She sniffed, took a seat beside me, and sorted through the rest of the paper. My dad wandered in after a moment, looking vaguely distracted, a distinguishing trait of professors everywhere. When he saw me, he smiled and gestured me over for a hug.
“Sorry we didn’t have time to talk yesterday. Maybe we can visit after dinner?”
Because of the social the night before and the fact that I’d been too travel-weary and emotionally strung out, we hadn’t dug into the reasons behind my sudden appearance anyway. I felt slightly more human and coherent now.
“Sure, Dad,” I said. “It’s no big deal.”
He arched an eyebrow at that. “Well, you showed up with almost no notice, so it must be kind of a big deal,” he replied.
“It’s not. Sorry I worried you.”
He sighed but said only, “I’ll see you at church.” No sooner had the garage door closed behind him than my mom appeared, dressed in a neat black skirt and red silk blouse.
“Ready to go?” she asked.
“Ready,” I said. But then Sandy’s cell phone shrilled from upstairs.
“Sorry,” she said, looking embarrassed. “Let me go get that. I’ll be right back.” She bounced up the stairs and down the hall. Instead of bouncing right back down, I heard the low hum of conversation. It went on for at least five minutes. My mom shifted anxiously, but good manners kept her from commenting on Sandy’s detour.
I didn’t mind though. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like being at church. Parading through the hallways of my childhood chapel smacked of regression, and I dreaded the questions from well-meaning members who’d known me as a kid. I’d bet on at least ten “Are you dating anyone?” inquiries, and that didn’t even count Relief Society. For a couple of years, the breakup with Jason had given me immunity as people held their questions out of pity. After that, though, they clearly expected to hear any day that I had moved on and was engaged to be married, like Jason was six months after our ugly beach scene. I didn’t begrudge their expectations; they only wanted me to be happy. But some of the older ladies grew more comfortable every year with ignoring the social niceties and had no problem wading into everyone’s business, especially mine when I showed up in my home ward only twice a year.
I followed my mom out to the car when Sandy reappeared, apologizing for the delay. I didn’t want to give Sandy a reason to bolt by describing the hordes of nosy old biddies that would descend on me as soon as I set foot in the meetinghouse, so I said nothing and eyed the clock in the dashboard. I had a shot at making it in time for the welcome from the bishopric but no chit chat if I dragged my feet from the car to the chapel.
I sat back and sighed. This would be one long Sunday.
* * *
I waited for the Gospel Doctrine teacher to wind down. Brother Stevens was a nice man and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the scriptures. Those two things together didn’t necessarily add up to a riveting lesson. In fact, his encyclopedia tendencies had taken over and had turned our New Testament lesson into a bit of a Middle Eastern travelogue. Finally deciding I couldn’t sit still any longer, I abandoned Sandy to my mother and headed out for a sip of water. It’s not like I was getting much out of the lesson anyway.
Since there were a few minutes left before the bell officially rang for the third block, the halls stood relatively empty. I took my sweet time wandering back to the cultural hall, reading the bulletin boards lining the corridor. Pictures of youth activities and Scout outings papered one; another bristled with announcements and fliers from the activities committee. I paused in front of the one belonging to the singles ward. The institute class schedule hung on a fancy piece of CES cardstock and was illustrated with a group of clean-cut young men and women all raising their hands enthusiastically to participate in whatever the teacher asked.
I stared for a while. At the university here, while I worked on my undergraduate degree, I had attended institute diligently, volunteering to help with activities and making lots of friends to fill the time until Jason came back. I wondered if the students in the brochure’s idyllic picture had any idea that the future wasn’t always as bright and shiny as their faces. I hadn’t when I’d sat in their places after high school. Back then, I’d thought things went how you planned them.
In the middle of my mental tirade, I heard a soft voice call, “Jessie?”
I froze. I hadn’t heard that voice in four years, but I knew it immediately. I turned to face Jason. He held a blonde girl about three years old on his waist, his arm crooked to secure her, his other hand anchoring a baby carrier under a blue blanket.
“Hi, Jason.” Of course. Like I needed this. The universe seemed bent on forcing me into a nervous breakdown. Nausea churned in my stomach, and the sensation of stepping outside of myself for a split second disoriented me. I swallowed down the sick feeling and struggled to focus.
“Hi. Wow. How amazing to see you,” he said. “Are you visiting your parents?”
“Yes. For the weekend,” I answered, trying not to let my discomfort show. Which meant I probably looked as awkward as I felt.
I gestured to the children. “Are these yours?” I asked. Duh.
“Yeah, yeah. This is Maddie, and my boy is Hunter,” he said, nodding down toward the sleeping infant.
“Congratulations,” I said. I hadn’t heard about his kids, but then, I had made it clear that I didn’t want to keep up with him after my mom had delivered one of her Jason updates a few years ago.
“Jason?” A pretty blonde drew even with him in the hallway and reached over to take the little girl from his arms. He turned to her and smiled, and I could see his affection in that simple expression.
“Sweetie, this is Jessie,” he said, gesturing toward me. “Jessie, this is my wife, Stacie.” She looked delighted to hear my name.
The strange detachment returned as I stepped forward to accept her handshake. Was this the sister missionary from his mission? The one he’d dumped me for? How was I supposed to act? I fell back on manners. My mom would be proud.
“Nice to meet you, Stacie,” I said. It was like I was observing myself on film in a scene titled, “Girl meets ex-boyfriend and his wife.”
“No, I’m thrilled to meet you!” she cried. “Ever since we moved here last fall, I’ve gotten a chance to meet the characters from all of Jason’s childhood stories, but I thought you were long gone. I can’t believe I’m meeting Jessie, star of ninety percent of those stories.”
Okay. I wanted to hate her. But I couldn’t. She meant it. I relaxed a fraction, and my nausea subsided.
“Take those with a grain of salt,” I cautioned her.
Whoa. Adult conversation with someone I had once held responsible for bringing my life arc to a grinding halt. Not bad.
She laughed. “Oh, no. He gives you full credit for being the voice of reason. I think you’re the only reason he didn’t break his neck at least a half dozen different times.”
“Hey!” he protested. “I wasn’t that wild.”
At his wife’s skeptical glance, he grinned. “All right. Maybe five times she saved me.”
She smiled back at him. Their easy rapport sent a pang through my bubble of detachment. I shifted uncomfortably, searching for something to say so I wasn’t standing there with a big social smile papering over my confusion. “So you’re back here.”
“It was time,” he said. “I finished up my business degree back east, and now I can take over for my dad.”
“Maddie, this is Jessie,” Stacie said. “Can you say hi?”
Maddie ducked her head but gave me a tiny wave. A real smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. She was pretty cute. “Jessie story?” she whispered loudly in her mother’s ear.
Jason laughed. “Yes, honey. This is Jessie from my stories.”
“Where Twoy?” she asked. Troy was Jason’s other childhood friend.
“Troy’s in Utah, I think,” Stacie answered.
“Meet Twoy?” Maddie asked.
As simple as that, I had been reduced to nothing more than a story, like a hundred others her dad had told. Interchangeable with Troy, his affable sidekick through our school days.
The bell startled me, and people surged into the hall. Jason looked over his shoulder to the chapel, wincing. “We were almost on time today,” he said. “We better go before they close the doors for prayer. It’s good to see you, Jessie.”
“Yeah, you too,” I answered automatically. I watched as he carefully transferred the weight of the carrier to his other hand and headed toward sacrament meeting. Stacie smiled and turned to follow him, but after a couple of steps, she spun around and hurried back.
“I’m glad I met you,” she said. “I’ve always wanted a chance to apologize for how everything happened with Jason. I was madly in love with him for months on my mission before I admitted it to myself. I had no idea you were waiting for him until he told me when I got back. I’m so sorry it went down like that.”
I studied her for a minute, taking in the apology and the sincerity in her voice.
“Thank you,” I said.
She hesitated then nodded and followed her husband down the hall.
“Stacie?” I called when she reached the closing doors.
She turned.
“It’s okay,” I said.
She smiled and slipped inside before they clicked shut.
And I thought that maybe I meant it.
Chapter 37
“SORRY!” I SAID AS SOON as Sandy stepped out of the cultural hall.
“For what?” she asked.
“For bailing and leaving you in Gospel Doctrine. I am a bad friend.”
She looked at me strangely but said only, “Don’t worry about it. It’s Relief Society now, right?”
“Yes. Although I can run you back to my parents’ house if you’re churched out,” I offered.
“It’s fine. I’ll stay. Where’d you disappear to?”
I didn’t answer for a moment, instead leading her down the hall to the right room.
“Um, I was chatting with Jason and his wife,” I said.
She stopped, and I had to backtrack a few steps. “What?” she asked.
“You heard me.”
“Jason Jason? And his wife? Should I be getting you water or a fainting couch or something? How do you feel?”
“Fine-ish.”
She continued to study me.
“Seriously,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going to lose it. They were both pretty cool about it.”
“Realllly.” She drew the word out. “Cool, huh?”
I nodded.
“Good. Can I see them? Let’s peek through the doors.”
“No, crazy. We’re going to Relief Society.”
“Party pooper!” she accused.
“If the ruins of my life are your party, that’s a sad commentary on you.”
“You said you were fine,” she reminded me.
“I said fine-ish. In the neighborhood, but not quite the same thing. Let’s hurry, or we’re going to be stuck on the front row.”
“Don’t act like you’re not a front-row sitter,” Sandy said. “You’re a nerd from way back.”
“Yeah, in calculus or chemistry or something. I like the back row in Relief Society.”
We slipped in for the opening hymn, “Where Can I Turn for Peace?,” and that tickle swept up the back of my neck, the tickle that tells you to pay special attention to the lesson. The tickle that says, “Today, this lesson is about you.”
After the announcements, my mom stood to give the opening prayer, and then a young woman began the lesson. She looked my age, and a simple gold band circled her ring finger.
She’d been assigned a general conference talk about forgiveness for her lesson, and she solicited stories and experiences from class members who were eager to share. At the end, she bore a simple testimony about forgiveness. “Forgiveness brings us peace,” she said.
Oh man. I didn’t know whether I loved or hated Sundays when the message burrowed right into my heart.
* * *
“How did you like church today?” my mom asked us over a lunch of roast beef sandwiches.
I waited for Sandy’s response.
“I thought it was pretty great. It’s a lot different than I remember,” she said.
Well, that was a surprise.
“How so?” my mom asked. Good. I could eavesdrop on the answers.
“It seems like all the activities are different. I remember it being more old ladies teaching lessons and the activities being about canning stuff or sewing aprons. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
I could tell this amused my mom. “Believe me, we do plenty of that too, but we try to branch out and attempt new things.”
“Yeah. The whole organic cooking sounded interesting. And the volunteer thing where you go read. That’s kind of cool,” Sandy said.
“Maybe you could find something similar to do in Seattle,” my mom suggested.
“Good idea,” I added. “It could be part of the life makeover. I bet you can’t throw a rock in Seattle without finding someone to teach you organic cooking.”
“Throwing rocks at people got phased out in the makeover,” Sandy said. “But replacing that with the volunteer reading thing sounds like a possibility.”
“You would be marvelous at something like that,” my mom declared. “You’re so personable. The kids would really respond to you.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been around them much.” Sandy mulled the idea over briefly. “I can’t believe I’d be the only one into doing it. I wonder if I could set up some kind of corporate outreach program through our department to coordinate volunteer stuff in the downtown area.”
“That’s fantastic!” my mother exclaimed. She and Sandy were off and running in a brainstorming session before I could blink.
I checked out of the conversation within seconds and jumped onto the train of thought I’d been riding all day since my out-of-body experience with Jason and his family. I still didn’t know what to think.
I guess in the hundreds of times I’d imagined it, running into Jason had gone much differently. I’d pictured him with a growing paunch and thinning hair, his bedraggled and lumpy wife trailing him and eying me in jealousy. I would be dressed to kill, and I would greet him all calm, cool, and collected. His eyes would fill with regret, and I would give him a smile that said, “Too late.”
Instead, I’d barely avoided stammering when he’d caught me off guard in the hallway, and I had stood there, dim-witted from lack of sleep, incapable of soaking up the moment. I wished I could claim that my mental filter kept me from saying anything truly stupid, but the reality was that my brain had worked too slowly to open my mouth and incriminate me. I’d walked away feeling confused, not triumphant. Or I had until the lesson in Relief Society.
I dug into my purse and pulled out the rumpled quote the teacher had handed out at the end of the lesson, a reminder about how focusing on old wounds couldn’t offer any peace.
But until Ben showed up, I’d had peace, hadn’t I? I had a nice home, good job, pleasant ward, and no drama. Peace oozed out of my ears. So why did I feel like the quote spoke to me?
I must have looked like a space cadet when my dad walked through the door almost twenty minutes later. I shook myself to alert status and tuned back in to my mom’s conversation with Sandy. Somehow, it had veered from volunteer opportunities to a conversation about needlepoint. I didn’t even try to retrace those steps.
“Hi, sweetheart,” my dad said, giving my mom a squeeze.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, turning and giving me the same treatment.
Sandy watched with a small smile.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Uh oh,” he said.
“What uh oh?” I asked.
“I know that tone of voice. You only call me ‘Daddy’ when you need something. Will this cost me money?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.
“No. I need advice, I guess.”
Sandy listened to the exchange with interest until her cell phone rang faintly upstairs. “I’d better go get that.”
My mom got up too and murmured something about finding an embroidery book for Sandy.
Dad watched in amusement as they left and then eyed my half-eaten sandwich. “What are the chances of you finishing that?” he asked.
“Slim to none. How about you finish it off, and I’ll make you another one all for yourself?”
“Deal,” he said.
I waved him into my seat and rummaged through the fridge for more sandwich fixings. We chatted about my sisters while I crafted a meat-and-cheese masterpiece for him, and a few minutes later, I plunked the double-decker beauty down and pulled out the chair opposite him. Settling into the worn wooden seat, I glanced around and smiled, recalling the countless times my dad had counseled one of us girls at the table. Usually, it was because we asked his opinion, but I had been invited to take a seat a time or two when he had something on his mind. In my case, he wanted me to dial back on the stress in my life and take it easier.
“What’s on your mind, stinkpot?”
The goofy term of endearment dated from early childhood, but it comforted me. “I ran into Jason today,” I blurted.
He finished his bite before answering. “Your mother warned you that might happen. How did it go?”
I shrugged. “I met his family. Cute kids. His wife seems nice.”
He waited. When I made no other comment, he picked at his sandwich and asked, “How are you feeling?” He took two more bites while I struggled with an answer.
Finally, I came up with one. “Confused?”
“What confuses you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Because I’m confused. Get it?”
He laughed. “Yes, I get it. Are you confused about your feelings for him?”
I thought for a minute. “Yes.” Hmm. “No.”
He laughed again. “That’s about as clear as mud.”
I slumped in defeat.
“It’s not that bad, Jessie,” he consoled me. “Why don’t you tell me what you felt when you saw him?”
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