Even if she’d had the energy to face it before now—which she hadn’t—it wouldn’t have mattered, because she hadn’t really been alone since she returned to River Bend. Her mother, grandmother, and sister-in-law had seen to it that she had plenty of help cleaning and getting set up…and plenty of company.
And even though she still didn’t really have the energy to face this, she knew in her heart it was time. A part of her was ready. So she sat down on the floor next to Spot and opened the box.
It was closed very securely, and breaking the tape unleashed a floodgate of emotions. The first thing she pulled out was her wedding album. It was embossed with the words WEDDING MEMORIES OF MR. AND MRS. STEPHEN HUNTER. Her smiling face next to Stephen’s, behind hard plastic and framed in gold on the cover of the leather volume, seemed to mock her, daring her to look inside. She took the dare and felt a sort of queasiness creeping over her as she opened the book. She hesitated. Maybe now wasn’t the time to deal with this. But if not now, when? She needed to put it behind her.
Sophie looked down, skimming through the pictures. In this one, she was getting ready in the dressing room with her bridesmaids, all of them looking radiant, laughing, and having fun. In another she saw her family—her mom and dad, Granny, Aunt Stella, and Tom. They all looked festive in the picture. Everyone but Tom.
“He knew even then,” she mused aloud, causing Spot to raise his pointed ears. He gave her a quizzical look and then settled back down, curling his sleek black-and-white body into a little crescent beside her.
She thumbed through the album, finding an individual shot of the groom in his black tuxedo, standing in front of a stained glass window. The vibrant colors behind him matched the look in his eyes, which sparkled with the thrill of their adventure. For a moment Sophie felt a flicker of the old tenderness she’d once had for Stephen. At a glance it was easy to see how he’d swept her off her feet, with his intelligent green eyes and the dark raven hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. That ponytail had scandalized her mother, but Sophie had thought it so attractive, like everything else she knew about him at the time.
He was really two people, she’d come to discover, but the one who stared at her from the page in the album was the one she’d loved. They’d had what seemed to be such a deep connection, it was hard even now to believe it hadn’t been real. Sophie still didn’t understand. Maybe she never would. She turned a few pages to move on.
The next picture her eyes rested on was a view of the whole sanctuary. Regardless of how the marriage had turned out, it had been her dream wedding. From the balcony of the church, the photographer had managed to capture the whole scene in one neat frame. There were the candles—scores of them—and the cedar and the ferns. The wedding party formed a V fanning outward toward the crowd, and at the center stood her father. He was tall and strong with his Bible open in front of her and Stephen, and they were holding hands and looking into one another’s eyes through her gossamer veil.
“Repeat after me,” her father’s booming voice had commanded. “I, Stephen…”
“I, Stephen…”
“…take you, Sophie….”
“…take you, Sophie….”
They made so many promises that day. At least he’d kept that one, Sophie thought bitterly. He’d been a taker all right. She slammed the book shut, having her fill of the pictures. Spot jumped a little, startled out of his sleep, and she patted him, noticing that a bundle of letters had fallen out of the album. She untied the string.
Dear Sophie, one letter read. Of all the stars in my universe, you shine the brightest. Light my way forever, my forever love. Stephen. And another: My darling Sophie, my dream, my passion, I feel so alive since you said you love me. Have I been dead without knowing it all these years? The songs we will sing, the places we will go, the adventures we will have. I am invincible with you by my side! Stephen. And finally, Sophie Girl, I love you madly. This waiting is killing me. Let’s go away together and do something crazy like get married. Your Stephen.
Her Stephen. Forever love. My universe. Something crazy like getting married. She’d been over these letters, like the pictures and the whole experience of their relationship, so many times before. There were times when the words had cut like knives through her stomach and she’d cried so hard she got sick. There were times when she had actually laughed at their stupidity—his sheer audacity and hers—for what those words had once meant to her. And then there were times she’d actually pitied him and felt an almost motherly compassion, as though he was a prodigal son. But now she just felt numb. And felt a deep sense of regret for all she had wasted of herself on the wrong person.
Setting the letters aside, she picked up a picture in a small frame. As she took it out to examine it, she felt a nick and noticed blood dribbling from her finger and onto the picture, blotting out the image. The glass had been broken in the move, and there, exposed, were she and her old friend Jon. The picture had been taken at their high school graduation ten years ago. His mother had snapped it as he stood with his arm around her, both of them in purple robes with gold cords. Sophie stared at it a moment, remembering, and tried to smooth away the blood from their exuberant faces. But the picture was ruined. She tossed it into the trash, broken glass and all, and went to get a Band-Aid.
Chapter Two
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Jon Anthony stepped out of the French doors onto his cedar deck, holding a cup of coffee, and peered at the Arkansas River five hundred feet below him. His dog, a Great White Pyrenees named Aslan, was sitting with his head erect on the edge of a rock that jutted out over the bluff, like a king surveying his kingdom.
And what a glorious kingdom it is, thought Jon. The leaves on the trees were just starting to turn, hinting at the change that would come to the landscape later in the fall. The sky was cloudless and blue, the perfect backdrop for the birds that soared at his eye level. The river was a dull gray-green color today—loden, he thought—as he watched it twisting and bending through the mountains he called home. Jon sighed. This is why I can never leave here, he thought to himself. This river flows through my veins. So no matter where his work took him, he always landed back where he felt most comfortable—in a cabin he had built himself, with the help of a friend, on a bluff that overlooked the river.
Jon had bought a hundred acres of land with the proceeds from his first book. With an unused cattle farm on the front and mountains butting up to the river on the back, the whole place was wild. Aside from cutting a road up to the bluff and pushing out just enough brush to build his cabin and have a small yard, he’d made no effort to tame it.
He gave a few lectures a year, went to the required meetings with his editor, publisher, and agent, and attended occasional conferences and book signings. Occasionally he’d have to spend a chunk of time somewhere else doing research. But the bulk of his life was spent right here on this bluff—drinking coffee on his deck, reading by the fire with Aslan at his feet, or writing at his computer desk by the window. He went into town as little as possible. On Tuesdays he had breakfast with his mom at her house, and on Thursday mornings he drank coffee at the bakery with three pastor friends. He would usually try to sneak into the grocery store on one of those days to buy his supplies. If he had other errands at the hardware store, library, or post office, he did them then as quickly as possible. He also went to church some Sundays, visiting different congregations as he felt led and occasionally treating his mom to lunch afterward. He wasn’t a member anywhere.
This particular Wednesday morning as he stood on his deck, Jon was in a quandary. He had been since breakfast the day before at his mother’s. Always abuzz with the latest news from Patsy’s Kut and Kurl, where she got her hair done every week, Margaret had told him about the grand opening of Sophie’s new café in the old Harbor House. He knew about it already, of course, but he hadn’t mentioned the fact to his mother, nor that he contemplated going.
Jon paced. Should he go or should he not
? Was there any harm in it? After all, they were still good friends, right? She might be expecting him. It was logical to think she might be. She knew he lived in River Bend, didn’t she? But what if she wasn’t expecting him? What if she hadn’t even thought about him over the past ten years? Should he take his mother? No, too awkward. He couldn’t ask one of his friends. What if they figured him out once they saw Sophie? Maybe he should just go by himself. Or maybe not at all. Maybe he was making a big deal out of nothing.
The phone rang and interrupted this mental dialogue. He poked his head through the open door and listened to the machine in case it was important.
“Jon? Oh Jonny Boy, are you there? Pick up.”
Recognizing his friend David’s voice, Jon jogged to the phone. “Hey.”
A plastic-sounding voice. “Are you a homeowner? Is your house wood or aluminum? You have been selected—”
“David?”
David was the builder-turned-preacher who had helped Jon build his house.
Now he was imitating an old woman’s voice. “Brother Jonny, could you come over right now? My cat Fluffy is up in a tree and I can’t get her down. I know it’s dinnertime, but—”
“And you wonder why I screen my calls?”
“Not really. You’ve about got me convinced to do it too. My wife’s all for it. But I just can’t get over the guilt factor that a preacher should actually be available to his parishioners. You know what I mean?”
“That depends on your definition of available.”
“Okay, thesaurus man. I’ll think about that one. We can discuss it over lunch tomorrow.”
“Lunch? Don’t you mean breakfast?”
“No, I mean lunch. We’re changin’ plans just for tomorrow. There’s a new place openin’ up. Jim and I decided we might as well see for ourselves what all of the fuss is about. He’s callin’ Danny. So what do you say? Meet us for lunch?”
“Um…”
“It’s in that old Harbor House…the one Dr. James fixed up. I think it’s his daughter that’s runnin’ the new joint. You ought to know her…I think she’s about your age. Anyway, how about eleven? Maybe that way we can beat the noon crowd.”
Jon was silent.
“Jon? Is that all right? I mean, does that sound good?”
What could he say? “Uh, yeah. That’s fine. See you there.”
“Okay, bye.”
They hung up, and simple as that, he was going.
Chapter Three
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The tired evening sun reflected how Sophie felt as she dug deeper into the box. I will finish this box or perish, she thought, remembering a phrase from Anne of Green Gables, which had been her favorite movie as a child. Her fingers moved more carefully now, treading softly over what could be more broken glass.
The next framed picture she found was intact, but she felt her heart break into a thousand pieces when she looked at it. Her dad was holding up a stringer full of river catfish and grinning from ear to ear. The fish were heavy, and her finger traced the outline of his arm muscles, which were bulging under his white T-shirt. How many times had those strong arms enfolded her? Squeezed her in bear hugs that made her back pop? Scooped her up for a ride on his broad shoulders? Held her tight as they danced around the living room floor?
It was his arm she had leaned on as she walked down the aisle to marry Stephen. His arms that lifted to bless their union. And as she and Stephen walked away from him as man and wife, she’d had no idea how far that path would take her, and what—or whom—she’d lose along the way.
After the divorce, she had gone abroad, not knowing why. She just knew she didn’t want to go home. So she wandered. She ended up in Italy, in a village called Vernazza, one of the Cinque Terre.
In Vernazza, Sophie found a measure of peace as she lay on its rocky beach and let the sun burn away her pain. She walked and prayed along the Via dell’Amore, going village to village and getting lost, then finding her way again. For money she worked in a trattoria on the water, serving wines from local grapes and fresh-baked bread with local olive oil. She lived in a little room above the trattoria.
There had been a beautiful simplicity about her life in Vernazza. An acceptance she felt among the people there, especially Mamma and Papà Gemme, who owned the trattoria. There was a wide range of children in their family, with three away in college and then the twins, who Papa winkingly said were a surprise. Valentina and Luca, who were eight, had charmed Sophie with their big brown eyes and golden hair, and she’d charmed them. At first they were shy with the strange American girl, but it wasn’t long before they were running into the trattoria every day after school looking for her, begging her to take them down to the beach.
With a nod from Mamma they’d be off. The beach was just a few yards—though a treacherous few yards—from the trattoria. Sophie would help the twins climb down the small rocky ledge to the water, then stretch out on a flat boulder close by while they played and splashed in the sea. They liked to look for fish and shells and other wonders in the little tide pools that would come up between the big rocks that lined the shore. Every few minutes they’d shriek with delight at a discovery and demand that she come see their treasures. If she didn’t come, they’d usually bring whatever it was to her, sometimes plopping it on her belly and laughing hysterically at her reaction. The innocence of the twins touched her. Sophie loved to close her eyes and listen to them laughing. It was a healing sound.
During slow times at the trattoria she would quiz them on their English, and they would quiz her in Italian. It was from them that she learned to say “sei bellisima,” “you are beautiful,” and “Dio è amore,” “God is love.” She loved the way they said thank you, as though everything was a gift of grace: “grazie.”
Mamma had taught her the secret of her wonderful pomodoro sauce. And Papà had taken her fishing in his rickety little boat, teaching her how to find the right fish in the right parts of the sea. They had caught some fantastic dinners. But the salty Mediterranean was too clear, too revealing for Sophie. Though it healed some of her wounds, it also forced her to see the truth. And the truth was that she couldn’t stay there forever. In her deep heart’s core, she wasn’t home. Comfortable as it was for a while—even happy at some level—it was sort of like treading water. Her life was going nowhere.
And then the call came.
“Sophie?” She had been scared the instant she heard Tom’s voice. They usually scheduled their calls.
“Tom?”
“Sophie, I don’t know how to tell you this….” Tom had been crying. “Daddy died this morning. An hour ago…he was killed in a car crash. Can you get home?”
Sophie had felt the floor give way beneath her. She was falling. Some darkness in the center of the earth had opened, and its great throat was swallowing her down. She was blank. Shocked. Sick. Chilled to the bone. She dropped the phone, then scrambled to pick it up and hold it in her trembling fingers.
“How?”
“He was on a visit…on his way to see someone in the hospital…some trucker…we think…fell asleep and crossed over into Dad’s lane and hit him. He was killed instantly.”
The flight from Florence had been pure hell. Never had time stood so still, never had she felt so far away from her own life. For the first time, it seemed, she could look at herself as though a mere observer and see that she was an utterly lost person. Bereft. Suspended in space. She was floating, devoid of meaning and purpose. Squandering her time. Without direction and without hope. Despair descended on her like a thick fog.
She had called Tom, and he and Madeline picked her up at the airport. Their eyes told a tale of tears, and their faces showed the strain of sleeplessness. They put their arms around her, and she fell into them. Holding each other, the tears flowed for them all. No one said anything. But it was comforting somehow just to be together and to share the awful load of grief. Even under that crushing weight, perhaps especially because of it, Sophie ha
d been glad to be home.
* * * * *
Home. If there was one thing Sophie knew as she sat on the floor unpacking her box of broken memories, it was that it was good to be home.
She’d dreamed up the idea of a little café on her plane ride back to the States. There had been nothing she could really imagine herself doing in River Bend besides hanging around, visiting her family, as she’d done briefly at Christmas and Easter the last few years. She knew if she was going to stay, she had to do something, but what? What did she have to offer other than perhaps teaching music lessons? What was a degree in liberal arts going to do for her in River Bend?
Somehow the thought of the yellow house came to her mind. Her mom and daddy had bought it one summer as an investment and a “ministry opportunity” when she was a child. She remembered the first time she saw it and how they laughed when she said it was a “broken house.” And so it was. But they had worked away steadily on it, doing most of the restoration themselves, and it had become a beautiful home. They renamed it the “Harbor House” and opened it as a bed-and-breakfast, drawing a few people a month as they passed through River Bend on their way to the wine country a few miles west.
It had a commercial kitchen, and her mother had used it for catering jobs and special events, like ladies’ teas and wedding or baby showers and anniversaries. And occasionally a family, or perhaps a battered woman who had no place else to go, would shelter there for the night, or several nights, while the preacher and his wife attended to their needs before returning to their own home, the parsonage.
They had planned to live in the Harbor House and expand its ministry potential after Daddy retired and left the parsonage, but as things happened, they lived there only six months before her newly widowed mother moved in with Granny up on the mountain and the yellow house was empty. It would work for Sophie.
Love Finds You at Home for Christmas Page 15