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“I’ll ask her if I can come over. I haven’t seen Morgan in days, and I really need to step it up.”
“I’ll leave your coffee here,” Lisa said, placing it on the counter.
“Don’t leave. Talk to me.”
“No, Ryan. I have nothing to say to you. I don’t want to hear about your wonderful night of sex with that nurse. You already rubbed my nose in it. Wasn’t that satisfying enough?”
“The lesson to that is don’t come over unannounced.”
“I’ll never come over again,” she said, and stomped off.
Taking a deep breath, she already regretted losing control. His last antics had done them in. So let him run from their love and the family they’d built, their wonderful home on thebeach. Stuffing down a sob, she hid in the laundry room, her new holy space. After removing all the ridiculous laundry day paraphernalia like a wooden cutout that spelled Laundry Day, or a fake laundry line with whimsical clothes pin bag that was stuffed with styrofoam, she’d hung a picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall. Ryan had seen it once and teased her, but she hadn’t responded.
Mary was her hero. It didn’t matter that Lisa had uncertain beliefs about the other ideologies attached to Mary. Lisa had become interested in Mary after reading a child’s Christmas story.
What had it been like in that day and age for a young girl to tell her mother and father she was pregnant? Then the older man Joseph coming to her rescue. Caesar Augustus had decreed that all should be taxed in their ancestral village, which was why they’d had to go to Bethlehem, since Joseph was from the house of David.
It would have taken them four days to get from Nazareth to Bethlehem. During the trip, Mary’s labor began while she rode sitting on the back of a little donkey. Lisa had read stories that they’d traveled along the Jordan River, where fresh water and dates would have provided some nourishment. Because Mary was pregnant and unmarried, any family along the way would have avoided offering overnight housing. Her Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Zachariah were nearby. Why didn’t they offer a bed? The bible story said that Elizabeth knew all along Mary was pregnant.
A trip like that in the third trimester of pregnancy would have been so difficult. Lisa remembered being at the end of her pregnancy with Marcus, driving to visit Pam and being miserable. Mary had ridden a donkey for hours while she was in labor.
As the story went, there were no rooms available because the village was overrun with people coming to pay their taxes. Someone took pity on the couple, offering their barn. The baby was delivered among the farm animals with a cadre of strange, older men in Mary’s midst, with no woman attending her.
After the birth, Mary and Joseph fled with the newborn when an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, telling him that King Herod was going to kill her baby. Imagine what it was like to get back on the donkey with a newborn, probably none of them dressed appropriately for the cold night desert. If the story was true, it had taken them longer than a week to get to Egypt. How did they hide during the trip?
Bowing her head, Lisa wept again, for herself, for the poor decisions she’d made. Somehow, she had to find the strength to keep separate from Ryan. She was hiding a secret from him. She looked up at the framed photo of Mary holding the infant.
“Please, help me,” she whispered. “Help me be strong.”
Ryan was out in the great room with the little girls. The whole situation had become so clear to her. He’d asked to come over because he was lonely, not because he wanted to see his children, to make right the wrongs he’d committed. Lisa decided then that she was going to get a lawyer involved after all. Ryan was a weakness for her, and she often made misguided decisions when he was involved.
“Thanks,” she whispered, looking at Mary’s likeness again.
Out in the great room, Ryan had gotten ahold of a packing box and was loading his painting supplies into it. Madelyn and Sierra were playing alone in the sunroom.
Anger rose again, but Lisa squelched it. “Your attention span is about five minutes.”
“I got distracted. I’ll get my paints out of here. Can I take the cupboard?”
“Yes. You can take your artwork, too.”
He looked at her, surprised. “I painted it for this cottage.”
“Well, I don’t want it anymore, so take it.”
It was clear she’d hurt his feelings, but saying what she wanted made her feel tougher. Rather than reveal anything about her decision to get an attorney, she’d let that be a surprise. The knowledge made her feel strong.
Lisa would play hardball.
Chapter 3
The waves crashing on the beach woke Tony up just as the sun rose on Sunday.
“What is that infernal racket?”
“It’s the ocean,” Kassandra replied. “Be quiet and go back to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep with that noise,” he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll go for a run.”
