by Beth Moore
Even if Jillian had done the wrong thing, wasn’t it supposed to be the thought that counted? What terrible ulterior motive could she have had for framing those pictures and giving them to her own grandmother? She wanted answers. She intended to force the woman to talk about it. Jillian worked herself into a lather and whirled around her bedroom door, heading toward the kitchen for a confrontation. And then she stopped dead in her tracks. She stared at the bookcase in the foyer between their two bedrooms. There was Rafe’s first-grade picture, him plump-faced and smiling wide, the collar of his polo shirt sticking up on one side.
The two women unloaded the overstuffed dishwasher like nothing had ever happened, and then they contrived the best turkey and Swiss sandwiches on rye that Jillian had ever put in her mouth. Olivia insisted they wouldn’t be worth the trouble to chew if she didn’t grill them in butter on a hot iron skillet. “I’m not even going to think how many calories are in that thing,” Jillian commented.
“Good, because it’s Christmas, Scrooge.”
After their late lunch, Olivia stirred up a fire in the hearth and sat down with a book in the wing chair, while Jillian collapsed on the Snapdragon with the laptop to peruse the New Orleans School of Cooking website.
When the doorbell rang late in the afternoon, Jillian rolled to her feet and said, “I got it, O.”
“Who on earth would drop by somebody’s house on Christmas Day?” Olivia asked, abundantly annoyed.
“Normal people, Grandma Grinch.”
“Humph.”
But nothing seemed vaguely normal to Jillian about the person standing on the other side of that front door.
Olivia came to her feet in record time. “Sergeant DaCosta, what brings you here?” Her question came with an air of seriousness and dread that Jillian couldn’t really blame her for. His face six months earlier had not been a welcome sight.
Jillian, on the other hand, tried to fight the welcome sight of that particular face. She didn’t want him to be handsome, not to her anyway. She didn’t want him to look like he cared. She didn’t want to see him on any front porch again. She wanted to accept that ridiculous encounter at Bully’s house for what it was and forget all about it.
“Don’t let me alarm you, Mrs. Fontaine. I’m here on a personal matter, not police business.” Dressed in a button-down shirt and jeans, he glanced over his shoulder at his pickup truck parked at the front curb to offer proof.
“I see.” Olivia sounded unconvinced.
“Can I come in for a moment?” Cal asked.
Jillian tried to regain some composure and take up a little slack left by her grandmother’s inhospitality. “Of course, Officer.”
She meant it to be formal and his expression suggested he hadn’t missed it, but what caught her off guard was the way he came right on out and admitted it. He walked past her and said at a volume she alone would hear, “Alright. I deserved that.”
“Your Christmas, Sergeant,” Olivia spoke matter-of-factly. “How has it been?”
“Good, thank you. I had coffee with my mom this morning and took her to my brother Daniel’s house just before noon. We had lunch with him and Stephanie and the kids.”
“I understand from the Times that he’s running for city council.” Olivia’s statement stunned Jillian. She had no idea her grandmother kept up with current events like that, and it certainly never occurred to her that Olivia knew Cal had a brother.
“Yes, ma’am, he is. And if I know him, he’ll win.” Cal grinned and asked about Christmas at Saint Sans.
Olivia cut to the chase before Jillian could get off the starting block. “Our festivities were last night. Jillian and I have had the day to ourselves, which we’ve both enjoyed immensely.” Jillian raised her eyebrows, but apparently nothing short of a general anesthetic was going to stop Olivia. “To what do we owe this unscheduled visit?”
“I want to apologize for the way I managed to sound when we ran into each other in the ICU waiting room with Bully’s parents.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Olivia asked. “I can’t say as I recall anything at all that you said.”
Jillian rolled her eyes. “What my grandmother means is that we’re not sure why you’d feel the urge to come and tell us this today. You didn’t say anything wrong anyway.”
“It wasn’t what I said so much as how I said it. And even that wasn’t intentional. It just sort of boiled up to the surface.”
“Who could blame you, after what happened?” Jillian glanced away. “After what happened to Bully.” She would not avoid saying his name just to avoid the extra pain.
“Well, Bully’s mother. That’s who. I went by the hospital today after I dropped Mom off at home. Mrs. La Bauve very kindly cornered me out in the hall and asked if I’d seen you since then.”
“And why would you have?” Olivia asked.
Jillian was fairly impressed when Cal was intent enough on saying what he’d come to say to ignore Olivia’s attempts to unbalance him.
“I told her that I hadn’t, and she said something that really threw me. She said it sweet because she knows no other way to be, but she said it straight so I’d get it.”
Olivia put her hands on her hips. “I’m assuming you’d like to tell us what that was.”
“To answer Jillian’s question why I showed up here today, yes, ma’am, I would.”
“What did she say? I do want to know,” Jillian interjected.
“She said, ‘So that’s how you left it, then? With them feeling like you’d insulted their home. And after all they’d been through. That’s beneath you, Cal.’ I’d like to ask forgiveness from you both.”
“Bootsie said that, did she?” Olivia grinned. “I don’t recall an insult. Still, we appreciate the thought and thank you for coming by, don’t we, Jillian?”
“Yes, you do recall it, O, and so do I.”
With Jillian’s words, Olivia crossed her arms over her chest and took as loud a breath as humanly possible.
Jillian trudged forward before Olivia could derail the conversation again. “Though I did not blame you for how you felt, your apology is accepted. You surely know that we could not be sorrier for what happened to Bully because of us and that we do feel responsible.” Cal tried to interrupt her, but she gave him the stop palm she had learned from Olivia. “Our hearts were shattered. You can’t imagine how glad we are to hear about his progress almost daily from Caryn.”
“What’s happening with him is pretty mind-blowing,” Cal responded. “Mr. and Mrs. La Bauve said that several specialists have flown in to study him. They are convinced he’s going to come out of this thing. It’s astonishing.”
“It’s a miracle,” Jillian emphasized.
“I’m not sure I can argue with that.” Jillian suspected he had tears in his eyes.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m about to fall sound asleep standing up.” It was vintage Olivia Fontaine. “I’m going to have to make a pot of coffee. Since you’re here, Sergeant, you may as well have one with us.”
And he did. He asked about how they’d celebrated Christmas the night before and Jillian showed him the menu and told him just about everything prior to the first clap of thunder. She leapt over the bad part for all their sakes and landed right on David playing the organ and singing with Mrs. Winsee. “But that’s right—you took piano lessons when you were a boy.”
“Good memory there, Miss Slater.” Cal paused for a moment and looked into her eyes. “I hope that’s not all you remember.”
Olivia went into such a coughing fit, Jillian had to jump to her feet and pound her on the back. Then just as suddenly, Olivia recovered. She stood, glared at the mantel clock, and said, “Look at the time! I’m so sorry we have to cut this visit short, but Jillian and I have to get a move on or we’re going to be late.”
Jillian glared at Olivia with confusion.
“Remember, Jillian? You promised your dear O a good movie!”
Cal and Jillian somehow managed to get out the front
door without dear O joining them. “I’m sorry,” she said, walking him to his truck. “I know she seems rude, and honestly, sometimes she is, but right now she’s just being protective.”
“I don’t blame her. The woman’s been through it.” Cal took a few more steps. “Jillian, please let me say something before you make me get in that truck.” He reached out and took her by the wrist. “I’ve thought about you constantly. I have. It started months ago. The first I realized it was that late night Frank and I were at the café and you spilled the coffee. I’ve tried to stop myself over and over from going down this path by rationalizing that it would never work, but still, I can’t get you off my mind.”
“I don’t know how you could say that. You never stopped by to see how I was.”
“That’s not true. Ask your grandmother how many times I tried to get in that hospital room.”
“To question me.”
“You know better than that. That’s why the others who had their heads on straight were there. That’s not why I was there.”
“But you never came by here after they brought me home.”
He sighed. “The whole thing with Bully really messed me up. What I meant that day when I said I should never have let him come over here was that I knew—we all knew—he was personally involved. That he had personal feelings for you. We’d known that for weeks. I just kept thinking if I’d never let him come, he’d never have gotten hurt. The night he got hit was the same night we found you. I’d just confronted how strongly I felt about you when I got the news. There I was, about to go after the woman he had his eye on, when he was fighting for his life. What was I supposed to do with that?”
“I get that. But then why are you here now? Why not just call and apologize and leave it at that?” Tears stung Jillian’s eyes.
“Because of what Mrs. La Bauve said. She didn’t send me over here just to apologize. She sent me over here to see you.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know. I looked her in the eye and said that I was doing right by Bully. And she looked me in the eye and said, ‘Don’t you worry about Bully, Cal DaCosta. You think God is doing all this for his body and nothing for his heart?’ She knows, Jillian. She knows what we’re too proud to admit.”
Jillian looked away as a tear spilled down her cheek.
He wiped it away with his thumb. “Please? Let’s just see. I won’t push. I won’t rush. Give me the chance to spend time with you and get to know you.”
She took both of his hands in hers. “Cal, I need you to listen to what I’m about to say and let me get it all the way out while I have the strength to say it.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“I want to say yes so badly, but for once in my life, I’m going to say no. I have been lost for twenty-five years, trying to find out who I am and where I belong. The only part of myself I know in the least is Jade’s daughter, and I’m glad to be that. But I don’t know Rafe’s daughter. The guy lived on the streets and died on a sidewalk filthy and famished. I’ve just begun to know Olivia Fontaine’s granddaughter. I don’t know Jillian Slater, the grown-up. I’ve made so many mistakes. If you knew even half of the stupid things I’ve done—”
“You think I haven’t done stupid things? Who hasn’t?”
“You promised not to interrupt.”
“Okay, go on, but I don’t like where this is going.” Cal shook his head.
“I’ve confessed those mistakes and asked God to forgive me and I’m trying to believe he has. Adella says Jesus has made me brand-new. How do you know you’d like the brand-new me? I don’t even know if I’m going to like her. I need to find out who she is. I just need some time for all of that before starting a new relationship.”
“Jillian?” It was Olivia, sticking her head out the front door. “If you still want to see that movie—”
Jillian would have stalled her if she’d thought there was anything left to say, but there wasn’t. “I’m sorry, Cal. I wish so many things had been different.”
And he turned and walked away. Not a word. Not a single glance back. Just the sound of an engine rumbling down St. Charles.
CHAPTER 60
IN MARCH, Jillian and David went for a long walk at Audubon Park, both trying to take off a couple of pounds of nothing but pure creamery butter that Olivia’s cooking had slathered on their behinds during the winter.
“I know a secret about you,” David said.
Startled, Jillian wondered which aspect of her past was about to come back to haunt her.
“I heard you’re getting baptized sometime over the next month,” David went on.
Relieved, Jillian asked, “Who told you?”
“You know who told me.” And she did. She knew good and well it was Adella whisper-hollering in the halls at Saint Sans and she didn’t care.
Jillian had insisted on going to Adella’s church even with Adella insisting that she might feel more comfortable at another. Olivia had chosen one not three blocks from Saint Sans because it was big on liturgy. The worship within those traditional walls supplied words to a woman who often struggled to find them. She also wanted to blend in. Her granddaughter, however, did the very opposite of blending in.
“I don’t want to start from scratch, Adella. I want to go to BABC.” And she made sure to pronounce it just like the insiders did: Babsy. “I already know four people there: you, Emmett, Trevor Don, and AJ.” Jillian had immersed herself quickly in that family of God out of fear that loneliness and heartbreak would otherwise welcome back her past insecurities and she’d fall right back into her old patterns.
“What made you decide to be baptized?” David asked.
She told him how God had hemmed her in, starting with Mrs. La Bauve’s request, then praying with Officer Sanchez, then hearing the invitation that night at the Christmas pageant and walking the aisle. They talked about that harrowing Christmas Eve night and the awful flashbacks Jillian had and how she was certain, how she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if she did not get out into the brightest light, the darkness would engulf her. It wanted her. It was calling for her. She knew it. “It wanted all of us,” she told him. “Darkness lurked in that house, David. We couldn’t get rid of it. It was too big for us. It knew the past and it knew our pasts and it claimed our futures. Only God could defeat it.”
He went silent for a while, and she let him. A little while later she spoke again. “David, can you tell me another secret?”
“If I know it.”
“How did you know what to say on Christmas Eve, when you had us pass around the plate and the cup?”
They took several steps before he answered. “It’s complicated.” He paused again. “It was like Mrs. Winsee said that night. Christmas is the time for remembering. Let’s just say I remembered.”
“You remembered it word for word. I know because I asked Adella where you got all that, and after I described it to her, she got that Bible off the shelf in the foyer and showed it to me.”
“It came back to me just that way, out of the blue. I’d memorized it years ago.”
“Why?” Jillian was completely mystified.
“It was a lifetime ago. I was a whole different person. A very naive person. But a person who loved Jesus.”
Jillian stopped right there on the sidewalk and turned toward him. “You’re kidding me. What happened?”
“I began to believe he hated me. It’s hard to keep loving someone you think hates you.”
That appeared to be all David was willing to say on the subject, so Jillian let it rest. She couldn’t begin to guess how he’d come to that conclusion. All she knew was that his suffering as a result had been great.
Three weeks later, David joined the choir at BABC. He had a little trouble keeping step right at first, but he got the hang of it pretty quickly, proof of which came the Sunday he sang “If It Wasn’t for the Lord” as part of a quartet. He was as red as a beet at the end of it when everybody cheered.
Sometimes Jillian took three steps forward and two steps back, but it didn’t take a math wizard to realize that was still one steady step forward. At the same time, she was flourishing in her cooking classes at the New Orleans School of Cooking. After all, Jesus didn’t have anything against good cooking. He was always up for a feast.
All the residents came to the service the day Jillian was baptized just like they’d accidentally come the day she met Jesus. Olivia drilled her the week before the baptism about whether or not she was doing it out of pressure or if she thought maybe it was too much too soon. “No one’s pressuring me, least of all Adella. She’s too scared of you to pressure me. No, I don’t think it’s too soon. I’ve been to classes. I understand what it means and how I’m publicly identifying with Christ. I have a lot to learn, but I’ve got that part down.”
The baptistery at BABC was just above the choir loft, normally concealed behind a heavy red curtain. The congregation knew they could expect to witness the sacred rite of believer’s baptism when the curtain was open. There was no quiet buzz among the congregants that Sunday morning when the red curtain was wide open at the beginning of the service, Jillian was nowhere to be seen and the Atwater row was packed to the gills with guests. Even some of her classmates from the New Orleans School of Cooking were there.
After three songs and a round of greeting one another in the name of the Lord and another round just for greeting guests, Pastor Sam appeared in the baptistery. “We have two candidates for baptism today, brothers and sisters!”
Everybody hooted and hollered and shouted, “Praise the Lord!”
“First we have Mr. Jackson Wayne Bradley. He’s nine years old and he wants everybody to know that he has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, don’t you, little brother?” Jackson looked straight out at the congregation, nodding and smiling so big, he lit up the whole room. “Family and friends of Jackson Wayne Bradley here to support him in this profound occasion of his public identification with Christ, we invite you to stand in his honor.” And they sure did.