What She Left for Me (3 page)

“To live? What about that husband of yours? Does he need a place to live as well?”

Jana bit her lip. How much should she tell her mother? It was obvious that she needed the woman’s sympathy—not that she’d ever had it before. Jana sighed. She wasn’t going to play these games anymore. She didn’t have the energy for it.

“Rob left me,” she finally managed to say. “He ran off with his secretary and took all of our savings.” There. She’d said it all. Well, almost.

“What? Your goody-goody preacher husband . . . committing sin?” Eleanor’s voice was edged with contempt.

“Mom, I need a place to stay. Can I come live with you and Taffy?”

“Of course you can!” the enthusiastic voice of her great-aunt sounded on another extension. “We’d love to have you, wouldn’t we, Eleanor. Oh my, but it will be great fun with you here.”

Thomasina Anderson, or Taffy, as everyone called her, bubbled with energy. Jana hadn’t even known Taffy existed until her mother dropped a note several years earlier to say that she was moving to Lomara, Montana, to care for an aging aunt.

“Aunt Taffy, are you sure it will be all right?” Jana asked, completely sidestepping her mother’s input on the matter.

“Of course. We have tons of unused space. Why, I’d considered taking up boarders, but your mother wouldn’t hear of it. She worries about strangers, you know.”

“Taffy, Jana couldn’t care less about what I think,” Eleanor stated curtly.

Jana smarted at the comment. She and her mother had never been close, never even attempted a real relationship. From Jana’s earliest memory, her mother had put her in someone else’s care. To hear her mother tell it, the entire purpose had been to broaden Jana’s horizons and make her less dependent upon people. But to the lonely little girl who waited anxiously to see her mother at the end of the day, only to be rebuffed, Jana didn’t think the plan had worked out so well.

“It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks,” Taffy said firmly. “Jana, you come. Come today.”

“I can’t come today,” Jana told her. “I have some things to take care of. I’m selling off most of my stuff in a yard sale.”

“Good. You won’t need a thing here,” Taffy assured. “Why, I have furniture stuck upstairs in the third floor. It’s all just storage up there, and what we can’t find we can surely buy.”

“Taffy, you don’t need to throw your money away on this,” Eleanor interjected. “Jana will see to herself. Isn’t that right, Jana?”

“Haven’t I always taken care of myself?” Jana questioned, almost hoping her mother would contradict her. She didn’t.

“Wonderful. Then it’s settled,” Taffy declared. “Why, I’m so excited, I can hardly stand it. We’ll have wonderful tea parties and talk about the old days. We can even plant flowers.” With a loud click, the receiver fell into place.

Jana smiled in spite of her misery. Taffy was like an eternal light of hope. As far as Taffy was concerned, the world was a beautiful place, with beautiful people in it. Too bad Taffy was a bit eccentric and, as Eleanor put it, “touched in the head.” Her mother had commented in the past that Taffy wasn’t in charge of her faculties, which was one of the reasons Eleanor had felt it necessary to go live with the old woman when Taffy had asked her to come.

“I should be there on Saturday,” Jana concluded.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the rush?”

Jana cringed at the accusation in her mother’s tone. “Well, if you must know, Rob apparently arranged to leave three weeks ago when I went to Africa.”

“Why in the world would you go to Africa?”

Again, her mother’s tone made Jana want to slam down the phone and find another way to make her way in the world. “I went to Africa on a missions trip. We have a group of missionaries over there, and some of us went over to help. But that’s really immaterial right now. When I left, Rob resigned his position with the church.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

Jana clenched her teeth and drew a deep breath. Exhaling slowly, trying desperately to keep her temper under control, she replied, “We live in the parsonage. The place is provided for the acting pastor. Rob is no longer that person, so I have to move out.”

“But why now? Why so quickly?”

“Because,” Jana’s voice took on a harsh tone as she snapped, “the new pastor wants to move in on Saturday.”

“That hardly seems Christian. If those people care so much—are so holy—then why would they throw you out on the street like that?”

Jana knew her mother couldn’t possibly hope to understand. “They aren’t throwing me out. They thought I’d known about this for three weeks.”

“I would still think they could wait.”

Her mother, with her logical and well-ordered mind, had always run things the way she saw fit. No doubt she would even be able to teach Roberta Winsome a thing or two about organization. Unfortunately, the move had nothing to do with order or organization. Jana wished they could delay her departure as well, but she wasn’t about to agree with her mother on something.

“Like I said, I should see you on Saturday.”

“Well, if that’s the way it has to be, I suppose we’ll make do.”

Jana knew she shouldn’t take her mother’s indifference personally. Eleanor treated everyone the same way; her lack of sympathy wasn’t reserved for Jana alone. It just seemed Jana got the lion’s share.

Jana hung up the phone and sat in the stillness of her kitchen for several minutes. She’d always liked the cozy little room. There was hardly space to turn around—the parsonage wasn’t that big—but it suited Jana just right.

She looked at the pictures and knickknacks she’d used to decorate the room. It had a country-French feel with its porcelain rooster and hen, butter yellow walls, and antiqued wainscoting. She’d picked this look because it fit the older home and sparse furnishings.

A feeling of resentment rose up inside her. “Why should this be someone else’s kitchen? I worked hard on this.” She knew realistically, even when she and Rob had painted the walls, that it wasn’t hers to keep, but at the time it felt like it would be theirs forever.

Forever.

What a silly word. She and Rob had promised to love each other “forever.” Forever meant nothing to Rob and everything to Jana. Forever was the curse of time Jana would bear—raising a child without a father, sleeping alone each night. Forever was how long she’d waited for her mother’s love.

Having grown up without a father, Jana felt immediate sympathy and heartache for her unborn child. Eleanor had often told Jana that fathers were unpredictable and incapable of endurance and consistency. Yet Jana had known friends whose fathers were quite constant. And oh, how she’d envied them.

Her childhood friend Danielle had known a father’s love in such a vivid way. Every other Saturday, rain or shine, Danielle and her father spent the day together. They did all sorts of things, and Danielle would always come back excitedly chattering about the trips they’d taken, things they’d seen, food they’d tried. Even after Danielle’s twin brothers had been born, the father and daughter still made their Saturday pilgrimage.

It sounded heavenly to the fatherless Jana. Saturdays in her life had not been much different from any other day. Especially when she was living at the boarding school. There was no one to talk to about dreams and fears. No one with whom Jana could discuss school or boys or life.

During the week, Jana’s mother was up by six and off to work in the bookstore she owned. On weekends, Eleanor slept in until eight, then took herself off to chores and appointments. The bookstore, which specialized in used and rare books, was her mother’s life, and Jana had even accused her mother of loving the shop more than her daughter. It was an accusation Eleanor never bothered to deny.

Then later, when Jana was old enough to be helpful, her mother had bemoaned the difficulty of finding trustworthy staff for the bookstore. Jana had volunteered to work there, feeling that this would be a way she could connect with her mother. But Eleanor’s answer had been an emphatic no.

“That is my respite and domain,” Eleanor had told Jana. “I won’t have you there stealing away that bit of solace.”

Jana sighed, looking at the stack of dishes. She didn’t have a lot to show for two years of marriage. Frankly, she didn’t have a lot to show for a lifetime of living. There remained very few mementos from high school or college, and nothing, she believed, from her childhood. Eleanor had repeatedly told her that such trinkets were nothing more than baggage from the past to be carried around and dusted or stored. But Jana’s sense was that her mother had systematically erased her daughter’s existence. Jana was much like a blank slate, just waiting for someone to write on her—to tell her who she was, who she should be.

Rob had insisted that he knew who she should be. He constantly told her that he had seen the untapped potential in her, potential that he alone could utilize and bring to life. He’d shared the plan of salvation with her as if presenting an investment portfolio.

“This is what you need to make your life worth living,” he’d said as they sipped coffee together one night after church.

Jana hadn’t wanted to attend the college church gathering, but she’d allowed Rob to talk her into going. He’d met her on the college campus while scouting around for souls to save. Jana had thought him the most handsome man she’d ever seen. He was tall and lean with a mischievous smile that gave his face a boyish quality. His eyes captivated her the most. They were a lovely chocolate brown with thick black lashes. She’d teased him about having lashes that any woman would kill for. He’d laughed it off as being the only way he could keep the dust out of his eyes.

Rob was the first man Jana felt she could really talk to. He was also ten years her senior and, in ways, almost fatherly in his advice. Jana had shared her lonely childhood and miserable trek into adult life. She’d shared her mother’s indifference and critical nature.

“Usually,” Rob had said, “I find that critical people are the ones who are hurting the most. They use their attitude to cover up the pain so that no one can get too close.”

“But why wouldn’t they want people to be close?” Jana had asked.

Rob had looked at her as if she were missing some big mystery of the universe. “Because being close to people makes you vulnerable. And being vulnerable means you can get hurt.”

Jana looked around the kitchen again and nodded. “At least you spoke the truth on that one, Rob.”

It was late that night before Jana finished dragging the yard sale stuff to the front room. She had spared no feelings for nostalgia as she parted with framed replicas of artwork she and Rob had loved. She tried not to think about where she’d gotten the knickknacks she would sell for pennies on the dollar. It was all so unimportant anyway. With Rob gone, living his dream life, none of it mattered anymore.

If only there were time to sort through the situation and approach Rob about reconciliation. Jana had witnessed such breakups in marriages, only to find that in a week or two the lust and enthusiasm for the moment had worn off and the repentant spouse had returned home for a second chance.

“But would I give him a second chance?” It was a question Jana hadn’t explored. Mainly because deep in her heart, she had concluded that Rob would never ask for a second chance.

She sank to the couch, her hand falling naturally against her stomach. There was no external sign of the child that grew inside, but just touching that area made her think of the baby to come. Would Rob want to come home if he knew about the baby? Or like he’d done with his marriage, would Rob determine the baby didn’t matter to him?

“You’ll matter to me,” she whispered. “I won’t treat you as my mother treated me. I’ll want you no matter whether you’re a boy or a girl. I’ll love you whether you please me or fail me. I promise you: I won’t be my mother. I won’t leave you alone and frightened. I won’t tell you to get over it when you’re sad. And I won’t ever tell you that you had a horrible father who betrayed me and left me to raise a child all alone.”

She wiped a tear from her cheek and added, “Even though it’s the truth.”

Three

Jana had nearly finished putting price tags on the items crammed into her living room when the doorbell sounded. She startled, wondering who in the world could be calling. Her heart began to race. Maybe Rob had come home to apologize and tell her it was all just a horrible mistake.

She looked in the mirror that leaned against a stack of boxes and checked her appearance. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Her hair lacked any kind of luster or sheen because she hadn’t washed it since coming home from Africa. And her blue-and-white-striped shirt was hopelessly dirty from long hours of work. Jana shrugged and muttered, “It can’t be helped.”

She went to the door and opened it without looking out the peephole. If by some chance it happened to be Rob, she didn’t want to see him through a peephole. She wanted to face him—to make him face her.

Instead, Kelly Campanili stood on her doorstep, a small cooler in hand. Kelly was the wife of one of the elders. She smiled. “I knew you’d be swamped and probably not have time for cooking. I’ve brought you some small meals that you can just pop in the microwave.”

“I don’t have a microwave anymore,” Jana said with a shrug. “Rob took it.”

Kelly frowned. “Figures,” she said sympathetically. “Well, it doesn’t matter. We have an extra one at home. I’ll have Joey run it over when he gets home from work.”