“The surgeon had something to say, and she didn’t want me to hear. She ousted me because of it.”
“Did you ask her about it?”
“Yeah. And she changed the subject.” Laying the pieces aside, Taryn gave up on sewing and flexed her fingers. They’d done plenty for the day, more than she’d have gotten done if she’d given up when Justin arrived. “It’s her heart.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. She was born with a congenital condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Basically, the lower part of her heart doesn’t pump right. I think it’s gotten worse. She took a couple of mystery trips to Asheville earlier this year, right after her doctor’s appointment, and then she talked more than ever about not ever wanting to be hooked up to machines. She actually had a living will drawn up, with the provision the will overrides any decisions I’d make as her agent.”
“So you can’t reverse what she wants.” Justin folded his length of cloth and laid it on the sewing table. “She’s scared.”
“What makes you say she’s scared?”
“It’s why she’s kicking you out. She’s afraid of dying or burdening you. I know because my grandmother was the same way. She’d rather face this on her own than drag you into it too.”
“She should know better.” The light outside shifted, a telltale sign the clouds bringing in snow were building. Taryn pushed out of the chair and slipped behind the sewing table to press her nose against the glass and stare out at the mountains rising beyond the orchard, tops obscured by clouds. Just a small part of the picture was all she could see. “My whole life, Jemma’s been right there, first for Mom and me, and then for me. Even in the worst time of my life, she was right by my side, not letting me hold anything back.” She whipped back toward Justin, buried in anger at her grandmother for not letting her in. “I’m going to go to the hospital and force her to do the same.” Jemma was going to have to pay attention to her and let her know what was going on. She was going to the hospital, coming snow or no coming snow, to have this out with her. Her grandmother was going to tell her, or Taryn was going to pin her doctor in his office until he revealed it all.
“She’ll never tell you, especially if you go blasting in there with your guns blazing.”
“Must you be the voice of reason?”
“Someone has to be.” There was a rustle and a creak. He’d settled into Taryn’s vacated rocking chair. “Give her time. She may be just finding out herself what’s going on. She’ll sort it all out and get to you when she’s ready.”
“You seem to know a whole lot about how my grandmother operates.”
“Yeah, well, I spent almost as much time over here as I did at home growing up. It only makes sense.”
Taryn looked over her shoulder at him, his ankle resting on his knee, chair gliding back and forth. He looked like he belonged, which was a problem. The conversation was getting way too comfortable. Last night, close proximity nearly drove Taryn to tell him everything. Neither of them was ready, especially with her emotions all out of whack. Letting this renewed friendship move too quickly would be the height of stupidity.
“Thanks for your help this afternoon.” Taryn turned and leaned against the windowsill, letting her gaze rest to the left of his eyes. “You need to get up on the roof now and do whatever it is you came over here to do, and I need to go see Jemma and get ready for school tomorrow.”
The chair glided back and forth a few more times before Justin said anything. “Shutting the door on me, huh?”
“No.” The walls came up. Did he learn the crazy mind-reading thing from Jemma, or was she just easy to decipher? “I have a lot to do.”
“Okay. If that’s how you want to play it.” He shoved up out of the chair and headed for the door, stopping halfway and keeping his back to her. “I’ll be working up on the roof tomorrow, but when you get done with school, I can help you with the quilt again.”
“Don’t worry about it. I think I’ve got it covered. I’ll probably take it home and work there.” The farther she was from him, the better off they’d both be.
His shoulders stiffened. “Okay. See you later.” Without looking back, he stepped through the door, the stairs creaking as he walked away.
8
So what do you think I should do?” Chelsea Shope, one of Taryn’s eleventh-grade world history students, twirled a brown curl around her index finger and waited for some kind of inspired wisdom.
The words sounded like they had to swim through pea soup to reach Taryn’s brain. The weekend had caught up with her this morning when her alarm went off. She should have taken the day off like she’d threatened until Jemma talked her out of it. What are you going to do? Sit around here and stare at the old woman in the hospital bed all day?
One more week and Christmas break would take away one stressor, but only one. The rest loomed like a mushroom cloud in the distance.
If Chelsea could read Taryn’s mind, she’d know her teacher was as uncertain about life as any high school student was. Taryn could remember when she was Chelsea’s age, thinking her teachers were all so much older, they had some mystical grip on their lives, and one word—adult—made life so much easier. Even in high school, Taryn had this vague notion all the grown-ups did was teach at school, go home and do more paperwork, then go to bed. It never occurred to her they had friends and dates, went to the movies, and ate popcorn like everyone else did.
Of course, if Taryn’s kids thought all she did was shuffle papers at home and live a life filled with history, they’d be right.
“Ms. McKenna?” Chelsea’s voice sliced the cake of a growing pity party.
Taryn looked down at her student, a thin waif of a girl with gorgeous thick brown hair and huge brown eyes, her jeans perfectly faded and her shirt from a store whose clothes Taryn would never be able to wear . . . not since she was out of her twenties.
But this was not about her. Taryn sat down on the desk next to the one Chelsea had chosen. Chelsea was the cutest little thing with a sharp mind and quick wit, and here she sat thinking she wasn’t good enough because one arrogant jock threw her over for a cheerleader when she wouldn’t sleep with him.
Usually, when the girls came to her after school wanting to talk, it was about friends or family or popularity. Those were pretty easy. All Taryn had to do was adjust her thinking and remember what it was like for her in high school, then she’d give the advice she wished someone had given her. This time? Taryn was so not the one to be giving guidance to Chelsea on this one. Not when she’d been the one to pressure Justin into sex the summer after they graduated. Just the memory made her want to crawl under the desk and hide.
But Chelsea had come to her, and the last thing the girl needed was for Taryn to shut her down. “Know what?”
Chelsea turned soft, hurt brown eyes to Taryn. “What?”
It was time to dig deep into her reserves. “I hear you. The whole situation stinks. And I’ll tell you a secret . . .” Taryn glanced at the door and wondered if her job was worth what she was about to say. If Chelsea ever repeated the words about to come out of her mouth . . .
She fired up a quick prayer for wisdom. Yeah, the risk was worth it if, for one moment, Chelsea felt like somebody else got it. Taryn knew enough about the girl’s home life to know her parents sure didn’t get it.
Surrogate mother. Just one of her many unwritten job descriptions.
Chelsea leaned forward the smallest inch, waiting to hear what “secret” her history teacher was going to lay on her.
Taryn bit the inside of her lip. “I’m human, okay? And when I look at Dylan . . .” She couldn’t believe she was about to say this to a student who, in a fit of “knowing” could run out and repeat it to all of her friends. But this wasn’t the first time Chelsea had come to her with a problem, and she’d never run to her friends before with what Taryn said. “Dylan cares about one thing. Dylan. He’s got the fastest car and the hottest clothes and the greatest hair . . . Everything about hi
m is about having the best. He’s used to getting everything he wants, which seems great, but people who get everything they want are rarely ever going to be happy.” Taryn slid off the desk and rested on her heels in front of Chelsea, so she could look up into her face. “They are never going to see beauty or worth in anything, Chels. They are just going to keep wanting the next thing. For a while, you got to be the next thing for Dylan, until he couldn’t have everything he wanted from you. You stuck to your convictions and told him no. You may be the first person in his life to ever tell him no.”
Tears gathered in Chelsea’s eyes. “It was so good to be loved though, ya know?”
Taryn’s heart squeezed tight for the girl in front of her who had no idea of her own self-worth, who was measuring it in terms of what a boy could give her. She hurt for the younger Justin and for putting him in the position where he had to say no . . . A no she’d refused to hear, hoping it would make him stay. She’d been just like Dylan, using sex to gain control. Except where Dylan had used it as grounds for rejection, Taryn had used it in a desperate bid to make Justin stay with her. Her eyes drifted shut. Dear Lord, I’m so messed up. What in the world can a hypocrite say to this girl?
Chelsea didn’t seem to notice Taryn’s internal crisis. “The most popular guy in school wanted me. Me, who can’t even get her parents to notice whether she’s home or not. Do you know how it feels? To have someone tell you they love you when they don’t have to?”
Did she ever. Taryn just nodded.
“And then to find out it was all about sex? And some other girl is better than me because she’ll give him everything he wants?”
It took every ounce of Taryn’s strength not to wince. She wrestled her own guilt to the side and forced all of her attention onto Chelsea. God, help me.
In a flash, it came. This was not about sex. It was about the self-worth of a girl whose parents never told her how valuable she truly was. “Remember last year, Dylan got his Mustang when he turned sixteen?”
Chelsea nodded and swiped at her eyes with her fingertips. “Everybody loved the Mustang.”
“And what’s he drive now?”
She snorted. “He talked his parents into an awful, ugly jacked-up truck. I hated riding in it when he’d pick me up.”
“Exactly. Look. Just because Dylan thought something else was better didn’t make it better, did it?”
Chelsea’s eyes gleamed in a new way, a small flame of amusement flickering behind the tears. “Are you calling me a Mustang, Ms. McKenna?”
“I’m sure not calling you a jacked-up truck.”
Brown waves bounced on Chelsea’s shoulders as she nodded. “I think I see what you’re saying.”
“Just because Dylan moved on, it doesn’t make you worthless. If anything, it makes you the smartest, bravest chick I know for standing your ground.” Taryn flicked Chelsea’s knee with her finger and stood to look down at her. “Can I say the grown-up cliché here?”
Laughing, Chelsea flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Go ahead.”
“Don’t let other people determine your value, Chelsea. You’re amazing on your own. And don’t think you have to have some guy to tell you. There are more than three hundred boys running around in this school, and they all want different things.”
“I thought they all wanted the same thing,” Chelsea muttered, cheeks pinking.
Taryn choked on her next words. “Um, out of life. They all want different things out of life.” She aimed a finger at her student. “Watch yourself.”
Chelsea rewarded her with a smile.
“The point is, you’d have to mold yourself into three hundred different Chelseas if you wanted to date all of them. Be Chelsea. Live your life for God, just like you’ve been doing, even when it’s as hard as this. When and if it’s time, love’s going to show up. And when it does, it will probably be when you aren’t looking for it and you least expect it. No matter what, it will be worth it when the time is God’s and it’s right.” Taryn tapped Chelsea on the forehead with her index finger. “Love isn’t something you earn. It’s not something you have to be good enough for. Real love is freely given, not taken away because you don’t do what someone wants.”
A tap on the doorframe lifted Chelsea’s head and drew Taryn’s attention.
Marnie stood in the doorway, gray hair windswept. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Taryn glanced at Chelsea.
Standing, Chelsea shouldered her backpack. “Nope.” She took two steps, then pivoted and leaned over to give Taryn a quick hug. “Thanks, Ms. McKenna. You helped.” As she strode across the room, her head just a little higher than when she came in, she gave a quick, “Hello” to Marnie and disappeared around the corner.
Taryn slid onto the edge of the desk and turned her gaze to the ceiling. Thanks, God. Those words to Chelsea sure weren’t hers. She looked back at Marnie. “So, what brings you by the school today?”
“One of the grandbabies had a basketball game today and left one shoe in the backseat of my car. I don’t have to tell you how high school boy brains can be.” Marnie stepped into the room and leaned her shoulder against the whiteboard, leveling a gray-eyed gaze on Taryn. “So, were you talking to Chelsea or to yourself just now?”
“What do you mean?” Taryn eased off the desk and stooped to retrieve a wadded piece of paper from the floor. One of the perils of confiding in her grandmother’s best friend? Having two senior citizens who thought they could read her mind. “It had nothing to do with me. Dylan Bradley dumped Chelsea in favor of Anna Snyder.”
Marnie winced and held up her hand for Taryn to toss the paper to her. She caught it neatly and dropped it into the trash can by the door. “Ouch. Anna was the head cheerleader this year, right?”
“And how would you know the inner goings-on at this high school?”
“High school boys gossip just as much over dinner and pie as high school girls do.” Marnie grinned. “So, Anna the cheerleader was suddenly better than Chelsea the softball star?”
“You got it.” Never would Taryn violate Chelsea’s confidence by telling the whole story, even to Marnie.
“I’m going to tell you what. Dylan Bradley has wreaked havoc on some of the girls in my daughter’s Sunday school class. Some days I’d like to take him and shove his head into a locker.”
Taryn chuckled. The scary part was, Marnie might take it upon herself to do such a thing. “Okay. A locker bashing from you wouldn’t earn you anything but a front-row seat to a lawsuit.”
“Yeah, but when I look at some of those girls . . .” Marnie plopped down on the edge of the seat of the desk Taryn had been sitting on earlier. “How many broken hearts has he sent running to you this year?”
“More than a few.”
“These girls gravitate to you, Tar. God’s sent you here for a reason, you know.”
Taryn shrugged and kept straightening the rows of desks, snagging a pencil someone left in their chair. God wanted her to minister to girls? It was more likely their wounded spirits probably attracted each other. “Whatever you say, Marn.”
“Hm. How’s Jemma?”
“Ready to come home.”
“I went by the hospital last night. I had to check my backseat twice before I pulled out of the parking lot to make sure she hadn’t hitched a ride with me somehow.”
“Sounds about right,” Taryn said. “She’s going stir-crazy.”
Marnie slid farther back in the desk like she was settling in for a good long chat. “So with everything going on, we haven’t had the chance to talk. Word has it Justin Callahan was your waiting room support system the other day.”
Not this. Not now. The gossip train did speed faster between small towns. Taryn plopped stacks of notebook paper homework onto her desk and pulled the frayed edges from one formerly spiral-bound sheet, then flipped her file case open and slipped the papers in by class period. If she kept moving, she wouldn’t have to look Marnie in the eye. “He was at the house hanging Christmas ligh
ts when Jemma fell, and he drove me to the hospital. There’s nothing more to it.” She kept her voice light. The last thing she needed was Marnie asking questions about things she couldn’t even puzzle out herself.
Marnie leaned back and crossed her ankles. For the most fleeting instant, the grandmother of six looked like she could be one of Taryn’s high school girls. “So let’s go back to my original question.” Marnie slid out of the desk and crossed to where Taryn stood. She yanked open the bottom desk drawer and went straight for the Peppermint Patty stash.
Taryn shook her head. The woman’s sweet tooth was worse than Jemma’s. It had to have roots all the way down to her toes.
Handing Taryn a piece of candy, Marnie popped half of another piece into her mouth and swallowed. “Was the conversation earlier about Chelsea or about you?”
“I told you. It was about—”
Marnie held her hand up between them. “I meant the line about love finding you when you least expect it. You certainly weren’t expecting Justin back.”
Taryn stopped pulling silver foil off her candy. “You know better than to go there, Marnie.”
“And I’ve held you enough when you cried after the two of you parted ways.” Leaning back against the filing cabinet, Marnie crossed her arms and tapped a work-worn finger against her bicep. “You’re hiding from him.”
“No, I’m not.” Because if she was, she certainly wouldn’t be letting him sew on a confounded quilt with her, wouldn’t be letting him make her laugh, wouldn’t be looking forward to the next time he showed up without warning. Taryn unwrapped the rest of her candy, then popped it into her mouth. Cold peppermint sifted all the way up into her sinuses, but it did nothing to cool her head. What was she doing playing with fire by letting Justin get close? In order to have him back in her life, she’d have to tell him the truth about Sarah. And if she told him the truth about Sarah, she’d likely lose him anyway.
No matter how Taryn played it in her head, there was no way for her and Justin to have a happy ending.
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