Like Always
Page 28
Mike had extra incentive, and Will didn’t blame him. Merit had thought a lot of Stephanie too, because she brought a bit of sunshine with her wherever she went—like now. She handed Sydney to him while she checked the cash register.
“Should we surprise them at church?” he asked Sydney in a soft voice, walking around the store with her in his arms and recognizing without a doubt his wife’s sparkling blue eyes. He nearly had to look away. But his precious, costly little girl smiled up at him, and for the first time he knew—he really knew.
“Your momma did the right thing, sweetheart.” It was a whisper between just the two of them, a covenant. “Someday I’ll tell you all about her.”
When he looked back at Mike and Steph, the answer seemed obvious.
“Maybe this next Sunday.” He meant it this time, though he wasn’t quite ready to admit out loud that he needed something more, something like Merit always used to have. Everybody knew she’d been the one to believe and accept, even when things looked bad or when God seemed to have other plans.
But he couldn’t piggyback on her faith anymore. Wouldn’t want to anyway. And he was tired of running on empty.
“Is your dad preaching, Stephanie?” Obvious question, but it kept the conversation going without sounding too needy.
“Every Sunday morning, if we can get him back from fishing in time.”
Will smiled. “Yeah, I see him head out early these days.”
Michael walked around the store, nose upturned, sniffing the air. “You smell that, Dad?” he asked.
“Gas rag.” Will pointed his thumb toward the trash can, and Michael followed the odor.
“Whoa, better get rid of that thing. Don’t want to set the place on fire. You know, spontaneous combustion.” He crossed his arms and turned toward his dad. “Smells like you managed to spill gas all over yourself too. Better let Steph take the baby for now, and maybe I should handle the pump this afternoon.”
“Be my guest.”
They walked out together while Stephanie set Sydney in a crib behind the counter, as Merit might have done. She walked the trash can out the door, waved it in their direction, and set it down on the dock. Michael waved back that he would take care of it.
“Think she might be a keeper?” Will asked as they passed a Fish and Game poster on fish species in Lake Pend Oreille.
It was a dumb question, but Michael flashed him a quick, shy smile as they walked down the dock toward the boathouse, the kind he wore when he scored a basket and glanced up at his parents in the bleachers. Just a flash of teeth and a little Michael Sullivan sparkle of the eyes, nothing more. Will hadn’t seen that smile, though, since Michael had returned from the Middle East.
“A keeper? Now you’re talking like an Idaho guy, Dad.”
“Think so?”
A pair of noisy Canada geese fluttered just ahead of Jake Halliday’s J24, sails snapping to attention before an afternoon breeze. Jake never used his outboard, saying there was no challenge in it. The geese didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
“Yeah, I guess you are.” Michael stopped for a moment and looked back at the store. “But, Dad?”
Will knew what his son was going to ask, but he waited just to be sure.
“How did you know you were going to marry Mom?”
That explained the look back toward the store, the way Mike and Stephanie held hands, their long walks in the woods. He smiled a little inside. Mike couldn’t do much better.
“I almost didn’t,” he answered, “on account of her crazy family.”
“No kidding? You mean like Aunt Sydney-crazy, or another kind of crazy? How come you haven’t told me this story before?”
“Never seemed like the right time. But her parents were even worse.”
“I heard a few things, but…”
“They were the original hippies, your mom liked to say. Hippies before there were hippies…”
He couldn’t help smiling as he retold the story and they continued to the boathouse. As they talked, he tried not to see Merit in Michael’s eyes or in the gentle way his lips turned up in a smile. Tried not to, but did.
And for the first time in his life, he realized he’d forgotten his son was adopted.
His heart still ached just as much as it had last month, just as much as it did when Merit made her decision months before that, but when he rested a hand on Michael’s shoulder, the heartache softened just a bit. And when he had finished his story, they stood watching the sailboats cross paths out in the bay, listening to the rustle of sails as they flew across the blue water, and the shrieks of Abby and Olivia as they chased each other down the docks.
“Your mom really loved this place.”
“I know she did. She loved a lot.”
Will didn’t mean to look back at the store window, but when he did, he caught Stephanie watching them, holding little Sydney in her arms. The little Sydney Merit had only been able to hold a precious few times before…
Michael was right. Merit did love a lot.
“Glad you’re back, Mike,” he told his son, mussing his hair. “Glad I’m back too.”
Michael didn’t duck the way he did when he was a kid. He let his father muss all he wanted.
“So am I, Dad. So am I.”
acknowledgments
This story was inspired by the true-life news account of Rita Fedrizzi, a forty-one-year-old Italian woman who found out she had cancer at the same time she learned she was pregnant with her third child. When I read a newspaper article about her some years back, I immediately tore it out and saved it for my story idea file.
And sure enough, Fedrizzi’s courage provided the basis for Merit Sullivan’s dilemma in this story, though their situations weren’t entirely the same. Characters in this novel do, however, mention Fedrizzi by name, and I have tried to honor her example.
I am also indebted to the people of Bayview, Idaho—who may recognize portions of their town in the fictional location of Kokanee Cove. Remember, though, that this is fiction, so as an author I’ve enjoyed the freedom to mix and match real settings with, well…what I’ve made up. What is not made up is the rugged beauty and warm heart of this part of the country.
As always, I could not have written this story or anything else without the love and support of my wife, Ronda. I could go on, but you get the idea.
For God’s glory, Robert Elmer
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LIKE ALWAYS
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
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A division of Random House Inc.
Most Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.
Some Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Robert Elmer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Elmer, Robert.
Like always / Robert Elmer. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49939-4
1. Middle age—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.L44L55 2007
813′.54—dc22
2007001524
v3.0