Alison Strobel - The Heart of Memory

IT WAS JUST AN EXCUSE, really. Shaun wasn’t going after Jessie. She needed her space, and he didn’t want to keep putting himself in a position to have to defend Savannah. He’d just wanted to get off the phone.

He retreated to his office and shut the door, then turned the ringer off on his phone in case Savannah called again. He shut down his computer as well, and when the screen went black, the room went completely dark. No distraction, no input, no stimulation. This was what he needed right now.

It was time to face the fact that he was a failure. It didn’t matter what Savannah had done, it didn’t change the truth about Shaun. Her shortcomings had contributed to the disaster that now lay at his feet; but had he not stolen from A &A’s savings, had he not squandered their own personal assets, things would look very different right now. He had ruined everything, and if several thousand dollars didn’t fall into his lap very soon, everyone was going to know about it.

He tried to think rationally about every facet of the situation. Likely outcomes: He would go to jail. His daughter would hate him, and she would need some serious therapy to sort out all the ways she had been hurt by both her parents and God. His wife would hate him, and given her position in the ministry, it was possible she could be implicated.

Despite what he’d told Jessie, his opinion of divorce was beginning to change. He was starting to think that leaving both Savannah and Jessie might be the most compassionate thing he could do. And once he’d put as much emotional and physical distance between himself and them as he could, then he could kill himself so he could get out from under the mountain he had created. He could leave a letter explaining everything so Savannah wasn’t blamed for the ministry’s financial ruin. His death might even pull Savannah and Jessie together. At least they’d have their disgust for him in common.

He nodded to himself as he rocked in his desk chair. It was a decent plan. Not one he was quite ready to implement, but knowing he had it in his back pocket gave him a sense of control for the first time in months.

He turned his computer back on. He needed to start getting the details sorted. First he’d figure out the divorce, then he’d figure out the death. For a moment he began to miss them, as though the plan had already been set in motion, but he reassured himself as he brought up an internet browser. At least he’d see them again in heaven.

SAVANNAH PULLED THE COAT TIGHTER around her shoulders and dodged a peach tree branch she’d veered too close to on her unsteady feet. The sun was setting, and the sky was awash in watercolors that she knew must look brighter to others. Everything today had been cast in gray to her.

She was such a mess of emotions she couldn’t even sort out what exactly she was feeling. Depression was one of them, she was pretty sure. Probably some hard-core anxiety, too. And, of course, the ever-present anger. She thought it ironic that she was living in a place that housed two full-time counselors and yet she had no one to talk to. She didn’t want to bring all this up to Tabitha; she didn’t think she’d earned the right to go to her with such deep troubles, not when Savannah had basically told Tabitha to take a hike when she’d tried to do the very same thing. She’d also gotten a call that morning from Rose, the therapist she’d talked to back in Colorado, that had brought her even lower. “Just checking in,” she’d said in her message. “I haven’t gotten very much help yet on your situation, but I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you.” Savannah was tempted to tell her to give up. If there was any help to be found, someone would have by now. And despite the friendliness and empathy of the others staying there, none of them had any idea what she was going through.

She’d never been so alone. At least in the past she’d always had God to talk to. But now she had no one.

The wind picked up and she squinted against the dirt that flew into her face. A storm was rolling in from the north; she could see the massive black clouds in the distance. Part of her wondered if she should even be out here-how much stress would her heart take? Would she be okay if she started shivering? Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world if this heart went out too. Her next check-up at the cardiology clinic was coming up; maybe they’d see her heart was getting too stressed and they’d give her a new one. Maybe if she got someone else’s heart she’d go back to being who she was. Maybe she could request a Christian this time. It would limit her odds of getting one before she died, but even then she’d at least be done with this nightmare.

She stopped in her tracks. “Am I suicidal?” She spoke aloud to the trees, really not sure if she was or not. She didn’t think so, but maybe she was close. How else could she escape Charlie’s hold on her? Apparently she could do nothing, and his thoughts were ruining everything. How bad an idea was it really?

When you can’t, God can. It was one of her tag-lines, one of the things she’d always worked into her books and talks. She’d lived by it, and then life had started clicking along just fine and she hadn’t needed to test its truth anymore. She’d gotten good at doing on her own whatever needed to be done. Her transplant had been the first thing she’d had to rely on God for in a long time. Now it seemed like her life was one giant “can’t”, but there wasn’t anyone she could turn to who could.

Over the last twenty-four hours, the weight of the anger in her heart and the chaos in her head had grown tenfold. She was so close to a fix, and yet completely stymied as to how to get it. She felt like she was on the edge of a cliff, teetering, waiting for an outstretched hand to reach just a little further, grab her jacket and yank her back to safety. But the hand just hovered there, a couple inches short.

The wind picked up again. She was beginning to regret coming out here. The orchard was barren without a place to shelter from the wind-or from herself. No bedclothes to hide beneath, no armchair to curl up in to escape to her latest book. The orchard had no distractions, and she realized she’d been living the last week from one distraction to the next because she didn’t know how else to cope. How do you look reality in the face when it’s so despairing? Why even bother?

The house was a hundred yards away now, and as the force of her emotions and fear began a cascade through her system, she found herself without any protection or defense.

Jessie, Shaun, A &A, Adam, Marisa, her reputation, her family, her marriage, her self … the loss and potential loss of so many things dear to her began to cave in on her. It was all because of this stupid heart, this heart that didn’t seem to realize Charlie was gone and Savannah was its home.

She had to get rid of this heart. But how?

She began to run down the aisles between the bare peach trees, their naked limbs bending with the wind like arms reaching out to grab her. She swerved to avoid a rock in the path and her jacket snagged on a low branch. She’d been an avid jogger before her illness, but the months since had atrophied her muscles to mush. She ignored their burn, the complaints of tendons challenged without a warm-up, and pushed herself farther and farther, the house receding behind her like a movie finale. She thought only of her heart, of taxing it beyond its capacity, of punishing it for destroying her life. She wanted it to burst. And if they don’t find me in time, maybe that’s okay.

Her eyes streamed, her lungs burned, her heart slammed in her chest-until a hole in the path caught her foot and sent her flying face-down into the dirt. She burst into tears and screamed without thinking. “Jesus!”