"Can't or won't?" Nate repeated for a third time. Anger had edged into his voice. "Answer the question Adele."
"I can't. I won't." I whispered into the phone. "What does it matter? I can't be the dutiful, self-sacrificing wife. I won't give myself to someone like that. Not again."
It was Nate's turn to be silent.
"I'm sorry," I offered in a small voice.
Still nothing from the other end of the phone. Tears blurred my vision.
"Please Nate... you have to understand... I wasn't toying with you, I swear... I just forgot myself for a moment..." I began with a weak voice. I needed him to say something – anything. I wanted him to acknowledge me and more importantly to forgive me for leading him on.
"Good night Adele."
And then there was nothing from the other end but a dial tone.
If someone had asked me if I had any heart left to break after my divorce, I would have said, "No."
Turns out I was wrong.
~~~~*~~~~
Sunday came around again more quickly than I liked. I was awake by six, restless and uncertain. By seven, I had eaten, showered and dressed. By eight, I was pacing the length of my living room, torn between wanting to go to Service to see Nate again and a deep sense of dread that I would not be welcome.
I left the house shortly before nine unsure if I'd even be brave enough to get out of the car. The road down the peninsula was freshly ploughed, leaving the snow banks on either side were high enough in places to block the view of the sea. The drive to the island felt like it had taken me down a long, white tunnel. Only the clear, blue sky broke the endless monotonous white until the drifts fell away to reveal the church's yellow doors. Smoke billowed from the manse's chimney and the lighthouse stood stalwart just beyond, still beaming out despite the morning's brightness.
It felt like coming home.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and pushed the feeling to the back of my mind.
I parked beside a burgundy minivan, out of which spilled the young family I'd sat beside the week before.
The mother gathered up her children, fussing with their hair, straightening their coats. She reminded me of my own mother and the pre-Mass routine she used to subject me and my brothers to. When the young mother admonished her charges to behave, sit up straight, and not to fidget during the sermon, I actually laughed out loud. It was the exact same thing my mother would have said to me.
The father grinned sheepishly at me. "Good morning," he said as I followed them up the walk towards the church.
I returned the greeting. "You know, I thought they were very well behaved last week," I teased. "They didn't make a sound."
Both young parents laughed. "That's because we bribe them with the promise of fast food after Service if they're good," the mother replied. She winked at me. "I'm Lucy Brewster and this is my husband Ed."
"Adele Leclerc," I responded. Even if I feared I wouldn't get a friendly welcome from Nate, it was nice to get one from someone at St. Andrew's. Ed shook my hand and then opened the door to usher us all inside.
"You sat beside us last week," announced the oldest boy.
"I did," I agreed, strangely pleased that someone remembered.
"This is Tom, he's nine," Ed supplied. He rested his hand affectionately on the boy's head before gesturing to his other two children. "Jamie is seven and Maddy is five."
I smiled at the children who were gathered around me each with wide brown eyes and warm smiles. The girl reached over and tugged at the sleeve of my coat.
"I'm Madison," she clarified, as if I wouldn't figure it out on my own. She held up five chubby fingers. "I'm five."
Maddy's big brothers rolled their eyes at each other. They obviously didn't think she was as charming as I did. I crouched down so I didn't tower over her.
"Hello Madison, I'm Adele."
She smiled brightly at me without the least bit of hesitancy. Then she took my hand.
"Will you sit beside me?" she asked.
"Sure thing."
I glanced up at Ed and Lucy who were both smiling down at us.
"She's not shy, is she?"
The parents shook their heads in unison. "You're more than welcome to sit with us," Ed chimed in. "I know it can be a little lonely attending church on your own."
There wasn't much I could do but stand up straight and let Madison guide me down the aisle towards the family pew.
"We always sit here," Maddy explained. This time it was nice not to be all alone at the far end of the bench. Maddy sat with a plop about half-way along and pulled me down in place beside her. She reached automatically for the hymnal and passed it to me.
"You can hold the book today."
I took the heavy hymnal gently from her, feeling very much like I'd been bestowed with a great honor. The boys filed into the pew next to me with their parents bringing up the rear.
"Welcome to St. Andrew's," Lucy said as our eyes met over her sons' tawny heads. "I think its official now." I returned her smile, a little speechless at being included so completely and without question by the young family.
Madison tugged again on my sleeve, keen to share something with me while a steady stream of parishioners filled the building. She pointed to the sign at the front of the church where the page numbers of the day's hymns were posted.
"That's the song you're s'pposed to sing," she told me.
I turned to the appropriate page and lowered the hymnal to my lap where she could see it. I doubted the five year-old could read many of the words, but obviously she understood what the book was for.
"What's the song called?" she asked in a stage whisper.
"May We Rejoice in the Lord's Adoring," I supplied.
Maddy considered that for a moment.
"What's 'adoring' mean?"
"It means love, cherie,."
"That's nice," the little girl announced with a definite tone. "Love is nice."
I smiled to myself. Love is nice.
Until that point the parishioners had been chatting softly amongst themselves, but a hush fell over the room and I looked up from Maddy's earnest brown gaze to see Nate cross the front of the church. He was dressed in his vestments, with his collar in place for once, and a welcoming smile on his handsome face. I hoped he would smile that way at me when we saw each other again.
"That's Rev'rend Fontaine," Maddy informed me in her solemn five-year-old-voice. "Mommy says he's hot."
My burst of laughter almost drowned out Lucy's scandalized gasp but it couldn't hide her crimson blush. "Madison Elizabeth Brewster!" she scolded with an embarrassed giggle.
Ed chuckled. "From the mouths of babes, eh?"
My laughter was loud enough in the silent church that it drew everyone's attention, including that of the hot Reverend in question.
My eyes met Nate's for a few seconds before his gaze flitted over to the other occupants of my pew. Our eyes met again. His grin grew and stayed for a moment then morphed from the friendly Reverend's smile to the private, sexy crooked one I'd seen the previous weekend.
The tension I carried all morning vanished. I had been forgiven.
I'm ashamed to admit I didn't really pay attention to the beginning of the Service. I was only aware of two things, the small hand which nestled into mine during the opening hymn and never let go, and the deep brown eyes of the man behind the pulpit.
The sermon centered on trust. The topic's irony was not lost on me. I tried not to let myself think he was speaking directly to me, so much as he was in generalities, yet still the heart of his message went straight to my core.
"Fear," Nate began as he looked around the room and smiled down at his congregation. "Fear is a remarkable thing. We use it so often as a teacher – when we're young we're taught to be scared of the unknown and of things which may hurt us. Those lessons help protect us from the dangers in the world."
"But there comes a time when fear does nothing but hold us back. When it's taught us all it can and yet we s
till allow it to control our lives. Its then that fear becomes a terrible thing. We become afraid of life – of failure, of change, of rejection. So we modify our existence to avoid these fears – we can't fail if we don't try, we can't change if we don't allow it, we can't be rejected if we don't love."
Nate paused and looked around the church. His brown gaze flicked briefly over me and the corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly.
"But what do we gain if we live life controlled by our fears? We gain nothing, we stop growing, we become stagnant. Every day is like the one before it – week after week, month after month, year after year – until we look back and realize thirty or forty years have gone by and we've gained nothing because we were afraid."
"So..." Nate crossed his arms and leaned on the pulpit to smile down at us. "So how to we banish fear? How do we learn to live our lives fearlessly? The answer is simple and at the same time very complicated. To live a life without fear we must learn to trust and trust, my friends, is no easy thing."
"If we are lucky we find it in ourselves to trust God – if we trust Him then we are able to release some of those fears. He will never be disappointed in us. He will never make a change in our life that we can't handle. He will never reject us. Really, if you look at the big picture, it's almost easy to trust Him."
"Other people though? The people who make up the fabric of our existence – our acquaintances, our friends, our co-workers, our family – trusting them is not so easy. We may pretend that we trust them, in order to make things go along a little more smoothly, but we do that because of our fear – and if our motives are based on that fear, it's not really trust which exists between us, but a faint shadow of the gesture and nothing more."
Nate straightened and moved from behind the pulpit to pace back and forth at the front of the church. "Letting go of your fear and totally trusting someone – one-hundred percent trusting them – that's a pretty big deal."
"Most of us can't do it, that's how big it is. Allowing ourselves to be that vulnerable to someone? No wonder we're all afraid of it. I suspect most of us in this room would rather jump off a cliff into the unknown than truly trust someone."
The congregation laughed.
"So how do we do it? How do we allow ourselves to be that trusting of another human being? I've given it a lot of thought and I've said a lot of prayers and as far as I can tell the answer is this: we can only trust others if we trust ourselves. We can only expect the other person to make themselves vulnerable to us if we in turn allow ourselves to be vulnerable to them. If we admit to ourselves, in our secret, deepest heart, that we would never be disappointed in them no matter what they do, that we would never judge them no matter what they say, that we would never betray them no matter what tempts us. The trust we need to live a life of fearlessness begins inside ourselves.
"I've chosen to live my life free of fear. To live the sort of life that God wants me to live. He wants that life for you too – He believes you deserve it and I believe you deserve it."
I felt Nate's eyes on me again, but I couldn't look at him. I bent my head and focussed on the soft, grey wool of my coat. The sermon continued, but I heard little of it. I wanted so desperately to believe him—to let go enough that I could be trusting of him. If I didn't, I knew that things would never work between Nate and me. It was just a matter of finding the faith to be so vulnerable. No small feat.
The final notes of the last hymn faded away, signaling the end of Service. Maddy was right. Love is nice. But could I trust myself enough to let it in?
Chapter Seven
After Sunday morning Service had ended the parishioners of St. Andrew's trailed out the banana yellow doors and into the snow-covered yard. They stopped to chat and catch up with each other as they lingered on the church steps. Nate stood amongst them, tall and smiling, with his blond hair glinting in the sun. The sound of friendly chatter and children's laughter mingled with the crash of the waves on the nearby shore.
"Come on!" Maddy urged as she tugged at my hand. The five year-old cast an impatient grimace over her shoulder at me. I could hear her parents laughing as she pulled me through the crowd.
She worked her way through the clutch of people, all of whom sent me open smiles and warm greetings. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mrs. Macintyre's smile falter as she caught sight of me, but I didn't have time to mull over her expression. Maddy had succeeded in reaching the centre of the crowd.
She let go of my hand and threw herself forward, wrapping both arms around Nate's leg and giving it a big hug. The sound of his chuckle made me shiver.
He smiled down at Madison. "Hello, princess."
Maddy glanced back at me with a knowing smile. "I'm not really a princess," she informed me.
I couldn't help but laugh.
"I bet its fun to pretend that you are though, cherie."
The five year-old scrunched up her face thoughtfully. "I s'ppose."
Nate crouched down until he was eye-level with the little girl.
"Did you like church today?" he asked in his best Reverend-ish tone.
Maddy nodded. "I did," she said solemnly. "I was quiet and I didn't pinch Tom once and I sang every song."
I bit the inside of my lip, trying to keep from laughing out loud. Maddy had indeed sung every song. Very loudly. With lyrics she made up herself, most of which had multiple mentions of unicorns and cupcakes.
Nate reached forward and did up the zipper on Maddy's coat. Her mittens stuck out of her pockets and he pulled them free and helped her into them.
"Good for you. Did Adele sing too?"
Maddy didn't even notice the fact that Nate and I obviously already knew each other. She just accepted it in the easy way all five year-olds possessed. She nodded and then leaned in to whisper in Nate's ear yet loud enough for me to hear, "She's not a very good singer."
Nate chuckled while I blushed. "Yes, but she tries," he said to Maddy. "That's what counts. It doesn't matter so much if we're good at something, just as long as we're not afraid to try it."
Lucy and Ed Brewster came up behind Nate just then. Maddy instantly adhered herself to her father's leg in the same manner she had Nate's minutes earlier. I couldn't contain my smile. She was such a sweet little girl.
I glanced over to find Nate watching me.
Lucy was a little out-of-breath. "Oh Adele, there you are! I do hope Maddy thought to introduce you to Reverend Fontaine!"
There was a pause in which Ed's gaze travelled between Nate and me several times. He reached down and scooped Maddy up with one arm and then slung the other over his wife's shoulder.
"Actually Lucy, I think they might already know each other."
I blushed.
"Oh," Lucy said before her pretty face broke out into a wide grin. "How nice."
"My best friend Lilly is dating Nate's best friend Adam," I clarified.
"Well that explains it. I'm glad you've decided to attend St. Andrew's."
I hadn't, but I didn't exactly think I should mention that.
"Come have lunch with us," Ed suggested. "I'm sure Maddy has lots of stories she could tell you."
Maddy opened her mouth, undoubtedly to launch into one of said stories, but Nate's smooth baritone interrupted her.
"Actually, she's having lunch with me."
Lucy and Ed shared a look. "I guess we'll see you next week then," Lucy said with a bright laugh. She looked around the thinning crowd. "We should find the boys and go."
"Bye!" Maddy chirruped. She waved with such enthusiasm that even if I didn't have the draw of seeing Nate to entice me to St. Andrew's each week, seeing Maddy's happy smile was more than enough to bring me back.
Nate glanced down at his vestments. "I should change, but you're welcome to let yourself into the house to wait. It's not locked."
He hadn't asked me if I actually wanted to stay for lunch, but he didn't have to. We both knew there was no way I'd say no.
The sounds of the parishioners' cheerful goodby
es faded as the last of them got into their cars and began the long trek down the peninsula road.
Nate reached forward and squeezed my hand. "I'll be right back."
I entertained the idea of getting a head start on lunch while Nate finished his post-Service routine, but on the short walk to the manse I got distracted by the quaint graveyard.
I wandered up and down the rows, brushing snow from the tops of tombstones, bending to uncover and read the inscriptions on a few of the more curious ones. It was a beautiful place, a peaceful place—just the sort of cemetery to spend eternity in—out of the way and with one heck of a view. Contentment settled into my bones.
Just His Type (Part Three) Page 11