“How?”
“You’ve just seemed so distant lately. You’re not yourself. I can remember the time when you would’ve been ecstatic to hear that Brendan was praying, and now you don’t even seem to care.”
“Because I don’t. Not when it’s at our expense.”
“But what if it’s our expense that is the thing that gets him saved? Doesn’t that make this whole awful experience worthwhile?”
No. Nothing could make this worthwhile.
Ever.
He wasn’t usedto driving to Muskoka with a silent Sarah. But this made two times in the space of ten days. But unlike last time, illness wasn’t the excuse he could use. She was mad at him, and he didn’t like it. At all.
The afternoon sun was glinting off the lake as he pulled in. It felt weird to be here, less than a week since the last time they’d stayed. Usually when he came it was for weeks on end in the summer. He could only manage the occasional day here and there during the season.
He parked, and she exited and moved to the back.
“Let me get the bags,” he said, as she moved to collect hers.
She tugged, and he grasped her hand.
“I said, let me.”
She shook his hand off, then reached in, then winced.
“Sar.”
She shuddered in a breath, then shook her head, and spun away from his reach, leaving the suitcases while she collected the eco-bag of perishable food items.
Great. This was exactly how he wanted his time here to go. Sarah angry at him, and it was all his fault.
He hefted the bags from the garage up the stairs, unsurprised to see she’d switched the kettle on and was opening the curtains.
“Sarah?”
“Yes?”
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I’mnotmad at you.”
Her insistence drew his lips up. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, so it’s funny now, is it?”
Any hope of breaking this tension with humor faded. “I just didn’t want you straining yourself. You need to be careful.”
“Thank you, Dr. Dan.”
He bit back a sigh and carried the bags up to their bedroom. He hoped she’d still regard it as their bedroom. He wouldn’t blame her for wanting to sleep somewhere else. Maybe he should be a gentleman and ask if that’s what she would prefer.
He deposited their bags inside, then returned. The orange light of the coffee machine indicated Sarah had switched it on. But she already held a mug of tea as she leaned over the wooden railing of the deck.
Irritation flared. So he’d have to make his own beverage then. He pressed his lips together and did just that, using the excuse of the coffee machine’s whine to pretend not to hear her. Mature, he wasn’t. But right now he barely cared. He needed to do something to work off this tension, and the thing he loved to do since getting married was no longer available to him, not for another month at least. Which meant he probably needed to work off some of his pent-up energy in the basement gym, and hope that his frustrations would be burned off before he said something else that they would both regret.
It was gettingdark by the time he returned. The house was cool, dim. He could smell his sweat, but no trace of her fragrance. “Sar?”
No reply.
