by S. M. Smith
“I didn’t sleep with him, Dad,” I tell him after a few seconds. It is his turn for his jaw to drop and his head to whip my way. But after the initial shock wears off, he beams with pride.
“Jake?” he asks. I shake my head.
“No one. I made a promise and I’m keeping it.” I keep my face forward, not sure I want to see his face as he computes this new information. And it takes him a few minutes to process everything, but as we ride on, he sits a little taller.
He stops a few more times, and each time I take a few more pictures. We don’t talk again for a long time and I worry that my telling him this has made things uncomfortable for him. I told him this because I need his wisdom, I need him to tell me that I’ve done the right thing by cancelling the wedding and starting to move on. I need him to tell me that I would find the one I am supposed to be with when I least expect it, and by then time won’t matter because God will make our lives brilliant and fruitful. But he doesn’t say any of those things. We make our way back to the stables and get the horses put back in their stables before he finally squares me up and looks me in the eye again.
“You are a true blessing, Jessie. I thought that long before our talk this morning, but I know that now. He will bless you for being true to your word and holding onto His promises. Keep fighting, my dear. You are truly a good and faithful servant.” He grabs me into a strong hug, and I think to myself, this is the hazard of having your father as your pastor.
***
Stephen texts me a little while after our ride to see if I want to go with him to pick up some last minute things for the dinner before the store closes. Things feel weird after my little talk with my dad this morning, so I definitely need the air and space to regroup. Also, I haven’t gotten to go into town for the pictures I want yet so I also agree to go as long has he will go downtown with me.
I hear a honk as I’m grabbing my camera and purse. I stop by dad’s recliner to kiss his cheek, accidentally waking him up.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m going into town with Stephen. Do you need me to pick up anything while I’m there?” I tell him as he stretches.
“No, I’m good. Have a good time.” He smiles sleepily as he pulls his throw blanket back up over his arms and repositions to fall asleep.
I make my way out and climb into the Cahill’s big red farm truck. Stephen gives me a once over, smiles and shakes his head.
“What now?” I ask.
“I was just making sure I didn’t have to be seen in public with you and your flamingo pajama pants.” He chuckles, putting the truck in gear to leave.
“I can go change, if you like,” I mock, grabbing the door handle. He laughs harder and hits the gas, pulling out onto the county road.
“I think your current wardrobe will do just fine.” He winks at me from the driver’s seat.
Random fact about small towns: everyone is afraid there might be an apocalypse between the time the stores close the night before a major holiday and the time the store reopens the following day. Thanksgiving is no exception, so I’m not at all surprised when we pull into a bulgingly full parking lot. We have to park in a spot kind of behind the building and pull a cart out of the corral from outside just to have one at all. I hadn’t entirely thought this through before agreeing to come and I’m starting to regret wanting to go as we walk in. Jake’s little brother is still a manager at the grocery store, and consequently, the first person we walk into.
“I’m sorry,” he says, literally running into our cart. “Oh,” he stops when he finds my face.
“Hey, Jordan,” I say dejectedly.
“Jessie! I didn’t realize you were going to be home today,” he says with an enthusiasm that could also be described as sarcasm.
“Where else would I be?”
“Well, I just assumed that since Jake is living back here-“
“He moved back?” Stephen asks, his tone starting to harden.
“Yeah, two months ago. Said he needed a break from the city life.” I huff. Maddy still lives here in town, and I’m sure she’s just the type of break he needs. Stephen looks at me, the same suspicions in his eyes.
“Well. Tell him I said I hope he’s happy,” I say, starting to walk off, fuming. I get two steps away before something in the back of my mind reminds me that Jordan is just trying to warn me, he doesn’t deserve me to be so rude to him. “Jordan,” I call after him. He turns and looks back at me with what could possibly be interpreted as fear. I try to soften my voice. “Thank you for telling me. Happy Thanksgiving.”
His face softens too. “Happy Thanksgiving to the both of you, too.”
“Well,” Stephen starts as we move on, “that’s a surprise.” He gives me a fake look of enthusiasm. I try to appreciate his sarcasm, but my attention is solely focused on searching the faces around us to make sure we don’t run into either Maddy or Jake. I’m not sure if I want to be mad or hurt that they are together, but either way, I don’t want to find out by seeing either of them.
I keep my hand on the cart that Stephen pushes to guide me as I scan the crowd of faces. He says something I don’t hear because as we turn down the baking aisle, I think I see Maddy’s mother round the end of another aisle, headed down the path we were just on. I turn back to him and make sure to keep my face forward.
“- and those muffins she makes on Christmas morning! Those are my favorite,” Stephen says as he picks up a package of walnuts. He turns back to me and realizes that I haven’t been listening. “Are you okay? Your face is all white-“ he says before understanding hits him. “Who did you see?” He peeks over my shoulder, scanning the faces behind me.
“Maddy’s mom. I don’t think she saw me though.” He looks back at me and stiffens. He looks me over, pity and concern all over his face.
“Let’s just hurry and get what we need and get out of here. Here.” He hands me his list. “You take this and push the cart. I’ll run interference.” He switches to protective big brother mode and picks up his step, pulling the cart and me behind him.
He doesn’t babble on about muffins or Christmas anymore and I’m thankful all I have to do is watch him as he guides me through the store. Ten minutes later we make our way to stand in a check-out line, and I can’t relax until we are separated from the other lines by the candy and magazine displays. Stephen’s tall frame allows him to scan the lines beside us and keep watch for me. As the young lady in front of us pays the cashier, he gives me a hopeful face.
“Did we get everything on the list?” he asks, undoubtedly trying to take my mind off of my anxiety.
“I don’t see tequila on here. Any chance we can get some anyway?” I ask with too much enthusiasm. He laughs out loud at my question.
“I seriously don’t think either of our parents would appreciate us bringing alcohol to their homes. Plus, remember the last time you drank tequila?” Images of him holding my hair for me and me trying to make my way into a shower flood my mind.
“Definitely not one of my finer moments.” I drop my shoulders in disappointment. He chuckles at me as he steps us forward in line and does all the talking to the kind lady who checks us out.
Before I know it, he is pulling me and the cart out the door. The cool air invades my lungs as we step outside and I feel my already tense muscles tighten up. We get to the truck and Stephen hands me the keys to start the truck while he loads the bags into the back. He takes the cart back into the store while I climb into the warming cab. A few seconds later, his door opens and he climbs in, not allowing most of the warm air to escape.
“Do you still want to go down town?” he asks, putting on his seatbelt. I think about the look on Jordan’s face when he realized I’m home and decide that I don’t want to run the risk of running into them, so I shake my head no.
“No, I think I’m good,” I say, keeping my focus in front of me.
“Okay,” he says confidently before pulling back out into the crazy traffic this small town only gets a few times
a year.
We drive the twenty minute drive back to his house in silence. I replay our whole trip through the store over and over again, each time thanking Jesus that we didn’t actually run into Jake and Maddy. My stomach is all knotted up at the idea of facing them, and by the time Stephen pulls into his driveway, I feel like I might be sick. As soon as he puts the truck in park, I open the door and step out of the truck, letting the cold air frost my lungs and settle my stomach. I brace myself up against his truck, taking deep breaths again before I feel a hand on my back.
“Jess,” Stephen says softly. He grabs the shoulder that I have propped up on the truck and turns me into him, wrapping his strong arms around me. I hold onto him like he’s the only thing grounding me to earth, feeling my muscles stiffen. I don’t cry, I just breathe, trying to slow the thoughts in my head. He holds my head to his chest and I feel all the words and screams I’m holding in melt into him. All the mean and hurtful things I want to say to Maddy, all the names I want to call Jake and how much I want to throw it in his face that he has turned into his father. All the things I won’t say or do, because they won’t make anything better, are all left there out in the open. We just stand there in the cold fall evening, holding onto one another.
Stephen finally pulls back and checks my face for tears. “Let’s get inside where it’s warm,” he says after seeing I’m not crying.
Feeling a little shaky, but able to get my ground, I grab a couple of bags while he grabs the rest and we make our way in through the back. The house is cozy and smells of pastries, and a smiling Janine greets us as we set the bags on the table.
“Thank you, guys. I was just getting ready to make up some hot cocoa for you, would you like some?” Mark perks up from his newspaper at the kitchen table, nodding his head in encouragement at us. I smile at his puppy dog excitement.
“That would be lovely,” I tell her as I take my coat off and hand it to Stephen. He takes it, nodding for me to head toward their living room before hanging it up for me on the rack beside the door.
I hear the crackle of a good fire as I round the corner into their enormous living room. The fireplace is lit up as small flames lick the air and warm the room. I stand in front of it, letting the heat roast my legs and hands, letting the flames mesmerize me into settling down. The pictures of the smiling Cahill family remind me that life, with all its ups and downs, can be good. Mark and Janine had so many problems at the beginning of their relationship, including miscarrying several times and nearly going bankrupt when Mark’s business went under. But they survived it together, and brought along Stephen.
I study Janine’s face in each picture, some over thirty years old, and I don’t see a trace of longing or desire for the things they couldn’t and didn’t have. I want peace like hers, but it is hard to feel it when it seems like things are being pulled out from underneath you. That’s what it feels like every time I’m forced to face Jake now. I feel like the world will crumble under me and consume me. I feel that all he can and will ever do is bring me down and make me feel like some child who was naïve to think that she could live such a biblical life.
I can see his face when I close my eyes, taunting me, telling me that I don’t have what it takes to be a real woman. That I am living a child’s life that will only result in the people around me treating me as if I am fragile. It hurts, mainly because for so long, he was supposed to be my protector, but also because he was the kind of guy who every girl wanted to be with. The quarterback type that every girl swooned over. But he chose me. He picked me and made me feel like I was more special than anyone else because in all his glory, I was the one he wanted. Or at least that’s what I thought….
“Here.” Stephen comes up behind me and hands me a red mug with a steaming, creamy cup of hot cocoa. I take a sip, then wrap both hands around the cup, holding it close in hopes of stimulating some kind of rejuvenation. “Would you like to have a seat?” he asks, pulling me out of my trance of the fireplace.
I turn and take a corner of the plushy brown couch, while he takes the corner of the other. We sit quietly for a few moments, sipping our cocoa before he finally asks what he’s been itching to since we left the store.
“You’re not over him, are you,” he says it more as a statement than as a question. He sounds a little disappointed that I could still be hung up on Jake.
“Are you?” I ask. He and Jake had been best friends since high school. He had almost as much of a relationship as I did with Jake, having been like brothers.
“It’s different for me,” he starts, but shakes his head, not wanting to get away from his original question. “I wasn’t going to marry him and commit to spending the rest of my life with him. You were.” His tone is almost cold, as if he resented me for getting engaged to Jake.
“Yes, it hurts that he’s not the man I thought he was. Yes, it hurts that instead of waiting for me, he took the lustful way out. Yes, it hurts that he moved back here to be with her. But it’s not a dying pain. Or, those pains aren’t what are still haunting me.” I stop and swirl my mug. I take a few moments to decide how best to describe it to Stephen, before taking another sip of my cocoa. “That pain, the dying one, is the thought that he left me stranded. We had built this idea of a life together and made plans to build a home and a family, to get a dog. And I feel like he left, leaving me with the mess to clean it all up. And he is moving on….with her.”
“I heard something the other day on a podcast I was listening to. The guy was talking about the way we are supposed to love one another. He said that real love, the kind that Jesus has for us, is knowing the good, the bad, and the ugly and being able to overlook everything.” Through Stephen’s statement, he’s really asking a question that I don’t like my answer to: based off that definition, was I ever really in love with Jake?
“You know, I think I did truly love him. There was so much I was willing to overlook. But this, his betrayal, I just can’t.” My mind jets back to what I wanted my dad to say. “Do you think I did the right thing by calling everything off? Do you think I should have overlooked his infidelity and kept on with the wedding?” I ask almost shamefully.
His eyes dart from his mug to my face. He looks like he’s been put on the spot, but all I need is some validation. I start to shake my head, to let him off the hook for judging me on whether I should still try to love Jake, but he speaks anyway.
“Do you honestly think that if you were to marry him, he wouldn’t do the same thing in another ten years?” His words are like a slap to the face. “And do you honestly think that you’d emotionally make it through another humiliation like that? Especially knowing that he had done it before and you still chose to marry him?” His voice is starting to rise and I begin to feel like I’m in trouble. I hunch back into the corner of the couch, ready to abandon this conversation.
“I’m sorry, Jess. I shouldn’t yell at you.” He sets his mug on the table beside him before scooting toward me, taking my mug and setting it on the coffee table in front of us. He picks up my hands and squeezes them before holding my eyes with his. “Absolutely, I think you did the right thing. I do not think, however, that you are quite ready to move on just yet. I saw you with Jake, I watched for ten years your relationship grow into what would have been a good marriage. You guys were friends first and lovers last, even though you weren’t physical with him, and that is hard to walk away from. You can’t just turn it off at the drop of a hat, but that appears to be what you have done. I don’t know this Caleb dude from Adam, but I want you to be careful with him too. Rebounds always suck just as badly as the ones who broke your heart in the first place.” His tone betrays his true feelings. Someone broke his heart and in the back of my mind, I wonder who.
This is what I wanted, and possibly needed, to hear. But he brings up something I haven’t thought about all day: Caleb. My heart can only handle one issue at a time tonight, and I don’t want to approach the topic of Caleb right now, so I just stick with Jake.
“Thank you,” I tell Stephen quietly. He gives me a reassuring smile. I check the time and realize that if I am going to get home, I need to do it now. That will allow me time to think through some things as well. “I need to get home.”
“Okay, let me grab our coats and I’ll drive you over.” He picks up our mugs and heads back toward the kitchen. I follow and thank Janine for the cocoa before pulling on my coat and following Stephen out the door to his truck. He takes the little stretch of road just as slowly as he does the driveways. Just as he pulls up to my back door, he puts the truck in park and turns toward me.
“Jess, when it’s all said and done, God is going to provide you with a brilliant and fruitful family. But it’s going to be in His own timing. You have to know that.” I stare at his kind eyes for a brief moment before opening the door and stepping out into the cold night.
“I do know that.” I smile at him before closing the door to the truck and turning back toward the house. Thank you, Mom.
Chapter Thirteen
It has been great to do something different, yet familiar, for Thanksgiving. I am glad I got to spend the time with my Dad and just take the time to remember Mom. Dating and work has been consuming my time so it was a really great way to spend one of my favorite holidays. I also didn’t realize how much time I am spending with Caleb and that I hadn’t been spending with my friends. Watching and laughing through the parade with Stephen was deeply therapeutic. It felt great to feel completely at peace and not be second guessing anyone’s intentions or wondering if I was doing, wearing or saying the right thing. I just got to be me.
But Thanksgiving is over and Caleb is back. Stephen’s words run on loop through my head as I get ready for dinner at one of Caleb’s favorite restaurants with Lucas and Shaina. I had picked up a couple new cocktail dresses to wear for these dinners. For tonight’s dinner I choose a simple black tea length, one shoulder dress and a pair of nude platform heels and some simple pearl earrings. I am just putting the second one in and second guessing whether Caleb really is a rebound when the doorbell rings.