A Time to Dance/A Time to Embrace (16 page)

Abby basked in his nearness.
Is this really happening? Am I here a
million miles away from home and inches from John Reynolds?
She nodded shyly. “Yeah, I do.”

John shook his head, his face incredulous. “And the best part is, you actually like it. A lot of girls could care less.”

She grinned. “Well, now, I’ve only made it out for one game.”

He laughed at first, then gradually his smile faded and his eyes locked onto hers. “I’ve thought about you a lot, Abby. Do you know that?”

Something in her wanted to bolt, wanted to protect her heart before it became too lost to ever find again. Instead she nodded, unwilling to break the connection between them. Then, with the winter wind sifting through the leaves around them, John placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned close, touching his lips to hers. He kissed her so sweetly, so simply she was certain she was floating a foot off the ground.

It was not a seductive kiss or one that demanded more of her than she was ready to give, but it was a kiss that made his intentions crystal clear. She had pulled away first, breathless, scanning his face for the answers she suddenly needed more desperately than oxygen. “John?”

His gaze never left hers as he ran his thumb tenderly over her eyebrows. “I know you’re young, Abby. But there’s something between us. Something I’ve felt ever since I met you.” He hesitated, and for all his fame and glory and cocksure athletic ability, he looked utterly vulnerable. “Do you . . . can you feel it, too?”

A giggle rose from Abby’s throat, and she threw her arms around his neck, allowing him to hold her close, savoring how his body warmed hers in a way she’d never known before. With his question still hanging in the air, she pulled back and angled her head, sure her eyes were sparkling with all she was feeling inside. “Yes, I feel it. I thought I was the only one who did. You know, because I was too young for you.”

A grin broke out across his face. “No, it was never just you. But back then you were too little to talk about it; I even thought maybe I was imagining it. But over the years, it didn’t go away. I would get home from a game and wonder where you were, what you were doing. Like . . .”

Suddenly confident in all she’d ever felt for him, she finished his sentence for him. “Like we were meant to be?”

He nodded and kissed her again. This time there was a fire between them, and when he pulled back he distanced himself from her. “Abby, I don’t know how everything’s going to work out. We won’t even see each other much this next year. But there’s one thing I’ve never been more sure of—I’ve never felt like this with anyone before.”

She spread her fingers across his chest and met his gaze once more. “Me neither.”

He trembled and now she knew it had been with desire. She hadn’t understood back then, but she was certain of it now in light of a lifetime of experience. How many times had she known that same trembling in their first ten years of marriage, felt him that way as his limbs spread out across hers, beneath hers, up against hers.

Yes, he’d felt deeply for her back then, their first night together, and she for him. But it would not be until after their wedding that either of them would act on their feelings.

As they made their way back to his dorm that night, Abby remembered the way he held her hand, treating her like the rarest of gems, precious and unique, convincing her with every step that his words were sincere. He had never felt this way about anyone else.

Abby’s father stirred in the bed beside her chair and she let go of his hand, instantly back in the present. Without warning, his eyes flashed open, frantic as he looked about the room until he found Abby. “Where’s John?”

The question pierced the silence, and she felt her heart sink. “He’s home, Dad. With the kids.” Her words were loud and measured, the way people talked to the aged.

“He should be with you.” There was wild fear in her father’s face, and his hands shook uncontrollably.

“It’s okay, Dad. He’s with the kids.” Abby took his fingers in hers and tried to still the shaking.

The sleep was wearing off. Her father’s expression was less shocked and fearful. For a long moment he looked deep into Abby’s eyes; then for the first time he voiced the thing that probably lay heaviest on his heart. “There’s trouble, isn’t there?”

Abby’s first thought was to lie to him, the same way she lied to everyone else these days. But then the tears came, and she knew it was impossible. She was too close to this man, this giant-hearted father and friend, to hide from him the thing that was killing her. She nodded, squeezing his hands gently in her own. “Yes, Dad. There’s trouble.”

He seemed to shrink beneath the bedcovers, and his eyes grew damp. “Are you . . . have you prayed about it?”

Abby felt a gentle smile play across her lips. Her father meant well.
Dad, if only you understood how bad things were . . .
“We have.”

Her father’s emotions played across his face as clearly as if they were written on his forehead. Sorrow and confusion, followed by frustration and deep, boundless pain. “It’s not . . . you aren’t getting a . . .”

The tears spilled onto Abby’s cheeks. Had it really come to this? Wasn’t she the same girl who had stood beneath the oak tree with John, barely able to think while he kissed her for the first time? Wasn’t she the only girl he’d ever loved? Her tears came harder and the words lodged in her throat. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.

Now it was her father’s turn to comfort. He held her hands close to his heart and ran his frail fingers over the tops of them. “Oh, Abby, you can’t, honey. There’s gotta be a way . . .”

Abby shook her head and struggled to find her voice. “You don’t understand, Dad. There’s more to it.”

Darkness clouded her father’s eyes. “That woman? The one on the field after the state title game?”

So even her father knew the truth. John had taken up with Charlene and in the process left everyone but Abby’s blindly devoted kids aware that he was cheating on her. She hung her head and a fresh wave of tears spilled from her eyes onto her father’s bedsheets. “He says they’re just friends, but it’s a lie, Dad. I’ve found notes.”

With all the effort he could muster, her father raised a single hand and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Have you tried counseling? Christian counseling?”

Abby exhaled and caught her breath, lifting her gaze to her father’s questioning one. “We’ve tried everything. It’s more than a faith issue, Dad.”

Her father’s hand fell to his side and he stared sadly at her. “Nothing is beyond God, Abby. Maybe you’ve forgotten.”

She met his gaze. “Maybe we have.”

Questions flashed in his eyes, and he cleared his throat, probably trying to stop himself from breaking down and crying. After all, John was the son of his best friend. The news was bound to be devastating, regardless of his earlier suspicions about Charlene. “Have you . . . told the children?”

Abby leaned back in her chair. “We tried, but the morning we were going to tell them, Nicole announced her engagement. We decided to postpone it until after the wedding.”

“So it’s final; you’ve made your decision?”

Again Abby hung her head. “We’ve talked to each other, talked to counselors, tried everything, Dad. We don’t see any other way.”

There was silence for a moment as her father took in the news. When he didn’t comment, she continued, desperate to fill the space between them with something that might help him understand. “Maybe it’ll be better this way.”

Anger flashed in her father’s eyes for the first time since she was a small child. “It can
never
be better to divorce, Abby. Never. That’s a lie from the pit of hell; mark my words.”

The tears came harder now and Abby felt her own anger rising. It wasn’t her fault after all. “Don’t blame me, Dad. I’m not the one seeing someone else.”

Her father raised an eyebrow enough so that she noticed. “That right? What about your writing friends, your editor?”

Alarm raced through Abby’s veins.
How in the world . . . ?
“Who told you that?”

Her father waited a beat. “John. Last time he was here. I asked him how the two of you were, and he said something about you spending more time e-mailing your editor than talking to him.” Her father stopped to catch his breath, and Abby realized the conversation was draining him. His arms and legs were trembling harder. “He made light of it so I didn’t think it was a problem. Until now.”

Abby stood up and folded her arms, staring at the ceiling. “Oh, Dad, I don’t know how it all got so ugly.” She lowered her gaze to him again and wiped fresh tears from her cheeks. “I need my friendship with Stan. Sometimes he’s the only one who understands what’s happening in my life.”

Her father’s anger was gone, and in its place was a sadness unlike anything Abby had seen before. “The only thing you need is faith in Christ and a dedication to each other. If you have that . . . everything else will fall in place.”

He made it sound so easy. “He’s having an affair, Dad. He admitted to kissing her. It isn’t as simple as you think.” She made her way back to the chair and sat down again, taking his hands in hers. “Go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to get you so worked up.”

This time the tears that filled her father’s eyes spilled onto his cheeks, and he wiped at them self-consciously. “That boy’s part of our family, Abby. Don’t let him go. Do whatever it takes. Please. For me, for the kids. For God.”

You don’t understand, Dad
. She hesitated, not sure how to answer him.

“Please, Abby.” He looked so pained, so earnest in his request, that she knew she had no choice but to tell him what he wanted to hear.

“Okay. I’ll try harder. Really, I will. Now you get some rest before they kick me out of here for good.” She held tight to her father’s hands, and in a matter of minutes he was asleep again, leaving her to wrestle with the knot of emotions that made up her insides.

Losing John would be like losing a part of who she was, a piece not only of her history, but of her father’s as well. Abby’s heart hurt as she watched her father sleep. She’d told him the truth; it wasn’t her fault. She and John had let time come between them, and now he was seeing someone else. It was simply too late to undo the damage, too far into the process of breaking up to patch things together.

Her thoughts drifted back again to their first kiss, the way John made her feel like she was the most important girl in the world, the way he’d promised to write and call, and the way he surprisingly kept his word in the coming year. She would never forget the look on her friends’ faces when he showed up at the prom with her. The dance took place in the spring, just weeks before her high-school graduation. There he was, a junior at U of M, a nationally known quarterback, dancing by her side in front of all her classmates.

She wore a light blue chiffon dress and he outdid every other girl’s date with his black tuxedo and pale blue vest. “They’re all staring at you,” she whispered during one of their slow dances. Abby loved the way he held her close but not too tight, secure enough to show the world she was his girl, but respectful of her purity at the same time.

“They’re not looking at me; they’re looking at you. I’ve never seen anyone more gorgeous than you are tonight.”

He was singly devoted to her throughout the year, and the following fall she enrolled at Michigan. If there was a period in her life she would never forget, a time that would never dim in its brilliance, it was the 1978–79 school year. John led the Wolverines to a championship season, and though he lost out on the Heisman, with two games to go, it still looked like he’d be drafted. She was at every game, every practice, soaking in everything about him.

Then, in his final game that season, John dropped back to pass and couldn’t find an open receiver. A linebacker spotted his vulnerability and leveled a blow against his knees that buckled his legs and caused his head to ricochet off the artificial turf. He was knocked unconscious and lay there on the field for ten minutes while team doctors worked on him from every angle.

Abby still remembered how desperately she’d prayed for him from her place in the stands. “Please, God . . . please . . .” She’d been too terrified to voice the unimaginable, to consider that he could be paralyzed or that he might even die out there on the field. Suddenly everything about the game she loved became ugly and cheap.
What’s the
point?
she recalled thinking.
Give up your legs, your life . . . for a football
game? Please, God, let him get up . . .

Finally John moved his feet, and Abby began breathing again.
Thank You . . . oh, thank You, God.
She couldn’t bring herself to imagine how different things would have been if . . .

A medical cart took John to the locker room where Abby met him after the game. The news was better than it could have been, but it wasn’t good. John had suffered a serious concussion when his head hit the cementlike turf. And worse, he had torn a ligament in his knee— an injury that would require surgery and most likely end his football career.

The doctor had been brutally honest with John. “You might find a way to get that leg in playing condition again, son, but your head can’t take another blow like that one. It would be a risk for you to play.”

The knee surgery took place later that month, and by March John was running sprints and getting ready for NFL scouting combines. “I can do it, Abby. My head doesn’t hurt. Really.”

She knew there was nothing she could say, nothing that would take away his love for the game, a love that had been in his family and hers for as long as they could remember. But in the end, she hadn’t needed to say anything. He never regained the speed and mobility he’d once had, and the NFL scouts wrote him off as too slow. By April it was clear that he no longer had a career in professional football.

For a week, John was devastated. He stayed in his dorm, saw little of Abby, and said even less. But at the end of that time, he took her out for pizza and walked with her to the same spot where he’d first kissed her more than a year earlier. “I’ve been thinking up a plan, Abby.” He touched his fingers to her cheek and studied her eyes in a way that even now made her insides melt at the memory. “If I can’t play the game, I have to coach it.” He drew a steadying breath. “I’m going to take another year and earn my teaching credentials. Then I can go anywhere, teach, coach. Follow my dream.”