SHAUN LET OUT A GROWL AND SLAMMED THE PHONE BACK INTO its cradle with a curse before leaving his office. He was jumpy with anger at how Savannah turned his words back on him, how they couldn’t have a civil conversation anymore. He needed a run to clear his head.
Jessie was in the hallway, moving with quiet steps away from his office. “When did you get here?”
She stopped and slowly turned. He could read her expression loud and clear. “A little while ago.”
“You heard it all.”
“Yeah.”
He blew out a breath and shrugged. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
She cocked her head slightly, and her expression became unreadable. “Are you and Mom getting a divorce?”
“No, honey, we’re not.” He hoped his face wasn’t as clear to her as hers often was to him. He wasn’t sure how well he could hide his doubt about the statement he’d just made. He put his arm around her and led her to the kitchen. “All married couples have their rough patches; it doesn’t mean they’re going to split up. Your mom and I agreed a long time ago divorce would never be an option.”
She sat on a barstool as he started the coffeepot. “But that was before she turned into… whoever she is now,” she said. “She’s not the same person. She doesn’t even believe in God anymore, does she? So what reason does she have to keep divorce off the table?”
He was getting uncomfortable with this conversation. He wasn’t ready to talk with Jessie about something he himself hadn’t figured out yet. I should never have told her everything Savannah was going through. “We’re not getting a divorce, Jess. Trust me. Now, what brings you home? You’re a college student. You should be sleeping in until noon, not driving home before breakfast. I didn’t think I’d see you again before Thanksgiving.”
“I left some stuff in my closet that I wanted to bring back to campus. I meant to get it when I was here last but I forgot. The rest of my weekend is really packed, so I wanted to come now while I had the time.” She swiveled on the seat, eyes concentrated on the marble countertop. “Is Mom coming home for Thanksgiving?”
Shaun tried not to show his irritation. “I don’t know, we haven’t talked about it.”
“What if she doesn’t come home?”
He chuckled. “What, and relocates to Georgia? I don’t think she could handle the humidity.”
“I’m serious, Dad. What if she decides she’s done with us and just stays there? What if the new Savannah likes humidity?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “You’re getting melodramatic, Jessie. Trust me, she’s not staying there forever.”
“Well, when is she coming back then?”
He shrugged and took down two mugs from the cabinet. “I don’t know. When she’s gotten herself together, I guess. Did you hear the first part of the conversation, about cellular memory?”
“No, I came in when you started getting angry.”
He winced. “Well, your mom met with the sister of her heart donor and found out some very interesting information.” He outlined Savannah’s conversation with Lori and the discovery they’d both made of the theory. “So we feel like we’re going in the right direction. We just have to do more research.”
“That sounds… weird. Did you find anything that said how to stop the cellular memories from interfering with the recipient?”
“Unfortunately, that’s the one thing nobody mentions. From what I gather they may fade with time, but it’s not like you can just switch them off, or speed up the fading process.”
“So she’s like this indefinitely?”
“I guess so, yes.”
She frowned at him. “But what about A &A? It can’t last like this indefinitely, can it? She’s not speaking or traveling-where will the income come from?”
“Her new book is still selling, and so are her past books – whenever a new one comes out it always revives the sales of the others, even if it’s just for a little while. It’s not like there’s no money coming in at all. You have plenty of things in your own life to worry about, Jessie, don’t dwell on this one.”
“How can’t I, Dad? Adam’s family would be in dire straits if A &A went down. I can’t not worry about it.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “I know, honey. But we just have to trust that God will take care of everything.”
She shrugged off his hand and slipped from the barstool to open the fridge and pull out the milk. “I haven’t been real thrilled with how God has handled things lately. I don’t know how willing I am to trust that he’s going to snap his fingers and make all this okay.”
He wished he could admit he felt the same way, but he wasn’t about to feed into her own struggle and doubt with his own. Though hearing her speak like that made him sad-and even more stressed. If she were to find out what was going on-if A &A really did collapse-he’d be just as much to blame for her walking away from God as Savannah would be.
He responded with something lame, hoping it didn’t sound as phony to her. He poured them both coffee, but she excused herself, taking her mug to her bedroom and shutting the door. Shaun slumped onto the couch and prayed for what he realized was the first time in weeks. You’ve got to show me how to fix this. I’ve got to fix this. Tell me what to do.
He stared at the trees, waiting for an answer, and tried not to assume the ever-stronger impression that closing A &A was actually from God. Surely that was his own fear talking. Why would God want to shut down such an important ministry? Regardless, nothing is going to get fixed if we’re not talking to each other. He had to go to Georgia. He had to get face-to-face with Savannah and talk all this through. It had been less than a week since she’d been gone, but already it felt like a month. The distance between them grew exponentially with every day that passed. They needed to reconnect, fast.
He took his coffee to his office and looked up their frequent flyer miles, only to discover Savannah had dipped into them for both her flight to Georgia and to Kansas. There weren’t enough left for him to book a round-trip ticket. He cursed under his breath and debated the importance of the trip for just a moment, then looked up a flight and tried to book it.
I’m sorry, your purchase did not go through. Please check your credit card account number and try again.
Shaun’s stomach sank. Please Jesus, help me.
TABITHA APPEARED AT THE KITCHEN door. “Shaun’s here.”
Savannah nearly chopped her knuckles into the onions. “Okay, thanks. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Tabitha shut the door and Savannah groaned.
“Who’s this Shaun?” Aniyah asked, eyebrows arched.
“My husband.”
“He come to visit you? Aw, that’s sweet.”
A snort escaped. “It’s not a visit. More like a business meeting.”
Aniyah tsked. “Don’t be assuming the worst, now.”
“It’s not an assumption, trust me.” She slid a finger down the side of the knife, knocking minced vegetables to the cutting board. “Into the pot?”
“Yeah. Thanks for helping. You spoiling me. Gonna miss you when you go.”
“Well, hopefully that won’t happen for a while.” She hadn’t admitted that to Tabitha yet, fearing she’d be given a deadline. But the thought of returning to Colorado put a knot in her chest that made it hard to breathe.
Being in Georgia was so lovely. It was easy to forget about Colorado, about A &A, about her family, when she was surrounded by such warm and loving people who didn’t press her to be anyone other than who she felt she was right then. The others at The Refuge understood how wounds of the soul could change you on a deep level. They didn’t expect you to fake it or try to deny your pain. Not that the pain she felt was actually hers. None of them knew that, though. And knowing it didn’t make anything any easier for her.
But with Shaun here, she couldn’t live in her pretty Georgia world of denial. She had to face what was going on back home because of her. And since she couldn’t do anything about any of it, she didn’t really want to face it.
She dawdled as much as she dared, then went to the sitting room where she and Tabitha had talked the first day she’d arrived. He was sitting in one of the corner seats by the window, staring out at the orchard of leafless trees. It had been only a week-how was it that he already felt like a stranger?
“Hi.”
He looked up at her. For a moment she could have sworn he didn’t recognize her. “Hey.”
They didn’t touch. She sat down in the chair diagonal from him and tried to muster some affection, or even a feeling of friendliness. It didn’t work. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. I tried to use the Visa the other day and it was denied. What’s that about?”
He waved a hand. “Just a glitch. It happened to me, too. Use the Mastercard until I get it sorted out.”
She thought about that for a moment, but couldn’t get it to make sense. “What is there to sort out?”
“I don’t know. They’re looking into it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think you’re being honest with me.”
He sighed, and his expression aged him ten years. “Look, Savannah, I was hoping we’d be able to… to think through some things a little more level-headedly if I came out here. I don’t want to get into any arguments.”
She worked to keep her tone even. “I’m not trying to get into an argument. I’m trying to get a straight answer.”
“We need to talk about more important things.”
“More important than why you’re evading my questions?”
“A &A is going under.” She shut her mouth, eyes wide as Shaun continued. “We’re barely making ends meet. We have no way to budget for the future because we have no idea what our income will be next month, much less for the next quarter. Your book is selling, and numbers have gone up for your backlist, but none are as high as we’d hoped. We don’t have the book tour income we’d been counting on, and in fact lost money when we canceled-”
“You don’t have to remind me, I know what happened,” she snapped.
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty -”
“Oh no? Look, I know I cost the ministry money, I know I’m to blame -”
“Look I’m not trying to blame you.” He stopped, took a deep breath, started again with his tone lowered. “I’m just trying to lay everything out on the table. This is what we’re dealing with, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep things together over there. The fact is we’re falling apart, and without you at the helm we’re doomed.”
She swallowed hard. The joy at the thought of not having that weight on her shoulders anymore was buried by the horror of costing her staff their jobs and casting such a shameful light on her family. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I think we need to shut it down.”
“What? No.”
“Then tell me how to keep it open.”
“I don’t know. That’s not my department.”
Shaun scoffed. “No, your department is writing books and speaking about them, and you’re not doing either one.”
Savannah blinked back tears. “Well, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t pay the bills. We need to close, the sooner the better.”
Savannah hugged herself, the cold in her chest seeming to course through every vein of her body. “I can’t believe it’s coming to this.”
Surprise joined frustration in his face. “I can’t believe you’re not jumping at the chance to shut it down. You don’t even believe in the ministry’s mission anymore, what do you care if it thrives or dies?”
“Because that ministry is the culmination of my blood, sweat, and tears! It’s not like I’ve forgotten who I was before all this happened, Shaun. We both gave the last ten years of our lives to that place. How can you think I’d be happy to close it?”
“You may not have forgotten who you were, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re not that person anymore. The new Savannah is making it pretty clear that the priorities from her old life are out the window.”
She couldn’t deny it, much as she wanted to. And she couldn’t deny that he was right about the ministry – it had to be closed. Keeping it open was impossible-and at this point, not even reasonable. She wiped tears from her cheeks with her sleeves. “Fine. Shut it down then. Just tell them… tell them I’m not strong enough to keep working.” She let out a snort. “Oh, what do I care-you can tell them the truth if you want. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”
She stood and turned toward the stairs, but Shaun sprang from his seat and grabbed her arm. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Back to my room. I have books on cellular memory I’m reading.”
“Well – can I at least come up with you? Bring up my bag?”
She was confused. “What-are you staying here?”
“Of course. I’m staying with you-aren’t I? I mean, I assumed…”
His words died off as they blinked at each other in awkward surprise. The thought of sharing her bed with him made her skin crawl. “Um, that’s fine… I guess. I just thought…” She sighed. “Never mind. Bring your bag.”
Maybe Tabitha had a cot he could sleep on.
SHAUN THREW HIS BAG INTO the back of the taxi. “So you’re coming back Wednesday, right?”
She cringed. “Actually, I changed my flight again.”
Great. Another $75 down the drain. “But you’ll be back for Thanksgiving at least, right?”
“I-well-you know, that’s two weeks away, we can talk about it later.”
He shook his head but said nothing. She kept her mouth shut so nothing snarky could slip out. He slid into the back seat of the cab and shut the door without saying goodbye.
Savannah watched the cab kick up dust down the long driveway, and willed the tension in her shoulders to finally release. It had been the most awkward two days of her life, having Shaun here; but even though she was glad it was over, she wasn’t glad to see him go. Not because she missed him, or for any reasons at all affectionate or intimate, but because of what he was going to do once he got home.
She went back up to her room and crawled under the covers of her bed to continue reading her book. It was an autobiography about a heart and lung transplant recipient who had experienced drastic changes in her personality after her surgery. It was one of the most well-known and well-documented instances of cellular memory, and Savannah found comfort in the author’s familiar struggles. She was making a list of things the woman had done to cope with the bizarre experience, hoping to create a roadmap to follow as she tried to figure out life while sharing Charlie’s heart. When she’d first found the book she’d researched the author, hoping they might be able to connect and Savannah might glean some wisdom from her. But the first article she’d found had been the woman’s obituary.
She read through lunch, not feeling up to socializing with the other Refugees or Aniyah, and only stopped when her cell phone rang in the early afternoon. Marisa’s name came up on the screen, which was the only reason she answered. “Hi, Marisa.”
“Savannah, hi. Is Shaun still there?”
“No, he left a few hours ago. How did you know he was here?”
“Brenda told me. I talked to her earlier. That’s actually why I’m calling. She phoned me this morning because she wanted to know if I knew anything about A &A shutting down.”
Savannah sat up, confused. “What? Why was she asking about that?”
Marisa’s stalling sigh made Savannah ill. “Apparently a couple people’s paychecks bounced over the last couple days. She tried calling Shaun about it, but he never answered his cell.”
She thought back to his visit and realized she’d never even heard his phone ring. Would he really have turned it off? Or not even brought it? He never did that. He knew before he came out that A &A was going to close.
“Anyway, people over there are in a panic and no one knows what to do or what’s going on. That’s why Brenda called me; she was hoping I’d heard something from you, or could at least get some information for them.”
Savannah hung her head and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Oh, Marisa… yes, we actually are closing A &A. But we just decided that yesterday. Shaun didn’t tell me how desperate things were right now; I thought we were closing it because the future was so uncertain. I had no idea things were already as bleak as they are. I feel awful. Listen-tell me whose checks bounced and I’ll pay them out of our personal account.”
Marisa gave her the names, and Savannah swallowed back her tears as she wrote them down. The guilt and depression she’d managed to keep at bay while on her sabbatical came crashing down on her as she stared at the names of people she’d worked with for years.
“There’s something else,” Marisa said. Savannah could hear the delicate note in her voice that told her how uncomfortable she was bringing this up. “I never told you about this because… well, I figured there was a reasonable explanation and I didn’t want to make any assumptions. But now…” She sighed. “Months ago, when I’d given Shaun your receipts from the tour, I ended up finding a few more that had fallen out of the pile in my car. I brought them back in and he was already gone, but the other receipts and a reimbursement form were sitting on his desk. I figured I’d make it easy on him and list them on the form myself, and when I did I saw items on the form that weren’t from the tour. I had never seen the charges before, they didn’t ring any bells.”
Savannah remembered doing the same thing, and how she’d held on to the information to use as a weapon should she need it. She’d forgotten about it. But she wasn’t about to admit she already knew and hadn’t done anything about it. “Thanks for telling me, Marisa. I’ll ask Shaun about that.” She made an excuse for leaving and hung up as quickly as she could.
Messing around with receipts… She couldn’t think of any reasons for doing such a thing that didn’t involve some sort of financial scheming. But that made her consider something else. What if closing A &A wasn’t entirely her fault? The thought gave her a brief shot of relief, until it sank in that Shaun was then guilty of something that was likely to be unethical, possibly even illegal.
Oh, Shaun. What have you done?
SHAUN’S WORLD CRUMBLED A LITTLE more when he came home from the office two days later. Jessie’s car was in the driveway, and that wasn’t a good thing in the middle of the week. He didn’t have to see the bank statement to know why she was there.
He hated himself. He’d been hating himself for a while, but just not dwelling on it. He’d redirected the brunt of his loathing to Savannah, though she didn’t know it – mostly the hating was done in his head. But the inevitable had finally happened, and now his daughter was caught in the net. What kind of father was he? What kind of husband, what kind of business manager?
The walls were closing in. It made it hard to breathe.
He snuck in quietly, hoping to establish a defense before facing Jessie. He prepared his speech, then walked the house in search of her. The sooner he got this over with, the better.
She was crying in her room. He knocked gently on the door, then opened it. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
His sympathy brought on a fresh round of tears. She buried her head in his chest, which surprised him-he’d expected her anger. After a few minutes the sobs died down and she said, “Adam broke up with me.”
It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “Wh-what? Why, what happened?” He began plotting Adam’s demise.
“Because of A &A shutting down. He said he couldn’t imagine marrying into the family that screwed his over so bad.”
She began to cry again. Shaun flagellated himself in his head. “Jessie, I’m so sorry. We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t have to; I hope you know that. We just couldn’t keep it afloat.”
“I know, Dad, I know. I’m not blaming you.” She sniffed and disengaged herself from his embrace to flop onto the bed. “It’s not your fault Mom went off the deep end. If she’d just get her act together, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“She can’t help it either, Jess. I don’t think we can fully understand what she’s going through. This whole cellular memories phenomenon -”
“I don’t buy it.” She shook her head emphatically. “I asked one of our professors about it. He said it’s pretty much all a crock. People just hear things being talked about in the OR while they’re anesthetized, it gets into their subconscious, that sort of thing. She’s just using it as an excuse. Don’t let her dupe you, Dad.”
Shaun sat beside Jessie, scrambling for a response. He hadn’t expected her to lay all the blame on Savannah. It was tempting to let her take the fall. Let Jessie hate her from afar – at least I won’t lose my daughter, too. But as he watched her mop her tears, he knew she needed a mother, and to drive a wedge even further between them would eventually hurt Jessie as well. He didn’t want to be the one that caused that if he could help it. “Look, sweetheart… I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. But your mother doesn’t deserve all the blame. Other issues were at play here.”
“Like what?”
He hadn’t thought that far. “Well, confidentiality restricts me from saying anything,” he said quickly. “But I just wanted you to know that. It’s not entirely her fault.”
“But if she hadn’t gone crazy, it could have stayed open, right? Even if there were other issues – that’s the main one.”
He sighed. “She hasn’t gone crazy, Jess. But yes, I guess you’re right, it could have stayed open.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, and on top of this, guess what I got in the mail today? A letter from the registrar, saying my tuition isn’t paid. So now I get to deal with that mix-up. Like I have the time.”
Shaun closed his eyes. He’d been right. “Actually-I had a feeling that might happen.”
“What? Why?”
“Because your tuition isn’t paid.”
Incredulity seized her expression. “You knew? You knew this might happen and you didn’t tell me?”
“I was hoping to get it all sorted out before it came to this. I didn’t want you to lose sleep over something that might not even happen.”
Her features were pinched with bitterness. “Unbelievable. The ministry and your personal finances are shot. How can you keep defending her?”
“Because it’s not all her fault.”
“How do you figure?” She threw down the soggy tissue. “It doesn’t matter, I’m a pariah at school now anyway. I probably would have dropped out after finals were over.”
“No, Jessie, you can’t -”
“I can’t stay, Dad, not if we can’t pay for me to be there. I don’t qualify for any of the scholarships, and financial aid doesn’t just kick in like that. We’d have to fill out paperwork and applications and all that stuff. And they’re not going to let me back if I don’t have it all in place before the semester starts. Fat chance of that right now. So what choice do I have?” She shook her head, then speared him with an angry stare. “Dad, I think we need to cut and run.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You need to leave Mom-before she completely ruins you and drags us both down.”
Shaun was astounded. “Jessica Faith, how can you say that? She’s my wife, I made a promise. I can’t just leave her.”
“You’re not leaving her, Dad! She left you already. Is she coming back for Thanksgiving? She’s not, right? She’s already run away; and even if she hadn’t, she’s not who she was. You didn’t make a promise to her, not to this Savannah.”
Shaun stood, needing to distance himself before she actually talked him into it, and headed for the door. “This is ridiculous. I’m not going to have this conversation. For the last time, I’m not leaving her. If she leaves me, then so be it; but I won’t have the failure of our marriage be on me.”
“So what, you’re just walking away from me?”
“I’m walking away from this conversation. You’re entitled to your own thoughts and emotions, but I don’t have to be party to them.”
“See? She’s pulling us apart even when she’s not here. It used to always be you and me, Dad. And now I don’t have you either.”
He groaned. “Jessie-”
“Forget it.” She grabbed her keys from the dresser and stormed past him and down the stairs. He heard the door slam a moment later.
Anger and frustration and self-loathing drove his fist into the wall beside her door. The drywall caved beneath his knuckles. He let out a howl that did little to relieve the pressure inside. He hated himself. He hated Savannah, too, and, if he was honest, God.
But mostly he just hated himself.
JESSIE POWER-WALKED, HEAD DOWN, FROM her car to the dorm. The rational side of her brain didn’t really believe everyone was staring and talking behind her back the way the rest of her suspected, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Someone, somewhere was likely talking about her, or at least her family, and everyone who saw her likely knew who she was – and what had happened. For once she hated being at such a small school. The grapevine was lightning fast, and she had nowhere to hide.
She should have been in her child psych lecture right now. The second midterm was in two days. Next week she had a presentation due for her 21st Century issues class. She’d actually been looking forward to both of them. She’d always enjoyed tests and speeches and projects – she loved school, loved learning, loved showing off what she’d learned. Never in a million years would she ever have dreamed she would drop out of college. But she couldn’t stay now. Even if her Dad did come up with the money, she didn’t want to keep running into Adam, or deal with people talking about her family.
I’ll come back, she thought as she taped together a box from the back of her closet. No, scrap that- I’ll go somewhere else. I can’t come back here. At least not until everyone she knew had graduated. And she didn’t want to wait that long. Maybe she’d try one of their extension campuses – she thought there might be one in Denver. She could move out, go find a job and an apartment up in the city somewhere. Because I’m not living at home. Even if Mom is in Georgia.
A knock on the door made her hands twitch and drop the sweater she was folding. “Who’s there?”
“Angie.”
“What!?” Jessie flung open the door. “Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?”
They threw their arms around each other. “My afternoon class got canceled and I knew you were having a hard time. Thought I’d drive down.”
“What if I’d been in class?”
Angie let her loaded backpack fall to the floor. “I’d have had plenty to keep me busy.”
Jessie shut the door and cleared a space off her bed. “Excuse the mess. I’m packing.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yup.”
“This is all because of Adam?”
“No-you haven’t heard the latest.” Jessie told her about the letter she’d received, and about her conversation with Shaun the day before. “I swear I’m in the Twilight Zone. My life is completely upside down. And it’s so… claustrophobic here. Everyone knows about A &A, everyone knows about Adam and me, and give it long enough and everyone will know that I was getting kicked out for not paying tuition. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“You can’t let them drive you away like that, Jess. They should be ashamed of themselves, gossiping like that. How un-Christianly of them.”
“Tell me about it-but I’m not about to subject myself to that kind of torture just so they can learn a lesson. Besides, I can’t stay. My tuition isn’t paid up.”
“Oh, right.” Angie took a box from the stack and began to tape it together. “So wait a minute. Tell me again what your mom thinks she has?”
“The cellular memory thing, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
Jessie let out a scoff. “Yeah, get this: she thinks she’s, like, becoming her donor or something like that.”
“What?”
“Supposedly there’s this thing that happens to some people when they get a transplant. They start taking on the characteristics of their donor. So she thinks all this weird stuff that’s been happening to her, all these changes in her personality and everything, are because of her heart donor.” She wiggled her fingers and rolled her eyes. “Like she’s in some episode of Star Trek or something.”
“You don’t think it’s possible?”
“Possible? I don’t know – maybe. Anything is possible, right? But I went onto this transplant forum that she joined so I could look around and see what other people said about this sort of thing.” She left out the fact that she’d originally joined to snoop on her mother, which had backfired since Savannah turned out to be more of a lurker than a poster. What few things she’d written hadn’t provided Jessie with the insights she’d hoped for. “And no one else mentions it. I mean, this is an international forum, you’d think there’d be some big discussions if it were common – or even credible. But there’s nothing there. So personally, I think she’s using it as an excuse. She’s drained their savings, she’s run away from her family, she’s destroyed the ministry – I think she’s just looking for something she can blame it on.”
“But doing all those things wouldn’t be like your mom, right? Something has to be driving her to do this stuff.”
Jessie’s hands went to her hips. “Seriously? You’re defending her?”
“I’m just saying there has to be some reason, because the Savannah Trover I know wouldn’t have done all those things.”
“Yeah, see, that’s the thing.” Jessie dropped a stack of books into a box. “Everyone thinks they know what Savannah Trover is like. They think she’s some spiritual powerhouse, all goodness and light. I’ve told you a million times how rotten our relationship is, how critical she is, how selfish-and she still managed to pull the wool over your eyes. I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who sees her for what she is. Even after all the crap she’s pulled and the ways she’s screwed up our family, Dad’s still defending her and insisting it’s not all her fault. Whatever.” She swiped at the tears that had formed in her eyes and pulled another handful of books from the shelves. “As far as why she’s doing this stuff- I don’t know. But I’m not surprised.”
Angie gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Jess. I don’t know what to say.”
Jessie rubbed her eyes with the end of her sleeve. “That’s alright. Just… don’t cross over to the dark side and start trying to convince me she’s not at fault here. I don’t have anyone I can lean on any-more-not my dad, not Adam…” The mention of Adam crumbled her already fragile emotional state. “I still can’t believe he broke up with me. I thought he loved me.”
Angie’s arm went around her shoulder as she began to cry. “I’m so sorry, Jess. I really am.”
“And oh my gosh-how glad am I that we never slept together!”
Angie chuckled. “No kidding.”
Jessie accepted the tissue Angie pulled from the box on her desk and mopped her tears. “Thanks. I appreciate it. I’m glad you came down – though I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”
“That’s why I came, duh.”
Jessie sniffed and chuckled through her tears. “True. Well, just a couple more days and I’ll be out of here. And who knows, maybe I’ll join you up in Denver someday soon.”
“You’re gonna transfer?”
“I don’t know.” Jessie shrugged. “But I’m not living at home for long. That’s for sure.”
SAVANNAH’S CELL RANG AS SHE was taking another bite of the strawberry cheesecake she’d made for that night’s dessert. Seeing Shaun’s name made her groan aloud. Definitely not someone she wanted to talk to right now. She tried to hit a button to send it to voicemail, but her finger slipped and hit the talk button instead.
“Oh crap,” she muttered, picking it up. “Hello?”
“Savannah, we need to talk.”
“Look, Shaun, I’m just getting ready for bed, how about-”
“Adam broke up with Jessie because we’re closing A &A.”
“What? That little fink! That’s ridiculous!”
“Well, I agree, but he did it anyway. Jessie is in a really bad place, and I think you need to talk to her.”
“Me?” She laughed “Shaun, I’m sure I’m the last person she wants to hear from.”
“She needs to know you’re on her side.”
“If she needs to know that, then why hasn’t she called? I find it hard to believe she actually wants to talk to me. She never does.”
“That’s because she’s learned she’s not as important to you as other things are.”
“That’s also ridiculous.”
“Is it? Ever since you started A &A she’s been a second priority at best. She knows it and she’s tired of it. She… she actually asked me to leave you.”
“Leave me-like, divorce me? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“The way she sees it, you’ve left us already-emotionally before, and physically now.”
Savannah couldn’t believe it was really that bad. Yes, she and Jessie had trouble connecting, but certainly she knew Savannah loved her. “Well, I hope you set her straight.”
“I tried, yes. But honestly, Savannah, I don’t know what to think anymore. You’re avoiding us, you haven’t said a thing about coming home any time soon, even though Thanksgiving is in a week-”
“Wait a minute. Are you actually siding with her?”
“I’m just saying I don’t see how we can keep up our marriage through this trial when you’re running away and you aren’t even you anymore.”
The air disappeared from her lungs. She slumped against the wall, thoughts spinning, until she grabbed onto one that gave her a rebuttal. “Well, since we’re just laying it all out there-explain what you were doing with the reimbursement forms from the last tour.”
His response came a beat too late. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You listed receipts on my form that weren’t from our trip.”
“No, I didn’t. Maybe that’s a cellular memory, too. Was Charlie an accountant?”
“That’s bunk, Shaun, and you know it. Marisa witnessed it, too.”
“Obviously she was mistaken – and why was she snooping around in my office? That alone would make me question whatever it was she told you. Obviously she was bitter about something and trying to make trouble for me.”
“Shaun Michael Trover, you are a bald-faced liar.”
“Enough of this. I need to go find Jessie and try to help her deal with the fact that her almost-fiance dumped her-something her mother should be doing.” The line went dead before Savannah could cry foul.
She was too shocked for tears. Her daughter wanted her out of her life. Her husband was lying, obviously, about something. Both of them were blaming her for the collapse of their worlds.
But could she really blame them?
She sat, frozen on the bed, until a wind kicked up outside and sent something flying into the window. The sharp sound scared her; she jumped and clutched a hand to her chest, where her heart galloped in fear. The adrenaline wouldn’t back down, though. She had too much to be afraid of.
IT WAS JUST AN EXCUSE, really. Shaun wasn’t going after Jessie. She needed her space, and he didn’t want to keep putting himself in a position to have to defend Savannah. He’d just wanted to get off the phone.
He retreated to his office and shut the door, then turned the ringer off on his phone in case Savannah called again. He shut down his computer as well, and when the screen went black, the room went completely dark. No distraction, no input, no stimulation. This was what he needed right now.
It was time to face the fact that he was a failure. It didn’t matter what Savannah had done, it didn’t change the truth about Shaun. Her shortcomings had contributed to the disaster that now lay at his feet; but had he not stolen from A &A’s savings, had he not squandered their own personal assets, things would look very different right now. He had ruined everything, and if several thousand dollars didn’t fall into his lap very soon, everyone was going to know about it.
He tried to think rationally about every facet of the situation. Likely outcomes: He would go to jail. His daughter would hate him, and she would need some serious therapy to sort out all the ways she had been hurt by both her parents and God. His wife would hate him, and given her position in the ministry, it was possible she could be implicated.
Despite what he’d told Jessie, his opinion of divorce was beginning to change. He was starting to think that leaving both Savannah and Jessie might be the most compassionate thing he could do. And once he’d put as much emotional and physical distance between himself and them as he could, then he could kill himself so he could get out from under the mountain he had created. He could leave a letter explaining everything so Savannah wasn’t blamed for the ministry’s financial ruin. His death might even pull Savannah and Jessie together. At least they’d have their disgust for him in common.
He nodded to himself as he rocked in his desk chair. It was a decent plan. Not one he was quite ready to implement, but knowing he had it in his back pocket gave him a sense of control for the first time in months.
He turned his computer back on. He needed to start getting the details sorted. First he’d figure out the divorce, then he’d figure out the death. For a moment he began to miss them, as though the plan had already been set in motion, but he reassured himself as he brought up an internet browser. At least he’d see them again in heaven.
SAVANNAH PULLED THE COAT TIGHTER around her shoulders and dodged a peach tree branch she’d veered too close to on her unsteady feet. The sun was setting, and the sky was awash in watercolors that she knew must look brighter to others. Everything today had been cast in gray to her.
She was such a mess of emotions she couldn’t even sort out what exactly she was feeling. Depression was one of them, she was pretty sure. Probably some hard-core anxiety, too. And, of course, the ever-present anger. She thought it ironic that she was living in a place that housed two full-time counselors and yet she had no one to talk to. She didn’t want to bring all this up to Tabitha; she didn’t think she’d earned the right to go to her with such deep troubles, not when Savannah had basically told Tabitha to take a hike when she’d tried to do the very same thing. She’d also gotten a call that morning from Rose, the therapist she’d talked to back in Colorado, that had brought her even lower. “Just checking in,” she’d said in her message. “I haven’t gotten very much help yet on your situation, but I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you.” Savannah was tempted to tell her to give up. If there was any help to be found, someone would have by now. And despite the friendliness and empathy of the others staying there, none of them had any idea what she was going through.
She’d never been so alone. At least in the past she’d always had God to talk to. But now she had no one.
The wind picked up and she squinted against the dirt that flew into her face. A storm was rolling in from the north; she could see the massive black clouds in the distance. Part of her wondered if she should even be out here-how much stress would her heart take? Would she be okay if she started shivering? Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world if this heart went out too. Her next check-up at the cardiology clinic was coming up; maybe they’d see her heart was getting too stressed and they’d give her a new one. Maybe if she got someone else’s heart she’d go back to being who she was. Maybe she could request a Christian this time. It would limit her odds of getting one before she died, but even then she’d at least be done with this nightmare.
She stopped in her tracks. “Am I suicidal?” She spoke aloud to the trees, really not sure if she was or not. She didn’t think so, but maybe she was close. How else could she escape Charlie’s hold on her? Apparently she could do nothing, and his thoughts were ruining everything. How bad an idea was it really?
When you can’t, God can. It was one of her tag-lines, one of the things she’d always worked into her books and talks. She’d lived by it, and then life had started clicking along just fine and she hadn’t needed to test its truth anymore. She’d gotten good at doing on her own whatever needed to be done. Her transplant had been the first thing she’d had to rely on God for in a long time. Now it seemed like her life was one giant “can’t”, but there wasn’t anyone she could turn to who could.
Over the last twenty-four hours, the weight of the anger in her heart and the chaos in her head had grown tenfold. She was so close to a fix, and yet completely stymied as to how to get it. She felt like she was on the edge of a cliff, teetering, waiting for an outstretched hand to reach just a little further, grab her jacket and yank her back to safety. But the hand just hovered there, a couple inches short.
The wind picked up again. She was beginning to regret coming out here. The orchard was barren without a place to shelter from the wind-or from herself. No bedclothes to hide beneath, no armchair to curl up in to escape to her latest book. The orchard had no distractions, and she realized she’d been living the last week from one distraction to the next because she didn’t know how else to cope. How do you look reality in the face when it’s so despairing? Why even bother?
The house was a hundred yards away now, and as the force of her emotions and fear began a cascade through her system, she found herself without any protection or defense.
Jessie, Shaun, A &A, Adam, Marisa, her reputation, her family, her marriage, her self… the loss and potential loss of so many things dear to her began to cave in on her. It was all because of this stupid heart, this heart that didn’t seem to realize Charlie was gone and Savannah was its home.
She had to get rid of this heart. But how?
She began to run down the aisles between the bare peach trees, their naked limbs bending with the wind like arms reaching out to grab her. She swerved to avoid a rock in the path and her jacket snagged on a low branch. She’d been an avid jogger before her illness, but the months since had atrophied her muscles to mush. She ignored their burn, the complaints of tendons challenged without a warm-up, and pushed herself farther and farther, the house receding behind her like a movie finale. She thought only of her heart, of taxing it beyond its capacity, of punishing it for destroying her life. She wanted it to burst. And if they don’t find me in time, maybe that’s okay.
Her eyes streamed, her lungs burned, her heart slammed in her chest-until a hole in the path caught her foot and sent her flying face-down into the dirt. She burst into tears and screamed without thinking. “Jesus!”
The name was like a key in the lock of the floodgates that held back the fullness of Charlie’s pain. They swung open, pouring a tidal wave of grief and anger and desperation over Savannah’s soul. Her fingers dug into the ground as she sobbed, seeking an anchor lest the emotion sweep her away. Her heart kicked in her chest as though trying to literally pound its way out.
Fear surfaced through the waves. What was she thinking, pushing herself that way? She didn’t really want to die, did she?
She couldn’t tell anymore what was her pain and what was Charlie’s. He was already dead, but his heart didn’t know it. If she didn’t get it under control, it might kill her, too.
She sucked in deep breaths, trying to slow the beat and rein in the overwhelming feelings. “Slow down, relax, be calm,” she panted. And then – because what did she have to lose? – “You’re mine. Charlie is gone, and you’re mine now. That anger is dead. That pain is done. Let it go. Just let it go already.”
Like flotsam from a shipwreck, thoughts swirled through her head that she knew instinctively were not hers, thoughts that told her life was a waste and love was a myth and God was a fairy tale. She pounded her fists to the ground and yelled. “No! Lies, lies, lies!” And then, grasping onto new thoughts that floated in the current like life preservers, she begged, “Be real, God. Be real again. I can’t do this anymore. Make this stop. This has to stop! Charlie is gone-you’re gone, Charlie, you’re dead, and this heart is mine!”
Her voice escalated with every sentence, her fists punctuating them on the dirt, until she dropped her head to the ground and waited for something to carry her away.
She had nothing left. No thoughts, no emotions. All were gone, like an ocean squall that disappears as quickly as it came, leaving you clinging to your raft and unsure if you can really trust it’s over. Her heart began to slow, her breath to regulate. She released the ground and slowly pushed herself up to her feet, standing cautiously as though the earth might tip and send her crashing down again. She felt different. She couldn’t identify the reason, but with each slow step that brought her closer to the house the difference became more pronounced.
Limping, she mounted the stairs to the front door. She headed for her room, ignoring the looks of concern from the others as she bypassed the flow of people leaving the dining room from dinner. She washed the earth from her face and hands, stripped off her stained clothes, and crawled beneath the blankets as exhaustion overtook her.
In the seconds before she fell into a hard sleep, she realized the difference was peace.