Chapter 6

Saturday when Frank got back from his first session with Tyrone, I had sandwiches ready. I knew how exhausting it could be to talk of such personal, intimate, emotional matters, and I remembered how, once I'd gotten over the strain, I'd been starved.

Frank sat down at the dining room table, and I sat across from him with a cup of coffee. He ate voraciously. He must have expended as much energy as I had. I didn't say anything, just watched him eat. It was almost as though I were looking at him for the first time. I hadn't noticed in months that dark wavy hair, or how he always looked at the end of the day like he needed a shave, or how he was so tall and straight.

I saw in him a more mature, somewhat bulkier version of the man I'd fallen in love with and married. We'd met when I was in high school, when I was just 18 years old and getting ready to graduate. He was two years older, going to college, studying to be a pastor. He'd decided not to attend Bible college, and was taking classes in literature and communications. His reasoning, as he'd explained it to me, was that he'd grown up on theology, had cut his teeth on commentaries and expositions, and so what he wanted to learn was how to place the Bible in its literary context. He wanted to understand the thing that he believed, and communicate it clearly.

He'd been a tall, slim man then, with a dazzling smile and an easy way about him, and even then a command of English that impressed me. I remembered the first time I'd gone to hear him preach. It was a surprise for both of us – he'd told me he would be delivering the sermon that morning, but I'd left him with the impression that I would be at my own church. But at the last minute I changed my mind, and visited the church where he was preaching. His delivery was assured, his doctrine sound, and I realized then that he would be a fine pastor when the time came.

By the time I'd graduated from high school he and I were inseparable. Once I was on my own, he'd began dating me, taking me to movies, on picnics in the park, on slow Sunday afternoon drives through the countryside. Eastern Washington is pretty country, mostly, and there around Spokane there are green mountains and meadows, and lakes and streams. He took me one time to Clayton, where we ate burgers and drank root beer so good that people came from miles around, with gallon jugs, to buy it. Another time we visited Loon Lake, and once we sat beside the Spokane River and he told me of his dream to find a church where he could stay and give his whole life to the Gospel.

He'd proposed to me one day after church. He'd preached that morning, and taken me out to eat at a restaurant that I was sure he could afford only by scrimping for days before or after. And after we finished dessert he reached into the pocket of his coat, and brought out the stereotypical small box, and opened it and put in front of me.

I accepted his proposal then and there, and once there was a degree on his wall and he had a steady church, we were married, in 1989. We'd been together there in Spokane for six years, and then came the call to Albuquerque, where it all fell apart.

The Frank Carter who was wolfing down sandwiches was older, and I realized that the strain of the past few months had graven itself into his features. He looked older than I knew he was. There was some gray on his temples now, though he was only 35 years old, and there were new, bitter lines beside his mouth. He'd lost weight too, though not as much as I had. I hadn't seen any of this, I'd been so sunk in my own apathy and despair.

He finished a sandwich, and took a drink of the coffee which had been cooling in front of him. He saw me looking at him. "Are you all right, Genesis?" It was the first time he'd sounded human, except for the last time in the hospital, since my confession back in June.

"All right?" I answered. "We're working on that. I'm better than I was. It's just ... I was remembering the past."

"The past?"

"How we met, how we fell in love, all that..."

"Remember the time we went walking in the moonlight, and you thought that bat was going to tangle itself in your hair?"

"I do." I almost smiled, almost felt like smiling.

"Things were so different then."

"Yes."

"Back then neither one of us thought of adultery..."

And just like that it was there between us again. I set my cup down, my eyes filling.

"Neither one of us ever thought that we'd be trying to keep our marriage together, instead of simply loving each other." I heard bitterness in Frank's voice. And that was, actually, better than the cold I'd endured for so long.

"Neither one of us thought I was so weak, did we?" I asked.

Frank looked into his cup for a moment, and finding nothing there, put it down harder than necessary. "No, we didn't," he said. And he got up and stalked off.

It wasn't going to be an easy road.

I went to bed that night on the sofa. I hadn't expected anything different, not so soon, but it still hurt that Frank hadn't asked me to join him in our bed. It was beginning to seem like his bed only, and not mine. It had been nine months since I'd slept beside Frank, since I'd slept in our bed. I'd only slept in a bed three times in all those months, and each time it was a hospital bed. I laid down on the sofa that night and cried myself to sleep.

In the morning Frank woke me with a hand on my shoulder. When my eyes opened he stood upright, and for just a second his face was compassionate before it fell back into the cold lines I'd come to know. I sat up and pushed my hair back off my forehead. Frank was looking down at me, the first time he'd done that. I looked up at him, my red curls falling back over my forehead. "Did you want something?" I asked.

"No ... I was just looking at you."

"What for?" I stood up and began gathering my blanket and pillow.

"I've remembered, these past two weeks, that you're my wife."

"I've never forgotten, Frank."

He seized my arm. "Genesis, I'm trying very hard to be civil here."

I'd wept over his coldness. I'd provoked him to anger to try to destroy it. And now that he was human again, at least a little, I couldn't seem to reciprocate. "I could have used some kindness a long time ago," I said, and turned toward the bedroom.

"Please, Genesis. I'm doing my best here..."

I unbent enough to look at him, enough to allow myself to return a civil answer. "I appreciate that, Frank. But I need to get ready for church." I vacillated between continuing with compassion, and continuing harshly, and in the end I didn't say anything else at all, just went into the bedroom to get dressed.

I chose a light green dress, with puffed sleeves that came halfway down my upper arms. I put a broad white belt around my waist, and slipped my feet into a pair of emerald pumps. In the bathroom I brushed my hair and tied it back with an emerald green ribbon, allowing my natural bangs to fall to my eyebrows, with some of my curls framing my face. For the first time in months, I thought I actually looked good.

With that thought in mind, I carefully applied makeup. I used to use rouge to accentuate my cheekbones and make my round face seem a bit less full, but with my new skinniness I didn't do that. Instead I called attention to my lips with red lipstick – not too much, for I didn't want to look like a tart – and enhanced my eyes with some kohl. Though I'm a natural redhead my eyes are a soft brown, and they seemed enormous when I was done.

Back in the living room Frank was putting on his shoes, and I could smell bacon frying in the kitchen. Without thinking I raised my eyebrows when he looked up – an old way I had of asking a question without speaking. Our communication had fallen on such hard times that I couldn't remember the last time I'd used that trick, but it worked.

"I thought we could use a small snack before church," Frank said, and sounded as normal as he had in a very long time.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying, which I certainly would have done otherwise. I managed to keep my voice level when I spoke. "Thank you. I think that's a very good idea."

I had hoped for at least a small smile, but Frank turned back to his shoes without offering one. I had hoped, but the lack of a smile didn't surprise me. We were just starting on that hard road. It wasn't likely that Frank would return to what he had been in the space of a week. More likely it would be months before we could spend an entire day in natural conversation.

Tyrone, I realized that second Sunday, was a very good preacher. He was the first black preacher I'd ever heard, and he wasn't at all what I'd understood black preachers to be. He didn't rant and rave, he didn't go into a singsong delivery, and his sermon had a clear organization and dealt well with serious doctrine. Perhaps he was just an anomaly – and perhaps my preconceptions weren't as accurate as I'd thought. In any event I enjoyed this, the first sermon I'd actually paid attention to since the day I confessed my sin to Frank.

I found myself comparing Tyrone to Frank – not as men, for Frank was the only man I cared about that way, but as preachers. It was hard for me, for I'd been hearing and enjoying Frank's sermons since I was 18 years old. But as much as I hated to admit it – even after the way Frank had been treating me for nearly a year – I found Tyrone to be a better preacher. Technically, I suppose Frank had the edge, but there was something about Tyrone's preaching that touched me in a way that Frank's preaching didn't.

I filed it away to think about later. The last thing I needed to do right then was find ways to criticize my husband. I had enough to say about him, at least in my own mind, and I didn't need to add more. The goal wasn't to tear Frank down, but – and this was a new realization – to build him up into the husband I needed him to be.

And at that I was hardly in a position to offer instruction in virtue. It was true, as I'd told Frank more than once, that I'd repented of my sin. I had repented, not merely being sorry I'd gotten caught, for in fact I hadn't gotten caught. My sorrow was for what I'd done. I'd sinned, against my husband and against God – I loved both, and had betrayed both. No, I wasn't a paragon of virtue, and I wasn't going to pretend I was. I'd leave the question of what in Tyrone's preaching attracted me as Frank's hadn't for another time – if indeed I ever tried to resolve it.