Like the morning I wandered into the prayer garden at nearby St. Andrew’s church. The autumn air was crisp, the maple leaves beginning to turn their lovely crimson. My heart had healed enough by then that I could make it through the day without crying. But now I was faced with a new dilemma.
I had to find a job. All the life insurance money had gone to pay for medical bills and for the extra debt that had piled up when I was forced to quit my job as a school social worker and nurse Kev fulltime that last year. There weren’t many good jobs open right now in Columbus, and besides, I’d definitely need to make more than what I had been paid before. I would either need to go to work for CPS, or get out of social work altogether and finish my ELC director licensing process that I had started before Kevin’s illness.
Neither option sounded appealing. My heart felt…fragile. Beat-up. I wasn’t sure I could bear to open myself up again to the pain that came with my chosen field. At this point, working as a cashier at the grocery store seemed like a viable option. Go to work, scan groceries, smile impersonally at customers, go home. I could probably handle that.
I shuffled through golden, early-fallen aspen leaves to sit on the lone bench. The prayer garden was beautiful this time of year. Despite the chilly evenings that had signalled the leaves to turn and fall, the manicured grass was still green, and gold and purple mums bloomed with abandon in the well-kept flower beds. A few bright pink roses peeked out here and there amidst their spotted, yellowing leaves. Sometimes, in places like this, I could feel peace beginning to seep back into my heart.
The fountain had not yet been turned off for the winter, and I watched as a robin hopped tentatively toward the cool mist. He flicked his head back and forth between me and the fountain, then risked another hop closer to the tantalizing pool of water in the bowl.
Exactly like me, I thought ruefully. Dancing around anxiously, but not ready to plunge in.
Really? Was that what had been wrong with me for these past couple of days? Was I…afraid?
As an optimistic, glass-half-full kind of girl, fear had been a somewhat unknown quantity in my life up until Kev’s diagnosis. It still sneaked up on me at times and caught me off guard.
But I had finally learned what to do with fear—fear that had the power to suck me under and hold me down until I was gasping for air. I took a deep breath. “Jesus, I trust you,” I whispered.
“Jesus, I trust you.” Louder this time and with more conviction. “Jesus, I trust you. I believe I will see the good of the Lord in the land of the living.” That verse from Psalm 27 had become a lifeline, and saying it out loud now somehow caused faith to rise up in my heart. I will see God’s goodness again. I will be whole again. I will laugh again. I will hope again. In this life—not just when I get to Heaven.
I brushed at the moisture under my eyes, and glanced toward Mr. Robin, who, his thirst apparently slaked, was poised to dart away. Under his little bird feet, engraved in the granite face of the fountain, I saw the words I had missed earlier:
All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416 AD
I blew out my pent-up breath. It would be well. Ultimately, Jesus would make all things right. I didn’t know how…didn’t know what it would look like. But my task right now was to trust. To lean. To put one foot in front of the other in the light I had already been given. I could do that.
My phone dinged, yanking me out of the past. I pulled it out of the pocket of my robe, grateful for the distraction. It was Mona, who had, apparently, survived the night with the grandchildren and lived to tell about it. And tell about it, she would. I braced myself mentally for the onslaught of photos and accompanying captions that would be proliferated through social media for the foreseeable future.
Mercifully, she hadn’t texted me any photos yet. However, she was wondering if I had any news about “our mystery,” as she had begun to call it, and was I still planning to go to the women’s fellowship lunch today at the taqueria and if so would I please come pick her up because Rob was still out of town and she hated to drive places alone and besides, her foot was hurting from when the oldest gran dropped the croquet ball on it last night and she wouldn’t be able to eat much anyway because did I forget she was on her low-carb diet? And the only thing she’d be able to order there was the taco salad. Five exclamation points; frowny face, frowny face.
Dang it! I’d forgotten about the women’s lunch, and I was exhausted from merely reading Mona’s breathless text. But maybe it would be good for me to go.
I called Mona. “Where are we meeting for lunch?”
“The taqueria in Temple. The one on 31st.” She sounded liked she’d been running.
Ugh. I pictured the tiny, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. I loved Mexican food, and theoretically, I wasn’t opposed to hole-in-the-wall places. But I hadn’t even heard of the word “taqueria” until I moved to Texas. And in my limited experience of the taquerias I’d tried since I’d lived here, there was perhaps a reason that I hadn’t heard of them before.
“Who picked that place?”
“I don’t know—hold on a minute.”
I could hear yapping in the background, then a thud. I grinned. Sounded like Bubbles was locked outside again.
“If it’s not the phone ringing, it’s the silly dog yapping his head off. I think Lonnie picked the restaurant this time. You can’t back out on me now, Callie.”
I might. “I was planning to visit Aunt Dot out at Willowbough this afternoon.”
“I want to go see Dot too!”
I gave in. If I stayed with something safe, like chips and salsa, I’d probably manage to make it through the taqueria experience. Then we could stop at Sonic and grab Dot her favorite cherry limeade on the way to see her at the senior adult community.
But then I had to get back to work on those flowers. The wedding was tomorrow evening, and all I had done were the altar arrangements and the centerpieces for the tables.
Chapter Three
We peeked into Aunt Dot’s room to find her typing furiously on a laptop. From what I could see on her screen, the font was about 48 point. Her lunch tray sat nearby, still laden with a bowl of potato salad and piece of chocolate cake.
“What is she doing?” Mona crowded behind me, trying to see over my shoulder.
The nurse brushed past us into the room. “I think Miss Dot is a-writin’ a book.”
My aunt turned, and her face lit up at the sight of us. “Come here, darlin’,” she called to me. “I was hoping you’d come today!”
I leaned down to give Dot a hug, inhaling her comforting scent. She was my great-aunt—my grandmother’s sister. She captured both of my hands as I withdrew from her embrace. Her skin was cool and soft, her nails unpolished but beautifully shaped. Her silver hair was combed neatly away from her face, highlighting her still-lovely hazel eyes and ready smile.
She squeezed my hands tightly, and I could feel her wedding ring pressing into my fingers. Platinum with tiny diamond chips, the ring had never been off her finger since she and Uncle Garth were married over sixty years ago. The thought of it made my heart ache, as always, for the briefest moment. Uncle Garth had been gone for at least ten years, yet she still wore her ring. Their relationship had been the kind I could only dream about.
I disengaged my hands gently, and handed her the limeade. “You remember my friend, Mona, don’t you, Aunt Dot?”
Aunt Dot beamed, fishing the maraschino cherry out of her drink with the plastic spork from her lunch tray. “Of course, I do. Now you sit on down and make yourselves at home. My, your toenails are very sparkly today, Mona,” she said, popping the cherry into her mouth.
I hadn’t noticed. How, I’m not sure, because when I looked at my friend’s toes now, I could see that they were painted in red, white and blue stripes...accented with rhinestones. And they matched the rhinestones on her t-shirt, which I had also, apparently, failed to notice. I guess I was used to Mona being sp
arkly all the time.
“Yes, ma’am. It is almost the 4th of July.” Mona wiggled her toes so I could see them better.
I was not exactly sure of the significance of celebrating our nation’s Independence Day with one’s toenails, but if it made Mona happy, who was I to argue? Besides, the patriotic colors matched the ugly bruise, presumably from the croquet-ball-dropping incident, on her left foot.
“So, what are you typing, Aunt Dot?” I couldn’t recall ever seeing my aunt use a computer before.
She straightened in her chair. “Well.” She grinned at me, and for an instant, I could see the little girl she must have been, shining in her eyes and her impish smile. “It’s a secret.”
A secret? Well, Aunt Dot always did have a penchant for secrets, but she usually got so excited about her new “secret” that it didn’t stay secret for very long.
“You know I don’t do anything without praying about it, honey.” She was looking at me as if I wasn’t listening very well. “And the Lord told me to do it.”
Do what? I guess I wasn’t listening very well. I was suddenly feeling a little muddled what with yesterday’s events, Aunt Dot’s secrets, and the wedding flowers weighing on my mind.
I glanced at Mona, who was more subdued than normal. Was her foot hurting her that much? I tried to get her attention, but she was staring intently at the stack of letters lying on Dot’s bedside table.
Aunt Dot liked to write letters and cards, and she had a thriving pen pal ministry to prison inmates. At last count, I think she said she was writing to thirteen inmates across the country. She was always thinking up new ways to encourage them—Scriptures, jokes, Bible study materials, crossword puzzles. Though she herself was paralyzed from the waist down from a botched neck surgery several years ago, she still had a heart to serve God by loving others. It was one of the things I had always admired about her.
Mona turned to me then, wide-eyed. She gestured to the bedside table with a jerk of her head, but I didn’t see anything unusual. Of course, I’m not the most observant person in the world, either. I frowned at Mona and tuned back into Aunt Dot, pretending not to see my friend surreptitiously pull out her phone and take a picture of Aunt Dot’s table. What was Mona up to?
“That sweet young man, Brandon—do you know him, Callie?” Aunt Dot was asking.
I shook my head. There was a middle-aged man at church named Brand or Rand or something like that. Was he a tech guy? I didn’t know. He certainly wasn’t young, though I suppose “young” was a relative term when one was Aunt Dot’s age.
“Brandon comes and teaches us how to do technology. You know, computer things.” She sighed. “He seems a little nervous sometimes, but he’s such a dear man. And handsome, too.”
If I didn’t know better, I might think my elderly aunt had a crush on Brandon the computer dude. I suppressed a giggle, not daring to look at Mona.
“Next time he comes, I’ll give him your phone number, Callie. You need to meet him.”
Oh, no. Memories of the last time Aunt Dot had found me the man of her dreams was enough to give me a panic attack on the spot. The poor guy had not been my type at all.
“I’m not looking for a boyfriend right now.” Not now. Or ever.
Mona snickered.
“I know, honey. But one of these days, God’s going to bring another man into your life. I’m simply trying to help Him out a little.” Aunt Dot gave me a guileless grin, then leaned in confidentially. “Most of the other folks in here use the computers to play games,” she whispered. “But Harry, down the hall, you know?”
Not really, but I nodded anyway.
“Harry does all of that social stuff. Like he chats with people on eBay.”
I knew what she meant. I nodded again, an encouraging smile on my face.
“And he even sells stuff on...on...what is it called? Face-twitter? Bookface?”
I ignored Mona’s sudden choking fit.
“Facebook,” I said.
“Oh, yes. That’s it. I never can remember.” She closed the laptop and laid it to the side. “How is your mother, dear?” she asked.
I had known the question was coming—because it always did—but that didn’t make me like it any more than I did any other time. My parents were on the mission field in Zambia, of all places. House parents at a boarding school that served ex-pat families, missionary families and the local population. Mail took months to arrive there, if it ever did arrive at all. But I rarely sent any mail, anyway. We weren’t close like that. In fact, we weren’t close at all.
“She’s fine,” I said, hoping it was true. “The last I saw on Facebook, she and Dad were leading some sort of teacher training thing at their school. But you know how it is there. The internet access is spotty, so I don’t hear from her too often.”
Aunt Dot’s eyes bored into mine. “Don’t wait too long, Callie.”
She knew that I knew what she meant. I squirmed, feeling the heat rise to my face. It wasn’t that there was a problem, exactly, between my parents and me. More like a…wall. One that I either didn’t know how to break down or didn’t care to. Some days I wasn’t sure which.
It wasn’t even a deep, dark secret. It was simply the emotional distance, the unresolved little hurts that had piled up between us for so long. The hell that we all lived through during my older brother’s struggle with addiction had left wreckage in its wake. After he finally left the house for the last time, or was taken, rather—in a police car—things seemed to settle down. But nothing was ever the same. My parents were exhausted and grieved, and even at the best of times disagreed over how to deal with my brother’s ongoing crises.
I had always been a good girl, so I was left to cope with the difficulties of high school and, well, growing up. I know my parents did the best they could. They took me to church; sent me to a private Christian school. Dad provided well for us. Mom cooked dinner every night and took me shopping for a prom dress. But they weren’t...present. It was as if they were so emotionally drained from dealing with my sibling, that I was an afterthought. By the time I married Kev, my brother had been in and out of jail for years and was on his way to prison. My parents moved to Zambia a month after my wedding. Almost as if they couldn’t get away fast enough.
Mona had recovered from her sudden coughing spell. “Did you know that your niece is a detective now?” she asked Aunt Dot.
I rolled my eyes, but at least Mona had rescued me from drowning in morose thoughts about my parents.
“What? Isn’t the florist shop going well, dear? I didn’t think you were going to go back to law enforcement, Callie!” Aunt Dot looked stricken.
Being a social worker was hardly law enforcement, but it probably all seemed the same to an eighty-something lady.
“The store is going fine, Aunt Dot.” I frowned at Mona. “What Mona means is that I’ve had some...unusual happenings in the last day or so.”
“She found a dead body under her crepe myrtle tree!” Mona burst out, apparently unable to contain herself any longer.
Aunt Dot’s hand went to her throat. “Callie.” Her eyes were huge. “Are you okay, dear? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Here we’ve been drinking cherry limeade and talking about Twitterface and a person has been murdered in your yard? In Short Creek?”
I patted her knee. “Mona said he was dead, not murdered, Auntie.” I glared at Mona again.
“Oh, dear. Dead is bad enough.” She took my hand again, squeezing it tightly, as if I were her little girl. “Are you okay? That must have been a terrible experience.”
It was, actually. And amazing that I had been able to sleep at all last night. An image of the man’s face rose in my thoughts, but I pushed it away.
“I’m fine. But part of the problem is that no one knows who the man is...was. Or why he was in my yard at the shop.”
“Oh, Callie.” She went pale.
Maybe we shouldn’t have told her about it.
“And he brought Callie a package, too.” M
ona tapped her nails on the arm of her chair. “It was filled with weird stuff.”
“Yes, I was about to show her the pictures.” I reached for my phone, then froze.
Wait a minute. Something Mona had said…
I turned to stare at her. “Mona, maybe we assumed that the man brought the package. What if he didn’t?”
Mona fiddled with her earring. Red, white, and blue, with dangly rhinestones. She squinted at me. “You mean it could be two separate things? Like he died by the porch and someone else put the package in his hand to make it look like he was the one delivering the package?”
“So, if that’s the case, then did the person who actually delivered the package kill the man?” Aunt Dot’s eyes widened in horror.
I shrugged. “Maybe the guy was dead first. And someone kind of...put him there.” No, that wasn’t plausible, either. And I couldn’t believe we were sitting around Aunt Dot’s room discussing something like this. Usually we talked about gardening. Or knitting. Or Aunt Dot’s latest news from around Willowbough. Or what Pastor Brian had preached about on Sunday.
“So…let’s say the guy was alive when he arrived in your backyard.” Mona fingered her earring again. “Maybe he saw a different person deliver the package, and he thought it seemed suspicious and was trying to get it before you did to protect you from it.”
“But I didn’t know him. How would he know me? Or maybe he was a nice normal guy trying to do a good deed and got killed for it?”
Too many questions, and no answers. I slumped down in my chair.
Chapter Four
“Isn’t Sheriff Earl going to let you know when they get the autopsy results?” Aunt Dot asked. “You’d think that’s the least he could do, with you having to go through such an ordeal in your very own yard,” she muttered.
Mona rolled her eyes. “Earl? He’s not going to spill the beans. We’ll have to talk to Lonnie.”
Make Haste Slowly Page 3