Where She Belongs

by Johnnie Alexander

  “You asked. Besides, not talking about it doesn’t make it go away.”

  “You can’t leave.”

  “If they win, I’ll have no choice.”

  “Where would you go?” The tone of his pitch tightened. “Not back to Chicago?”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere.” But since receiving the summons, an unexpected idea had niggled its way into her heart. As reluctant as she was to accept it, she couldn’t ignore it either.

  “Maybe God has a different plan for me.”

  “Such as?” His voice slightly cracked, and he cleared his throat.

  “I moved here to re-create memories.” She looked past him to the washstand. “But I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a mom.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I love this place. But I’ve realized what I love most are the memories I have of my grandparents. All the things we did together, the special connection I had with them.”

  “It’s an important legacy. Not everybody has that.”

  “I have a responsibility to give that kind of legacy to my children.”

  “But your parents are in Africa.”

  “I know.”

  He stared at her, his eyes widening. “You’re taking them to Africa?”

  Her eyes burned, and she bit her lip. The mere thought of returning to the mission field filled her with dread. But what if that’s where God wanted her to be?

  “Maybe that’s where we belong.” She rubbed her thumb against the solid gold of her wedding band. If she’d stayed at the mission instead of coming back to the States, she would never have met Gary. Never have been in a marriage that didn’t work. Never have known the grief of being a twenty-eight-year-old widow.

  Never have had Elizabeth and Tabby.

  “Wow.” AJ turned the exclamation into a two-syllable word. He laced his fingers behind his head and held his elbows tight against his cheekbones.

  “Maybe Mozambique is my spacious place.”

  “Your spacious place?”

  She nodded. “It’s what your gran told me. That day I ran away, and she found me by the ’gagement tree.”

  “‘He brought me out into a spacious place,’” AJ quoted.

  “‘He rescued me because he delighted in me.’”

  “It was one of Gran’s favorite themes. There’s another Scripture too, she used to say. ‘I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. You have not given me into the hands of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.’ Psalm 31:7 and 8.”

  “She said that to me too.” Shelby closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to leave here. I loved my parents, but I never wanted to go with them.”

  “But you want to go now?”

  Looking down at her hands, she barely shook her head. “It was their dream, their calling. Not mine.”

  “I’m not a theologian.” AJ sighed heavily. “God knows I have my own questions about his will for my life. But Shelby, if God wanted you overseas, don’t you think he’d put that dream in your heart?”

  “My girls are growing up without knowing my parents.” That heartache had been with her since Elizabeth was born. Now, to pursue her own obsessive dream, she’d moved them away from Gary’s parents. Guilt pressed against her spirit. Sometimes it seemed nothing she did was right.

  “Is there any chance your parents will move back here?”

  “They came home when I got married and after the girls were born. But they always seemed restless to get back.”

  She had tried to understand the calling they felt so strongly, the eternal perspective they brought to every decision they made. But if they wanted to be near their granddaughters, they could come home. As far as she knew, they’d never even considered the possibility.

  “Sometimes I think . . .” She hesitated, unsure about sharing her secret fear with him.

  “You think what?”

  “I think they might love their mission more than us. More than me.”

  “That can’t be true, Shelby.” He slipped his arm across her shoulders and drew her close. She nestled her head against his shoulder, breathing in the familiar notes of his aftershave.

  “I want to believe I’d do anything for God that he wanted me to do,” she said softly. “But I don’t have their commitment.” Though that was her own fault. Somehow she’d become a Sunday morning Christian, sliding into a meaningless routine of worship, service, and prayer.

  Several months ago, convicted of her negligence, she’d lain on the floor beside her bed in tearful remorse. Holding on to the multiple Scriptures promising God’s steadfast love, she’d sought his guidance.

  “With all my heart, I believed God brought me home to Misty Willow. But what if it was all wishful thinking?”

  “He did bring you here, Shelby.” AJ rested his chin against her forehead. “He knew I needed you.”

  “I need you too.” A lone tear dampened her cheek. “But Meghan and Jonah need you most.”

  While eating a bowl of stale Cheerios at the kitchen counter, Brett read everything he could find online about Jonah’s accident. Next, he internet-stalked Travis McCurry, even paying a public records site to gain information about his employment history. And his arrest record.

  This wasn’t the first time the creep had been charged with a DUI.

  What was a girl like Meghan doing with a guy like that?

  Brett scanned the next document, then reopened a news site about the accident. It had occurred on Meghan’s second wedding anniversary. At least, what would have been their anniversary if not for the divorce that had been finalized two months ago.

  But those details didn’t answer the question that was eating Brett up inside. Why was Jonah in the car with McCurry?

  He ran Meghan through the same public records search firm but didn’t find much. After leaving college, she’d somehow managed to stay under Big Brother’s radar until her current residential address in Brennan Grove, Michigan, popped up. She’d moved there shortly before marrying McCurry. A few months ago, he had moved out.

  Brett set aside the iPad, then rinsed out the cereal bowl and stuck it in the dishwasher. He picked up a glass dessert bowl near the sink and started to rinse it too when he realized it held a ring. Sparkling diamonds surrounded a finely cut amethyst set in a white gold band.

  Tracie’s birthstone. The only thing about her that wasn’t artificial.

  The ring clinked as he dropped it back into the bowl, then he placed the bowl in a cupboard. No need to risk losing the ring down the drain before he decided what to do with it. Tracie had probably left it on purpose as a ploy to force another face-to-face between them. But that wasn’t happening.

  After wandering to his bedroom, he opened the top drawer of a mahogany highboy and removed an ebony box. Inside were a few odds and ends—his father’s cufflinks, an old-fashioned diamond tie clip, a few foreign coins. And a jeweler’s box he’d found hidden in Sully’s office safe after his death.

  He lifted the lid, and the solitaire diamond, elegantly set in a white gold band, sparkled brightly as if all its fire were suddenly freed from the box’s confines.

  When he’d asked Richard about the ring, the old man’s cryptic explanation was that Sully bought the ring for the woman he loved, but she’d died to him. Those had been Richard’s exact words. “She died to him.” But he wouldn’t say any more.

  So Sully had loved someone before he loved Gran. If he’d ever loved Gran at all.

  Brett rotated the ring beneath the soft light of a table lamp, entranced by the crisp lines of color sparkling from the finely cut diamond. Was it a symbol of deep, eternal love? Or of love spurned?

  Unless Richard divulged the secret, he’d probably never know.

  For too many years, Brett had discarded one luscious blonde for another, knowing from the first kiss she wouldn’t claim his heart. A long line of Tracie clones.

  After all, that was the point. To be the he
artbreaker, not the heartbroken.

  He put the ring in the box and snapped the lid, dousing the brilliant fire of a love longed for and never found.

  The story of his life.

  – 35 –

  Shelby opened the closet door beneath the hallway stairs and snapped on the light. “It’s through here. In the back.”

  She removed about a third of the clothes hanging from the rod, opened the opposite door, and laid them across her bed.

  “Let me help.” AJ removed the remaining hangers.

  “One nice thing about moving upstairs is that I’ll have more closet space.” If she moved upstairs. That stage of her renovation project might never happen.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “It’s hard not to think about it. I had such plans.”

  “Don’t give up before we’ve even started the fight.”

  He was trying so hard to reassure her, and she loved him for it. But some dreams weren’t meant to come true.

  She smiled gamely and squeezed past him into the closet. With both the doors opened, it formed a passageway from the study, currently being used as her bedroom, and the main hallway.

  Kneeling, she crawled toward the back where the ceiling sloped from the stairs. Examining the floorboards with her fingers, she found the notch and lifted the trapdoor. Behind her, AJ held it up while she hooked a latch attached to the sloping ceiling to a metal eye imbedded in the door.

  “Will that hold it?”

  “Should. Grandpa got stuck down there once when he was a kid, so his dad added the latch.”

  “Wonder what they did before then.”

  “They were careful.”

  “Guess they had to be.”

  “Are you ready?”

  In the dim light, his dark eyes shone with adventure. “Shouldn’t I go first?”

  “I know where the light is. Just pray it still works.” Shelby lowered herself through the opening, her feet seeking a toehold in the ladder built into the wall of the underground room. About halfway down, she reached to the side for the light switch and twisted the old-fashioned fixture. A solitary ceiling bulb flickered then glowed, lighting the dank interior.

  She dropped to the floor and scanned the space while waiting for AJ to descend the ladder. The room, its walls lined with brick, hid below the closet and the study. Spiderwebs draped across wooden bunks forming an L against two walls, and a rickety table stood beneath the bare lightbulb. Plywood covered most of the dirt floor.

  “This is how it was? Before emancipation?”

  “It might have been a little more comfortable,” she said, amused by the awe in his voice. “You know, mattresses covered with ticking. Quilts. Food and water.”

  “Do you have any idea how many runaways stayed here?”

  “Dozens. Perhaps hundreds.” She rubbed her arms, slightly chilled. “I don’t know if they kept records.”

  “Probably too dangerous.”

  “According to Grandpa’s stories, not everyone around here was sympathetic to the cause, at least not until the war started. Then folks jumped on the bandwagon, at least for a while. As the war dragged on, though, resentment seemed to build. That’s why Eliza hid Jeb in the cabin.”

  “A Confederate in Union territory,” AJ mused aloud. “They probably had kin fighting those upstart Johnny Rebs.” He said it pompously, as if imitating a staunch Unionist.

  Shelby chuckled at him, then grew serious. “They did. But so did Eliza. Her brother almost died in Andersonville.”

  “But that didn’t stop her from loving her enemy.”

  His eyes revealed the deeper meaning behind his words. But he wasn’t her enemy anymore. In the past few days, he’d become something so much more.

  Which was only making it harder to listen for God’s still, small voice.

  Pausing outside Jonah’s door, Brett took a deep breath to compose himself. Coming to the hospital this late was insane. But at least AJ wouldn’t be there, basking in his new role of wannabe dad.

  He’d usurped Brett’s place at the boy’s side long enough. Just as Brett had done with Meghan all those years ago.

  She should have told him the truth then.

  Stepping away from the door, he stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned against the opposite wall. He couldn’t barge in there slinging accusations, not if he was going to get any answers.

  Maybe he should forget the whole thing, go home, and get some sleep. Or better yet, get drunk.

  Great idea, ’cause he really wanted to be another Travis McCurry.

  “God, help me,” he murmured, staring at the ceiling as he admitted it was more of a prayer than he’d intended.

  He didn’t think it likely, but perhaps Meghan believed AJ was the boy’s father. And even if she didn’t, any woman given the choice between AJ and Brett in such dire circumstances would choose a sympathetic shoulder over arrogance.

  As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t blame her for naming AJ as the father of her unborn child. Or her naiveté in believing his cousin could solve all her problems. She hadn’t reckoned on Sully’s ferocious response when the future he’d planned for his favorite grandson was threatened by a nobody from nowhere.

  Did she even know what it had cost AJ when he later stood up to Sully? By then it’d been too late for AJ to help Meghan—he couldn’t even find her—but Sully refused to forgive him for trying. The grudge benefited Brett, but he’d paid a price too.

  He’d fooled himself into believing he could have any woman he wanted, but if that were true, he’d have a woman worth keeping.

  His life was in a downward spiral, and Amy’s was too. If something didn’t change, they’d both be lost.

  The door to Jonah’s room opened, and Meghan stepped into the hallway. Loose strands of her blonde hair, tied in an awkward ponytail, feathered her temples. Her gray eyes widened, and her complexion paled. “Brett.” She stepped back against the closed door.

  He straightened but gave her space. “Hi, Meghan.”

  The cute college co-ed had matured into a beautiful woman, but the weary slump of her shoulders and the dark circles around her large eyes reminded him of Cossette on the classic Les Misérables posters.

  Her vulnerability tugged at his heart, ripping the scab from a wound he’d denied for years.

  “What are you doing here?” Her voice quivered.

  Fear or anger, he couldn’t tell which.

  “I came to see you.” He gestured toward the room. “To see . . .” He cleared his throat. “To see him.”

  “Him?” She huffed and shook her head in disgust. “He has a name.”

  “Jonah. I came to see Jonah.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “You can’t keep him from me forever.”

  “Can’t I?”

  Searching her eyes, he tried to find the truth in their gray depths. But her hardened expression told him nothing.

  He nodded at the wallet she carried. “Going somewhere?”

  “Vending machines.”

  “How about we go down to the cafeteria?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Okay. The vending machines it is.”

  “I don’t recall inviting you along.”

  “Then I’ll stay here.” With two long strides, he was beside her, his hand pressed against the door. “Wait for you to get back.”

  She stared at him, as if weighing his unspoken threat.

  “This way.”

  At the end of the hall, a few vending machines occupied an alcove in a small waiting area. Brett pulled cash out of his billfold. “Allow me.”

  “Money’s always the solution, isn’t it?”

  “Just being a gentleman.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  He bit his lip and slid a couple of ones in a machine containing beverages and a couple more in one with chips and candy. “Take your pick.”

  She punched buttons for bottled water and pretzels. Brett gathered h
is change and bought another water and M&M’s.

  Meghan led the way to a table next to a window. City lights competed with the few stars pinpointing the night sky. Brett sat across from her and opened the water bottles.

  “How are you, Meghan?”

  “How do you think?”

  “You look tired.”

  “That’s probably because I don’t sleep much.”

  “Do you have to stay here?”

  She gave him a disbelieving look. “Where else would I stay?”

  He squirmed. “I don’t know. A hotel?”

  “Right.” She pressed her lips together and rotated the bottle cap between her fingers.

  “If it’s a question of money . . .” He held out his hands, palms up, before the retort spitting from her eyes came out of her mouth. “I’m just trying to help you out here.”

  “AJ offered his grandmother’s house.”

  If she’d meant to wound him by the comparison, she’d succeeded. “Did he tell you she died a few weeks ago?”

  Her eyes flickered with regret, but she said nothing.

  “Why didn’t you take him up on it?”

  She stared at the table, her body tense and withdrawn. “I can’t leave Jonah here alone.”

  “How is he?”

  “About the same.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means he just lies there. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t do anything.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “To give him time.”

  “That sounds hopeful.”

  “Yeah.” She took another sip of water then suddenly stood. “I’m full of hope.” Grabbing her pretzels, she left the room.

  “Where are you going?” Catching up to her, he grabbed her elbow and forced her to face him. “I know the truth.”

  She twisted, but he didn’t let go.

  “What truth?”

  “You know what truth.” He released her arm, and she rubbed her elbow. “You may want AJ to be Jonah’s dad, but you and I both know he’s not.”

  Tears darkened Meghan’s eyes and moistened her cheeks. “I knew this would happen. It’s what I’ve been dreading ever since AJ showed up in Toledo.”