Charles had his white shirt rolled up, hands on his hips. He swiveled around abruptly when he heard the door open. She had the impression he’d been pacing. Her heart sank fifty-seven feet—and fast—when she saw the straight-lipped, tight-jawed expression on his face.
“Where were you?” He asked it in that certain tone. The tone that claimed he had tons and tons and tons of patience and now was completely out.
She tried to calm her panicky pulse, but that particular tone always rub-burned her nerves. She couldn’t think when he was irritated with her. And though she’d always valued honesty, she heard a half-truth babble from her mouth. “I was just talking to a woman in town—”
“What woman?” he demanded, again his tone sharper than ice.
She couldn’t explain why she hedged telling him the whole truth. It’s not that she wanted to lie to him—ever, ever—but when she felt that anger coming at her, some instinct took over. She wasn’t thinking about lies or truth. She was just thinking about doing whatever she could to mollify him. “No one from the church, Charles. No one you would have felt you needed to talk to yourself. Just a woman who stopped to chat with me. I didn’t think there was a problem. I had no idea you were waiting for me—”
He yanked out a chair from the kitchen table, making a scraping noise that made her jump. She understood he wanted her to sit down, which seemed a fair idea, for them to try sitting and talking together—only Charles didn’t sit.
Once she was parked, he loomed over her and started talking in that tone again. The acid tone. The acid-angry scary-quiet tone. “I took you in when you were an orphan. You had nothing and no one, remember that? Just your dad in a hospital bed and no way to take care of him or yourself. You didn’t have a roof over your head. I still remember how beautiful you were. How lost. Seventeen, and so crippled on the inside to lose your mother and sister in the same accident. But I came through for you, didn’t I, Bren? Didn’t I?”
“Yes. I know you did. And I’ve always been grateful—”
“This is how you show me how grateful you are?” He yanked out another chair, just to make the squeaky noise again, just to vent more of that rage. Maybe just to make her jump again. “By disappearing for hours at a time?”
“But, Charles, I had no idea you needed me for anything this afternoon—”
“Right. How could you know when you didn’t even bother to ask?” He switched subjects faster than an eye blink. “I had the pastor breakfast this morning—assuming you could bother remembering. Everyone’s doing a fund-raiser for the hurricane in the south. We need to put on a fund-raiser, too. A bigger one. A lot bigger and better one than the Baptists are putting on.”
“All right.” She was thrilled to change the subject. Even though she knew that part of his anger was nerves and stress and not necessarily about her, somehow he made her feel…small. When he started ranting like that, she just wanted to sit tight with her knees together and her arms pressed at her sides and her head tucked, so that she took up the tiniest amount of space possible. It was kind of a goofy sensation. Just wanting to make herself as close to invisible as she could get.
She should be listening to her husband and working on the problem, working on and with him, instead of hiding out in some goofy mental corner. It shamed her that she wanted to disappear like a child instead of handling the real problems between them. But right then, God help her, she just wanted him to calm down and lose that icy look.
“Whatever you’ve been spending your time on, it isn’t as important as this. I want you to spearhead this fund-raiser. I need ideas for something different. Something that will really grab the community’s attention and interest. Not the same old bake sale or craft sale. Something good.”
She’d put on the last bake sales and yard sales and craft sales. All of them had brought in hefty donations, she’d thought. Just not enough to satisfy her husband. But it wasn’t his fault that times were so hard.
“Okay, I’ll be glad to,” she said.
“I want some kind of plan to discuss by dinner tonight.”
She didn’t look at her watch, didn’t dare, but thought it had to be already past three. Charles was still circling the table, finding things to thump around, but at least he’d stopped looming over her.
“Then I’ll include information about it in the sermon this Sunday, put it all together, start to get our parishioners excited about it. We need to look proactive.”
She lifted her head, feeling a spark of enthusiasm catch her now, too. “I couldn’t agree more. We should be proactive in times of trouble like this. And maybe you could put just a little less fire and brimstone in your sermon. Concentrate more on themes about coming together, on—”
God. She’d blown it again. He surged around the table faster than the lash of a whip. “Excuse me? Were your criticizing my sermons?”
“No. No, of course not, Charles. I just—”
“You think I don’t know how to write a good sermon? That I need advice how to do my job?”
“Charles…” She couldn’t maintain this razor-sharp level of anxiety. It was just too crazy. “Charles, come on. For heaven’s sake. Lately you’re angry at me for anything I say. I was just trying to make a suggestion—”
The next seconds passed in a blur. She doubted he’d heard her. He wasn’t listening; he was charging around the table toward her like an angry bull.
She saw him lift his hand. Saw his hand was folded in a fist. Saw the dark, livid color shooting up his neck.
As crazy and ridiculous as the thought was, for that second she actually believed he was going to hit her.
Her heart stopped. Not just her heart, the physical organ, but the core of her emotions suddenly seemed to go still, deep down. She felt as if something died, some feeling, some hope, nothing she could name…yet the sense of loss was as real as her own pulse.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Charles said abruptly. He lowered his arm, dropped that fist. Then said nothing else, just stormed out the back door. The screen door slapped behind him.
Bren sat statue-still for a few more minutes…until the oddest thing happened. She saw a vague silhouette of a reflection in the kitchen window. It had to be a stranger, that cringing woman with the submissive bent head. It couldn’t be her. How could it possibly be her?
For that brief second she felt like a stranger in her own life.
But then, of course, she got a grip. Stood. Started dinner, started brainstorming fund-raising events.
Charles was going to be terribly upset and apologetic when he came to his senses, realized how mean he’d been to her. She was sure of it.
Three evenings later, it was pouring buckets when Bren turned the key on Maude Rose’s apartment. The place was on Willow, with a private set of stairs over Ms. Lady Lingerie and Clunkers. Everyone knew there were apartments above the retail shops, but who ever thought about them? Until she’d known Maude Rose, she’d never considered what those apartments looked like or who lived in them.
A naked lightbulb illuminated the dingy stairs—not enough to make the lock easy to see. Once inside Maude’s door, she fumbled around the wall for a switch. Lightning crackled just as she located the overhead. Slowly she slipped off her damp jacket, startled at her first look at the place.
Charles often spent one night a month in Charlestown with elders of the church, a prayer retreat sort of thing with a dozen other pastors. It never crossed Bren’s mind to check out the apartment until he’d been on the road. Then the impulse hit. There was no one to question or argue with her if she chose to come here tonight.
For the first time since she could remember, she had a completely private spot to think. Maybe that was part of what had spurred the impulse to