Page 32 of Between the Shady Groves
“I wasn’t rude. I just told him I thought he ought to open a gym rather than a used bookstore.”
“You are brilliant,” she said, meaning it entirely.
“Go ahead, say it again,” he said, grinning a bit.
“You don’t need me to tell you that you’re brilliant. You already know it.”
“I don’t feel that way right now. Not with my wife a thousand miles from where she’s supposed to be, where I want her. And she’s telling me that for a long time I haven’t been a very good husband. That definitely doesn’t make a man feel brilliant.”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t mean to make him feel bad. But how else was she supposed to get her point across?
And the answer came, which was basically what Skyler had said earlier, that she should have talked to him about it a long time before this.
“Some of this is my fault. I should have talked to you about it.”
“If you would have just told me?—”
“That’s just it. It’s like what we were talking about earlier, when you see a problem in your business. The problem doesn’t tell you what you need to do as a solution, you have to figure it out. That means you care enough to take the time to think about it, to see that there is a problem, and to work on fixing it. I wanted you to do that with me. That, to me, would say that you cared enough about me to see that there was a problem and figure out what you needed to do in order to fix it.”
“Yeah. I can see that.”
She took the plate off and washed it in the sink whilehe sat there. She dried it and put it away, along with his fork and glass. And then she scrubbed the skillet.
Finally, when she was done, he was still sitting there. She walked back over in front of him.
“You really don’t need to sit in your truck all night guarding the door. I promise, nothing is going to happen.”
“That’s not a promise you can keep. I’ll sit there.”
She pressed her lips closed, but she didn’t argue anymore, and as much as she wanted to, she did not offer to let him sleep inside. She…wasn’t sure quite why. They were getting along fine. They’d hardly ever argued or fought. She just didn’t know what he was going to do. Didn’t know if he thought that she was worth the effort to try to figure out. That was what she wanted. To be worth his effort.
But he needed to be worth hers. She needed to make the effort to see what he did as showing her that he loved her, and what if he never changed?
What if she was married to a man who would listen to her talk but wasn’t interested in changing, and he wasn’t going to do what she felt like she needed, although Skyler had had a good point about that too. If she needed it, God had promised to supply it, so if He hadn’t supplied it, she must not need it.
Still, would she be able to live with a man who wasn’t willing to change?
She hoped she would be. But if Cannon said that he was willing to change, and he wanted her to come back anyway… She’d have to think about that, but she was pretty sure that biblically, she was required to do it.
“Make sure you lock the door after I leave, okay?” Her husband stood at the door, his hand on the knob, looking over his shoulder at her. He wasn’t making a request exactly, but he wasn’t issuing a command, like he didn’t care whether or not she agreed. She appreciated the fact that he was making it clear that he wanted it done but wasn’t treating her like she was two.
“Okay,” she said. “Good night.”
He nodded, one lip pulling back, as he looked down. “Good night.” He opened the door and walked out, and she walked over immediatelyand locked it. Noting that he stood on the other side, watching until she did.
He mouthed “thank you” before he walked to his truck and got back in.
This time, he got in the passenger seat, which she imagined would probably be a little bit more comfortable.
She didn’t watch as he settled in, but instead, she pulled the blind down again and slowly walked back through the bakery, to the steps, and ascended into her apartment.
She felt like she was able to get some of the things that had bothered her out in the open. And she had done what Skyler had suggested, which was tell him instead of expecting him to figure it out.
There was still a part of her that really wanted him to work at having her, the same way she worked at trying to figure out what he wanted. Like if they were home, she would never have eaten spaghetti and garlic bread. She would have had meat with it. Because that’s what he wanted. She would never not set an alarm or not arm the security code because that’s what he wanted, even though she didn’t feel like it was necessary. And she would always lock the door, because she knew that’s what he wanted.
Maybe she should allow him to work as much as he wanted, because she knew that was what he wanted, but… Shouldn’t there be a line drawn when what he wanted directly interfered with putting his wife ahead of everything except for God?
She wasn’t quite sure the answer to that, and she was tired of thinking about it for one day.
