What She Left for Me Read online

  Forever.

  There was that word again. Jana picked up a picture of the bride and groom and tore it in half. “There! That’s forever too.”

  She lost track of time as she destroyed one picture after another, her good sense and reasoning temporarily leaving her. Jana gave no thought to whether her unborn child would one day want to see the photos of his or her parents.

  It was only at the sound of another knock at the front door that Jana halted her tirade. She looked at the mess around her and knew she could never allow anyone to see what she’d done.

  “Oh no,” she muttered, gathering the ragged pieces together. She shoved them all back into the box and threw the album on top before hurrying to answer the door.

  Jason Broadbent wasn’t a handsome man. His rather homely appearance and quiet demeanor often put people off—or so it seemed to Jana. But one look in his eyes and Jana knew that he was possibly the only other person in the world who felt as awful as she did.

  “Jason.” She murmured his name with an emotion she couldn’t even begin to describe.

  “Jana, I know this probably is uncomfortable for you, but I heard you were leaving tomorrow and I . . . well . . . given the situation . . .”

  She stepped back. “Come in.” In a heartbeat, she felt the only genuine connection to another human being that she’d known in days. Jason had been hurt by the same thing. He knew exactly what she was going through . . . with the exception of being pregnant, of course.

  She pointed to the sofa. “Have a seat. I can’t offer anything in the way of refreshments. I’ve gotten rid of most everything.”

  “I didn’t come for that.” The stocky man lumbered over to the couch and waited until Jana took a seat opposite him before seating himself. “I just figured to talk about what’s happened.”

  “Did you know this was coming?” she blurted out.

  He shrugged. “I knew Kerry wasn’t happy. I even thought she was having an affair, but I figured once she got it out of her system, she’d settle back down. I guess I never thought she’d up and do something like this.”

  “Why was she unhappy?” Jana knew it was a personal question, but she felt desperate to understand the situation.

  Again he shrugged as though it were some great mystery. “I don’t really understand. She tried to tell me, but it never made sense.”

  “What did she say, Jason? Maybe I can help you sort through this and you can do the same for me.”

  He fidgeted a bit. “Well, she told me I was never there. But, Jana, I swear I was. I never went anywhere.”

  She nodded. “Maybe she meant emotionally you were never there.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I provided the woman with everything she needed—house, food, all the clothes she wanted. She could spend a lot of money on clothes and things, but I never complained.”

  “But maybe she was lonely. Maybe she wanted you to just talk with her . . . for companionship. Did you take her places? Do things with her?”

  “Sometimes. It never seemed to be enough, though. She’d get all mad and argue with me about how we never went anywhere, so I’d tell her to plan us an evening and I’d go. I even went to Seattle to see some ballet performance.”

  Jana lowered her head and fought a smile. No doubt Jason thought that was the supreme sacrifice. “Jason, you probably did everything you had in you to do. Some people are just never happy.”

  “I think a lot of it was because I was so much older.”

  Jana looked up and nodded. “Rob was ten years older than me. I wondered if my youth and inexperience was part of the problem for him. I remember one time he tried to tell me something about Ronald Reagan. I was only a little girl during the Reagan administration and didn’t remember anything about it. He was really upset with me. He said even if I was a child, I should have known about whatever it was he was talking about.” She eased back into the chair and gave her own sigh. “I guess there were a lot of things I should have known.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Jason replied. “I can’t see any of this being your fault. Rob knew the age difference when he married you. The same as I knew when I married Kerry. I didn’t figure the years would matter much if we loved each other.”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  His expression betrayed the fact that he did. “I went looking for her. I wanted to talk to her face-to-face about this. I found them in Seattle, but I couldn’t go to her. I just didn’t have the words. So I turned around and came back home.”

  Rob had always loved Seattle. He’d been hoping for a church there when the call had come that he had the church in Spokane. “That figures. Rob talked of moving to Seattle. Of course, he talked about a lot of things . . . most of them lies.”

  “Jana, I’m so sorry about all of this. Like I said, I figure if I’d been a better husband—if I’d showed Kerry more of the attention she needed—none of this would be happening now.”

  Her chest tightened and her breathing felt strained. “But it has happened and there’s obviously nothing we can do about it. My divorce papers came just a short time ago. Rob means for this to be a done deal.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” the older man asked.

  Something in Jana broke. “Okay? Am I going to be okay with the fact that my husband ran off with his secretary?” Her voice raised in volume. “Okay? What a stupid word.”

  “I’m sorry, Jana. I didn’t mean it like that.” He shook his head. “This is all my fault.”

  She waved him off. “No, Jason. It’s not your fault, no matter how much you blame yourself. But I have no energy to try to convince you of that. This is Rob and Kerry’s fault. They’re the ones who have to answer for this. They’re the ones who planned this out.

  “I’m not okay with any part of it. I’m not okay with the fact that Rob took all of my savings and cleared the house of everything of value. I’m not okay that he planned this all behind my back while I thought we had a strong enough marriage to plan a family.”

  “A family?” he asked, his voice breaking slightly. “Does that mean . . .”

  “Yes. I’m pregnant.” Jana looked at him as though challenging him on the matter. “I didn’t even find out until I was in Africa. They thought I had food poisoning or had ingested some bad water. But instead, I found out I was going to have a baby.”

  “And Rob left anyway?” Jason sounded as though the very idea was completely unreasonable to him.

  She got up and began pacing. “Rob never knew about the baby. I never had a chance to tell him. I wanted to share the news in person, but as you already know, he was long gone by the time I got home.”

  Jason buried his face in his hands and shook his head for several moments. Jana was unable to control her outrage. “I had no idea Rob was having an affair. Kerry was always kind to me—she gave me presents. I sold them all in the yard sale yesterday.” She wasn’t sure why she’d added the latter. It could only hurt Jason, and he wasn’t the one she wanted to hurt.

  “I have nothing, Jason. Nothing at all.” He looked up, and Jana could see there were tears in his eyes. She stopped in midstep. “I have my car, probably only because Rob couldn’t drive two of them at the same time. I have my clothes and what money I made at the sale yesterday, but that’s all there is. Rob took everything. He took my trust and my dreams. He took my savings and my property. He even stole my great-aunt’s jewelry—a gift to me.” She collapsed on the chair, her rage nearly spent. “I would have been better off if Rob had died. At least then I’d have my savings and his life insurance.”

  Jason got to his feet. He pulled out his wallet and dumped the contents on the coffee table. “There’s not much here. Maybe a couple hundred. I want you to have it.”

  “No, I’m not your responsibility,” Jana said, leaning forward. She pushed the money back toward him.

  “I want you to have it. Business has been bad lately, but I’ll sell some equipment and get you some more money.”

 
“No, Jason!” She stood and looked him in the eye. “You don’t need to take care of me. You didn’t cause this to happen. You’ve been just as wronged.”

  “It doesn’t matter for me. I’ve got my business and my house. You don’t have either one. I’ve raised my kids; you’re just starting a family. It may not be my responsibility, but I intend to see to it that you get some of the money you need. Give me the address of the place you’re heading.”

  Jana forced herself to calm down. “I’m going to live with my mom and great-aunt in Montana, but I won’t give you the address. Jason, you can’t worry about me. I’m sorry for my outburst. But when you asked if I’d be okay, something snapped.” She was quiet a moment. “I don’t feel like I’ll ever be okay again, but I cannot make that your burden.”

  He put his wallet back in his pocket and headed for the door. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She scooped up the money and went after the man. “Please take your money back.”

  He turned and shook his head. “I won’t do that. Do with it what you will, but I won’t take it back.” With that he left, shoulders slumped forward, steps almost uncertain. He got to the door of his truck and looked back at her. He didn’t wave or say another word—he just looked at her as though trying to figure it all out for himself.

  Jana suddenly felt very self-conscious. She couldn’t understand how she could have lost control. Jason didn’t deserve her tirade, and she certainly hadn’t expected his money.

  She waited until he drove away before going back into the house, then wandered into the kitchen, the money still in her hands. She threw the wad down on top of the counter, spotting the envelope that she’d sent to the floor earlier.

  Jana stepped across the room and picked up the packet. Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to open it. She pulled out the papers and read the cover letter title.

  Divorce: McGuire vs. McGuire

  “But I don’t want to be a part of this,” she said sadly. “I’ve never wanted this . . . never asked for this.” She stuffed the papers back into the envelope and put them on top of the money. Nothing made sense anymore. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and pull the covers up over her head and hope that it would all go away. But Jana knew it wouldn’t. The only thing that had gone away was Rob. And with each passing day, it was clear he wasn’t coming back.

  Five

  Jana spent her last night in the parsonage amidst furniture that would soon belong to someone else. She wandered from room to room, gazing at the cold, sterile spaces with a surprising rush of emotion. She had come to this house with such high hopes, such plans for the future. How could that all be gone now?

  “I trusted Rob and God,” she said, fingering the living room drapes. She’d pored over catalogs, then gone to church to show Rob the pictures of what she’d selected to make sure he liked the color. He’d told her that she had excellent taste. She wondered if the new pastor would feel the same way.

  Jana looked back at the living room. She’d piled her things against the wall by the door. Six boxes of clothes and other items she couldn’t bring herself to part with. That was all. That was her entire life.

  Her childhood dreams and adolescent plans were overwhelmed by the reality of adult sorrows. Why had this happened? It was the question that refused to leave her. Had her love for Rob been false? Was it not the thing she thought it to be?

  “No, I loved him. I loved him with my whole heart,” she muttered. “I saw him as saving me from a life where no one loved me. Not my mother, not my father.” She sighed. “Especially not my father.”

  Jana had never even known her father. He had divorced her mother when Jana had been an infant. “He wanted a son—we both wanted a son” was the only explanation her mother ever offered.

  Jana couldn’t understand why the man had been so heartless when a daughter had been born instead. She could understand disappointment, but not desertion. And to make matters worse, her mother would never talk about him. Jana had often longed to hear a story about how her mother had fallen in love. She had begged for tales about the engagement and wedding. Was it love at first sight? Had they known each other long? But her mother would share nothing.

  “The past can only hurt you,” her mother declared, “if you dwell on it.”

  But those words hadn’t prepared Jana to deal with the present. The past hadn’t been dwelt on or even discussed, but it still hurt. All of her life, Jana had wondered why she hadn’t been worthy of her father’s love. She never knew his name—her mother had kept her maiden name as was so popular with the women of the time—and for some reason beyond Jana’s understanding, the hospital had allowed her mother to leave the father’s name off of the birth certificate.

  Jana remembered drilling her mother about that issue when she’d obtained a copy of her birth certificate for her driver’s license.

  “Why isn’t my father’s name on this?” she’d asked.

  “He didn’t want to be a part of your life, so I saw no reason to list him.”

  “But he is a part of my life,” Jana protested. “He helped to create me. He can’t just not be a part of who I am.”

  “Your father had nothing to do with any part of your life,” her mother replied bitterly. “His money may have seen you placed in good schools, may have bought me a decent business to run—but he had nothing to do with you. He didn’t want you, and if I’d been sensible, I would have gotten an abortion.”

  Her mother’s words—in their cold, no-nonsense manner—crushed Jana. She felt haunted by them, and it wasn’t until she met Rob that Jana felt she could begin to heal. Rob helped her see that the past couldn’t be changed, but the future could be completely altered. Jana saw hope in that.

  “A lot of good it did me,” she said, going to her bedroom.

  Like the other rooms, this one had been reduced to nothing more than a generic setting. A bed and dresser were all that suggested its purpose; tomorrow morning even those things would be taken away. The room would be stripped of the last remnants of the McGuires.

  Jana slipped out of her clothes and then pulled on an old T-shirt and crawled into bed. She reached across to where Rob used to be, an old habit she hadn’t yet found a way to break. She stroked the pillow, thinking of the times they’d stay up late talking. Rob had always fascinated her with the things he knew. It had been part of the reason she’d been attracted to him in the first place. That and his loving nature, his sympathetic heart, his devotion. When he’d asked Jana to marry him, she had jumped at the chance.

  “But it was all lies. His love was a lie. He didn’t love me. He couldn’t have loved me and walked away with another woman.”

  And if Rob’s love was a lie, then maybe God’s love was a lie as well.

  Jana stared blankly in the darkness. A sliver of light slipped in through the side of the blinds, making eerie shadows on the ceiling and walls. She wanted to pray, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, the fear that maybe God wasn’t at all who she thought Him to be haunted her every thought.

  Surely if God was really the loving Father Jana believed, He would have protected her from this horror that had become her life. And if God loved her, as Rob had always assured her, why would He allow her to be hurt like this? Jana thought of the baby in her womb.

  “I’d never let my child hurt like this. If I had the power that God has, I would never allow anything bad to happen to my children.”

  So that made God indifferent, at least in Jana’s mind. It made Him no different than her mother.

  It was a terrifying conclusion for Jana. How could she have been so duped? How could both Rob and God have so completely fooled her?

  “I used to think I was fairly smart,” she said with a sigh. “I thought because of my upbringing that I would be cautious . . . I thought I understood so much more than I do.” She pounded her fists into Rob’s pillow as though the action could somehow relieve her misery.

  “I don’t understand any of this! Why is this happ
ening?”

  ****

  Those questions were still on Jana’s mind as she loaded her car the next day. Keith Ribley, the man who’d bought her furniture, had come with a large truck and the help of three other men. To Jana’s surprise, she learned that the man was the father of one of the church members. It became increasingly clear that her church family had come to the sale and bought up most everything solely to help Jana on her way.

  For some reason it made her feel guilty instead of loved. Maybe that was because Jana wanted no attachment to these people or to God . . . yet both seemed to continue imposing themselves on her.

  Even this morning, Jana’s first instinct had been to pray, but in anger she had refused. God doesn’t care about me, she had determined. If He cared, He would have kept all of this from happening.

  She saw several cars pull into the church parking lot and wondered what was happening. She couldn’t remember anything being on the schedule; then it dawned on her that the new pastor was probably coming.

  Jana tried to ignore the additional vehicles that arrived. Maybe the church members were coming to help the new pastor move in. Maybe there would be a potluck dinner afterward. She pushed the notion aside. It hurt to imagine life going on for Hope Bible Church of Spokane. Months, years from now, no one would even remember that Rob and Jana McGuire had pastored the church.

  For reasons beyond her understanding, that thought hurt almost as much as Rob’s desertion. It was here at this church that Jana had felt a sense of family for the first time. And even though Rob had discouraged her from getting close to people, Jana had known their respect and consideration.

  “Jana!”

  She closed the trunk and turned to see a large group of people crossing the lawn between the church and parsonage. Kelly and Joey were leading the way.