The Breaking Point (27 page)

“Yeah, and a fine job we’re doing of it.”

“Renee—” his intent look bored into her—“no person in the world can bring the love and acceptance your heart—all of our hearts—long for.”

“Then what’s the point?” She let the question out on a desperate whisper, hoping … praying he had an answer.

“God is the point. We were made in His image, and our hearts seek their home. They seek the love and acceptance He has for us.” Conrad leaned his elbows on his knees. “Trouble is, we expect people to give us those things instead of God.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do this …”

His nod surprised her, as did his reply. “No one can. Life is forcing you to the edge of your perceptions and traditions about God. If He’s real, He’ll rescue you. If He isn’t …” He shrugged. “Well, then we’ll all be in a pit together.”

She closed her eyes. “So what am I supposed to do?”

Ami’s response was quiet but confident. “Open yourself, Renee. To God. To love.”

“You’ve embraced contempt. Emptiness. Resentment.” Each word Conrad spoke was an arrow straight through her. An arrow of undeniable truth. She’d done exactly that. Opened her arms to those things and drawn them to her breast, letting them feed on her until the joy she’d once known had been devoured. All that was left, then, was pride. And the determination that she wouldn’t be hurt anymore. Not by Gabe. Not by anyone.

“But don’t you see, Renee? Those things are the enemies
of your soul.” Conrad’s voice was gentle, but firm. “They’re destroying you. I see it in your eyes; I hear it in your words. You’ve got to put those things out, to embrace truth instead.”

She hugged herself, the hurt so deep she struggled to breathe. “Truth? I don’t even know what truth is.”

At his silence, she looked up, saw the challenge in his eyes … and looked away. Okay, so she knew the truth. She just didn’t like it.

The understanding in Conrad’s eyes eased the ache inside her. “Ren, it’s okay to question, to doubt. That’s a part of being human. We don’t get God. And we don’t get the way He does things. But never forget you were designed to be complete in Him first. Him alone. And no one else can make that connection for you. Not Gabe, not your parents—” he held her gaze—“not me. No matter how much we love you, we can’t do God’s work in your life. But you’ve got to find yourself in God first. Then you can see others more clearly. Understand their roles in your life.”

When was the last time she’d seen Gabe—or herself, for that matter—clearly? Renee wasn’t sure she ever had.

Ami put a hand on her arm, and Renee felt the compassion in her touch. “I know it’s hard, Renee. I’m learning these things, too. But I found that when I really gave God access to my heart, when I found my contentment in Him, I suddenly realized that we’re all broken and blind, just in uniquely different ways.”

Renee considered her friend. Ami’s words rang true.

“You know as well as we do that true wholeness only comes through Christ.” Conrad looked at Renee and smiled. “But the cool thing is when we’re in Him, really in Him, then we can deal with disappointment and frustration in our human relationships. Because we understand we’re all doing our best, in our own broken, blind ways.”

She wanted to believe them. Wanted it more than she’d wanted anything for a long time. But she and Gabe had gone
so wrong. “What if it’s too late for us? What if Gabe and I can never be happy together?”

Conrad leaned forward. “Ami and I will stand with you, whatever your decision. We love you. But being happy isn’t the measuring stick. Obedience is. What matters most to us isn’t that you’re happy, but that you can stand clean before God.”

Renee swallowed. Clean before God … She lowered her head. She wasn’t, and she knew it.

Conrad’s voice enveloped her. “God doesn’t ask the impossible of us, Ren. But He does ask us to do everything He enables us to do. If you can honestly say you’ve done that, done everything He’s enabled you to do to save your marriage, then walk away knowing you’re clean. But if you’re just tired because your strength has run, then what you’re walking away from isn’t Gabe or your marriage, but obedience.”

They were hard words, but Conrad didn’t say them carelessly. Or easily He cared too much about her to be careless. But he also had to speak the truth.

And that’s what this was: truth.

As the silence between them grew, Renee drew in a deep breath of the evening air. She slipped from the table and faced them. What was that verse?
Better the wounds of a friend than the kisses of an enemy.

It took a good friend to care enough to speak hard truths. And she needed to hear them. Desperately.

“You’ve given me a lot to think about. Pray about.”

Conrad stood and leaned against the table, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Are you okay?”

Renee managed a smile. “No, but I’m better.” She stepped forward and hugged Ami, then turned to Conrad. His hug was gentle and solid.

Like his counsel. And their friendship.

She felt blessed to have both.

O
CTOBER
1990

GABE JAMMED THE BUTTONS ON THE TV REMOTE AND
grabbed another handful of popcorn. He chomped down. Hard. Again. And again.

He had to do something to vent his frustration.

Another chomp, but this time his cheek got in the way. Gabe yelped and jumped up; the bowl of popcorn in his lap went airborne.

As did his temper. Gabe ranted and raved all the way to the closet. He jerked the vacuum but, plugged it in, and flipped the switch to on.

He was glad for the vacuum’s loud roar. It helped drown out the string of angry words he threw into the empty room.

Empty except for him, of course. He was always there. Alone. While Renee gallivanted off with her buddies. The last of the kernels shot into the vacuum, and Gabe grabbed the power cord and
jerked it from the wall. He probably ruined the cord, but he didn’t care.

He all but threw the machine back into the closet and slammed the door.

What was it Renee was supposed to be doing tonight? He shook his head. Who knew? She never told him where she was going anymore. Barely told him good-bye as she raced out the door. At least she’d taken time to fix some kind of dinner before she left this time. He was getting tired of canned soup and crackers.

Gabe went to the bathroom and grabbed up the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He took a swig and swished it around in his mouth, grimacing as it stung the gash he’d made in the inside of his cheek.

Why was it everything he did ended up with someone in pain?

He leaned over the sink, spit out the foul-tasting liquid, then cupped his hand under the faucet and rinsed his mouth with water. As he twisted the faucet off, he glanced up and caught his reflection in the mirror.

He took in the tense jaw, the tightly compressed lips, the glowering eyes … and felt his heart sag.

No wonder Renee couldn’t stand being around him. No wonder she spent most nights someplace else, with someone else. Conrad. Ami. Oren. Grace. Tom. A dozen others. He’d lost count of the people in Renee’s life—people she seemed to like and enjoy far more than him.

He sank down to sit on the edge of the tub and leaned his elbows on his knees. “She’s slipping away from me.”

Slipping away, my foot. She’s gone, pal. But hey, you wanted her to get her own life, didn’t you?

He clenched his fingers into a fist. Why had he ever said that? He should have cut his tongue out before he let himself say those things.

But its what you wanted.

No … yes … His fist pressed into his leg, as if the pain could bring some semblance of clarity to his mind, his heart. Yes, he wanted her to stop clinging, but he never wanted her to get a life apart from him. It was as though they weren’t even married. They were more roommates than husband and wife. Distant roommates at that.

He hung his head. At least roommates talked. They didn’t even do that. And he couldn’t remember the last time they’d touched …

I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t stop what’s happening.
If only he could take back those careless words. If only he could find a way to let her know he hadn’t meant it, had only been tired and frustrated.

But he couldn’t. It was too late.

Gabe rubbed his hands over his face, trying to erase the fatigue … the despair.

God, please …

God?
The taunt stabbed at him.
You call on God now? Do you really expect an answer? After the garbage you just spewed in the living room? Why would a holy God waste even a second on someone as vile as you?

Why indeed? Gabe had no answers. He just didn’t know where else to turn.

Well, don’t turn here, pal. God doesn’t listen to jerks who turn the air blue one minute then whine to Him the next. Besides, He’s never had answers for you before; why should He have them now? And even if He did, why would He
give
them to you? Come on. Your own father didn’t
give
a hoot about you, so why would God?

On and on it went, the voice Gabe had heard all his life. A voice of condemnation, of contempt. A voice he’d never been able to stop, to shut off.

The one voice that he hated above all others.

His father’s voice.

The apartment was dark when Renee got home. The meeting at church had gone longer than she thought it would, and then she stood in the parking lot, talking with first one person, then another. She hadn’t meant to come home so late again. She’d just lost track of time.

She would have to do better from now on.

She slipped into the bedroom as quietly as possible and reached for her nightgown.

Gabe’s voice, hard and cold, jumped out of the stillness and grated across her nerves.

“Finally had to come home, huh?”

She dug her fingers into her nightgown. “I didn’t
have
to come home.”

His snort of laughter was ugly. “Yeah, sure. You came home because you
wanted
to. Good ol’ faithful Renee, the willing martyr to the end.”

“What
is your problem, Gabe?” She wasn’t sure when she’d taken to yelling at him, to venting the full measure of her scorn for him, but it seemed second nature now.

For a moment there was a silence so heavy Renee wondered if it would bury her.

Then Gabe’s voice came to her in a whisper. “You, Renee. You’re my problem.”

The words should have infuriated her, should have sent her right over the edge. But they didn’t. Because as Gabe spoke them, he was crying.