Part 24 (1/2)
She handed the keys to me. ”Be careful, Louisa! The gears are sticky!”
I thanked her, jumped in the old Ford, and rumbled off down the street before she could change her mind. It was more than a little annoying to me that everyone considered me to be an inept driver. I had just driven, successfully, through half of Mexico. In the rearview mirror, I saw Rosita making the sign of the cross on her chest as I turned the corner and sped out of town. I knew the prayer was for her Ford.
I arrived at the yawning copper pit and found Robert's car. I walked around the crater, searching for him. I thought there would be workers there today but it was deserted. I was starting to get worried and fought back a frightening thought. But then I saw him.
He was sitting on a ledge, head in his hands. I wondered if he had been at this pit all night and all day. He looked, to borrow one of Aunt Martha's phrases, like something the cat dragged in. Scruffy with dark whiskers shadowing his cheeks and chin. Dark circles under distant gray eyes. Dried tear marks traced his cheeks. He wasn't even wearing his trademark tie. And his suffering was palpable.
He didn't look up when I reached him. I sat down beside him and quietly said, ”Robert, please come home.”
He gave me a stranger's glance. ”I need to be alone,” he said, in a tone that made it clear he wished I hadn't come after him.
I sighed. ”Please don't do this.”
He stood up and walked away from me.
I followed him, knowing he didn't want me to. ”Don't do what you're doing now. Shutting yourself away. It's just like it was when I first got here, when you spent your time away from the house, and William spent his time up in the tree house, and no one in the parsonage talked to each other.”
He stopped abruptly. ”You could not possibly fathom what I am experiencing.”
”Then tell me! Tell me how you feel!” I could tell by the look on his face I had pushed him too far. He was angry with me. And I was glad. At least it was some emotion. I wanted him to fume; it was better than this paralyzing sadness. ”Go ahead! Get mad! Robert, you have every reason to be angry!”
It worked. The simmering volcano erupted. ”Do you have any idea how it feels to know that my wife ran off with Mueller? And that she was living just a few hours away in Mexico? Or to realize what a fool I've been-working with Mueller on church business and banking business-while he was having an affair with my wife? You and I had lunch at his house not so long ago! Lunch!” He kicked a stone as hard as he could in complete disgust. ”What's the word for me...a first cla.s.s cuckold? How do I even dare stand in a pulpit to my congregation after this?”
Now the volcano was spewing.
”Not to mention what Ruth did to William, not once when she left, but twice? He asked her to come back with him, and she, essentially, abandoned him again! I'm glad she's dead. I really am. But I still have to keep living and try to repair the damage she's done. Once again.”
He practically spat the words, then turned and walked away.
I trotted behind, trying to keep up with him. ”Robert, there's not a person in this town who wasn't fooled by Herr Mueller. Everyone! He stole from and lied to the entire town.” In my mind popped the filled sacks of treasured possessions, even some beloved child's cast off baby teeth, in the back of the truck. Probably on their way to Germany by now.
He spun on his heels to face me. ”No, Louisa, not everyone! You knew right when you met him. And William knew.”
”But that's only because I had come from a country that was filled with Herr Mueller types. And William knew because he had seen them together.” I told him about misunderstanding William's meaning of ”girl.”
I paused before saying what I had really come to the pit to say. ”Robert, there is another way of looking at this.”
”And what way is that?” he said, arms crossed in defiance.
”Do you remember telling me you believed G.o.d was giving you a second chance to give yourself to Him?”
”Of course, I remember. That was just a few days ago,” he said, irritation rising in his voice.
Could it have only been a few days ago? So much had happened to us; it felt like months had pa.s.sed. ”You said G.o.d wanted all of you. I think you're right, Robert. I think G.o.d is asking more of you.”
Bitterly, he answered, ”then it's more than I am able to give.”
”Wait. Listen to me for a moment. I think G.o.d gave you a gift in this encounter William and I had with Ruth. You have your answers about her. She can't hurt you or William any more. You know why she left and with whom. And you know that nothing could change her mind; she would leave again. The choices that she made, all of them, were hers to make. And hers to die for. But now it's over, Robert. And I truly believe G.o.d wants you to move forward with your life.”
His arms dropped to his side. He shook his head and looked at the sky as his gray eyes filled with tears. ”Was she evil like Mueller?”
I didn't answer him right away though I had given that question some thought. Herr Mueller had sold his soul to the devil long ago. But Ruth? ”I think she might have been so selfish that she couldn't truly love anyone but herself. But whatever horrible choices she made in her life, she did help William and me to escape. She did one thing right. Try and remember that.”
He turned and kicked at the mounded earth, looking remarkably like his five-year-old son.
”There is one person who has shared your experience, Robert. William. Ruth treated him the same way she treated you. This time, share your grief with him. Heal together, not separately. William needs you in a way that only you can help him. Only you can understand how he feels.”
I stopped for a moment to let that sink in. ”You're needed at home. Your son needs you. I need you. Please come home.”
There. I was finally finished. I said everything I had come to say.
He covered his face with his hands for a moment. Then he exhaled heavily, as if the fight had finally left him. ”Who's the minister now, Louisa?” he asked, a sad sweetness in his voice. He took my hand and looked right at me with the look that I had come to expect from him. A look that I had come to want from him.
”Actually,” I said as I took his other hand, ”I'm the lucky one. I got the package. You and William.” I swallowed and hastened to add, ”and Aunt Martha.”
Then we walked, hand in hand, back to the automobiles. ”I'll follow you home,” he said, holding the door for me as I climbed up into Rosita's truck.
It might have just been my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw a trace of amus.e.m.e.nt light his eyes as he watched me back Rosita's truck up and s.h.i.+ft from reverse to first gear, making a horrible sound as I ground the gears.
Home, I repeated to myself. I was going home.
Chapter Sixteen.
The Mexican Police sent Ruth's body back to Copper Springs for burial. We had a small service for her, just the four of us, headstone and all, and put her in her final resting place in the cemetery next to the church. It seemed a touch of irony that she had tried to get away from Copper Springs most of her life, yet here she was, back to stay.
We had struggled to find the right epitaph to be inscribed on her headstone, finally settling on: ”We hope she found the peace she was looking for.”
After William solemnly laid a long-stemmed white rose on the grave, Aunt Martha took him home. Robert and I stood at the gravesite a few minutes longer, both of us lost in our thoughts about this woman who lay before us, far below in the ground.
Finally, I broke the silence. ”I think you were right.”
”What could I possibly have been right about?” he said, still looking down at the fresh grave. ”I'm shocked to hear those words from you.” He glanced at me with a puzzled look on his face.
”Ruth and I are a little bit alike.”
He groaned. ”Oh Louisa, I never should have said that. Please forget it.”
”She even said so herself. But I disagreed with her reason,” I admitted. ”Anyway, just a little bit alike. We both are, were, no, I mean, are stubborn women.”
”Pushy, too,” Robert added.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
”And you both think you're right about everything and everybody.”