Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
A s Emily browned the ground beef on the stove for dinner, she texted Elizabeth to come out and talk to her. She wanted to make sense of why her daughter was vaping in the bathroom at school. She had made the decision to not tell Ryan until she had a better grasp and understanding of what, if anything, was going through her daughter’s mind. As of a week ago, Elizabeth hadn’t even found a friend, and now she was doing drugs in a bathroom? It just didn’t make sense.
“I don’t know, Mom.”
Setting the spatula down beside the stovetop, she turned to Elizabeth and folded her arms. “I’m not buying what you’re trying to sell, missy. You had no friends last week, and now . . . ?”
Elizabeth’s eyes watered as she shook her head. “You don’t get it, Mom. It’s so hard! Everyone hates me, and Jasmine was the only girl who would talk to me. I just tried it once and we got in trouble.”
“Well, I need to talk to your father, and I will let you know what the consequences will be.”
“No!” Her eyes widened as she took a step toward her and touched her arm. Shaking her head, she pleaded. “Please, Mom! Don’t tell him.”
“You can’t ask me to do that, Elizabeth. He and I are a team.”
“Great! Now Dad is going to yell at me. He already thinks I’m such a disappointment.”
Just then, Jason opened the sliding glass door off the back of the house. He walked in with Chloe on his hip. “What’s up?”
“Hi, Jason.” Emily let her arms fall to her side as she turned toward him with a confused expression.
“Ryan didn’t tell you? He invited me over.”
“He didn’t . . . But it’s okay. Come on in.”
Elizabeth, on the other hand, wiped her cheeks and promptly left the kitchen without a word.
“What’s wrong with her?” Jason asked as he watched her leave the kitchen.
“High school drama. I’ll spare you the details.” Looking at Chloe, Emily came closer. “You’ll be there soon enough!”
“Don’t say that.” Jason laughed and shook his head as he set Chloe down. She walked over to the couch in the living room nearby to sit with the boys while they watched a kids’ movie. He watched his daughter climb up and sit right beside Jack. Sighing, he sat on one of the stools and shook his head. “She’s only three, but I feel like we just brought her home from the hospital yesterday.”
“Time flies. How is Natasha? She couldn’t come today?” Emily resumed cooking the ground beef.
“She had a women’s Bible study tonight.”
“That’s nice.”
“You know, Em. You’re more than welcome to join her sometime. You know that.”
“I know . . . I’m just not ready.”
“Well, when you are, they’d love to have you.”
Jason stood and went into the other room and sat with the kids. Glancing over, she saw him set Chloe on his lap. Emily sighed. She missed Ryan interacting more with the kids, but lately, he had been so stressed and always so busy with work.
Soon, dinner was ready. Ryan walked in just in time. As he entered the kitchen, Jason was preparing a plate for Chloe when he glanced over at Ryan.
“Are you okay, Brother?” Jason seemed to sense something within his brother in that moment.
“I’m fine, don’t be weird. I’ll be right back. I need to get changed.” Ryan promptly exited and went down the hallway to the bedroom. Emily decided to follow after him.
She shut the door behind her and turned to Ryan.
“You’re really going to keep this from him?” She folded her arms.
He lifted a hand. “Yes. I need to honor my mother’s request. Furthermore, I think it’d be a good idea to resume payments to Linda.”
“What?” Her heart rate jumped. Taking a step closer to him as he put a white T-shirt on, she shook her head. “Why would you do that, Ryan?”
Reaching over to his dirty jeans on the bed, he fished out a folded piece of paper from the back pocket and handed it to her. She read the letter but only grew more frustrated. She held the letter out to him. “This? This is why you’re going to give this woman money? Your dad even says in the letter to do what you feel is right.”
“I know.” He took her by the hands and peered into her eyes. “I’ve been praying and mulling it over since I found the letter. I think it’s what is best. I’m not entirely sure about it, but I have peace.”
“But Ryan . . .” She touched her forehead as she shook her head. “Why can’t you just let this go? Let this woman fade in the rearview mirror of our lives so we can move forward. She can provide for her kid if she really went out and tried.”
“I know that, but I get the sense this is the right thing to do. Plus, my father couldn’t be there for Tiffany, and this was his way of providing at least something .”
“I disagree.”
“Why?”
“Even your mother wanted it to stop, Ryan. Why’s her request matter when it comes to telling others but not to stopping the payments?”
“I don’t have an answer for you outside of this seems right to me. I feel like God is finally giving me direction in life. First, with Tina and the whole Randy situation back in California and now with resuming payment to Linda, at least for now.”
Seeing he wouldn’t budge, she shook her head and sighed. “Okay, well, in other news, A.K.A. our actual life . . . our daughter was caught vaping in the bathroom at school.”
He looked at the ceiling and sighed. “Does any of this ever end?”
“What do you expect when you neglect the ones you’re actually responsible for, Ryan? Your daughter is struggling and lonely and resorted to drugs in the hopes of being accepted by someone at school.”
“Oh, come on, Em! You don’t think she was trying this stuff in California? Or maybe she was just sneaking out of the house and hanging out with her boyfriend and high-fiving each other all night. It’s a pattern. Don’t be so obtuse.”
“Wow.” Emily’s eyes welled with tears as she shook her head. “You’re being so unkind.”
“Well. I have an overflowing plate of stress being rammed down my throat right now.”
“Still, Ryan. You could stop viewing everything through the lens of yourself and how it stresses you out and try thinking of those in your own household.”
“You want me to care, but only for our own family? Ignore everyone else?”
Emily shook her head and frowned. “Why can’t you see it?”
“See what?”
Tears rolling down her cheeks, she poured her heart out in the moment. “The kids and I miss you like crazy. Why won’t you come home?”
“What on earth are you talking about, Emily?”
“You know what, Ryan?” She dropped her arms to her sides. “I’m tired of trying with you.”
Walking out of the room, she shut the door quietly behind her. As she walked the hallway and wiped her eyes, she begged God through prayer for her husband to see the life he was missing at home.
After dinner, Ryan and his brother went into the back yard. Hanging up the dart board on the tree, they began a game of darts and listened to some music.
“You okay, Bro?” Jason seemed to sense the difficulty Ryan was facing in life. First when he got home and now.
Shrugging a shoulder, Ryan threw a dart as he revealed the part he wanted to about his life. “Drama in paradise.”
His brother laughed. “What do you mean?”
Glancing over his shoulder at Chloe playing in the dirt a few yards away, Ryan looked at Jason. “Enjoy her being three years old . . . if you can.”
“Kind of hard to do. She still struggles to use a toilet.”
“I’m serious, Brother. Enjoy it. My Lizzy is a different girl altogether. It’s like she’s a super immature adult. It sucks.”
“What happened?”
Stepping aside to let Jason throw his darts, Ryan sighed. “She got caught vaping in the bathroom at school.”
Jason’s dart missed the board and stuck in the tree. “No!”
“You have two more darts.”
“No, I meant about Liz.” He turned to Ryan. “So much for a fresh start.”
Ryan nodded, pain cutting into his heart at his brother’s words. “It sucks. And now Emily is mad at me, claiming I’m not around, and she’s upset about how much work I’m doing.”
“Have you spoken to God about it?”
“Some, but not really. I can pray all day, but that’s not going to change my circumstances.”
“Right. Prayer doesn’t change circumstances. It’s obedience and it changes us.”
“Can we not get into a philosophical conversation right now?”
“No problem.” Jason threw his next two darts. “Bill keeps bugging me about the grill and Dad. He seems like he’s just waiting for something to surface. I don’t get that guy’s deal.”
Ryan’s heart dipped as they both collected their darts from the board. “That’s odd.”
“It’s too bad Dad isn’t around. He’d know just how to handle it all.”
Ryan let out a laugh and shook his head, then threw his first dart.
Jason tilted his head. “What’s funny about that?”
Uneasiness filled Ryan as he fought against the desire to tell his brother the truth. “Uh, I just don’t know if Dad was the greatest of guys, man.”
“What? Why?”
He’d said too much. Stopping before he threw another dart, he looked at Jason. “I’m just saying he wasn’t perfect. Do you think he was flawless?”
Jason relaxed. “No. Of course not.”
“Well, that’s all I meant. We can’t idolize the guy just because he died. There was a lot we didn’t like.”
“Didn’t like about who?” Veronica inquired as she stepped out onto the patio in the back yard.
Turning, Ryan saw his mother make her way over to a chair on the patio. He felt a softness toward her in his soul. “Nobody, Mother.”
Jason laughed and said, “We’re just talking about how Dad wasn’t perfect.”
Ryan could see a flicker of worry in his mother’s eyes. He had to follow it up with something to make her at ease about the conversation. “No specifics, just chatting.”
“Why don’t you all just focus on your own lives? How about that?”
“Right.” Jason handed his darts to his brother and went over to sit with his mother and catch up on her trip to Buffalo.
After Jason and Chloe had gone home that evening, Emily started on dishes. She was upset about her and Ryan’s conversation earlier in the bedroom. He was mean, rude, and unkind. Then, he walked out into the kitchen and had dinner and hung out with his brother like it all had never happened. Hearing him come in from helping Jason out to the car, her heart jumped at the sound of the slider shutting hard.
He walked up to her in the kitchen. “We need to talk to our daughter.”
“Why don’t you relax and we can talk to her a different time, Ryan?”
“Who do you think you are?” He scoffed and shook his head. “You’re supposed to be a helpmate and you’re acting like a control-mate instead.”
“What was all that talk earlier about sensing God and your decision being right? One second, you’re calm and collected, acting as if you’re an oracle of God, the next moment you’re ready to fly off the handle.”
He relaxed in his demeanor. “I don’t know . . . my emotions just feel so intense about Elizabeth and this situation.”
“It’s redirected grief.” Veronica walked into the room, interrupting the two of them. “Sorry to butt in. It’s your family and your life, but you two must realize that grief is crazy and unpredictable. It shows up in a variety of flavors and it comes out in other areas of life.”
Ryan’s eyes welled with tears, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I just feel so uncomfortable.”
Coming closer to him, Emily wrapped her arms around him.
“I’ll leave now.” Veronica exited, heading down the hallway to her room.
Maneuvering out of her embrace, Ryan held a look of vulnerability in his eyes. “I need to go be alone.”
“Okay.”
After an hour or so of doing chores around the house, Emily decided to go find Ryan. She looked in the back yard, but he wasn’t there. She checked his study, the living room, and their bedroom. There was no sign of him.
Taking her car keys, she went out the front door. Almost to the car, she heard a sound from around the corner of the house.
Placing her keys into her purse, she walked around the side of the house to find him sprawled out in the grass, face pointed upward at the starry night sky.
Approaching cautiously, she came closer. She saw his eyes open and tears streaming down the sides of his face.
“What is wrong with me, Emily?” He shook his head, and his lips formed a frown. “I don’t like who I am anymore. I’m so angry, so upset . . . all the time.”
Lying down next to him in the grass, she grabbed his hand as she leaned her head against his shoulder and joined him in gazing upward. The stars twinkled and danced across the evening sky, reminding her that God was over her life, over her family, over everything. Ryan gave her hand a squeeze.
“With the whole Linda thing . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I just feel like I need to take care of my dad’s daughter. I don’t know why. It just seems right, like I said earlier.”
She turned her head, meeting him face-to-face. “Just because something seems right, doesn’t mean it is right.”
“Maybe . . .” He looked again at the stars. “How do I decide what to do when I don’t have the option of calling my dad for advice?”
Silence lingered as the seconds turned to minutes. Then, Emily spoke. “You go to the One who you’ll never lose.”