Page 12 of Below the Far Horizon
Plus, there were an awful lot of secrets and tragedy sitting between Grace and him. Sometimes he forgot about it, because he pushed it out of his mind, but the fact remained that Grace most likely wanted to have nothing to do with him. And if he was smart, he would feel the same. He would want nothing to do with her either. There were too many things that were buried that would get exposed, and that was not a wise trail. Definitely not one he wanted to go down.
Six
“Ithought I might go with you today.” Don looked up in surprise as he picked up his Bible from the coffee table in the living room.
He didn’t want his son to go to Bible study today of all days.
“Do you think you’d enjoy it? Most of us are retired, and I’m not sure that you’d feel comfortable with so many oldies.”
His son gave him a look. Rightfully so, because why wouldn’t he be happy that his son wanted to go to Bible study with him? Of course he was. He was thrilled. He loved going with his son anywhere. He was proud of his boys, both of them, and his daughter too, but Trevor had a sensitivity and caring about him that the other two either didn’t have or were too busy to show.
“Dad, if you don’t want me to go with you, I don’t have to.”
“You know I do, son.”
He had planned to make a stop before he got to Bible study, but he couldn’t make it if his son was with him. Their conversation yesterday had given him an idea, one that five years ago he would never even have thought of or considered, but he hated seeing his son miserable, and yesterday he’d been interested in someone—a woman—for the first time since Don could remember. He wasn’t going to let that opportunity slip by him. Even if it meant that the thing that he’d always wanted, one ofhis kids to come live with him, wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t so selfish that he didn’t want his son to have a beautiful and full marriage, like he had had. At least until Emma had left him.
“All right then. For a minute there, I was starting to think that you were offended that I wanted to go to Bible study with you.” His son sounded perplexed but not suspicious, which was good.
Now, how was he going to be able to get out of walking with him? He didn’t absolutely have to make the side trip that he wanted to, but…
Then, an idea occurred to him.
“If you don’t mind, I’m leaving early. I wanted to go to the healing garden. This is the five-year anniversary of your mother leaving.”
His son stood there, his mouth open, staring at him. Don lifted a shoulder, gave a little expression as though to say what could he expect, and then looked down.
In his head, he was frantically trying to remember what day she actually left. If he couldn’t remember, surely Trevor didn’t remember either, right?
He wasn’t sure, but he hoped that was accurate. He remembered it was sometime in the spring, but he was drawing a blank on the exact day. He’d been devastated, completely blindsided, and totally out of it. In fact, he didn’t think that he actually rejoined the land of the living for at least a year, maybe two.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I…forgot, I guess.” Trevor looked abashed that he had been so insensitive on such an important day.
“No need to apologize. I just…wanted to leave a little early.”
“That’s fine. You go ahead and go. I’ll come a little later. First, I’m going to put some pepper jack cauliflower in the slow cooker. We’ll have something to look forward to when we get back.”
“It’s our favorite,” Don said, wondering again how he had gotten such a carbon copy of himself in his son. The other two kids were a nice mix of Emma and him together. In fact, looking at his daughter he almost saw more Emma and very little of him. She had his stubborn streak, and that was pretty much it. But with Trevor, they had the same taste, the same interests, the same personality. He could almost tell exactly what Trevor was thinking before Trevor even opened his mouth. He could pretty much say the sentences Trevor was going to say. Hedidn’t want to be arrogant and say that he was able to know everything about his son, but sometimes it seemed that way to him.
“I’ll meet you there,” he said as he grabbed his Bible and walked out. Skyler had a Bible study for ladies in the afternoon, but Homer hosted the Bible study that Pastor Irving did in the morning for not just ladies but anyone. They didn’t have to be retired, although that’s usually who went.
Why did people wait until they were old to get serious about following the Lord? That’s what he had done. It had taken his wife leaving before he had developed the walk with God that he had now. Sure, he’d always been a fairly decent Christian, at least in his eyes, but he hadn’t been serious. Not until Emma left, and he realized that his Christianity and salvation were totally dependent on him and not on who he was married to. More times than he could count, he let Emma go to church for both of them. He wished he could go back and take it back. Maybe she would stay. Although, that was probably just wishful thinking. He didn’t think that there was anything that he could have done that would have made her stay. After all, it was her lack of character that had allowed her to leave in the first place. If she had had a good character, she wouldn’t have even considered leaving her husband.
He wanted to look behind him as he left, to make sure Trevor wasn’t watching, but he didn’t. He could go in the right direction, then take a side street and double back, cross Geraldine’s yard, and show up at Gita’s house.
He and Gita had talked a little bit over the years, but not much. She had been friends with Emma, had probably been just as shocked as he was when Emma left. Although, come to think of it, maybe she had known all along that Emma was going to leave. Maybe Emma had confided in her friend, and…
He wasn’t going to think like that. He couldn’t. He needed Gita to help him. And he wasn’t going to get himself all worked up thinking that maybe she knew his wife was leaving before he did and she did nothing to stop it.
What did he expect her to do? Kidnap Emma and tie her up in her basement and then call him? What would he have done then?
No, Emma left of her own free will, because of her lack of character.Gita had nothing to do with it, and while he could have been a better husband, that wasn’t why she left. Maybe she wasn’t happy. Maybe she knew he could have been better. Maybe she wanted more romance or less TV or more money or whatever, but it didn’t matter. If she was willing to make vows before God and then break them when she wasn’t satisfied with whatever was going on in her marriage, that was on her. Not him.
Still, there were things he had learned from that. Like you couldn’t make someone stay. Like he couldn’t go back and redo things that he wished he could, so he’d better do them right the first time. And that a man got awfully lonely when he didn’t have his lifetime mate beside him.
That’s why he was going to Gita’s house. Trevor had to be lonely, and he had been more interested in Grace than he had been in anyone for a long time. Don had every intention in the world of helping him out.
Because maybe his own marriage had failed, but that didn’t mean he didn’t believe in the institute of marriage, or want that for himself, but most especially for the son that he loved with all of his heart and soul.
