The Returning (26 page)

Andrea nodded again as she watched Selene gather up her bangs with a comb.

“Hold your head still, honey,” Selene said, “or you’re going to end up with a Mohawk.”

“Oh.” Andrea stopped nodding. “Sorry.”

“Of course, that might make John stand up and take notice, huh?”

Andrea didn’t respond.

“So,” Selene went on, “speaking of John, how are things?”

“Well, you know. Things are all right, I guess.”

“Now that’s a real positive answer.”

Andrea shrugged.

“Not exactly a second honeymoon, huh?” Selene asked casually.

“Oh, Selene.” Andrea looked up toward the ceiling and sighed.

“Okay, forget I asked.”

“Well, it’s—”

“Listen, honey, you don’t have to explain anything to me. I know John. I know his type.”

“His type?”

“I could have told you nothing would change when he came back.”

“You
did
tell me that, Selene. More than once.”

“And I was right, wasn’t I? I’m sorry, honey, and I wish it weren’t so, because I know how you were hoping things would be different.”

“Well, at least he came back.”

“Yeah, at least he did that much.”

“And he’s working.”

“Thanks to Owen.”

“Yes, thanks to Owen, but at least John’s sticking with the job. He’s trying real hard with the kids, and he’s not drinking. That’s something.”

“Well, praise the Lord and alleluia.”

“Oh, Selene.” Andrea sighed again.

Selene only laughed. “I don’t mean any disrespect, honey. You’ve got a point. The man’s trying.”

“It’s hard . . . you know, coming back after being away so long.”

“It’s something of an adjustment. I can’t disagree with that. Say, watch out, kiddo,” Selene called down to Phoebe. “Spin too much there, you’re going to make yourself sick.”

Phoebe had the salon chair going around in circles while she held on with both hands.

“I can’t stop, Aunt Selene!” she cried, her face a rotating beacon of glee.

“Well, you rascal.” Selene stepped to the chair and put out a hand to stop it. “There. Now find something else to do. I’m almost done with your mom.”

She returned to Andrea and eyed her hair pensively. “Short enough?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“So what else is on your mind?”

“Huh?”

“I know you, honey. You’re worried about more than just Beka. You might as well tell me what it is.”

“Honestly, Selene, you know me better than my own mother.”

“You’re an open book, Andrea, far as I’m concerned. So tell me what’s bothering you.”

“It’s . . . well, it’s just that John’s so . . . I don’t know. Restless, I guess.”

“What do you mean, restless?”

“He’s worried. He’s not sleeping well.”

“What’s he worried about?”

“I don’t know. Everything, I guess.”

“I’ve always admired the way you zero right in on things, Andrea.”

Andrea dropped her gaze to her lap. She pulled a hand from beneath the cape and absently brushed away the snippets of hair cascading down the front. “Lately,” she said, “I wake up at one or two in the morning, and he’s not in bed yet. Last night it was even later than that. I think it was almost three o’clock before he came to bed.”

“So where is he?”

“Downstairs watching TV. Or out walking.”

“Out walking?”

“He says it helps to clear his mind if he goes for a walk.”

“In the middle of the night?”

Andrea didn’t like the expression on Selene’s face as it reflected back at her from the mirror. “He’s not going out drinking, if that’s what you think.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking.”

“Then what are you thinking?”

Selene hesitated. “I don’t know. What are you thinking?”

Andrea frowned, shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. He has a lot on his mind, but he won’t talk to me about any of it. I ask him if he’s all right, and he says he’s fine, though I know he isn’t.”

“And you don’t find it strange that he’s . . . walking around somewhere . . . in the middle of the night?”

“It’s only happened a few times—”

“Andrea, honey.” Selene glanced over at Phoebe, then said quietly, “Did it ever occur to you that at that hour of the night he might be doing something other than walking around clearing his head?”

“Like what?”

Selene let go a small gasp of exasperation. “Like—well, like seeing someone.”

“Seeing someone?”

“A woman, Andrea. Don’t you get it?”

“Where would he find a woman around here?”

“Oh my stars, hon. This isn’t Siberia! There are women living on Conesus Lake, you know.”

Andrea thought a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know, Selene, I mean, he really hasn’t been home all that long.”

“Long enough. Oh, honey, don’t be naïve.”

Her jaw tightening, Andrea looked long and hard at her sister-in-law’s reflection. Finally she said, “I don’t think I’m being naïve, Selene. I mean, he’s either home or at work or at A.A. meetings. I always know where he is.”

“Except for at night when he isn’t in bed. Really, Andrea, think about it. You know the man’s history. If he’s cheating on you, it wouldn’t be the first time. Oh, honey, don’t you wonder?”

She hadn’t wondered. Not about another woman. Not until this moment. She felt her stomach drop, pulling her heart along with it. She looked up quickly at Selene’s reflection. “What should I do?”

“You’ve got to confront him. Ask him straight out if he’s having an affair.”

“And if he is?”

“Well, Andrea, you know what I’ve said all along. But since you won’t listen to me, I’ve decided I can’t help you there. Only you can answer that question.”

Hours later, at two-thirty in the morning, Andrea pondered the answer to that question as she gazed at the solitary strip of moonlight falling across what was once again John’s empty bed.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY

After a long silence
John sensed Pamela rising from the cool ground. He lay on his back with his eyes closed, his right arm thrown over his face like a shield.

“John?”

A moment passed. Then, “Yeah?”

“I have to get going.”

He tried to nod, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded.

She sounded irritated when she said, “Are you leaving or staying here?”

He didn’t know. He couldn’t give her an answer.

“John?” She kneeled down beside him and lifted his arm from his face. Reluctantly he opened his eyes. Her features were soft in the moonlight, but her voice held a sharp edge. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Aren’t you going home?”

“I guess not right now.”

“Well, I have to go. Don’t fall asleep here. It won’t look good if Larry finds you here in the morning.”

He wondered briefly whether she was joking, then decided she wasn’t.

“I won’t fall asleep,” he said.

“Why don’t you go home?”

“I will in a minute.”

She looked at him askew. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

A heavy silence settled between them.

At length she said, “I’ll see you again, won’t I?”

She didn’t give him time to answer but leaned over and kissed him. His arm rose up and encircled her. He didn’t want her to go. He wished they had never come.

“I’ll see you again, Pamela.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

He knew his answer didn’t satisfy her, but she rose anyway, dusting the earth off her bare knees and off the hem of her summer dress.

In another moment he heard her car start up in the parking lot, then turn onto Lake Road. Finally the purr of the engine faded into the distance.

When he couldn’t hear the car anymore, he rolled over and pressed his forehead to the ground. He clenched one hand into a fist and pounded the grass. Each stroke kept pace with the repeated cry, “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

The night offered no response. John didn’t expect one. He exhausted his plea and lay silently on the cool earth beneath the distant moon and the uncaring stars.

He told himself to get up and go home, but he felt too heavy to move. His own body was too much for him.

“Dear God, help me,” he whispered.

He waited, but the words fell back on him, drifting out of the sky like flakes of ash. They had nowhere to go. The door to heaven was bolted now, hurled shut and locked and double-locked.

Slam.

Click.

Click.

The moon was swallowed up by a cloud. John lay in the dark among the dead, his moist breath like dew on the brow of the slumbering grass.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-ONE

“John?”

“Yes, Andrea?”

“You were up late again last night.”

John settled his nearly full mug of coffee in the sink. To Andrea, he appeared to be moving in slow motion. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

She waited for him to look at her. He kept his eyes on the mug.

Her heart pounded, stealing the air from her lungs. She tried to steady herself, not wanting to show her fear. “Why can’t you sleep?”

He glanced at her, looked away. “What’s that?”

She tried to speak more loudly. “I said, why can’t you sleep?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I have a lot to think about, I guess.” He glanced at his watch and moved toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going down to talk to Larry. I want to catch him before Billy and I leave for work.”

She hesitated. She didn’t want to sound like she was prying. Finally she asked, “Why do you have to talk to Larry?”

“Well,” he shrugged. “I need a sponsor. I’m supposed to have a sponsor for A.A., and I’ve been putting it off. I thought Larry could help.”

“I see.”

He shrugged again, pushed open the screen door that led out to the side porch. “I’ll be back soon.”

She took a step forward. “John?”

“Yeah?”

He was anxious to leave. She could see that. “Are you—”

He waited. His eyes grew small. “What, Andrea?”

“Are you . . . um—”

His hand gripped the door handle more tightly. She looked at his hand, his face, his eyes.

“Are you going to ask Larry to be your sponsor?”

He hesitated, then said, “I think so. Why?”

“No reason. I was just wondering.”

They gazed at each other in silence a moment. She didn’t need to ask what Selene had told her to ask. He would only deny what she already knew. She had seen that look in his eyes more than once before.

“Well,” she said, “I’ll tell Billy you’ll be back in time to catch the bus.”

He nodded.

She watched him walk down the drive and disappear down Lake Road.

She thought it was a bitter thing to keep losing the same man over and over again. There really had to be a final time. She had to find the strength somewhere to make sure this was it.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-TWO

“So, John,
you’re troubled.” Larry Gunther’s face held a pained expression, but his eyes were kind. He appeared to study John intently. “You’ve done something you don’t like to think about.”

John dropped his gaze. “Yeah.” He tried to laugh, but it came out a defeated sigh. “How’d you guess?”

“I don’t have to guess, my friend. I’ve been a pastor a long time. I’ve been human even longer than that.”

Larry leaned back in his desk chair and put a finger to his lips thoughtfully. John braced himself, glanced up, looked back down at his clasped hands. He’d shown up unannounced, found Larry alone in his office tediously two-finger typing a sermon on an outdated computer. Pastor Larry had welcomed the interruption.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Larry asked.

John felt a twinge of nausea at the thought. For a brief moment he was sorry he’d come. He hadn’t intended to, didn’t know he was going to until he was drinking coffee in the kitchen and Andrea showed up. When he saw her, he knew he had to do something. He didn’t know whether Larry would be at the church or not, but he headed down the road anyway, his own sense of shame the shoes that brought him.

Biding his time, John said, “Did you know there are empty liquor bottles scattered around the cemetery?”

Larry nodded, offered a wan smile. “Kids. It adds to the excitement to drink in the backyard of a church.”