The First Ninety Days Ch. 14

She knew she couldn't go back anymore. Their paths had diverged, permanently. If he couldn't accept the presence of God in his life... It was the right thing to do. She had compromised herself in the eyes of God once already, to no avail; there was no point in doing so again.

That didn't make it any easier to do.

Living with her parents was a nightmare. Mom had always been clingy; if she was alone in a room, she would pick up whatever she was doing and go find company. She could not bear to be without human contact for even five minutes. It had only gotten worse once Nathaniel left (either because Mom had gotten more insecure or because Caitlyn was the only one left for her to glom on); and now that Caitlyn herself had returned, Mom seemed determined to glue herself to her.She'd probably be here with me right now, drifting around campus, if it weren't for the fact that she has to be at work in five minutes.

And then there was the constant criticism. Veiled comments about how difficult her life must have been on her own, since clearly her layabout companion wasn't helping. Seemingly-innocuous questions that turned out to be about whether Jon had introduced her to any unsavory characters or deviant habits. Accusations about her decreased church attendance. Implications that, so far as they were concerned, her marriage had never been legal, and that she had been living in sin, and indulging in sin with a man, for two months.

Jon had been right. They didn't know how to treat her like an adult. They didn't even know how to treat her like a child.A child you teach, in the hopes that they will internalize the lessons and grow up to be the kind of person you want them to. Mom and Dad never taught me. They just... Handed down their judgments and expected me to obey. It's like they never cared about whether I could survive out of the house.

...No, it isn't that. It's that they never thought I'dhave to.

How had it taken her that long to realize? Or had she needed Jon to show her? He had always said that you could never see a situation clearly from inside it, after all, and he was probably right about that. He'd been right about a lot of things.

Though not always the things that mattered. Because, even despite all... Despite the mistreatment, despite the bizarre goals... Her mother loved her. Caitlyn could no more deny this than she could that she was breathing.

Classes were dreary beyond belief, especially since she couldn't concentrate; she hadn't been able to concentrate since last Tuesday, and she was fairly sure her coursework was showing the signs of it. Her new backpack was actually Nathan's, one of the multiple ones he'd gone through during college, and was almost empty; all it had was some replacement notebooks and pencils. Her new wallet was actually an old one from her childhood—it was neon orange—and had very little in it besides a bit of cash and the provisional/temporary drivers' license they'd printed out for her while they replaced the one she'd "lost" (left at the apartment). Setting it to her shoulder, feeling the contents shift and rattle inside, only reminded her of what she'd lost.

Bereft of focus, she found herself drifting, daydreaming. Random scenarios flashed through her head. What would it be like to divorce? How many people could claim to have divorced before turning 22? Could she apply to the Guinness Book of World Records? What would her life be like from now on? When she tried to picture it, all she saw was a grey, featureless void, for all the things she had wanted (a home; a family; children) she could not imagine without envisioning Jon. All her goals and dreams had gotten wrapped around him; they were inextricable now. She must abandon them and fine new ones.

There was a guy, to be certain; his name was Aidan, which was cool right off the bat. She only ever saw him in Jazz Theory, but he liked to sit near her. He dressed in a leather trench coat and wrote in numerous, voluminous notebooks in jagged, terrible scrawls; he had a dark, chuckling sense of humor and a low, husky voice. He carried melancholy on him like a cloak; when he was concentrating on something he was a vision to behold: that pensive look on his face, the folds of leather rustling about him. He was handsome and deeply intriguing to her; she knew that, if her heart hadn't already been so irrevocably bonded to someone else's, she would have romantic interest in him. She could tell that he felt the same way; the fact that he had been polite enough to not acknowledge them was just another turn-on.If not for Jon... Maybe this would've been the man for me.

And yet... Sometimes his words took on the tone of a whining child, and jagged on the ear; sometimes she thought his attire and demeanor were just affectations meant to attract the female eye. When he spoke of a traumatic past, the tale rang tame to her; maybe he was downplaying it, but to her practiced ear it sounded more like the kind of suffering a teenager would consider horrific. He didn't have that unshakable sense of self, like Jon did; he still felt the need to posture. He couldn't roll with the punches the way Jon could—that incredible ability to take setbacks and wounds, most often from the people he loved most, and just keep on smiling. He didn't have the steel that came from long years of gritting through pain. He was cool, but... He wasn't Jon.

And those were the worst moments—the ones where she forgot that she could never have him back. Half a dozen times she found herself with a half-formulated list of what housework, homework and music practice she would accomplish before Jon came home for dinner; once she even started thinking about what they would do when they were in bed together. Then she would jerk back into reality and have to bear down before she started crying in the middle of the lecture. That wouldn't do at all.

All of this made for three hours of classes that seemed to take a decade.

She was in for a surprise: when she came out of the Music Building, there were two familiar faces waiting for her. Christa Crane gave her a smile and said, "Care for a lunch date?" And Meredith lifted her backpack—Caitlyn's backpack, the one she had had for years now, the one she'd been too absent-minded to take with her when she left—and smiled too, and for the first time in almost a week Caitlyn felt less than completely alone.

But there were other issues at hand first. "I thought you had a job. Aren't you supposed to be at work now?"

"Well, I have some time off stored up," said Meredith with an easy smile. "And besides, after I found out what had happened, well..." The smile slid off her face.

"There are some things that are a little more important than others," said Christa.

"Yes," said Meredith. "And... Well, we care about our friends. Brandon and I... We were involved when you two got together."

"No you weren't," Christa said. "They got together on their own, they just happened to be at your wedding when they did it."

"Regardless," Meredith said. "We feel responsible, at least a little bit. I know Brandon would've been here two if he could, but... We agreed that I would probably be able to accomplish more."

"I'm just happy to see you," Caitlyn said. "Sometimes I feel like I could count my friends on one hand."

Caitlyn used her cellphone to call her mother's cellphone and tell her where she'd be—she chose it deliberately because she knew her mother wouldn't pick up. Then the three of them began walking towards downtown, talking about nothing important at all, trying to decide where to go; they settled on a restaurant Meredith had seen before and always wanted to try, but never gotten around to. Caitlyn knew that there was a reckoning coming soon, but it was nice to just be casual for a little while; it was nice to feel as though things were normal. She hadn't felt normal since Tuesday. There were a lot of things that had been missing from her life since Tuesday.

They ordered, and then continued to chat inconsequentially about the food for another good half hour or so. But all good things must come to an end, and eventually Christa settled herself at the table and looked at Caitlyn. "So. What's going on."

Caitlyn sighed. "I guess you've heard."

"We talked to Jon," said Christa. "We heard his side of the story."

"He's broken up, Caitlyn," Meredith said. "He misses you. He needs you."

"I... I'm sure he does." She did too. "But he'll just have to learn to live without me." She would too. "We talked. It became clear that... That there were fundamental differences between us."

"Like?" said Christa.

Slowly, with many stops and starts, they walked her through it. Then Christa boiled it down in a way that made it all seem simple. "So... You feel that Jon isn't loving or Christian enough, that he could stand to open his heart a lot more. AndJon feels that you're too eager to please, that it's so important to you to please whoever happens to ask for your help, that you end up putting the important things—yourself, him, your marriage—on the back burner, where they don't belong."

"...Well," said Caitlyn, feeling a bit defensive, "when you put itthat way, it sounds like a bad idea."

"Isn't it?" said Meredith, arching an eyebrow. "Caitlyn, you can't just let yourself be dissuaded from what's important to you."

"Being a follower of Christ is important to me," Caitlyn said. "And did Christ ever meet someone he wasn't willing to help?"

"Maybe he didn't, but did he have a wife and kids back home?" Meredith asked. "If it's important for you to be a force of aid and help, then go join the Peace Corps or the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and serve abroad. We'd all applaud you. But you can't have your cake and eat it too, Caitlyn. You're married now, and you've said you want to have kids. You can't go around being a distracted do-gooder with things likethat in your life."

"So you're saying it's a sin to be Christlike and help people," Caitlyn challenged.

"I'm saying, it's a sin to break your own marriage vows," Meredith said without raising your voice. "When you married Jon, you swore before God to always honor him. You swore, to Jonand to God, that your husband and the things you built with him would be the most important part of your life."

"I'm not... Jon's exaggerating," Caitlyn protested. "Maybe I was spreading myself a little thin before we got married, but not after. I mean, until we bought the truck we didn't even have theopportunity."

"Perhaps not, but the way you say that implies you intend to go back to it," Christa said. "What are we talking about here? Overbooking?"

"Well... Last October there was a point where I had like five gigs in two weeks. But, I mean, I got paid for all of them. And nobody complained about my playing or anything. Or my homework, for that matter."

She realized both of them were looking at her. "That sounds bad, doesn't it."

"Only slightly," said Meredith. "Are there seriously that few harpists out there?"

"It's not an instrument you just fall into or anything," Christa said. "It's like beekeeping that way. There's gotta be a 'wanna' involved."

"What's your goal in taking all these gigs," Meredith asked. "What's your goal in saying Yes to whatever opportunities are given you?"

"Well, when I was living with my parents, my goal was tomake money so that, if I had to move out, we'dsurvive it," Caitlyn said. "And it wasJon who was always telling me to get out of there, that I needed to spare my sanity."

"Okay," Meredith said. "Say you're done. Say you're out of there, and your sanity's in good hands. Since, until last Tuesday, that was actually true. Someone offers you a gig—what kind of gigs do you normally get?"

"Either it's someone's wedding or funeral or some other occasion," Caitlyn said, "or I'm an ad-hoc harpist for an orchestra. Some harpists are full-time members, but others prefer to freelance, and someorchestras don't have the budget to hire a musician who's just gonna sit there half the time."

"Okay," said Meredith. "Say you're offered a gig, and you tell Jon about it and, for some reason, he asks you to turn it down."

"It's an orchestra appointment that rehearses on Wednesdays," Christa supplied. "Meaning there'd be a scheduling conflict with Octapella. And let me tell you, Caitlyn," she added with a wry smile, "the seven of us might be in trouble if he wasn't there."

"There we go," Meredith said. "For that reason, Jon tells you he'd like you to turn it down. What do you say?"

"Well..." said Caitlyn. "The..."

"Not the polite answer," Meredith said. "The one you really want to give him."

Caitlyn's chin came up. "Jon can go home and stuff it."

Her friends regarded her with identical tilted looks; she was struck suddenly by how much they reminded her of sisters.

"For me, there's nothing more important than being the kind of person who says Yes," Caitlyn said. "If someone needs me, I should be there. I should never hesitate to place the needs of others above my own."

"Okay," said Meredith. "And it doesn't bother you that you're hurting Jon? It doesn't bother you that you're taking him away from something that's important to him?"

"And what about your schoolwork?" Christa said. "Suddenly you have one less night to get things done. You're threatening your own schedule, your own grades. You're piling on more stress for... What? A few dollars?"

"Not to mention that hurting Jon is the same as hurting yourself," Meredith said, "because you love him, and that makes his feelings as important to you as your own. If not more so. That's been true since your wedding—sincebefore your wedding. And if it isn't, I have some questions why you married him in thefirst place."

"Yes, but..." said Caitlyn, helpless to explain. This all made sense in her head; why was it so hard to communicate it to her friends? "What good am I, if I'm not helping people? What difference does it make for me to sit at home comfortably with Jon if I'm not changing lives and doing good? That's my calling. That's my mission.I am a Christian. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbormore than yourself. And Ido. My life is meaningless to me unless I can get out and make a difference."

Christa and Meredith regarded her silently.

"I'm sorry to hear you say that," Meredith said.

"What?" said Caitlyn.

"You're meaningless unless you're a Christian?" said Meredith. "Your life has no value except as it pertains to God's ministry? Caitlyn, there are very few Christians who would ever agree with those ideas—and, frankly, they're the ones who give the rest of us a bad name."

"Your life hasenormous worth," Christa said. "To a loving God, to loving friends, and to a husband whose love for you is beyond doubt. Caitlyn, you should see him. He's a wreck. He's not complete without you. And, though we're doing our best to keep you smiling, we can tell thatyou're not complete without him either."

"A sign, incidentally, that you married the right person," Meredith said. "But we're getting off track here."

"Very true," said Christa. "Caitlyn, you have inherent worth. There is meaning to your life even if you never lift afinger to help another person. There's meaning to your life even if youhurt people."

"I don't believe that," Caitlyn said.

"Well you should," said Christa, "because it's true."

"That's not how I was raised," Caitlyn said.

"And that isn't good enough incentive to learn differently?" Meredith said.

"You guys make it sound like a bad thing," Caitlyn said, "but it'snot. I was raised to think of others. I was raised to be generous with my time and effort, and to not count the cost. I was raised to be selfless."

"Yes, and that's probably why Jon is concerned," Meredith said. "Because he doesn't want his kids to have no self as well."

"Man, and here we thought he was exaggerating," Christa remarked.

"What do you mean?" Caitlyn said.

"To be devoid of self," Meredith said, "to not possess a sense of identity. To be self-less. Is that really want for your children, Caitlyn? That they have so little sense of self-definition that they let anybody trample over them whenever they please?"

Caitlyn remembered the fiasco on Valentine's Day, when she had let Jon take her to a place that, in retrospect, she wished she'd known not to go.

"Ah, I see you've had experience with that," said Meredith in a dry voice.

"Now you sound like Jon," Caitlyn accused. "He's so... So judgmental. He decides what he wants, he goes for it, he doesn't let anyone change his mind. He decides hedoesn't want something, and he doesn't change his mind onthat either. What's wrong with being open to new experiences?"

"Nothing," said Meredith, "except for the people who use that to take advantage of you."

Caitlyn thought about all the time she'd spent with Harold: humoring him, listening to him rant, keeping her real thoughts concealed beneath her face of friendship—knowing he didn'twant a friend, just a crutch to lean on. Knowing she was being wasted here.

"Ah, I see you've had experience with that," said Meredith in a dry voice.

"So... So what are you saying," Caitlyn said. "I have to compromise my Christian behavior just toprotect myself?"

"No, not that you have to," said Christa. "That youcan. Caitlyn, we are all called to be ministers of God, to spread His Word and His Love throughout our world. But there comes a time when to give too much of yourself is to fatally compromise your ability to do those things. Imagine you're going around somewhere and, I dunno, you run into a hundred people. Except that one of them is standing alone, and you can only speak to one group at a time. So you talk to this guy and he believes, but he says, 'I'm only going to become a Christian if you jump off this cliff.'"

"Right, because that happensall the time in proselytizing," said Meredith.

"Girl,please," said Christa, "I'mtrying to make a point here. Caitlyn, what do you do in this situation? Understanding that, if you convert this man to Christianity, that's the end of your usefulness to God? Understanding that you can leave him and go do good works among the other ninety-nine, and make a difference intheir lives and convertthem... Without having to put an end to your life in Christ?"

"And, with that in mind, why do you allow people to ask you to jump off cliffs?" Meredith asked.

Caitlyn had her answer to that. It was the reason she'd allowed Jon to have his way with her; the reason she let Harold babble at her; the reason she didn't hesitate when someone needed her harp and her hands. "To let them know I love them. To show them that I love them."

"You love people who bog you down with five gigs in two weeks," said Christa.

The right answer would beYes... But it wouldn't be the true answer. Not real love. Generosity, sure; affection, empathy, loyalty; many of the higher virtues. But not love.

"Then why?" said Christa. "Why put yourself through this wringer for nothing? Why hurt yourself—and now your husband—for people who are only a paycheck to you?"

"Because... Because that's what I wastaught," Caitlyn said. "When I was young, my parents would always say—"

"Oh-hhhhh," said Christa.

"Getting in trouble for being selfish?" Meredith said. "Expecting you to share? Punishing you if you hesitated for even a second over it?"

"No, that's not what it was like at—" Then Caitlyn realized that, on the contrary, this wasexactly what it had been like.Oh my goodness. "I can't believe it."