Her feet pounded the pavement, slower than their old jogging rhythm, but steady. Her body still felt awkward in exercise, but the effect it had on her mind was the same. Her next clinic appointment was in two days. She wondered what the stress test would show, what they’d say if they knew she was exerting herself so much.
And what’s the deal with all this cellular memory stuff? Is that what it really is? Or am I out of my mind? After reading Dr. Pearsall’s book, I have to admit I’m a believer. I just wish more people were so I didn’t sound like a lunatic. And if you designed our bodies to work this way, then you really should have designed an off switch.
She slowed herself when the path curved, not wanting to go too far in case something happened to her heart. She turned around and started to walk back, squinting into the sun.
Look, wherever Jessie is, can you please take care of her? I have a hard time believing she’d do something stupid and get herself in trouble, but she was upset and not thinking clearly. Get her home safely. Or help me find her.
She stopped walking as the impact of her words caught up with her. Had she actually been praying? She took a mental inventory. She was still angry with herself, but toward God the feeling had faded from disgruntled irritation to simple doubt-Was he real? Was he listening? Did he care?
She never would have guessed that doubt could make her so happy.
SAVANNAH SNUCK INTO THE HOUSE, easing the door shut and grabbing her carry-on that was still leaning against the wall. She brought it up to the guest bedroom, alert for signs that Shaun was around. His car was still in the garage, but perhaps he was out for a run. She slipped into the guest bathroom and showered, enjoying the ache of her muscles from the exercise. Just one more piece of the old Savannah coming back into focus. Hopefully it wouldn’t be the last.
When she was dressed, she went back downstairs and ran smack into Shaun as he came out of the kitchen. She glowered at him, then sidestepped him without a word and went to the kitchen for some lunch.
“Jessie came in just after you got in the shower,” he said.
Relief washed over her. “Good. She texted me just before I came home, saying she was alright. Hadn’t said when she’d be home, though. Thank you for telling me.” She pulled out the ingredients for a stir fry, ignoring the sounds that told her Shaun had followed her.
“Savannah, I just want to say again how sorry I am.”
“Save it. I’m not ready to talk about this again with you.”
Zucchini, broccoli, carrots, cabbage. She chopped with vigor, keeping her back to him and trying to fill the silence with her cooking. She could have made something less labor-intensive, but it gave her something else to think about and an outlet for her antsy energy.
Shaun, however, wasn’t ready to give up. “So what now?”
Chop, julienne, shred. “I don’t know, Shaun.” And she didn’t. She felt betrayed. Shaun was like a stranger to her. What could she realistically expect of herself in such a situation? Leaving the marriage certainly felt like a justifiable option, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it.
But as she dropped the vegetables into the wok, it dawned on her that Shaun had likely felt the same way after she’d changed so much. And he hadn’t left.
“I’m just… not ready to forgive you yet.” She hoped he would catch the fact that she wasn’t ruling it out entirely.
“I understand,” he said quickly. “I wouldn’t expect you to be.”
She whisked soy sauce and cornstarch in a bowl, set it aside. “I had an idea while I was out. I’d like to bring Jessie to Georgia with me, if she’s willing, and if Tabitha can spare the room. I think she’d benefit from being at The Refuge, and it would give the two of us the chance to bond some more.”
“That makes sense.” He spoke slowly, and she knew he was trying to decide if those reasons were the real ones or decoys.
“It’s not like we’ll be gone forever.” She finally turned to look him in the eyes, then tried to soften her tone. “I still need some time, too. But I want to do what I can to help us get untangled from our… financial issues. If you want, I can pack away the things I really want to keep, and you can try to sell the house and whatever furnishings people want. There’s very little in the way of stuff that I’m attached to. And we’ve got some nice things; I’m sure you could sell or consign them for a good price.”
He managed a smile. “That’s a good idea.”
She stirred the vegetables and chose her words carefully. “You are going to come clean with everyone, right?”
His response took a few seconds to come. “Come clean?”
“With the staff.”
“With-wait, you mean, tell them everything?”
She breathed deeply, trying not to let her anger build up the wall they were trying to tear down. “Yes. Everything. Don’t you think that’s the right thing to do? Apologize – to Nick, to Carlie-”
“Carlie! Are you nuts?”
“She’s doing what she’s doing because of what you did, Shaun. Admit your mistake to everyone and you take away her power. Plus, you really do owe her an apology if you fired her, even partly, because of what she found out. And it would be better to do it before she made good on her threats.”
Shaun ran a hand over his face and wandered out of the kitchen. Savannah turned back to her stir fry, astounded at who her husband had turned out to be. She never would have believed his story if it hadn’t come straight from him.
She plated the food and ate as she tried to envision their future. Was there a future for them? The life they’d been living – more business partners than lovers-was not appealing. She didn’t want that life back. And now that she knew who Shaun really was, she wasn’t so sure she wanted him, anyway. If he did what he needed to do, showed he was willing to change-maybe she’d concede to giving it another try. But would they ever be able to go back to how they had been before A &A had transformed them from lovers to coworkers?
The longer she pondered, the clearer things became, and after she finished eating she made a stop at Shaun’s office before calling Tabitha about her idea.
“Just to put your mind at ease – I don’t want a divorce.”
The fact that he looked so shocked broke her heart. “You don’t? Why not?”
“I don’t think it’s what God would want.”
The look intensified. “You actually care what God wants?”
“Well, not exactly-but I don’t want to make any decisions I might regret. And I think I would regret that.”
He smiled. “I’m glad to hear that.”
She smiled back. “Yeah. Me too.”
JESSIE TOOK A BITE OF her apple and keyed in the URL of the Colorado Springs Gazette’s website, then clicked on their job listings. She couldn’t handle the bookstore for much longer, not with all the comments she heard from customers when they saw Savannah’s books on the shelves. The other staff hadn’t been too bad, though Torrie had been standoffish for the last week or so. Jessie tried not to care, but it wasn’t working. She needed a change.
She still hadn’t seen her mother since coming home from Angie’s house. She’d run into her father, to whom she had refused to talk before locking herself in her bedroom and falling asleep. She’d woken just an hour later, but the nap had done her good. She hadn’t been ready to take on all the questions of her future, but she had felt ready to take a small step. The job search felt doable.
A knock, then a call of “Jessie?” broke her concentration. Her mother. The walls went up once again around her heart. “Come in.”
Savannah’s face held a look of cautiousness, of apprehension. Not expressions she was used to seeing on her mother. “I’m sorry to interrupt you,” she said, sounding truly concerned that Jessie may have been in the middle of something important. “I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. That alright?”