The Atonement Child (36 page)

“Are you sorry we’ll have to give all this up?”

Cynthia looked around the elegantly decorated living room. Nothing she was looking at was irreplaceable. She didn’t care if they gave up country club membership. She had seldom had the time to enjoy it anyway. She didn’t care if they sold the house and moved. None of the neighbors had ever been particularly friendly. Perhaps that was her own fault, living in fear behind the high iron gate. Or had shame kept her hidden away?

“It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “None of it. These are just things.” Only Jim mattered, Jim and the children—and she’d failed them all.

She looked at him, aching inside, and shook her head, struggling to contain the turbulent emotions twisting and churning inside her. “I’m sorry, Jim. I’m so sorry.”

Jim sensed what was bothering her and loved her all the more for it. “You’re not to blame for the choices I’ve made.”

“No, but I’m to blame for not talking to you about my reservations. I’m to blame for not asking the hard questions that might have helped you look at things in a different way. I knew you were suffering.” Tears coursed down her cheeks. “I knew, but I convinced myself I shouldn’t interfere.” She touched his cheek. “You know, you never had to tell me which days you worked at the clinic. I knew by how depressed you were the morning you left. I knew because you were angry when you came home. I knew when you spent the entire evening in your den going over cases from your office. I thought keeping silent would make it easier for you. I was wrong.”

“You did it because you loved me.”

“Yes. I loved you. I do love you. I love you so much, I’d die for you. So why couldn’t I love you enough to be completely honest?”

His eyes moistened as they searched hers. “I never knew you had any reservations.”

“I was afraid to tell you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Another lie. She tried again. “I knew by the way you talked about Carolyn how much your sister meant to you. I didn’t want to add to your hurt.” An excuse. And yet again, she tried. “I think the truth is I was afraid it would tear us apart.” Saying it hurt. She was getting closer. “My parents disagreed on a lot of things, and they fought constantly. I swore I’d never live like that.” Even that sounded like an excuse to her. “There’s no good reason for not dealing with things. I should’ve said something.” Who better qualified to hold up a yellow flag? Or a red one?

Jim came and sat beside her, drawing her into his arms. “It probably wouldn’t have made a difference.”

This from the man who had chosen to go to medical school in San Francisco because she’d always loved the West Coast. This from the man who had moved her to Mill Valley because she was concerned about rearing the children in the city. This from the man who had bought this house because she had loved it at first sight.

It would have made a difference.

It would have made all the difference in the world.

Dynah awakened in the night, needing to use the bathroom. Glancing at the small clock on her bedside table, she saw it was two fifteen in the morning. Sighing wearily, she flipped the covers back and pushed herself up into a sitting position. She felt the baby move strongly, feet down on her bladder. Leaning over, she felt for her robe. It was lying across the foot of her bed within easy reach, convenient for her nightly visits to the bathroom across the hall. Smiling faintly, she shrugged into the robe as she rose, one hand beneath the bulge of her abdomen.

On her way back to bed, she noticed a light was on in the living room. Curious, she drew the sides of her terry-cloth robe more snugly around her and went to see who was up at such a late hour.

Cynthia was sitting in one of the swivel rockers, barefoot. She was wearing a pink-and-white flannel nightgown and looked more like a girl of twenty than a woman in her late thirties. A young girl anxious about something.

“Are you feeling all right, Cynthia?”

“I should be asking you that.”

Dynah rested her hand lightly on her abdomen. “The baby’s tap-dancing.”

Cynthia smiled. “I remember. At the end, I couldn’t fit behind the steering wheel of our car.” Her expression grew solemn again. “I heard you get up. I was hoping, if you weren’t too tired, we could talk awhile.”

“I’d like that.” Dynah came into the living room and sat in the matching rocker nearest her. Her expression was open and sweet, almost thankful. Cynthia’s anxiety evaporated.

“I didn’t mean to come at you the way I did earlier,” she said. “I was feeling defensive.”

“I understood.”

Cynthia saw she did. “Jim and I talked about it. He doesn’t really understand what I’m feeling. Men seem to see things in black and white rather than shades of gray.” Her mouth curved ruefully. “That’s where I’ve been living for a long time. In the gray area.”

“Sometimes it feels safe there,” Dynah said. Hadn’t she gone along for months without making any kind of decision or stand? She’d like to think now she did it to protect her baby, but in truth, she hadn’t. She had wanted to deny its very existence. She had wanted to wish it away.

“Unfortunately, life has a way of slapping you in the face with reality,” Cynthia said quietly.

Dynah knew that only too well. She also knew that after the sting of awakening came the blessing of dawn.

“You were right, Dynah. I did support Jim in his work. It’s a damning word, isn’t it? Support. I upheld him in it. He’d like to absolve me. As much as I’d like to let him, he can’t. Inaction is an action in itself, and silence can speak louder than words.” She smiled weakly. “Trite, but true. I just wanted you to know that before you leave tomorrow.”

Leaning forward, Dynah took Cynthia’s hand. “I came because God sent me, and you opened the door. I needed help, and you took me in.”

“You said that once before,” Cynthia said, touched by her concern.

“I’ll say it again. Others weren’t so kind.” Ethan. Dean Abernathy. Even her own parents.

Oh, God, who are the infidels? These people who took in a stranger off the street? Ethan and Dean Abernathy are saved. So, too, are Mom and Dad. None of us deserve it, but You cover us with Your grace and mercy. Oh, but, Lord, what of these two people I’ve come to love? What of their children? Oh, Jesus, please. I beseech You on their behalf. You’ve opened their eyes. Open their hearts as well so that their names are written in the Book of Life.

“I’ve been very glad of your company,” Cynthia said, squeezing Dynah’s hand gently in return.

“We haven’t talked very much.” Not enough. “Not about the important things.” Christ. The gospel.

“No, but I’ve watched you.”

“I want you to have the peace God’s given me.”

“I know, but I don’t think I’m ready for it. Not like Jim was.” He was ripe for the harvest. She was still standing grain. “You’ve made me hunger and thirst, Dynah, but I’ll have to find my own way to the well.”

God, may it be so.
When Cynthia withdrew her hand and leaned back slightly, Dynah understood that the spiritual side of their conversation had been closed.

“What of the young man who’s been calling you?”

“Joe? He’s been a wonderful friend.”

“Are you sure it isn’t more?”

“He was my fiancé’s best friend. When my relationship with Ethan disintegrated because of . . . well, difficult circumstances, I think Joe felt someone had to shoulder responsibility for me.”

Cynthia raised her brows. “So he moved all the way to California to do that?”

“He’s been talking about going to UC Berkeley since I met him. He said it’d be a great place for testing a person’s faith.”

“Well, he’s probably right about that. Does he plan to become a minister?”

“I don’t know,” Dynah said, frowning slightly, wondering. “I’ve never really nailed Joe down about anything.” All she knew for certain was that he loved the Lord wholeheartedly. That had been enough to cement her respect and admiration from the beginning. As to the rest, Joe had never been quick to share his hopes and dreams or his plans. Not the way Ethan had.

They talked for over an hour, about the children mostly and some about Cynthia’s college years and her dreams of being an interior decorator. Both grew drowsy. They walked down the hall together. Cynthia touched Dynah’s arm lightly. “I’ll miss you.”

Dynah embraced her. “May God bless you and your family.”

Cynthia watched the door close behind her. She felt a strange ache in her heart, a pang of loneliness.

“Is one of the children sick?” Jim said groggily when Cynthia slipped back into bed.

“No. Dynah got up to go to the bathroom. I thought I’d visit with her for a while.”

“Hmmmm. Good.”

“Sorry I awakened you.”

He was snoring again within two minutes. Cynthia curled onto her side and tucked herself against him. Doctors learned early to sleep whenever they had the opportunity.

“May God bless you and your family.”

Maybe the blessing of a girl like Dynah was enough to assuage the guilt. She hoped so. Her own faith was lacking.

Closing her eyes, Cynthia Wyatt willed herself to sleep.

Tense, heart pounding, Evie sat silently in the wing chair near the sliding-glass doors that led out to Gladys’s deck. The door was open, allowing the warm breeze to carry in the scent of the pine forest and the sweet sound of birdsong. The calm atmosphere did nothing to ease Evie’s turbulent spirit.

Virginia Hart, Doris Fulton, and Marva Novak chattered gaily, delighted with Gladys’s flavored coffee, cookies, and cupcakes, totally oblivious to Evie’s wretched state of mind. Gladys had called the women together for an afternoon “tea.”

Gladys surveyed the gathering, heart drumming. On the surface, all looked grand and congenial. Gladys liked to “put on the Ritz” as she called it. Hailing from Queens, she said she was born to put on airs. True to form, she had brought out her best—the delicate bone china from Victoria, the silver tea service from London, and the crystal platters from Ireland. She was dressed in a pretty turquoise outfit that probably had never been out of doors.

“I should’ve laced your coffee with Valium,” Gladys said sotto voce, standing over Evie with one of her plates of goodies. “You’ve got that pinched look.”

“What do you expect? I’m facing the gallows.”

“You underestimate your friends. We won’t desert you. Now have a tea cake.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Have one anyway. It might sweeten that look on your face.”

Evie took one just to shut her up.

“And don’t you dare sneak out that door,” Gladys said in parting.

Disgruntled, Evie ignored the remark and looked at her friends. She had known Virginia, Doris, and Marva as long as she had known Gladys McGill. Over the past eighteen years, they had all shared triumph and tragedy. Doris, the first to lose her husband, had served with Evie as church deaconess. Evie had been with Marva at the hospital when her husband died after open-heart surgery. Virginia Hart had coaxed Evie into taking over the presidency of the women’s auxiliary when her husband had been in the last stages of Parkinson’s disease. Gladys was the only one not a widow in deed. Her husband had Alzheimer’s.

Over the past four years, every Sunday after church, Evie had met these women at one of the local eateries to share lunch, sorrow, and joy. They jokingly called themselves the Widows’ Brigade. In all seriousness, they had been through wars together—grieving over spouses who died, children who divorced, grandchildren on drugs, deaths of siblings, living alone, paring down households, and moving into “assisted-care retirement facilities.”