​​Chapter Thirty-Four
Rochelle

“No one would blame you, Ro. For trying.” Ann sits on my bed in a silk leopard print tank top. She has a matching headband in her hair, ankles crossed, and I’m taking a snapshot of her in my mind. I’m going to miss her way too much.

“Trying what, though? I was thinking about it, Ann. What Dr. Cohen said. What he didn’t even have to say. I was trying to make amends for the person I used to be.” I think of that girl, all versions of her. The knobby-kneed child who tied up her brother and then the teenager in her short shorts and bubblegum lip gloss. The young woman almost left for dead in somebody’s yard and then the one who became a mother and couldn’t really manage that gig. I think of the one right now, who closes the eyes inside her mind and says an “I’m sorry” to God.

The one without her breasts but a heart still beating.

“If you go, I might not see you again.” Now it’s Ann’s turn to play Dr. Cohen’s part. Factual. I scoot her over with my hip and sit leg to leg with her. I hold her while she cries even though I’m the one who wants to. It’s not a matter of “might.” I already feel in my bones that this is my final act.

“I’ll call you. I’ll write. I’ll let you know if this all turns out to be one big ol’ mess.”

“It won’t be, Ro. God’s guiding you on this one, not yourself. You know it’s what you have to do.” I nod. It is. Mack is a baby again in my arms. All that dark, dark hair. In my head, I hold him to the breast I still have. Can you imagine living with a psychotic brother and no other family to love you? I don’t even have to imagine it. Because it was life. Another something I give to God because it’s too heavy to hold onto.

I’m sorry, Mack. Because I was just a child, too. And that’s a hard thing for anyone to understand.

Ann tells me she loves me, and we talk some more over cups of coffee I’ve stealthily commandeered from the kitchen. But I don’t have to worry because Glenn and Kimber have gone to who knows where.

She leaves eventually, and I’m left on my bed in one of our–Glenn’s– absurdly large guest rooms. My suitcase is packed, and there are a couple of small boxes I picked up from Wal-Mart that I’ve filled with my books, my hair dryer. It’s almost shocking what little is actually mine in this house and how little I actually want.

I tiptoe down the stairs, ears straining for sounds of movement. But the inside of Glenn’s home is dead, except for me. I walk to the library to look out the window. I stand at it and stare at the tree, trying to kick start my mind to remember. Wren. She was so little then, just a small girl at her father’s funeral. And then I remember when she was a little bigger, holding my hand when we’d go to church together. Natalie thinks I ruined her. I don’t imagine I did. At least that wasn’t the intent. I just wanted Wren to know who she could trust when she couldn’t trust anyone.

Because that day always seems to come.

I wonder how she is now. If she’s a bigger version of that same sweet little girl. I stopped receiving photos a while ago. But I never stopped writing to her even when I stopped hearing back. “They probably moved,” Ann had said to me once. Which only served to fatten the worried worm in my stomach.

“What do you see when you stare out of it?” For a second, it’s all the times before this one, and I’m waiting for Glenn to wrap his arms around me. But he hovers instead near my right shoulder looking out the same window. I can feel him, smell his warmth and something new on his clothes. Chinese.

“How were the potstickers?”

“Delightful as usual. I would have invited you along with us but since Ann...”

“No need. We had a good time,” I say. I don’t dissect his comment, the lie in it. Instead, I turn and face the prize I had coveted for so very long. And all I see is a man.

“I’m leaving,” I say. I’ve been mulling this over and breaking it down so often for the past few weeks that it feels like tissue paper in my hand. After talking with Kimber, I realized something for the first time. I can’t save anyone. I couldn’t save Mack or Wren or a misguided young Kimber whose brain is saturated with the same lies that live in Glenn’s heart.

Only Jesus can do something like that. I’m simply the messenger.

“Oh? Where will you go?” I have to muffle a little laugh. I’ve often wondered if Glenn views me as a doll, one that only breathes and moves in his presence. I wonder if he feels the same way about Kimber.

“White Smoke,” I say. It’s plain as a day to me. God made it that way. I’ve been having dreams, praying prayers. I keep seeing it, the apartment, the time I spent with Wren while Natalie got her life together. I don’t even know where they are now. But I know God will help me find them.

“I’ll give you money.” This is Glenn’s way of loving me because I know now; he doesn’t fully understand what love is. I’ve known that for a while, if I’m honest. I knew that the day I got baptized when Glenn wasn’t next to me. When I was pondering the unfathomable gift of Christ trading His life for my own and how I couldn’t even gather the courage to tell my husband about it.

How Glenn complained that I’d left the crust on his sandwich when I got home that day.

The divide was already a river wide and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“Okay,” I say when he takes me into his arms. My mouth muffles the word into his shoulder. I wish I could say I didn’t need it and had a ton of money saved up in a shoe box under my bed. But honestly, I’ve felt this was part of the plan too. Can you swallow down your pride just one last time to do My will? Yes, Lord.

He pulls me back and peels me off of him. His strong hands are gripping my shoulders, and I try not to think of his hands on Kimber. Too late.

“We’ll miss you, Rochelle.” His eyes flicker, an eraser gliding over the first word. “I’ll miss you.”

“I know,” I say and press my nose back into his shoulder. But he just doesn’t smell the same way anymore.

#

THE NEXT MORNING IS quick and uneventful. It’s early, the way I want it. I’ll be driving for a long time. Glenn and I barely discussed the details but a divorce is in order. He said he’ll talk with me once I’m up there, and we’ll work something out.

“Quick and painless.” I had to stifle another laugh.

He lets me keep the Jaguar, a sick little parting gift. My whole life is inside that car, and as I drive away–Kimber with her messy bedhead, one arm raised and the other lazily around Glenn’s waist–I imagine the flames licking the sides of the house and God bringing down what we had only pretended to build.

I can only hope in the next phase, there will be no pretending.