by Heather Gray
Gavin’s wonder grew. She must be desperate for advice to be coming to him, a virtual stranger, for something so personal.
“Eli never complains or puts up a fuss when I ask him to pray, and he goes to church without complaint, but he always seems to be fiddling with his phone when we’re there. I never see him reading his Bible or trying to get involved with the youth group or doing things it seems a teen who loves God ought to be doing.”
“In other words, he’s not doing things exactly the same way you would do them.”
Avery lifted her hands and said, “See? I don’t know if I’m reading him right. I’m afraid if I keep trying to push him toward God, I’ll end up pushing him away without meaning to.”
“Did he used to be more active in those things?”
She nodded and said, “I worry he’s going through the motions because he thinks it’s expected. What if it’s all just an obligation he feels he has toward me? It needs to be something that’s in his heart where it can change him from the inside out. I want him to have a vibrant relationship with Jesus, but I don’t see it in him. You’re objective. What do you see?”
Gavin knew he needed to choose his words carefully. “I don’t know Eli well enough to be able to answer your questions. From my own personal experience, though, I can tell you men express their faith differently than women. You may not see it oozing out of his pores, but that doesn’t mean the boy’s not filled with faith. Even as his mother, you can’t know what’s in his heart.”
When his guest said nothing, he asked, “Are you the type of parent who helps with homework or who does the homework for their child?”
Squinting at him, she answered, “I help when he needs it. He won’t learn anything if I do it for him.”
Gavin maintained that eye contact and asked, “Isn’t this the same? You have to allow Eli to find his own path with God, to make his own choices. You can’t do the homework for him, not if you want him to get anything out of it.”
Avery broke eye contact and sighed.
“You don’t have to care for my answer, but I think if you want to know where Eli is in his relationship with God, you should ask him. He’s the only one who can tell you what he’s really thinking.”
“I don’t want to put him on the spot,” she answered.
“From what I’ve observed of the relationship you two share, he won’t be offended by your question, and he won’t lie to you. That’s my take on things, anyway. Like I said, you know him a lot better.”
“He felt terrible for bringing your mom up.”
It appeared she was done with the topic of her son’s faith. He allowed the change in subject. After all, she was the one who’d brought it up in the first place. She ought to have the right to say when they were done talking about it.
“Eli’s a good kid, Avery. You’ve got a lot to be proud of.”
Avery’s hands relaxed in her lap. She dug the toe of her shoe into the carpet and pushed her chair back and forth in a small rotation. “Can I ask you something else?”
Not bothering to hold back his smile, Gavin said, “Ask away.”
“Why’d you disappear? You were a rising star in photojournalism. You were on your way to the top, but then you vanished.”
Gavin felt the familiar tightening in his chest and the pinprick sensation moving across his back. “My mom got sick.”
He could see the question on Avery’s face, even if she was too sensitive to ask it.
“Leukemia. The diagnosis was bad. The doctors didn’t give her long to live. My mom had given up her dreams to raise me. We’d always been close, but when she got sick, I knew I had to be there for her. I had some things in my life I regretted, but they were on me. They weren’t things that affected other people. But this was my mom. If I bailed on her, if I couldn’t handle being there and seeing her sick, I would know for the rest of my life, I’d hurt her, and if she died, it wouldn’t be the kind of hurt I could ever apologize for.”
Gavin ran a hand along his jawline, feeling the brush of scruff against his palm. He peeked at Avery and saw sympathy in her gaze. Sympathy, but not pity.
“I broke all my contracts and came home to be with Mom. I moved back in, took her to all her appointments, played board games with her on her good days, read to her on her bad ones. She fought to live, and she did that for me. One of her nurses came to see me afterward. As bad as things were, she told me, most people would have been gone at least a year sooner. Mom fought to live because I asked her to. She did everything she could to stay alive because she loved me.”
Tears burned and threatened to spill over. He blinked, trying to put a lid back on the emotion. “She’s gone, and I miss her, but I will forever know I did all I could to help her and that I gave her the best of me in her final years. In the end, it wasn’t enough, but I did everything I could.”
Avery blinked rapidly and wiped at her eyes. “I think men and women handle things differently.”
He stared at her, nonplussed. Hadn’t he just said that, but about faith?
She chuckled. “Okay, I know. Obvious. Hear me out anyway.”
He nodded for her to continue. She tugged at the scarf around her neck, the feminine one she’d been wearing when they’d first met, not his bulky one.
“When a woman sees someone she loves in pain, her natural instinct is to comfort and nurture. No matter how bad the situation is, a woman can find a way to be useful. She can ease the pain or difficulty of the situation in any number of ways.”
Avery paused as if carefully choosing her words. “When a man sees someone he loves in pain, his natural instinct is to protect and defend. He puts the person he loves behind him and raises his sword and shield to fight off the enemy and keep his loved one safe.” She blinked slowly as he watched her. “There are some things against which no man can defend. I’m sure you did everything you could to protect your mother, but you were never going to be able to protect her from leukemia.”
What she said made perfect sense. Gavin cocked his head to the side. “That’s an interesting perspective.”
Avery pulled at her scarf and dipped her chin low, breaking eye contact. “It’s something I learned when I was pregnant with Eli. The way my parents handled things was… different. My dad let guilt eat away at him and get in the way of our relationship because he thought he should have protected me better. That’s been years ago, and we’re all fine today, but it’s a lesson I’ve always remembered.”
Wanting to break through the fog of emotion in the room, Gavin winked at her and said, “You’re smarter than you look.”
She shook her head and said, “That’s another thing I know about men. They crack jokes when things get serious.”
Rising from the bed, Gavin gave her a thoughtful look and said, “We might try to lighten the mood, but don’t take that to mean we didn’t hear the message.”
****
Avery gazed into Gavin’s intense brown eyes and thought she might melt into a puddle on the spot. Is this what a hot flash feels like? She held herself together enough to nod acknowledgement, but she was ever–so-thankful when he wheeled around and headed toward the door.
“I’m going to ask at the front desk and see if they have a screwdriver and some duct tape I can use. If I’m lucky, they’ll let me pull the car in under the front portico out of the snow.”
The mention of her fluffy white nemesis served as a cold shower. “Is it still snowing out there?”
“I took a glimpse out the window when I first woke. It doesn’t look to be coming down much anymore, but the streets are still covered. I’m guessing everybody got overwhelmed by the magnitude of the storm.”
“Especially if they believed it would stay to the south the way we did.”
“According to the television, the worst of it is still staying well to the south of here, but as a result, most of the resources to help with people and roads are being sent there as well, leaving the people this far north in a bit of a bind.” Gavin s
tood up and stretched. “Feel free to hang out here, but make sure you lock up if you leave.” Then he stuck his room key in his back pocket and headed toward the door. “I’ll go see what I can do to get the window fixed.”
Avery nodded but stayed quiet. What I really want is a shower, but I think I’ll head back to my own room for that, thank you very much.
Gavin had kindness in him. She could see it in his eyes and in the way he treated the people around him. He took the time to talk to people. Whether it was the mechanic, the cashier at a gas station, or the front desk clerk at a hotel – he made friends everywhere he went because he was nice to everybody and took the time to treat them as individuals. More of a straight-to-the-point person, Avery knew the niceties of conversation had never been her strong suit. She could learn a thing or two from Gavin.
But first – hot shower!
****
Gavin was able to get the window secured in place much more quickly than Avery had anticipated. She was still fresh from the shower when he knocked at her door and said, “It’s ready. Let’s grab a bite to eat and blow this joint!”
They decided, for the sake of getting to Nowhere before midnight, they would get fast food and eat in the car.
“I’ll take this stretch,” Gavin said, climbing into the driver’s seat. Avery, who wasn’t used to being told what to do, wasn’t nearly as bothered by his high-handed controlling of the situation as much as she thought she ought to be.
In short order, Eli was speaking around a bite of hamburger. “It’s almost like, if we take too long… if we stop to get a bite to eat or anything, it’s exactly enough time for something else to go wrong with the car.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” his mother corrected.
“And if you’re going to say things like to that,” Gavin added with a wince, “it might be best not to talk at all.”
The nap had done Avery good. She felted rested and ready to tackle whatever else came up. It would be nice if nothing else came up.
Chapter Twelve
Memphis, TX
December 24, 6:30 p.m.
As Gavin, who was driving, crumbled up the wrapper from his burger and stuffed into the empty bag between their seats, he said to Avery, “So tell me about your parents. You know a fair amount about my family. Tell me about yours.”
“Grandma and Grandpa are cool,” Eli said. “They got me my first cellphone!”
Avery rolled her eyes. “Can you believe it? They bought him a smart phone and put him on their plan way back before I could even afford to have one of my own. Talk about power going to a kid’s head.” She waggled her fingers at Eli in the rearview mirror.
Gavin studied her, an expectant look on his face. “You want the whole kit and caboodle, huh?”
“Yeah. Give me the background. Where you grew up. What they did for a living. The works.”
“I grew up in Rio Rancho, north of Albuquerque. My folks still live there today in the same home where they raised me. Good, God-fearing folks. Hard-working. Best parents a girl could ask for.”
“So,” Gavin said, “basically the American dream?”
She laughed self-consciously. “More or less, yeah.”
“What’d they do for a living?”
“My dad’s a pulmonologist. My mom stayed home with me when I was growing up, but when I got older, she got a part-time job as a receptionist in a dental office.”
Gavin sounded surprised when he asked, “They’re still working?”
Avery nodded. “They’re in their fifties. Dad still works full-time, and Mom has kept her part-time job all these years.”
From her vantage point, Avery saw his eyebrows lift then relax back into place. He started tapping one of his fingers on the steering wheel. She knew he wanted to ask. What went wrong? How’d you end up pregnant and unmarried? The question was there on his face, but she figured he wasn’t going to ask it with her son right there in the car. He’d probably say it a lot more tactfully, too.
Eli also picked up on it. With a shake of his head, the teen said, “I’ve asked him all kinds of personal questions. I’m pretty sure you can tell him where babies come from. Seems a trustworthy sort.”
Gavin sputtered, and Avery gulped down the drink of water she’d just taken. “Eli, really.”
He grinned unrepentantly and put his earbuds back into place.
****
Gavin glanced over at Avery and saw the blush staining her cheeks. Eli sure did know how to push his mom’s buttons. In his own way, he’d given her permission to tell Gavin about where he’d come from.
Returning his eyes to the road, he waited for Avery to speak. A couple minutes passed before she began.
“I was a junior in college. I was working for the campus newspaper chasing an article about the campus ROTC programs.”
“Chasing?” he asked.
From the corner of his eye, he caught her shrug. “It seemed like a big story at the time. As it turns out, in the whole scheme of things, it wasn’t such a big deal. While I was on the story, I met this airman. He was smart, handsome, funny… all the things I wanted in a man.” She ran her fingers through her hair and said, “All the things I thought I wanted, anyway. I was a little too young to realize that wasn’t the complete package.”
When she paused, he asked, “What was missing from the package?”
“Commitment, mostly. Some other things, too, but mostly commitment.”
Gavin had the feeling she was leaving some parts of the story out in deference to her son, sitting a short distance behind them.
“We dated for about eight months. I fell crazy-out-of-control in love. He proposed, and I said yes. As a low-ranking second lieutenant, he didn’t make a lot of money. So I was going to have to wait for a ring. I didn’t mind. We were in love and engaged.”
“What changed?”
She sighed. “He got his orders. Deployment was coming. I wanted to get married before he left, but he wanted to wait till he got back. This man I loved was going into harm’s way and might not come back to me alive. It was overwhelming. Then he said he wanted something to remember me by. I said no, but he kept bringing it up. Eventually I said yes. I probably would have done anything he’d asked by then. I didn’t want to see him go, and I believed we’d be getting married when he returned.”
Gavin, fearing the worst, asked, “Did he return?”
She snorted. “He didn’t die, if that’s what you mean.”
That was exactly what he’d meant.
“He never intended to marry me. More than one girl on that campus got played by him the exact same way. How he managed to keep us all straight is beyond me. It turned out I was the only one in his little collection who’d planned to wait till she was married to, um, get involved like that… which meant I was also the only one not already on the pill.”
Gavin would have punched the guy if he’d been there. His hands clenched around the steering wheel, and he felt the muscles in his back and neck tense. Keeping his voice modulated, he said, “I’m sorry he treated you that way.”
Avery shrugged. “We all have to learn the harsh realities of life eventually. I learned while I was in college. Unfortunately, that meant Eli had to learn as an infant.”
“He seems to have handled it well.”
“I’m blessed. He’s a good kid. And I got to finish college. By the time I realized I was pregnant, I was already partway into my senior year, and the airman in question hadn’t replied to any of my emails in months. I did the only thing I could at that point. I went home and told my parents.”
Gavin winced. He knew she was on good terms with her parents, but that had to have been a difficult task for her to face.
“They never wavered in their love, and they never blamed me. I have amazing parents, and I know how fortunate I am in that regard.” She fidgeted with her water bottle for a while before taking a drink. Then she said, “With their help, I was able to finish college and serve an internship with a loc
al newspaper. I don’t know where Eli and I would be if it hadn’t been for them.”
“Did you tell him he was going to be a father?”
“I did,” she said. “Email, snail-mail, airmail – I tried everything I could think of until the mail started getting returned unopened. A friend of mine was dating someone in his unit, so I knew when he returned stateside. He was hale and hearty, no injuries to speak of. I assume he got at least one of the messages I sent telling him I was pregnant.”
With a half-shrug, she added, “He never looked me up after he returned. Eventually he got stationed elsewhere and left the area. It’s not as though my name has changed, and I made sure he had my parents’ address before he left. He’s had plenty of opportunity to find me in the years since, but as far as I know, he’s never tried. At some point, I stopped wondering if I’d hear from him.”
“I’ve read some of your articles. You’re always supportive of those who serve in the armed forces. I guess I’m kind of surprised after hearing your story. It would have been easy for you to hold his actions against everyone who ever put on a uniform.”
Avery shook her head. “Nah. If I buy a bag of oranges, and the first one I pull out is rotten, I’m not going to assume the whole bag needs to be tossed. It happened that the first man I got involved with was a rotten orange. His being in the military was coincidence. I’m pretty sure he would have been a rotten orange no matter what his career.”
“On behalf of men everywhere, I apologize for the rotten orange.”
“It’s okay,” she said with a half-smile. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I’d kick him as hard as I could if I saw him now, but not because of me.”
“Because of Eli,” Gavin guessed.
She nodded.
“Hard as it may be to swallow, Eli might be better off without him. I mean, if this is the kind of man he is, then what kind of influence would he be on your son?”
“I know,” she said, “but every child should know they’re loved. Every child should feel valued. No child should have to grow up knowing one of their parents didn’t want them.”