Chapter 5 – Reconnecting
"Jane."
He hadn't called her by her old nickname in such a long time and the word sounded strangely unfamiliar. She cradled the phone to her ear, slowly pacing the hotel room. His voice was familiarly low and almost pleading now as he went on. "I'd like you to come home."
"Adam." There was a certain exasperation in her voice. They had been over this so many times. He had begged her to come home, in the beginning more often than now. She thought he might have given up, might have seen how it was a futile undertaking to ask her to return after all these years.
His voice was barely above a whisper, and she didn't think she had heard it this desperate in a long time. "Jane, please. Things are falling apart." There was a pregnant pause, then: "I need you."
She had to swallow and sat down on the bed, absently stroking the beige bedspread, the velour fibers catching on the chapped skin of her fingertips. "Adam, please stop asking me to come home. You know I can't. You know I have important things to do here."
His voice became angrier. And oh-so tired. "You don't know what it's like, having to keep things from our daughter. Having to lie to her. Having to put her off with empty promises. She keeps asking questions, questions I can't answer. At least speak to her. Please." With his last word he was back to that desperate plea she thought she had long learned how to ignore.
Joan's hand went to her forehead as she sighed. There was only so much more of this she could take. She had built up a pretty good resistance to pleas from her husband, had excelled in the art of outright dismissal and refusal to let him get to her. Something she had grown accustomed to, no matter how much it had pained her to learn that lesson. How was it that suddenly it was like he had struck a nerve, that she was beginning to weaken?
As she ground her teeth, Adam's voice filtered through to her ear. "At least tell me where you are."
She was beginning to sound like a broken record. "I can't," was her simple answer and she already anticipated his angered reply.
But it never came, and she didn't know whether to take comfort in that or not. Instead, his voice was matter-of-fact, resigned. "Kevin was here the other day. Elya and I ... we had a fight and she ran away, went to find her grandparents—your parents. Kevin brought her home. Guess the secret's out now." There was a certain accusation in his voice as he asked her, "Joan, why didn't you tell me your mother died?"
There was silence, heavy and building up to the point of almost unbearable. Joan was at a loss of what to say. She hated keeping things from her husband—and the truth was, she didn't know why she had never told him. It seemed like too painful a thing to talk about back then, and after a while she felt that it didn't matter anymore whether he knew or not. How could she ever think that it didn't matter? Her mother had been like a mother to him, been the mother he had lost all those years ago.
Maybe it was the guilt. The guilt that she had come to Arcadia to say goodbye to her mother but not to visit her husband and her own daughter, who were just a couple of miles away.
Suddenly despair washed over her, drowning her senses. She had seen what Adam's mother's death had done to him, how could she let her own daughter grow up without a mother? How could He let her daughter grow up without a mother?
"Damn you!" she hissed through clenched teeth.
"What?" came Adam's voice from the other end of the phone.
"No ... I ..." she stammered. Her voice was meek, full of regret. Something she had thought she had forgotten how to sound, how to be. "I'm sorry, Adam. I should have told you, I—"
"Damn right, you should!" he interrupted her forcefully. A little calmer, he went on, "There's something seriously wrong here, but we can fix it, Jane." His voice still lowered a notch. "It's not too late to fix it. But you need to come home, just for a short while."
He didn't say please this time, didn't need to. She knew she was losing him. Maybe had already lost him. She had lost her own daughter a long time ago, and she thought she had made a certain extent of peace with it. It was part of the reason why she never talked to Elya, didn't want to see her again. Because she knew that if she did, her resolve to be focused on her 'mission' would crumble like a sand castle in high tide.
Was it time to come home? Was she really prepared to take that step? And what would He say? Would He let her go? Condone her decision? He had always insisted on free will and how important that was. When had she stopped believing in free will? When had she stopped listening to her own instincts and started acting only upon His?
When she heard Adam's voice gently say, "Jane?" she realized she hadn't said anything for a while. Her voice quiet, she told him, "I need some time to think about it, okay?"
His voice was equally quiet, reserved. "Okay." He hesitated a second, then said, "I love you, Jane."
Tears sprang into her eyes, unfamiliar tears that she hadn't felt in years, had learned how to suppress so well. Numbness and detachment was something she had subscribed to, something she had gotten down to an art. She lowered the cell phone from her ear and slowly pushed the 'Disconnect' button with the phone held in her lap. "I love you too," she whispered.