Red, White and Blue Weddings: Red Like Crimson, White as Snow, Out of the Blue

by Janice Thompson

  “I...uh...”

  “Not great with words, eh?” Brent grinned. “Never fear. I’m here to help. Let me make a suggestion.”

  “Okay.” “Tell her that you are miserable.”

  “I am.”

  “You are. And tell her that God has been speaking to you through your friends.”

  “Good grief. Can’t I just say that He’s been speaking?”

  “Whatever. Anyway, tell her that you can’t live another day without her.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been working on this speech.”

  “I’ve used it before”—Brent flashed a grin—“with my wife. Before she was my wife, I mean.”

  “Ah.”

  “It’s a good speech.”

  “And the part about the missions work?” Chris looked up for reassurance.

  “Just what we talked about the other day. No more, and no less.”

  “Okay.” He clutched the phone, then began to punch in her number. “I can do this. I can.” When Adrianne picked up after only two rings, it startled him so much that he almost dropped the phone. “H–hello? Adrianne?”

  “Chris, is that you?” The joy in her voice spoke volumes. “I can hardly hear you.”

  “We must have a bad connection. But Adrianne, I have something to tell you. I haven’t slept for nights, and I won’t sleep tonight, either. Unless I tell you.”

  “Tell me? Tell me what?”

  “I—I. . .” He looked up to find Brent nodding in encouragement. Chris stood and began to pace the room. “I have loved you from the day I met you. The first time I saw you walking across the campus, you were wearing a white blouse and a pair of jeans. Your hair was pulled back, but the wind was still blowing little bits of it in your face. I was with my buddies. I pointed across the parking lot and said, ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry.’”

  “I—I never knew that.” The tremor in her voice gave him the courage to continue.

  “It’s true. And you will never know how scared I was to ask you out on that first date. Do you remember? We went out for pizza. I could hardly eat a bite.”

  “I remember.”

  “I remember so many things.” His words began to speed up. “Like how much I loved hearing you sing on the worship team. How beautiful you looked whenever you lost your temper.”

  “Hey now. . .”

  “How comfortable you were in my arms. And how amazed I was that someone like you would look twice at a lowly guy like me—a kid hoping to one day be a missionary.”

  “I was so proud of you, Chris,” she whispered. “I still am.”

  His heart sailed at the words. “Thank you.” After a brief pause, to offer up a silent prayer, he forged ahead. “I want to tell you something else, too—something that’s easier to say now that I’ve had time to think. I am so proud of you for raising Lorelei the way you have. She’s your clone, the spitting image of her mother.”

  “And her father.”

  “When I look at her”—Chris’s eyes filled right away—“I see all of the possibilities for what we can be. Together.”

  “Oh, Chris—”

  “Adrianne, I have to tell you something.” His pacing stopped and the sweating began. “I have messed up so many things in my life, but I don’t want to blow one more thing. I love you. I’ve loved you every minute of every day for over a decade. And I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to—”

  Just as he reached the pinnacle of his speech, the phone went dead in his hand. Chris looked at it in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered. He tried—panic leading the way—to dial the number again, only to find all circuits were busy. “No way!” He turned to face Brent, a shockwave running through him. “What in the world do I do?”

  “Well, I guess there’s really only one thing to do.” Brent faced him head-on. “I guess you’ll just have to tell her in person.”

  TWENTY

  Adrianne hardly slept a wink on Sunday night. Instead, she tossed and turned, replaying Chris’s words in her mind. “I told my buddies, ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry.’

  Her lips curled up in a smile. How she longed to know more. Did he still feel that way now? If so, would he act on those words? Why, oh why, had the phone call ended so abruptly? Would she never know?

  A plan, of sorts, rolled through her brain at about three in the morning. At four, she arose from the bed and signed on to the Internet. As she clicked the Web address for airplane flights, her heart raced. “I must be crazy. I can’t go to Nicaragua, can I?”

  She stumbled around the site, trying to find a direct flight from Philadelphia to Managua. Nothing. She tried again, this time finding a flight with a brief layover in Atlanta.

  “One thousand two hundred ninety-eight dollars? No way.”

  She continued on in her search, growing more frustrated by the moment.

  “Slow down.”

  Adrianne heard the Lord’s voice so clearly, it almost scared her. She leaned her head down onto the keyboard and wept. “Lord, I don’t feel like slowing down. I want to see him. I want to. . . ,” she stammered over the words. “I want to marry this man, spend the rest of my life with him. We’ve lost eight years already, eight years we could have been a family. I don’t want to lose one minute more.”

  “Trust Me with all your heart. Don’t lean on your own understanding.”

  “But, Lord. . .”

  She took a few slow, deep breaths and attempted to calm down. After drying her eyes, the temptation to return to the Internet resurfaced. She resisted and shut down the machine altogether.

  After pacing the living room for nearly half an hour, she finally wore herself out. With her eyelids now heavy, she headed back to the bedroom, where she, thankfully, dozed off. A couple of hours later, the alarm went off. She reached over to slap it, noticing the headache at once. After swallowing down a couple of aspirins, she leaned back against the pillows, hoping to catch a few more z’s before waking Lorelei. She awoke to the sound of her daughter’s shrill voice.

  “Mom, I missed the bus!”

  “W–what?” Adrianne sat up, shocked. She looked at the clock: 8:45. “No way. It was just six. Wasn’t it?”

  Lorelei pounced on the bed. “Do I have to go to school today? I’m already late anyway. Can’t I just stay home?” She ping-ponged up and down on the bed, eyes blazing with excitement.

  “You have to go to school,” Adrianne admonished. “Regardless of the time. I’ll write a note. Everything will be okay.” With a pout, her precocious daughter headed off to dress for school. Adrianne raced like a maniac around the room, trying to decide what to wear. Her navy suit was at the cleaners. Maybe the black slacks and brown sweater? “Hmm.” She looked through her closet, finally settling on a tailored ivory jacket and slacks, with a sky blue blouse. “Hurry, Lorelei!” she hollered as she dressed. “We’re late!”

  “I’m hurrying!” The youngster’s voice rang out from down the hallway.

  Moments later, Lorelei appeared at the bedroom door, dressed in a mismatched purple T-shirt and fluorescent orange pants. Her tennis shoes were a shocking pink, which really made the whole ensemble look more like a costume than school clothes.

  “Oh, no.” Adrianne shook her head. “You can’t wear that.”

  “Why not?” Lorelei looked in the mirror. “I like these colors.”

  “You can’t, because. . . Oh, never mind.” Adrianne looked around the room, frustration mounting. “Can you help me find my shoes? I can never seem to find them when I need them.”

  “The ones you left in the living room last night?”

  Adrianne sighed. “Yeah. Probably. Would you run and fetch them for me?”

  As Lorelei sprinted down the hallway, Adrianne turned her attention to her makeup. She looked into the bathroom mirror, horrified at her swollen eyelids. “Oh no. Please, no.” She pulled out the stick of concealer and ran a line of it under each eye. As she rubbed it in, she thought about her middle-of-th
e-night escapades. What would Lorelei say if she knew her mother had spent half the night thinking about flying off to Central America? What would her parents say? Would everyone think she had lost her mind?

  “I found your shoes, Mom.” Lorelei appeared with the familiar pumps in hand. She looked up, a curious look crossing her face. “You were crying, weren’t you?”

  “What?” Adrianne continued applying her foundation. “What makes you say that?”

  “Your eyes are all puffy.” Lorelei pointed at the reflection in the mirror. “I can always tell.”

  “Good grief.” Adrianne smeared on some lipstick, then reached for her blush brush. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. I tossed and turned.”

  “Why did you get on the computer?”

  Good grief, again. Can’t a woman have any privacy at all? “I, um...”

  Lorelei crossed her arms and watched intently as Adrianne applied eye shadow to her swollen eyes. “You’re keeping secrets.”

  “No, I’m not.” It’s not like I actually bought a ticket. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.

  “How come you couldn’t sleep?” Lorelei leaned her elbows on the bathroom counter with an inquisitive look on her face. “Are you sick?”

  Lovesick, maybe. “No, not really sick. I’m just—”

  “You miss him, don’t you, Mom.”

  “What? Miss who?”

  “You know who. Prince Charming. Chris.”

  “I don’t know why you keep saying that,” Adrianne said. “And in order to make your little story work, I’d have to change my name to Cinderella.”

  “Ooh, Cinderella!” Lorelei agreed with a smile. “She’s my favorite.”

  Mine, too. “Well, if I have to play the role of Cinderella, I’ll have to dress in rags and sleep in the ash heap.”

  “Only until he rescues you,” Lorelei said with a giggle. “That’s the best part.”

  “And what makes you think I need to be rescued? I’m doing a pretty good job, don’t you think? I put a roof over our heads, and the bills are paid.”

  “That’s not everything.”

  Good grief. She really does sound like the mother, doesn’t she?

  Adrianne opted to change gears. “What makes you think it wasn’t James Kenner I was thinking about?” She crossed her arms and gave her daughter an inquisitive stare.

  “Oh, come on, Mom. Puh-leeze!”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  Lorelei shrugged. “He’s okay. He’s handsome, but—”

  “What?” Lorelei wrinkled her nose.

  “He doesn’t have your shoe size.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know. He’s not Prince Charming. He won’t have a shoe that fits.”

  “Lorelei, you’ve been watching too many movies. And reading far too many fairy tales.”

  Her daughter shrugged. “You told me if I would read more it would make me smarter. And besides, I want you to get married some day. I want to have a dad.”

  Adrianne groaned. “Honey, we’ve had this discussion before. And I really don’t have time right now. . . .”

  Even as she spoke the words, reality, like a bolt of lightning, hit.

  Slow down.

  That’s what the Lord had said. Slow down and. . .

  Oh Father. Are You asking me to talk to her? Now? I don’t have time. I don’t have. . .

  A thousand excuses ran through her mind. But less than a minute later, the truth won out. Yes, Lord. I’ll do it. And I’ll do it now.

  She drew in a long, deep breath and turned to face her daughter. “You know what?” she said. “I think maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to take our time. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Cool!” Lorelei raced to the bed and sprang up on it, motioning for Adrianne to do the same.

  With slow, deliberate steps, she made her way to where her daughter sat. Then, with her heart in her throat, she began.

  “I know you’ve always wondered about your daddy,” she started.

  Lorelei nodded. “You said you would tell me someday.”

  “That’s right.” She swallowed hard. “And today is that day.”

  Lorelei’s eyes grew large. “You’re going to tell me about my dad?” She grabbed Adrianne’s hand and squeezed it. “Tell me, Mom. I’m big enough. You can tell me.”

  “I know you’re a big girl, and that’s a good thing, because what I have to tell you is only for big-girl ears.”

  Lorelei pulled her knees up to her chest and sat in silent anticipation. Adrianne pushed back the tears and told her the very thing she had put off for years.

  “Your father is a wonderful man,” she said with a smile. “A man who looks a lot like you. He has your sense of humor.” She reached to tuck a stray hair behind Lorelei’s ear. “And he has a good heart like you do.”

  “Really?” Lorelei sighed. “But will I ever get to meet him?”

  Adrianne closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer before saying the words: “You already have.”

  Her daughter looked directly into her eyes, clearly confused.

  “You met him that night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and you met him again at the wedding the next day.”

  “Oh, Mom!” Lorelei reached to grab her hand. “Chris is—”

  Adrianne nodded, the lump in her throat now the size of an apple.

  “My daddy? He’s my daddy?”

  “Y–yes. He is. It’s a long, long story, and one day I’ll tell you more. But Christopher Bradley is your daddy. H–he didn’t know about you.”

  “He didn’t?” Another look of confusion registered. “Why not?”

  “That’s a long story, too. But from the minute he found out he had a daughter—from the minute he laid eyes on you—he loved you. He still loves you.”

  Lorelei’s eyes misted over, and within seconds tears began. She leaned her forehead into her knees and sobbed openly. Adrianne slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close.

  “But he’s in another place now.” Lorelei looked up, her damp cheeks now shining pink. “Doesn’t he want to be here? With me? With us?”

  Answer carefully, Adrianne.

  “I know he wants to be with you, with both of us.”

  “He does?”

  Adrianne nodded. “I know, because he called me from Nicaragua to tell me how much he misses us.”

  Lorelei leaned her head against Adrianne’s arm. “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you love him? Do you love Chr—my daddy?”

  Adrianne smiled, and a warmth like she had never known flooded over her. “Oh, honey, I do. I love him so much. I’ve loved him for many, many years.”

  “Is that why you kept his picture in the drawer?”

  A slight chuckle slipped out as she contemplated her answer. “Yes. I suppose so.”

  After a deep sigh, Lorelei looked up with a childlike grin. “I’m so happy, Mom. I am. Thank you for telling me.”

  Over the next half hour, Adrianne answered many of her daughter’s questions. “No, Nicaragua isn’t close.” “Yes, your grandma and grandpa know.” “No, we can’t go see your daddy today.” She smiled as she answered the last one. “Yes, I hope one day we will both change our last names to Bradley.”

  As they wrapped up their quiet conversation, Adrianne looked once again at the clock. “It’s nearly ten,” she said.

  “Do I still have to go to—”

  “Yes, you still have to go to school.”

  Lorelei sprang from the bed, her electric outfit catching a shimmer from the morning sunlight at the window. “But I’m too excited.”

  Me, too. “I know. But we have to keep doing all of the usual stuff.”

  “Till when?” Lorelei asked.

  “Till the Lord gives me clear directions,” Adrianne said with a grin.

  With a pout, Lorelei asked, “When will that be?”

  “I haven’t got a clue,” Adrianne responded. “But I’ll prom
ise you this—when He tells me what to do, you will be the very first to know.”

  ❧

  Chris sat quietly among the mob of people in Atlanta’s busy airport. Every few seconds he glanced down at his watch. Forty minutes till his flight. Thirty-five. Thirty.

  A voice announced over the loudspeaker that passengers could begin boarding momentarily. As he stood to get in line, he toyed with the notion of calling Adrianne.

  Nope. Don’t call. Just surprise her.

  Somehow, the idea of popping in on her just felt right. And the idea of asking her to be his forever felt even more right.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Chris’s plane landed at the Philadelphia International Airport at exactly two fifteen in the afternoon. He raced to get his suitcase from baggage claim, then rented a car. All the while, he rehearsed the speech in his head, what he would say when he saw Adrianne. Within minutes he was on the turnpike, headed for the historic district. At three o’clock, he pulled into the Franklin Institute parking garage.

  Before getting out of the car, he offered up a rushed but determined prayer. Father, I put this into Your hands. Not my will, but Yours be done.

  As he made his way into the museum, Chris did everything in his power to squelch the knot in his stomach. It refused to budge. So did the tightness in his chest. No, he wouldn’t be the same again until he held the woman he loved in his arms once more. Then all would be right with the world.

  He found the museum more crowded than before. Several school groups milled about, hundreds of youngsters with name tags and frustrated teachers calling out to keep them in line.

  “Excuse me.” He edged past a little girl with red hair and freckles. She turned to give him an inquisitive stare. “Sorry,” he added.

  A boy with dark brown eyes glanced his way with wondering eyes. “Are you lost?” he asked.

  “No,” Chris responded. In fact, I don’t know when I’ve ever felt more found than right now, in this very moment.