The Letters (28 page)

“You’d let me know, though, if it was getting to be too much. Wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” Mim said, a little too happily.

Delia heard a knock on the door and opened it to find Rose, standing with a stack of stiff, sun-dried towels in her arms. She handed Delia the towels with a gentle smile and said, “Looks like it’s going to start raining soon.”

Delia put the towels on the table and motioned for Rose to come in.

“Have you told your husband that your cancer is gone?”

“My son was planning to tell him.”

“I’m sure he’ll be relieved.”

Would he? She didn’t know how Charles felt about her anymore.

Rose looked at Delia. “Do you think there’s any chance for your marriage to be fixed . . . for things to be made right?”

Delia was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I know you mean
well, but you make it sound easy, and it’s not. At this point, I wouldn’t even know how to begin to make it right.”

“Sure you do, Delia. You begin with forgiveness.”

“Forgive Charles for having an affair? For breaking up our family?” She crossed her arms against her chest. “Forgiving Charles won’t bring him back, Rose. It won’t change anything.”

“I’m not saying it will, but I have no doubt you’ll be surprised by what forgiveness can change.” Rose walked over to the door and put her hand on the knob, then hesitated. She turned back to Delia. “I know what it’s like to be married to a difficult man. A man who is too smart for his own good and hard to love because of it. I know what it’s like to suddenly lose him. I know about regrets and grief that few would understand. But I also know that every marriage takes two people. I made my share of mistakes.” A slight smile tugged at her lips. “Dean made more, mind you, but I made a few myself.” She opened the door. “After you sort all that out, you can ask God to forgive you. And he will, Delia.”

Delia curled up on the sofa after Rose left, mulling over her words. She had blamed Charles entirely for this affair. Was it possible that she played a part? She couldn’t deny that they had been drifting apart the last few years, and the truth was, she hadn’t really minded. As his work demanded more, she was happy to fill that space with activities that interested her. He had asked her to travel with him to some medical conferences, but they were so boring for her. Still . . . she could have gone to a few of them, especially when he was scheduled to speak.

Maybe . . . Delia could have tried a little harder to stay
close, to understand the world of neurosurgery he lived in. It was so far beyond her understanding that she had stopped listening. Stopped trying.

But Robyn Dixon knew that world.

Delia leaned her head against the back of the sofa. It was clear that, somehow or other, Rose had found a peace with her circumstances that Delia hadn’t. But still. It was a complicated issue.

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe it wasn’t as complicated as she had assumed.

Delia decided to fix herself a cup of tea to ward off the chill of the rainy April afternoon. She filled the teakettle with water and set it on the stove. She turned on the burner and waited for the water to heat up, then poured the hot water through the infuser, watching the water change color and taste. Maybe that’s what it was like with God—he infused a situation with love and forgiveness.

What was it Rose kept saying? That Delia just needed to ask for help. She set the infuser in the kitchen sink and held the teacup and saucer in her hands. What did she have to lose? She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.

God, I know there really isn’t any reason for you to listen to me. I haven’t done a very good job of listening to you these past sixty years, so a part of me feels hypocritical to come to you now, with a crisis. I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you ignored me, but I pray you won’t. Rose says I have to forgive Charles so that you can forgive me, and I want to. I’m just not sure I can, not unless you help me. Please, dear Lord, please help me. I’ve always thought of myself as strong, but I’m not strong enough for this. I just can’t do it. Help me. Please help. Amen.

Just as the “amen” was forming in her mind, she heard a car pull into the driveway. Her eyes flew open and she crossed the room to look out the window. Tea splashed into the saucer and the breath went out of her.

It was Charles!

17

S
top twisting my arm off.” Vera flashed Rose a frustrated look.

Rose patiently continued exercising Vera’s right arm. “Jehoshaphat, you’re as prickly as a jar of toothpicks today.”

Vera felt she could tolerate many things, but not having her moods waved away. She sat at the kitchen table, a truculent expression on her face. She had just completed reciting the litany of wrongs she felt Rose had committed as a wife to Dean, her dear boy Dean, starting with how she had tempted him away from his church to go to the liberals, which resulted in so many additional temptations, and ended with Rose being responsible for Tobe’s running away.

She saved her best for last. “And what about Dean’s passing? You’ve never admitted to the despair you drove him to. That despair led to his death.”

A long moment of silence followed, Finally, Rose lifted her head and looked Vera right in the eye, giving her a stern look. “Vera, I know that your life did not turn out the way you hoped it would. I know that. But you need to get your mind off your troubles.”

Patronizing.
How dare Rose treat her like she was a child!

“As soon as we finish these exercises, I’ll make you a cup of tea. Tea has a way of making everything seem better.”

Tea!
As if a cup of tea would cure what ailed her.

“Now try to work your shoulder,” Rose said. “Up and down, side to side, and in circles.”

Vera reached out, but her arm refused to budge. She tried to make her arm work, just a simple wiggle or twitch . . . yet nothing whatsoever happened. The weakness was getting worse.
No. Oh no. Father, don’t let this be real.
Her eyes filled with tears as she tried and tried to move her arm. Rose stood behind her and started to gently exercise her shoulder. “Vera,” she said softly, “we will find ways to make things work. I’m going to do everything I can to help you get back to where you used to be.”

Vera knew exactly what Rose was referring to—leaving her to fend for herself, like she’d had to do since Dean had up and married Rose and gone off to the liberals. She’d be alone again.

What will I do if Rose decides to leave? What will happen to me then?

As shakes started to overtake her, Vera couldn’t say whether it was from anger or fear. Both!

Delia opened the door to Charles but didn’t say a word.

“I came by to . . . to talk to you.” Charles took a deep breath. His voice was shaky and she noticed his hands were trembling. “Will called me. He said the margins were clear. Is it true?”

“Yes. You didn’t need to drive all the way out here.”

“Well, I couldn’t get anything out of that idiot Zimmerman.”

Delia stiffened. “He’s not an idiot. He was respecting my wishes.”

The wary, belligerent expression came back to Charles’s face, and he drew back a little, taking on that stance of his that always reminded Delia a little of a prizefighter. She knew that look so well. She started to close the door in his face.

“Wait! Delia, just give me five minutes. I just need five minutes. Hear me out, then I’ll leave and I won’t bother you again.”

The sooner it was over, the sooner he would be gone. “Come in,” she said, half order, half request.

He walked into the large room and sat on the sofa, eyes fixed on the ground. His hands were clasped together on his lap; now she saw them tighten involuntarily. “It’s not easy for me to talk about some things.”

“I’ve always known that about you,” Delia said. “That’s why I’ve never pressured you to talk.”

She watched his body change—from ready-to-snap tension to dropping his chin on his chest. And to her total surprise, Charles began to cry. Huge sobs and heaving shoulders. The works.

Charles . . . was . . . crying! She didn’t know what to think or what to do. He sat on the sofa, weeping. Her authoritative, in-control-of-every-situation, brilliant neurosurgeon husband was crying so hard that she had to keep feeding him tissues. “I’m scared, Dee, for the first time in my life, I’m really scared. I just feel . . . adrift, I guess. That’s it. It’s like I woke up to find myself sitting in a boat in the middle of the ocean. I’ve got no sail, no oars, and no idea where I am. I don’t know what kind of man I’ve turned into.”

Just an hour ago, she would have danced a jig to see Charles’s remorse, but she didn’t feel that way anymore. She
wasn’t interested in exacting revenge or placing blame. How astonishing! Rose had reminded her that, even in the midst of tragedy, it was possible to find unexpected blessings if you only asked for God’s help. Hers had been exactly that, a newfound ability to let go of the past and the bitterness she’d harbored toward Charles.

They sat there in the basement of an Amish farmhouse while Charles told her he was miserable without her.

But . . . she wasn’t to be fobbed off so easily. “And so you decided to come back to what was familiar—to a time when you knew who you were?”

“Yes. No! Dee, it was a mistake. Robyn, moving out of our home. I’m sorry. I understand now what I put you through. And I’m just so sorry. When I was suddenly faced with losing you . . . I think that’s when I started to realize what I’d done. What kind of man I’d become.”

She was doing the very best she could to be empathetic, compassionate yet detached. After all, tears didn’t wipe out the damage that had been done.

“I drove all the way here to tell you I’ve ended things with Robyn. It’s over. And I want to ask if we could get back together. I’d like things to be the way they were before.”

She drew in her breath sharply; she had
not
expected this. She was listening intently, her heart lifting with every word. These were the very words she had wanted to hear. The very words. But the truth was, she didn’t want things the way they were before. Everything had changed. She had changed. She recovered her poise quickly. “I don’t want to go back to a marriage of two ships passing in the night.”

Charles stared vacantly out the window, though it was impossible to see anything through the rain and fog that
clouded the glass. “I guess I can’t blame you, Dee. But I just want you to know I meant what I said. I’m sorry for everything. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

And to her surprise she said quietly, “This isn’t just your fault, you know. There were things we both could have done differently. I’m sorry too.”

“Well, maybe, but when the going got tough, I was the one who called a lawyer, not you.”

That was true.

“Delia, I thought about what you said—about the difference between having regret and being truly sorry. Before Will called to let me know your test results—I spoke to the patient who was suing me for her stroke. I apologized to her. To her husband too.” Charles’s voice choked up. “That was all they wanted to hear. That was it. They dropped the malpractice suit.”