Peculiar Treasures

by Robin Jones Gunn

  “For self-defense,” Julia said.

  Katie nodded. “For self-defense. That’s my life pretty much. Right there. Be prepared to hide or to have ammo when you get too hurt by those closest to you.”

  “Such as your mom?” Julia asked.

  “You picked that up, huh? Yeah, I don’t have much of an emotional connection with either of my parents, but especially with my mom. I keep expecting her to be a real mom, you know? And she’s just herself.”

  “Would you say that you have forgiven your parents?” Julia asked.

  “Forgiven them for what?”

  Julia didn’t answer. She looked at Katie with singleness of purpose.

  Katie knew she was the only one who could name her childhood, heartfelt hurts. “Do you mean I should forgive my parents for abandoning me emotionally?”

  Julia gave Katie a cautious yet affirming look. She seemed to be waiting for Katie to state the obvious.

  “I guess I just said it, didn’t I? I guess the answer is no, I haven’t forgiven my parents. And I haven’t completely released Rick either.”

  For a moment they sat quietly, letting the painful realizations sink in.

  “I’m looking at a couple of scales in my heart right now,” Katie said. “I thought those scales were empty and in balance. Maybe they are in my head. But in my heart, they’re weighted down. So how do I get rid of this toxic stuff?”

  “You said it earlier. Ask Jesus to take it and demolish it. Do you want to pray with me about all this now?”

  “Yeah.” Katie closed her eyes and said, “Dear heavenly Father, please forgive Rick for the stuff he did to me and — ”

  “Katie.” Julia touched Katie’s arm, interrupting her prayer.

  Katie looked up. She never had anyone interrupt her when she was praying before. Julia was shaking her head.

  “You’re just saying the words, Katie. It sounds like you took an express elevator from your heart back to your mind. God knows your heart. He’s already there. You need to go back there. All the way to your heart’s core.”

  Katie swallowed. She knew what Julia meant. Katie knew where her heart’s core was — it was a place she avoided. That spot was covered with scars from the hurts she had experienced. And those scars were covered up with boxes of grenades.

  “Do you want to deal with this now?” Julia asked gently. “Because you don’t have to, if you’re not ready.”

  “Yes, I do. I don’t want to carry all this deadly ammo for another moment. God forgave me of so much. I know he wants me to forgive other people the same way he forgave me. He doesn’t store up a box of lightning bolts from all the stuff I’ve done to hurt him. You know, he’s never hurled past stuff at me. No, I want to deal with this now. I feel as if I’ve been hoarding these hurts like a treasure in this cave in my heart. This junk is not a treasure.”

  As Katie spoke, she cried. Julia teared up as well.

  “You’re there now,” Julia said with a smile. “You’re at your heart’s core. This is honest. This is true. Now, go ahead, tell God what you were starting to pray earlier.”

  Without closing her eyes this time, Katie cried silent tears and spoke aloud. “God? Great God, I know you’re here. I know you’re lis- tening to me. I’m sorry I’ve held onto this garbage for so long. I don’t want it. Take it. Throw it away. Far away. I want to release Rick completely. I want to release my parents completely. From my heart . . .” Katie drew in a quavering breath. “From my heart, I choose to forgive Rick for tricking me and for betraying me. From my heart, I choose to forgive my mother and my father for abandoning me and hurting me emotionally. You want them to be forgiven completely just as you completely forgave me. I want what you want. Do one of your amazing God things. Set them free, and set me free.”

  Katie leaned back and closed her eyes. She felt as if she were riding on a wave or soaring like a bird. A free bird. Never had her heart felt so light.

  “Wow,” she said softly. She looked at Julia, who was smiling and crying at the same time. That’s when Katie realized she was crying too. She laughed. “We look like it’s raining while the sun is shining.”

  Julia chuckled, and the two women hugged.

  “This is good stuff,” Katie said. “I feel great right now!”

  Julia reached over and gently pressed the palm of her hand against Katie’s cheek. The gesture was a loving mother one, the kind Katie longed for but never had received.

  “Don’t ever forget this moment, this feeling. I’m sure you won’t,” Julia said. “God’s truth really sets us free, and I think we’re never closer to his truth than when we choose to forgive others the way he forgave us.”

  That night, before Katie went to bed, in the solitude of her room, she wrote in her journal. The exercise was a rare experience, but then, what she had experienced that day was rare.

  I feel as if the treasure chest at the core of my heart had long been overflowing with stored-up pain, hurts, and disappointments. That place is now emptied of the garbage and ready to be filled up with true treasures.Every day God sends Peculiar Treasures my way, but I haven’t been able to hold onto many of them because I had no room in my heart to store them. Now I do.

  Rick is definitely one of those Peculiar Treasures, and I feel as if I finally have room in my heart for him. The right kind of room, and the right kind of reasons to move forward in our relationship.

  But I really think I need to wait until he makes the next move. I’m ready to wholeheartedly trust him. He needs to be willing to wholeheartedly trust me now too.

  If Rick and I move any further in our relationship, then I think it’s going to be a result of God’s prompting Rick to make the lane change, so to speak. If Rick decides to refer to me as his girlfriend, then I’ ll know for certain he’s not holding against me any of my mistrust mess.

  Katie felt so much peace. She knew she didn’t have to run after Rick to try to explain in a thousand tumbling words why she felt the way she did or to try to convince him to overlook her lack of trust. The old hurts were gone. She and Rick would be able to pick up where they had left off. She just knew it. Only now it would be different between them. Rick would no longer have to keep proving himself to Katie, and she would have room in her heart for love to grow.

  That’s what she thought on Tuesday after her glorious time with Julia. By Wednesday evening, Katie was thinking about calling Rick since she hadn’t heard from him. By Thursday after her last class, Katie felt as if she couldn’t stand the silence between them any longer. The doubts kept coming at her, but she fought them off as valiantly as if she were fighting a dragon.

  Maybe, in some ways, she was fighting a dragon. A very ancient one.

  31

  On Friday, after Katie’s last class, she put on her favorite pair of jeans and the top she had worn on check-in day since she remembered that Rick had noticed it and said he liked it.

  Climbing into Baby Hummer at 8:05, she drove down the hill, practicing what she would say to Rick when she saw him. He had sent her a text three hours earlier that read, “HOME 8P TALK?”

  Katie smiled as she walked down the apartment complex path on the way to Rick’s front door. This could only turn out well. She was in the best place she had ever been spiritually and emotionally. She finally was ready to take her relationship with Rick seriously and enter in with the same interest and enthusiasm he had expressed to her over their months together.

  I think all this stuff had to happen so God could clean out my heart. Now I’m ready to be open to him and to Rick. You are so good to me, Lord. Thank you for what you’ve done in my heart. Thank you for what you’re going to do in my relationship with Rick. I trust you.

  Katie found herself grinning. That’s the foundation of any lasting relationship, isn’t it? Trust. Complete trust. In that case, let me say again, Father God, that I trust you.

  She was at Rick’s apartment door and could hear music from inside. Filled with hope and confidence, she pressed the doorbell. The
n, remembering how Christy’s doorbell still didn’t work, she knocked and took a step back.

  The door opened, and there stood the last person she expected to see. Goatee Guy.

  “What are you doing here?” Katie checked the number on Rick’s door to make sure she had the right apartment.

  Goatee Guy grinned. “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here?” Katie repeated.

  “I live here.”

  “No, you don’t. Rick lives here. Where’s Rick?”

  “Arizona.”

  Katie felt her knees wobble. “He said he was going to be back tonight at 8.”

  “I don’t know his schedule. Do you want to come in and wait for him?”

  “No.” Katie turned to make a beeline for Todd and Christy’s front door. Pounding hard on their door, she swallowed back her stunned feelings.

  “Katie, how’s it goin’?” Todd, wearing a lobster-shaped oven mitt on his hand, opened the door. He snapped his fingers open and closed, as if the oven mitt were a puppet. Katie knew the mitt had been a wedding gift from Christy’s aunt and uncle, but she thought Christy had taken it back to the store during one of their returning sprees.

  “Hi. Are you guys having dinner or something?”

  “No.” Todd swung open the door the rest of the way. Katie could see Christy’s aunt and uncle sitting on the love seat, looking at Christy’s wedding album. “We ate already, but if you’re hungry, we have plenty. Come on in.”

  “Oh, no. I was just . . .”

  Christy was standing behind the love seat. When she saw Katie, she came to the door.

  “Hi. Why don’t you come in?” Christy asked.

  “I didn’t know you had company.”

  “It’s okay. They just returned from a cruise and stopped by on their drive back to Newport Beach.”

  “Is that Katie?” Bob called from inside the apartment.

  “Hi.” Katie waved at both of them.

  “You’re just in time for dessert,” Bob said. “Todd was going to pull the pie from the oven. Are you going to join us?”

  “No, I better go. It smells good, though.”

  “It’s awfully drafty with the door open, don’t you think?” Marti said to no one in particular.

  Christy looked at her aunt and then back at Katie. Over her shoulder Christy said to Todd, “I’ll be right back.” Then she stepped outside the apartment, closed the door, and looked closely at Katie. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. I was doing great, you know, like I told you in the email I sent you yesterday.”

  Christy nodded. “That was an incredible email about what happened when you prayed with Julia. I showed it to Todd. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Yeah, sure. Fine.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get together with you. It’s just that — ”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t come over because you and I haven’t had a chance to talk. I came to see Rick. But now I’m flustered. He tex-ted me to meet him at eight to talk, but he’s not home. Goatee Guy answered the door at Rick’s apartment.”

  “Goatee Guy?”

  “I don’t know his name. I guess he’s Rick’s new roommate.”

  “That’s Eli. I thought you met him at our wedding.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “He and Todd lived together in Spain. Katie, are you okay?”

  Katie had flipped one of her hands in the air and then placed it on the top of her head. “Yeah, I’m okay. This is just bizarre. So, are you going to be around tomorrow after work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you and I go out to dinner or something?”

  “Sure. What do you think about going to Casa de Pedro?”

  “On one condition. You have to promise you will stop me before I eat an entire, giant chimichanga burrito by myself.”

  “We’ll split one,” Christy said.

  “Perfect. We can catch up on everything then,” Katie said. “You probably should get back to your aunt and uncle and the pie.”

  Christy giggled and leaned close. “Did you see the lobster oven mitt?”

  “Yeah. I thought we returned it a couple of months ago.”

  “We did! Todd reminded me that it came from Bob and Marti, and I had to run to the store on the way home to buy one. At least I still had gobs of credit at the kitchen store.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.”

  Christy reached out and gave Katie a hug. “I know it is. You’re my favorite Peculiar Treasure, Katie. You know that, don’t you?”

  “And you’re mine.” Katie hugged her back. “I’ll see you tomorrow around 5:15 at Pedro’s.”

  “Can’t wait!”

  Katie took the long way back to the apartment parking area so she wouldn’t have to walk past Rick’s apartment and risk seeing Goatee Eli. She decided to go back to Rancho and wait for Rick to call. His plane could have been late, or he could have decided to do something before talking with Katie, like checking for ants in a variety of not-yet- checked locations at the Dove’s Nest.

  To Katie, the really great thing at the moment was that her heart felt free. She had no trouble assuming all the right sorts of reasons Rick wasn’t home or why he hadn’t called. She trusted him. It was a refreshing, freeing, completely different entry point for all the thoughts she had about the two of them.

  Unlocking Baby Hummer’s door, Katie settled into the driver’s seat. As she glanced out the windshield, she saw something under the wiper. It wasn’t a ticket. It was a flower. A pink bougainvillea blossom like the ones that grew up the side of the apartment complex. Katie decided it must have blown there. She sat for a moment before starting the car, thinking about the huge bouquet of flowers Rick had given her on their disaster date.

  A few days ago, Christy had expressed a thought about those flowers in an email to Katie. Christy said Rick’s giving Katie lots of flowers was possibly one of the safe ways he could express his passion and his interest in her. Christy suggested that, since the two of them weren’t expressing their feelings with kisses, that Katie should be receptive and appreciative of any and all of the ways Rick expressed his emotions, including luxurious, overdone bouquets.

  “Think of the flowers as being in lieu of two dozen kisses,” Christy had written. “What is it you quote from that movie about the orphans? ‘Take it and be thankful!’ That’s what I think you should do from now on if Rick gives you flowers or anything else. Take it and be thankful.”

  Katie knew she would view Rick’s expressions toward her with more appreciation now that her mistrust of him was gone. Her affection for him and his unique way of doing things was growing.

  She only hoped it wasn’t too late and that he hadn’t given up on her. Quietly, in her heart, she didn’t think their relationship was over. Not yet. Katie felt a lot of hope about what was going to happen between Rick and her. She couldn’t explain why; she just felt hopeful.

  Katie checked her cell phone. Something she realized she probably should have done right away. She had two messages from Rick. As she read his first text message, a set of car lights flashed in her rearview mirror.

  It was Rick’s Mustang.

  Katie pulled the keys from the ignition and walked across the lot to Rick’s car. She had her phone in her hand, trying to read his message. Rick remained in the driver’s seat and rolled down his window.

  “I see you got my message.”

  “I’m just now reading it. It says your plane was late, and you want to get something to eat.” Katie took her gaze off her phone and looked at Rick. He was looking at her with that I-can’t-get-you-out-of-my-heart gaze.

  “So what do you think?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t mind going for a drive somewhere. It’s a nice night.”

  “Hop in, Zing.”

  “Zing?” Katie slid into the passenger’s seat and repeated, “Zing?”

  “Yeah, Zing. What do you think of that?”

  “Zing,
huh? I’ll have to ponder that one.”

  Rick pulled out of the parking area.

  “I met your roommate,” Katie said.

  “Did he ask you out?”

  Katie studied Rick’s profile as he kept looking straight ahead.

  “No, he didn’t ask me out. Why did you say that?”

  “He wants to.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He told me he thinks you’re extraordinary and something else.”

  “Something else?”

  “Yeah, some other word. Oh, yeah, ‘unforgettable.’ That’s what it was. He thinks you’re unforgettable.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him if he thought you would ever go out with him that he would just have to learn to live with disappointment.”

  Katie tried not to grin too broadly that Rick had used one of her flippant phrases in response to Eli.

  Rick turned up the music and thumped his open palm on the side of his door in time with the song. Everything felt back to normal. They still needed to talk. Katie wanted Rick to know she trusted him. She wanted to tell him how she had put aside all the ammo she had been saving just in case she needed to use it on him. The old hurts were gone, and she was free. She wanted him to know.

  “I thought we could try the Thai place. I’m guessing it won’t be too difficult to get in at nine o’clock. With or without neckties.”

  “Sounds good. How was Arizona?”

  “Hot.”

  “How’s the project going?”

  “Great. Are you ready for my news?”

  Katie bit her lower lip. If he was going to say he was moving to Tempe, she didn’t want to hear his big news.

  “What’s your news?” she asked cautiously.

  “We hired a manager, and the building code cleared. My part in the project is just about over.”

  “So you’re not moving to Arizona?”

  “Nope. But I do get a portion of the profit share, and in about two years I should have enough to open another café somewhere, if everything goes well.”