While that thought of leaving The Light used to motivate me, now it also saddened and worried me. As I walked up the stairs toward our apartment, the most recent piece of my life that demonstrated my obedience and commitment to The Light—my wife—was the one piece I couldn’t imagine living without.
I took a deep breath and pushed thoughts of the dark and life beyond The Light away. Reaching for the doorknob, I inserted my key, waited for the sound of the lock, and opened the door.
Standing precisely where she’d been told to stand was the most beautiful woman in the world. Though her head was bowed, with her hair pulled back to a short ponytail, I could see her raised cheeks. I reached for her chin and brought her light-blue eyes to mine.
“Mrs. Adams, I’ve missed you.”
Her head tilted and her eyes closed as she brushed her cheek against the palm of my hand.
“I’ve missed you.”
The stress of the assignment, the tension of the flight, everything disappeared into the melody of Sara’s voice. As soon as I entered the apartment, the aroma of something cooking brought to life a different hunger from the one brought on by the sight and touch of my beautiful wife. I pulled her close and kissed her soft lips.
Almost immediately I reached for her shoulders and stepped back. With her at arm’s length, my dark eyes narrowed as I searched her face. It had been only a second, but something seemed off—different.
“Sara?” I evened my tone. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
Her eyes widened and then dropped.
“I’ve missed you,” she said. “I don’t like you being gone for three nights.”
There was more. I sensed it. Taking her hand, I led her to the couch. “Tell me. Do you want me to ask again?”
Her breasts heaved with deep breaths as her shoulders straightened. “Two days ago, at the lab, I found an error. It wasn’t my place to find it. I wasn’t looking for it, but once I noticed it, I did more research . . .”
I didn’t interrupt as her confession came one word on top of the other. While she spoke I prayed to Father Gabriel that whatever she’d done didn’t warrant correction. If it did, I would do it. However, after my being away from her, the last thing on my mind was punishment.
“. . . Brother Benjamin said he was glad I found it. He said we wouldn’t need to mention it again, but I knew you needed to know.”
“Was Brother Raphael involved?”
She shook her head. “Not with me. I don’t know if Brother Benjamin spoke to him. It was never mentioned again, but Dinah saw me looking into it. She had to help me catch up with my work. Well, she didn’t have to—she offered.”
“Was this before or after you told Brother Benjamin?”
“Before.”
I reached for her hands, neatly folded on her lap, and felt the slight tremble. “Sara, look up at me.” Obediently she lifted her eyes. “Tell me again what Brother Benjamin said.”
“He said it would never be mentioned again.”
I lifted her hands to my lips. With each kiss of her knuckles, the tension melted from her grasp, and I looked back up to her trusting gaze. “It was right of you to tell me. We won’t mention it again.”
The tips of her lips moved upward.
“Thank you, Jacob.”
“Now, what do you have cooking? It smells wonderful.”
As if I’d taken the weight of the world from her shoulders, she bounced up from the couch and headed toward the kitchen, the menu she’d prepared spewing forth from her lips. I listened to not only her words but also the sound of her voice.
Over the past nine months I’d fallen for my wife. Part of it was undoubtedly the training and manipulation of The Light. But that wasn’t all. I had an overwhelming desire to protect her from the darkness that lurked within The Light.
Father Gabriel’s word taught each husband to bear the weight of his family. It was my place. Yet there were times when I wondered what it would be like to be in a more equal relationship, one where I could share my burdens as she’d just done.
It wasn’t that Sara didn’t do everything she could to help me. She did. It was that I couldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t talk to anyone. That had never bothered me before. Now, each time she confessed a misdeed and gave it to me, I longed for the relief she obviously felt.
According to Father Gabriel’s teachings, men received that sense of relief through confessing to the Assembly or the Commission. My case was different. Confessing my anxiety over the termination of my FBI mission could not happen. It was up to me.
CHAPTER 6
Sara
My heart beat frantically as I rambled on about our dinner, something about wanting Jacob to have a home-cooked meal. I wasn’t sure of what I was even saying. I was more aware of what I wasn’t saying, what I wasn’t admitting. Somehow in this messed-up scenario, this pretend, ridiculous, outrageous life I’d been sentenced to live, the man listening to my ramblings knew me. He knew my thoughts without my so much as saying a word. Only seconds after he arrived, he’d known there was something, something I hadn’t said.
That new realization shook me to my core.
Jacob knew me, in many ways perhaps better than I knew myself.