage Seasons 01 - It Happens Every Spring (26 page)

Unable to stop her tears and her trembling hands, Brenda
worked for a while in the kitchen-washing dishes that were
already clean, wiping the counter until it shone, polishing the window over the sink. Cody devoured three large roast-beef sandwiches and most of the potato chips from the bag. He drank two
glasses of iced tea, ate seven peanut-butter cookies, and burped
loudly at least three times.

Downstairs, the sound of Nick LeClair's country-music station
kept Brenda in knots. She blotted her eyes and blew her nose, but
the tears just wouldn't stop. As she cried, she began to realize that it
wasn't only Steve and Nick and Cody who had filled her heart to
overflowing with remorse, fear, sorrow, pain, and a hundred other jumbled emotions. It was Jennifer so far away in Africa and Justin
and Jessica at college. It was the boxes of trophies stashed in the
garage, the sewing table in the green basement, the plaid chairs in
the dining room. It was the memory of sitting beside her mother
on a hard wooden pew, reciting verses of Scripture at Vacation
Bible School, watching her father pass the offering plate from one
row of churchgoers to another. Her parents, her children, her husband-all the victories and all the mistakes. And God, too. She had
lost God, and He had let her go.

Brenda sagged onto another stool as she thought of her flower
beds, still unplanted. Her hair, shaggy on the ends. Cody needing
help. How could she ever summon the energy to do anything
again? Hope, joy, and dreams had all fled, washed away in the flood
of her tears.

"You are the best friend I ever had," Cody announced as he
swallowed the last of the cookies. Bread crumbs were scattered
across his beard and hanging from the damp ends of his mustache.
"You're just like Jesus, because you share."

Brenda couldn't bring herself to face him. She sprayed her flour,
coffee, and tea canisters with disinfectant cleanser and began to
wipe them with a paper towel. How would she ever get him out of
her house? Why wouldn't he just go away again and leave her
alone?

"I believe I will sit outside on your porch swing after all," Cody
announced. "I like it there. That's where I slept when I stayed with
you, before I ran into the woods and climbed that tree."

"What a great idea," Brenda said, sniffling again. "I'll get you a
pillow and some blankets."

Cody followed her onto the porch and watched in silence as she
spread the bedding for him. He sat on the swing for a moment, and
then he put his head on the pillow and smiled at her.

"I don't think I'll lose you again, Brenda," he said in a low voice.
He reached up and touched her damp cheek with his dirty fingers.
"I see you, and you see me. Now we can be together ... like before. You're crying, because you're happy that I came back. My daddy
used to tell me he was crying because he was happy. He said he was
happy to have me. And now you have me. So I think I might go to
sleep right here for a little while."

Brenda pulled the blanket up over his shoulder and patted his
arm. "Rest now, Cody. You just rest."

Steve couldn't believe his eyes as his car pulled up to the garage of
the house in Deepwater Cove. The bum was back. The familiar
shape, covered in blue blankets, reclined on the porch swing as if
he belonged there. This was not a complication he needed, especially with so much on the line right now. No doubt he would have
to take time to talk this over with Brenda, but he certainly couldn't
afford any delays today.

Heading home early, Steve had decided to shower and change
clothes after a round of golf with a client that afternoon. Though
he enjoyed wearing jeans and an old T-shirt, dinner at the country
club required a pair of nice slacks and a white shirt. Sometimes he
would do without a tie, but not if he was about to close a deal.

The afternoon on the golf course had been hotter than he had
expected, Steve thought as he drove into the garage and let the
door down behind him. He always carried a change of clothes in
his gym bag, but tonight was special. Jackie Patterson had been
working with her attorneys in St. Louis, and she'd called earlier in
the day to say she had put together a deal she thought Steve would
find attractive. Nervous, excited-and at the same time irked that
the homeless guy was back-he pushed open the door to the
kitchen.

Brenda's voice carried in from the foyer.

"No!" she was saying to someone. She sounded agitated, almost
frantic. "Not now ... I mean ... not ever. Just go, okay?"

Steve stepped around the corner into the entrance hall and saw his wife standing with the handyman from A-I Remodeling. She
was clutching her purse to her stomach and pushing on his arm.
Steve couldn't remember the guy's name, but he had one hand on
Brenda's shoulder and a worried expression on his face.

"Honey?" Concern sweeping through him, Steve moved into
view. "Is something wrong?"

Brenda and the man both gasped audibly as they turned to stare
at him. And what he saw written on their faces was guilt. Plain as
day. Absolute, undeniable guilt.

Steve gazed at the two of them as thoughts and images he
couldn't accept whipped through his mind. His wife and this man
... together? Impossible. No. Not Brenda.

He glanced at her disheveled hair and swollen eyelids. Was she
crying? angry? afraid? Now he focused on the handyman-his
paint-spattered jeans and work boots, his faded T-shirt and blue
eyes.

"Brenda?" It was all Steve could bring out of his throat.

"Nick is leaving," she fumbled out. "He's done. Finished downstairs."

"Is something the matter here?" Steve asked again. "I heard you
talking to him. You sounded upset, andyou told him no. Whatwas
that about?"

There was a moment of awkward silence. Then the handyman
spoke up. "She said no, because ... because, see, I was asking her
for more work. But she's done with me. We're finished."

"There's a bridge," Brenda said, overlapping Nick's words as she
faced her husband. "The drainage ditch in the front yard needs a
bridge, remember? I promised Brad Hanes could build it."

"Ashley's husband? I thought Brad did major construction
projects. Houses and offices."

"Yes, but . . ." Brenda moistened her lips. "But Ashley and I
agreed at the tea club. It was a trade. The Sunday night supper and
the bridge."

Steve tried to force down the terrible certainty that something had gone badly wrong in his house. "Brenda, I don't understand
what you're talking about."

"Nick can't build the bridge," she said, "because Brad is going to
do it."

"She paid me already," the handyman told Steve. "So we're all
settled up. I'd better get going."

"I wrote a check." She turned to the man who stood awkwardly
in the foyer. "Well, thanks again, Nick. You did a good job."

Nick tipped the brim of his ball cap. "Thank you, Brenda... and
you, too, Steve. Glad I could help out here. If you need any other
small jobs done, give me a holler."

Before Steve could say anything else, Nick left the house, shutting the door behind him. Brenda turned immediately and fled
toward the master bedroom.

Unable to make himself move, Steve tried to digest what he had
seen and heard. The brief scene in the foyer had looked like something out of one of Brenda's chick flicks ... a movie where everyone ended up in tears. Inside the Hansens' house stood a man with
his hand wrapped around a woman's arm. The woman was rejecting him in an anguished, heart-wrenching tone. But the woman
was Brenda ... Steve's wife. And the man-Nick, the remodelerhad on a greasy baseball cap and paint-covered jeans and a ratty
T-shirt. He was no romantic hero, and yet Steve had seen Nick
touching Brenda. All that ... plus a homeless kid lay asleep outside
on the porch swing. And there had been something about a bridge
and a Sunday night dinner and a tea club, and none of it made
sense.

Suddenly aware of the passing time, Steve shook himself back to
awareness and hurried down the hall. He found Brenda in the master bathroom with the door shut, and it sounded like she was sick
... or was she crying?

He knocked on the door. "Brenda?"

Nothing like this had ever happened before. For so many years,
Brenda had always been the same-blonde and sweet and gentle, loving toward the children and her husband as she puttered away
in the kitchen or garden. What had happened?

"Brenda, it's me. What's going on in there?"

"I'm fine." The words were barely audible.

"I need to take a shower and change clothes before my dinner.
Are you planning to be in there awhile?"

Silence. He rubbed his eyes and tried to think what to do. Somehow things at home were coming apart at the seams. In his business world, he neatly stitched up deals almost every day. But here,
in Deepwater Cove, great rips had been torn in the fabric of his life.
The stuffing he had relied on to cushion him from hardships and
trials had burst out and was floating away like feathers in the wind.
He didn't even know how to begin to catch it.

"Are you upset?" he asked. "I saw the kid on the porch swing.
Did he say something to you?"

"No." Brenda opened the bathroom door and shouldered her
way into the bedroom, head low and hair covering her face. "Go
ahead and take your shower."

Steve hesitated in the doorway. "Brenda, something's wrong. I
can tell you're not feeling well. Is it that man? That A-I guy ...
Nick? Did he do something?"

"Just take your shower and go to the club," Brenda replied. Like
the last brown, dead leaf of winter, she drifted down onto the bedroom's bay-window seat and turned her face toward the evening
sky. Propping her arms on the sill, she pressed her cheek against
the glass pane.

Steve glanced at his watch. Jackie Patterson would be arriving at
the club any minute now. She would walk into the dining room,
and the hostess would seat her at Steve's reserved table. Ashley
Hanes or one of the other waitresses would ask if she wanted a
drink. And then she would wait.

He rubbed his hand around the back of his neck. "Brenda, I'm
supposed to be at the club in ten minutes. I've got an important
dinner."

"Go ahead," she said. Her voice was flat.

"But something's going on here at the house. You have to talk to
me." He walked toward the window seat. "I've never seen you this
way. What happened?"

"Go to the club."

"I'm serious, Brenda. Is it the kid on the porch? What's his
name?"

"Cody. He's fine."

"Did Nick do something that upset you? He was ... he was
touching you. Holding your arm."

She closed her eyes. "Please go away, Steve. I don't need you. I
don't need anyone."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm fine. Go away."

Steve's cell phone vibrated. That would be Jackie calling to find
out where he was. He decided to ignore her for a moment. Frustration built in his chest like steam in a sauna. How could Brenda do
this? She was just sitting there like a lump. A few minutes ago, she
had been so agitated, nearly in tears, pleading with the handyman.
Now she slumped on the window seat like an old coat someone
had cast aside.

"Brenda, please talk to me," he demanded. "I mean it. I want to
know why that man had his hand on your arm."

She said nothing. As if she were dead.

Lifting his phone, Steve glanced at the ID. As expected, it had
been Jackie Patterson. He punched in her number. Jackie's voice
came on the line.

"Hey there," he said, forcing cheer into his tone. "Listen, Jackie,
I'm running a few minutes late. My wife is ... she's not feeling
well."

"Oh, why didn't you call me sooner?" Jackie asked. "Now here I
am at the table all by myself."

"I just got home from the golf course to take a quick shower,
and..."

How could he even begin to explain this thing he didn't understand himself? Steve dropped into a chair. A photograph of his
three children in a soft silver frame sat beside a stack of books on
the nearby table. He focused on each of their faces. Beautiful,
serene Jennifer. His little missionary-in-training. Goofy Justin,
always up to something. And Jessica. So sweet. So loving.

As Jackie Patterson continued venting her displeasure on the
phone, Steve thought back to his last conversation with his youngest child. "You know, Dad, maybe Mom misses you," Jessica had
said. "I think she's lonely."

He had argued his case, of course, righteously defending himself
against Jessica's nonsensical theory. And then she had told him
that what she was seeing in her parents' marriage frightened her. "I
don't ever want to end up angry and hurt and depressed," she had
informed her father.

Was that how Brenda felt? Steve studied his wife now, her face
pressed against the window pane and her swollen eyes shut tight.

"So things always do work out?" Jessica had wanted to know.
When he couldn't assure her of the one thing she most wanted to
believe at this time in her life, his daughter had expressed her fear
that her parents might divorce. Steve had done his best to convince
Jessica that his relationship with Brenda was fine, but his precious
little girl had run away shouting at him. Her words had seemed
silly at the time-trite and impractical, he had thought. "Then take
her to the country club for dinner!" Jessica had yelled at him.