With You Here

by Sarah Monzon

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” His chin fell to his chest, and he shook his head a few times. “Why is this so hard?”

  Well, that was an instant switch. What had she said to make him feel so bad? Now all she wanted to do was reach out and touch his hand. Offer comfort in some small way. Make his eyes dance again. Instead, she clenched her fingers together in her lap. “Note to self, do not tell a guy he reminds you of your brother.”

  His shoulders bounced as a muffled chuckled rose from his hunched form. He raised his head, a small smile easing away some of the tension on his face. “Yeah, that’s never good. But seriously, I do apologize. It’s just that I like you a lot. I know we just met, and it seems crazy to feel such a…I don’t know…connection, but I do. I used to flirt with girls I was attracted to all the time, and I guess I fell back into that with you, but that’s not who I am anymore.”

  He leaned forward, weight on his forearms, chest hovering above the table. “I recently gave my life to Christ, you see, and I’m trying to change, be who He wants me to be, but sometimes I’m not sure who that is, and I find myself struggling and slipping back into my old way of thinking and—” He suddenly stopped, his mouth frozen against the onslaught of more words. Breath whooshed from his lungs, collapsing his shoulders. “And making a complete idiot of myself by not shutting up.”

  Puddle. Her center had melted into a messy, gooey puddle. It was her turn to lean forward. “Who said you were an idiot?”

  He raised his palms in an isn’t it obvious action.

  She cocked a brow and sat back. “Now I know what you aren’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You are an athlete, lover of musicals, amateur historian, but you are obviously not in possession of perfect vision, because I see an honest man who isn’t afraid to be vulnerable. Who is seeking the right thing, even if it’s the hard thing, in a world that sells the easy thing even though it’s often the wrong thing.” She rotated her body in the chair, making a show of inspecting the entire room. “Nope. Not an idiot in sight.” She winked.

  Umm…when in the world had she ever winked at someone before? Her cheeks heated. “Better get those eyes checked.”

  Throat thickening, she reached for her water glass and downed half the contents. Now she was guilty of the very thing he had just apologized for. Flirting. What had she been thinking? She didn’t flirt. She didn’t even think she knew how to flirt.

  But he’d looked so torn up, realizing he’d fallen into what he considered old habits. And sure, he’d flirted a little, but he hadn’t made any inappropriate comments. In fact, the attention had made her feel special. It had warmed her in places she hadn’t known were cold. She couldn’t let him beat himself up over something that was more than likely a part of the personality God had created him with.

  She’d been thinking how much she wanted to pick up all that he was putting out there. And in his vulnerability, he’d been putting himself out there on the table. His heart, his struggles, his life. He was inviting her in, to see it all—both the ugly and the beautiful.

  “I’m here to listen,” she blurted. Cut out all those ors from earlier and the heart of her service in Germany boiled down to being still enough that she could hear the divine voice. Maybe her pronouncement wasn’t as long or deep as Seth’s had been, but it was what she had to offer to him in return. And as scary as it seemed, she wanted to be as open with him as he had been with her. But only as a friend, of course.

  Seth nodded, not seeming at all caught off guard by her admission. “Listening for what?”

  How much should she share? “You said you’re a new Christian, but do you believe that God speaks to people?”

  “You mean audibly like he did to the prophets in the Bible?”

  “Yeah, but other ways as well.”

  “Sure. My friend Justin says that God speaks to us through the Scriptures, through the Holy Spirit, through the words of other believers. I’m sure there are other ways, too.”

  Amber pulled her water glass closer to her, the beads of condensation on the outside wetting her fingertips. “I’ve felt God speak to me a few times throughout my life. A couple of years ago, I thought I heard him calling me to serve Him in ministry as a hospital chaplain.”

  “You thought? You don’t know?” His voice gentled as if he knew how hard the admission was for her.

  Her shoulders rose to her ears and then fell. “I’m not sure anymore. I’ve had people tell me I don’t belong in the theology program. That women shouldn’t serve as pastors, even though that isn’t the direction I plan to take.” She met his gaze, but the openness in his eyes caused hers to prick with tears, and she looked away. “God could be trying to speak to me through them.”

  “Or Satan could be using them to discourage you and get you to turn away from your calling.”

  “Yeah.” She sniffed. “It’s hard to know sometimes, isn’t it?”

  He stared at her. Waited.

  How did he know there was more?

  “I’m also afraid that I don’t have anything to offer. That no one is going to be able to relate to me…or me to them.” She whispered the last part. Where was the server with their food? A distraction would be welcome right now.

  “Why do you think that?”

  She sighed and sat back in her chair. “I don’t have a testimony.”

  His brows dipped. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know what you mean.”

  “A testimony. A come-to-Jesus story. Take you, for example. I don’t know a lot about you, since I don’t keep up with celebrities, but by your own admission, you used to live a fast life. I imagine that means women. Parties. Maybe drugs, I don’t know.” She shrugged, but gathered the nerve to continue. To be honest. “But then you came to Jesus and He changed your life. You were living one way, had all these experiences, and now have a story about overcoming. You can relate to people that have had similar struggles.”

  “And you can’t?”

  “I’ve always been a Christian. From as far back as I can remember, I’ve always had Jesus in my life and heart. I haven’t done anything that will cause other people to have faith in anything I say. I’ve never done drugs, smoked cigarettes, or consumed alcohol. You already know I don’t date, so that erases sexual temptations. I haven’t even been kissed!” She hadn’t realized her volume was rising until a few heads turned her way. Oh, biscuits and gravy.

  She slunk down in her chair, heat crawling up her neck. She tried to hunch her shoulders and hide her face behind her hand. “How many people here do you think can speak English?”

  Seth laughed. “Come on. Doing the right thing is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  She scooted back up in her seat. “But don’t you see? If people don’t think I have anything in common with them, they will assume I don’t understand what they’re going through, and then how can I be there for them when they need someone to help them in the middle of their struggles?”

  A shadow fell over their table, and Amber looked up. Their server placed two steaming plates of food in front of them and said something in quick German. Seth responded with a smile, and then they were left alone again.

  She sighed. Couldn’t their meal have arrived a few minutes earlier and spared her from spilling her guts?

  Seth offered to pray, and she accepted with a grateful heart. She was done talking for a while. Even if käsespätzle turned out to be disgusting, she was going to keep shoveling it in her mouth.

  Chapter Nine

  Early morning sunlight slanted across the football pitch. Seth pushed his chest closer to his knees, feeling the stretch in his hamstrings. He rose and lifted his palms into the air, each vertebra in his back stretching, his muscles elongating.

  He tried to focus his mind on the kids. The ones that would be spilling out onto the field in less than an hour. The ones who would be looking to him for direction as a coach, as much in life as for the fundamentals of the sport.

  But h
is thoughts kept U-turning back to Amber and their conversation the day before. It sounded cliché to say that he’d never met anyone like her before, but it was true. Growing up in the slums of London had stolen the innocence from his eyes at a young age. His past was one of the reasons he connected so well with the kids in Mila and Ben’s program. When a person saw something that no one should witness, especially as a tender youth, the images messed with their mind as well as their heart.

  For him, his past had been darkened by poverty. Violence in the form of gang wars and the effects of addiction. For the refugee children in the program… He shook his head. Man had not been created to witness such destruction at another’s hand. Bombings. Cold-blooded murder. Soulless staring of a lifeless gaze—one that belonged to a father or mother, brother or sister. And some of these kids not even of an age to attend school.

  But Amber…

  Her eyes were a picture of what God must have had in mind when He created the world. Fresh and clean. Not contaminated by a knowledge and personal experience of death and destruction. Such a heart to help others, but afraid of her inability because, what? She hadn’t made horrible choices in her life? Did she think if she’d followed the path of the prodigal, she could be a better witness?

  His stomach clenched, the wrongness of that idea causing him physical discomfort. More people needed to regain their freedom from guilt, find their way back to the light. Life’s journey brought them all through enough entrenched valleys. Amber needed to be the proverbial lighthouse on the top of a hill—guiding those in the storm to safety, not drowning alongside the rest of them.

  But who was he to say that other than a gut feeling? She’d been a Christian her whole life and he a mere month. It didn’t seem his place to instruct her on any spiritual matters. Maybe if Justin were here. He’d know what to say, what Bible verses to share.

  Seth shook out his arms, hoping his thoughts followed. He jogged to the equipment shed and unlocked the rusty padlock. A mesh bag full of balls hung from a nail along the wall. He unhooked it and swung the bag over his shoulder. Bending down, he scooped up a stack of orange cones from the floor, then backed out of the shed.

  Ben and Mila had said to expect around twenty kids this morning and then about the same number again in the afternoon. Younger kids in the morning, older ones later. There would be some familiar faces from the last time he’d volunteered, but a new wave of asylum-seekers had settled into the area. He’d need to team together the ones who were a bit more familiar with their new homes with those still reeling from all the changes life had thrown at them.

  Yasmin had offered to help as a translator, but Seth had politely declined. While it would have made things easier for some of the kids who couldn’t understand what he was saying, it would also have ostracized those who had come from regions that didn’t speak Arabic. Assimilation required they learn the language of their new country, so he’d speak German while coaching. It was good and right that they held onto the culture of their heritage, but they also needed to find their place in their new homes as well.

  Two figures approached the field on the other side of the far goal posts, hesitating at the line of white paint that indicated the pitch’s boundaries. They held hands, the child on the left half the size of the other. Siblings. They immediately reminded Seth of himself and Kayla at a much younger age. How many times had he gripped her hand in his, promising to protect her as they quickly passed through a particularly unsavory part of town?

  Seth waved and shouted a greeting in the most friendly, non-threatening voice he could muster. The kids took a step forward but seemed too afraid to come any closer. He approached slowly, pushing his lips up into an open smile. When he stood in front of them—an older brother, about ten years of age, and his younger sister, who seemed to be about four—he lowered onto his haunches. At this height, the boy stood over him a few inches.

  He put a hand on his chest. “Mein name ist Seth.” He tapped his chest again. “Seth.” Extending his hand, he pointed to the boy and raised his eyebrows.

  “Orhan,” the boy whispered. He raised his hand, bringing his sister’s up with it. “Yara.”

  Seth spoke slowly in German, welcoming Orhan and Yara to the center and telling them how happy he was that they were there to play football. He motioned to the black-and-white balls resting together at midfield and beckoned the kids to follow him. They trailed behind him like little ducklings, and he grinned at the small victory.

  Soon other kids joined them, their faces a mixture of distrust and cautious excitement. If anything was universal, in Seth’s mind, it was football. Loved by all the world over. The sport was a language all its own, one these kids—whether from Syria or Pakistan or some other place—knew how to speak. It may be a game, but the pastime was much more than that. It was a sense of home. Of comfort and familiarity.

  And it would teach them so much more than scoring goals. It would teach them to focus on what they could control, to let go of mistakes, to celebrate success no matter how small, and to be a true team player. It would teach them the value of keeping on learning. But most importantly, for some of these kids, football would give them a sense of family that war had stolen from them.

  Seth surveyed the group of kids thirteen and under and frowned. When had they started to clump together in groups? He walked the perimeter, coming close to a huddle of four. They spoke together in a language he had heard before but didn’t recognize. Farsi? He rounded on another group. The cadence of their words rose and fell differently from the first.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Amber jogged up the pitch from the center’s back door. Her cheeks were flushed as she pulled up beside him. “I promise it won’t happen again.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Her gaze swept over the group, or he should say groups of kids before blinking up at him. “Where do you want me, Coach?”

  “You’re fine where you are, Maus.”

  Her nose scrunched. “Mouse?”

  “Don’t like it? I think you’re a perfect little church mouse.” He winked.

  She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

  He shook his head and then clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. After a stilted round of introductions, he paired kids from different clusters together and gave each pair a ball to practice passing. After promising Orhan that nothing would happen to her, he took Yara by the hand and led her over to Amber.

  “Do you think you can look after Yara for a bit? She’s younger than the program’s minimal age, and her mum is at work right now.”

  Amber extended her hand to the little girl with a smile. “We’re going to have so much fun, you and I.” She lowered her voice and looked up at Seth. “If her mom is at work, who’s looking after her the rest of the day?”

  Seth pointed to Orhan. “Her older brother is right over there. He takes care of her while their mum works a double shift downtown at the manufacturing plant to pay for rent and food.”

  “What about their dad?”

  He glanced over his shoulder to check on the kids passing their balls back and forth. “Casualty of a corrupt government.”

  Amber hugged the preschooler to her side. She bent down to the girl’s level. “I saw some wild daisies over there. Why don’t we make a crown of them and you can be a pretty princess?” She led the girl over to the side while Seth jogged back to the other kids.

  He put them through some drills and then counted them off into teams to play a scrimmage game. He needed to see what he was working with—in regard to skill as well as personal and group challenges. He blew the whistle, and kids ran into action.

  They shouted to each other in different languages, passing the ball to kids on their team who had come from the same region they had. Seth shook his head. They were going to experience enough ostracism from people outside who didn’t think they belonged here in Germany. They didn’t need to be treating each other that way as well. At half time he blew his whistle in disgust. First thing
he’d have to do is get these kids to work together as a team, to see their teammates as an extended family.

  But just how was he supposed to do that?

  Movement out of the corner of his eyes caught his attention. Amber had Yara on her back, and she trotted across the sidelines like a horse. The girl squealed in delight, a white daisy chain circling the top of her head.

  Amber stopped by one of the older boys and pointed at his feet. What was she doing? She stuck her foot out and the boy looked at her in confusion. She pointed to his feet again. Finally, she bent down and reached over, dragging his leg beside hers. With a quick nod, she set Yara down and then knelt on the grass. She untied her shoes and slipped off her socks, handing both to the boy while pointing again to his bare feet.

  Seth swept his gaze around the other kids, then lowered his focus to their feet. Most wore shoes, but a few didn’t. Those barefoot watched as the lucky kid tied on Amber’s trainers.

  She couldn’t help them all, but she could help one. If only more people would adopt that philosophy. His heart went out to her, and he almost hated himself for what he was about to do.

  But it would be better for them all in the long run.

  He hoped.

  Trotting over to the group, he told them in German for everyone to take their shoes off. Twenty pairs of eyes stared back at him strangely. He bent down and untied his own trainers then toed them off. He repeated his desire that everyone be barefoot. Slowly, understanding lit faces, and kids pulled off their shoes.

  First step in becoming a team, a family? Having a shared experience. Whether good or bad.

  From the thunderous look on Amber’s face, she thought this one very bad.

  Chapter Ten

  Holy Roman Empire, 1527

  Christyne paused and leaned on the door behind her, letting her eyes adjust to the shadowed light of the undercroft while her pulse slowed to a normal beat. Ever since the Duke of Schlestein had graced her hall with his presence she had been as fidgety as Hette. No matter that the great lord had departed the castle walls more than two hours past, his band of soldiers with him. She had watched the plumes of dust the horses’ hooves had kicked up, her own prayers rising and disappearing into the heavens in the same manner.