Home for Christmas (Willow Park #5) (10 page)

Daisy’s eyes were focused on Mark, who was standing outside
but visible through the window on the door.

“Nothing is wrong,” Sophie said, feeling a little defensive,
since Daisy seemed so committed to the idea that something was bothering him.

“I’m sure there’s not,” Daisy said with a smile. “I just
have a knack for helping couples find themselves again. They often end up here
at the inn or the farm. It’s some sort of gift from God, I think. But I’m
probably so used to it that I imagine it occasionally.”

Sophie sighed in relief at this explanation. “I’m sure that
must be it. We haven’t had it easy, but we’re doing…doing really well.” She
wasn’t sure why she’d said that to the other woman. Just that Daisy seemed to
trigger spontaneous admissions.

“I’m really glad to hear it. If later on, you decide you
need some time out or R&R, you all come on back here. Sometimes, a couple
just needs to get away for a while, in order to see things clearly. You know?”

“I’m sure we will,” Sophie replied, with a genuine smile.
Despite the presumption, it was impossible not to take Daisy’s words in the
goodwill with each they were offered. “Thank you.”

When Sophie got her bag of loot, she went outside to find
Mark. He’d moved away from the door, and she had to walk around before she
found him standing over near the lake.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, coming to stand
beside him and taking his hand.

“Yeah.”

She shot her eyes up to his face and saw to her surprise and
disappointment that he looked closed off. He hadn’t looked that way all day,
and only a few times since the Bible study earlier in the week.

What on earth could have happened to bring his guard up like
that?

“What’s wrong?” she asked, squeezing his hand.

He gently pulled out of her grip. “Nothing. What do you
mean?”

She stiffened her shoulders, feeling an automatic wash of
frustration that she tried very hard to suppress. “You know what I mean. You
were in a good mood earlier, and now something has happened.”

“Nothing has happened.”

She swallowed hard. “Well, something has happened. Did I do
something?”

“Of course, you didn’t do anything.”

“Then why are you all distant now, when you weren’t just a
few minutes ago.”

“I’m not distant. I’m perfectly normal. You’re imagining
things.”

“I am not imagining things. Do you think I don’t know you
well enough to tell? It’s fine if you’re upset or…or…”

“I’m not upset.” He sounded curt. Very curt.

She tried to hide how much it hurt her. “Well, something is
wrong. What did I do?”

He made a sound like a growl. “I just told you that you
didn’t do anything.”

“But I don’t believe you. If you don’t tell me what’s wrong,
then how can I know what I did? How can I fix it?”

“There’s nothing to fix. Would you just drop it?” He turned
on his heel and walked away from her, toward the car.

Sophie followed him, trying to get her emotions under
control. She’d been so happy just a few minutes ago. She’d thought the day was
perfect. Now it had fallen apart, and she had no idea why.

Daisy had been right after all. She’d sensed something in
Mark that Sophie had totally missed.

As she walked toward the car, where Mark was waiting behind
the steering wheel, Sophie saw Daisy and Harry standing together in the doorway
of the shop, watching them.

Daisy gave her a slight smile and a little wave.

Distractedly, Sophie waved back, hurrying up to join Mark in
the car.

He was sitting in the seat, staring in front of him, his
hands clenched on the steering wheel.

“Mark,” she said, her voice breaking as she was so upset by
his abrupt change in mood. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“I already told you—”

“I know you’re saying nothing is wrong, but you must know
that I can tell it’s a lie. I thought we were going to try to be real with each
other.”

He sat and breathed for a minute before he finally muttered,
“This is as real as I get.”

“No, it’s not. I know it’s not. We’re supposed to be
married. We’ve got to open up to each other as well as have sex. How I can help
you if you don’t open up to me? You never really open up to me.” The
realization that this was true—that he’d only opened up to her in the smallest
of ways since he’d return—hurt so much she almost started to cry.

She had to turn away and hide her face so she could regain
control.

“I told you I can’t. I’m not ready yet.”

She swallowed hard. “Okay. When will you be ready?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you will…you will be ready eventually?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Then he finally said, “I don’t
know.”

She turned away again to hide another, deeper wave of grief
and fear. “How can I help you, if I don’t know what’s hurting you. I just want
to help you. You understand that, don’t you?”

He made a strange, helpless sound in his throat and put the
car into drive. He hadn’t driven much at all since he’d come to Willow Park.
She had no idea why he’d decided to drive now.

Then she forgot everything else when he said, “You don’t get
it, do you? I don’t always want for you to help me. I don’t always want your
help.”

There was nothing she could say to that. If she said
anything at all, she would burst into tears, and she couldn’t bear to do that
to Mark.

He didn’t need a sobbing wife, on top of everything else.

She had no idea what it was he needed.

***

They didn’t talk on the way
back—just listened to the Christmas music Sophie had turned on.

When they got back to the apartment, Mark said he was going
out for a run, so Sophie changed clothes and got on the treadmill to power
walk.

She prayed the whole time she was on it, but she didn’t feel
any more peaceful when she got off.

It was hard to trust God to save a marriage that felt like
it no longer had a real foundation.

Mark was back to his casual friendliness when he
returned—the way he’d acted when he’d first shown up in Willow Park, the façade
that was hiding whatever he was really feeling. Sophie was too scared to ask
him what was wrong again. Even the distant friendliness was better than his
anger and cutting words.

Maybe she’d been pushing him too hard, trying to do as he
asked and help him be his old self again. Maybe she needed to take a step back
and let him try to deal with things on his own.

It didn’t feel right to her, but what did she know? She’d
never been through anything like he’d gone through.

She’d learned all about PTSD in her sessions during the
first week after his return, and she kept watching for the signs like a hawk.
His distant attitude and mood changes might fit to a certain extent, but
nothing else really did. It didn’t really feel like he was working through a
trauma. She would have been more than happy to help him through anything. He
didn’t feel like he needed her much at all, though. Sometimes it felt more like
he was putting up with her.

So they made small talk over supper, and then they watched
television in bed.

Mark didn’t try to make a move on her, and she didn’t make
any advances herself. So they didn’t make love at all that day.

She missed it. Not because she needed an orgasm, but because
sex had been the only time she’d really felt close to Mark since he’d returned,
other than the morning chats.

If she didn’t have that, then maybe she didn’t have him at
all.

The next morning, Sophie woke up at
just after five, and she rolled over toward Mark.

She waited for him to reach out and hold her, the way he
always did. When he didn’t, she shifted a little, hoping to wake him up enough
for him to pull her into his arms.

He muttered under his breath, but he didn’t wrap an arm
around her the way he normally did.

The loss felt like a wound. It almost choked her.

Something had happened yesterday—something she didn’t
understand—and it had evidently taken away the small ways she’d felt close to
Mark, leaving nothing left.

She waited for a couple of minutes, but when he didn’t reach
out to hold her, she rolled away from him again. Since she was too emotional,
she rolled all the way out of bed and hurried to the shower.

She prayed and gave herself a pep talk in the shower, and
she was feeling better when she came out to the bedroom to get dressed. Mark’s
eyes were open, and she knew he was watching her as she pulled on her corduroy
pants and sweater.

“You’re up early,” he said, after a few minutes.

“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.” She gave him a bright smile. “I’m
going to make pancakes for breakfast, if you want any.”

He blinked, and she had no idea what he was thinking. “Sure.
Thanks.”

She was taking the first pancakes off the griddle when he
came into the kitchen, wearing a sweatshirt with his pajama pants. “Here you
go,” she said cheerfully, setting the plate on the bar for him.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat at the stool. He
looked rumpled and sleepy and still kind of distant, like his real self was
very far away.

Telling herself that things would only get better when he
felt more like his old self, she asked, “Have you talked to Roger about jobs
yet?”

He frowned over a bite of pancake. “You know I have.”

“I meant recently.”

“Oh. No. That one in New York is the only thing they’ve got
going right now.”

“I guess that would be okay.” She didn’t want to move to New
York—not at all—but she wasn’t about to complain about anything that would do
him good. “I guess maybe you’re ready to get back into things.”

“I don’t know.” He gave her a close look. “Is there some
hurry?”

“Of course not! You can’t do anything until after New Year’s
anyway. I was just wondering.” She felt bad, like she’d made some sort of
mistake she didn’t understand. She could understand if thoughts of his old job
were still raw—of course they would be—but they had to eventually talk about
the future.

Didn’t they?

“I’ll get back to work as soon as I can,” he muttered,
staring down at her plate.

“There’s no hurry,” she said quickly. “Take all the time you
need. I can work at the bookstore for as long as you need me to.”

She’d hoped that would be comforting, take some of the
pressure off, but it didn’t appear to be so. He finished his pancakes without
speaking and silently got off the stool and went back to the bedroom.

***

“So how are you feeling?” Sophie
asked, looking across the table at Abigail. They’d come to one of the few
restaurants in Willow Park, a little “home cooking” place two blocks down from
the bookstore, and the server had shown them to three different tables before
they’d found one where Abigail could fit comfortably.

“I feel awful,” Abigail admitted. “Like I’m ready to yank
this baby out of me. I don’t remember being so incredibly uncomfortable with
Mia.”

Sophie smiled sympathetically. “Maybe you just blocked it
out.”

“Yeah. Actually, I probably was too distracted to think much
about it. I was so stressed out about Thomas back then.”

Sophie knew Abigail and Thomas had had a lot of marital
problems, but she had never heard the whole history. “What were you stressed
about?”

“Oh, everything. That he didn’t really love me, that he
didn’t want to have Mia.”

“Why wouldn’t he want to have Mia?”

“She was a surprise, and I was sure he would be upset about
the disruption of his plans. He was planning to have a big career back then
and…” Abigail sighed. “It seems silly now, since I know how much he loves
us—both me and Mia—but I was constantly stressed out about it then.”

Sophie might not have been in that exact situation, but she
knew precisely how that particular brand of stress felt. For the last seven
weeks, ever since Mark had returned to the States, she’d been in the same state
of stress, constantly worrying, constantly angsting, constantly wondering if
she was doing everything wrong.

After the initial progress they’d made, they seemed to have
gone in the wrong direction in the past week. They’d only had sex twice—both
times Sophie had initiated it—and Mark didn’t want to talk about anything
serious. She hadn’t pushed him—mostly because she was terrified of pushing him
so hard that he’d break.

She’d been happy with small steps forward, but going
backwards was very discouraging—and she just didn’t know how to change it.

“What did you do?” Sophie asked, wishing desperately that
she was as happy and comfortable in her relationship as Abigail was.

“I didn’t do anything,” Abigail admitted. “I mean, I tried.
I really tried. We even went to counseling. But I was so caught up in not being
who I’d been before that I couldn’t see that Thomas wasn’t either. We’d both
changed—and we’d both changed for the better—but I couldn’t really see how he’d
changed, and he couldn’t really hear what I kept trying to say, and so we ended
up getting nowhere. I don’t know if we would ever have figured it out if I
hadn’t had that car accident. I think being helpless and having to depend on
him changed my perspective. Do you remember that? That’s right around the time
that we met earlier this year.

“Yes. I remember. But even then, it was clear that Thomas is
so crazy in love with you he could barely keep his head on. Even I could see
it.”

Abigail gave her a wry look. “Thanks a lot. I’ll admit to
being blind, but I had our whole history together that was blurring my vision.”
She looked at Sophie thoughtfully. “Maybe you can kind of understand that.”

“What do you mean?” The server came then with their drinks,
and they ordered their salads and fried chicken. Then, when they were alone
again, Sophie asked, “What did you mean by me understanding?”

“I just mean you must always be comparing the way you and
Mark acted before with the way you’re acting now. It’s got to be…I don’t
know…distracting. Maybe it would get in the way of seeing what’s happening
between you right now.”

Sophie stared at Abigail, wondering if she was right, if
that was what she was doing, if that was part of the problem.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Abigail said hurriedly, as if she was
afraid she’d said too much. “I know my own experiences are nothing like yours.”

“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “Maybe you’re right. I do keep
comparing how Mark is now with the way he used to be. And it’s always so
upsetting, since I was so sure of him before. I always knew what he was
thinking. I was absolutely sure that he loved me. And now…now I have no idea.”

“I guess it’s impossible not to do that comparison.”

“Yeah. Maybe. But still. He told me he wants to get back to
who he used to be and our marriage back to what it was. We have made some
progress, but it’s not…it’s not steady.”

“Tell me if I don’t know what I’m talking about, but maybe
you need to work on what your marriage is now, rather than what it used to be.”

Sophie frowned. “That’s what we’ve been doing.”

“Is it? Aren’t you trying to turn it back into what it was?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. But it was good before. I want it to
be good again. We both do.”

“Maybe good can look different. Maybe what it is now can
still be good.”

Sophie sighed and leaned her head against her hand, propped
up on the table. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure you’re right, but I’m not sure
how to make that happen. Maybe I have to…I don’t know…get to know him again.”

“That’s what I had to do with Thomas. That’s really how it
happened between us. We even started dating again. It felt kind of like the
first time—only a lot better.” Abigail grinned, as if she was remembering.

Sophie sighed, wishing desperately that she could get to the
point where she had the same expression about Mark, where she was so sure of
him, so happy at just the thought of him. Not that Abigail and Thomas had a perfect
marriage. They still argued sometimes, and sometimes Abigail looked like she
wanted to shake him, although she never said anything critical about him to
Sophie. But still…the good obviously far outweighed the bad in their marriage.

That was what Sophie wanted too.

“You and Mark are doing well, though, aren’t you?” Abigail
asked, sipping her ice tea and studying Sophie discreetly.

Sophie gave a little shrug. “Sure. I guess we are.”

“That doesn’t sound very confident.”

“Maybe we’ve…we’ve kind of gone downhill over the last
week.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t even know. We were having a really good day,
getting our Christmas tree on Saturday, and then…” She swallowed. “I don’t know
what happened. He closed up, and I tried to figure out why, and we argued, and
now we’re just going through the motions.”

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as that. You’re going to have ups
and downs, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. But it doesn’t seem to be going up again. And I don’t
know what to do. Every time I try to get close to him, I seem to just make it
worse.”

Abigail was studying her place setting thoughtfully. “What
does it look like to you? Being close to him, I mean.”

“I don’t know. Just that we really talk to each other, we
really understand each other, we really enjoy being together. We used to be
that way. We were always that way.”

“And you don’t think you’re just remembering the past as
more perfect than it actually was?”

Sophie frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe a
little. But I know something’s not right between us. It’s like we’re…we’re not
in sync.”

“And you’re really listening to him? Trying to hear what
he’s saying?”

“That’s the thing. He’s not saying anything.”

“I guess that’s natural, in his situation.”

“Yeah. I’m sure it is. But it doesn’t make it any easier to
know what to do. If he won’t even tell me...” She broke off the words, shaking
her head. “I’m not blaming him. I’m really not. I’m not bad-mouthing him or
anything.”

“I know you’re not. Of course, you’re not.”

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do either. I’d suggest some counseling
or something, but I know he’s not interested in that right now.”

“I don’t know why not,” Sophie murmured, desperately wishing
that he would be willing to do that, since it seemed like a much easier way for
them to really talk and hear each other. “I keep trying to be strong, so I can
be everything he needs, but I’ve never been very strong. That’s just not who I
am.”

“Of course, you’re strong.” Abigail looked genuinely
surprised. “I can’t imagine being as strong as you’ve been for the last few
years. But maybe this isn’t about being strong at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t really know. I was just thinking that maybe,
instead of being strong, it’s really just about loving him.”

“I do love him.”

“I know you do.”

Sophie felt either nerves or excitement rising in her
throat. “He has to know I love him.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Do you think he knows that I love who he is now?”

Abigail gave a little shrug. “You tell me.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

The server came then with their salads, and Sophie stared
down at her plate. “He has to know. I’ll make sure he knows.”

“Good. That sounds like a good plan to me.”

As Sophie started on her salad, she made up her mind to
focus on loving Mark—who he was now—and not about worrying about anything else.

***

When she got home from the bookstore
that evening, Mark was reading a book.

He came with her to work on some days, but he hadn’t today.

He was stretched out on the bed, and he looked up as she
came into the room to change clothes. He smiled at her and asked her how her
day was. When she said it was good, he smiled again and turned back to his
book.

She bit back her first instinct, which was to demand he put
the book down and talk to her, since she hadn’t seen him all day and he’d just
been lying around.

Instead, she pulled out a stretchy T-shirt and yoga pants,
and took off the skirt and sweater she’d worn to work. As she was picking up
her T-shirt, she happened to glance over to the bed and saw that Mark’s eyes
were on her half-naked body.

She couldn’t help but feel a flush of pleasure. He might not
want to touch her, but at least he still liked the looks of her.

When she’d changed clothes and hung up her work clothes, she
went over to climb onto the bed beside him.

He glanced over at her questioningly.

She smiled. “Is it a good book?”

“Eh.” He closed the book and dropped it on the bed. “Just
killing time.”

“Do you want to do something?”

“I don’t know. What are you in the mood for?”

“I’m kind of hungry.”

“Me too.”

She couldn’t help but smile at the profound nature of their
conversation. It might not be deep, but at least it felt real—realer than
anything they’d talked about for the last week. “I guess the best idea would be
for us to fix dinner.”

He chuckled. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

They went into the kitchen and started to put together pasta
with chicken and fresh herbs. Mark found a bottle of white wine and poured some
of it into the sauce and then filled up two glasses.