"You had no right! No goddamn right! Those journals were mine!"
"I'm not going to argue that with you. They were yours but I threw them out anyway. If they haven't been fed into the incinerator yet, they soon will be."
She was so cool, so composed, so utterly remorseless. Her attitude of fait accompli infuriated him.
"How could you?"
"You gave me no choice, Jim. You were letting those journals eat you alive. So I got rid of them. You were going to let what they said ruin your life. I couldn't stand by and watch that happen. But now it's over and done. They're gone, and so you're going to have to take what you learned from them and pick up the pieces and go on from here. You've got to admit that's going to be easier if you don't have those journals staring you in the face all the time, if you don't keep going back to them time after time, looking for some sort of flaw that will prove them wrong."
She was right. The cool logic of her words was worming its way past his anger, damping it but not dousing it. After all, they had been his journals. His legacy.
"Okay," he said. "They're gone. Okay… okay…"
He kept repeating the word, walking around the kitchen in small circles. His thoughts were all jumbled up with his emotions. He couldn't separate them. If this had been someone else's problem, he was sure he would be calm and cool and completely rational.
But this is me!
"I did it for you, Jim," Carol said.
He looked at her eyes and saw the love there.
"I know, Carol. I know." But what did he really know? What could he be sure of now? "I just… I need to sort this out. I need to take a walk."
"You're not going back to that mansion, are you?"
"No. Just a little walk. I won't even leave the yard. I'm not running away. I just need to be by myself a bit. I won't be long. I just…"
He opened the kitchen door and stepped out into the backyard. The air was cold outside, but he barely noticed. Besides, he couldn't bring himself to go back inside to get a jacket. Not just yet. As he strode around the side of the house, he noticed that the cover on the crawl space entry had fallen out. He fitted it back into place and kept on walking.
2
As the door closed, Carol slumped against the stove and held back the tears. That performance had been the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.
But it's going to work. It has to!
She hadn't slept a wink last night. Hour after hour she had lain awake planning how to handle this confrontation. Should she cry, beg his forgiveness for throwing the journals out, and make a thousand promises to make it up to him? Or should she simply apologize, admit she was wrong, and leave the rest up to him—put the ball in his court, so to speak?
Her heart had pulled for the easy way, urging her, in fact, to run out to the crawl space and bring those damn books back inside. She hadn't wanted the confrontation she knew the morning would bring. But she had to face it. This was too important to back away from.
She had chosen the second. And it hadn't been easy. The hurt and betrayal she had seen in his eyes had required every ounce of her will to keep her from blurting out where the books were hidden. But she had held on, resisting the urge to take him in her arms and coo to him and whisper that everything was going to be fine. Instead she had kept pushing him, almost goading him, to take the control of his life back into his own hands.
Would it work? She hoped so. She prayed she hadn't made the wrong choice.
3
Carol was sitting in the living room a short while later, waiting with her nails digging into her palms, when she heard the back door open. It was Jim. He came out of the kitchen and stood there looking all around the room, anywhere but directly at her. Finally, with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans, he walked over to where she sat and plopped down next to her on the couch. She noticed how badly he needed a shave. He didn't say anything for a while, just stared straight ahead.
Carol watched his troubled profile, aching to touch him, to throw her arms around him, but holding back, waiting for him to make the first move.
Finally, when the tension within her had reached the screaming level, he spoke.
"You shouldn't have thrown out those journals," he said, still staring straight ahead.
"I had to," Carol said as softly as she could. "I had no right, but I had to."
After a pause he said, "I thought about what you did. I think it was the right thing to do, and pretty damn brave."
She put her hand on his arm and ran it down to his hand; his fingers grabbed hers when she reached them.
"But neither of us can erase what we learned from them. That's there to stay, like a brand. It's—" His voice broke and he swallowed. "It's kind of funny, isn't it? I spent all those years trying to figure out who I am, now I've got to figure out what I am."
Carol saw a tear slide down his cheek, and her heart broke for him. She drew his head down onto her shoulder.
"You're my Jim. That's the who and what of you. That's all you have to be as far as I'm concerned."
He began to sob. She had never seen him cry, and she held him close, aching with the wonder of it. Finally he straightened and pulled away.
"Sorry," he said, sniffing and wiping his eyes. "I don't know what started that."
"It's okay, really."
"It's just that it's such a shock. I'm kind of torn up inside. Don't know which way to turn. Didn't mean to go wimpy on you."
"Don't be silly! You've been through hell these past few days. You've earned it."
"Did you really mean that… what you said about it not mattering? I mean, it matters a hell of a lot to me, so why doesn't it matter to you?"
"It doesn't change a thing. What we had before we have now—if you'll allow it."
His eyes searched her face. "You really mean that, don't you?"
"Of course! If I didn't, those journals would still be here and I'd be gone instead."
He smiled for the first time. "Yeah. I guess you're right." He grasped her hand. "Carol, if I can believe that, hold on to that, I think I can make it. The more I think about it, the more I see you were right to get rid of the evidence."
"Thank God!" she said and really meant it. "I thought you'd never forgive me!"
"Neither did I. But now I see that I've got to go on just as before. I can't let this thing own me. Only you and I know about it. I can live with that. I can adjust to being a… to being what I am."
Carol decided then that it would be a long, long time before she told him where the journals were hidden.
"Just go on being the same Jim Stevens I married," she said. "That's what's really important."
He smiled again. "You sure you don't want any changes? This is probably your only chance to put in your order."
"Just one, maybe."
"Name it."
"Next time something upsets you, don't keep it to yourself like you did this time. Share the load. We're partners in this. There shouldn't be any secrets between us."
He slipped his arms around her and squeezed, almost crushing her. Carol wanted to laugh and wanted to cry. He was back—her old Jim was back.
4
Grace sat in the last row in the basement of the Murray Hill brownstone and listened to Brother Robert's homily. Wednesday evening seemed an unorthodox time for a prayer service, but she found herself intrigued by these people who called themselves the Chosen. Especially Brother Robert. There was a magnetic quality about his ascetic appearance, such an air of wisdom about him, yet he was not distant. He exuded a love of God and humanity. And his speaking voice—strong, clear, wonderful, almost mesmerizing. He had been speaking for nearly an hour now, yet it seemed like no more than ten minutes.