Marriage Seasons 01 - It Happens Every Spring (37 page)

All the women chimed in at once to drown out Cody's chant.

Ashley's voice carried over the rest. "It's Luke," she told Patsy.
"The doctors in St. Louis say he's got diabetes."

"Well, mercy sakes alive," Patsy said, reaching around Kim's
shoulders and giving her a squeeze. "No wonder you hardly looked
up when you came into the salon, sweetie. What can we do for
you?"

"Derek and I aren't sure what to do," Kim said. "We both work
long hours-"

"You work at the dentist's office," Cody interrupted. "I saw you
there. I went to the dentist and got my teeth cleaned by a lady.
Look." He rolled his lips back and displayed his newly scrubbed
and polished teeth for everyone to admire.

"That's nice, Cody," Patsy said, "but I think it's high time we
addressed the Lord about this. If nobody minds, I'll do the
out-loud praying, and the rest of you can follow along with me or
talk to God in silence. We'll cover Luke and his diabetes, Brenda's
recent spell of discouragement, and my attitude toward my neigh bors in the mall-particularly that new place going in down the
way.

"And me," Ashley said in an uncharacteristically timid voice.
"Me and Brad."

Everyone turned to her, but she lowered her eyes. Patsy bowed
her head and began to pray. As she lifted up Luke and all the
Finleys, Brenda felt movement from Cody's chair beside her. She
didn't want to look up, but the idea that Cody might run off again
troubled her. Still, she really did need to focus on this shared conversation with God. Patsy had a way of speaking to the Lord that
made Brenda feel as though He were sitting right there with the
Tea Ladies' Club.

And come to think of it, He was. "For where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. "The
Bible verse Brenda had learned so long ago was true, she realized.
She had never doubted it, no matter how far she had wandered
from the straight and narrow path. At first, she wanted nothing
more than to hide under the table at the very idea that Christ's
Spirit was there in the salon, looking at her, knowing all about her,
aware of everything she had thought and done this past spring.
And then ... as once again she silently poured out all her shame
and begged His forgiveness, she knew a wash of relief.

As sick, lonely, depressed, angry, and hopeless as she had feltand still did at times-Brenda knew God was with her, forgiving
her, holding her up, and surrounding her with wonderful people
like these women in Patsy's salon. Brenda realized that, in fact, she
no longer needed to keep reminding the Lord of her errors and
asking His pardon. Once was all it took, and God erased everything. She only wished it was that easy with Steve.

When Patsy had finished praying for everyone and the amens
were finally echoed, Brenda lifted her head to find that all of the
women were crying. Patsy got to her feet to grab a tissue box from
her station, but her squeal of surprise startled everyone out of their
tears.

"Glory be!" she exclaimed. "Cody, honey child, what are you
doing over here? I'll get that swept clean in a minute. You come on
back and have tea with us."

Brenda stood, concern knotting her stomach as she watched the
young man rise from the floor, a broom and dustpan in his hands.
His blue eyes focused on her, then on Patsy, and then on the
broom.

"I like to keep things span," he told Patsy. "My daddy said I was
really good at it. I can sweep better than anybody, and I like to wash
windows and mirrors."

"But you don't have to do that here," Patsy insisted. "You're our
guest. I had no idea you had gone over to my station while I was
praying. 'Course, my mother always said if I was talking to the
Lord, I wouldn't feel a tornado suck the house out from under me.
Anyhow, you just leave that mess to me, Cody. I'm used to cleaning up."

"But I'm good at keeping things span," Cody reiterated.

Brenda had joined them, hoping she could help sort out the
confusion. "Cody has washed my windows about fifteen times
since he came back to Deepwater Cove," she told Patsy. "He did a
nice job. Last week, he found an old broom on the burn pile down
by the lake, and now he sweeps my porch three or four times a
day."

"Mine too!" Esther called out, waving her napkin. "He would
have washed our golf cart, but Charlie ran him off. Charlie likes to
wash and polish the cart himself. Listen, Patsy, you just let Cody
sweep. We need to talk about this video-store problem. I'm thinking of organizing a protest with placards and flags and megaphones and everything. I've already looked into printing up
pamphlets, and I think we can do them on Charlie's computer.
While we have our meeting, give that boy a chance to do something he likes."

Patsy glanced at Brenda for her reaction. "He won't do any
harm," Brenda assured her. "Cody's very careful."

The young man's newly whitened teeth gleamed as he grinned.
"I'm always careful. I never touch buttons, neither. My daddy told
me not to touch any buttons or switches, because you could fry
yourself like a Thanksgiving turkey."

"Are you sure you don't want to come back to the table, Cody?"
Patsy asked. "I'll get you another dessert, and you can listen to us
talk."

Cody leaned over. "It's the Tea Ladies' Club," he murmured
into her ear. "Ladies. I know what that means. It means women.
And I am not a lady. I'm a man, twenty-one, time to make my
way.

"You certainly are," she said. "You're a very fine young man, if I
do say so myself. Well, if it'll make you happy, go ahead and sweep
all you want. There's a bucket of cleaners and sponges under the
sink in the back room. Just don't bother the other stylists while
they're working, and let the customers read their magazines if they
don't feel like talking."

"Yes, sir," Cody said, beaming. "I can do that. I can do it all
really good."

Brenda thought of about ten warnings to give Cody; then she
recalled having to turn loose of her own children long before she
felt they were ready to be independent. As she rejoined Patsy at the
table, she thanked her for allowing Cody the opportunity to do
something helpful.

"Helpful?" Patsy said, lifting a carefully outlined brown eyebrow. "The boy is a godsend."

"You couldn't ask for a finer addition to the community,"
Esther declared. "I always knew there was a good person hidden
under all that hair. Now, ladies, about my protest march ..."

"Hold on a minute." Patsy crossed her arms the way she always
did when she meant business. "I have a proposal to put before the
club."

"What is it?" Ashley asked.

"Hey now, girls, this is not how you hold a club meeting," Esther protested. "You've got to follow parliamentary proceedings and
such. We need to get us a copy of Robert's Rules of Order."

Patsy gave a snort. "Order schmorder. I don't cotton to all that
folderol anyhow. I have something to say, and my next client will
be here in fifteen minutes. Now, do you want to hear my proposal
or not?"

"All right," Esther said. "If that's the way you prefer it, though I
think a few club rules would be appropriate."

After glancing back over her shoulder, Patsy leaned forward. "I
propose we change the name of our club. Cody's helped me see the
light. Calling ourselves the Tea Ladies' Club comes across as downright narrow-minded. I don't care if a person is male, female, red,
white, black, or blue, smart or dumb, tall or short, fat or skinny-if
they want to be a club member, we should let 'em join."

"But TLC has such a nice ring to it," Kim said. "Every time I
think about all of you, I see tender loving care written all over your
faces."

"Me too," Ashley said. "I like TLC."

"Then how about something similar. . . ." Patsy thought for a
moment. "We meet in the tearoom, so that's important. And we're
a club, too. So ..."

"The Tea Lovers' Club!" Brenda burst out.

"There you go!" Patsy cried. "It's perfect. The only rule or
requirement of our club is that you have to love tea. And we might
even bend that one if someone's partial to coffee."

Ashley lifted her teacup, and everyone joined in the toast. "To
the Tea Lovers' Club," she said. "May we give each other nothing
but tender loving care."

As the china cups clinked together, the women chuckled. "In
that case," Esther said, "I recommend we add one new member
right away."

The group turned as one to study the tall, handsome young man
who was polishing the mirror in Patsy's station while admiring his
shiny white teeth.

"To our newest member," Kim said, raising her teacup a second
time. "Here's to Cody Goss."

After taking a sip of tea, Esther leaned forward on the table and
said, "And now, ladies-and gentleman-I have a plan for how to
get rid of that adult-video store."

As he eased onto the highway, Steve looked in the rearview mirror. A glimpse of his own face startled him and caused him to
glance back at the mirror for a moment. He hadn't slept well since
his return to Deepwater Cove, but he didn't realize he looked so
haggard. Turning his attention to the road again, he prayed that he
could keep his mind centered on holding up his end of the agreement he'd made with his wife.

Steve had told Brenda he would try. He would work with her to
restore their relationship and rebuild their marriage. Since then, he
had come home early every evening, eaten dinner with her and
Cody, walked with her around the neighborhood in the evenings,
and done his best to be pleasant.

But each hour of the day brought a new assault in the exhausting
two-front battle Steve was waging. Not only did he fight to block
out the name of Nick LeClair, to erase the mental image of Brenda
in another man's arms. He also labored to love his wife for who she
had always been, even though part of him wanted to despise her for
the one thing she had done to hurt him so deeply.

He'd heard Pastor Andrew say that forgiveness was a decision,
not a feeling. Steve thought it was a great concept. But he'd never
had a life-shattering offense to forgive before.

It was hard. Sometimes he thought it was too hard. There was a
barrier standing in his way, and he didn't even know what to call it.
Yet he ran up against it every time he tried to move on.

When he wasn't distracted by work, the newspaper, a book, or
television, he struggled against the gag reflex that always hung at
the top of his throat. Anger and hurt had formed into a ball lodged
inside him, and he didn't know how to get rid of it. He needed to
say something, but he wasn't sure what. It was about Brenda ... but
it was also about himself. He wondered if he had been part of the
problem. Could there be any truth to Brenda's accusations that he
had abandoned her for his job?

No matter how he tried to sort through it all, he kept coming
back to Brenda's betrayal. Finally he realized that all he actually
could do about it was to pray. So that's what he'd been doing.

But it wasn't working, Steve realized as he drove into the garage,
let the door drop, and got out of the car. Everything he trusted had
been shattered in a single instant. His wife, God, even his own confidence in himself as a good husband and faithful family man.

Leaning one arm on the roof of his car, Steve once again tried to
find the words to pray. All that came out of him was a deeply
uttered "Why?"

Hearing no answer, Steve put his head down on his arm and
shut his eyes. At that moment, a verse from St. Paul's letter to the
Romans drifted through the fog in his brain. Though the passage
hadn't made much sense to him in the past, now he understood
exactly what the apostle had meant when he wrote about people
not knowing how to pray or what to pray for. Paul had promised
that at such times, the Holy Spirit would pray for believers with
groanings that could not be expressed in words.

Steve took comfort in the knowledge that the Spirit understood
exactly what he needed and was pleading with God on his behalf. But it didn't resolve the problem he encountered every evening
after work. Steve still had to step inside his house in Deepwater
Cove and face the woman he could barely think of as his wife. Since
his return from Arkansas, Brenda had done her best to be cheerful,
kind, and supportive, but Steve's heart felt like a chunk of
rock-hard ice.

Pushing open the door from the garage to the kitchen, he immediately smelled the dish that had graced the Hansen family table
every spring. At the first appearance of fresh asparagus in the grocery store, Brenda whipped up an enormous pot of pasta
primavera. But instead of stirring his appetite, today the aroma
sent a pang of regret through his chest. All those years, all that
love...

"Hey there, you!" Brenda sang out as she looked at him from her
cutting board. "I just put the water on to boil, and I've chopped up
everything but the basil. You should smell this!" Stepping to his
side, she lifted a sprig of the fresh herb to his nose.