Redemption(73)

Dan.

Dan helped me back to our pew after the babies had been christened. I’d missed the entire thing. Every word. Every sprinkle. There wasn’t a drop I’d remember other than seeing my late son’s gown on my best friend’s child. The gown he’d never worn. And the rosary. It had been used in the blessings of her children…there was no way I could ever ask for it back. Oh, Jesus. They were going to know. Everyone was going to find out.

Sweat broke out on my forehead and my palms. I jerked my hand out of Dan’s to wipe it on my skirt of my dress. He gave me an odd look of concern, clearly not understanding what was wrong. But if I uttered a word, my sin would be set free. The one I’d paid my debt for. Surely this couldn’t go on much longer. We’d been in here for what seemed liked days. I was suffocating in guilt, the weight of my secret nearly crushing me.

Dan leaned over so no one else could hear him. “Are you all right?”

I didn’t know how to respond. If I said yes, it was obviously a lie, and if I said no, I’d have to explain myself. Bile rose in my throat, and my stomach flopped like a fish out of water. The lump in my throat made swallowing hard, and I fought like hell against the tears threatening to flood my eyes. As a redhead with a fair complexion, it was difficult to conceal the visual signs of distress. My cheeks were heated, and I knew they burned a bright crimson color.

He grew more concerned by the minute. I kept swatting at the sweat trickling down the side of my face and rubbing my temples with my fingers, but it was too late to hide my wiping the tears from my ever-filling eyes. If I didn’t get myself together quickly, Dan would lift me from this seat and haul me out the door. During the closing prayer, that’s exactly what he did.

Dan didn’t wait for the service to end. The moment peoples’ eyes were closed, he took me in his arms. My forehead rested on his neck, and the vein there throbbed against my skin. He was worried, and I couldn’t do anything to stop his fears. Powerless to help myself, I knew I was about to lose it all. Annie, Brett, the kids. But most importantly, Dan.

There was no way I’d be able to talk myself out of this.

When I felt the fresh air against my skin, I knew he’d taken me out of the building to break down. He hadn’t wanted to cause a bigger scene with our friends…his friends. Their families were both there to witness my meltdown. I clung to Dan’s neck for dear life. As I jostled in his arms the ring on my finger twisted, and with it went my heart. I didn’t know where we were going or how far away he’d go, but the farther he went, the worse off it would be. Without witnesses, there’d be no restraint.

He finally stopped moving and sat with me in his lap. I was beyond reproach and hadn’t bothered to check out our surroundings. My tears came in droves, and I hiccupped through the pain. It was just a gown and some beads—to anyone other than me, they were insignificant. Dan had thought they were meant for someone else.

I tried to focus on his soft voice in my ear instead of the harsh thoughts running rampant in my cluttered mind. The more of his words I was able to take in, the more control I gained over my breathing until my heart rate slowed and the tears stopped. Dan waited patiently, stroking my hair and keeping me close to his chest. He hadn’t rushed me, and I knew he wouldn’t. It wasn’t his style, and this wasn’t my nature.

At the point I sat quietly in his lap, he broke the silence. “Can you tell me what happened in there?”

Words lodged in my throat, unwilling to bypass the lump that still held residence there. I shook my head instead of speaking.

“No, you can’t tell me or no, you don’t want to tell me?”

I nodded, but it was meaningless since he’d asked two questions.

“You don’t want to tell me?” He pulled back just slightly and lifted my chin. I closed my eyes to further refuse eye contact. It was childish, but I wasn’t ready to give him up. “Lissa, you can tell me anything. Nothing is going to make me love you any less.”

“How about stop loving me altogether?” Those six words were more like a croak than a sentence, but he’d understood each one.

“Do you think I don’t know there’s a reason you’re here, in South Carolina, alone? I haven’t pushed you for answers, but I hoped at some point you’d share them. I know you have a past, and from the looks of it, it scares the hell out of you.”

I burrowed back into him and nodded.

“I’m not going to force you to talk to me, Lissa. But whatever’s going on is going to eat at you…and I don’t want it to destroy us.”

I didn’t have the courage to face him, but I knew the words had to come out. “The porcelain box. In my closet.” There was too much time between my statements for him to realize the contents of that box were the reason for my meltdown.

“The gifts for Alissa and Grayson?”

“Yes. I mean no. That wasn’t the white box with their gifts in it.”

“I’m not following, Lissa. You told me to get the white box in your closet. It had baby things in it. I grabbed it. I didn’t know which one was for whom, so I put the rosary in the white box and the gown in a separate bag. Was that not what you wanted me to do?”

“That gown was my son’s. And those beads were given to me by the priest at his funeral.” The words rushed out faster than I could stop them. Broken, stuttered with hiccups, fragile words that held more weight than a tractor trailer.