***My husband hadn’t set foot in a church in 15 years. Then Eric suddenly started going every Sunday\u2014and refused to let me or our kids come with him. After weeks of watching him grow more secretive, I followed him inside. He was there, all right. But he wasn’t there for the reason he’d let me believe.***
My husband hadn’t willingly set foot in a church in fifteen years.
So when Eric came downstairs one Sunday morning wearing a blue button-down shirt and decent shoes, I assumed he’d forgotten to mention a work thing.
I was making pancakes when he grabbed his keys.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
> ***I assumed he’d forgotten to mention a work thing.***
Eric grabbed his keys from the bowl by the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Church.”
I actually laughed. He looked at me almost guiltily.
“Oh,” I said. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah.”
Eric had never been hostile toward religion. We just didn’t care about it.
> ***”You’re serious.”***
We weren’t the kind of family that prayed before dinner, and neither of us had ever felt bad about sleeping late on Sundays.
The last church service Eric had attended was his sister Laura’s wedding fifteen years earlier.
That day had ended with Eric screaming at his father in the parking lot.
So, yes, church was unexpected.
“What brought this on?” I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
> ***That day had ended with Eric screaming at his father in the parking lot.***
He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about some things lately.”
“What things?”
> ***”Life. Family. I don’t know.”***
It was vague, but Eric could get like that when he wasn’t ready to explain himself.
“Okay…” I said.
“You know what I mean.” He kissed my cheek and left.
> ***He wasn’t ready to explain himself.***
I didn’t think much about it.
Then he went again the next Sunday.
And the next.
By the fourth Sunday, it had become a routine. Eric would get dressed around nine, leave before ten, and come home sometime around noon.
One morning I said, “Maybe we should come.”
> ***It had become a routine.***
He was tying his shoes in the hallway. His hands stopped.
“What?”
> ***”The kids and me. We could all go to\u2014”***
“No!”
The answer came so fast that I stared at him.
> ***”Maybe we should come.”***
Eric looked up. “I mean, no, you don’t have to.”
“I didn’t say I had to. I said maybe I wanted to.”
> ***”It’s just something I’m doing alone.”***
“Why?”
His jaw tightened. “Can it just be my thing?”
> ***”No!”***
There was something in his voice I hadn’t expected. Not anger. Panic.
He stood and reached for his coat. Then he seemed to realize how strange he’d sounded.
He stepped toward me.
“Hey. I’m not trying to shut you out.”
“It kind of sounded like you were.”
> ***”Can it just be my thing?”***
“I’m not. I just need some space with this.”
“With church?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “With some things I’m trying to work through.”
I wanted to ask more, but Noah yelled from upstairs that Paige had stolen his charger, and the conversation ended there.
\\*\\*\\*
Over the next few weeks, Eric changed in small ways.
> ***”I’m not trying to shut you out.”***
He wasn’t cruel or distant from the kids. He didn’t suddenly start (mis)quoting the Bible in weird contexts.
But even when Eric was with us, part of him seemed to be somewhere else.
I’d find him standing at the kitchen sink, staring through the window long after he’d finished washing a glass.
His phone would ring, and he’d look at the screen before declining the call.
> ***Eric changed in small ways.***
Twice, he stepped outside to answer.
“Work?” I asked the second time.
“Sort of.”
Eric had always been a bad liar because he usually tried to use as few words as possible.
I hated myself for thinking it, but I began suspecting he was having an affair.
> ***Even when Eric was with us, part of him seemed to be somewhere else.***
After eighteen years, I knew what Eric looked like when he wanted privacy.
This wasn’t privacy. He was hiding something.
So one Sunday, after he’d been gone about twenty minutes, I got in my car. I told the kids I needed groceries and drove to the church.
Eric’s car was in the parking lot, and for about ten seconds, I felt like the biggest idiot alive.
> ***He was hiding something.***
Of course his car was there.
He’d told me he was going to church.
I almost turned around. Instead, I parked.
The service had already started. I slipped through a side entrance and stood near the back.
It took me less than a minute to spot Eric sitting alone near the aisle. I felt relief so strong it embarrassed me.
> ***I almost turned around.***
There was no woman beside him. No secret rendezvous. My husband really had been going to church.
Then the service ended, and Eric didn’t move.
People filed past him toward the doors. He just sat there, waiting.
**Waiting for what?**
When the sanctuary was nearly empty, he stood and walked through a door beside the altar.
> ***He just sat there, waiting.***
I followed.
The hallway behind the sanctuary was narrow and quiet. Eric turned into a small meeting room.
When I reached the doorway, I heard a man’s voice.
> ***”You can’t keep putting this off.”***
“Stop pressuring me,” Eric replied, his voice climbing an octave.
I stepped inside.
> ***I heard a man’s voice.***
Eric turned. When he saw me standing in the doorway, his eyes widened in terror.
“What are you doing here? Did you follow me?”
There was an elderly man sitting at a folding table. Gray hair. Heavy eyebrows. Deep lines around his mouth.
The last time I’d seen him, I’d almost called the police.
“Frank?” I said.
> ***”Did you follow me?”***
Frank stood slowly.
“Hello, Megan.”
I stared at him.
Eric’s father. The man Eric had not spoken to in fifteen years… except that apparently he’d secretly been meeting with him at church.
Eric grabbed my arm gently. “Come outside.”
> ***He’d secretly been meeting with him at church.***
I pulled away.
“No. You’ve been secretly meeting your father every Sunday? And now you expect me to walk away without an explanation?”
Frank looked between us. “She doesn’t know?”
Eric snapped, “Don’t.”
Frank’s expression hardened. “She deserves to know why you’re here, Eric. It’s her decision, too.”
> ***”She doesn’t know?”***
“Stay out of this, Dad.”
“Stop right there.” I stepped away from Eric. “What is my decision, too? What have the two of you been discussing behind my back?”
Before either man could answer, the door opened behind me.
A teenage girl walked in carrying two paper cups.
She stopped when she saw me. “Oh… You’re here.”
> ***”It’s her decision, too.”***
I stared at her.
There was something painfully familiar about her face. The blunt chin, those high cheekbones, and those eyes… The shape, the color.
She had Eric’s eyes.
My stomach dropped.
Oh God.
> ***She had Eric’s eyes.***
Frank cleared his throat.
“Megan, this is Rachel.”
The girl gave me a nervous smile. “Hi.”
Rachel.
I was afraid the answer would confirm what I was already thinking: that this was Eric’s daughter. But I had to ask.
> ***”What have the two of you been discussing behind my back?”***
I turned to Eric. “Who is she?”
Eric’s jaw worked, but no words came out.
“She’s Laura’s daughter,” Frank replied. “Your niece.”
That explained the resemblance. Eric had mentioned Laura’s daughter maybe three times in our entire marriage, always as if she were someone he’d read about in a newsletter.
Rachel glanced between Eric and me. “Uncle Eric, did you lie?”
> ***”Who is she?”***
She turned to me and continued before Eric could reply.
“I thought you knew about us. About what happened to my mom.”
Eric went white.
Whatever Rachel thought I knew, Eric clearly hadn’t wanted her to say it in front of me.
I looked at him. “What does she mean?”
> ***”Did you lie?”***
“I don’t think Eric told her anything, Rachel,” Frank said softly. Then he looked at me and pulled out a chair. “You should probably sit.”
“I don’t want to sit. I want to know what’s going on here.”
“All right.” Frank looked at Eric. “Do you want to come clean and tell your wife what we’ve been discussing, or should I?”
> ***”You should probably sit.”***
Eric wouldn’t look at me.
“Fine.” Frank sighed and turned to face me. “Laura died seven months ago.”
I stopped breathing.
My eyes went to Rachel.
Just a teenager, and her mother was gone. Sitting in a church meeting room while her grandfather and uncle discussed something nobody had bothered to tell me.
> ***”Do you want to come clean?”***
Then I looked at Eric.
Seven months. I remembered a night when Eric had come home from work unusually quiet. I’d asked if something had happened.
He had said no.
Laura was dead. And my husband had come home and told me nothing had happened.
“Daniel left years ago,” Frank continued. “He hasn’t been much of a father to Rachel since.”
> ***He had said no.***
Rachel’s face tightened, but she didn’t look away.
“None of that explains why you’ve been coming to church to meet in secret.” I stared at Eric expectantly.
He gestured vaguely in Rachel’s direction.
“Rachel needs her family now,” Frank answered.
“What does that mean?”
> ***”You’ve been coming to church to meet in secret.”***
“I’ve been raising her, but my health isn’t good.” Frank placed a hand on his chest. “Heart failure.”
I finally sat.
“I contacted Eric because I needed to know Rachel would have a home to go to if something happened to me. A place with her family.”
So that was why Frank had dragged Eric back into his life. But it opened a much bigger question.
> ***”A place with her family.”***
I looked at Eric.
“You’ve been discussing whether she would live with us?”
Eric raised his head. “Megan, I was going to tell you. I needed time.”
“Time for what? To decide whether our family takes in a sixteen-year-old girl without mentioning to me that the sixteen-year-old girl exists?”
Rachel looked down. I immediately regretted how I’d phrased it.
> ***”I was going to tell you. I needed time.”***
“Rachel, I’m sorry. None of that is about you.”
“I know.”
Eric leaned forward.
“You don’t understand, Meg. Dad called Daniel trash at Laura’s wedding. He told her he’d disown her if she married him.”
“I did.” Frank nodded. “And I told you to keep out of it when you tried to defend her.”
> ***”You don’t understand,”***
That was the parking-lot fight at Laura’s wedding, the one that had me reaching for my phone, wondering if I should call the police.
“I was right about Daniel, but wrong about how I handled it,” Frank said. “Years later, I apologized to Laura. She forgave me.”
Eric gave a bitter laugh. “Exactly.”
Rachel looked at him. “She tried to make peace with you, Uncle Eric, but you ignored her.”
Eric froze.
> ***”She forgave me.”***
Rachel reached into a backpack I hadn’t noticed before and pulled out an old shoebox. She lifted the lid, and removed an envelope.
RETURN TO SENDER was written across it in Eric’s handwriting.
She held up several more.
“It wasn’t just letters either. When my dad left, Mom called you.” Rachel stared at Eric. “I was nine. I remember because she cried afterward. You defended her at her wedding, but afterward, you cut her off like she meant nothing to you. Why?”
> ***RETURN TO SENDER***
Eric sat down.
“I was angry.”
“At Grandpa,” Rachel said.
> ***”Yes.”***
“And Mom wouldn’t hate him just because you did.”
Eric’s face hardened. “She chose him. I fought for her, and she made me look like a fool for it.”
> ***”I was angry.”***
Rachel shook her head.
“No. She forgave him. You could’ve been happy about that, but instead you took it as an insult.”
And suddenly the story Eric had told me for fifteen years turned inside out.
I looked at my husband. “You told me they cut you off.”
Eric said nothing.
> ***”You told me they cut you off.”***
I looked at the returned envelopes. “She spent years trying to get you back. Eric… You were the one who cut them off.”
His eyes closed.
Then I remembered Rachel’s words, “I thought you knew about us.”\u201cWhat exactly did Eric tell you about me?\u201d I asked, glancing between Frank and Rachel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n“I thought you knew about us.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Eric stood. \u201cRachel, don’t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There have been enough lies.” Rachel looked at me. \u201cHe said you weren’t ready to meet us yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For weeks I’d wondered what my husband was hiding from me. I hadn’t imagined that, in the room where he was hiding it, he’d made me part of the lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou used me as your excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Meg…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
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