It was true. Lucy’s cart was gone. I couldn’t believe the old woman had just taken off without saying anything. But she still wasn’t back by the time five o’clock rolled around and I had to leave with Paul, Sammy, and Keisha.
Paul threw himself into the front seat of the Subaru and slammed the car door. “Lucy’s so mean, Mom! We’ve been taking care of Dandy ever since she hurt her foot. He’s been sleeping on my bed and everything! Why’d she just go off with Dandy without saying anything? It’s so unfair.”
I decided not to remind him he wasn’t old enough to sit in the front seat yet. It was only a mile to the six-flat. Glancing in the rearview mirror at Sammy and Keisha, I said, “Seatbelts, everybody!” Then I turned to Paul. “Honey, maybe she hasn’t really left. She just might be outside enjoying the day and hasn’t realized the time. After all, she’s been cooped up inside for a couple weeks. She’s not used to that.” But frankly, I had a sinking feeling Paul might be right—Lucy had just up and gone back to the streets, dog and cart in tow.
Argh! It might be weeks before we saw her again! And this Indian Summer weather would definitely not last.
But at the moment I was more worried about Paul than I was about Lucy. His dad was coming over to talk to the boys and I didn’t want Paul all upset and distracted by the disappearance of the old bag lady and my mother’s dog. Those two had created enough drama in the past several months to last a lifetime—and I sure didn’t want this new wrinkle to overshadow our evening just before Philip left town.
But I did my best to cheer up the atmosphere at home, setting the Belfort Signature table with my mother’s wedding china with the tiny bluebells around the edges—a bit faded and slightly chipped here and there, but still special. I used royal-blue cloth napkins and arranged several pillar candles of different sizes on a round, etched mirror in the center. Maybe a bit fancy for lemon-baked chicken and roasted potatoes, but it was one of Philip’s favorite meals.
He arrived at six thirty on the dot, and I could hear the boys screeching. “You got the cast off, Dad! How come you didn’t tell us?” They dragged him down the hall to the dining room. “Mom! Did you know Dad got the cast off ?”
I just smiled and nodded. He was looking healthier by the day, except for the pallor of his skin, still pale and drawn.
Philip lifted the aluminum foil off the hot dish I set on the table. “Is that what I think it is? Mm, lemon chicken and roasted potatoes.” He winked at the boys. “Your mom’s got a good memory.”
I set the rest of the food on the table—apple-walnut salad and green beans—and lit the candles, which cast a lot of reflected light in the mirror. Philip and P.J. sat on one side of the table, Paul and I on the other. And now . . . the Awkward Moment. But at my gesture, we joined hands and I offered a short prayer of thanks for the food and asked God to bless Philip’s journey back to Petersburg.
When I opened my eyes, he was grinning self-consciously. “The Baxters are training me well. They hold hands and pray at mealtimes too.”
As the food was passed around, Philip tried to ask the boys what was going on at school, but P.J. cut to the chase. “How come you’re going back to Virginia? When are you coming back? Can we go back too?”
Philip glanced at me, then put down his fork and wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin. “Fair enough. But first I’d like to back up and tell you boys something important. I didn’t mean to do this during supper, but first things first.”
My mouth suddenly went dry. What now? I thought he was just going to tell them about selling his share of the business, paying off his debts, and going to Virginia to consult with his dad about “starting over.”
The two boys stared at their father. “What?” P.J. said.
Philip cleared his throat and blew out a breath. “Five months ago I did something very wrong. Your mom and I were, well, having some problems, and I got angry. A lot of things felt as if they weren’t working out after moving to Chicago. Your summer camp fell through, which was supposed to keep you busy last summer, the penthouse felt overcrowded when Grandma Shepherd and her dog came back with you from your vacation to North Dakota. I was trying to get my commercial development business started, your mom had a new job that just seemed to complicate things, we weren’t communicating very well, and I lost it. I decided things weren’t working for us. So I took you boys back to Virginia to stay with your grandparents, and I—”
His face suddenly flushed and his jaw muscles tightened.
P.J.’s stony face was unreadable, and Paul picked at his food. I had stopped eating, too, my stomach in a knot.
Philip took a deep breath. “It’s hard to say it, but I basically kicked your mother and your grandmother out of the penthouse. I thought we needed a big shakeup around the Fairbanks household, that if I took drastic measures, I could get rid of all the distractions, get my business off the ground, and pick up the pieces later.”
I stared at Philip in total shock as the words poured out of his mouth. Get rid of all the distractions? That’s what we were? And just pick up the pieces later?
“But what I did was wrong,” he continued. “Very wrong. I didn’t even tell your mother that I’d taken you back to Virginia. I—”
“You told us we had to go so Mom could take care of Grandma Shep!” Paul blurted.
Philip nodded. “Like I said, I was angry, I didn’t do things the way I should’ve. Most of all, I hurt your mother very much.” For the first time since he’d started, Philip glanced at me, held my gaze for a long moment, and then looked back at his sons. “I’ve told her I’m sorry. Desperately sorry. And I want to tell the two of you I’m sorry too.”
Silence descended over the room. The food on our plates was growing cold. Paul shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Okay, I guess.”
But P.J. stood up so vehemently his chair fell over. “Sorry isn’t good enough! You hurt us, too, Dad! We’ve been jerked back and forth between you guys and the grandparents all summer long— no, ever since you up and moved here! Even now, we get jerked back and forth between ‘mom’s house’ and ‘dad’s house.’ Where’s our house? Huh? Have you ever thought about that?”
P.J. started to bolt from the room, but Philip stood up quickly and put a hand on his shoulder. “P.J., wait. Please. You have a right to be angry. But you asked me a question awhile ago and I want to answer it. Please—sit down.”
Breathing heavily, P.J. just stood there for several moments, then picked up his chair and sat down in it. “All right. What?”
Again, Philip took a deep breath and blew it out. “Obviously, things didn’t get better living on my own. I spent too much time at the Horseshoe Casino, gambling with money I couldn’t afford to lose. You know most of this part—that I got over my head in debt and took some loans to pay it off that got me in trouble. Big trouble. Kept gambling, thinking my luck would turn. It didn’t. Couldn’t pay back the loans. Ended up making some enemies who put me in the hospital.”
Paul’s lip trembled. “I was really scared, Dad.”
“I know, son. Scared me too. I’ve put you boys through a lot of trauma, and I’m truly sorry about that too. But I had a lot of time to think in the hospital. To take a long, hard look at the choices I’d been making, the direction I was going. For a while I thought I could patch it up, fix it, make it work. Figure out a way to pay off the debts, hold on to my business, and patch up our family too. But I couldn’t. I’d made a mess of things and didn’t know how to get out of it.”
My astonishment knew no bounds. Fairbanks men didn’t admit defeat, didn’t say they were wrong. Didn’t cry, “Uncle!” But Philip was not only admitting his failure to his sons but doing so in my presence. Or—was I really the one he was speaking to?
“Funny thing,” Philip said, “the first time I felt some real hope is when a couple of guys told me hitting bottom is a good thing, because the only way to go is up. But it means starting over. Not fix the old stuff, but start over, do it right. So that’s what I’m trying to do.”
The boys listened intently as Philip told them he’d sold out his share of the commercial development business to Henry Fenchel, paid off his gambling debts, and got rid of the lawsuits hanging over his head. “But that’s only the first step,” he said. “I’ve had to face the fact that I’m a gambling addict, so I’ll be going to Gamblers Anonymous for a long while. Our old friend, Mr. Bentley, the doorman at Richmond Towers, has agreed to be my sponsor. But Bentley used to be a cop—did you guys know that? So I think he’ll be breathing heavy down my neck.”
Paul giggled and even the corners of P.J.’s lips twitched.
“So, guys, I’m out of a job. That’s why I’m going back to Virginia, to talk with your granddad and your Great-Uncle Matt, see if they can help me put together a new business plan. Start over. Soon as I know what step two is, you guys will be the first to know.”
We all just sat and looked at each other. Then P.J. nodded, a bit grudgingly. “Okay.” He picked up his half-eaten plate of food and pushed back his chair. “Can I heat this up in the microwave, Mom? C’mon, Paul. Let’s go play that video game we started. Maybe Mom and Dad need to talk.”
Philip and I watched in silence as the boys headed into the kitchen with their plates, then two minutes later disappeared down the hallway toward the living room and their video game. Philip raised an eyebrow. “Either he’s a good escape artist or extremely diplomatic for his age. Uh . . . do you want your food warmed up too?”
I let him take my plate, suddenly feeling exhausted. We did need to talk, but I was glad for a few minutes to sort through my thoughts. There was something I needed to say too—something I hadn’t wanted to think about, much less put into words. But it had been festering in my subconscious for weeks, ever since Mabel Turner had said she’d been concerned about our relationship from the first time she’d interviewed me for the job. Is this the time, God? If so, You’ve gotta help me!
When Philip returned with our plates of microwaved food and sat down across from me, I was the one who spoke first. “Philip, I”—Oh Lord, I want to say the right thing here—“I appreciate you telling the boys yourself that you were wrong to kick me out of the penthouse. Out of our marriage. Out of your life.” He winced, but I went on. “And I’ve been thinking about the letter you gave me last Monday. Thinking about it a lot. And I believe you. Believe that you’re sorry.”
“Oh, Gabby. I am! If you only knew—”
I held up my hand. “Don’t. It’s my turn now.” I needed to keep going or I’d lose my courage. “This isn’t easy for me to say, because you’re right, Philip, you hurt me a lot. You hurt our family, you hurt our sons, and—you’ve hurt yourself.”
“I know.” The words came out strangled.
“But I’ve been praying a lot this week, struggling with how to respond to your letter. I didn’t want to forgive you, because I don’t know what forgiveness means. I don’t even know what forgiveness feels like. I don’t know what it means for us—for you and me—for the future. And to be honest, I still don’t. Don’t have a clue. But there is one thing I know. God has forgiven me, forgave me even before I got my life together. So I know I have only one option— and that’s to forgive you. So I do. I forgive you, Philip.”
He struggled for words. “Gabby, I . . . I don’t deserve—”
Again I held up my hand. “Wait. There’s something else I need to say.” Huh. He thought that was the hard part. But the hardest part was still to come. The lump in my throat was so big I could hardly push the words past it. “You . . . you didn’t ruin our marriage all by yourself, Philip. God has shown me—through a few say-it-straight sisters, just like the brothers God brought into your life recently—that there are some things I need to take responsibility for too. Especially—”
The lump got bigger. Oh, how easy it would be to talk myself out of saying this! To tell myself anything I’d done paled in comparison to the horror he’d heaped on me. But suddenly I realized that for Philip to truly be able to start over was to wipe the slate clean. I needed to own up to my failures and mistakes too. Put them on the table and let the blood of Jesus cover them all with forgiveness.
The lump seemed to dissolve with my resolve. “Especially the fact that I went ahead and did things behind your back, made decisions about things that affected us without talking with you about them ahead of time. Taking the job at Manna House. Bringing my mom and Dandy back from North Dakota without consulting you, even though I felt I had lots of good reasons. I was afraid you’d say no to everything I wanted to do. But . . . it still wasn’t right. As a wise woman told me, no marriage can function that way for long, pulling in different directions.”
Philip stared at me. He seemed to be in shock. He shook his head, but no words came. And then his shoulders started to shake. Silent sobs racked his body from somewhere deep. I didn’t know what to do, but something in my spirit said, Touch.
I reached across the table, took his hand, and just held it while he wept.