A Time to Love

by Al Lacy

  Long proved to be quite talkative. He pointed out places of interest and told little stories about incidents that had happened on particular streets.

  The couple held hands, more interested in each other than in what Long was saying. He went quiet a moment, then said, “So where you folks from?”

  “Boston,” Lewis replied.

  “Yeah? Boston’s a nice place, but I like New York better. So when you gettin’ married?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Oh, really? Church weddin’?”

  “No. My friend Max Burton—the one whose house you’ll be taking me to—has us lined up to take our vows before a judge in his chambers in the morning.”

  “I see. So you’re gonna be livin’ in Brooklyn?”

  “Yes.”

  “What business you in?”

  “Shipping. I work for the Dunbar Shipping Company. We have docks both in Boston and South Brooklyn. We’re at the big pier on Gravesend Bay.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen the sign, now that you mention it. So the company transferred you down here, eh?”

  “Yes. Max was my foreman in Boston until they transferred him here a couple years ago. He put in to have me come down and be his number-one assistant.”

  As they drew near the ferry dock, Long pointed ahead to a massive bridge under construction, spanning the East River to Brooklyn. “Take a look at that!” he said. “That’s the Brooklyn Bridge! Won’t be completed for another three years or so. When it’s finished, it’ll be the longest bridge in the whole world. Sixteen hundred feet!”

  “It’s a big one, all right,” Lewis said, eyeing the massive superstructure with awe.

  Janet was bored with Long’s commentary.

  “Masterwork of a fella named John Augustus Roebling,” Long said. “It’s the first bridge in the world to use steel for cable wire. The deck is supported by four of those huge cables. There’s a walkway for pedestrians, too. Well, here we are. The ferrys leave on the half hour, so we’re just in time to catch the next one.”

  Lewis and Janet were married the next morning. They would not be able to take a honeymoon; Lewis was due to report in for work on Tuesday morning at seven o’clock.

  On Monday evening after they had eaten supper at a local café, they entered their apartment, and Janet threw her arms around Lewis, saying, “I’m so happy! Just think of it—I’m now Mrs. Lewis Carter!” She paused, then laughed. “My baby sister wanted to be Mrs. Lewis Carter, but I outfoxed her. I got her man! Ha! I wish I could have seen her little dollface when she finally realized we weren’t going to show up for the wedding! I wonder how long it took till she and everyone else knew there wasn’t going to be a wedding.”

  Lewis had gone quiet.

  “Hey, what’s the matter, honey?” Janet said. “Something bothering you?”

  “Oh … ah … no.” He hugged her close. “Nothing’s bothering me.”

  Janet pushed herself out of his arms, took a step back, and said, “Don’t lie to me, Lewis. Something’s eating at you. Here we are, just married, with everything working out exactly as we planned, and you’re down about something. C’mon. What is it?”

  “It’s nothing, Janet. Nothing.”

  “Well, you sure don’t seem very happy! I’m your wife now. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You and me together … forever?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Then can’t you smile?”

  “Sure.” Lewis forced his lips into a curve.

  Janet narrowed her eyelids to thin slits and said with sand in her voice, “You’re not wishing you’d gone ahead and married little dollface, are you?”

  “Uh … no, honey. No. It’s just—”

  “Just what?”

  “Well, you said a moment ago that you’d like to have seen her face when she finally realized we weren’t going to show up for the wedding.”

  Janet raised her thinly plucked eyebrows. “So what?”

  “I just wish you and I had been honest with Linda. Simply told her a year ago that we were in love, and I was breaking off the engagement. It wouldn’t have been such a jolt to her. This going through the wedding rehearsal, then taking off on Saturday afternoon was your idea, you know. I shouldn’t have listened to you.”

  Janet’s eyes widened in disbelief and her face turned crimson. “Sure, it was my idea! I wanted to show that little pasty-faced, goody-goody sister of mine just what kind of contempt I have for her! She knows now, I can guarantee you. I hope it hurts all the way from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.”

  Lewis’s features paled. “There’s no need to be so unfeeling about it, Janet. Like I said, I shouldn’t have listened to you.”

  Janet moved up close to him, trying to subdue her anger. “Look, honey. It’s done now. Linda will get over it. We have each other. Let’s be happy. Okay? Give me a smile, now, and tell me it’s okay.”

  With effort Lewis said, “Sure, honey. It’s okay.”

  In spite of her parents’ optimism, Linda became more despondent as the days passed. She stayed in her room except to eat, and though well-wishers came by to see her, she holed up in her room and refused to see them. She prayed and tried to read her Bible, but the dead feeling inside kept her from getting hold of God and allowing the Word to penetrate her heart.

  On Friday evening—a week beyond the wedding rehearsal—the Forrests were invited to go out to dinner with Ed and Frances Diamond. Linda was given a special written invitation from Frances.

  Nolan and Adrienne stood in their daughter’s room, dressed to go out, and Adrienne said, “You have to start sometime, Linda. You can’t be a recluse for the rest of your life.”

  “I can if I want. I’m not going out there where the public is, Mom. We might run into other people we know. Besides, I’m not hungry.”

  Adrienne looked at her husband. “I don’t think we should go away and leave her.”

  “I don’t either,” Nolan said. “When Ed and Frances arrive, we’ll tell them we’ve changed our minds.”

  “No, Daddy,” Linda said. “You two go on. I’ll be fine. I like being alone.”

  Nolan and Adrienne discussed it for a minute while Linda insisted they go. Finally they gave in, kissed her good-bye, and said they would be home about ten o’clock.

  When Linda heard the front door close behind her parents and the Diamonds, she sat down in her chair by the window. Would this dead feeling never go away? Would she never have peace? Was she destined to live the rest of her life grieving over what her sister and fiancé had done to her?

  Suddenly she bolted for the door and ran down the hall toward the stairs, weeping. She dashed through the kitchen and out the back door, leaving it open.

  As she walked at a fast pace toward the harbor, a still, small voice kept saying inside her head, “My grace is sufficient for thee. My grace is sufficient for thee.”

  When she reached the harbor, she went to the very spot where she and Lewis had gone the night of the wedding rehearsal. She stood at the edge, and the wind plucked at her long auburn hair as she looked down into the deep black water some thirty feet below.

  Behind Linda, some distance away, a man in a blue uniform slid from his saddle and slowly made his way toward her. He was glad the slapping of the waves at the base of the ledge helped to cover the sound of his footsteps. His heart thudded against his rib cage when he drew close and reached out to grasp her shoulders.

  At the touch of his hands she let out a startled shriek.

  “Little lady,” he said, spinning her around so she could see his cap, uniform, and badge, “I’m just trying to keep you from jumping!”

  When Linda saw who it was, her heart pounded like a trip-hammer. “Oh! Officer Shanahan!”

  The graying policeman blinked, squinted, and said, “Hey, I know you! You and that young fella you were gonna marry were here just a few nights ago. Linda! Yes, that’s your name. He called you Linda. What are you doing here by yourself?”

  “The wedd
ing didn’t happen, Officer Shanahan,” she said flatly.

  “Oh? Can you tell me about it?”

  While the wind blew and the waves washed against the shore, Linda told the officer her story. When she finished, he said, “So you were gonna jump in and end it all, weren’t you?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Oh! No, sir! I … I’ve felt like I wanted to die and even said so several times, but I would never take my own life, sir. I’m a born-again Christian. I wouldn’t do that. I just came out here to get away from the house … and to pray. On my way here, I got real peace from the Lord. I kept thinking of that Scripture where the Lord told Paul: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee,’ and just about the time I reached the edge here, I broke down and cried, thanking the Lord for His sufficient grace. I’m all right, Officer. I’ll go home now.”

  “That ye will, lassy,” said Shanahan, “but my horse and I will escort you.”

  It was almost nine-thirty when Officer Patrick Shanahan and Linda Forrest turned the corner on her street. The horse carried Linda while Shanahan led him by the reins.

  Suddenly they heard a woman’s voice crying out hysterically as a buggy came bounding from the back of the Forrest house and hit the street.

  “Those are my parents!” Linda said. “They’re home early. They found me gone, and Mom’s terribly upset. Come on, we’ve got to stop them!”

  The buggy, however, turned their way. Immediately, Shanahan let go of the reins and dashed up under the nearest street lamp, waving his arms.

  Nolan Forrest drew the buggy to a halt, and Adrienne jumped out of the buggy and ran to her daughter, crying, “Linda-a-a-a! Where have you been?”

  While both parents held on to their daughter, the officer said, “I found her standin’ at the edge of the ’arbor, folks. We have people jump in quite often. I thought—”

  “Oh, Linda!” Adrienne gasped. “You were going to jump in! You’ve been saying you wished you could die! Oh-h-h-h!”

  “No, Mom. I wasn’t going to jump in. Yes, I was very upset. I left the house in that condition, but not to kill myself. I just wanted to go out to the harbor and look at the water in the dark. I’ll explain it better when we go into the house, but the Lord just showed me tonight that His grace is sufficient for my suffering, just as it was for a suffering apostle Paul.”

  Linda’s parents wept for joy, thanking God for answered prayer. Belatedly they turned to Officer Shanahan and thanked him for bringing their daughter home, then took her inside.

  Everybody in the Forrest household slept well that night.

  The next day was Saturday. Joline Jensen came by to see her best friend and was overjoyed to learn of the victory Linda had experienced the night before.

  The two young women went to Linda’s room to talk. Joline sat on the bed, and Linda sat in her padded chair. As the conversation progressed, Joline said, “Now that you’ve got peace in all of this, Linda, let me say something. God could have prevented what Lewis and Janet did to you. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “But He let it happen.”

  “Yes.”

  “The Lord let it happen, honey, because he has somebody better picked out for you. Certainly you want the husband God has chosen for you.”

  “Of course. But now I’m wondering if I can ever trust another man.”

  Joline smiled. “Remember the passage of Scripture Pastor Stanford was going to use in the wedding ceremony? From Ecclesiastes?”

  “Yes. ‘A time to love …’”

  “Sweet Linda, believe me, you will have your time to love. The Lord has the man, the time, and the place. Let Him work it out.”

  After Joline left, Linda gazed out the window at her mother’s flower garden in full glorious bloom. The sun was shining down out of a clear azure sky.

  There was deep peace in her heart now, and even though the ache was still there, it didn’t hurt as before. It had been cushioned by the love and care of her heavenly Father. With her gaze on the sun-kissed flowers, she prayed for guidance in her life, and a sense of sweet comfort flowed within her soul.

  She went to the closet and took her wedding dress and veil from their hanger, then went to the cedar chest and opened the lid. She carefully folded the dress and placed the veil inside it, then gently placed the folded dress on top of everything else in the chest and looked at it lovingly one last time.

  Then she firmly closed the lid on her past, and just as firmly tried to close the sad memories in her heart.

  When she returned to the window, Joline’s words came back to her mind: “Sweet Linda, believe me, you will have your time to love. The Lord has the man, the time, and the place. Let Him work it out.”

  6

  THE SKY OVER SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, was flat and gray. Outside the city to the west a large crowd had gathered on a hillside around an open grave. The wind whipped through the cemetery, rustling the full-leafed branches of the trees and toying with the sand-colored hair of handsome Blake Barrett.

  Next to Barrett stood Haman Warner, vice president of Sacramento’s Pacific Bank and Trust Company. Six pallbearers, one of whom was Haman Warner, had placed the expensive coffin on a small wooden platform next to the grave. A large bouquet of bright-colored flowers adorned the top of the coffin.

  Blake Barrett’s pastor, Duane Clarke, had just read a passage of Scripture and was commenting on it, making his gospel message quite clear, which he had also done in the service at the funeral chapel.

  The deceased was fifty-five-year-old Bradley Barrett, Blake’s father. Bradley had founded the Pacific Bank and Trust Company some twenty years previously, and it had grown into a solid, profitable institution.

  Blake’s heart was heavy with the knowledge that he would not see his father in heaven. He wiped a hand across his face as if he could pull off and cast away the unease he felt. Bradley Barrett had been a stubborn man and early in life had set his mind on the belief that the Bible was only a book written by fools and fanatics. He had died a blatant infidel.

  Blake thought of his darling mother, who had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ a few years after she married Bradley Barrett. It was Clara Barrett who had led Blake to the Lord when he was nine years old. Blake took comfort as he stood on the bleak, windy hillside that his mother was waiting for him in heaven, as was his younger brother, Brett, who had died in infancy.

  Pastor Duane Clarke closed the graveside service in prayer, then stepped up to Blake, put an arm around his shoulder, and said, “I hope you feel I handled it all right, Blake.”

  Haman Warner looked on solemnly as Blake said, “You sure did, Pastor. There was no way you could say Dad was in heaven, though a lot of preachers would have said so just to comfort his friends. I appreciate the way you handled it with kindness and compassion, yet didn’t compromise Bible truth. And you certainly made salvation clear enough. No one can walk away from here and say they’ve never heard how to be saved. Thank you for being so faithful to the Word of God.”

  The pastor nodded and made way for the mourners to offer their condolences to Blake. Haman Warner stayed by Blake’s side.

  A few members of the church waited until the bank employees, businessmen, merchants, and other people of the town and surrounding area had passed by before speaking to Blake.

  Blake smiled at Bill and Evelyn Borah as they drew up with their two daughters, Susan and Lucy, along with Susan’s husband, Ralph Duncan, and Lucy’s fiancé, Cliff Winters. When each had conveyed their love and sympathy, Blake said to Bill, “Dad’s death has slowed us up a couple of days on your loan application. But I can tell you right now, there won’t be any problem. I’ve got to meet with our attorneys about Dad’s estate early this afternoon, but I should be able to complete the loan work before quitting time. I’ll eat supper at the cafe this evening. I can give you the details then.”

  Borah shook his head. “Blake, you can work on my loan tomorrow. I mean … after all, you’re burying your dad today.”

  “It’s al
l right, Bill. Business still has to go on, and you need to know about the loan so you can hire a contractor to put the addition on the cafe. I’ll see you this evening.”

  The last to approach Blake was Nora Clarke, the pastor’s wife. Her husband stood behind her. Nora embraced Blake in sisterly fashion and said, “God bless you, Blake. You’ve held up well.”

  Blake managed a slight smile. “The Lord has given me peace, Nora. Sure, it hurts to know Dad died lost, but the Comforter, who lives in my heart, has eased the pain.”

  The Clarkes spent a few more minutes with Blake, then walked away. Haman Warner, who had stood silently beside the grieving Barrett all this time, laid a hand on his arm and said, “I’d better get back to the bank.”

  Blake nodded. “Thanks for the support here. I appreciate it.”

  Haman, who was exactly Blake’s height at just under six feet, said, “Hey, Blake. What are friends for?”

  The clouds were breaking up, and warm shafts of sunshine touched the earth as Blake Barrett approached the law offices of Laymon, Studdard, and Griswold. His mind was on Haman Warner. Haman was not a Christian, though Blake had witnessed to him for the past four years.

  As Blake stepped into the outer office of the law firm, he was greeted with a smile by secretary Veronica Naylor. Veronica was a widow in her late fifties, and Blake was aware that she was about to leave her job and go south to Los Angeles to live with her sister, who was also widowed.

  Seated at the desk next to Veronica was a lovely young woman whom Blake had yet to meet.

  “Hello, Mr. Barrett,” Veronica said. “Please know that you have my condolences.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’d like you to meet Linnie Chapman, Mr. Barrett,” Veronica said, nodding at the pretty lady, whom Blake guessed would be about twenty-five. “Miss Linnie Chapman.”

  Blake did a half bow and said, “My pleasure, Miss Chapman. Am I to assume you’re going to take Veronica’s place?”