Redemption (32 page)

Cold water. That’s what he needed. He flipped on the faucet and splashed his face, rinsing the rancid taste out of his mouth left over from the night before.
God, I’m sorry. . . . I don’t know what to say. I’ve stayed away so long.

It was the first time in months he’d prayed, but once the words penetrated his heart, a floodgate opened, and tears filled Tim’s eyes. Then and there in the bathroom, he knew the worst days of his life were behind him. Kari would forgive him, and together they would move forward, make a home for their baby, and grow from the darkness of these days.

This time it would be up to him. He stared himself straight in the eyes and nodded with more determination than he’d ever felt in his lifetime. What Kari needed was a stronger Tim Jacobs. A man who knew what he wanted in his marriage and had a way to make it happen. A man willing to humbly come back to God, the way he should have done long ago.

“This is your day, Tim Jacobs. Everything’s different from now on.”

And with that he dried his face and walked gingerly downstairs to the kitchen and filled the coffeemaker. While the coffee was brewing, he opened the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He was crossing the kitchen toward the telephone when he saw the half bottle of Jack Daniels he’d brought there the night before.

He picked it up and headed for the sink. He had no need for a bottle in the house now, not since he’d be starting life over as a new man. But then it seemed a waste to dump the contents down the drain, especially when his head was pounding so hard that it seemed it might split in two right there on the kitchen floor.

In as much time as it took him to cross to the sink, he revised his plan. He’d have a few shots of Jack Daniels in his orange juice and then call Kari. That way he’d be more relaxed and ready to talk. A little “hair of the dog” couldn’t hurt; he didn’t have classes on Monday.

Once that bottle was gone, he’d never drink again. Not ever.

He tipped the bottle to pour the whiskey into his glass of orange juice, then changed his mind and brought the bottle to his lips and took a long swig. “Aaah.” He shook his head. “Good morning, Tim. It’s a brand-new day! Yes, sir.”

He raised the bottle and took another drink. And another and another and another.

An hour passed before he remembered the phone call he was supposed to make to Kari. By then he was having trouble understanding why they’d installed three telephones on the kitchen wall when one would have done quite nicely.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Four times that morning Kari tried to reach Tim at the office, but when he didn’t answer, she decided to pack her things, go home, and face her future. In the deepest places of her heart she had no choice but to leave memories of Ryan Taylor—even recent memories—in the past.

Where they belonged.

It was time to make things right with Tim, especially now that he had contacted Pastor Mark. That call and the one he’d made last night to her parents’ house were the signs she’d been praying for, proof that Tim wanted another chance.

As Kari showered and dressed, two things weighed on her: guilt and a dawning realization.

It had been wrong to kiss Ryan, wrong to act as if time had not moved on since their last time together. The fact that she could justify her actions did not make them less wrong. No, the guilt did not surprise her. It was the growing realization of her own responsibility that made everything seem so different this morning.

Before last night, she had been convinced that Tim was the cause of their troubled marriage. But since waking from the nightmare, she had been overcome with memories that suggested a slightly more balanced picture.

She remembered the time early in the summer when Tim had come home from work with a dozen roses and tickets to a show. She had thanked him for the flowers but begged off on the night out. “I have a photo shoot at eight tomorrow morning; I thought I’d get to bed early.” The way Tim’s expression had fallen was something that never hit her until this morning. He had wanted to surprise her with something nice, but she’d been too busy to notice.

There had been other moments too. Times when he would hand her one of his columns, anxious for her approval, and she would lay it aside to read later. Most of the time she never got around to reading his work. Looking back now, she was sure her lack of interest must have hurt him.

And then there were the conferences and university functions he wanted her to attend with him. Once it was merely a picnic with a few couples he knew from the university. She had imagined them mocking her for her lack of intellect and shaken her head.

“You go, honey.” The memory of her response made her wince. “I’ve got a hundred things to do around here.”

She’d made time to go to the lake with Ryan, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone anywhere with Tim—not just for fun and companionship.
When did I start treating him more like a fixture than a friend?
There were no answers, and she imagined her witty, charming husband growing silently disenchanted and lonely while she busied herself with a hundred more important tasks.

No wonder he’d been vulnerable to Angela Manning. The woman had probably jumped at the chance to do things with him, even something as simple as meeting him for lunch.

No doubt she was the companion Kari had once been.

Kari tried to remember what was so important that she’d so often declined his invitations, and she knew it was because she didn’t feel like she measured up. Tim’s columns were often about issues she didn’t follow, and he sometimes made points she disagreed with but didn’t really know how to argue. And Tim’s colleagues and their spouses—well, she’d had enough of them after that awful dinner conversation about books. They were always talking about foreign affairs and compelling literature and “films”—never movies—when they weren’t gossiping about university politics. Being with them always seemed like a competition to see who was the cleverest in the group and who could drop the most names.

She had neither the desire nor the courage to venture much into university society. So she had begged off from all but the most crucial functions. Now she could picture Tim at those same affairs, talking with other couples, being clever, dropping names. But always alone.

No, Tim was clearly not the only one contributing to the problems in their marriage. Kari still felt sick at the thought of his affair. It would take months, years of healing before their marriage might be again what it once was. But this morning—in the wake of her guilt and responsibility—she was ready to try, anxious to get home and start picking up the pieces.

She turned sideways in front of the mirror and checked her figure, noting that her abdomen showed just a hint of roundness. Their baby was growing within her, their child . . . part her, part Tim.

Suddenly she realized she was not only anxious to get home, she was also looking forward to it.

Those were still her feelings when she pulled into their driveway an hour later. The blinds were shut tight, the way she had left them, and the house looked utterly quiet. But the garage door opened to reveal Tim’s Lexus. Had he come home?

“Tim?” she called out hopefully as she let herself in through the utility room. No answer.

Then she walked into the kitchen and saw the empty liquor bottle on the counter. What was this? Her breath caught in her throat. But after a moment she forced herself to continue through the house. Through the dining room, where unopened letters lay in a stack on the table and her wedding portrait had been removed from the wall. Through the living room, up the stairs, and down the hall toward their bedroom.
Get me through this, God. Please.

She took the few remaining steps down the hallway and quietly opened the bedroom door. Tim lay sprawled across the bed, dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, his ragged snoring filling the air. The whole room smelled of alcohol and vomit and body odor. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, a sudden storm of revulsion rained down on her.

It took everything God had given her to not turn around and drive back to her parents’ house.
Help me, Lord.

She tiptoed into the room, sure he would wake up from the sound of her heartbeat alone. Who had he been drinking with? Had Angela been here?

Kari gritted her teeth and settled her eyes on Tim.

Was this the man she’d married? The one who had once made her think it was actually possible to forget Ryan Taylor? The one who had sworn that no matter what, he wouldn’t touch an alcoholic beverage?

The man who had promised to be faithful until death parted them?

She crossed the room in a trance and settled into a chair near their bed. Her stomach churned, and she was choked by a growing nausea. Three times she nearly made a dash for the bathroom, but she managed to swallow back the bile. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and she knew her pregnancy was partially responsible for the sick feeling.

But clearly it was more than that. Tim rolled over in his stupor, and another putrid wave of alcohol and underarm sweat assaulted her senses. Dirty laundry littered the floor, along with scattered books and papers.

Kari stood to leave and then caught herself as a Scripture passage from their wedding flitted through her mind:
Love endures all things.

She locked her jaw, sat down again, and gripped the arms of the chair. Gone were her feelings of guilt and responsibility—gone right along with her desire to work things out. In the depth of her being was a rock-bottom certainty that God wanted her to love her husband. But if this was what their love would be like, Kari had no idea how she’d endure a lifetime of it.

For two hours—until sleep mercifully took over—Kari watched Tim the way she might watch a horror film. Only this time the monster was her husband, and the terror was as real as her last name.

Tim Jacobs was certain the vision of Kari in the chair beside the bed was part of some alcohol-induced daydream, some stage of intensive hangover he hadn’t hit before. He lifted his head and squinted at her before dropping back to the pillow. One thing was sure: Even in the midst of a dream Kari was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Why are you here
? He still wasn’t thinking clearly from the alcohol he had downed earlier this morning, and he was hating himself with a passion for not dumping the liquor down the drain. He studied Kari’s sleeping form as slowly, insidiously, guilt slithered into bed beside him and made its way around his midsection like a boa constrictor.
Did you come to torture me?

It wasn’t until Kari opened her eyes that he fully realized he wasn’t dreaming. And suddenly he could see and smell and sense everything through Kari’s perspective—his own drunken haze, the clothing and books littering the room, the whiskey bottle in the kitchen.

The realization sent him stumbling to the toilet, where for ten minutes straight his body tried to rid itself of every drink he’d consumed for the past month. But no matter how many times his stomach convulsed, it couldn’t get rid of the fear inside him, the guilt and anguish at having Kari see him this way.

When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shuffled toward the bed. He sat down and shifted so he could see Kari’s face. There could be only one reason she was here now, and the thought made him blink back tears. She was the only good thing that had ever happened to him, and now he’d lost her.

No, he hadn’t lost her; he’d destroyed her.

“You have divorce papers for me?” he asked.

Kari stared at him, and he cringed inwardly at the pain in her expression. “No.”

No papers? Tim’s mind raced, trying to imagine why she might come unannounced. As he searched for a reason, he saw a few tears meander down her cheeks.

She wiped the sleeve of her shirt across her face, and he sensed she was holding herself back. His breathing was shallow, and his heart raced near the surface of his chest. What could have happened to make her cry this way? Was it her parents? Was someone sick? He reached his hand toward her but stopped short of moving to her side. The last thing she would want now was his nearness.

“Why’d you come, Kari?”

“I’m your wife, and I’m pregnant.” Kari stood and sat on the bed across from him, tears now flowing freely down her face. “I need to be home. I need you.”

She moved closer. His breath caught in his throat as he felt her hand on his shoulder, and he was instantly alert. “I’m here because I still believe in what we have. What we could have. We’ve got problems, but I believe God can heal us.”

Each word, each syllable painted hope and life and possibility into areas of his heart that had been dead and buried. She was willing to forgive him after all. He deserved nothing but her wrath, but here she was, telling him they still had a chance. That she was willing to stay with him and have his child.

In his mind, one by one, he began to count off the reasons she should leave him. Angela, the lying, the drinking—all of it. Every bad decision he’d made shifted like a ton of dirt onto his back, and he knew he couldn’t draw another breath until he got out from beneath it.