Big Girls Don’t Cry (Dundee, Idaho #6)(30)
Author: Brenda Novak

“It’s crazy to want my children to be closer to their father?” she responded, turning from the kitchen cupboard, where she was busy wrapping dishes.

Isaac finished sealing the box he’d filled and shoved it toward the door. “You don’t know what Dundee is like.”

“You’ve told me about it.” She grimaced slightly while stretching her back. Packing up a house this size was no small task. They’d been bending, reaching and lifting for three days. Fortunately, it was easier today because the children were in school instead of trying to help. “It’s mountainous there,” she recited. “It gets cold and snowy in the winter. And it’s small.”

“The meaning of small is what I don’t think you understand.”

“So there won’t be any movie theaters or shopping malls.” She went back to packing.

Isaac slouched into one of the few chairs left in the room and stretched out his long legs. “Liz, look at me.”

“What? It’s not like I’m selling the house, Isaac. I’m renting it out on a month-to-month basis, okay? That’s not permanent.”

“I had to sign a six-month lease in order to get a place in Dundee.”

“Six months isn’t that long.”

“Going there even for a few weeks will be bad enough. Reenie’s father is an Idaho state senator and has been for years.”

Her eyebrows drew together in an expression of impatience. “So?”

“She’s lived in Dundee her whole life and is well entrenched in the community. Everyone likes her.”

“Even you,” she said, her tone slightly accusing.

Isaac couldn’t deny it, so he focused on his point. “I’m saying you won’t be welcomed.”

“I know what you’re saying. But I’m not going there to win any popularity contests.”

“You’ll be the antithesis of popular. You’ll be notorious, a pariah. Are you sure being near Keith will be worth the sacrifice?”

She set two mugs on the counter and stared at them instead of wrapping them in newspaper. “I talked to Chris’s teacher yesterday, Isaac.”

Isaac could tell by the tone of her voice that this wasn’t going to be good. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. “And?”

“Since I told the kids that their daddy left us, Chris hasn’t been making any progress in school. His teacher said he doesn’t even look at the papers she passes out. He sits in his chair, staring out the window, his mind off in some other world. She’s worried about him, doesn’t know how to reach him. And neither do I.”

“He needs time to adjust, Liz,” Isaac said gently. “He’ll be okay. He’s not the first kid to suffer through a parental divorce.”

“You mean annulment, right? Divorces are only for legal marriages.”

“In this case, after so many years, it amounts to about the same thing. Except it saves you money.”

“Lucky me. Well, annulment or divorce or whatever, Christopher isn’t coping. This is hitting him as hard as I knew it would.”

Isaac understood. He just wasn’t sure the risk she was taking would improve the situation. “Keith hasn’t returned your calls, Liz. Yesterday, he had his cell-phone service shut off. You can’t even leave him a message anymore.”

“Which is exactly why I have to go there! Don’t you see? I need some type of closure. I need him to face me and tell me he doesn’t love me anymore. This silence is…it’s like being locked in a dark room. I can’t get my bearings. I’ve been feeling my way around, searching frantically for the light switch. Idaho is that light switch. I’m not sure going there will bring my husband back to me, but I can’t extinguish that hope until I see him, talk to him, figure out what happened to us.”

“Can’t you fly up there and meet with him?”

“For what, a half hour? That’s not the same. I have to know he won’t change his mind in a week or two.”

“If he’s back with Reenie, you might have a real fight on your hands. She’s probably forbidden him to see you again. Otherwise, he would have kept his cell-phone service.”

“You said cell phones don’t work there.”

“They don’t. But it was your only link. He could’ve kept the service so he could check his voice mail from a land phone. At least then you’d have a discreet way to communicate with him.”

“You’re saying he doesn’t want to talk to me,” she said softly.

“Maybe he can’t.”

She considered this for a moment, then lifted her chin. “I don’t care. Once we get there, he’ll have to acknowledge the children, at least. They need the same kind of closure I’m searching for.”

Keith shook his head. “The next few months are going to be a nightmare.”

“I’m already living a nightmare,” she said.

“Trust me. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.” If it gets better, he thought.

“You can go back to Chicago, if you want.” She shoved two more glasses in the box at her feet. “Just because I’m doing this doesn’t mean you have to come along.”

She’d tried to tell him that at least a dozen times already. But he couldn’t leave her. Especially now. Once she arrived in Dundee, she wouldn’t have a friend in the world. “Sorry, but you’re stuck with me,” he said.

“You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

“Maybe.”

“At least you have to go back after Christmas. That’s only six weeks away.”

He watched her reach for more newspaper. “Actually, I’m not teaching spring semester this year.”

She glanced up. “What?”

“I’ve taken a sabbatical from the university.”

Her mouth dropped open. “When?”

“I made it official yesterday.”

“But what about your grant? Your trip to the Congo?”

“I forfeited that to Harold Munoz.”

Her fingers twitched but she could no longer destroy her cuticles. He’d insisted she use Band-Aids to protect them from further damage.

“Please tell me you didn’t really do that,” she said.

When he didn’t answer, she weaved through the boxes littering the floor and knelt in front of him. Several strands of hair had fallen from her ponytail and there was a smudge of black ink on her cheek. Her dishevelment made her look almost as young as the sixteen-year-old girl who’d been so vulnerable to Luanna. “Isaac, why?”