Redemption (34 page)

The Scripture verses on love came back, and he corrected himself. Football hadn’t taken those things; his own self-seeking actions had. He exhaled slowly and pictured Kari climbing out of his truck, walking away for the last time.

I still want her, God . . . that’s something you’ll have to help me with. But right now, please . . . please, just give me the strength to love her the way you want me to.

Love her as I have loved you, my son.

Ryan nodded silently, closed his eyes, and did the one thing that proved he had a new understanding of love—a God-given understanding. With a full and sincere heart he begged the Lord to show Kari and Tim a way to make their marriage work.

Quiet tears slipped down his face as he continued to pray. So this was how painful love could be. Painful enough for Kari to stay in a faithless marriage. Painful enough for him to give up all claim to the woman he loved.

Painful enough for Christ to give his life to save people from their sins.

Ryan slowly shook his head, moved to the core by a new depth of understanding. So this was love. The kind of love God had for his people, the kind of love Kari had for Tim.

Ryan stayed there for nearly an hour, ignoring the ache in his heart and his knees as he prayed for Kari’s marriage. When he left the church that night, he realized that something deep and profound had happened back in the sanctuary, something that would forever change the way he felt about Kari, but also about his own ability to love.

He thought about the professional coaching offer that had come to him the day before, one that would take him a thousand miles from Bloomington and Kari and the marriage she was trying to save. The offer was a fluke, almost unheard-of for a high school coach, even one who had spent years in the pros. Then again, perhaps it was a divine reprieve, a gift of grace.

The job would require him to relocate in February, well after the football season was over. But at first Ryan had balked. His cabin was here, his ranch, his familiar community. He had deliberately chosen to come back here when he left the Cowboys. It would always be home.

But now . . . in light of his commitment to release Kari fully, his leaving Indiana might be the best thing for both of them. A way of illustrating a love that was no longer self-seeking.

And as he drove off into the night, the pain within him both deep and rewarding, he knew he was no longer a child when it came to the ways of love.

He was a man.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Kari slipped her hands into the pockets of a brand-new pair of navy twill pants, angled her body expertly, and smiled over her shoulder as a series of camera clicks went off.

Eight days had passed since she and Tim had gotten home from the intensive marriage seminar, the one Pastor Mark had told her about. Tim had been eager to go, more than willing to rearrange his class schedule for the chance to begin what would be a lifetime of healing between the two of them.

The two days had been amazing. She and Tim had talked intently with the counselors until it was clear what motivated each of them and how they affected each other—their dance, the counselors called it. The things they’d learned about themselves and their relationship in those scant forty-eight hours had been more revealing than all their combined communication with each other to that point.

Forgiveness happens once, the counselors had told them. Healing takes a lifetime.

Kari angled her head and smiled for the camera again.

Already she knew with every fiber of her being that she had made the right choice—a painful choice, but the right one all the same. Pastor Mark had connected them with a counselor whose specialty is with marriages in crisis, and they had seen the man three times before the seminar.

The photographer lowered his camera. “Perfect, Kari, beautiful. Now from the other side.”

The genius behind the camera was Henry T. Canistelli, renowned catalog photographer, a man Kari affectionately called Hank. Nearly all of Kari’s memorable catalog work had come from his hands.

Kari shifted and produced another smile.

“Kari, baby, the camera loves that face. Give it to me over the shoulder.”

It felt good to get back to work. The staff at the modeling agency was grateful that whatever issues had caused her to need a break were apparently resolved.

“We’ll work you full body until you’re showing; then we’ll do maternity spreads and face work,” her agent told her. “I can keep you busy until you go into labor.”

The current job was a six-hour shoot at a desirable studio in Indianapolis. Despite the hot lights and the demand to look flawless, it was mindless work. Studio work always was. Outdoor shoots were something else entirely—keeping bugs from being attracted to her hair spray, working with natural lighting and weather conditions, freezing in the winter and sweltering in the summer—and trying to look good through all of it.

With all she had on her mind these days, she was grateful her agent had lined up six consecutive studio jobs. She’d get through those, then take another break for the holidays.

“That’s the way, Kari.” Hank grinned at her over the top of his camera. He was thirty years her senior, with a New York accent thicker than fog. “Perfect. Let’s try the other shoulder. The friendly-young-mother look you’re so good at.”

She turned her back to him and glanced over the shoulder as if she were looking back at a trail of children or smiling at a best friend’s joke. After Hank finished clicking, Kari relaxed. “It’s all you, Hank. I just show up. You make the magic.”

Hank adjusted a French beret on his head and chuckled. “You got that wrong, pretty girl. I’ve worked the business for years, and talent like yours doesn’t come along often. Wife, lover, friend, girl-next-door, you name it. Any look you want and ageless beauty to boot—that’s what you’ve got.”

Kari laughed, enjoying the easy banter she and Hank always shared. “Well, then, I guess I better thank the good—”

Hank held up his hand and interrupted her. “I know, I know—” he raised his tone in friendly imitation—“ ‘I better thank the good Lord because he made me look like this and I wouldn’t be nothin’ without him.’ ” Hank nodded his head patiently, as if he’d heard the explanation a hundred times. “Well, you never know, kid. Maybe there’s something to that faith of yours.” He wiggled his fingers in her direction as if he were casting a spell. “Maybe that explains the unearthly sparkle in your eyes.” He shrugged. “Whatever it is, if you could bottle it, you’d make millions.”

In response Kari merely smiled and pointed heavenward. Hank’s view of God was jaded at best, but Kari figured she was in his life for a reason—even if only a few times a month at photo shoots. Besides, she couldn’t help but like him.

Five more outfits needed to be photographed. Kari gathered up the next one and headed toward the dressing room.

While she was changing, she thought about the second day at the marriage seminar, the day the breakthrough had happened.

“It comes down to your fears,” one of the counselors had explained. “When a relationship isn’t working, fears are usually the base of the trouble.”

He asked them to think about their greatest fears regarding each other, and after five minutes of silence, tears had filled Tim’s eyes. He looked at the counselor and swallowed hard. “She loved Ryan Taylor before she loved me. How was I supposed to measure up to that?”

“So what’s your fear?” the counselor asked Tim, his voice tender, quiet. Even before Tim could answer, Kari felt a new sense of understanding wash over her.

“I guess—” he shifted his gaze to Kari—“I guess I always thought I wasn’t good enough for you. I thought you deserved someone better.”

The woman counselor interjected. “And what about you, Kari? What is your deepest fear where Tim is concerned?”

Kari remembered the way Tim’s friends had responded to her at the faculty party. The answer was simple. “I was afraid I wasn’t smart enough.”

They talked about coping behaviors and how people always responded to their fears one way or another. In this case, Tim had coped by spending time with a woman who appreciated his intelligence. Kari, though, had handled her fear by withdrawing from Tim and busying herself with activities that made her feel competent.

“So you see the dance,” the male counselor said to Tim. “The busier Kari became, the deeper your sense of rejection grew, and the more attracted you were to the other woman. It was a dance in which the steps took you farther apart every day.”

Tim and Kari had stared at each other, amazed at the aptness of the counselor’s description.

“At this point in your marriage,” the counselor went on, “there are three anchors available to you, anchors that—if you choose to use them—will keep your marriage from destruction. If you choose to ignore these anchors, you probably can’t expect your marriage to survive.”

Tim took her hand while the man spoke. Though she still had feelings of doubt and anger and moments when her heart wanted to think about Ryan, the feel of her hand in Tim’s was more comforting than she had expected.

The counselor turned his attention to Tim. “First, because of your tendency to binge drink, you should give up any form of alcohol completely.”

“I . . . I tried that.”

“Now that we’re making it part of your counseling, if you can’t stop on your own, you need to check out one of the Christian treatment programs. We’ll give you a list.”

He barely paused, but shifted his gaze to include Kari. “Second, you should be completely faithful to each other, both emotionally and physically.”

“And most important of all,” the woman counselor interjected, “you should both commit to understanding your individual fears and changing the way you cope. And that means the
d
-word—divorce—should not be included in your vocabulary.”

The male counselor nodded. “Remember, each of these anchors is up to you. By making these choices, you will be able to change the steps to your dance and work toward healing.”

When the counseling session was over, before they went home, Kari and Tim had walked hand in hand through a wooded park together, talking. They promised to dance more closely together from that point on.

A quick knock at the dressing-room door told Kari she needed to put the memory aside. “Okay, beautiful, time’s up,” Hank said. “Let’s work these sets and get home.”

“All right . . . coming.”

Kari adjusted the next outfit and put the finishing touches on her appearance. She, too, was eager to finish the job and get back home.

She and Tim were getting follow-up counseling with a Christian psychologist in Bloomington. Their next appointment was this evening, and Kari had at least an hour’s drive back home before that. She smiled to herself. The counseling sessions were sometimes difficult and painful, but thinking of them made her feel a sense of hope. A tender, tentative sense of a hope that could mean only one thing: Her broken heart was beginning to mend.

Fifty-five miles south, at the Silverlake Apartments, Angela Manning sat at her kitchen table, sipping coffee and contemplating Tim’s disappearance. She simply couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Their relationship had been going beautifully. There were a few tensions, but that was normal, wasn’t it? Angela had been sure that things would calm down once Tim’s divorce was really in the works.

Then one evening while she was at the library, he had simply packed up and disappeared, leaving only a short note to explain his change of heart.

Her heart ached as she picked the note off the coffee table and read it for the hundredth time since he’d gone back to his wife.

Angela,

I’m sorry. I’ve made a terrible mistake, and it’s destroying me. I need to be with my wife, and you need to move on. Forgive me.

Tim

At first Angela had wondered if the note was some kind of bad joke, Tim’s attempt to scare her. But when he didn’t show up that night or the next, she began to panic. Never had she intended to get involved with a married man. But once she had, the only thing that kept her going was a strong belief that his marriage was over and his future was here with her, at this apartment just off campus.

To think that Tim might never have been serious about her, that he had perhaps allowed the affair to continue with no intention of being with her on a long-term basis, was more than she could bear. It made her feel cheap and sordid and used.

Just like the woman her father had left home for.

She felt the sting of tears in her eyes and took a sip of coffee, remembering the shock of those first few days after Tim left.

When she realized he’d gone home to his wife, she told herself he’d be back. He had left only because of his guilty conscience. When he realized what he’d left behind, he’d start divorce proceedings—the way he should have months ago—and then come knocking on her door.

But after a week had passed, Angela began to have doubts. Had Tim’s wife come back to him so willingly? Tim had said she was staying with her parents before. But now, were they already living together? in their house?

Angela couldn’t stand the thought, so for the past two days she’d left hourly calls on Tim’s office voice mail, desperate to talk to him. She’d even considered going to his office and waiting for him. She drummed her fingernails against the coffee mug. If he didn’t call her back today, that’s exactly what she would do. She had no choice.