Season of Blessing (23 page)

“Looks to me like you're a candidate for just about anything out there,” Sylvia said. “I just hate to see you doing it. Maybe you could find something you could do from your home.”

“I'd love that,” Brenda said, “but it wouldn't pay benefits. That's the main incentive. I have to have insurance.”

Sylvia stared into the air for a moment as if she was thinking, then ate another pretzel. “We need to pray about this,” she said finally. “God has something just right for you.”

“I'd appreciate those prayers,” Brenda said.

Cathy saw through Brenda's smile and knew it was a facade. Her friend didn't have much peace about this, but she was doing what she had to do. Cathy wished she could help her, but she had offered her money before, and Brenda had been insulted. She wished Mark were still home schooling with her so she'd at least have that income.

But it still wouldn't solve the problem of the insurance.

“I'll put some feelers out,” Cathy said. “Maybe I'll hear of something.”

“Me too,” Sylvia said.

Tory nodded. “I'll check at the school.”

“Don't worry,” Cathy said. “You'll be gainfully employed before you know it.”

“Maybe,” Brenda said. “But I don't think it's the best time to look for a job, right before Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

“In God's timing,” Sylvia said. “By the way, what are you all doing for Thanksgiving?”

Tory pulled some plastic keys out of her diaper bag and handed them to Hannah. “We're going to have dinner with Barry's mom and brother.”

Cathy shrugged. “I think we're going to stay home. It's getting kind of complicated. Mark can't decide whether to have it with us or with his dad, though Rick and Annie both want to stay home. And Steve's parents want us to come see them, but my kids don't really want to do that…”

“Nothing's easy with you guys, is it?” Tory asked.

“Nope. Never is.”

Cathy looked at Brenda. “What about you, Brenda?”

Brenda smiled. “We're having our traditional pilgrim dinner. The girls dress like pilgrims, and the boys are Indians, like the first Thanksgiving.”

Sylvia laughed. “You never stop teaching, do you, Brenda?”

“Oh, it's fun. Sylvia, why don't you and Harry join us?”

Sylvia shook her head. “Can't.”

“Why not? Are you going to Sarah's or Jeff's?”

Sylvia's smile was weak. “They're coming here, just for the day.”

Cathy's heart swelled, and she took Sylvia's frail hand. “If you need help with the meal, let us know,” she whispered.

“It's all under control,” Sylvia said. “It's going to be a good day.”

C
HAPTER

Forty-One

As Cathy walked
home from Sylvia's, she thought about what her friends had said about dying to herself and submitting to her husband. She was tired of the tension between Steve and her. Someone was going to have to break it, and she knew it had to be her.

When she got inside, Steve sat in the living room watching a ball game on television while he folded a load of towels. Steve rarely just sat back and relaxed. If he allowed himself the time to watch television, he always tried to accomplish something else while he did. Cathy was thankful for the help he gave her in running the household.

Tracy sat at the kitchen table behind him, trying to polish her nails. So far, she'd gotten more polish on her cuticles and fingers than she had on the nails themselves. Cathy touched Tracy's hair. “How's it going there?”

“Not too good,” Tracy said. “I think I'll have to take it all off and start over.”

“Why don't you let me do it for you?”

“Would you?” Tracy looked up hopefully at her.

Before Cathy pulled out the chair to sit down, she looked at her husband. They had talked some since their fight about the car, but she could still see the tension in his back and neck as he kept his eyes on the game.

She went over to him and pressed a kiss on the back of his neck. He glanced back at her and forced a smile. “Sylvia okay?”

“Yeah, all things considered.”

“Good.” He folded another towel, set it on the stack.

Cathy sat down and helped Tracy take the polish off, then slowly, painstakingly, began her manicure.

“You do a good job,” Tracy said quietly as she watched each stroke down her nail. “I don't know why I can't do it.”

“It's hard to do it to yourself,” Cathy said. “Sometimes a girl just needs someone to help her.”

“But my friends all do it themselves, and they don't look like freaks when they're finished.”

“Just takes a little practice.”

They both got quiet as Cathy finished up, blowing on them to dry them. “Now,” she said, “how's that?”

Tracy looked proudly at her nails. “Much better.”

Cathy propped her chin on her hand. “Time to get ready for bed.”

Tracy moaned. “But can't I watch TV awhile? I'm not tired.”

“Tracy, it's late.”

“But I'm twelve. I should be able to stay up.”

Cathy sighed. She needed to talk to Steve and couldn't do it with Tracy sitting here.

“Besides,” Tracy added, “it's Friday. I don't have school tomorrow.”

“But you said you were coming to work with me in the morning. You need to earn some money, remember? I don't want to have to scrape you off of the bed. So go on, kiddo. Hit the sack.”

“Okay. In a minute.” Tracy went around the couch and plopped down.

Cathy looked at Steve. He still watched the game and folded the towels, as if he hadn't heard the exchange at all. If he had, he certainly wasn't going to rebuke his daughter.

So she tried a different tact. “Steve, can I talk to you alone?”

“Sure.” He finished the towel he was working on, and handed Tracy the remote control. Taking the stack of towels, he headed for the bedroom. Cathy followed him.

“What is it?” He put the towels away, then sat down on the bed and started to take his shoes off.

Cathy stood, watching him. He didn't meet her eyes—she tried to remember if he had even once since their fight. “Steve, I was talking to Sylvia and the girls tonight about the car and everything…and I just realized that I've made a lot of marital mistakes lately. I should have waited and given you time about the car. I should have tried to compromise and maybe come to some kind of agreement with you. And I shouldn't have expected you to get over it with my belated apology.”

He put his shoes in the closet, then leaned against the door. “I accept your apology. Again.”

Could it be that easy, she wondered, or were his words only one of those lip-service things that wouldn't pan out in his behavior?

But then he crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. “I miss you when I'm mad at you,” he said.

All her tension and anger melted away. She laid her head against his chest. “I miss you, too. That bed is so big when we're mad. You're a good-feeling husband.”

He smiled. “You're a good-feeling wife.” He kissed her, then looked into her eyes. Really looked. That distant gaze was gone. “I hope you know I wasn't trying to make Mark's life hard for him.”

The truth was, she didn't know that. She released him and stepped back. “I think sometimes you do want things to be hard for him so he'll be tougher or have more character. I'm just not sure you're right.”

It was the wrong thing to say, and suddenly, Steve's soft look hardened. “Wait a minute. I thought you just apologized. What was it exactly that you were apologizing for?”

“For overriding you. For doing it when you didn't agree that I should.”

He nodded, like he just now understood. “Okay. So you're sorry you did that, but you still stand behind your reasons for doing it.”

“Not exactly.”

He breathed a laugh and shook his head. “Well, excuse me for being dense. It's just that an apology doesn't sound very heartfelt when it's followed with more argument.”

“I'm not arguing, Steve. I'm just asking if it could even be possible that I'm right for once?”

He narrowed his eyes and stared at her. “Did you think you were going to apologize, and that would lead me into saying, ‘No, no,
I'm
the one who's sorry. I should have jumped on board with the car, because you were absolutely right'? Is that what prompted the apology?”

“No. Of course I didn't expect that. And the apology was prompted because I don't want you mad at me.”

He sat back down on the bed and stared at his knees. “Good, because that's not going to happen. I still think that
you
were wrong. You think you have to make it up to Mark for the year he was in jail. But you're wrong when you start trying to spoil him and make things easy for him. He still needs structure and firmness. He needs to have to strive for things and know the satisfaction of achieving them. It's not good for him to just lie around the house when we've told him he needs to get a job.”

“He's looking, Steve. You know that. And he's studying.”

Cathy heard Nickelodeon blaring from the living room, and she stepped to the door and peered out into the living room. Tracy still hadn't turned off the television. Instead, she sat on the floor in front of it.

“Tracy, I told you to turn off the television and go to bed,” she called out, then turned around to Steve. “Why are you so tough on Mark but you let Tracy get away with murder?”

“Get away with murder?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”

“She's disobeying this very moment, and you haven't said a word about it.”

Steve sprang off of the bed and headed to the doorway. “Tracy, turn off the television now and get to your bed!” he yelled.

Cathy hadn't expected that. She watched Tracy turn around with startled eyes. “What did I do, Daddy?”

“You didn't mind Cathy. Now do what I said.”

She turned off the television and headed quickly up the hall.

When he turned around, he looked like the wind had been knocked out of him. “Are you happy?”

Cathy grunted. “See how it is? You hate disciplining her, but you don't mind being hard-nosed with my kids. I understand your points about Mark, but Tracy's disobedience goes right over your head. You treat my kids differently than yours.”

He started to protest, then caught himself and sank down on the bed. “It shouldn't be different,” he said. “I don't mean for it to be.”

“Well, it is, and it's normal. I do it, too. I'm soft with my kids, but less tolerant with Tracy. There's grace involved when you're parenting your own child. But there's more law between the stepparent and the child. God is a lot like our parent, and the law is like our stepparent. When we have the Holy Spirit it's pure grace, but when we're under the law, it's hard-nosed and objective…but without grace.”

He got quiet and tried to process that. “Grace versus law. That's an interesting perspective.”

Relieved, Cathy wondered where her words had come from. She'd never thought of the situation exactly in those terms before, and yet the words had spilled out of her mouth. But there was wisdom there, she thought. And it might be the key to learning how to make their stepfamily work.

“Think of it,” she said. “Think of it from Tracy's perspective. I told her to go to bed, and she didn't. You didn't see any reason why she couldn't stay up. So I get mad at you for not taking action…”

“I just didn't see any harm in letting her watch TV when it's Friday night.”

“And I didn't see the harm in buying Mark a nice car. It's grace, Steve. You give grace to Tracy, and I give grace to Mark. I'm not suggesting that you get tougher on Tracy. I'm just saying that if we could treat each other's kids with more grace and less law, we'd have a happier family.”

He looked down at his sock feet. “You may have a point.”

“I'm trying to learn, Steve.” Tears shone in her eyes, and she went to sit next to him. She slid her arm across his shoulder. “I'm really trying to understand about dying to myself and submitting to you. It just doesn't come easy, not for a woman who's been going it alone for so long.”

He reached for her hand at his shoulder, and laced his fingers through it. “It's okay. We're both still adjusting. We're going to make it. We've just got a few glitches to work out.”

“Do you think so?” she asked. “Are you sure we aren't going to be mad at each other for the rest of our lives?”

He smiled and looked at her. “I couldn't be if I tried. You're just too irresistible.”

Grace instead of law. It was the nature of their marriage, too.