Summer Shadows (35 page)

Hannah blocked the hurt, holding out her hands, imploring Abby to listen, to agree. “You have always been such a loving, compliant child, such a delight. You still are at heart. You’re just off track at the moment.”

“No, Mom. It’s much more than that. I am permanently, positively changed. I am still loving, but I am no longer a compliant child.”

“No!”

“Yes. I will never be who I used to be. If I met Sam for the first time now, I would not fall in love with him.”

Hannah felt her mouth drop open. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Sam was a controlling man, Mom. As long as I agreed with him, he was warm and kind and loving. When I disagreed, he was cold, withdrawn.”

“No, not Sam.”

“Oh, yes. We were already having issues, especially over my going back to school.”

“He wanted you to be his wife and Maddie’s mother.”

“Couldn’t I have gone to school and still loved them, still cared for them? Did one have to preclude the other?”

“Abby, Sam knew what was best—”

“Sam was not omniscient. He didn’t always know what was best. But that’s not what we need to talk about. That part of my life is over. Sam is with the Lord. We would have stayed married, I’m sure. I would have felt stifled, I would have felt unfulfilled, but life would have gone on. However, the accident happened, and the whole world changed. The problem is that you haven’t realized that.”

“How dare you say that to me.” Hannah’s voice trembled with emotion. “How dare you! Who do you think sat by you, praying and crying and hurting so badly that I thought I couldn’t breathe? Who stood at the graveside of beautiful, precious Maddie, weeping as they lowered that little coffin? Who stood in the receiving
line at the memorial service for Sam and held his mother’s hand while you lay in ICU suspended between life and death?”

“I’m not denying your sorrow or your pain, but you’re speaking of circumstances, Mom. Circumstances. Incidents that happened. I’m speaking of heart and soul. I am different inside, very different from the woman who existed before that intersection. I am still a caring woman. I know that because I still love you and Dad. But I have learned to have steel in my spine. I had to if I were to recover both physically and emotionally.”

“Abby, don’t do this. Don’t make me look the heavy while you’re right about everything.”

“I’m not saying I’m right about everything. I’m saying that I will never again be who I was. Never. I can’t go back to being that dutiful daughter. I don’t want to. Where I might have readily accepted your suggestions before, I can’t and won’t now. Where I might have automatically gone along with your wishes before, I can’t and won’t now. In short, I am learning to think for myself, albeit a bit late.”

“You’re disobeying Scripture, you know. Children, obey your parents. Honor your father and your mother.”

“I’m not a child, Mom. I’m an adult answerable to God, not you.”

“Abby!” Though Abby’s voice was not angry, her words ripped Hannah’s heart like a mighty wrenching would cleave a piece of material in two.

“My heart’s desire is to honor you,” Abby continued. “I acknowledge that if I don’t do so, I am disobeying God’s injunction. I love you, even though I’m sure you doubt it at the moment. All I’m asking is that you let me be an adult who makes my own choices. Meet me on a level playing field. Let me disagree with you without assuming it means bad things. Let me live my life as I think God wants me to without assuming you have to play Holy Spirit and interpret His leading for me. If I fall into sin, confront me, but if the best for me is just a matter of differing opinions, let me make my own decisions, even if I fall on my face.”

Hannah opened her mouth to respond, but Abby leaned over, putting a finger across her lips. “No more right now, Mom. I have to go. Marsh is waiting. Just think about what I’ve said. Pray about it. That’s all I ask for the moment.”

And she was gone, hurrying down the steps to Marsh, leaving her mother alone. A phone rang again. Hannah realized it was her cell phone ringing. Len. Oh, how she needed him. She hurried inside, grabbed the phone from her purse, and sank onto the sofa.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said. “How’s it going? Any better than yesterday?”

“Worse.” She told Len about Abby’s hiding, about Marsh’s protecting her, about Abby’s cruel words. Her voice caught on tears several times.

“Ah, Han, I’m sorry you’re there to go through this alone.”

She sniffed. “Thanks.” Just hearing his words of empathy made her feel better.

“But she’s got a point, you know.”

Hannah stiffened. “Not you too!” She was unwilling to admit any such thing.

“Han.” Len’s voice was strong and certain. “We made a mistake. You should not have stayed. That’s her house, not ours. We were incredibly insensitive.”

“I just don’t like him!” It all came down to Marsh; it was all his fault.

“I find it interesting that he wouldn’t give her away. I think that’s a good sign.”

“What are you saying? His helping her lie is good?”

“Han, I’ve done a lot of thinking and a lot of praying while I’ve been home alone.” He paused for a minute. “Do you remember how your mother felt about me?”

Hannah made a face. He was going to use their personal history as an argument for Marsh and Abby. But their story was different. Len was different.

“Do you?”

“Of course. She didn’t like you.”

“That’s putting it mildly. She despised me.”

“You weren’t what she’d imagined for me.”

“Why did you stand up to her on my behalf?”

“Because I loved you. Because I knew you were right for me. Because the Lord gave me peace about you.”

“Was there any concrete reason for her to dislike me?”

“Of course not. You were a man of godly character. You had a good job. You were kind. She had just closed her mind to the possibility
of you because she didn’t like the way you wore your hair. Too long and unkempt. Long hair meant hippie, communes, godless.”

“Have we closed our minds to Marsh for reasons just as foolish?”

“But he’s so different from Sam!”

“Of course he is. And she’s so different from Sam’s wife.”

Hannah scowled at the phone. Abby had said the same thing not so long ago.

“I think that she may have finally grown up.”

“Len, she’s not grown up! She’s become like a defiant teenager, only worse.”

“No, I don’t think so. I think she’s finally become her own woman. We should be thanking God, not trying to impede the process.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing? Holding her back?” Hannah’s temper flared again. “Who still calls her baby all the time? Not me.”

There was silence from the other end of the phone. As it stretched out longer and longer, Hannah sighed. “I’m sorry, Len. That was nasty of me.”

“Maybe, Han, but you’re right. I’m every bit as guilty as you are.”

Hannah twitched and walked to the sliding door. She opened it, stepping outside. “I don’t know if guilty is the right word, Len. If we’re guilty of anything, it’s of loving her so much, of wanting her to be happy.”

He was quiet for another long minute. “What if the hopes and dreams we have for Abby aren’t God’s?”

“Len! We’d never want anything for her that wasn’t honoring to the Lord.”

“I know that in the general sense. But what about the specifics? Do we know what the Lord has planned for her in the jots and tittles of life?”

“If we don’t have at least some sense of that, who does?” Hannah leaned against the railing and inhaled the salty air, hoping it would ease the horrific headache that had hatched at the base of her skull.

“Maybe Abby does?”

“But we’re her parents!”

“We’re not infallible. Maybe we’ve been wrong to try and hold
her at home. Just because we thought it would be good for her doesn’t mean that God thinks it would be good for her. I mean, did we ever ask Him if she should stay or go out on her own?”

Hannah knew she hadn’t. Granted, she hadn’t thought of it, but now that the idea had been presented, she recoiled from it. She watched as Abby and Marsh, hands clasped, walked onto the beach. They were tight in a world of their own as they talked intently about something. Probably about how horrible she was. “But Seaside, Len? It’s so far away.”

“Lots of kids live farther than that from their parents.”

There was no arguing with that fact. “What if in her desire to get married again, she chooses unwisely? What if she thinks Marsh is more than a passing fancy?”

“What if he isn’t? Are we willing to risk losing Abby by taking a stand against him?”

“She needs someone like Sam! He was so perfect for her.”

“Then
he was perfect for her. I don’t know about now.”

“You know what she told me? She said that if she met Sam today, she wouldn’t fall in love with him. Can you believe that?”

“Yeah, I can.”

Hannah felt like her world had shifted on its axis. “But they were blissfully happy.”
Please, tell me I’m right here
.

His sigh slid down the line. “I don’t think so, Han. I don’t think they were anywhere near separating or anything, but I don’t think they were all that happy.”

No! I couldn’t have been that blind
. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do know what I’m talking about. Sam didn’t understand that a wife who meets you halfway, who challenges you when you need it and even when you don’t, who isn’t afraid to express herself when she disagrees with you is the stuff of a lively and living marriage.”

She thought of her gentle Abby. He was wrong. He had to be. “Where did you ever get that ridiculous idea?”

“Han,” he said with a soft laugh, “I’m married to you.”

That stopped her for a long moment. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“The biggest and best. Am I ever bored? Never! I think you’re
the most interesting woman I’ve ever met. I thought it when I met you, and I think it now. But are you compliant?”

“I should hope not.”

He laughed. “Think about this, Han. Here Abby is, the product of you and me, neither of whom is afraid to express an opinion. How could she not develop that quality herself? Genes will tell.”

Hannah felt like she had to keep fighting. “But she was always such a good girl.”

“Because we never gave her the chance to be otherwise. We dominated her from her first breath, and we’re still trying to do it.”

“But she needs us!”
God, she’s got to need me. What do I do if she doesn’t?

“She needed us once upon a time. She doesn’t now, at least not in the same way. She’s almost thirty, Han. She’s been through the most grievous tragedy and come out of it a strong and wonderful woman with a heart for God. We’re going to lose her if we don’t acknowledge that she doesn’t need us. The fact is that we need her a lot more than she needs us.”

With tears in her eyes, Hannah watched Abby turn to Marsh and say something that made him laugh. Her skirt whipped in the wind like the sea grasses that grew in the dunes.

“Han, it’s about control to some degree. We want to control her.”

“We do not,” Hannah protested. How ugly that sounded. “I do not!”

“Don’t we? Think back to preaccident. We orchestrated Abby’s life. Who encouraged her to date Sam? Who encouraged her to be an elementary school teacher? Who encouraged them to settle two blocks over? Those are only some of the most blatant examples. Control.”

Abby lurched as some sand gave way under her bad leg, and Hannah gasped. Marsh grabbed Abby around the waist to steady her, keeping his arm there as they continued to walk. After a few steps, she wrapped her arm about his waist too. For a brief second she dropped her head to his shoulder.

Unbidden came the thought that Hannah had never seen Sam and Abby walking arm in arm. It was almost like she had been
Prince Philip to Sam’s Queen Elizabeth, always walking two steps behind. Hannah banished the thought as unworthy, too judgmental of Sam.

“Think about the time of the accident, Han. We lost all control. We didn’t know what was going to happen from one day to the next. The lack of order and the absence of control were as difficult for us as watching Abby in such pain.”

“Stop it, Len! Stop it. I can’t deal with any more.” Hannah felt like her heart was being torn loose.

“You’ve got to, sweetheart. We don’t have much time to correct our mistakes.”

“But he’s so wrong for her!”

“Honey, our opinion isn’t the one that counts.”

“She barely knows him.”

“Something clicks between them, Han. I could see that even in the short time I was there over the weekend. At first I was very distressed about it. But as I’ve thought about it more, I’ve come to think that it clicks on a much deeper level between her and Marsh than it ever clicked with her and Sam.” He paused. “I think it clicks more like it clicks between you and me.”

“Oh, Len.” Hannah started to cry. “I wish you were here so badly I can taste it.”

“Give me about two hours, and I’ll tuck you in.”

“What?”

“I’ve already taken the rest of the week off. I’m getting on the Blue Route in Philadelphia as we speak, heading for the Schuylkill Expressway, the Walt Whitman Bridge, and the Atlantic City Expressway. Destination: Seaside. Pack your bags, Han. I’m not tucking you in at Abby’s. I’ve made reservations for us at a motel downtown.”

M
ARSH GRINNED AS
he and Abby walked along the beach arm in arm. Who’d have thought a week ago that he’d even be walking with a woman, let alone holding her close beside him? And such a delightfully unpredictable one at that.

Fargo pulled hard on his leash, one of those that you could lengthen or shorten as desired by pushing a button. Marsh thought of a carpenter’s measuring tape every time he clipped the lead to Fargo’s collar. Thankfully Fargo didn’t retract lickety-split like the metal ruler, though the image of the dog flying through the air at the flick of Marsh’s thumb was wonderful. Too bad he didn’t write cartoons.

Fargo didn’t like being restrained, but he couldn’t be allowed to run free. Aside from the leash laws, more and more people were on the beach. If the huge animal came bounding up to the wrong people, he’d send them screaming for help. The thought of the potential fines made Marsh shudder, to say nothing of the forwarded bills from the psychological counselors Fargo’s victims would need to see.