All night long their voices came. He sat slumped against the wall in the living room. Shafts of moonlight sliced through the shutters, casting light and dark stripes against him. He reached for the radio. Maybe white noise would drown them out. He twisted the knob randomly until he found static, and he turned it up.
If Kelly was any indication of the destruction he left, he couldn’t even fathom it. Last night he’d held in his arms a lonely, crushed, lost woman. She had not been that way when they’d met. She had been so strong, so sure she could show him the path to a better life. “You’re a man after God’s own heart,” she’d once said. “You just don’t know it yet.” Somewhere along the way, they really fell in love. Except the truth was, Clay Walsh couldn’t deal with that kind of reality. Not back then, anyway. And so he did the meanest thing possible when she wouldn’t give in to temptation. Instead of walking away like every other guy, he slept with her best friend.
He pulled his knees up, rested his head on them, remembering the confrontation, how clueless she’d been about what he’d done. She found him one night in one of his favorite bars, hanging with the guys, intoxicated into oblivion.
Kelly looked, as she always did, out of place in the midst of drunken revelry. She approached him, trying to ignore the guys at the table laughing at her. “We need to talk,” she said.
He remembered looking up at her, his words loose on his lips, the idea of their consequences lost in the inebriation. “What’s up, baby?”
She was trying to keep her voice low, trying to keep their conversation out of the hands of his friends. “I want to talk to you. You haven’t been returning my phone calls.”
The boys behind him chuckled.
“Can’t we just step outside for a little bit?” Her face looked so sweet at that moment. She truly didn’t have a clue, he realized, and he grew angry. Not at her, but at himself, because of the train wreck she was about to witness. But as was typical Clay Walsh, the anger didn’t stay in its intended boundaries, and coupled with the alcohol, it was about to become vicious.
“Look, sweetheart, it’s just that we’re not really working out.”
She shook her head, tears shining through the smoky air. “That’s not true. We have some things to work through, that’s all.”
“It’s over, Kelly.”
She glanced at the boys. He couldn’t see their faces but imagined some smirks. A couple of decent ones were probably staring into their beers.
“Let’s go outside and talk. That’s all I want. I just want to know what’s going on.”
“You really don’t.”
She ran a finger under the rim of one eye. “Jessica said I should come talk to you, that maybe we could work things out if we talked.”
“I slept with Jessica two nights ago at your apartment while you were at work.”
The words slid out so easily, as though they were traveling down an oil slick, but then they just hung there between them. He had never in his life, before or since, seen such pain and horror on a woman’s face. She lost all color in her cheeks. Those bright, beautiful, soulful eyes died right there in front of him, the light instantly snuffed out. Kelly was shaking her head ever so slightly, like there was nothing that could be more untrue. Behind him, the rowdiness of the table hushed completely. He’d stunned even them.
She blinked slowly, looking at that moment like she’d suddenly stopped believing in everything she’d been trying to convince him of. And that, more than anything, he felt in his very numb heart. He realized he’d stolen all that she believed was good. Him. Her dignity. Her best friend. Her belief that God could change people. Her belief that she was worth the wait.
She would never be able to feel the same way about herself again.
Kelly had turned and left, disappearing quickly amid scores of people on the dance floor.
And now, she was a mother with a cheating husband, who possibly believed again that she was not worth anything.
Clay wasn’t sure he could ever again be responsible for another human being’s heart. And Amber deserved the best. She deserved someone who would never fail her.
“Hey, wake up. Romancing the Stone, get up.”
Clay’s eyes fluttered open, his heart rushing with confusion, his mind dizzy from the deep sleep he’d apparently slipped into. He hadn’t even realized that in the midst of all the memories and voices and angst, he’d actually fallen asleep. He shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun. How was it daytime? Someone stood in the doorway of his home, but whoever it was, they were backlit. Sharp pains stabbed his temples.
The person stepped closer. David. And Cosie was with him.
David was looking around the living room, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Dude, I knew you weren’t okay. Look at you! Look at this house!”
“What?” Clay groaned as he lay back down on the sofa he’d apparently moved to at some point in the night. His last memory had been of sitting on the floor. The radio was on across the room. Why was the radio on? It was giving him a headache.
“Something is terribly wrong if there is a dirty plate on the table and clothes on the floor at Clay Walsh’s house.” David set Cosie down.
“What’s wrong with Uncle Clay?” Cosie asked.
Sheesh. He must really look bad if a two-year-old could spot it.
“What are you doing here, David?” Clay draped his arm over his eyes. He hadn’t had a hangover in years, but goodness, whatever this was, it made a hangover seem like a mild cold.
“I was ordered by the wife to come get that tux you’re still wearing. We have to turn them in today or there’s a fee.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a honeymoon or something?”
“We leave tomorrow.”
Brad’s voice suddenly and inexplicably arrived. “All right, welcome back, kiddies. I’m still here. Live. In the flesh!”
Clay raised his head. The radio was, unfortunately, just out of reach. “He’s already back in LA?”
“Took a flight right after the wedding.”
“The Zen master of what you want, when you want it. Now, where were we before the commercial break? That’s right—the rest of my crazy-hot-chickapoo-at-the-wedding story. From time recently served in flyover country. Yes, sir, I did my duty, but alas, as I was saying before the break—” he broke into a guitar sound—“it was not meant to be. She never even uttered a single word. Just turned a one-eighty, walked away, gone, out of my life forever. Nothing but a tease. And I thought we had something special.”
“Ugh. David, get that, will you? Just turn it off,” Clay groaned.
“So what else could I do? After facing such rejection, I did the only thing that any respectable man could do. I went down to the hotel bar to redeem myself.”
Clay peeked out from his arm, wondering what David was doing. He’d taken a seat in the living room chair and was still listening to the radio.
Now he fished a picture book from a small box of toys Clay kept for Cosie’s visits and handed it to her. “Sweetie, go look at this for a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.” Cosie grinned widely and then disappeared. David turned back to the radio again.
“The night took a luscious turn toward the demented. My plan was to find some lonely, insecure, last-call-for-alcohol mama to tend to my wounds, help me forget my recent and catastrophic loss. But instead, oh, this is so good.”
Clay lifted his head, watching David. His typical cheery demeanor had turned solemn as he seemed transfixed by the radio.
“I didn’t find anything. Nope. She. Found. Me. That’s right. I finally met my match, man. I kid you not. And she would not be denied. Believe me. It was glorious. Details? You want juicy details? Want me to play show-and-tell, do you? Huh? Share my goodies with the rest of the class? Is that what you want? Is it? Well then, strap yourselves in—”
David lurched forward and hit the switch. The radio went silent.
He looked toward the kitchen, where they could hear Cosie
talking to herself.
“Look, go be with Lisa,” Clay said. “I’m fine. I’ll drop the tux off at the store myself.”
“You’re not fine, Clay. From one man to another, I think we both know why.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You think you have the corner on the market for complicated? It’s all complicated.” He scanned the disheveled room. “Love is sweet, but it’s never simple.”
Just then Cosie came out from the kitchen. David burst out laughing. Clay turned his head to see what was so funny. Little Cosie had gotten into the Scotch tape. She had it wrapped all over herself, around her forehead, into her hair, across her shoulders, around her waist, back up over her face.
She looked dreadfully guilty, walking over to Clay and handing him the tape dispenser, still attached to the tape she wore. “I sorry.”
Clay sat up, broke the dispenser free, took her in his arms. “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”
He looked at David, who was shaking his head and laughing all at once. He stood and lifted Cosie into his arms. “We better get going.”
“I’ll take care of the tux.”
“Take care of you.” David went to the door, Cosie still in his arms, Scotch tape dangling from her elbows and her chin.
“Good luck explaining that one to Lisa,” Clay laughed.
David opened the screen door, then turned back. “You know, I can only hope that she grows up to find a man half as good as you.”
Clay watched them leave, Cosie buckled in her car seat, waving out the window at him.
Amber climbed out of the bath. The fourth bath in twelve hours. There was something about candles and water and warmth that had always helped her think more . . . freely. As she dried herself off, there was an uncanny feeling around her. Not spooky, but weirdly present. It felt like the missing piece of the puzzle that was her life had finally been found. When she’d read the Bible yesterday, those words—“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you”—they’d seemed alive. Like they were spoken right to her, right then. She couldn’t explain it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t believe it.
With her hair still dripping wet and a towel secured around her, she walked to her bulletin board. Last night she’d taken everything off it, packed the pieces away like usual, ready to flee. Only the board still hung. Bare naked, kind of like her soul. Her life. Her heart.
But as she studied it now, it didn’t seem so much stripped as it did . . . what? She stood silently, wondering. A clean slate.
Amber turned to her money jar, stuffed to the brim, the tops of dollar bills hanging over the edge. “You, my friend, have a new job.”
Thirty minutes later, she was dressed, out the door, and on the steps of the Bolivar University administrative building. She reached to open the door just as a group of students came out, and she stepped aside to let them pass. A few of the girls grinned at her like she was one of them. A guy a couple steps behind took the time to say hi to her.
With a deep, steady breath, she walked in and found the admissions office. The secretary directed her to the desk of Corinne Burns, a jolly-looking woman with a blouse buttoned too tightly and gaping in all the wrong places. But Amber hardly noticed because Corinne was smiling brightly like something special was about to happen to Amber.
“What can I do for you, honey?” she asked.
Amber handed her all the transcripts she’d kept. She hadn’t figured she’d ever really use them again. They were a little dusty. Corinne thumbed through them, nodding and making verbal notes as she went. Amber handed her the admission form she’d filled out too.
Finally Corinne set the paperwork aside. She put her arms on her desk and leaned closer to Amber, gesturing toward the money jar. “We take checks, you know.”
Amber looked down at the jar. She was clasping it so tightly that her fingers were going white. “It’s a long story.”
“I gathered that from your transcripts. You’re a smart girl, you know that?”
“I’ve recently had some . . . life experiences . . . that have made me realize I need to finish what I start. Not run so much.”
“What’s his name?” Corinne said with a wink. “Or is it the name that shall not be uttered?”
Amber smiled. “Something like that. He’s actually a really good guy. He’s kind of the reason I’m here. Doing this. Because of him, I’ve got someone sticking by my side now.”
Corinne nodded. “Well, I’m going to have to crunch the numbers, Amber, but I think you’re going to qualify for some partial scholarships.”
“Really?”
“Yep. We’ll have to see. But I think it looks promising.” Corinne opened her hands, gesturing for Amber to hand over the money jar. “Let’s start counting.”
“I WANTED TO MAKE SURE I made my point,” Aunt Zella said as they drank tea together.
“You did. I’m here,” Clay said. On the table was the large box of tea bags she had shipped to him. Forty-five of them.
“You can set that jar down, you know. It’s not going to run away.”
Clay stared into it, cupped in his arm. It had been left on his doorstep a couple days after the wedding. All the money emptied out. When he first saw it, he’d been overcome with sadness, believing she’d run again. But there was a note inside, written on a paper place mat from the diner, that simply read Home. As he stood on his porch holding its emptiness, he’d wondered if maybe that was the point of it all—to empty himself rather than to fill himself up. He’d held the glass jar up, and it magnified and purified the sunlight in extraordinary ways, spraying it here and there, capturing it and then releasing it as he turned his wrist.
“Hmm?” Aunt Zella tapped her fingers on the table. “What’s on your mind?”
“She believed in me” was all he could think to say. It hurt his heart to even think about her.
“In you?” Aunt Zella said with a sarcastic tone and a raised eyebrow. She waggled her finger at him. “If you don’t chase after that girl, you’re nowhere near the person we thought you were.”
Clay glanced at the picture of Lloyd on the counter. Lloyd seemed to be staring right at him, agreeing with Aunt Zella.
“She’s better off. I’m damaged goods. I don’t deserve—”
“My Lord, if you were any more self-absorbed, you’d be a dot.”
“So you agree, I should be alone.”
“Probably.”
They sipped tea again for a little while.
Finally Aunt Zella said, “I’d like to wring your neck. I’d like to wring his neck, Lloyd. Look at you. The high-and-mighty. You expect the whole world to stand up and, what? Do the wave for you? Give you a trophy for being good? And when they don’t . . .” She mumbled something under her breath. Probably something Clay didn’t want to hear anyway.
The words, especially coming from Aunt Zella, stung. If he didn’t have goodness to stand on, what did he have?
“So help me,” she continued, “if you lock yourself away for another nine years . . .” She shook her head, looking up like the answer might be hanging from the ceiling. “You think that will make you holy?”
“I wish I—”
“I, I, I!” Aunt Zella was more fired up than he’d ever seen her. She could be snarky to say the least, but he’d never seen her enraged. “Stop twisting it! Wake up!” She lightly slapped him upside the head. “Get over yourself. You and your pain. Stop. And stop trying to use the grace of God as a brick wall. Do you get this upset over children starving? Anyone else’s suffering?”
Clay looked down at the jar, trying to keep his emotions in check. This hurt. But maybe it had been too long since anyone had dared speak this kind of truth to him.
The two of them settled a bit, and finally Clay smiled slightly. “Go ahead. Dispense the wisdom.”
She took his hand in hers, gently cupping it. Her knuckles were swollen and hot. “I admire you so much, Clay. In all my days, I’ve never seen anyone work harder at being good.”
r /> “Define good,” Clay said. At this point, he wasn’t sure if he really could.
Her eyes twinkled with a lifetime of wisdom, all zeroed in on him. “There is no such thing as goodness without mercy. No virtue without forgiveness.”
His dull, lifeless heart tapped weakly against his chest. He could do nothing more than just sit there and listen.
“And I’m not talking about Amber forgiving you. Or you forgiving Amber. None of this is about any of that.”
“Then what?” It only came out as a whisper.
“The way you carry ancient, crusty, useless guilt. Like a spoiled pet poodle you want to show off.” She let go of his hand and stroked an imaginary pet in her lap. “Like an excuse, right, Lloyd? Let it go. What are you waiting for? How long?”
Clay swallowed. He didn’t know. Was there even enough of a lifetime left for him to make up for all he’d done?
Aunt Zella’s hand reached for him again and then for the glass jar. She tapped her fingernails on it. “You are loved. You are so loved.”
Uncertainty came out swinging at her words.
“Oh, my child. You are. Listen to me, Clay.”
He looked at her kind face.
“Enough. We never fully arrive this side of heaven. You could stay hidden in that house of yours for a hundred years. Isolated. Detached. Bury yourself. Warm and cozy, safe and snuggly with all your sorrows. Your sordid past.” She made a snoring noise. Clay laughed a little. “Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Never see another face. What a shame that would be.” She stroked his hand again. Her touch felt warm, just like her gaze. “You would miss out on sharing it all with a bunch of other confused nitwits. Some of whom inexplicably care about you a great deal.”
Then Aunt Zella rose, walked to where her wedding picture sat on the counter. She took the pewter cross, the one that had been draped over the frame for as long as he could remember, and placed it firmly in his hand, drawing his fingers closed over it.