by Hope Ramsay
The Old Testament reading for the day came from I Kings 17, and one of the members of the church read it from the lectern. The choir and congregation sang Psalm 146, after which Micah read the Gospel from Luke 7, the story of how Jesus took compassion on a grieving widow and restored her son’s life.
When the congregation sat down for the sermon, Micah spoke in that deep baritone that carried without any amplification. “Our readings today are all about compassion,” he began.
“God’s grace is there for anyone, but there is a trick. You have to reach out and take it. Compassion isn’t something we have; it’s more active than that. To find grace we must seek it, and then give it, as Jesus did to the grieving widow. Compassion, as our Lord showed, requires action.”
For an instant, it felt as if Micah was aiming his words right at Lia. Her failure to act had caused harm to Roy and Samantha Tate three months ago. Maybe that was the message she needed to hear. She couldn’t run from the gift she’d been given. It wasn’t really radar, as Micah called it. It was intuition—an ability to deeply observe others and to see pain when it was clear.
Kate Joyner was hurting physically if not emotionally. Lia had no doubt about that. Her husband might be loved by everyone, but that didn’t mean one damn thing. Lia had ignored Samantha’s pain because everyone, including herself, believed that Roy was a good guy. And maybe once he had been a good guy, but he was also a deeply troubled one. Lia should have seen his pain before he snapped.
Instead, she’d passed Sam’s concerns off as having more to do with a failing marriage than Roy’s underlying mental problems.
A person could be at fault for errors of omission as well as commission. Lia should have acted but she’d willfully ignored Sam’s worries because her radar hadn’t given her any warning signs. She’d failed to live up to the model Micah had outlined in his sermon today.
But maybe the way to forgiveness for Lia was for her to stop running from the consequences of her mistake. Running away was the sort of thing Mom had always done, and Lia was determined never to be like her mother.
And the Lord had provided a perfect opportunity right here in Magnolia Harbor. If not Lia, then who would care about Kate Joyner? To most of the people in this town, Kate’s pain was utterly invisible. But not to Lia. Kate’s name had made it to the top of Lia’s pink Post-it Note, and Abby’s name had been crossed off altogether.
She’d had a few minutes with Grant Ackerman yesterday, and she’d learned that he wasn’t nearly as old as he looked. He also confided that he wanted to stick around to have a man-to-man talk with Noah about Abby. Like the guy wanted to ask permission to date Noah’s sister, which was so old-fashioned and honorable that any misgivings Lia had about him disappeared.
But her worries about Kate had not. Kate was in trouble, and Lia needed to do something about it even though everyone in Magnolia Harbor thought Bud Joyner was the walking embodiment of Santa Claus.
* * *
After the service, Lia strolled into the fellowship hall’s kitchen and came face-to-face with a small army of women, every one of them unwrapping something delicious and homemade to eat.
Damn. Her two bags of Chips Ahoy cookies were not going to cut the mustard. Micah was right; the whole church thing was way different than ministering to people in the field, where a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies would be received like manna from heaven.
She didn’t recognize any of these women, except for Ashley, who was carrying a Tupperware carrier that probably had something utterly delish inside. Ashley not only ran a beautiful inn, the woman could bake with a capital B.
“Um, hi,” Lia said, clutching her cookies to her chest.
Half a dozen women turned and stared at her. It wasn’t the most welcoming feeling in the world. Especially after the sermon. She fought the urge to salute and come to attention.
The awkward moment ended when one of them, an older woman with a pageboy haircut, stepped up with her hand out. “You must be Lia DiPalma,” she said. “We’ve heard so much about you from Micah and Ashley. I’m Patsy Bauman, the chair of the Altar Guild.”
Wow. Nothing like coming face-to-face with the power center of the congregation. Micah had mentioned Patsy’s name. Her husband was a deacon and one of the members who would decide if they could afford a church secretary.
Lia shook Patsy’s hand. “I brought some cookies but…” She shrugged and glanced at the cookies and cakes coming out of their wrappings. “I don’t have access to a kitchen.”
Patsy glanced at Ashley, who was doing her best to ignore the entire exchange. The innkeeper’s posture was stiff, as if she was angry or upset. Lia wondered if it was her fault.
Or maybe she should put Micah’s sermon to use and reach out to the grieving widow. But before she could decide what to do, Patsy plucked the cookies from her hands. “We’ll save these for Sunday School treats,” she said, then turned toward Ashley.
“Did you make brownies?”
Ashley nodded.
“Excellent.” Patsy stepped a little closer and rested her arm over Lia’s shoulders. “We’re with you, honey. We all think the preacher needs a helping hand. And Ashley has cooked up a batch of brownies for today. We’re going to tell everyone that you made them.”
“But—”
She waved away Lia’s objection. “It’s not so much that the brownies will influence Micah. He already wants you. It’s to impress the deacons.”
“But—”
“Trust me.” Patsy said with a penetrating glance. Lia shut up. She didn’t think baking prowess was necessarily a job requirement. Which was a good thing because she could never compete with Ashley in that department. And besides, that wasn’t what Micah needed.
What he needed was… Well, someone to ride herd on these women who were driving him bat-crap crazy. And she could see why he was struggling as she helped the women prepare a buffet table groaning with all sorts of wonderful food. The women were engaged in a weird competition about scratch-made cookies and cake. Hardly the behavior Micah had been talking about in his sermon.
And yet, that food occupied the place of honor in the room. And the congregation gathered around it in fellowship. It brought these people together and, in its way, it was a blessing even if no one said grace over it.
And maybe for that reason, it disturbed Lia to have congregants come up to her with praise for brownies that she hadn’t baked. She wanted to set everyone straight. But she doubted that would help her efforts to become Micah’s right-hand helper once again. Outing the church ladies would be the wrong move.
She promised herself that she’d have a word with Ashley this afternoon about the cookies—and maybe some other things. Ashley’s name still occupied a space on her pink Post-it Note. And today, the widow seemed angry. Probably with good reason, since her brownies were to die for. It worried Lia that Ashley left the fellowship hall early. She would have to find a time to apologize for what had happened today.
Lia stayed until the coffee and goodies had been consumed and the crowd diminished to a handful of Altar Guild members and the minister. Patsy took care of cleaning the kitchen, and Lia found herself putting away folding chairs and tables in the big closet at the back of the room.
She made a dozen trips into the closet, working with Rev. St. Pierre until they carried the last two chairs. Lia followed Micah with her load and then, bang, the doors shut behind her, plunging the closet into absolute blackness.
“Hey,” Micah shouted, dropping his chair with a clatter and then testing the doors. They were locked. “Great.”
“I can’t see a darn thing,” Lia said.
“I can fix that,” he said. A moment later, his cell phone flashed to life, filling the closet with its ghostly blue light. “God said let there be Apple, and there were mobile phones,” he said. He cocked his head. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. But I have this feeling we were locked in on purpose.”
“Really?”
“You weren’t
kidding about the Altar Guild; those women are scary. And for the record, I did not bake those brownies.”
He chuckled. “I know. Ashley baked them. Her brownies are different.”
“Different how?”
“Don’t know. But I knew they were Ashley’s brownies. But hey, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. The Altar Guild was trying to help you with the deacons.”
“Maybe. But I think they had ulterior motives.”
“They always have ulterior motives. But now I’m curious. Aside from helping you land a job, what are they up to?”
“Sir, they think there is something…romantic…” She couldn’t continue because the idea was so absurd.
He laughed. “Really?”
“Yes. Ashley told me the day I moved into Howland House that the Altar Guild thinks you need a wife. I am not volunteering for that job, even if the Altar Guild has a misguided notion that I’m perfect for you. Just to be clear, sir.”
“This smells like one of Patsy Bauman’s schemes. She was here working in the kitchen, wasn’t she?”
“She was.”
“How much you want to bet she closed the door on us?” There was humor in his voice.
“I’m not taking that bet, sir.”
“Probably a good move on your part.” He let go of a long sigh. “I have a feeling we’re going to be stuck in here for a while. We might as well make ourselves comfortable.” He opened up a couple of folding chairs. The closet was large enough for them to sit comfortably.
They lapsed into silence for a long moment before he said, “So are you ready to tell me what’s really troubling you?”
She looked up at him. The pale blue light limned his face, revealing his deep, compassionate eyes. “I already told you, sir,” she said.
“You told me about an incident at Camp Shorab, but I don’t think that’s what drove you from the navy.”
She looked away into the darkness, and it struck her that this dark closet was like a confessional. And maybe, in addition to helping Kate Joyner, she needed to do something else. Maybe she needed to ask for grace.
“My radar failed me,” she said.
“What?”
She blew out a big sigh. “At my last duty station, I became friends with a marine spouse. Her name was Samantha but everyone called her Sam. She was a real nice person, you know.” Her voice wobbled. Sam had been a good friend, someone Lia could go out with for a drink and girl talk. Lia hadn’t had many besties in her life. She’d always moved around, and friendships never lasted. But friendship with Sam had been different, deeper somehow.
Funny. Now that she thought about it, her friendship with Micah had lasted more than a decade. Maybe when you got right down to it, Micah was the best friend she’d ever had. And he’d been her CO for a lot of that time.
Damn. It was kind of a pitiful life.
She twisted her fingers together. This was hard to talk about. “Anyway,” she continued, “Sam’s husband was a gunny deployed for most of the time that she and I hung out. I met him a couple of times after he came back from Iraq, and he always seemed like the life of the party. He didn’t look like a guy who was in trouble.” She stopped speaking. Why had her radar failed her?
“I take it that he was in trouble?”
Her hands had started to sweat. The last time she’d confessed her failure, her CO had suggested a medical discharge.
“It’s okay,” Micah said into the darkness. “If you can’t or—”
“No. I do want to tell you. I mean, you need to know how I screwed up.”
“Okay, so tell me.” His voice was low and steady.
“Sam told me she was unhappy in her marriage. She suggested that Roy was different at home than he was in public. But I didn’t sense anything really bad, you know? Just a dissatisfied and lonely marine wife. And my best advice to her was that, if she wanted out of the marriage, she should talk with him about it. Or maybe go to marriage counseling.”
“That seems reasonable, Lia.”
“Yeah. But Sam said that Roy had a temper. She insisted that counseling was a no-go. And she was afraid to leave him. I should have connected the dots. You know how it goes—sometimes depression or PTSD shows up as anger first. But I didn’t…”
“You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t feel it. I thought she was exaggerating. And Roy seemed okay. But on reflection he might have been going through a manic period.” She hauled in a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“Sam told him she was leaving him, and he snapped. Took her hostage and…” Another deep breath. “The police negotiator managed to get her out of there, but then he shot himself.
“I failed Sam. I didn’t believe her. I—”
“How did you fail?”
“Roy’s dead. I didn’t—”
“Lia, listen to me. There are things in this world that you cannot control.”
“But I should have. And I should never have told Sam to leave him if she was unhappy with him. If I hadn’t—”
“Stop. You can have regrets. But regret is not the same as being responsible for something. Your friend was unhappy in the marriage. It was her decision to make.”
“But if I had—”
“No. It was her decision. And he was the one who pulled the trigger.”
She said nothing for a long moment. “Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re willing to hand out grace this morning, sir. The truth is my CO disagrees with you. He’s the one who suggested that my own issues after Camp Shorab contributed to this. He’s the one who pushed me out of the navy. Told me I’d have to get a medical discharge if I didn’t choose to separate before my twenty years were up.”
“Well, maybe your issues over Camp Shorab did contribute to your reaction. You didn’t get any counseling after that, did you?”
“No,” she said on a watery voice. “I thought I could, you know, tough it out. No one but the bad guy ended up dead, but…” Her throat closed up, and the darkness in the room wanted to swallow her whole.
She might have truly come apart at the seams right then, but Micah reached out and took her hand. “You were not to blame,” he said in that strong baritone. “God forgives you, Lia. Now you just need to forgive yourself.”
* * *
Ashley put a rose on Grandmother’s grave and tried not to cry. It was hard. Almost every day, sorrow would find some way to hit her like a rogue wave. And she couldn’t do anything about it except surf the pain. If you tried to stand against it, it would break you in two.
After three years, she ought to be over Adam’s death, but now she understood. She would never get over it. His death had changed her. She’d gone from being an Army brat to an Army wife to a single mother. She was a different person now. And there was no going back on that.
She was no longer part of that military family. His death had brought her here to her father’s hometown and a short but lovely connection with her aging grandmother. Adam’s death had turned her into a businesswoman and an innkeeper.
But she’d trade all those good things away for one more day with him. Just one more. Her chin quivered, and that familiar knot formed in her throat.
She turned away from Grandmother’s headstone and headed back toward the fellowship hall to retrieve her Tupperware. Jackie was off spending the afternoon with his friend Daniel so she had the next few hours to herself.
She might drop by A Stitch In Time and pick up some Baby Ull yarn for the sweater she wanted to make for Anne Smith’s baby shower. Or maybe she’d just escape to her room and be alone for a while.
She was peeved with everyone—herself for letting the grief get to her, the Altar Guild for their endless games, and the preacher.
Of course it wasn’t fair to be angry with Micah, but since when was anger ever fair? She felt what she felt, and she would not apologize for it. She hated today’s readings and sermon. And even though Micah hadn’t selected them himself, since they were part of the Ep
iscopal church’s annual lectionary, she still had the uncanny feeling that his sermon had been directed at her.
As if he was purposefully telling her to ask for help.
Which she did not need. She was fine.
She dashed a tear from her eye as she entered the fellowship hall. Her mascara was probably a mess but she’d spent a long while in the cemetery. No one was left in the fellowship hall to notice that she’d been crying. And so what if they did?
She was halfway across the room, headed for the kitchen and her Tupperware, when she heard a muffled sound. She stopped. There it was again. Voices coming from…the storage closet?
She changed directions, and as she approached the closet doors she heard the voices and recognized them. What should she do now?
Open the doors and discover that Lia had lied about being “just friends” with the minister? Stand there and eavesdrop like any other member of the Altar Guild? Or just suck it up, the way she had been taught as the daughter of an Army colonel?
Sucking it up was the right thing to do. So she opened the door. And there they sat, side by side, holding hands.
Ashley’s body grew hot and then cold. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I thought—”
What did she think? She knew what she’d find behind the closed closet doors. She turned on her heel and headed toward the kitchen. She needed to get out of here quick, before she exploded. Or said something she’d regret. Or…
She couldn’t even think. Why had she been so sure that the Altar Guild was barking up the wrong tree? Why had she believed Lia when she’d said there was nothing between her and the minister?
And what if there was something going on between them? Why did she care so much?
She suddenly didn’t feel like sucking it up anymore. So she turned and headed toward the exit just as fast as her heels could carry her.
“Ashley, wait,” the preacher said. She didn’t look back but she could feel him following her, no doubt with the intent to dissuade her from telling anyone about what she’d seen. But he could forget it. Patsy Bauman would be happy as a jaybird with the news.