Marriage Seasons 04 - Winter Turns to Spring (24 page)

It was hard to imagine. Too hard. Ashley tried to picture herself back inside the little house she had thought would be their happy home. She made an effort to conjure up children and Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas trees and snuggling on the sofa. But all she could see was Yvonne Ratcliff’s red sweater lying on the floor next to Brad’s blue jeans.

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Patsy, but I just can’t do it.”

“You
won’t
.”

“I’m not as good as you. You’re all spiritual—reading your Bible every morning and going to church on Sundays.”

“I never said I was good. And that’s not the point, anyway. But I do know one thing—when I hold on to my anger, the person I hurt the most is
me
. And if you don’t find a way to forgive Brad Hanes, the person who will suffer the rest of her life is a pretty little redhead with a broken heart.”

Ashley bent over and laid her cheek on the top of Yappy’s head. She wanted to believe Patsy. Truly she did. But her own experience had taught her not to trust people … not even someone as kind as the friend who had taken her in on a dark, cold night.

And certainly not the man who had betrayed her, broken her heart, turned her life upside down, and given her a memory that would never fade.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
hings look a little bedraggled around here—including you.” Charlie Moore stepped into the living room and began taking off his jacket. “I’ll tell you what, Brad. It was sure a lot warmer in California. We’re not even a month into the new year, and the humidity and chill are making every bone in my body ache. Boofer doesn’t like it any more than I do. Speaking of dogs—where’s Yappy?”

In the kitchen making hot chocolate, Brad found he couldn’t respond. Instead he focused on stirring a powdery mix into mugs of water he had heated in the microwave.

“Don’t tell me you let your puppy get away too?” Charlie seated himself on the sofa. “I leave town for a couple of weeks, and you go and lose your wife and your dog. Well, if that doesn’t beat all.”

“I messed up.”

“You sure did.” Charlie scratched his head as if the explanation for Brad’s behavior was hidden in his white hair somewhere. Finally he sighed. “Well, at least you’ve stopped drinking. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could learn from what people tell us? But most of us are too stubborn to listen. We’ve got to go ahead and make our own mistakes.”

When Brad didn’t respond, Charlie chuckled woefully. “How’s the hot chocolate coming along? This house must be hovering around the freezing point. Have you got your thermostat turned off, boy?”

A package of discount store cookies under one arm, Brad carried two steaming mugs across the floor. “It’s as low as I can stand it. Sorry, but I don’t have much choice, Mr. Moore. The house payment, the utilities, the credit cards, the bank. I’ve got people trying to take away more money than I can possibly bring in.”

“That’s what you call debt, kid. My father used to caution me against owing anybody anything, and I’m glad he did. I never ran up a credit card in my life. Paid every bill before it came due. I tried to teach Charles Jr. that lesson too, but I don’t know how well he learned it. You should see the house they live in. Hoo-wee. I know my son is a vice president with his company now, but
onions
? How much can onions really pay?”

“You’d have to ask Bitty Sondheim. She probably buys them by the bushel.”

“Bitty and I talked about onions till we were blue in the face. In fact, I think we said everything there is to say on the subject.” Charlie took a sip of cocoa and smiled in contentment. “Ahh. Now that’s tasty. I guess winter isn’t too unbearable if you can have a cup of hot chocolate now and then to pull you through.”

Brad took the chair nearest the sofa. Despite Mr. Moore’s rebukes, he felt the need to be close to the older man. Ashamed to call his parents and too disgusted with himself and his friends to phone any of them, he had been alone in the evenings with nothing but the TV and the temptation to drink keeping him company.

“So you had a good time in California?” he asked. “How was the trip?”

“Bitty and I talked the whole way there and back. That woman has had quite a life, let me tell you. She’s been through some rough spots. I admire her. I sure do. You know, I’d planned for Bitty to sit in the backseat with Jessica Hansen, but that young lady flatly refused to go anywhere unless she was right beside her fiancé. Bitty made a fine traveling companion, though. We took turns behind the wheel. There was a little too much smooching going on in the back to make me comfortable. Afraid I had to take a peek in the rearview mirror every now and then just to let the kids know I was watching. Bitty did too.”

“So you like Bitty, huh?” Brad said, giving Charlie a knowing smirk.

The older man didn’t balk. “I do like her. Enjoyed the trip. But I can’t deny I’m happy to be home. I missed Deepwater Cove. Even winter began to look good to me. Much as the seasons throw things helter-skelter, I’m fond of them. A man needs a change now and then.”

He glanced at Brad. “Maybe you’ve had more of a change than you bargained for.”

“You were right about what you told me on the phone, Mr. Moore. I caused my own problems.” Brad studied the Christmas tree near the window, its brown needles lying scattered on the carpet. “Well, not
all
the problems. Ashley’s bead business got in the way of our relationship. The only thing she wanted to do in her spare time was make jewelry. She didn’t want to talk about anything else. Beads, beads, beads.”

“If a person really enjoys something, that’s to be expected. I used to talk about my mail route in the evenings when I got home from work. I’d tell Esther how many packages and letters I had delivered and where. I’d ramble on and on about who I had met that day and what we discussed and the things I had noticed along the way. Probably drove her to distraction, but she never complained. Didn’t you ever want to talk to Ashley about your construction job?”

Brad reflected on his desire to tell his wife how well he could tape and mud the seam between two sheets of wallboard. He had taken pride in Bill Walters’s compliment, but he was never able to share that with Ashley. Now that he thought about it, she probably wouldn’t have been interested anyway.

“My job is boring,” he told Charlie. “I’m good at it, but I’m just part of a crew. Nothing I do matters in the big scheme of things. Almost anyone could take my place, and those condos would still get built. In high school, I stood out. What I did mattered—especially on the football field. Now I’m just one of the chain gang.”

“What would you rather do?”

“No idea. I used to want to go to college and become a teacher. Believe it or not, I liked school. Around the other guys, I faked it, of course. Told them I thought it was a waste of time and all that. But I did well because I was interested in what I was learning, and I wanted good grades so I could stay on the football team. The counselor called me an all-around outstanding student.”

“Outstanding, huh?”

“In the end, though, it turned out to be a waste of time. English class—Shakespeare and Mark Twain and all those writers? Forget it. No point in having read any of their stuff. Geography? Who cares where Venezuela is? Civics? None of the guys I hang with even bothers to vote. I used to love math, but now all I use it for is figuring out where to mark a two-by-four before I saw through it.”

“Why didn’t you go to college, Brad? You could have become a teacher and coached football, too.”

Brad shrugged. “I bombed the ACT. Had a hangover when I took it. I didn’t get a football scholarship either—knee injury kept me off the field when recruiters were scouting the team. Coach spoke up for me, but it didn’t do any good. Now I’m so deep in debt I’ll never work my way out. I couldn’t afford college even if I still wanted to go. Ashley and I used to talk about it before we got married. She wanted to teach kindergartners, and I figured I’d be over at the high school.”

As he took a sip of cocoa, Brad pictured himself standing in front of a classroom. He would know what the kids were going through. And he would certainly understand the pressures of family, grades, athletics, dating. He knew how it felt to have everything weighing you down until you didn’t think you could take another minute.

“Anyhow, I probably wouldn’t last a month in college. Didn’t even make it through the first year of marriage.”

“Do you think Ashley is gone for good?”

“Yeah. I can’t even find her. She probably went to visit her cousin in Texas. She hasn’t returned any of my calls. Her parents know where she is, but they won’t say.”

Brad studied the ceiling, willing away his emotion.

“Ashley despises me. Mack said the woman … the singer … packed up and left town. Went back to Tennessee to give the music business another shot. If you can believe it, I even hurt her.”

“Of course I believe it. I don’t suspect there are many women who take relationships lightly. She probably thought she had you hog-tied.”

“She thought wrong. And we didn’t have a relationship. I hardly knew Yvonne Ratcliff. I would never marry a woman like her. She’s trash.”

“And you’re not?” Charlie reached for a cookie. “My dad used to  say, takes one to know one. If you act like trash, then you’re trash.”

“Okay! Man. I feel bad enough. You don’t have to rub it in.”

“Do you really feel bad enough, Brad? Are you so sorry that you want to start over?”

Brad leaned back in the chair and stretched out his legs. “No one can start over. My dad says you make your own bed and you lie in it.”

“That doesn’t mean you can never climb out of it.”

“Come on, Mr. Moore. Nothing’s going to bring back my wife or erase my debts or unwreck that truck I bought.”

“That may be true.” Charlie closed his eyes, his hands cupped around the warm mug. “On the other hand, there’s always Jesus.”

Groaning, Brad set his own empty mug on the table near his chair. “You’re not going to start in again on that religious stuff, are you? I don’t get why people make it such a big deal. If you do good things, you go to heaven. If you’re bad, you roast. That’s where I’m bound after what I did to my wife. And I deserve it.”

Brad was beginning to wish he hadn’t agreed to let Charlie come over. At first, he thought it might be nice to have a visitor. When Charlie had called and asked to stop by for a cup of cocoa that evening, Brad had welcomed the idea. Now he realized he’d rather be watching television.

“Despite what you think, Christianity does
not
say good deeds will get you into heaven,” Charlie said.

“Whatever. I’m not interested in religion, okay? I’m smart enough to know that no matter what I believe, I can never go back in time and undo the damage.”

“Yes, you can. You can ask God’s forgiveness. Once you begin to
act
different, you’ll find out that you
are
different. And Ashley might give you a second chance too.”

“Ashley’s not into religion either. That’s one thing we had in common.”

“And look how well it worked out for you.”

Brad let out his breath with a low groan. Charlie’s voice faded behind the plan that had begun to form in Brad’s brain. He could drive over to Larry’s, hang out with his friends, and have a few laughs. He wouldn’t have to drink if he didn’t want to.

But Charlie was still speaking. “People are too flawed to come into the presence of God. Good deeds can’t erase our faults. In order to really become clean, you have to put your life under the control of Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah.” Brad nodded, glancing at his lined denim jacket on the coat stand beside the sofa. “Listen, Mr. Moore, I’ve enjoyed the visit, but I’m beat.”

“You don’t, then?”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t want to be forgiven. Don’t want your sins erased.”

“I do. I mean, it sounds great. The way you put it, wow. It makes sense.”

Charlie stuck out an index finger. “Brad Hanes, you haven’t been listening to a word I said. You know how I know? Because I used to be just like you. I was too smart and too busy and too all-around amazing to care about anything other than myself and my own interests. Oh, Esther and I went to church. I believed everything the pastor said. Everything! Sure I did. Just not quite deeply enough to
act
on it. And that’s what I told you while you were sitting there thinking about Larry’s Lake Lounge and yukking it up with your friends.”

Brad stiffened. “What made you say I was thinking about Larry’s?”

“I told you about the strip joint, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.” Brad chuckled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Moore, but that is a pretty funny image.”

“Maybe to you, but not to Esther. Not to me either, after a while. You know why? Because every time I thought about God or tried to read the Bible or made love to my wife or walked my mail route or just about anything else, you know what came into my mind? Those women in the strip joint. One in particular. Oh yes. She had long blonde hair and that’s about all. She sauntered right into my brain and set up housekeeping. Oh, I told Esther I was sorry about what I’d done, and I was. But that did not get rid of Miss Shimmy-hips. Not at all.”

“Miss Shimmy-hips!” Brad leaned back and laughed.

“I can see her now, if I try. But I don’t try. In fact, I worked long and hard to get her out of my thoughts. You see, real belief takes action. I discovered that if I really wanted to change, I had to do more than sit around on my bohunkus. Because if I didn’t get up and
act
like a godly man, Miss Shimmy-hips would come sashaying back into my thoughts. Just the way Larry’s Lounge and ice-cold beer and probably Yvonne came sashaying into yours while I was talking. Am I right?”

“I guess.”

“You bet I am. There’s more to faith than belief. The Bible says even the demons believe—and they tremble. No, the important part of coming clean is repentance and change.”

“You’re starting to sound like Cody.”

“I don’t mind if I do. He’s a smart kid. Smarter than most of us, in some ways. Repent, surrender, admit you’re powerless, stop trying to justify yourself. Once you’re there,
then
the change begins.”