Roger's Return Read online

  Casually she glanced around the neighborhood playground. As always there were other moms with their children, some kids on bikes, and a pair of older boys tossing a Frisbee. There was more activity than usual in the middle of the day because of spring break, but no one out of the ordinary. Still, the eerie chill persisted, racing up and down her back, seeking a place to settle. She attempted to shake off the feeling with the argument it was just her overactive imagination and the puzzling disappearance of her husband.

  Finally she couldn’t stand the oppressive weight any longer. The urgency to flee overwhelmed her, no matter how inexplicable it may be. “Come on, Sweetie.” She stopped the baby swing. “Time to go home.”

  “No! Go more.” He kicked his legs, keeping her from lifting him out.

  Lord, help me. RJ’s feet caught on every part of the swing imaginable, and his hands clamped the chains with an iron grip. Once his feet were untangled and his hands pried off, she scolded him; but his tantrum continued.

  “Me stay!”

  “No, you go.” She wrestled him into the umbrella stroller. He started to cry, loudly. The last thing she wanted was to draw extra attention to herself all the way home. Her nerves were already frayed.

  She dug into the diaper bag. “You want some crackers?”

  “No!”

  “Some raisins?”

  “No.”

  She dug deeper and came up with a solitary treasure. “I have a chocolate chip cookie.” She knelt in front of him.

  “Coo–kie.” His crying stopped, and he reached out for the offered treat.

  She ruffled his hair. “You’ve got your mommy right where you want her.”

  Chocolate from the cookie was smeared on his sweet little face. She tried to wipe it away, but instantly more replaced it. She squeezed his nose and kissed his forehead. She pushed toward home, across the grass and onto the path through a clump of maples and oaks. She paused at a fallen branch across the path and tossed it out of the way.

  “Jackie.”

  She froze at the familiar voice. Could she be hearing things? She turned slowly and stared into a face she knew so well. Was she dreaming?

  “Roger?” she asked faintly.

  “Hello, Jackie.”

  He’s alive! The excitement inside paralyzed her. She could only stare at him. Was he real? Is this really happening, Lord? More than two and a half years. If she moved, would the vision evaporate like fog in the sunlight? He looked so good, so much the same, yet different. There were tiny lines and a hardness around his steel gray eyes that hadn’t been there before. But he was alive! Thank You, Lord.

  Everything else faded. She saw only Roger. She felt herself sway, and he caught her. His strong arms enveloped her, and she leaned into him. “I can’t believe it’s really you.”

  He caressed her hair. “It’s me.”

  She pulled back from him. “You’re really okay.”

  “I’m fine.” He smiled. “Better, now that I’m with you.”

  A question started to form in her mind, but then she realized—her suffering was over. Life could return to normal. And after all this time she could give him his surprise. She had always felt guilty not telling him that night. She turned to the stroller. “This is your son, RJ.”

  RJ had cookie crumbs and chocolate around his mouth and down the front of his shirt. “Oh, RJ.” She reached into the diaper bag and pulled out a baby wipe.

  “More, Mama.”

  “I don’t have any more.” She reached for his face with the wipe.

  He craned his neck and head from side to side.

  “It’s okay,” Roger said, squatting in front of the stroller.

  She captured RJ’s face and in one practiced swoop removed most of the cookie from his face. He scrunched up his face and shook his head.

  Roger ruffled the boy’s hair. “Hey, Kiddo.”

  RJ furrowed his brow and stared at his father.

  She watched as Roger tried to get his son to respond to him. RJ only stared. He would warm up to his father in time. For now his father was only a face from pictures she had shown him. RJ was still young enough that when he grew up he wouldn’t even remember his father hadn’t been there for his first two years, except for the stories they would tell of Roger’s absence to—

  “Where were you?”

  Roger remained focused on RJ when he spoke. “Away.”

  Away? She waited. There had to be more. After a few moments of silence, she realized he wasn’t going to say anymore. “Away? What kind of answer is that?” She hadn’t waited and suffered for two and a half years for some stupid vague answer.

  “I can’t talk about it now.”

  “Can’t talk! You’ve got to be kidding! Then what are you doing here? I want to know what happened to you! The police found your cell phone. It had blood on it!”

  He held out his hands and shook his head. “I can’t.”

  This was too much to deal with now. She whirled around, pushing the stroller past him on the path. Suddenly all the strange things she had chosen to overlook—Roger’s job, the vague evasive answers, his odd hours—crashed in on her. She had learned it was easier not to ask certain types of questions, questions about his job. His answers would be veiled, or he’d say he couldn’t talk about it. The high-tech field was full of secrets, and its people were tight-lipped about saying much of anything. What was Roger’s job really? She supposed there had been red flags, but she had chosen to ignore them. Now they were slapping her in the face.

  “Jackie, please. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but I can’t tell you now. You are better off not knowing.”

  “Better off,” she said under her breath and turned on him. “If you can’t tell me anything, then what’s the point of this little reunion?” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Why don’t you just go? You’ve been dead to me for over two years anyway.” She made an about-face, thrusting the stroller ahead of her.

  Was she better off? What was Roger involved in that he felt he had to keep the truth from her? Did she really want to know? At least she didn’t think he’d lied to her. She did have that. But how far could she push before he felt he needed to lie to appease her?

  ❧

  He watched her retreat. What did you think, Villeroy—that she would jump into your arms and all would be forgiven? He had hoped. He wanted desperately to erase the last thirty-two months and hold her in his arms, never ever letting her go.

  It hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped. But what could he expect? He was just glad she hadn’t become hysterical. But then Jackie had never been the type. Always calm in the face of stress. After all she had been an ER nurse. Hysteria would never do there. But this was unlike any other stress she had faced, and he’d thought she might come a little more unglued. Her anger was justified, her pain still too fresh. He wished he had the words to soothe it. At least words he could tell her now. All he could tell her was to wait and to trust him.

  He needed to trust too—trust God to help him work everything out, then show him how to regain Jackie’s trust. He didn’t know which hurt worse, having his beloved Jackie despise him or his son, his own flesh and blood, not know him at all. But the Lord would sustain him through this too, as He had the past two and a half years.

  Jackie’s angry stride took her quickly away from him. Her long brown hair swished back and forth from its perch on her head. He followed at a distance, knowing where she was headed, her parents’ house.

  If he had known a baby was on the way, he would have done things so differently. That night was supposed to have put an end to his troubles so he could live a normal life with Jackie. Instead everything went terribly wrong, and he felt he had no choice but to run and hide to keep her safe. I’ll make it all up to you, Jackie, if you’ll let me. He hoped her love was strong enough to get through this. He had to believe she still loved him, at least a little. He would put Jackie and RJ in God’s hands and focus on what needed to be done.

  ❧

  J
ackie parked the stroller in her front yard. Her hands shook as she battled the strap that held her son. Finally she set him free and lifted him out, resting him on her left hip.

  Roger was back! Wasn’t that what she had prayed for? Or had she been hallucinating? No, it was no hallucination. Roger was real enough. She should have stayed back at the park. What if she had driven him away for good this time? But it was too sudden and too much to deal with in the middle of the park. Away?

  She jerked the diaper bag free, and the stroller tipped over. She left it in the grass and fumbled for her keys. They clinked on the cement step of the front porch, and she scooped them up. Tears kept her from focusing on the right key. It was next to her car key. That one was easy to find. The keys tumbled to the ground again.

  “Let me get that for you.”

  She gasped and stepped back.

  Roger picked up the ring of keys and deftly slipped the right key into the lock.

  “Why are you here? Why did you come back?” she asked, her voice a suffocated whisper.

  “I had to.” His words were tender and warm.

  “Why now? Why not before?”

  “I’ve come before.”

  “You were here and never got in touch with me? No word you were all right?”

  “I couldn’t, Jackie—believe me.”

  “Couldn’t?” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Couldn’t?”

  “Mama cwy.” RJ put a small sticky hand on each of Jackie’s cheeks and turned her face toward him. “Mama sad.”

  She gave him a weak smile and rubbed his arm. “Mommy’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry for startling you back there.” There was a faint tremor in his voice.

  She swung her gaze back to Roger and stared. Unsure what to think, she stepped inside, leaving the door ajar. She settled RJ in front of the TV and shoved Willie the Operatic Whale into the VCR.

  Roger remained on the other side of the threshold holding the folded stroller like a trophy. “I think you need a degree to fold one of these things.”

  She took the stroller and laid it on the floor by the couch. She didn’t know what to say. What to feel. She had tried for so long to feel nothing just to make it through each day, fearing she would lose control. She gazed at him. He looked the same in his black leather jacket and faded jeans. A spring breeze tousled his dark mane. He needed a trim. And a shave. This was just how he looked the first time she saw him in the ER, slightly unkempt.

  “May I come in?”

  She must have nodded, for he entered and closed the door behind him. She wanted to flee, to hide from the pain of his absence. At the same time, she wanted to run into his arms and let him soothe away the years. “Can I take your coat?”

  “No, I’m fine.” He snugged it closer.

  “You want something to drink? A glass of water? Something to eat?” She tried to keep her voice from shaking. Why did she suddenly feel so nervous? This was Roger, for pity’s sake—her husband. But she needed to do something, anything.

  “No, thank you.”

  She scooted past him and into the kitchen. What had he come for? What would he tell her? Was he here to tell her good-bye? It would be more than she had last time. She pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it at the sink, then held it out to him. “Sure?”

  He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  That makes only one of us. She raised the glass to her mouth, clanking it against her front tooth. She winced. He was fine. She took a drink. She hadn’t been fine since the day he’d left. She poured the rest of the water in the sink and set the glass on the counter. She folded her arms, then unfolded them and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her tan shorts.

  “You look good.” A soft curve touched his lips.

  “So do you.” She turned back to the sink and filled the glass with water again.

  Roger came up behind her and clasped her upper arms. “I’ve missed you.”

  She leaned back into him with a sigh. She had missed him too, desperately.

  He slipped his hands down and rested them on her stomach. “I wish I had been there when you were pregnant.”

  That flared an anger she hadn’t realized was brewing below the surface. She always wondered if Roger somehow knew she was pregnant and left because he wasn’t ready to be a father. She took a slow, deep breath and turned around to face him, his arms still encircling her. “Why weren’t you? And where have you been for two years, eight months, and two days?”

  He let his hands fall away from her. “Ah, Jackie, don’t do this.”

  “Don’t do this! Don’t do what? Don’t remember every agonizing moment you were gone, wondering what happened to you? Don’t remember my son’s father abandoned me in a restaurant on our first wedding anniversary without a word? Don’t remember the face of the man in the morgue the police hoped I could identify? Don’t remember I almost lost RJ? Don’t remember all the nights I cried myself to sleep?” She took a ragged breath, feeling her chin quiver. “What exactly is it you don’t want me to do? I’m finally picking up the pieces of my shattered life, and you show up and scatter them about.” She wanted to run away and cry, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of breaking down.

  Answers—she needed answers!

  “I’m sorry, Jackie. Truly I am—for everything.”

  “You’re sorry! Is that all you have to say? Where did you go that night? Where have you been? A person doesn’t just disappear for no reason. I deserve something more than ‘I’m sorry, Jackie!’ ”

  “You’re right—you do. But I can’t give it to you now.” He held out his hands, offering an apology. “For the love you once had for me, please trust that my absence was necessary.”

  Secrets and trust don’t mix. “Love? Is this one of those ‘if you love me, you’ll understand’ issues? Well, I don’t understand.” She leaned back against the counter and folded her arms tight across her chest. “Enlighten me!”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “You know I never would have left if I didn’t have to.”

  “No, I don’t know.” She didn’t know if she knew him at all—or ever had. “Do you have some other wife, some family, I’ll learn about on TV?” She threw the words at him like stones.

  “Don’t be absurd. I love you.”

  She clenched her teeth. “What an interesting way to show it.”

  “My leaving had nothing to do with you. Don’t you have any trust in me left?” His brow furrowed.

  “How can you ask me such a question—after what you’ve put me through?”

  He took a step forward, holding out his hands. “I need to know you can still believe in me. I want to make it up to you.”

  She wanted to take a step back but was already up against the counter, so she settled for shifting her position. “It’s not that easy.”

  “For our son then?”

  He had done it, pushed the right button. When he disappeared, she was confused and afraid. In the moments since he’d come back and had no answers for her, she’d become angry and hurt. The wound lay open, hemorrhaging. If she didn’t gain control, it would sap away her life. At the mention of their son, she felt a portion of her anger drain away.

  “I love you, Jackie.”

  She stared at him again, caught in a vortex where time had stopped. The past unchangeable. The future uncertain and full of mistakes waiting to be made. Which mistakes could she afford to make? Which could she avoid? Which would tear them apart? She wished someone would tell her the right thing to do. She stayed unmoved, not knowing what to do. They both stood silent, some invisible line separating them, with neither one willing to cross it. The singing whale crooned in the background.

  ❧

  “Mama, Mama!” RJ pushed between them, reaching for Jackie. “Up.”

  Roger stepped back reluctantly. It was a short-lived answer to his prayer to hold his wife again. Too short.

  Jackie scooped up RJ and held him close. “What’s wrong, Honey?”

  H
e snuggled up to her, a choke hold around her neck. Roger’s longing to hold RJ grew. Jackie caressed the boy’s dark hair, so much like his own. He wanted to touch it too.

  “It’s okay, Sweetheart. Mommy has you.”

  But not Daddy. He touched his son on the back, needing to make contact with his flesh and blood. “Hey, Kiddo.”

  RJ turned to him and pushed a hand against his chest. “No.”

  Jackie took an unsteady breath. “I think you should leave.”

  No, he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay forever. “May I take you to dinner tonight?”

  “I don’t think so.” Hurt and longing—fear—uncertainty swirled in her chocolate eyes.

  “We could talk.”

  “About what? The weather?” She shook her head in disgust. “I have to get ready for work.”

  “You still at the hospital?”

  She nodded. “A different one.”

  “You always hated the three-to-eleven shift.” Lame small talk to hang on to every second he could.

  “It works out best for the baby-sitting.” She caressed RJ’s back and kissed his fuzzy head.

  “I could watch RJ.” He had missed so much already.

  “Mom picks him up on her way home from work. That way he doesn’t have to be at the sitter’s long.”

  It was best if he stayed clear of his mother-in-law as long as possible. She had never approved of him; though civil, she’d always been cool. His leaden feet took him to the door. “I’ll come back tomorrow.” A promise he would keep if it killed him.

  He walked back down the street toward the park, relishing the memory of Jackie in his arms again. She had developed an inner strength at odds with her slender body. He was afraid she would need that strength before this was all over. There was a time when she never would have spoken crossly to him. He’d always sensed she feared losing him, that she didn’t realize he was wrapped securely around her little finger, then as well as now. She was the only woman for him. Had he lost her for good? His stomach knotted. Jackie had gone to the morgue thinking he was there. I’m so sorry for everything I put you through.