What If...?

By Cat FitzGerald

Have you ever wondered "what if?" What if you hadn't broken up with that boy? What if you'd taken that other job? Moved to another town? What if someone you loved hadn't died? Discontent in her second marriage, Rachel Montgomery sows a bitter seed of resentment in her heart as she allows herself to fantasize about the perfect life she might have had if her first husband, Jack, had not died. She's convinced that all would be well and none of the problems she faces now would even exist. Of course, fantasies aren't real. Or are they? Real or not, fantasies can lead to unexpected, unintended, and undesirable consequences. Be very careful what you wish for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644167854

Book preview

Chapter 1

Rachel Montgomery smiled and waved at her granddaughter as the school bus pulled away. She watched it disappear from sight before trudging back to the front door.

Mom! Mom! Mom!

Rachel jumped at the sound of her daughter’s voice yelling down from the second floor. She made her way through the family room to the bottom of the stairs on the other side of the kitchen.

Honey, please don’t yell. Rachel called upward as Mallory came clattering noisily down the stairs.

Sorry, I didn’t know where you were, Mallory huffed. Can you pick up Bri after school today? With her head bent intently toward the ever-present phone in her left hand, Rachel’s only child opened the fridge with her free hand, nudging the door with her shoulder.

Why? asked Rachel as she poured her first cup of coffee and popped a frozen breakfast sandwich in the microwave.

Well, some people from work asked me to join them later, and since I’m kind of new, I thought it would be a good way to get to know them better. I’m flattered they asked me already.

Why can’t you get to know them at lunch?

Because, Mom, there’s not enough time at lunch. Half the people eat at their desks anyway. If it’s too much trouble, I’m sure I can find someone else to pick her up. Mallory’s tone implied that she wasn’t sure at all and would prefer not to have to bother. At twenty-six, she had perfected the aggrieved sarcasm that now caused her pretty face to harden.

Rachel sighed. She did that a lot lately. I’ll get her, but please don’t be late. I have Bible study tonight, and I’d like to get dinner finished and everything cleaned up before I leave.

Mallory continued banging around the kitchen as she made a cup of coffee to go.

Fine, thanks, see ya later, she said over her shoulder as she went out the door. Rachel was still standing there watching Mallory pull out of the driveway when her husband, Drew, came in wearing a sour look.

Why do you let her take advantage of you like that? I thought you had plans for this afternoon.

Rachel shrugged as she turned to face him, Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.

Yeah, until she needs you tomorrow, too, Drew grumbled as he reached for the coffee pot.

Drew, can we please not do this again? Nothing I have planned is more important than being here for Brianna. I’m not doing it for Mallory.

Does Mallory know that? Drew leaned over to kiss Rachel on the cheek before heading out the door himself. He tipped his travel mug at her and said, See you tonight. I love you.

You, too, Rachel said without much enthusiasm as the door closed behind him. She stood at the front window again, this time watching Drew back out of the garage in his Mustang convertible, his pride and joy. She bit her lip and blinked to stop the tears that threatened to overflow. God, this isn’t the way things were supposed to be. Why is everything so hard? What did I do wrong?

The same questions. The same silence.

She wasn’t really unhappy with her life, or so she thought. She felt blessed in so many ways, but now she found herself too often wistfully wondering what her life might have been like had her first husband not died prematurely. Jack Sims had fought a lengthy battle with lung cancer that had taken its toll on the whole family, and his death at forty had left her reeling and shaken. Her faith and church family had been the glue that held her together as she dealt with grief as well as unresolved anger at Jack for being unable to give up smoking. She still questioned how she had come to marry a smoker in the first place. Love. Hope. Promises.

While her marriage to Jack had not been perfect by any standard, she couldn’t help but think that if Jack had lived their daughter might have made better choices and that their lives would somehow be different.

Rachel adored her eight-year-old granddaughter, but it had been a shock when Mallory got pregnant at eighteen, dropped out of college, and moved back in with her and Drew. Drew had not handled the news very well. Not well at all, and Mallory still resented him. Their relationship was still strained even though Drew was over the moon in love with Brianna. Drew was more of a black-and-white-type of guy, while Jack had been a rule-breaker or, at least, a rule-bender. He would have been disappointed, of course, but he would have quickly moved on and embraced the new challenge. The reminiscing made Rachel think of another challenge.

When she and Jack had been married about ten years, Rachel had become a Christian. Things had gone badly for a while until she got down from her soapbox and settled more gracefully into her new lifestyle. A lifestyle that did not sit well with Jack. He had lost his party girl and, for a while, continued to participate in their old life without her. As they matured and Mallory grew older, Jack had given up most of his bad habits, but smoking had a grip on him that he could never escape.

Even though he had no use for religion, he didn’t seem to mind that Rachel had changed as long as she stopped bugging him to go to church. She had learned to trust God with her recalcitrant hubby and accept that God would deal with Jack on his schedule, not hers.

*****

Jack had been completely spontaneous, the typical class clown who took nothing too seriously. That had led to much frustration on Rachel’s part when she needed to have a meaningful conversation with Jack, but at the same time, he kept her from getting bogged down with the what-ifs in life. She was a planner and organizer. Jack’s philosophy could be summed up in one word: whatever. She could still see the impish sparkle in his chocolate brown eyes when he tossed his head, a wasted effort to keep his blond curls out of the way. Rachel frowned. She still wondered if her controlling nature along with Jack’s death and her fairly quick marriage to Drew had been the catalyst for Mallory’s rebellion. She had stopped going to church soon after high school, choosing instead to hang out with questionable people she had met at her summer job. Rachel was still at a loss to explain it. Mallory’s faith had seemed so real. She had been involved with the youth group and loved going on mission trips. Rachel had been wary about the new friends with good reason.

Mallory had continued the friendships even after leaving for college, spending time with them when she came home on the weekends. She had begun dating one of the boys in the group, someone with no ambition and a shady past. By the following summer, she was pregnant. She’d dropped out of school, gotten married, gotten divorced, and moved back home all with two years. Thankfully, she had gone back to school at the local tech college and had a decent job, which was a good thing since her ex barely made enough to pay child support.

Now Bri was the delight of their lives, and neither she nor Drew ever thought of caring for her as anything but a joy. The family tension arose out of Mallory’s desire to still have her freedom along with the responsibilities of being a mother.

Chapter 2

Rachel had met Drew Montgomery through mutual friends, and while it had not been love at first sight, it had been darn close. They shared so many important things including their faith that it seemed destined for them to be together. Drew was divorced with no children and had not dated much in the five years since his wife had left. He had been badly hurt by her infidelity and wasn’t looking to get burned again. Although his startling blue eyes and dark hair brought him plenty of attention from the unattached ladies at his workplace and church, he just wasn’t interested. Until he met Rachel. Her dark blonde wavy hair and emerald eyes had captivated him almost immediately.

Rachel had been terrified at the very thought of dating again and had resisted friends’ efforts to set her up on blind dates. After five years of caring for Jack during his illness and frequent hospital stays, she just wanted to spend time with Mallory who was only eleven when her dad died. Mallory had been shuffled around for care during this time, so Rachel had been looking for some quality time with her only child.

She had kept Drew at arm’s length for two months, talking only by phone, before finally agreeing to go out with him. Even then, it wasn’t what one would call a date. They met at the local rec center where there were lots of people and lots of noise. They walked the indoor track and made small talk, both of them full of nervous energy. Shortly afterward, Rachel consented to a boat ride and drove over to Drew’s house for the afternoon. It was another month before their first real date occurred. They were married six months later.

Rachel loved Drew. She really did. It was just that she didn’t even know what it was exactly.

Yes, I do. I’m bored. There. I said it. I’m bored and tired and frustrated at the same-old, same-old. And, I’m weary.

Rachel suddenly realized that she’d been standing in the same spot for ten minutes. She returned to the kitchen, pouring a fresh cup of coffee and carrying it back into the family room.

She settled in her favorite spot by the expansive windows overlooking the lake. The sun on the water this time of day made it glitter like diamonds. With Drew and Mallory gone, she had a few minutes of quiet to herself. She curled up in the big easy chair and gazed out across the water.

Lord, I could really use some encouragement right now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m just tired of the constant battle. Why did Jack have to die? Everything could have been so different now. I just know Mallory wouldn’t have made bad choices if her dad had been here to guide her. He would have been the example she needed. Drew’s just so hard sometimes.

Rachel felt a gentle nudging in her spirit as if she were being scolded. She had a good marriage, a lovely home, and a precious granddaughter. She had sold her home when she married Drew, and she and Mallory had moved into his house on Cotter Lake. He had pretty much given her free rein to redecorate, so she had systematically gone about removing every trace of his previous wife’s existence. I wonder if Jack and I would have stayed in the same house if he hadn’t died.

Rachel shook her head to clear her thoughts. She knew that a measure of her dissatisfaction came from not being able to control everything. Jack’s illness and death had upset her apple cart, so to speak. She’d had to give up her promising career to be his caregiver, and after he died she was comfortable financially and chose to stay home with Mallory rather than returning to work. At the time, she’d felt as though she’d been left behind in the workforce anyway, so why bother? She was too exhausted to think about retraining courses and catching up with the ever-changing insurance industry.

So she settled in as a stay-at-home mom, got involved with church and Mallory’s various activities, and got on with life.

Then she met Drew, got married again, and this time it was supposed to be that happily ever after thing. Like a Hallmark movie.

Except that it wasn’t. Mallory’s pregnancy had thrown a wrench in her plans once again, rattling her diminishing resolve.

Rachel sighed. Again. She imagined she would never be free of her upbringing. She had been born to a teenage mother and given up for adoption when she was a year old. Her adoptive parents had been in their early thirties when they married and in their late thirties by the time they knew that biological children were not in the picture for them. They started the adoption process and were in their early forties when they had received the call about Rachel. They were simple people and frugal, having grown up during the Great Depression. They were also woefully out of touch with raising a child in the sixties and seventies. She had rolled up the waist of her skirts and took off her childish socks as soon as she got on the bus each day. There was nothing she could do to shorten her dresses, so she just tried to not wear them much, making lame excuses to her mother. Her mother had been a skilled seamstress, and Rachel was trapped in her dumpy wardrobe until she got her first job the summer after high school.

She was finally able to buy the cute clothes she’d envied on her girlfriends but still had to wear long sweaters or shirts to hide her hip hugger blue jeans. She raced out the door as soon as a date drove up so her father wouldn’t see the boy’s long hair. Most of that would have been normal for a teenager’s life except that Rachel’s parents were also perfectionists. A good education was paramount, and she was not allowed to participate in extracurricular activities except for glee club. School was for learning.

Period. And even though her grades were good overall, she struggled with math, and the C on her report card brought verbal beatings in spite of the As and Bs on every other subject. Rachel was often subjected to criticism for not being helpful enough around the house like her friends. Her mother had based this complaint on a one-time observation of her friend, Beth, helping her mother hang out the laundry as they drove by. She then projected this assumption onto every other friend, and Rachel somehow came up lacking. She was just never good enough. Oh, they were proud enough of her when she won spelling bees and such, but it never lasted long. The next performance was always just around the corner.

What if her birth mother hadn’t given her away? Maybe they would have been poor, but she would have been loved for who she was, not for her expected performances.

Rachel had grown up trying to please everyone in her life. Especially men. She had grown from somewhat of an ugly duckling to an attractive young woman with a figure to die for by the time she left for college. And she used it to her advantage. Rachel knew it was only by the grace of God that she herself had never become pregnant. She graduated from college with honors, left home forever, moved to the capital city, got herself a job, and never looked back. Her relationship with her parents had remained strained for the rest of their lives. It made Rachel sad to think about it, and, in hindsight, she knew her parents had only wanted the best for her. A better life than theirs, but they had pushed too hard and loved too little.

Unfortunately, the scars from the verbal abuse and the emotional rejection had affected Rachel for years, leaving her vulnerable to the ugly world, at the mercy of her bad decisions. She had carried all of that into her marriage to Jack who had brought along a boatload of his own baggage, and it was nothing short of a miracle they’d made it.

Of course, Rachel had known that it was her salvation experience that had made that possible.

Jack had known it, too.

They had been on the verge of separation when Rachel attended a Billy Graham Crusade in their hometown. Nothing had been the same since. She still fought her demons, but now she had help. Someone with more strength and endurance than she had on her own. Jesus had saved her.

And then Jack got sick, and her world turned upside down again. Out of control. Beyond fixing.

Chapter 3

Drew was a good man who had loved Mallory from the very beginning. Her rebellion and subsequent pregnancy had affected their marriage as might be expected, but Rachel had tried to show love to her daughter without making her feel worse about the situation. Drew had been understandably angry and disappointed, mainly because of the effect on Rachel. He also didn’t feel that Mallory had shown appropriate remorse for her behavior.

Rachel had indeed been devastated but tried to hide her true feelings while being quite mad at God for letting this happen. Mallory had been a toddler when Rachel became a Christian, and she had begun praying for her precious daughter daily, asking God to protect her from harm and