A Time to Mend Read online

  A Time to Mend

  © 2007 by Sally John and Gary Smalley

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Scripture quotations are taken from THE NEW ENGLISH BIBLE © 1961, 1970 by the Delegates of the Oxford University Press and Syndics of Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission. HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Page Design by Mandi Cofer.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  John, Sally, 1951–

  A time to mend / Sally John, with Gary Smalley.

  p. cm. — (Safe harbors ; Bk. 1)

  ISBN 978-0-8499-1889-6

  I. Smalley, Gary. II. Title.

  PS3560.O323T56 2008

  813'.54—dc22

  2007044358

  Printed in the United States of America

  07 08 09 10 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Tim

  Content

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  Forty

  Forty-one

  Forty-two

  Forty-three

  Forty-four

  Forty-five

  Forty-six

  Forty-seven

  Forty-eight

  Forty-nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-one

  Fifty-two

  Fifty-three

  Fifty-four

  Fifty-five

  Fifty-six

  Fifty-seven

  Fifty-eight

  Fifty-nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-one

  Sixty-two

  Sixty-three

  Sixty-four

  Sixty-five

  Sixty-six

  Sixty-seven

  Sixty-eight

  Sixty-nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-one

  Seventy-two

  Seventy-three

  Seventy-four

  Seventy-five

  Seventy-six

  Seventy-seven

  Seventy-eight

  Seventy-nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-one

  Eighty-two

  Eighty-three

  Eighty-four

  Eighty-five

  Eighty-six

  Eighty-seven

  Eighty-eight

  Eighty-nine

  Ninety

  Ninety-one

  Ninety-two

  Ninety-three

  Ninety-four

  Ninety-five

  Acknowledgments

  Reading Group Guide

  He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

  —2 Corinthians 5:19 NIV

  The Beaumont family

  Ben and Indio—Max’s parents. Their grandchildren call them Papa and Nana. Their home, the Hacienda Hideaway, is a retreat center located in the hills above San Diego, California.

  Max—Married to Claire. Founder and owner of Beaumont Staffing, a nationwide staffing firm.

  Claire—Married to Max. Volunteer for community organizations and violinist.

  Max and Claire’s four grown children

  Erik—News anchor for a local San Diego television station.

  Jenna—High school English teacher. Married to Kevin Mason.

  Danny—Lexi’s twin. Software guru and surfer.

  Lexi (Alexis)—Danny’s twin. Gardener. Artist.

  Others

  Kevin Mason—Jenna’s husband. Teacher, coach, and Marine.

  Tandy Abbott—Claire’s friend.

  Neva and Phil—Max’s employees and friends.

  One

  Huddled on the sofa in the dimly lit living room, Claire Beaumont gazed through the bay window. Car headlamps swept across a stand of eucalyptus trees. The automatic garage door rattled up. A long moment passed. The door rattled back down.

  Its rumble vibrated through her. She clutched a throw pillow tightly at her waist.

  The door between the garage and laundry room opened and shut. Her husband’s footsteps clicked against the ceramic-tiled floors, across the kitchen.

  Claire moaned. There was still time. She could scurry off to bed, feign sleep, forgive and forget. Carry on.

  His footfalls clacked into the foyer and passed the front door. Then they went silent, muffled by the hallway carpet.

  Claire’s breath caught, squashed under the unbearable weight produced by the thought of carrying on.

  Max appeared at the wide entrance to the living room and halted. “Claire! You’re still awake?”

  It was now or never. “I quit,” she whispered, more to herself than to the man across the room.

  “It’s 2:00 a.m., hon.”

  As if she didn’t know what time it was. Her heart slammed against her ribs and thrust the words upward again, more loudly this time. “I quit.”

  “It sounds like I’ve walked into the middle of a conversation here.” With a distinct air of weariness, Max draped his sport coat and tie over the back of the nearest chair and then plopped onto it. “Okay. What do you quit?”

  “I quit . . .” She froze. Normally she would not have waited up for him. Normally she would not have confronted him while the anger still boiled. No, normally she would not even have admitted she was angry.

  Nothing about the night, though, resembled normally.

  The grandfather clock struck two fifteen.

  She’d had hours to figure out what she was quitting. Or had it been years?

  “Look, Claire.” His patient tone exuded sympathy. “I imagine you’re upset because I missed the birthday dinner the kids had for you. Even though I’m taking you to San Francisco on Saturday, on your birthday, tonight was important. When you think about it, those four hardly ever get together anymore. They only did it for you. So it was your special time with them. You really didn’t want me here.”

  “Don’t tell me what I didn’t want.” Ignoring the pathetic warble in her voice, she pressed on. “You always do that. You always
think you know what I want or how I feel.”

  “I’m lost here. What are you talking about? I missed one lousy dinner.”

  She shoved the throw pillow against the cushion and unfolded her legs. “It’s not that you missed one lousy dinner.” Her voice steadied. “It’s that you’ve missed thirty years of dinners and events. I can’t live like this anymore. All of a sudden, I’m tired.”

  “Hon, we’re both tired. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “No, Max. I mean I’m tired. I’m tired of the whole charade.”

  “How about we take a vacation? We’ll do the cruise thing again. You enjoyed that. September might work—”

  “No.” She shook her head vehemently. “I’m tired of pretending everything is fine. I’m tired, really, of letting you off the hook. I quit. Tonight was the last straw.”

  “‘The last straw’? What in the world does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.” She stood on unsteady legs. “I just don’t know. But I can’t talk any more right now. I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

  She sidestepped the coffee table and breezed past him, heading toward the hall.

  “Claire, honey, come on.” He used his husky voice—the one with the unmistakably masculine timbre, the one that always assured her things would be all right.

  She didn’t break stride.

  Shaking from head to toe, Claire spread an extra blanket over the bed and climbed in. She was wearing flannel pajamas in the middle of July in Southern California, and she couldn’t get warm.

  Her thoughts whirled as she stared into the dark with wide-open eyes. She’d never slept in the guest room before. She probably wouldn’t literally sleep in it tonight either.

  Dear God, what just happened?

  No. She couldn’t go there. Not yet. She’d wait until the sheer emotion of it dissipated. She’d wait for rational thought to return.

  Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

  Help me, Lord!

  A picture of the evening came to mind—the evening Max had missed. Their grown children and one son-in-law had treated her to a surprise birthday dinner. Erik, Daniel, Alexis, Jenna, and Kevin cooked and danced like five wild chefs in her kitchen. They made her laugh. They made her feel like a queen.

  But in the end the scullery maid won out.

  Claire rolled onto her side, curled herself up into a tight ball, and prayed for the night to end.

  Two

  Hunkered down outside on the patio flagstones, the area lit by spotlights, Max fiddled with his grill and swore under his breath. Things were gummed up. He rose, thumped the lid with his knuckles, raked his fingers through his hair, and swore again.

  The kids had used it tonight. Specifically, Erik had used it. Or, rather, dismantled it. Their thirty-year-old son never could be trusted with anything mechanical.

  Had Claire been so ticked off she refused to keep one eye on his prized possession? It wasn’t like her to ignore such things. And what was all that nonsense about quitting and pretending? Pretending what? And waltzing off to the guest room! That was a first.

  He shook his head and walked across the patio. Long strides carried him toward the pool. He rounded it once, twice, and kept on going for a third.

  Sure, she had a right to be upset. It was her birthday dinner with the kids, a rare occasion in recent years. He should have been there. But his workday had been scheduled long before they decided to sur-prise their mom. When business involved other people, his day was not his own. Besides, he and Claire would celebrate her real birthday in San Francisco on Saturday the seventeenth. Just that morning she had mentioned how she was looking forward to it.

  To have the kids show up unannounced and fix dinner must have meant the world to her, though. Naturally, she had wanted him to share in the special event. That made sense. What he couldn’t wrap his mind around was her overreaction to his inability to get there in time. The circumstances were so far beyond his control.

  Claire’s overreactions were few and far between. She understood the agency—the one they’d founded together almost thirty-three years ago—often had to be prioritized. It was the nature of the beast. She accepted his late arrivals to family functions with more grace than he deserved. At times she fussed, of course, often with a sarcasm that made him laugh. He always did his best to make up for it with gifts and special family trips. It wasn’t as if he was a totally absent husband and father.

  So what was with tonight? Man, tonight wasn’t even close to being his fault! The jet had been out of commission!

  He’d arrived home to find her not fussing but sitting there, coiled on the couch like a silent jaguar waiting to pounce. And here he’d spent most of the evening waiting in the private lounge at the Sacramento airport, thinking his backside was covered.

  Should he go into the guest room and wake her? And do what? Apologize for the kids making plans without consulting him first?

  He didn’t think so. If Claire wanted her space tonight, that was just fine with him.

  Three

  Claire watched the first rays of sunlight paint the distant rolling hills. She sat in the gazebo at the end of a stone path in their backyard. It was located in the farthest corner from the house—as far as she could remove herself from Max without getting in the car and driving somewhere.

  Wrapped in a terry-cloth robe, bare feet propped on another cushioned wicker chair, she listened to morning birdsong and drained an entire carafe of coffee. She waited for the sun’s warm glow to invade the shadowy canyon that lay at the base of those hills.

  She waited, too, she imagined, for a warm glow to seep into her own dark heart.

  “Morning.” Max’s voice startled her, and she turned. He kissed the top of her head and pulled a chair from the table. “Mind?”

  Well, she did. Sort of. At the sound of his voice, her stomach lurched, as if she’d eaten an entire quart of Choco-Cherry Chunk ice cream all by herself.

  Rather than wait for a reply, he sat, coffee mug in hand. “The grill’s broken.” Gazing toward the sun, he sipped from the cup.

  Claire stared at him, replaying his comment a few times. “The grill’s broken . . . The grill’s broken.”

  Okay. So that’s where they were. Last night hadn’t happened. She could chalk it all up to just another “Max snafu”—a phrase their daughter Jenna had coined as an adolescent when she learned “snafu” was an acronym for “situation normal, all fouled up.” Max’s late arrivals and absences were a normal part of the Beaumont household. The confusion they created had become the stuff of family lore. Someday they would all laugh about Max sitting in the Sacramento airport while the kids cooked a birthday dinner for her.

  Which shifted the whole point of the fun evening onto him. It made her the butt of the joke.

  The ache in her stomach burned now. It rose up into her throat.

  Last night had happened. Chalking it up to a “Max snafu” wouldn’t cut it this time.

  “‘The grill is broken’?”

  He looked at her. “Yeah, it is.”

  “Oh, I believe you. I just can’t believe those were the first words out of your mouth.”

  With a slight shrug, he drank from the cup and turned his head again.

  His mind was elsewhere. Though he easily functioned on four hours of sleep, he wasn’t at his best before coffee. The puffiness around his eyes told her he had not slept well. His short, thick, black hair was damp. His face, with its fifty-five-year-old creases and dimple smack-dab in the center of the chin, was smooth shaven. Dressed for the office, he wore a white polo shirt and beige linen slacks. His matching jacket would be hung neatly on the back of a kitchen chair.

  She should wait, catch him at a better time.

  But she always did that. She always held back, measured her words, pretended everything was fine.

  The burning sensation engulfed her now. She heard her own breathing, the shallow gasps. Her thoughts raced, and she could no longer contain them.

  “We hav
e to talk about last night.”

  He turned to her, squinting as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

  “Yes. Right now. I’ve finished off a whole pot of coffee here trying to figure out what happened. Then you sit down and right off the bat talk about the grill. Next you’re going to stand up and say you’ve got a seven-thirty meeting.”

  “Well, actually—”

  “Max!”

  “It’s at eight o’clock.”

  “Which gives us—what? Ten whole minutes to figure out our future?”

  “Wait, hold on there. This sounds like a little caffeine overload to me.”

  “I slept in the guest room.”

  “That’s okay, Claire. You were clearly upset, and you had your reasons. No problem. Today’s a new day. Let’s just move on.”

  “I can’t. I can’t shove this one under the rug.”

  “There’s nothing to shove under the rug. This is our life. It always has been.”

  As his voice gathered enthusiastic steam, Claire anticipated his monologue. She could have delivered it herself verbatim.

  “I have a company to run, and sometimes, yes, it interferes with our private life. When you and I started the business, we knew it would have to come first. But we agreed to prevail, right? We would stay strong, because it’s such an important work. Every year thou-sands and thousands of people find jobs because of Beaumont Staffing. We impact society for the good. We make a difference in the world.”

  “That commercial’s getting a little stale, don’t you think?”

  His jaw fell.

  “The point is right here and right now.” A mirthless chuckle erupted from her throat, an uncontrollable noise of disbelief that frightened her. Words flew off her tongue. “You sat down and talked about the grill. Good grief, I’m playing second fiddle to a grill! And now I know exactly what happened last night. When I said I’m tired of the charade, I meant I won’t play second fiddle to the company. Yes, we agreed ages ago that it would interfere with our private lives, and we would prevail. But, Max, we have prevailed. We’ve made it to the point where the business doesn’t need to interfere anymore. It’s no longer fighting for its life. And neither is it tripling in size. It doesn’t need your attention day and night.”

  “I missed dinner because the plane broke down.”