Home for Christmas (Willow Park #5) (15 page)

Maybe, one day, Mark would fully heal, but she wasn’t the
one to help him do so.

She had to get out of here before she broke down and sobbed.
She went into the main room to grab her coat and purse.

She heard Mark follow her, but he didn’t say anything. And
he didn’t try to stop her as she opened the door and walked out.

As she stumbled down the stairs, she realized she had
nowhere to go. It was Christmas Eve. All of her friends would be busy with
their families. She couldn’t show up on their doors, bawling like a baby because
her husband didn’t want her anymore.

She went to her car and got behind the wheel. She had
absolutely no idea where to go.

So she just started to drive, relieved that—now she was
alone—she was at least allowed to cry.

***

She didn’t head to anywhere in
particular. She drove through the downtown streets and then through a couple of
neighborhoods. She passed Micah and Alice’s house, and she saw them outside in
the front yard. Their daughter Cara was peddling what was obviously a new,
pretty pink tricycle down the sidewalk.

They all looked so happy. Plus, they had another baby on the
way. Some people were able to come together in love, build families, share all
the ups and downs of life.

But some people weren’t.

Some people ended up alone, even in their own marriage.

She drove by, hoping Micah and Alice wouldn’t recognize her
car. They didn’t appear to notice her at all, and soon they were out of sight.

She ended up at the church. The parking lot was empty. It
was far too early for anyone to have arrived yet for the candlelight service
this evening.

She was crying so hard now that she pulled into the lot and
parked her car, her whole body shaking as the sobs overwhelmed her.

She wondered what Mark was doing.

She wondered if he’d expected this to happen when he woke up
this morning.

She wondered if he was relieved that finally it was all out
in the open.

She’d raised her hands to cover her face, crying into her
palms, when there was suddenly a knock on the window of her car.

She actually jumped, she was so startled. When she’d wiped
away enough tears, she saw that Daniel was standing beside her driver’s door,
leaning over to peer in at her. He looked worried.

Of course, he was worried. She was a member of his
congregation, and she was crying in her car in the parking lot on Christmas
Eve.

She opened the window.

“What’s going on?” Daniel asked, still bending slightly at
the waist to see in on her.

“Sorry. Sorry.” She found a napkin in a pocket of her car
and used it to mop up her face. “I didn’t know where to go, so I just parked
here.”

“I see.” Daniel’s expression was mild. “Then you better tell
me about it. Can I come sit down?” He gestured toward the passenger seat.

She nodded. She was embarrassed at being caught sobbing like
that, but she desperately needed to talk to someone. Daniel was her pastor.
Whatever she told him, he wouldn’t tell anyone. She didn’t want to do anything
that would breach the privacy of her marriage, but she thought this would be
okay.

She felt all alone, but she wasn’t—not really. There were
people who cared about her, and Daniel was one of them.

He came around to sit in the passenger seat of her car.

“I didn’t see your car,” she said, feeling awkward and
needing something easy to say.

“Jessica dropped me off. I had a little prep work to do for
the service tonight, and she was taking Nathan over to visit her mother.”

“Oh.” Sophie blinked, momentarily distracted from her own
situation. “I didn’t realize her mother was nearby.”

“She’s in a nursing home,” Daniel said quietly. “She doesn’t
know who Jessica is most of the time.”

Sophie started crying again, her chest aching at the thought
of her own mother in a similar situation.

“You better tell me what’s going on,” Daniel said. “Where’s
Mark?”

With a halting explanation, occasionally interrupted by more
tears, Sophie told Daniel what had happened that afternoon. She’d kept the
explanation fairly general, mostly focusing on her own feelings.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she concluded, when she
finally reached the end. “I’ve tried so hard to be strong for him, but I don’t think
I’m strong enough to help him through this after all. I don’t know what to do.
I think it might be over.”

Daniel didn’t reply immediately. He’d listened carefully,
and now he appeared to be mulling over what she’d said. After a while, he
murmured, “If marriages were always over when we didn’t know what else to do,
then I don’t think any of them would last.”

She sniffed and tried to wipe her face with the napkin, but
it was so wet now it didn’t do much good. “Maybe. But it sounded to me like it
was really over.”

“I get that. I get that it sounded that way. And I know how
hard it’s been for you these last couple of years, these last couple of months.
I’ve seen you stay strong and faithful and committed in unimaginably difficult
circumstances, when so many people would have just given up. I’ve seen it,
Sophie.”

She was crying again. Helplessly crying. Now that she’d
started, she couldn’t seem to stop.

“Mark has seen it too,” Daniel continued. “I’m sure he has.
He’s seen you be strong, when all he feels is weak.”

The words surprised Sophie, and she stared at Daniel,
wondering how he’d known that.

Daniel paused again, turning away from Sophie and staring
out at the cross on the front of the church building. Finally, he said, as if
he were just reflecting to himself, “You know the Gospel is never what we
assume it should be. It’s counter-intuitive in absolutely every way. He didn’t
come to earth as the conquering hero whom everyone expected. He came as a baby.
Have you ever thought about how strange that is, how wrong it feels—that the
world would be fixed through
that
?”

Sophie shook her head, trying to understand, trying to keep
up.

Daniel turned his head and smiled at her. “The Gospel has
never been about coming with how good we are or how devout we are or how strong
we are. It’s coming as we really are—in all our brokenness, in all our
weakness. And being loved anyway. And being loved because of it.”

And that she understood.

She cried into her hands for another minute before she was
finally able to wipe away her tears. “Thank you,” she said. “I think I
understand.”

Daniel gave her a whimsical smile. “Do you? Because I’m not
sure I always understand it myself.”

“I’d like to…” She cleared her throat. “I’d like to go back
to Mark now.”

“I guess that’s your way of kicking me out of your car.”
Daniel reached over to pat her hand. “I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.
Just ask Jessica. But I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong about this. Mark is sitting
there now, praying that you’ll come back to him. In fact, he might be out
looking for you.”

Sophie took a ragged breath, praying and hoping and
terrified, but desperately eager to talk to Mark again. “Thank you,” she said
again.

When Daniel was out of the car, he leaned over again before
he closed the door. “Maybe he won’t have to run all the way home in the middle
of the night to get to you. That’s what I did to get to Jessica.” He was
grinning as he closed the car door.

Sophie took a moment to wonder if that was true, that Daniel
had run all the way to reach his wife.

She really liked the image. As she pulled out of the parking
lot and onto the street, she had the silly, random wish that she could run all
the way home from the church to get to Mark.

Even that, wouldn’t come close to embodying how much she
loved him.

It just took a few minutes for
Sophie to get home.

She didn’t pull her car into the private lot in the back of
the building, where she normally parked. Most of the street parking was empty
in front of the bookstore, so she pulled into a space there and ran upstairs to
their apartment.

“Mark!” She was calling out his name before she’d even
managed to get the door unlocked. “Mark!”

No one answered.

She felt a moment of sheer panic when she realized the
apartment was empty. Maybe Mark had taken his things and already left. She ran
into the bedroom, stumbling slightly on the edge of an area rug, and almost
cried in relief when she saw that his shoes were still on the floor under the
window, his pajamas thrown haphazardly in the general direction of the laundry
basket.

He hadn’t left her after all.

But then where had he gone?

She ran back to where she’d dumped her purse and dug through
it, searching for her phone so she could call him. It wasn’t there.

She scanned the room, realizing she had no idea where it was
or when she’d seen it last.

They didn’t have a landline in the apartment, since they
always used their mobile phones.

She made a growling sound of frustration. She could just
stay here and wait until he got back, but the thought of doing that made her
crazy.

She had to find him.

He didn’t have a car. Surely he couldn’t have gotten very
far. Maybe he was just down the block getting a cup of coffee or something.

She picked up her keys and purse again and ran back down to
the sidewalk. She walked up and down the block, but most of the stores and
shops were closed, and there was no sign of Mark.

This was terrible. She had so much to tell him, and he
seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

Having nothing else to do, she returned to her car, deciding
she would just drive up and down the nearby streets until she found him.

The sky was gray and some cold drizzle was starting to fall
from the sky, but the temperature wasn’t cold enough for snow. She turned on
the defrost setting in her car to try to clear her windows as she pulled into
the street.

She drove all through the blocks of the downtown area, but
there was no sign of Mark.

Where had the man gotten to? She hadn’t been gone for very
long.

She turned a corner into a residential neighborhood, but she
couldn’t imagine Mark would have gone there, unless he was just walking for the
sake of walking.

Maybe that was all he was doing. Clearing his head. Taking
some time to think.

She’d driven down one block when she saw someone she
recognized.

It was Abigail, so pregnant she looked like she would pop at
any moment. With her were Thomas and their daughter, Mia. Thomas was holding
hands with both Abigail and Mia, and he was wearing a bright blue sweater with
a big bunny appliqué on the front.

The bunny had on a Santa hat.

In one of those random thoughts, Sophie assumed the sweater
was a gift from his daughter. Surely Abigail wouldn’t have cursed him with that
particular holiday sweater.

All three of them waved at her when they saw her slow down
in the car.

Since no one else was in the road, Sophie pulled the car
over to the wrong side of the street, rolling down her window.

Before she could ask them if they’d happened to see Mark,
Mia called out, “We’re taking a long walk to get my brother to finally come
out! He’s going to be a Christmas baby, and his name is going to be Rudolph.”

Abigail was five days past her due date, Sophie remembered.

“We’re still discussing the name,” Thomas added with a dry
smile.

Sophie wanted to laugh, but she was too distracted and
emotional. Before she could get a word in, Abigail said, “Mark was looking for
you.”

“What?”

“We saw him back there,” Abigail explained, pointing back
toward downtown. “He was running around like a house on fire, looking for you.”

Sophie made an embarrassing sound in her throat at this
piece of news.

Abigail smiled sympathetically. “I think he was heading down
toward the duck pond. It wasn’t that long ago, so you can probably catch him.’

Putting the car into drive, Sophie felt a new surge of
excitement and emotion. “Thank you! I better go find him.”

“Don’t let him get away,” Abigail said with another smile.
“And have a merry Christmas!”

“You too. Thank you! I hope Rudolph makes an appearance
soon!” Sophie waved to the Morgans as she made a U-turn and headed back toward downtown.
She took the turn that led to the duck pond and accelerated far past the speed
limit in her suddenly frantic need to get to Mark.

She saw him when he was a block away. He’d evidently been
down to the far side of the duck pond and was now on his way back. He wore the
jeans and black T-shirt he’d put on earlier, but he wasn’t wearing a coat.

She gasped when she saw him. He must be absolutely freezing.

He must have seen her car because he suddenly started running
in her direction.

Without thinking, she pulled to the side of the road, where
there weren’t any parking spaces, and ran across the road toward the grassy
area that led down to the pond.

The ducks had all been grouped in a crowd near the water,
but at the sight of Sophie getting so close to them, they started toward her
en
masse
, hoping for the bread that people often threw to them.

Sophie wasn’t aware of anything but Mark. He was running
full speed now, and he’d almost reached her.

He barely stopped in time, but he grabbed onto her anyway,
swinging her around into a tight hug.

“Oh, God, baby, I thought you were gone,” he muttered,
tightening his arms so much she could barely breathe.

She didn’t want to breathe. She clung to him desperately.
And then, completely unable to stop herself, she burst into helpless tears.

Mark made a guttural sound and adjusted his grip on her,
holding her against him as she sobbed into his chest.

“Baby, please,” Mark murmured, after a minute. He was
stroking her hair, and he moved them slightly to get out of the range of the
flock of ducks that were squawking eagerly, looking for food. “Are you okay?”

“No!” she gasped, still crying so hard she could barely
speak. “I’m so sorry about everything! I’m sorry if I was pushy or manipulative.
I need you so much, Mark. I need you more than anything. Please don’t leave
me!”

She sounded pitiful and uncontrolled and utterly weak, but
it was how she felt, who she was, and there was no way for her to hide it
anymore.

Mark gathered her more closely in his arms. “I’m never going
to let you go. I kept thinking it would be better for you, without me. I’m so
broken, so…so worthless, I didn’t want to keep dragging you down with me. So I
kept pushing you away. But, when you left me earlier today, I suddenly realized
what my life would be like without you. And I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t
stand it. So I don’t care if you can do so much better than me. You’re mine,
and I’m going to keep you that way.”

“I’m glad.”

“And we can move to New York if that’s what you want. Or we
can stay here and I’ll take that job with the
Ledger
. I’ll do anything
you want me to do. I’ll do anything to make you happy. I’ll try to be the man
you want me to be.”

“But I don’t want you to be any specific kind of man,” she
choked, realizing that—in spite of the ways they’d tried to be real and
communicate—they’d never really heard each other until now. “Maybe I didn’t do
a good job of showing you that, but I don’t want you to be a certain way. I
just want you to heal. I want you to be happy. And I’ll support anything you
want that will do that.”

He stared down at her. “I don’t want to be a journalist
anymore.”

She took a ragged breath. “Then don’t be. Mark, don’t be. Do
something else.”

“You’re okay with that?”

“Of course, I’m okay with that. I thought journalism would
make you happy, but if it doesn’t, then do anything else. You can deliver
newspapers for the rest of your life, for all I care. I’m sorry you ever
thought differently. I loved the man you used to be, but I love the you now
even more.”

He made a rough, helpless sound and nearly strangled her
with a hug.

When his arms loosened, she was still crying, but the
helplessness had slowly turned into joy as he told her the truth, opened up to
her with rough, tender words. He was brushing her hair back, trying to see her
face, but she was far too emotional and messy to do any kissing at the moment.

“I thought you didn’t cry anymore,” Mark said, his mouth
turning up just slightly as he kept trying to wipe away her tears.

“I was trying…trying to be strong…for you.”

“You are strong,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her
gently, despite the messiness. “But what I want most of all is for you to be
Sophie
.
I’m sorry if I ever acted like you shouldn’t be able to cry. I love your heart so
much.”

If he was trying to get her to stop crying, he’d definitely
picked the wrong thing to say.

There was no telling how long she would have kept it up, but
she suddenly felt something strange poking her on the ankle. She looked down to
see a duck, pecking at her, reminding her that he and his comrades were here,
ready to snap up any treats, and yet no scraps of bread were forthcoming.

She and Mark were absolutely surrounded by ducks.

She squealed when the duck pecked at her again and
practically jumped into Mark’s arms.

He laughed and gently put his foot out to nudge the ducks
away.

The ducks refused to be nudged. Apparently deciding that the
aggressive approach was the most effective, they all came after them, squawking
excitedly. Sophie cried out in surprise and fear as the ducks chased her and
Mark across the street.

Both of them were laughing helplessly when they climbed in
the car, making it to safety.

“Crazy ducks,” Mark muttered. “They’re definitely spoiled.”

Sophie looked out the window at the ducks, who were now
waddling back to the pond dejectedly. “Oh, the poor little things.”

Mark gave her a quick look. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“We have to go get some bread and come back. They’re hungry,
and they haven’t had a Christmas.”

Mark groaned exaggeratedly, but he didn’t hesitate to put
the car into gear and drive them to a grocery store. The little one downtown
was closed, so they had to go to a big chain store on the outskirts of town,
near the highway.

They got a loaf of fresh cinnamon bread, since Sophie
decided that would be a special Christmas treat for the ducks.

Then they came back to the pond and tossed out pieces of the
bread, making sure that all of the ducks got a few bites, even the smaller ones
in the back.

After their bread was gone, they made another escape from
the ducks and went back to the apartment. They both took showers and then they
took a nap together, sleeping for a few hours, since they were both physically
and emotionally exhausted.

When she woke up, Mark was still asleep, and she lay in bed,
gazing at him with a heart too full to handle.

She was sniffing when he opened his eyes.

He gave her a dry smile. “Are you crying again?”

She wiped at her eye quickly. “No.”

His smile was more tender than ironic as he pulled her into
his arms, nestling her against him. But his tone was serious as he said, “I
need you to need me, Sophie.”

“I do need you.” She pressed a few kisses against his chest.
“I need you so much.  I should have let you see how much from the very
beginning. I was trying to be strong, but I should have just loved you.”

“I should have just loved you too.”

For the moment, it felt like her world had righted itself.
She knew Mark still had a lot of healing to do, and she knew she had healing
left to do as well. But now, at last, it felt like maybe they could do it
together.

They lay in contented silence for a while, until she finally
asked, “I’m not pressuring or anything, but do you have any idea what you might
want to do in terms of work, since you don’t want to do journalism anymore.”

“I have an idea.” Mark sounded hesitant, as if she might not
like his idea.

“What is it?”

“I’ve been talking to Micah. His contracting business is so
big now that he needs a business manager—talking to new clients, planning the
scheduling, handling purchases and payments, and that kind of thing. I guess
his paperwork is in a mess and things are falling through the cracks. I could
do that.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Is that something you would
enjoy?”

“Sure. I like people, and I’m good with numbers and
paperwork. I really like Micah and his crew. And it would be…so different. I
like the idea of watching things get built, get fixed.”

Sophie’s heart suddenly throbbed with joy. “Well, good.
That’s really good then. I had no idea you were even thinking about it.”

“I know. That was my mistake. I shouldn’t have kept it from
you.” He cleared his throat. “Are you really okay with it? I know it’s not as
impressive a job as I had, and I won’t be making as much money. You married a
journalist, and now—”

“Oh, just shut up about that,” she interrupted, frowning at
him. “I don’t care about any of that. I just want you to wake up in the morning
and look forward to what you’re going to do. Would you, with this job?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I would. At least for now.”

“Then do it. Tell Micah you’ll do it.”

“I will. He should be at the service tonight, if you still
want to go.”

Sophie gasped and sat up, checking the clock. “Yes, I want
to go. It starts in a half-hour! We’re going to be late!”