Close to Home

by Carolyne Aarsen

  They settled into the pew. Dodie buried herself in the bulletin, catching up on the news of the coming week.

  A notice for the fundraiser was on the front. Helen Lennox’s name was printed in bold letters.

  I am a part of this, Dodie thought with a sense of pride. The rest of the bulletin was filled with information about other regular events—youth group, Bible study groups for every age; a fun night was scheduled for girls seven to twelve. Another notice gave progress on some of the people in the congregation who were ill.

  So familiar, Dodie thought, as she glanced around the church that she had attended since she was a baby. She had seen fellow classmates leave for other places, then return, get married and settle down. Three of her high school classmates now lived here, all three of them married, all three of them with children.

  Panic flickered through her at the idea that she was getting left behind. In a couple of weeks she would be turning thirty. What had she really accomplished in her life?

  She couldn’t help a quick, sidelong glance at Jace, sitting beside her. He was reading the bulletin, a light frown puckering his brow. He always did that when he was reading, she thought, the memory like a gentle ache.

  She turned her attention back to the bulletin, frustrated with the emotions that flittered through her soul.

  You made your own choices, the annoying inner voice reminded her.

  Choices that were forced upon me, she told herself. I didn’t ask to be assaulted. To have my sense of self-worth stripped away from me.

  Dodie slammed the door on the wayward thoughts. She couldn’t indulge in any sense of self-pity. She was on her own and she simply had to deal. Just like she had for the past six years.

  The music started, signaling the beginning of the worship service. Dodie looked up at the overhead, recognizing the song as an old favorite of hers that she hadn’t heard in a long time.

  She easily fell into the rhythm of the service after the pastor’s welcome and the responses.

  She was glad she came, she thought as she sat down, getting ready for the sermon. This was comfortingly familiar. And she knew it would make her parents happy. A smile played at her lips. And anything that made her parents happy kept her mother off her back.

  “I’d like us all to turn to Psalm 16.” The pastor’s announcement was followed by a rustling of pages. Out of the corner of her eye, Dodie saw Jace pull the Bible out of the holder in the pew. He turned to the passage and, just as he used to when they were dating, held it open so both of them could read it.

  Dodie could have looked aside and Jace would not have been the wiser, but a gentle yearning drew her eyes to the passage.

  “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge. I said to the Lord, You are my Lord; apart from You I have no good thing.”

  The familiar cadence and rhythm called back memories of herself as a young girl. At one time she had tried to memorize all the Psalms, thinking that the Lord would be pleased with her devotion.

  And now, as the pastor’s voice spoke aloud words that were at one time imprinted on her mind, she heard them as if for the first time.

  “Apart from you I have no good thing.”

  She had tried to stay apart from God and keep Him at arm’s length. But the emptiness percolating into her life seemed to be harder to ignore and stave off.

  Now she was sitting in church with Jace beside her. Just like she used to six years ago.

  Six years. The words clutched at her heart and she drew a shuddering breath as the intervening years of loneliness and heartache seeped into her mind.

  For years she had kept God at arm’s length. The God she used to take comfort from, strength from and peace from.

  He had let her down.

  But what had her life become since she had pushed God away? Had her life been joyful? Had she found contentment? The Psalm seemed to mock that spiritual independence. Seemed to declare that her life had become empty and void of the one thing that gave her meaning.

  “We yearn for justice,” the pastor was saying. “We yearn for the good things God gives us. Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they find our rest in God.”

  The pastor’s sermon dove deep into Dodie’s soul. He was speaking her thoughts, raising them up from the dark places she had assigned them after that life-altering night, when she’d been trying not to believe that she had “asked for” what had happened to her.

  This was why you stay away from church. To keep God out of your life. The God who didn’t protect you. The God who didn’t keep you safe.

  She closed her eyes against a wave of old pain and anger and shame. She didn’t know if she was ready to let God into her life. Ready to make herself vulnerable again. Ready to face, fully, what had happened to her. Ready to let the people who meant so much to her find out.

  She didn’t know if she could confront the shame and, yes, the guilt. Because no matter how much self-talk she had indulged in, always lurking in the back of her mind was the notion that she had asked for what had happened to her.

  As her attacker had told her.

  “Are you okay?”

  Jace’s whispered question sifted into her sorrow and as she glanced up at his familiar face, better memories rose to the surface. Memories of how his arm felt over her shoulder, the feel of her hand twined in his, how Janie would tease her about how close she sat to Jace. She studied him again, seeing the changes wrought by the intervening years.

  Unfamiliar lines faintly fanned out from the corners of his eyes. His face had grown an unfamiliar hardness around his mouth. The suits he usually wore spoke of money spent, money that had become important to Jace.

  He was moving down another path than they had planned. The Jace sitting beside her wanted bigger things, more money, success.

  Yet he was still Jace. And when his eyes met hers, she realized that he could still resurrect the same feelings in her.

  She felt a measure of fear and, below that, a curious sense of expectancy. As if something was going to happen.

  She wasn’t sure what it would be. Or if she would be able to welcome it.

  But when Jace smiled at her, for a brief moment, she thought she might.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” But her voice wobbled on the words, and to her shame his face grew shimmery as moisture pooled in her eyes. Would he understand if she told him everything?

  She turned away, but not before catching his light frown. She swallowed once, then again, as a fresh wave of sorrow came over her. Then she felt Jace’s hand resting lightly on her shoulder.

  She blinked and tears slid down her cheeks. She didn’t move to brush them away, hoping Jace wouldn’t notice.

  Then his hand tightened, and she knew he had.

  She drew a steadying breath, suddenly thankful for his support and thankful for his nearness. She had missed him so much, she realized, as she slipped her hand into his and curled her fingers around his hand.

  They sat this way until the pastor announced the closing song and Dodie reluctantly got to her feet. When the pastor pronounced the blessing she chanced another look at Jace. Her heart leapt when she saw the emotion on his face.

  It was as if the years had been swept away.

  He still cares about me, she thought.

  And on the heels of that thought came one just as earth-shattering:

  I still care for him.

  “This is beautiful work,” Jace said, running his hand over the smooth wood of the chair.

  The chair was made of hundreds of small pieces of wood laminated together and then painstakingly shaped and sanded.

  “Of course it is,” muttered Arnie. “I don’t make junk.”

  Dodie looked over at the chair’s creator. His dark brown hair was streaked with grey and liberally flecked with sawdust. He hadn’t cracked a smile since Dodie and Jace had come onto his yard, which wasn’t unusual. Arnie was as generous with his smiles as he was with his chairs.

  Dodie turned to Jace. “You should try o
ut the chair. It’s so comfortable.”

  Thankfully Arnie couldn’t see Jace’s skeptical look.

  “Sit in it,” Dodie urged.

  Arnie sucked on his pipe, then waved it at the chair. “Try it, mister. Guaranteed you won’t find anything as well-made in any of your fancy city stores.”

  Dodie was surprised at the flare of irritation flashing across Jace’s face. Did it matter to him that Arnie DeVries saw him, a one-time inhabitant of Riverbend, as an urban dweller?

  “Sure. I’ll try it.”

  When he sat down, Dodie could see from the look on his face that he was surprised himself at how comfortable it was. “This is amazing,” he remarked.

  Perfect. Just the reaction she was hoping for. She knew if Jace complimented Arnie, the man would soften toward him.

  She didn’t want to analyze too deeply why it mattered to her that Arnie saw Jace as a city lawyer.

  “I could sit in this chair for a long time,” Jace said. “It’s really comfortable.”

  “It’s the loving care that goes into the making of the chair that makes it so comfy,” Dodie said with a touch of irony in her voice.

  She saw Jace bite back a laugh as he glanced from her to Arnie leaning against his workbench, his pipe clamped between his teeth, his eyes glaring at Jace from the leathery folds of his face.

  It always surprised Dodie that something so beautiful could come from someone as antisocial as Arnie was.

  Dodie turned to him. “This is fantastic. I really appreciate your generosity in donating this.”

  He shrugged Dodie’s thanks aside. “Just make sure you take care loading it. Get a dent in it, it will lose value.”

  “Or gain some character,” Dodie teased. “But we will be very careful with it and treat it with the respect it deserves. It’s not every day we get to handle an Arnie DeVries chair.” She flashed a smile at him.

  A wreath of smoke surrounded Arnie’s face, but Dodie saw the beginnings of a reluctant smile tug at the man’s mouth as he pushed himself away from the bench.

  Jace got up from the chair and stood back as Arnie wrapped the chair in a couple of old blankets. “I want these back,” he said, as he tied a couple of lengths of knotted rope around the chair. “I’ll need them for the next chair.”

  “I’ll make sure I get them back to you as soon as possible,” Dodie said, flashing him another charming smile.

  Fifteen minutes later, after helping Arnie secure the chair to his satisfaction, Dodie and Jace were driving off the yard. Dodie leaned out the window, waved to Arnie, then pulled her head back in the truck and buckled up.

  “So. Now you’ve met one of Riverbend’s resident artistes.” Dodie chuckled as she rolled up the window.

  “He’s certainly a character,” Jace said with a grin.

  “But you have to admit, he makes beautiful stuff. I’m pretty tickled that he was willing to donate one of his chairs. He usually only sells them to people after he’s done a thorough background check.” Dodie sat back in the truck with a heady sense of satisfaction.

  “Yet he seemed pretty happy to give one to you.”

  “Arnie would never admit it, but he owes me.”

  “How so?”

  “I saved him from a casserole widow. She was coming on to him and Paul every Saturday at the farmer’s market. I convinced the woman that Arnie was still pining for a long-lost love and how hard it would be for the widow to capture his heart.”

  “I take it the long-lost love didn’t exist?”

  “Not that he’s ever told me, but I drew on my own vast experience and managed to convince her.”

  Jace glanced her way. “Your own vast experience?”

  Her heart flopped over in her chest at his emphasis. Had she really said that? Was he thinking she’d been pining for him?

  Dodie flapped her hand at Jace in an effort to make him think otherwise. “I was being sarcastic. I mean, it’s not like I’ve spent a lot of time pining for you…or anyone else, for that matter—”

  Stop, stop before you stumble into a minefield you can’t retreat from.

  But in spite of her desire to keep the past in the past, memories slipped in.

  She and Jace driving to the lookout point where they would sit and talk.

  And kiss.

  Like the kiss they had shared at the river. Dodie swallowed as past melded into present.

  Needing a distraction, she turned on the radio. “Does this thing work?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  She sat back, tapping her fingers on her arm as a few more miles slipped by. Then Jace slowed the truck by a road that veered left, and a premonition fingered its way down her spine.

  “This is the way to the lookout point, isn’t it?” Jace asked.

  “Yeah. But we usually came at it from the other way.”

  He turned to her. “Do you mind if we check it out? I haven’t been here in ages. I’d love to see what the river valley looks like now that the trees are leafed out.”

  Dodie gave him a casual shrug, wondering if he’d been able to read her mind. “Fine by me.”

  Jace flashed her a thankful grin, then spun the steering wheel and turned onto the road.

  “You do realize we’re trespassing on Logan Carleton’s land,” Dodie said.

  “If he catches us I’ll say it was your idea.” Jace gripped the wheel as the truck bumped and jolted over the tree-lined road that was little more than a rough path, exactly the width of a truck.

  “I believe you used that excuse before. Just shortly before he did catch us.”

  “But now he’s married to your cousin Sarah. And that makes everything okay.” Jace tapped his forehead as he grinned at her. “See how my keen legal mind is always working?”

  “Your keen legal mind better keep its focus on the road,” Dodie grunted, as the truck bounced over a deep rut. “I don’t want to get any scratches or marks on that chair in the back.”

  “Sorry.” Jace grabbed the wheel and righted the truck. After a few more bone-jarring bumps and turns so tight that branches scraped along the sides of the truck, they broke out into an open area.

  Jace stopped the truck, turned it off and got out. Dodie hesitated a moment but then followed suit.

  Below them, the sparkling river spooled away in either direction. A hawk circled lazily over the field below them, and Dodie heard the muted chatter of wild swans coming from the riverbank.

  She hugged herself, letting the peace and silence of the place wash over her.

  “I missed this,” Jace said, his hands resting on his hips as he glanced over the valley. Jace sighed lightly, then, to Dodie’s surprise, sat down on the grass.

  She wasn’t sure what to do, but it looked like he was going to stay awhile. So she eased herself down beside him. Not too close, yet not too far away, either.

  Jace plucked a dry piece of grass left over from last fall and twirled it around between his fingers. The afternoon sun warmed Dodie’s neck, offsetting the cool breeze wafting up from the river.

  “Do you ever come out here?” Jace asked.

  His question was quiet, but Dodie sensed that he was asking if she made any forays into the past. If she missed what they had shared enough to remind herself.

  She shook her head. “I’ve never had any reason to.”

  He said nothing, simply twirling the grass around and around.

  “We’ll have to spend the day of the fundraiser putting the auction items out,” Jace said after a while, thankfully moving the conversation to the events currently binding them together. “Will you be able to spare the time?”

  “I’m sure I can get the day off.” Dodie fiddled with the zipper pull on her cardigan. “I also spoke to Helen yesterday,” she continued. “Just to make sure things were still okay on her end. She’s a bit nervous but looking forward to it.”

  Jace rested his arms on his elbows. “I can’t tell you what a windfall that was, getting her on board. You never did tell me how you managed.”
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  “Not sure myself. That night that we went to their place, when you and Paul were outside, we talked.”

  “I know that she had a rough childhood and supposedly a bad marriage. Did she say anything about that?”

  “Just that she thought the counseling program and the center was something she wished she’d had access to growing up.” Dodie thought of the pain she saw in Helen’s eyes. A pain that was frighteningly familiar.

  For a moment, sitting across from Helen as she doled out small parts of her past, Dodie felt as if Helen was a kindred spirit. As if she, of all people, might understand.

  But shyness in the presence of such a well-known singer, and six years of suppression, kept her own secrets locked up.

  “She did say that the center was one of the reasons she wanted to help out. I didn’t have to do much convincing,” Dodie added.

  Jace nodded. “When we were talking, I sensed that she was a woman who had suffered deep pain.”

  Jace’s quiet words sent a shiver down her spine. “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Just a feeling I had.” Jace held Dodie’s gaze for an extra beat as if probing for her own pain.

  Dodie wanted to look away, but felt herself drawn into his gaze.

  Can I tell him everything?

  Her heart stepped up its erratic rhythm as words fought to be spoken.

  Then he gave her an enigmatic smile, looked back at the river and the moment passed. “Well, I’m glad she is involved,” Jace said, “The tickets are just about sold out.”

  Dodie drew in a long, steadying breath. She had been so close to telling Jace what had happened to her that horrible night. She choked it down. She couldn’t. It was too shameful. Too horrible.

  He wouldn’t understand. And if she saw him turn away from her, it would devastate her. Far better that she make that choice and not him.

  “Is the speaker still not feeling well?” she asked, thankful that her voice was so steady.

  “Last I heard, there wasn’t much improvement.”

  “What will you do if he can’t come?”

  Jace shrugged his shoulders. “We tried to contact some of the backup people we had in mind, but they’re also booked. So far, our only line of defense is prayer.”