Tim Jacobs wished more than anything else that his upcoming meeting with Kari were over.

It had been wrong for him to stay at Angela's after seeing his wife out on the street, but he had felt paralyzed to do anything else. He had no idea what he was going to say to Kari, and anyway it was virtually impossible for him to walk away from a weekend with Angela Manning.

She captivated him like no other woman ever had; his feelings were that intense.

On Sunday evening, by the time he pulled up outside the home he shared with his wife, he had convinced himself that her discovery was a good thing. Now he could admit the affair and ask for a divorce. Yes, it would be sad, and it was bound to be difficult for both of them. But the outcome was fairly predictable. Tim would need to move out while the divorce was pending, and that meant one very wonderful thing.

He and Angela would never have to be apart again.

He killed the engine and stared at his front door. If only the whole ordeal were already over and done with. After all, he

24.

wasn't the first husband in the world to come home and ask his wife for a divorce. This kind of thing happened every day in neighborhoods across the country, right?

Tim swallowed and remembered something he'd heard in a sermon once. The more bad choices you make, the less bad your choices seem.

He dismissed the thought. Ridiculous. It was just his overactive conscience, nothing more. Life was about to be better than it'd ever been. His guilty feelings did not surprise him. He was guilty. And in some ways he felt awful about it. But during these past few months with Angela he'd felt like a kid in a toy store, lured away from his ordinary life by a woman who'd captured him heart, mind, and soul.

A sigh slid through Tim's clenched teeth as he climbed out of the car and went inside. She wasn't in the front room. He dried the palms of his hands on his pants legs, his throat so tight he could barely speak. "Kari?"

What he was about to do would be the hardest part. She would cry and carry on, and in the process he might even shed a tear or two. The truth was, he still cared about Kari. And he'd miss her like crazy when he was gone.

Images of Angela came to mind, and his heart rate doubled. Okay, so he wouldn't miss the bondage of being married. But he'd miss seeing Kari at the breakfast table, miss the way she looked with her hair messed up in the mornings before she took a shower and the way she hummed to herself when she worked around the house. Of course, he wouldn't miss her busy schedules, the way she made room for everyone and everything but him. The way their intimate moments had dwindled to little more than simple routine.

The truth was, Kari's life was full. Modeling, teaching Sunday school, church choir, her volunteer work at the museum, the time she spent with her family. In the long run, when the shock wore off, she'd be fine.

This was the kindest thing he could do-no matter how much 25 he would miss her companionship. It was something he should have done months back, when he thought a few afternoons and evenings with Angela would cure him of his attraction to her.

Had he ever been wrong about that.

"Kari?" He set his bag down. His palms were sweaty again. He shoved his hands deep into his back pockets and exhaled hard. With every new development of his relationship with Angela he'd found a way to justify his actions. After all, his heart wasn't involved at first. That hadn't happened until the end of the summer.

Tim thought about how slowly, how insidiously his relationship with Angela had developed. He'd been attracted to her from the first day-it was hard to ignore somebody built the way she was-but that didn't signal an alarm. Dozens of attractive coeds had dotted the course of his career. Then he'd read her writing samples.

If he was honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he'd fallen in love with Angela less because of her physical beauty than because of the way she could write. The combination of intelligence and emotion that poured from her text was striking, brilliantly so. And after spending a semester in his cla.s.s, Angela had taken to crediting him with making her a better writer.

That had done unbelievable things to his ego. Even then, their relationship had been nothing more than admiration and desire until she returned from summer break in the middle of August.

On the first day of cla.s.ses, they had shared lunch together-as they'd often done through the previous spring. But after a summer apart there was no denying that they both wanted more, needed more than a shared meal. After lunch they went to her apartment, and in the course of the next two hours Tim knew his marriage to Kari would never be the same again.

A week later his entire outlook on life had changed, and he was all but certain he wanted a divorce. Something about being with Angela made Tim feel better than anyone else ever had, even Kari. It was as if he was addicted to everything about his new love-the way she looked, the way she made him feel.

26.

Angela was aware of the effect her looks had on men. She was cool and self-possessed by day in her role as college student.

But by night. . .

Tim sucked in a slow breath. There were no words to describe the way she- Footsteps sounded from down the hallway. Okay. Get it over with quickly.

Kari entered the living room through a side door, and Tim felt his words. .h.i.t a logjam somewhere in his throat. There were streaks on either side of her face, and her eyes were red and swollen. Yet her beauty still caught him off guard.

Pure, wholesome beauty, the kind that no longer excited him.

For a long moment they stayed that way, their eyes locked. No words were necessary. The expression on Kari's face told him everything he already knew-that his affair had caught her by surprise and slammed her heart into the ground.

Tim bit his lower lip and decided it was best to get to the point. "I'm sorry, Kari." His heart skipped a beat as he exhaled long and slow. "I don't want to be married anymore."

His words made a direct hit on Kari's heart and knocked the wind out of her. Not in her wildest nightmares had she thought he would start the discussion like that. This was the part where he was supposed to apologize and beg her forgiveness. She reminded herself to breathe. Help me, G.o.d.

She hadn't wanted to believe it, even after seeing him run from the apartment the day before. And after her initial breakdown, she had decided to withhold all judgments on the matter until he got home, until they could talk about what happened and why Tim wasn't at the conference as he had said he would be. In the meantime she'd had no choice but to act like nothing was wrong.

She'd gone to church that morning and taught second-grade 27 Sunday school as always. For every question about her puffy eyes, she blamed allergies, saying nothing about the situation with Tim even when her mother asked twice if something was wrong.

After church she stopped to fill up the car. Every time thoughts of Tim came to mind her heart would race, her breathing suddenly fast and shallow. There's a reason, she told herself. There's a reason . . . there's a reason. . . .

And the anxiety would subside.

Three hours before Tim got home, she was putting away laundry, still insisting that somehow the situation couldn't be as bad as it seemed, when she walked by their wedding photo on the living-room bookshelf. She searched his intelligent eyes, his friendly face, soaked in the love that clearly existed between the two of them, and she remembered the caller's words from the day before.

Your husband's having an affair . . . having an affair . . . having an affair..

In less time than it took her to inhale, the rea.s.suring pretense disappeared.

Choking sobs erupted from her angry soul and spewed hot tears down her face.

Immediately, the situation became clear. Yes, her husband had a reason why he had lied to her and spent the weekend at a student's apartment. It was the same reason the caller had given her, and no matter what lies she wanted to tell herself, the truth was blatantly obvious.

Tim was involved with another woman.

In that moment, the sorrow and anger in Kari's heart became fury. She grabbed the wedding photo, hurled it across the room, and watched the gla.s.s shatter into dozens of pieces. Then slowly, as if she were in a trance, Kari sank to her knees and began to pray.

"I hate him, G.o.d!" She shouted the words, weeping harder than before. "How could he do this to me?"

At the end of two hours, Kari's anger and sorrow, her sense of 28 betrayal, were no less than before. But somehow a determination.! had come over her, and with it a clear and holy reminder of a truth-that same one her parents had lived by, the one she and Tim had agreed on before they married.

The truth was this: Love is a decision.

In the wake of Tim's unfaithfulness, her heart urged her to hate him, tell him he wasn't welcome back home, and then never see him again. G.o.d wanted something else. He wanted her to hear her husband's explanation and be willing to forgive, willing to find counseling and make things work. Not because she felt like it, but because it was something she'd decided to do nearly six years ago.

So, in the final hour before Tim's return, Kari pictured a hundred things he might say to her when he first walked through the door, when they first faced each other in light of what had happened. He'd apologize and tell her it was a mistake; he'd promise he'd never lie again. He'd insist the woman was nothing more than a distraction, a pa.s.sing fancy. He'd blame stress at work and the fact that their marriage had fallen into a routine.

But the last thing she expected him to say, the thing she had never imagined he might tell her, was that he no longer wanted to be married.

Tim moved to sit on the sofa and anch.o.r.ed his elbows on his knees, his brows knit, his eyes searching hers. "Did you hear me?" His voice was quiet, laced with finality. "I don't want to be married anymore."

The rage within her was suffocating, but there were no sobs this time, no weeping. "That's it?" She crossed her arms, trying to ease the sick feeling in her stomach. "No explanations or promises? Nothing?"

Tim dropped his head in his hands, groaned, and then looked back up at her. "I should have told you a month ago."

The sick feeling became a driving nausea, and it welled up in Kari's throat. She wondered if she should race for the bathroom or throw up on the carpet. What's happening? What is this, G.o.d?

29.

Do not be afraid.

This time the silent a.s.surance was too late. Amidst the feelings of pain and anger and even hatred, Kari felt a flash of sheer terror. Were divorce papers drawn up and waiting? Was he planning to move in with this woman? Could that actually happen? Could Tim leave her and marry someone else?

The questions pelted her like hail.

She couldn't live in Bloomington knowing she might run into Tim and his . . .

his student.

The premonition of what her life might soon become was more than she could bear.

She blinked, and the terror faded. In its place her fury was more controlled.

"Who-" her voice was a whisper, her throat pinched-"who is she?"

Tim stared at his hands, and when he glanced up he looked ten years older than before. "It doesn't matter."

Again Kari was dumbfounded. "So you're not denying it? You're seeing someone else?"

"I thought it was a phase." Tim's eyes remained fixed on hers. "That it would go away in time."

Kari tightened her grip on the back of a chair and tried desperately to make sense of what was happening. The nausea was still there, but it was being overtaken by a growing sense of panic. Her emotions swung wildly from fear to anger and back again, and she could think of nothing to say.

After a long pause his gaze fell to his feet again.

He's afraid to look at me. The thought settled like a rock in her empty gut.

"There's no other way to say this, Kari. I want a divorce." He looked briefly at her. "I still care for you, but I'm not. . . I'm not in love with you."

The panic became a tidal wave around her, consuming her. "You're in love with her?"

Tim made eye contact and gave the faintest shrug. "I am."

What was he saying? She could almost feel the hands of angels keeping her from collapsing on the floor. She straightened and 30 paced across the living room and back, stopping directly in front of her husband. "She's a student, Tim. What is she-nineteen?! twenty?"

For the first time since he'd gotten home, Tim's expression became defensive.

"She's twenty-four, okay? And I met her almost a year ago."

Kari's head was spinning. "A year ago?" Her voice was barely a whisper. Who was this woman, and what did she look like? Was she one of the students he had raved about last year? The whole situation was impossible. "You've been seeing her for a year?"

Tim shook his head and ma.s.saged his fingertips against his temples. "I met her at the beginning of the spring semester. It didn't get serious until . . . until a few months ago."

He stood up and threw his hands in the air. "There's no point to this, Kari."

His voice was loud, frustrated. "What I do with my life after you and I divorce is my business."

The tidal wave came crashing down, and Kari fell back into the chair again. Her heart raced dangerously fast, and she couldn't grab a full breath. Pain shot down her arms, and there was a heaviness on her chest that grew worse with each pa.s.sing second.

Lord, help me. I'm ailing. Father . . . help!

I am with you.

The gentle whispers in the depths of Kari's soul brought only a fraction of relief, but it was enough to ease the pain and allow her to inhale. "You owe me more than that, Tim." She steadied herself and stared up at him. "She's not your wife. I am."

Tim opened his fists, took hold of his wedding ring, and slid it off his finger.

"Don't you get it, Kari?" He tossed the ring on the coffee table, shook his head, and sat down. "It's over. I want out. I don't want to be married anymore."

As the ring clattered onto the table, something in Kari shut down. It was almost as if a protective shield had gone up around her heart, a kind of armor that simply would not allow her any more pain. She felt dizzy and sicker than before, yet somehow