Thirsty indeed. Claire didn’t know when she’d transitioned from the dream to reality, but she lay there in the darkness, the wan fingers of moonlight pressing in through the cabin curtains, across the tweed, plaid-patterned sofa, then across the floor to the recliner. Her grandmother’s voice faded with the dream.
Claire sat up and realized she’d fallen asleep in the recliner. In high school, how many times had she come home to see her grandfather asleep here, her grandmother on the sofa, knitting, waiting up for her?
She’d been thirsty after moving to Deep Haven from Bosnia. Thirsty for friends. Thirsty for safety. Thirsty to know that she could heal—that she would heal.
Claire got up, went to the bathroom. Her face felt sticky, puffy. She hadn’t remembered crying herself to sleep, but maybe. She didn’t have to turn on the light to know the layout of the room, the picture of her parents on the counter, the embroidered wall hanging of the John 15 verse—“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”
She washed her hands, then made her way to her bedroom. Even once she moved into town after graduation, she’d spent many nights here, relishing her grandmother’s cooking, then nursing her in the days before she passed.
Claire lay on her quilt, the anger from the evening before now a distant echo inside. The spray of the lilac towering outside her window traced a shadow on the ceiling. The smell of smoke saturated the air—a faraway campfire, maybe.
She could almost hear Felicity’s laughter as she tucked in beside Claire on the double bed, whispering what-ifs about Darek. Felicity had loved the eldest Christiansen boy for so long, sometimes Claire wondered if Felicity became her friend just so she could get closer to him. But in those early days, Claire didn’t ask questions.
And then Jensen showed up in her life.
She could still see him, standing on her dock in his cutoffs, his shirt flapping in the wind, grinning at her.
How many times after Darek left and Felicity fell asleep by the campfire did Claire and Jensen wind down the night hours talking, their hands propping them up as they stared at the stars?
She’d loved Jensen since that first summer, maybe.
You do that. . . . Coax things back to life.
No, Jensen had coaxed her back to life. Jensen and her grandparents and even Felicity and Darek.
In fact, God had coaxed her back to life. With this place. With this life.
Maybe God was kind. Because in the aftermath of her devastation, He’d wrapped her in this safe place. With these safe people. And for ten years, she’d remained. Healed. Grown stronger.
Her words to Angie Michaels filtered back to her.
I’m not hurting them. I’m pruning them so they’ll grow better.
Maybe God had used these years to prune her, to heal her so she could bear fruit. She wasn’t a disappointment or a failure. She simply needed time to bloom.
She remembered what she’d told Jensen: I would love to open a nursery in town, maybe do private landscaping. Maybe Jensen hadn’t betrayed her. What if he’d helped set her free?
It didn’t mean that she could trust him, but perhaps she didn’t have to hate him. Three years of hating Jensen had eaten her alive.
She just had to let him go.
Because she was staying in Deep Haven. And maybe selling the house was for the best. She’d needed this place, but God had healed her. Strengthened her. And now He was giving her the chance to create something new—she could open her own nursery with the money her grandfather gave her. Turn the gardens of Deep Haven lush and beautiful.
Quietly coax things back to life.
Remain in Me and produce much fruit.
That command didn’t say leave. It said stay. And if God wasn’t sending her anywhere, then she didn’t have to go, right?
Claire rolled over, pulling the quilt over her. Maybe first she’d stay here a little longer, scouring up the courage to tell her parents.
“There’s only one answer, Darek.”
His father stood over the kitchen table, looking at the map Casper had rolled out, tracing the line of fire as relayed to Casper by Jed, still at the fire camp. He pointed to a pasture west of the Gibson place. “There’s a natural fire break here, but if the fire runs west of Evergreen Lake, what’s to keep it from turning south?” He looked at Darek, raised an eyebrow. “There’s no other choice.”
“Dad, if I don’t finish cutting this line around our property—”
“And let’s say you do. Then what? By the time you start working on the other line, the fire might be too large. You won’t be able to set a back burn in time. The fire will overrun the line and not stop until it hits Lake Superior. You need to start now and cut in to Thompson Lake. Then you and all the fire crews can concentrate on burning everything north, starving the fire before it gets to Deep Haven.”
“And Evergreen Resort?”
His mother stood in her bathrobe, her arms folded over her chest, her mouth a tight line.
His dad glanced at her, back to Darek. “We trust the Lord for His protection. I’ve heard you mention at least once that the best thing for Evergreen Resort would be to set a torch to the old cabins and rebuild.”
“I wasn’t serious, Dad.”
“We might not have a choice. But the truth is, we can’t hold on to something so hard that it destroys everything else we love. Like our town. We have to trust the Lord to save us, Son, even if it means that He has to burn away the old.”
Darek stepped away from the table. He was probably littering dirt along his mother’s wooden floor. He stared out at the lake, the dawn spreading across it like flames. “Okay. I’m going to head over to the pasture behind Gibs’s place, start cutting in a line.” He turned. “Casper, you get on the horn to Jed, tell him to send a crew down to the line. We’ll need to set a back burn as soon as I have the fire line built.”
He waited for some smart remark like “Roger that, Captain,” but Casper only nodded.
“Mom, you pack up and get out of here. I don’t know how fast this fire is coming, but you and Gracie and Amelia need to leave.”
“I’m not leaving without your father,” Ingrid said.
“Casper and I are going to wet down the house, Ingrid. And I don’t want you anywhere near danger.”
“Thank God Tiger isn’t here,” Ingrid said. She glanced at Darek. “I’m sorry, Son, but I’m just glad he’s safe.”
He hadn’t exactly seen it like that, but maybe right now he could be thankful his son, so prone to getting underfoot, lost, or hurt, was safely asleep at his grandmother’s house.
Small glimpses of grace, perhaps. But after that moment in the dirt, when the burn inside him had finally, truly died, Darek intended to hold on to glimpses of grace.
“I’m taking this walkie,” Darek said. “Keep me posted. Stay safe.”
He took off down the road, back to the dozer left by the fire road where the property line crossed the Gibson place. He’d take the dozer down the road, then cut in behind the Gibsons’ and start by laying a line across the pasture. Then he’d tackle the forest.
He could use some help. Like someone with a chain saw. Someone who knew how to work with him. Someone who had fire training.
Someone like Jensen.
He climbed aboard the dozer, fired it up.
He’d nearly killed his best friend that summer when Jensen abandoned Darek in Montana. Not abandoned, but . . . Yeah, abandoned. Just like Jensen had abandoned Darek when he moved to Minneapolis—even if he hadn’t had a choice.
Jensen had missed all those moments Darek shared with others. Like days upon days of backbreaking, honest work, hiking into the mountains to mop up a fire, watching it burn itself out, embers glowing in the darkness. He’d missed seeing the aurora borealis while sleeping under the stars in Washington State, swimming in a glacial lake in Montana.
Jensen’s friendship felt closer than his brothers’, and ye
t . . .
Yes, Darek missed him. Maybe if he hadn’t been so angry about Jensen leaving—so selfish—he wouldn’t have so easily wooed Felicity into his arms. Wouldn’t have taken silent pleasure in winning her heart away from Jensen.
He owed Jensen an apology. But they were so far beyond that now, he hadn’t a clue how to fix it.
Dawn turned the field to shadow and fire, and as he came into it, the smoke cleared long enough for him to see the low red ball on the horizon, spilling out to melt away the darkness.
He lowered the scoop and began to plow the earth, furrowing it down to bare soil.
Please, let this be enough to push back the fire.
The truth would set her free to love.
Ingrid’s words fueled Ivy as she stood on Nan’s doorstep, balancing two coffees, breathing out the last of her sanity.
Talk about a breach of ethics.
But Ivy had been up all night, pacing through her decision, and she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try.
God’s not impartial. . . . God operates almost entirely on emotion—love.
It had taken her a trip down to the beach, where the waves combed the shore under the moonlight, to scroll through her life and discover that, yes, God might have shown up a little. Like rescuing her from her mother. And giving her a warm bed, even if not a family. Putting Daniel in her life to believe in her, and then . . . and then Darek. Tiger. Ingrid and the entire Christiansen family.
Maybe it was time to give Him a chance.
She’d let that truth sink into her heart, let herself believe.
God had loved her enough to give her a family, and she wasn’t going to lose them if she could help it.
So she’d written the best brief of her life to DJ, outlining her actions and, most importantly, her eyewitness perspective on the events in Tiger’s life that accounted for his injuries. She’d explained Darek’s actions without prejudice, added in her firsthand experience with Nan, and finally summed up her opinion.
Yes, her opinion. But that, too, was what the law was about. A judge was supposed to be impartial, but a lawyer was supposed to be on the side of truth.
She had forgotten that, a little. An admission she put into her resignation letter. Because she couldn’t be a prosecutor and a defender. And she was about to leap so far over the line of ethics that it wouldn’t matter anyway.
But ethics and truth had parted ways somewhere in the night. And she had to live in truth. Had to live in love.
She’d left the letter attached to the brief with a note to DJ saying that he could accept if he wanted to. Or not.
She was hoping for not. But until she knew his decision, she was free to stand at Nan’s front door and plead Darek’s case.
So she knocked.
Please, God . . . She’d begun the conversation last night at the lake and continued it now. Please, God, let this go well. Please be on my side.
The door shuddered.
No, be on Tiger’s side.
Yes, that felt right.
The door opened and Nan appeared, looking down at her, frowning.
“Hi, Nan. I was hoping we could have a conversation.” Ivy held up a coffee.
Nan stared at it.
“Please? I think—”
“If you’re here to defend Darek, I’m not interested.”
Ho-kay. She kept her smile, the litigator’s face that refused to be rattled. “Actually I wanted to tell you a story.”
Finally . . . “Fine.” Nan looked behind her, then stepped out onto the porch, accepting the coffee cup. “But Tiger’s going to wake up any minute.”
“I know. And I don’t want him to be afraid or disoriented either. Believe me, I know what that feels like.” She blew out a breath. “See, I lived in fourteen different foster homes from the time I was nine years old. I remember every single morning I woke up in a new house—the fear, the strangeness. The hope that this family might want me. Might think I was worth keeping. That this might be the last time I woke up in a new, strange home.”
“Tiger isn’t in a strange home.”
“I know. And I’m thankful for that because as a child, there is nothing worse than having the hover of social services in your life. I never knew if one day I’d come home and discover them waiting for me. Or coming into school. Or meeting me off the bus.”
“If we had custody of Tiger—”
“Seriously, Nan. Have you seen Darek with Tiger? Because you can bet he will never leave this alone. You might somehow get legal custody of Tiger, but I can guarantee that Darek will be in his life. He adores his son. He lives for his son. And I’m so sorry that I can’t be impartial, but the truth is, maybe I’m here to help you understand exactly what you do to Tiger every time you fight with Darek or file a complaint or yank him out of his father’s home.”
“Darek doesn’t deserve Tiger.”
“Tiger is his son, and he doesn’t deserve to have his son taken from him. Just like you didn’t deserve to have your daughter taken from you.”
Nan drew in a quick breath. “She never would have been on that road if Darek hadn’t fought with her.”
“He knows that, Nan. Believe me, he knows that. But that still doesn’t make it his fault. It was just a horrible, terrible accident.”
Nan tightened her lips.
“Here’s the truth,” Ivy said. “If you keep going with this, you’re going to shatter Tiger’s fragile foundation. You’re going to start a fight between you and Darek and the Christiansens, and the only casualty will be Tiger. Is that what Felicity would want?”
Nan closed her eyes, said nothing.
Ivy softened her tone. “But that’s not what I came to say.” She slid down onto one of Nan’s patio chairs. Set her cup of coffee on the table. “In one of the many homes I lived in there was another foster child about my age. Difference was, she had parents—two of them. They were both fighting over her, and her father had abducted her, taken her across state lines. The mother went a little crazy and attacked him, landing herself in a psychiatric hospital. So when they finally found Corrie, they put her in a home to sort it all out. I’ll never forget that night—she was in the twin bed opposite me, weeping. I was so jealous of her—angry that she had two parents who both wanted her—and I wasn’t very nice. I might have told her to shut up. But she just kept crying, so finally I asked her what was wrong. She told me that her father hadn’t really wanted her, but he couldn’t bear her mother getting her.”
Nan had turned away from her and was staring at the lake, only her tight profile visible for Ivy to read.
“I know you love Tiger, Nan. Of course you do. But do you want to raise Tiger, or do you just not want Darek to have him? Do you want to punish Darek or bless Tiger?”
“I think you should leave.”
Ivy sighed. This hadn’t gone at all how she’d hoped. Unless . . . “I love him too, Nan.”
Nan looked over her shoulder. “Darek?”
“And Tiger. I see a wounded boy who needs a mom—”
“He had a mom.”
“Yes, he did. But he doesn’t anymore.” She expected the flinch across Nan’s face but braced herself for it. “And you can’t be it. You’re the grandma, and that is a wonderful thing. But it will never be a mom. Please, let Tiger have a family.”
“You?”
“Maybe. Or someone else someday. Let Darek start over. Let him be the husband he should have been to Felicity.”
Nan sighed.
The day was still a tin-like gray, smoke thick in the air, nothing of the sunrise rescuing the shadows.
“He didn’t love her like he should have,” Nan said quietly. “She adored him.”
Ivy nodded.
“I’m just so angry all the time. It’s like a vise around my chest. It keeps me from thinking straight. I need to blame someone. Anyone.” She met Ivy’s eyes. “I want to blame Darek.”
“But the more you blame, the more your anger burns, the more it keeps you fro
m seeing the blessings you still have. You have to stop blaming and forgive. Forgive Darek and Felicity and Jensen.” She took a breath. “Forgive me.”
Forgive me. She let the words hang there.
Nan frowned at her. “Why?”
Ivy swallowed. “Because I’m the one who arranged the plea agreement for Jensen.”
“I don’t understand,” Nan said, sinking into the opposite chair.
“It’s a long story, but I was the one who recommended Jensen be given the community service hours in exchange for a guilty plea.”
Nan just stared at her.
“You should know that while I feel great sadness for your loss, Jensen might have been exonerated if he went to trial. I’m not sure he was really guilty of negligence.”
Nan looked away. “Me either.”
“What?”
“I knew Jensen—of course, we all did. He was a great kid, straight A’s, a good athlete. I felt terrible for him when his parents split. I actually wanted Felicity to marry him . . . but . . . she loved Darek, and, well, she would do anything to get him. Including get pregnant.” She reached up, wiped her cheek. “I was so angry with her for her behavior, but she was so . . . so happy to marry Darek. And then Tiger came along and I thought everything would be fine . . .” She ran her thumb along the lid of her coffee cup. “I probably should give Darek a little more credit for all he’s been through.”
“Darek made his choices. But he’s trying, Nan. Really, if you could see him with Tiger, you’d know that the child is . . . active. And Darek is doing all he can to help his son grow up safe and healthy.”
Nan nodded. “Last night Tiger climbed on the table and leaped onto George’s back as he came in the door.”
Ivy chuckled.
Nan took a sip of her coffee. Cradled it in her hands. Overhead, the smoke had shifted some, just a hint of rose gold in the sky. “Okay. I’ll call Diane at a more decent hour and talk to her.”
Okay? Ivy hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. “Thank you, Nan. I promise everything will be just fine.”
Funny how suddenly that line felt true.
Nan nodded. “He’s lucky to have you.”
“Tiger?”
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