Rooms - James L. Rubart [103]
She released a tiny moan, walked to the refrigerator, swung open the door, and stared at the Crab Louie from last night. Her right leg twitched. Nerves were fraying and dread crept in for a visit.
In a daze she grabbed a quart of orange juice, poured a glass, then took a sip. She carried it to the kitchen table, wondering why it had no taste. Rubbing her eyes, Sarah stood, sighed, walked over to the machine, and pushed the button.
“You have one new message. Message sent today at 9:17 p.m.”
“We have to talk, Sarah.” Micah’s voice paused, and she sucked in a quick breath in concert with the one he drew on the other end of the phone. “I can’t expect you to understand this.” Another pause. “I don’t understand it myself. But my time here is done, at least for a while, so I need to go back to Seattle. I’m supposed to go back.”
She heard him pause once more, and seagulls out over the ocean filled the silence as if from a universe away. “There are some things I need to recapture. I wanted so badly to do this in person. I called your cell phone four times, but either you weren’t answering or you didn’t have it with you, and I didn’t want to leave a message on it, in case—”
Sarah looked at her cell phone, which had sat cradled in its charger for the past two days.
“—you weren’t going to get it for a while. I’m not leaving us. I’ll be back down again in four or five weeks at the most, and we’ll talk on the phone every day while I’m up there. Call me as soon as you get this.”
She should have been relieved. Micah wasn’t ending it—just taking some time up north to work through all the life changes he’d been through during the past four-plus months. He’d been through so much; of course he needed time. But her stomach still churned. This was not the right thing for Micah. For her. For them.
She pushed aside the orange juice, dropped her head to the table, and cried till no more tears would come. After the silence got too loud, she picked up the phone.
He answered on the first ring.
“Micah . . .” She hesitated. “With everything in me, I know this isn’t right.”
“It is.”
“Don’t go.”
“I need to do this. For me. For us. Please don’t try to stop this and make it harder.”
She closed her eyes. “It’s burned onto my heart like a branding iron that you should not go.”
“You’re acting like I’m moving to Siberia.” Micah gave a weak laugh. “We’ll see each other all the time. I’ll be back down in six weeks tops. Next time you get two days off in a row, you can come up. And by going back to Seattle, I’ll recover what I’ve lost. I believe I can get it all back. Believe with me it can happen.”
For fifteen seconds the only noise was the hum of the connection.
“Sarah?”
Silence.
“Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Listen, they’ve got this great new invention that keeps people connected when they’re apart. In fact we’re using it right now. It’s called the telephone.”
She didn’t laugh. “It’s not about us being two hundred miles apart. It’s not about how often we’ll be talking. And it’s not about me coming up to see you. It’s about you going.”
“Then give me a reason.”
“It’s wrong.” Sarah sat slumped back, kneading the knots in her right shoulder.
“That’s not a reason.”
“Everything inside me tells me it’s wrong, that the enemy is in this, trying to make you take a path the complete opposite of the way you should go.”
He sighed. “You know I listen when God tells you something. What you feel matters deeply.” He paused, then whispered, “But this time, it’s not enough to keep me from going.”
Tears spilled onto her cheeks and collected on her chin.
“Sarah?”
“Don’t go, Micah. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose us.”
“You won’t lose me. Ever. I promise. I’ll call you every day.”
Sarah didn’t respond for a long time. “I gotta go.”
“I love you, Sarah.”
“Me, too, Micah. All of me.”
||||||||
The next morning just before sunrise, Sarah stood alone on the beach and watched little bubbles burst on top of the sand,