Love Finds You at Home for Christmas

by Annalisa Daughety

  “It ruined my whole family…my whole life.” Andy shoved his bowl away from him.

  Sophie put down her fork and moved closer to him. “Can I help?” she asked.

  “Thanks, but there’s nothing you can do…nothing anyone can do. He’s dead.”

  “I know, but you’re alive.” She wanted to hug him—he seemed like such a child—but she held back.

  Andy looked up at her. “Sometimes I don’t know why I am. Like that car wreck—why did I survive when Matt died?”

  Sophie understood. She measured her words.

  “Those are questions that have no answers. My own dad died in a car wreck when I was halfway around the world. I never got to tell him good-bye, or how much I loved him…. Believe me, Andy, I know all about those questions. But at some point we have to let them rest. We have to accept what has happened before there can ever be any peace.”

  Andy looked back down. “My mom hasn’t accepted it. I heard her crying this morning. She didn’t know I heard her, but she was crying in her bedroom when I walked by the door. And my dad…all he does anymore is work. I know he does it just so he doesn’t have to think about Matt.”

  “Andy, do you ever pray?” Sophie surprised herself by asking this.

  “Oh, sort of. I mean, I believe in God, but it’s hard to really talk to Him.”

  “Would you pray with me now?”

  “I guess—you’re saying it, right?”

  She bowed her head. “Lord, I don’t know what to say. It’s hard for me to talk to You sometimes too. Especially about my dad. I miss him, Lord, just like Andy misses Matt. We don’t understand why they had to die. Sometimes it seems our lives will never make sense…that we will never be whole again.

  “But my daddy taught me, Lord, to always take my problems to You. I’m not good at that, but I want to be better. I want to know You, and trust You more. Please help me, and help Andy to trust You with the things we can’t understand. We receive Your peace into our hearts now. And we ask You to lead us through our grief and our loss. In Jesus’s name.”

  As Sophie prayed, she had the sense that even the words she was saying were not her own, but that rather she was guided by some deep inner voice. Someone who spoke for her. Someone who knew her better than she knew herself.

  “Thanks,” Andy said, and Sophie thought he meant it. “I guess I better get going.” He picked up his dishes and carried them into the kitchen, washing them off in the sink.

  Sophie watched him go and sat watching even when he was out of sight. She stayed at the table awhile as though in a daydream—almost uncertain whether their conversation and prayer had really taken place. But it wasn’t a dream. The peace in her heart, which she had received in faith, was real. She hoped Andy had received it too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  .................................

  The café was empty, and the kitchen help and servers had just gone. Sophie, still in her red apron, was erasing the special from the chalkboard on the porch when she heard a car pull up in front of the Harbor House. She turned and was happily surprised to see Jon’s Jeep, with the cover off and the back full of pumpkins.

  “You’re home!” she called as he got out.

  He was wearing work clothes—old jeans, lace-up boots, and a faded green shirt. Bounding up onto the porch, Jon hugged her, and Sophie thought she smelled the sweetness of hay. Without thinking, she pecked him on both cheeks, like Italians do. It was only when he colored that Sophie realized what she’d done. She’d kissed Jon! Oh. My. Regaining her composure, she reached up and pulled a piece of hay out of his hair then examined it in her fingers. That way she didn’t have to look into his eyes.

  “Sorry for my appearance.” Jon brushed his hands on his jeans. “I’ve been out at the Mabrys’ farm hauling hay. David, a preacher friend of mine, is having a hay ride out there tomorrow night for his youth group, and he needed some help getting it ready.”

  Sophie was impressed, with his appearance as well as what he’d been doing.

  “Well, I’m sorry for mine too, I guess.” She grinned as she looked down at her food-splattered apron, worn camouflage capris, and ancient Doc Martens. Slipping the apron over her head to reveal a brown T-shirt, the rest of her hair came out of her clip, so she twisted it up and stuck the clip back in. “There,” she said, still a bit self-conscious.

  “Has it been a good day?”

  “It has—a little on the slower side, but that’s okay once in a while. It’s so beautiful, though, I’ve been itching to be outside instead of stuck back in the kitchen.” She wadded the apron in her hands. “How was your trip?”

  “It was good, thanks for asking. But I didn’t come here to talk about that.” He grinned. “I had a wild idea while I was over at the Mabrys’. Interested in joining me for something?”

  “What is it? If it’s wild, you know I’m probably interested.” Sophie smiled impishly.

  Jon laughed. “Well, it’s not really that wild…. Just short notice, I guess.”

  By now Sophie felt nearly wild with anticipation.

  “I was wondering…would you want to come home with me? You haven’t seen my place, and Mr. Mabry gave me all of these pumpkins. I know October is almost over, but I thought we might carve some of them, and you could put them around your porch—I mean, if you wanted to.” Jon looked like he was about five years old, and it was adorable.

  “I’d love to!” Sophie lit up. “That sounds fun! Let me just change—and tend to Spot.” She turned to go in.

  “Don’t change!” he called after her.

  Ten minutes later, Sophie came back down. She hadn’t changed clothes, as instructed, but she had washed her hands and face and sprayed on a little perfume, which at least made her feel fresher.

  Jon walked her to her side of the Jeep even though there was no door to open and gave her a hand as she climbed in. Then he swung up into his seat.

  “We’re off!” He chuckled, and then as he pulled out of the drive, he asked, “Can I get you a drink at the Dairy?”

  “I’ll buy this time,” Sophie asserted, pulling three dollars out of her pocket. “With the proceeds of my only tip!”

  “Your only tip? Were the customers stingy today?” Jon looked at her, wondering.

  “Nope, I only served one person. The major.”

  “I see. Well, knowing the major, it’s a pretty good tip, isn’t it?” Jon asked her.

  “You bet it is,” Sophie answered.

  “I need one Dr Pepper and one Diet Coke with extra vanilla,” Jon ordered when they got to the window at the Dairy. He handed the clerk Sophie’s money.

  “How many times do you think we’ve done that?” she asked him as they pulled back out onto the road.

  “Aw, about a thousand.” Jon smiled at her and lifted his Styrofoam glass to hers.

  “Cheers!” they said together.

  “Cheered” is just what Sophie felt as she rode through town with Jon. They turned down River Street, and she gasped at the maples in Brenda Moffatt’s yard, with their black trunks and flaming red leaves, and the huge orange and yellow mums on Mr. Appleby’s porch. As they crossed the river bridge to the south, the air had just that hint of cold in it—a crispness—and she relished it. It smelled like autumn. She loved the changing seasons, and fall in River Bend was her favorite.

  Jon motioned to the Mabrys on the right after the bridge. She knew their place already, but he pointed out the pumpkin patch there in the rich soil of the river bottom. It was fun and festive-looking, bursting with orange. A school bus was parked nearby, and climbing into it were what looked to be first graders, each holding a small pumpkin.

  “They must be heading back to school,” he said. “Remember those days?”

  They reminisced about their own field trips to Mabrys’ Pumpkin Patch in elementary school and agreed it was a wonderful tradition.

  “I hope the Mabrys can carry it on through the years,” Sophie said. “But Andy Mabry doesn’t strike me as t
he farming type.”

  “How is Andy doing?” Jon was genuinely concerned.

  “He got in some trouble,” Sophie answered. “Nothing real horrible, but enough to get his family’s attention, I think, and that’s a good thing. What bothers me, though, is his response to it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She recounted the conversation she’d had with Andy earlier that day, when they took a break out back during a lull in business. His mother had called Sophie the night before to tell her Andy was not to leave work with anyone but a family member. Apparently Andy had gotten caught smoking cigarettes in the parking lot before school, and the principal had found a bottle of whiskey in his car.

  Tenderly but firmly, Sophie had warned him against messing up his life with bad choices. She’d been down that road and knew enough to tell him not to go there.

  Andy had fidgeted but hadn’t met her gaze. He had told her that he appreciated her concern but that he didn’t regret anything because in a way it “set him apart.”

  She had known just what he meant, but unfortunately their break had been over too quickly. Sophie had gone away from that conversation uneasy, and as they sat in the car now, she related it to Jon.

  “Of all people, I understand the need to be sort of ‘set apart’—the longing for it. But I also know from experience that just being different—setting yourself apart—is not inherently good. I accomplished that with my bad choices, but to what end, Jon? Disaster. I so don’t want that for Andy.”

  His eyes were compassionate. “You’re the perfect person to help him, if he’ll be helped.”

  They had talked all the way to Jon’s driveway and were now on the dirt road that rambled through his property. It was bordered by trees of all kinds, gorgeous wildflowers, ferns, bushy plants like wild sumac, and muscadine grape vines. Here and there they saw rabbits hopping, and doves, and the burst of royal blue color that indicated an indigo bunting.

  “This is pretty—and pretty wild,” Sophie observed. “How did you end up out here?”

  Jon just smiled as he guided the Jeep up the steep hill.

  When he stopped the Jeep in front of the cabin, Sophie instantly said, “Jon, I love it!”

  He helped her out just as Aslan bounded up to greet them, bathing Jon in slobbery kisses and attempting to lavish Sophie with the same preferential treatment had Jon not held him back.

  “This is Aslan.” Jon introduced his dog affectionately.

  Sophie, awed by his size and fur and friendliness, fell instantly in love.

  “How long have you had him?” she asked, rubbing Aslan’s mane of white hair.

  “Since I built this house. He just appeared one day while I was working, acting this same way, as though we were long lost friends. I looked for his owner, even put out ads for someone to call, but got no response. After about two weeks I decided perhaps we were long lost friends. And he’s been with me ever since.” Jon slapped Aslan on the back.

  They climbed up the stairs to his front door, and Sophie was busy taking in details—cedar boards, natural stone, an inviting porch swing—when Jon stopped her.

  “I want to answer your question,” he told her.

  “What question?”

  “About how I ended up here,” he said. “I need you to put this on.”

  He pulled a red bandanna out of his jeans pocket and folded it neatly to wrap around her head.

  “What?” Sophie was suspicious.

  “Trust me.”

  He placed the bandanna over her eyes and tied it gently behind her head. She took out her hair clip to accommodate him, trusting him but wondering what in the world he had in mind. He took her by the hand as he opened the door and led her through his house. She heard him open a second set of doors.

  “Are we outside again?” Sophie turned her head side to side, smelling cedar in the fresh, country air.

  Placing her hands on the railing, Jon gently took off the blindfold.

  Sophie caught her breath. The afternoon sun glinted on the water beneath them like diamonds in her eyes. She watched the river rolling toward them from the east and winding away toward the west and felt its eternal pulse beating in her veins. Across the water from where she stood was a palette of such rich color she could scarcely take it in—rolling hills with flames of red and antique gold, amber, yellow, fuchsia, purple, and orange all melting into each other, blended together like threads of some magnificent, divine tapestry. Blue skies above. And Jon beside her, sharing it all.

  Sophie felt like she was standing on the threshold of heaven. “Jon…I don’t know what to say. This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.”

  “Me too. That’s how I ended up here. After I saw it, I didn’t want to leave.” He smiled humbly. “Why don’t you stay here while I go get the pumpkins?” Jon said after a moment, and then he left Sophie standing in awe of the view.

  He made several trips from the Jeep to the edge of the deck, depositing pumpkins, before he emerged from his house with sharp knives and a few other tools.

  Sophie still leaned over the railing. “I can’t believe it,” she said softly. “You can just stand here and feel the peace. It washes over you.”

  “I’m so glad you like it,” Jon said, joining her.

  “That is an understatement!”

  They walked over to the table Jon had set up for the carving.

  “We could sit here, if you want. Why don’t you sit on that side so you can have the view?” he offered.

  “Why don’t you sit beside me so we can both enjoy it?”

  They worked away steadily for two hours, till their hands were sore from carving through the tough meat of the pumpkins. They’d compiled quite an array of faces and designs, which were lined up, like orange soldiers, across the table.

  “Have you ever roasted the seeds?” she asked Jon.

  “No, what about you?”

  “I haven’t, but my mother used to. They’re delicious. Want to try it?” Sophie laid down her knife and started sorting the seeds from the slimy pile of pulp they’d acquired.

  Jon went into the house and came back with a bowl, which they filled with seeds. Then they both went into the kitchen where Sophie washed and salted them. Then she spread them out on a cookie sheet and placed it in the oven.

  “Do you want to look around while we’re waiting?” Jon asked her.

  “Sure.” She loved how his reserve—the privacy he was known for around River Bend—seemed not to apply to her. The old trust he’d always had, the openness, was a gift he freely held out for her to take. Even though I don’t deserve it, she thought.

  And then her inner voice whispered, That’s what makes it grace.

  They walked through the house, with Jon explaining a few things here and there, mostly answering her questions.

  Sophie stopped in the center of the great room to admire the exposed cedar trusses in the cathedral ceiling above her. “This is amazing, Jon,” she said, looking up.

  “Thanks—it’s because of David. He’s an artist, can do anything with his hands. I just mostly did the grunt work and left the details to him.”

  They walked over to the rock fireplace at the far end of the room away from the kitchen, where Sophie admired the mantel. Sitting in its center was an ornate iron gate, and on one end was a primitive-looking platter on an iron stand, with a matching water jug beside it.

  “How interesting,” Sophie said as she looked at them.

  “That gate is from Egypt, and I picked up the platter and jug in Kenya. These animals and things are from Kenya and Tanzania,” Jon said, pointing to the other end of the mantel.

  Sophie turned and picked up one of the carvings—a wooden lion—to admire its artistry. It was fearsome and majestic, with a full mane and mouth open to roar, exposing powerful wooden teeth. Like the real Aslan, Sophie thought, and remembered her favorite line from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where Mr. Beaver is describing Aslan to the Pevensie children: “’Course he isn
’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.”

  She smiled as she carefully put the lion back in his position. Grouped around him stood a tall giraffe, an elephant, and a zebra. A scowling water buffalo, with its curled horns, looked especially mean.

  “He is the one most feared by the natives,” Jon told her, holding it out for her to examine. “I would have thought it would be the lions, which steal their cows, but apparently the water buffalo is the most aggressive toward the people who live in the bush.”

  “How weird,” Sophie commented, running her fingers over the smooth back of the buffalo. “They don’t seem much more than cows.”

  “Had I better check those seeds?” Jon remembered, and walked toward the kitchen.

  “Yeah, why don’t you give them a stir,” Sophie answered, placing the water buffalo back in his spot on the mantel and moving over to the wall opposite the bluff windows, which was full of photographs. Sophie felt like she was at a National Geographic exhibit.

  “Jon, did you take these?”

  “Uh, yeah, just a minute.” She heard the oven door slam closed.

  When he walked back across the room to her, she looked at him with her mouth open.

  “You took these?”

  “Mm-hmm. I couldn’t believe how well they turned out,” Jon said modestly.

  In an assortment of sizes, the photographs hung straight and neat in a square pattern. They were all black and white—sepia, actually—and were framed in dark brown wood with ivory matting. Sophie was astounded, again, by the depth and scope of Jon’s experiences since they’d parted ways. He seemed so sophisticated now, so alluring. And yet he was also still her same Jon.

  “Margaret framed them all and hung them as a surprise when I moved in,” Jon explained. “‘Housewarming’—she called it.”

  Sophie’s eyes lingered on each picture, some of places she’d been, and others she hadn’t. There was the Sphinx, and next to it, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and under it, an enlarged one of a child with her hands raised, singing. It was the only photograph of a person on the wall. “What is this one?” Sophie pointed to it.

  “That’s my favorite,” Jon said. “In Uganda, I visited an orphanage on a Sunday when they were having their church service. It was hot. There was a dirt floor and no music other than their voices. Most of them were in rags. But I’ll never forget what those children taught me about worship, just by being among them. They were reaching out for life. It was quite a powerful experience.”