I storm through my cabin door, still shaking. My cheeks sting from sprinting against the wind, and my ankles ache from nearly falling twice in my rushing back home. I head straight to the bathroom and viciously grab three tissues for my running nose. No tears have fallen. I’m too angry for them. But as the adrenaline fades, I feel the sobs creeping up like a stealth army approaching the battlefield.
I stare at my red, blotchy reflection the same time I hear my front door slam shut. Why it surprises me that Dillon followed me home, I don’t know, but it does. In the months we’ve known each other, I’ve said many things that should have hurt him, but only today did I succeed.
He’s on the couch with his back to me when I muster the courage to enter the living room. I know he hears my approach because his shoulders tense, yet he doesn’t turn or even acknowledge my presence. Not even when I lower myself to the seat cushion next to him.
Elbows on his knees, Dillon stares at the floor, his head lowered. “I didn’t give up,” he says, unmoving.
Remorse bombards my chest as I study his hunched, defeated position. “Dillon . . . I—”
The shake of his head cuts me off. I guess that’s fair. I had my chance to speak. Now it’s his.
“Rebecca and I grew up together. Our parents were friends; our circles linked everywhere. Church, school, athletics. And I never once thought of her that way, until one day I did, and this spoiled, crybaby girl became a beautiful, poised woman. We dated my junior and senior years, and it was nothing life-changing but we had fun together. Understood each other. But when we got accepted to different colleges, it was never a question what would happen. We were young and we both wanted to experience life before settling down.”
Dillon doesn’t move, but I scoot back and find a more comfortable position on the couch. I don’t want anything distracting me from the story I’ve been waiting to hear for months.
“My senior year of college was when they were getting ready to build the new sanctuary at Grace Community. Everyone was so excited. But for me, the building I knew and loved from childhood was getting torn down to make room. The pastor sent out a newsletter inviting us to the groundbreaking, where they’d have some demoed bricks available if we wanted a piece of our history. So I went, and there she was . . . standing with her arms hugging her body and sentimentally crying for the end of an era.” He shoves both hands through his hair. “I should have let that be it. One shared moment. But the next day I called her. And then the day after that. And soon we were back together. Older, wiser, and more willing to give up our dreams to be together.”
He looks up at me, and the tears pooling in his eyes make me want to rip my tongue out and slice it apart for being so callous.
“We were married the summer after graduation. June seventh.” He looks back down at his feet. “As much as I loved her, and I did, it was a hard match. I had grown up an only child in a male-dominated household. Even my mom wasn’t very girly. Rebecca was the youngest of three girls. She was femininity at its core and used to getting her own way. But we made it through that trying first year, and then the second. And after that, I thought, okay, this is going to work. And it did, or at least I thought it did for six years. And then Mom got sick.”
His voice trembles when he mentions his mother, and I yearn to reach out and offer some kind of physical comfort. I don’t, though, because as much as I want to ease his heartache, I also know that Dillon wouldn’t be telling me these things if he didn’t want to, and the greatest gift I can give him right now is to let him finish.
“The next five months are a blur to me. I remember them sitting me down and I remember hearing the word cancer. But everything else is a movie reel of robotic movement. Survival. First to support Mom and then to keep my father functional when he had no desire to live.” Dillon pauses, takes a deep breath, and seems to get his emotion back in check. “And through it all, Rebecca was there. When I’d spend hours at the hospital with my mom, she didn’t complain or demand I come home. And then after the funeral, she kept our lives running while I worked seventy-plus-hour weeks to keep the business afloat. I remember thinking how lucky I was.” Now his voice turns curt, anger smothering every syllable. “So incredibly lucky to have such a strong, loving wife who could step up like she had during the darkest of times.”
I watch as his jaw flexes, watch as his fists release and his anger fades.
“It was three months after we buried my mom that Dad finally came back to us. That day is the first really clear memory I have in that entire season. It was a Saturday, two in the afternoon. He came to work and told me to go home. He said it’s time for him to stop being crippled by grief and to find a way to live his life without her. He said Mom would tear his hide apart for letting me shoulder all the burden this long.”
I can’t help but smile because Dillon sounds so much like his dad that I nearly look around the room for him.
Dillon stretches his neck back and forth like he has to work up to telling me the next part of the story. And since I already know the ending isn’t a happy one, I brace myself for what’s coming next.
“I picked up flowers on the way home. Tulips, because they are her favorite. Her car was gone, but I knew she had a nail appointment that day, so I figured she’d be home soon enough. The house was immaculate when I walked in, which was very unlike her, and I still to this day wonder why she bothered. Especially when her Dear John letter left me bleeding all over our polished wood floors.”
He stands and laces his hands over his head. Even pacing in front of me, Dillon can’t hide the fact that this next part still cuts him deep in the chest. Finally, he stops moving and his arms fall.
“All that time I thought she was a saint, she was having an affair with her old college boyfriend. Supposedly they had reconnected on social media and had been talking for over a year at that point. She’d been unhappy for a very long time, she said, and could no longer live a lie. She’d planned to leave me before Mom got sick, but once we got the news, she said it seemed too cruel. But then I guess her lover—” he grinds his teeth, then relaxes his jaw—“finally gave her an ultimatum. Him or me.” He shrugs one shoulder like his words aren’t the most heinous I’ve ever heard. “She chose him.”
He sits back down, facing me now. “I followed her to her parents’ house. Spent the night on their porch trying to get her to talk to me and work it out. I told her I could forgive her, told her we could go to counseling. Begged her not to give up on us.” His voice gets deeper, his gaze nearly holding mine hostage. “I fought and fought and fought, every day, until she signed the divorce papers. And then I did what my dad did and tried to find a way to move on without her.”
When he finishes, I feel as exhausted as he looks. The room, which seconds ago was filled with anger and adrenaline and pain, now feels empty. As if a great wind came through and wiped all the emotion away.
I scoot closer to take his hand in mine. It’s cold and clammy. “I’m sorry. I should never have made assumptions about you and your past.” It’s the strongest I’ve ever felt an apology. If I could write it with stars and display it for the world, I would.
He levels a look of half frustration, half disbelief. “Haven’t you heard anything I said? You never ever have to apologize for being honest. Not to me.” He slides his thumb over my skin, and for the first time I truly understand him. And for the first time, I think there might be one man out there who is genuinely trustworthy.
I move to let go of his fingers when his grip tightens slightly.
Those incredible brown eyes penetrate deep inside my chest. “I’m sorry you were raised by scumbags.”
Maybe it’s the release of so much emotion, or maybe it’s just the matter-of-fact way he sums up my miserable childhood, but his words break some kind of barrier inside. I feel the giggle in my chest first, weak and barely audible, but then it grows, filling my lungs, knotting my stomach. The laughter comes so hard and so fast that I can’t get enough air until I realize I’m not laughing anymore, I’m sobbing. And Dillon isn’t a cushion away, he’s next to me, folding me into his chest, holding me like no man has ever held me before.
And he doesn’t let go.
Not when I soak his shirt with snot and slobber, or even when I try to push him away because embarrassment takes over.
It isn’t until I’ve shed every tear that has been stored away for twenty-nine years that Dillon finally releases me.
“And you thought you were just going to cut some rosebushes today,” I say, wiping my cheeks as if it would help the mess I’ve made. My eyes are swollen, and my hair is doing its best to re-create a character from The Walking Dead.
“Jan . . .” He pauses until I look up at him, and the concern in his eyes nearly makes the waterworks start again. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Rebecca is a fool, and this will be the last time I ever think or ask about her.
I adjust, putting a more reasonable space between us. “Tell me about your mom. The good stuff,” I clarify. “The stuff you like to remember.”
Dillon sighs and leans back against the corner cushion. “She had the best laugh. It was like a giggle that went up and down the musical scale.” The smile that forms on his lips is sad but welcome at the same time. “Even if it wasn’t funny, you’d laugh simply because she’d make you believe it was. And she loved to hug. Me. Dad. Strangers. It didn’t matter. As a teenager, I’d get so irritated by her badgering for affection. And now . . .” He looks down at his hands. “I’d give anything for just one more arm-crushing embrace.” He blows out a stream of air and swallows before looking back up. “What I was trying—and obviously failing—to say at the rosebushes is that I understand why you’re afraid. Belief takes trust, and trust means vulnerability. This past year I’ve felt nothing but rage and bitterness for the storm God put me through. It’s only now that the clouds have started to thin that I’m able to see some of the beauty the rain left behind.”
Heat fills my cheeks when his eyes continue to bore into mine, then embarrassment comes again. I clear my throat and stand before I let myself corrupt this incredible moment of friendship by turning it into something neither of us is ready for. “Are you jumping on the turn-January-into-a-Christian bandwagon, Dillon? Because my aunt has already tried and failed. Not to mention Sandra and Cameron, who has now moved on to bigger and better things. I’d hate to have to run you off, too.” Sarcasm seeps through my words, and yet it doesn’t seem to deter the stubborn man on my couch.
“I’m not exactly the bandwagon type. You should know that by now. And when you’re ready to have a real conversation about faith, we’ll have it . . . without the subtleties.” He stands and stretches. “In the meantime, I still have a mile of roses to prune, and daylight is wasting. C’mon, let’s go.”
I cross my arms. “Is there a please somewhere in that sentence?”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Do I need to remind you how I got distracted in the first place?”
“Fine.” But as much as I huff and puff about being forced to help him, the truth lies just under the surface. Like him, there’s nowhere else I want to be.