Chapter 38

Ariel

I walked across the neighborhood park, my purse swinging from my shoulder. Normally I came with the boys so they could swing. From my perch on the bench I would watch them point their toes to the sky as they swung higher and higher, then jumped, my heart hurtling down toward the ground with them, suspended until the moment I knew they were okay. The entire journey of parenthood captured in a single moment.

I saw a figure on the bench and waved. She lifted her hand in response. “Glad you could meet me,” Betsy said.

I sat down beside her and handed her the photos, already printed off per her request, and a Zip drive with the files on it. “Erica said you wanted these.” I felt like we were playing parts in a spy movie, or at least an episode of Desperate Housewives. She took the pictures and, without looking at them, shoved them in a tote bag at her feet. The bag, I noticed, read “A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” My heart clenched.

“How are you not falling apart?” I asked. “I mean, you’re dressed, you’re here.” I stole a glance at her. “You’re wearing makeup.” We both kept our eyes trained on the empty swings. “I’d be in a fetal position on the floor somewhere,” I added.

She didn’t speak for a bit. I waited to hear what she would say. “He’s done this before. I guess you didn’t know that.”

“What?” I tried to find a place in my reality to put this latest revelation but couldn’t. It seemed nothing about Tom or Justine was as simple as they wanted it to seem.

“Where we lived before. It was one of the reasons we left. We stayed for about a year after, but … well, the gossip, the damage. It was done.”

“Was it someone he knew before? Like this?”

She shook her head, and I stole another glance at her. She looked worn, tired. But she didn’t look sad. Resolution hung on her shoulders like a cloak. “It was someone we knew at church. Tom was a deacon.” She laughed bitterly. “She was on some committee with him. He said she ‘touched him in a place that no one ever had.’ Her marriage broke up, but I—”

A few seconds of silence passed. I watched the slight breeze move the swings, as though phantom children were on them. “I moved here with him, let him talk me into starting over, as if we could outrun the problems.” She looked at me for the first time, and I noticed how pretty her eyes were, and how kind. “You can convince yourself of pretty much anything when you’re trying to save your family.”

I nodded. “I would’ve done the same,” I said. “I imagine you want to believe the best about the man you love.”

“You do. You also want to believe the best about yourself. You want to believe that you couldn’t have been that bad a judge of character. That you could’ve missed the things in his soul that would lead him to do this. It’s scary.” A dog ran through the park, and I thought of Lucky, who never escaped anymore, and how Justine had found him the day we met. “It’s actually a comfort, knowing that he’s done this before. That he’ll just keep doing it again and again. That she’s nothing special.”

I thought about the look I saw Justine and Tom give each other in the hallway of his apartment, the look that—when Betsy chose to look at the pictures—she would see for herself. I found it hard to believe that Justine was nothing special to Tom. But I said nothing.

“When all that happened with Tom before, I got to a really good place with God. I had to lean on Him to get through it. Because it happened at church, I had to really evaluate what I believed and where my belief was based—in people or in Him. I had equated church to social connections, to expectation, to this part of my life that I gave very little thought to. It was just what you did. God was something you were expected to pay lip service to if you were a good person.

“And then one day I found out that everything I’d ever held dear, that all of it was hanging by this very thin thread that could break at any minute. If I lost Tom, I could lose my home, the family I loved. Where would that leave me? Who would I be? I had to stop paying lip service to God and really go to Him daily, ask Him for the strength to get through it.” She smiled without showing any teeth. “And you know what?”

I shook my head. She was tapping into every fear I’d ever had.

“It turned out He was enough. If I lose everything—which I’m getting ready to, it would seem—I will still have Him, and He will be enough. He will take care of me. He will see me through. And even more than that, He will make good come out of it. I can’t see it right now, but He’s been faithful in the past, and He will be again.” She paused. “I just needed to tell you that because I know how sad you feel about all of this and how involved you’ve been. I don’t want you to feel responsible or to think that you should’ve done something different. I want you to know that I am going to be okay. My Daddy’s going to take care of me.”

A tear ran down my cheek, and I reached up to wipe it away. “That must be a really good feeling,” I whispered.

She put her hand over the top of mine. “God loves you very much. Let Him be enough for you. Don’t be afraid of the future, and stop trying to control it. There’s so much waiting for you out there. For both of us.” She squeezed my hand. “I can’t wait to see where we all end up. God’s got it under control. That much I know. And that brings me great peace. I want you to find that same peace. I’ll help you as much as I can.”

“I could use some peace,” I said with a sigh.

She laughed. “And hey, maybe you have a future in private investigation. Erica says the pictures are good.” She rose from the bench and swung the tote bag over her shoulder. She surprised me by pulling me into a hug.

“So,” I said, “Erica says you’re still going to sing in the Patriotic Pageant.”

She shrugged. “It’s my part. Why shouldn’t I?”

“You go, girl.” I held up my hand, and she gave me a high five.

“Are you going to come?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t miss it. I’ll be the one cheering for you the loudest.”

She winked at me, and I sat back down on the bench to watch her walk away. I had wanted to be friends with Justine so I could learn how to control my domain and also control my future. Then I had wanted to catch Justine so I could stop her from making an irreversible mistake. In the end, neither mattered. People did what they wanted to do and life spun out of control no matter how much I tried to rein it all in. Betsy found peace in spite of that. It was time for me to do so as well. I had to let God be enough—not David, not the boys, not my house, and not Justine. Just Him. Alone in the empty park, I whispered a prayer asking Him to be enough and to help me just let go. I pictured myself falling, falling, falling and His arms open, always waiting to catch me.

I slid into the pew next to Erica and Heather, the boys and David following behind me quietly to fill in the remaining empty seats in our row. Erica nudged me and smiled. Heather leaned across me and waved at the boys, who smiled shyly at her. As the first orchestra strains sounded, I whispered to Erica, “Was Betsy nervous about this?”

Her eyes misted over. “Nah,” she said. “She knew we’d be here. Sometimes that’s all it takes.”

I turned my eyes to the stage to watch as the choir came out to fill the risers, flanked by a hundred children dressed in red, white, and blue. I leaned over to Erica and whispered, “I’m proud of you for coming here tonight. For being here for her.”

She smiled at me. “That’s what friends do,” she said.

I squeezed her hand and found Betsy in the choir, looking scared but happy. She wiggled her fingers at me, and I gave her a thumbs-up. There was a pause before the choir started to sing, and I sat in expectation, waiting to celebrate our freedom.