Jason squeezed her shoulders but remained quiet.
“Forgiveness is such a wonderful gift. I don’t think I really understood that until now. I was always the good girl. I married young, took care of your father when the going got tough, and threw myself into being a mother.”
“Mom, you were the best … and I’m not just saying that. I hear the abuse Jennifer went through as a child, and it makes me so sad. I was blessed to have you.”
“Yeah. But, Jason, there was a certain pride I took in all of that. I often looked at others with superiority and a lack of compassion. I felt God owed me something for being such a great Christian. That attitude took away the true wonder of the cross.” She dropped her head. “I’ve now been sufficiently humbled and have a much greater understanding of forgiveness. It’s the one gift that has come out of this.”
A sad look spread across her face as her eyes filled and glistened with unshed tears. “How easy it was for self-pity and self-righteousness to bring me down. I had everything on the outside looking good. People thought I was amazing, but in truth, I let the most important relationship with your father fade until we became nothing more than patient and caretaker. I regret that so much.”
“Mom, you’ve made many sacrifices for the family, and no one can take that from you, but honestly, we’ve all put you up on some saintly platform when God is the only one who deserves to be up there. It’s time to start taking care of yourself and this new baby and embrace your forgiveness. Who cares what people think?”
He rose to his feet. “Quite frankly, it’s refreshing to see you as a real person. I can handle that way more than how you’ve been these last eight months—enough said. I can go back to school in peace, and I’ll be back when my baby brother or sister is born.”
“Now let’s get some pizza, I’m starving.” Jason smiled down on his mom and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Let me help you and that baby up out of the couch.” He reached out two hands.
“Okay, but only if we can get ice cream for dessert.”
He laughed. “Mom, you and your ice cream.”
Jason ruminated all the way back to Victoria. The one thing he could do to help his mom would be to talk to his brother on her behalf. He didn’t dare suggest it, because he knew she’d say no. But he knew his brother. Mark would need time to digest the information. If it was sprung on him, he would make a colossal fool of himself and hurt their mom big time.
Jason would handle this one very important detail but not without prayer … lots and lots of prayer.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Mark slammed his fist down on the table. “Tell me this is your idea of a sick joke before I use my fist to send you into next week.” Mark lifted from the chair with his body hunched forward over the table.
“Mark, I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”
Mark’s face turned as red as a pickled beet. He rose to his feet crashing the chair to the floor behind him.
“Mom … our good, little Christian mother?” Unbelief and scorn bit crisp from his lips.
“Mark, our mom is not infallible. She has real weaknesses and failures, just like you and me.”
“Weakness,” he bellowed. “I find out my mother acted no better than a common hussy, and you call it weakness? Blast it, Jason, this mama’s boy, bleeding-heart thing of yours has gone too far. Why didn’t she tell me to my face?” His fists clenched and unclenched as he paced the floor.
Jason prayed for the right words. “I went to Kelowna last weekend unannounced. I kinda ran into the situation head on. Dr. Carmichael was at the house, and I heard some things … Mom doesn’t know I’m telling you.”
“So, we still wouldn’t know if you hadn’t gone there and caught them together? Mom was forced into telling and not by a bout of that spiritual guidance she so often preaches we need. And if I could get my hands on that Dr. Carmichael, I would bust his neck. How dare he take advantage of a grieving widow? What a swine.”
“I don’t think it’s one-sided, Mark. Come on, you weren’t born yesterday. We both know what loneliness feels like.”
“Huh. Call it loneliness, but I see it for what it is … black-hearted sin.”
“And you’ve never sinned?”
“Don’t go there with me, Jason. Don’t you dare play the devil’s advocate. There’s no excuse for what that rat Carmichael did. And as for Mom, as a Christian—there’s nothing she can say to make this right. Nothing! She’s disgraced this family and totally insulted Dad’s memory.”
“If Dad could speak from heaven, he’d have more understanding than you have, Mark. He knew how hard Mom’s life has been.”
Mark burst across the room and lifted Jason off the floor by the neck of his shirt. “Don’t you dare tell me what Dad would say! That man deserves respect.” He slammed Jason down on the nearby couch. “After all his suffering, the least Mom could’ve done was stay out of another man’s pants longer than a month.
“And I’ll tell you right now, I don’t want anything to do with that kid, and Mom can just forget about me coming down for that birth.
“I can’t believe she would embarrass us like this. What am I going to tell Lori? It’s bad enough that Mom is pregnant at forty, but this is … disgusting.”
Jason stood to his feet and took a deep breath. “I knew it. We finally get to the heart of the matter, hey, Mark? It’s all about you and your embarrassment.”
Jason knew he took a risk to challenge his hot-headed brother, but somehow, he had to get through for his mom’s sake.
He
