Читать книгу Chin Up, Honey - Curtiss Matlock Ann - Страница 11

Together Again

The next morning, when Emma peeked out into the hallway, the television was silent and John Cole was snoring softly.

She hurried into the bathroom, where she washed and moisturized her face, gazed at her image for a few seconds, then applied more moisturizer under her eyes and a bit of blush to her cheeks. She gave thanks to her mother and grandmother for high cheekbones and good skin.

In the kitchen, the coffeemaker with its timer set last night already held a full pot. Emma got her mug from the cabinet.

John Cole’s mug was there, pushed a little to the back. Pulling it out, she held it in both hands for several long seconds. Then she sat it next to the coffeepot.

Smiling and humming a bit, she took her coffee through the shadowy living room to her workroom at the far end of the house, where she rolled open the Florida windows to the sweet morning air and watched the sun come up at the end of the long driveway. As she gazed at the sight, her mind traveled back over the years.

“Oh, John Cole, I love it!” she had said of the house the first time they had driven up the drive.

“Don’t get carried away until we see the inside.”

She knew that so many times her high emotion had embarrassed him. She would try to hold herself down. She had not succeeded too well on that particular day, as she went from room to room. “Look at this…oh, look at this.” Poor John Cole had stood helplessly, knowing that he did not have a chance of saying no.

Turning from the bittersweet memory, she switched on the lamp over the worktable and sat on the tall swivel stool. Neatly arranged at the right were various calligraphy pens, pencils, color and glitter markers and glue, and stacks of papers in a myriad of hues and textures.

After several minutes of sipping coffee and thinking, she chose crisp, white card stock, on which she drew a racing-red sports car. She added two stick figures holding hands, round faces with smiles, sunny-brown hair for the boy and long dark hair for the girl. Inside the card, she wrote in a fine script: Congratulations, sweet heart. I’m so happy for you.–Mom, who loves you. She added a decorative flourish, her bit of trademark.

She carefully set the card aside to let the ink dry before inserting it into an envelope.

Next she chose ivory linen paper. Gracie’s card would need a touch of elegance. First sketching in pencil, then filling in with colored pen, she drew a door decorated with a plaque that said Welcome, Gracie. She added a tiny, shiny, red-checked ribbon from her box of trims. Inside the card, at the top, she drew another plaque that said The Berrys. After staring at it for a long minute, she quickly drew berries on the plaque. And then bigger berries beneath, turning them into people. She was a blueberry, John Cole a strawberry, clusters of cranberries behind them. Did cranberries grow in clusters? Her mother, who technically wasn’t a Berry, was off to the side—a raspberry with bright purple hair.

Possibly Gracie would find Emma’s cards a rather poor effort at art. Perhaps she was one who preferred something elegant and store-bought.

“Good mornin’.”

“Oh!” She jumped and almost f lung aside the pen. “I didn’t hear you.” She felt silly.

“I’m sorry. I tried not to scare you. I knocked.”

“Oh…I was…you know.”

She swallowed as she watched him come fully into the room, in careful steps, as if still trying to ease in. Golden sunlight streaming through the windows made patterns over his face and body, causing her to realize that she had been lost in her work for some time. Her heart tumbled over itself with gladness at seeing him in their home once again.

And then she thought that, still, he was handsome. His eyes in the warm morning light were very blue, which never ceased to affect her. He seemed happy to be home. She averted her eyes to the paper in front of her.

“I see you got a fancy new coffeemaker.”

“Yes. It was on a great sale.”

John Cole was scanning the stacks of cards along the edge of the table, flipping through them. “You’ve been busy,” he said.

“Yes.” There had been so much time when she couldn’t sleep.

Reading the inside of one, he chuckled and held it up in an appreciative manner.

It was a card with a drawing on the front of a frazzled woman and a quote that read: Thanks for loving me just as I am. Inside it read: It took a whole lot of time and difficulty to get this way.

“It’s one of the most popular ones,” she said, feeling foolishly pleased. “I also draw it with a man, or a boy or a girl. Belinda’s sold all that she had for the drugstore, and now she’s putting them into a gift shop that she owns with another woman.”

Did he even recall that Belinda had taken some to sell at the drugstore? A thrill sliced through her with the telling—and satisfaction when his eyebrows rose in surprise.

“It’s not all that much money, really, but it’s nice to have people want them.” She suddenly felt very shy.

“I’m glad you’re doin’ so well with them. I told you when Belinda took some, that I’d be glad to put them in the Stops. You seemed like you didn’t want to do that. You said it would be too much work.”

“I guess I didn’t think they would sell. And I didn’t realize how easy it was to get them printed. It’s nice, too, that Belinda handles the business part. All I have to do is the creating then. I’m not so good at business things.”

He gazed at her, then sipped his coffee. “You were when you worked at Berry Corp.—good at business.”

She was surprised by his compliment and didn’t know what to say to it.

“You can tell Belinda to count the Stops as another outlet. It’s silly not to. You own the Stops, too, you know.”

“That’s true,” she said. “I just didn’t think of it, and I guess Belinda didn’t, either. She’ll be excited when I tell her. She has all these plans.” She was a little embarrassed by Belinda’s elaborate plans, to tell the truth.

John Cole told her the best location would be at the larger Berry Truck Stop and suggested places for display. He said he would alert the clerks. She simply nodded to everything, while drawing a birthday cake.

Quite suddenly, she was gazing straight into his blue eyes.

They broke the gaze at the same time.

John Cole said, “Well…I guess I’d better let you get to it…and I’d better get on to work. I’m already late.”

He went out the door, and she reached for her mug of coffee, finding it empty. She felt self-conscious about going into the kitchen. He might think she was finding an excuse to follow after him.

She felt like crying…silly, silly.

And then, suddenly, there he was in the doorway.

He said, “Would you have a minute to talk…about us?”

Emma managed to get out, “Well…yes. Of course,” and had to clear her voice in the middle of it.

Did he want to talk about a divorce?

Panic swept her. She didn’t think she could talk about divorce. She would just say she had to focus on the wedding. Dear God, keep me sensible.

John Cole came back into the room and straddled the chair, then sat there gazing downward. The little-boy-lost expression came over his face and shoulders. It was an expression with which Emma was thoroughly familiar, and not so impressed anymore.

In fact, he did this so long that she began to get annoyed. She wanted to say, Will you get to it, already? I have things to do, and I am not takin’ over your emotions on this thing.

Just when she was at her last nerve, he said, “I’ve had a lot of time to think the past few days.”

He paused, and something seemed required on her part. “I have, too,” she got out.

Another moment’s pause, and he said, “I’ve missed it here…. I’ve missed you, Emma.”

She was surprised by his direct and intense gaze. “I’ve missed you, too.” Her voice cracked.

“I know we’ve had some difficulty for a few years. I know I’ve been busy…and that you haven’t been happy.”

He paused yet again, but she had nothing to say.

He continued then, going on to say that he knew he kept getting too busy with his work, and that he just wasn’t too good at talking. As he went on in this manner, she began to get impatient again. It was all of a similar vein to what he had said in the past, whenever she had tried to motivate him to see they had problems in their marriage that needed to be addressed—namely that he needed to take part in the marriage.

The idea struck her, though, that his speaking voluntarily just now was taking part.

“I’ve really missed us, Emma.”

“I have, too.”

Silence stretched again, while they each sat there as if waiting to see what the other was going to say or do.

“I was thinking…”

“I’m glad you…”

They both stopped.

John Cole said, “You go ahead.”

“No, you go ahead.”

He shifted and gazed at her, and she had about decided he wasn’t going to say anything when he came out with, “I was thinking that…if you are willin’…maybe we could go see a marriage counselor.”

“What?”

“I thought we could go to a marriage counselor. I got this card from the bulletin board at the Stop.” He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and passed it over to her.

She looked from the card to John Cole, and then back to the card again. “You want to go to a marriage counselor?”

“Well, you said once that you wanted to do that. I think it would be good to try.”

She gazed at him.

“Okay, you said it a lot of times.” He got to his feet. “I wasn’t ready to do it before. I apologize for that. But…look, I’m ready to give it a chance, Emma. Are you?”

Well, of course, she had to say yes. Heaven help her, though, because she also had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

And somehow, during the course of it all, she ended up agreeing to be the one to make the appointment.

“New Hope Counseling. Catherine Owens speaking. May I help you?”

Owens? Emma checked the business card. New Hope Counseling Center, Theodore M. Owens, Ph.D. and Catherine Owens, Ph.D., LMFC. Individual, Marital and Family Counseling.

The therapist was answering the telephone?

“I would like to make an appointment, please,” Emma said. “But first, can you tell me something about the therapists?”

“Certainly. There are two of us—myself and my husband, Ted Owens. I am a licensed clinical psychologist, and licensed marriage and family counselor. I’ve been practicing for twenty-five years. Ted is a licensed clinical psychologist and has been practicing for thirty-four years.”

Emma felt at once reassured by their ages and a little put off. They might be worn out.

“We both counsel all manner of issues, but I generally handle women’s issues, and Ted handles anger management and all addictions. What sort of difficulty are you having?”

Emma said, “Uh–we would like marriage counseling. My husband and I.” She had the idle thought that maybe they needed anger management, too.

“All right. I would be glad to help you with that,” the woman said in a positive manner that Emma instantly appreciated.

The woman gave Emma several choices for appointments, and Emma chose Thursday afternoon the following week.

Later, when she told John Cole the time of the appointment and the name of the therapist, he said with a note of alarm, “Therapist? I thought we were seein’ a counselor.”

“We are. That’s what marriage counseling is. Therapy.”

“Oh. And it’s a woman?”

“Yes,” Emma answered.

After several seconds, he said, “Oh,” again and let it go at that, demonstrating that he was learning when to shut up.