#

When the phone rang, Faith was crying unabashedly. That fact was obviously reflected in her, "Hello."

"What's the matter, baby girl?" Zach asked. "Josh said everything was hunky dory in paradise."

"Reading," Faith admitted.

Zach laughed. "You women are such wimps."

"Look who's talking. I've seen you waste a few Kleenexes over a movie."

"In my weak moments. So what're you reading that has the tears flowing?"

"Mama's journal."

There was silence on the line.

"Daddy just proposed a second time to Mama – after he admitted having an affair with Auntya."

Zach sighed.

"So she didn't leave the family skeletons in the closet."

"No, I guess she figured I was all grown up now. I've thrown the book across the room once or twice already."

"Why do you think she chose to reveal all?"

"Maybe she didn't want me to go into marriage wearing rose tinted glasses."

"But she didn't know for sure that you'd be reading it before you got married, did she?"

"No, I guess not, but the letter said she suspected her time was short. Maybe she would have told me these things if she'd lived. It's probably easier reading them. I can put the book down or throw it across the room without hurting her feelings."

"And you don't have to see the pain in her eyes."

"Is that why you stayed away so much, Zach? To avoid the pain in her eyes."

"She outed me, did she?"

"Yeah, she did. That's when I threw the book the first time. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was going to, but the time was never right."

"Were you afraid of what you'd see in my eyes?"

"Yeah, I guess I was." He was silent for a few seconds. "As I got older and didn't find anyone I wanted to settle down with, I sort of figured there was no point. I've pretty much decided that I'll probably stay a bachelor and celibate, so why risk seeing pity or pain or disappointment in your eyes. I much prefer hero worship." Faith could hear the grin in his voice.

"I got over the hero worship thing by the time I was about 12," Faith said. "I don't know what to say about the other, though. I hope you didn't think I'd love you any less. I don't, you know."

"I know. And I know Mama still loved me unconditionally. It's just that she couldn't hide her disappointment. I know she prayed until the day she died that God would change me."

"Is that so wrong?" Faith asked. "I mean, according to her journal, you said you wanted to be different. So wasn't she praying for what you wanted?"

"I suppose she was. But I wanted her to accept me for who I am."

"She did Zach. She just didn't believe that God intended you to live that lifestyle."

"She was probably right about that, baby girl. I was mad at God for a while. Then I made my peace with Him. I've been reading the Bible and trying to live like Christ. He wasn't judgmental, but he didn't whitewash sin. I told God that if he didn't want me to love another man then I wanted Him to protect me. I still have sexual feelings, but I've never found a man that I can love and commit myself to. I'm just trying to do good in my life, and if I have to do it without a life partner, then so be it."

"Does that mean I have to stop making jokes about you and your multitude of women?"

"Nope. Women do tend to fall all over themselves around me so it's still funny. I don't want the knowledge of my sexual orientation to change anything. I'm still who I was before you knew."

"I know you are, Zach. And I still love you the same way I did before Mom outed you. So, why'd you call anyway? I'm sure it wasn't to talk to me about your sexual orientation."

"Actually, it was. From some things that Josh said, I thought you'd probably read far enough that you might know. I wanted to feel you out and talk about it with you, if you knew."

"Easier to do on the phone than in person?"

"You got me. I can avoid tears and books being thrown at me this way."

Faith went into the kitchen and made a coke float. She sat down on the couch with her treat and thought about her conversation with Zach. In some ways reading was a safer way to learn family secrets, but it was also difficult.

"There are so many questions I'd like to ask you, Mama," she said aloud. "Books just don't give satisfactory feedback."

"Who're you talking to?" Teresa came out of the bedroom rubbing her eyes.

"My dead Mama."

"Did you talk to her when she was alive?"

"I did. I miss her."

"I wish I had a Mama that I could talk to," Teresa said. "That's the kind of Mama I want to be when I have children." She laid her hand on her stomach. "Not to this one, I guess, but to others – when I'm older and wiser and make better decisions."

I smiled at her. "You'll probably be a wiser Mama because of what you're going through. That's the strange thing about adversity. It can make you wiser if you let it."

"What kinds of things made your Mama wise?"

"Lots. I had no idea how many until I started reading these journals she left me. She went through a lot of things in her life that I never knew about."

"Like getting pregnant with you?"

"Yeah. Evidently she told my Dad that she was going to dismember him with a golf club if his vasectomy came undone – because he played golf before he had time to heal. She cried when she found out she was pregnant with me, too. It was a little disconcerting to read about, but I know the experience made her wiser."

"I wish God would make us wise before we make stupid mistakes," Teresa said. "Couldn't He just inject us with wisdom serum or something?"

"I wish. I told Him something along those lines once when I was praying. He told me that if life was always good we wouldn't even know it because we wouldn't have anything to measure it against. He said that He uses the bad things that happen in our lives to teach us things like patience and kindness."

Teresa was looking at Faith's coke float.

"You like coke floats?"

They were in the kitchen dishing up ice cream when the doorbell rang. Faith saw Aaron through the peephole.

"Do you know how big your nose looks through the peephole?" she asked.

"Gee, thanks."

He was carrying a burger bag.

"I brought supper," he said.

"Yum, burgers. They go great with coke floats," Faith said. "We're just dishing up the ice cream. You want one?"

While they consumed junk food, Aaron told them that the social worker and doctor had agreed to their plan. Jacob and Aaron would move into Mama's house.

Teresa clapped her hands, grinning from ear to ear. "That's great. I can go over after school and fix supper. I'll bring Jake's homework. It'll be great."

She threw her arms around Faith. "I don't know what I'd do without y'all."

After Aaron left, Teresa settled into her couch bed to watch a movie. Faith begged off, thinking she would go straight to bed, but sleep was once again elusive. She went back to the journal.

#

I wish I could say the poignant moment when we reaffirmed our commitment in the bathroom defined our recovery, and I guess in a way it did. It was our pledge to one another to work through the affair that had the potential to mar our relationship for life. When we became discouraged, we could look back on that moment and know that we wouldn't fail. But there were times when one or the other of us wondered if we would ever get our oneness back. Fortunately, we rarely both wondered at the same time. When one of us was despondent, the other was upbeat. When David wallowed in the valley of despair, I reached out a hand and pulled him onto the mountain of joy. When I fell into the pit of misery, he threw me a rope of hope.

There were times when I lost my temper and lashed out at David. I said words that I would later regret. Sometimes David would get tired of 'all that talk' and retreat back into himself.

I soon realized that lack of sleep was going to cause me to have a mental breakdown. David agreed to go to the doctor with me to get some sleeping pills. He made it to the waiting room, but he didn't accompany me in to see the doctor.

"I just can't, Syd," he said. "You're going to have to tell him why you want the pills, and I just can't face another person looking at me with disappointment."

I explained why I needed help sleeping. The doctor gave me some pills but cautioned me that they were addictive and instructed me to use them sparingly. I knew that if I could get through the move, I wouldn't need them any longer.

In one way the move was a lifesaver. It forced me to work every day sorting and packing. My mind was occupied by concerns other than replaying the tape of David's confession. Only at night did it try to consume my thoughts, and the sleeping pills kept the mental hounds at bay for at least six hours a night.

In the whirlwind of my thoughts, I grappled with leaving Josh behind, what to do about Zach and Faith's school, going to the college and packing David's books, and facing my church family, but the thing that kept nagging was making my peace with Anya.

"I'm not the one at fault here," I told God. "She is. She needs to come to me; I don't need to go to her."

But even as I argued, I knew that healing was dependent on my facing her and offering forgiveness – my healing and hers. Finally, after a week of arguing with God, I called her and asked if we could meet. She told me that I could come to her house. We sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Her hands were folded in front of her. Her shoulders slumped. Her eyes were downcast. She wore no makeup and her mass of curls was unkept. Carl brought us tea. He hovered. Finally she told him, "It's okay. You can leave us alone."

I don't know if he skulked outside the door and eavesdropped, and I didn't really care if he did.

"I needed to come see you," I told Anya, "to make sure that you're okay."

For the first time her eyes met mine. Hers were full of disbelief.

"Why would you want me to be okay?"

"You were like a sister to me. I loved you."

"And I killed that love," she said. "I wanted your life. I wanted someone to look at me the way David looked at you, someone to support me and encourage me. I deliberately seduced him, Sydney. I don't deserve your compassion."

Every word was like a knife in my heart. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. Yet in my mind the words echoed, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

"I know," I choked out. "The abused child inside is still searching for love and affirmation."

"Don't try to find excuses for what I did."

She crossed her arms in front of her and leaned toward me. The corners of her mouth turned down.

"I believed him when he said we were soul mates. I had to kill you in my mind to be with him, and I did it Sydney. I would meet him tomorrow if he asked me to. We were going to start our own ministry to the Crow Indians."

She leaned back in her chair, her arms still crossed protectively in front of her chest.

I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sorrow. She was still living in a world of fantasy. She still hoped I would throw David out, and he would come to her.

"He won't come, Anya," I said. "He was never yours. He promised me a lifetime when we got married. He reaffirmed that after he was freed from his unhealthy obsession with you. He is not your soul mate, Anya. You and he speak the same love language. When you were thrown together in ministry, the fact that you are very much alike made you think that you were in love. But Anya, would you really love and trust a man who could tear the lives of his children apart? Is that the kind of soul mate you want?"

Her fists had clinched as I talked. Her head was slumped again, but her jaw line was taut like she was grinding her teeth. Now her fists moved from the crossed position and rested one on top of the other on the table. She began to slowly tap the top fist against the bottom one. I wondered if she planned to punch me, but I continued in a quiet voice.

"You know the historical novel you gave David to read about a woman who sought and found her soul mate? He shared it with me before returning it to the library. He didn't ever tell you that you were his soul mate, did he Anya? He listened when you called him your soul mate, and he nodded. Did he ever say the words?"

"No."

She practically shouted the word. Her face was twisted into a mask of grief.

"If you need to kill someone in your mind, Anya, kill David. Carl loves you. He may not be very expressive, but he hasn't left you. He doesn't want to break up your family. Let him love you. Give up your fantasy."

She dropped her head into her hands and began to sob. I reached out and laid a hand on her head. She jerked her head up.

"Don't touch me."

"Why not?" I asked. "Does it make keeping me dead harder?"

She stared at me with eyes of hatred, but beneath the hate I sensed something else. I looked down at the rings on my fingers. I took the friendship knot off.

"If you want me dead, then perhaps it would be better if I returned this," I said.

I was holding the ring between my thumb and index finger, looking down at it.

"No."

This time the word was muffled. I looked up. She was staring at the ring.

"I gave it to you because I loved you. I don't want it back."

"You could save it for one of your daughters."

"No." She shook her head. "It would always remind me of you."

I smiled.

"And it reminds me of you, Anya. Not the you that betrayed me, but the you that befriended me. Josh asked me why I didn't take it off. I told him that even though I was wounded, I still loved both of you. If I was comfortable wearing David's ring, then I should be comfortable wearing yours."

"Are you?"

I slid the ring back on my finger. I reached out and laid my hand on Anya's.

"Yes. I forgive you, Anya. God forgives you. I think Carl wants to forgive you. Accept the forgiveness and then forgive yourself. You've got a lifetime ahead of you. You can live it in abject misery, beating yourself up every day for what happened."

I squeezed her hand.

"Or you can live it in the joy of forgiveness. The choice is yours."

She pulled her hand away from mine.

"I spend every night in David's arms," she said.

"Those arms are illusions. The flesh arms are around me. Let him go, Anya. If you don't, you will end up an unhappy woman at best, a criminal at worst."

"I'm not ready to let go."

"I'm going to pray for you every day until you are."

With those words, I stood up. Anya just sat at the table and stared past me. I walked out of the house, praying that God would find her in the hell she had created.

The day before we left Billings, she called me. Faith and I met her and her daughters one last time at a fast food joint. The girls played on the jungle gym equipment. Anya told me that she had taken my advice. She and Carl were working to repair their marriage. She picked up my hand and kissed the friendship ring.

"Thank you, Syd," she said. "Thank you for the gift of forgiveness. If you hadn't come, I think I would have been lost forever. I know now that God brought you and spoke through you."

This time she hugged me when we parted. The picture of Anya that lives in my mind is a woman smiling through tears flanked by two beautiful daughters. I would never see her again in this world, but she lived on in my heart. I never did take off the friendship ring. When I looked at it, I thought of a laughing young woman who loved God. That's the Anya I expect to encounter in Heaven.

#

"And you'll be wearing your friendship ring when you greet her," Faith thought as she finally drifted off. Mama had been buried with Anya's ring still shining from her right middle finger and with David's engagement ring gleaming on the other hand.