Running from Monday

by Lea Sims

Standing in nothing but her stocking feet and her bra on the other side of the door, Delaney’s heart froze solid inside her. She quickly put her dress and shoes back on, grabbed her purse and slipped out the door of the hotel room and down the elevator. With blank eyes and disheveled hair, she hailed a cab and crawled into it, and even though Kryptonite was blaring from the taxi radio, the only words running through her brain were the same ones that had always been there.

  Damaged goods.

  Damaged goods.

  Damaged goods.

  New York

  “We are all the walking wounded in a world that is a war zone. Everything we love will be taken from us, everything, last of all life itself. Yet everywhere I look, I find great beauty in this battlefield, and grace and the promise of joy.”

  —Dean Koontz

  The rhythmic pounding of Nikes on the pavement, Rogue keeping pace beside her, always had a calming effect on Delaney. Whatever tensions of the day had been tightly wound inside her would usually unfurl on the winding, tree-lined trails of Central Park. Of late, though, her evening runs had taken on a new meaning. They were no longer just an opportunity to burn off some stress, stay fit, and get Rogue out of the apartment. They had become an escape—a place to run from the thoughts that plagued her during the day and kept her eyes wide open on her pillow into the late hours of the night.

  It was late October and the labored runs of the humid summer had given way to brisk sprints in crisp autumn air. The paths were now canopied with golden and amber limbs, the park benches increasingly occupied by be-scarfed and booted lovers sipping pumpkin lattes, the fading grassy lawns now dotted with dogs of all sizes in knitted sweaters. It had always been Delaney’s favorite time of year in New York. Everything about the city came alive as soon as the sluggish days of summer were ushered out by the cool breezes of fall, and the people of Manhattan collectively inhaled and bounced back to their normal bustling pace.

  She was now a divorced woman living on her own again in the big city. The papers that had been signed and sealed by the Honorable Edgar Oliver of the Manhattan district courts were in her mailbox upon her return from Savannah. Rogue was hers alone, she had ample money in the bank, work was humming along, and life was good.

  Or at least it should have been.

  It had been three months since she’d returned from Savannah, and any hopes she’d harbored of being able to put that week behind her were fading with each passing day. If anything, her heart tie to the people and events of that week only grew stronger. She had tried to return to her normal life and settle back into her routine, but her thoughts were constantly crowded with questions, echoes of conversations, and images of everything from her Aunt Beth’s funeral to conversations with Claire to her time with Sasha at Timber Ridge. And then there was Drew, whose handsome face loomed ever before her, especially at night when she lay awake in her bed heartsick over their last conversation.

  He tried to reach her multiple times in the first few weeks, but she refused to answer any of his calls or respond to his texts. In true Drew fashion, his messages had been full of concern for her, and more than once he had apologized for making her feel judged or unworthy. She had taken to replaying his messages when she was home alone, pressing her ear as close to the phone as she could, letting the warming kindness of his voice wash over her. It always brought her back to the moment he’d kissed her. “Please, tell me you feel that,” he’d whispered. She would be every day of a hundred years old before she would forget that moment or how it made her feel. She would also be every day of a hundred before she forgot the shock on his face or the dying fire in his eyes when she’d lashed out at him savagely with her harsh truths.

  For the first few weeks home, she’d navigated her life like a zombie, as one whose heart had been shot at close range but somehow kept beating. The landscape of her life became a blur of muted gray, devoid of color and muffled in sound. She went to work, made decisions, took meetings, ran in the park, and watched television in the evenings with Rogue beside her, but she did it all as though standing outside herself, disembodied and disengaged.

  Lexie, Callie, and the others at work grew increasingly worried about her. She wasn’t eating and took little interest in anything. She’d stopped laughing and stopped smiling. She’d even stopped creating. They missed her quick wit and flurry of ideas, her inspiring pep talks and comforting but commanding leadership presence in the office. They whispered among themselves about what could possibly be wrong with her, but everyone assumed she was grieving the loss of her aunt. While this was partially true, none of them knew or suspected that what she was truly grieving was her suddenly solitary place in life, an increasingly uncertain identity, and a thoroughly broken heart.

  She avoided all of Lexie’s pestering questions and invitations to hit the clubs, and she refused to meet Callie’s worried and suspicious gaze every time she stood in front of Delaney’s desk with coffee and pastry in hand, trying to cheer her up. Delaney did her best to put on a good face and plow forward, but she had been fooling no one, least of all herself. She had found herself rapidly sinking into an abyss of depression she hadn’t been able to rally herself out of.

  As she rounded the crest of the next hill, she realized her stride had become nearly as labored as her thoughts. A quick check of her heart rate on the fitness band around her wrist confirmed that she needed to pick up the pace. “Sorry, baby girl,” she said in rueful apology to Rogue, who kept trying to adjust her stride to the waxing and waning of Delaney’s speed. They resumed their normal rhythm, and Delany’s thoughts returned to the day a ray of hope had finally found its way through the gray clouds of her depression.

  About six weeks after she’d been home, when her friends and staff were on the verge of an intervention, a box arrived by overnight express to the floor. Callie brought it into Delaney’s office with Lexie trailing behind her. The return address simply said “D. Hemming, Savannah, GA,” and they hovered over her desk wanting to know what was in it. The packing box contained a small wooden crate with a mini crowbar latched to the top. For the first time in weeks, Delaney’s lips curved upward in a tentative smile. She took the crowbar and pried the top off the crate to find a cache of beautiful reminders of her week with Drew—a box of fresh croissants, a tin of coffee, the red bandana they’d worn in their relay, and a rolled-up Howler Crew T-shirt tied with jute string. There was even a tennis ball and a large mason jar filled with peanut butter rawhides. Delaney drew out each item with care, keeping her expression blank but inwardly reeling at the thoughtful intentionality of what he’d sent. But when she lifted the box of croissants out to find a brand-new leather Bible underneath, her lips quavered and tears welled up in her eyes so suddenly that she had to turn away and feign a fit of coughing so that neither Callie nor Lexie would wonder what had come over her.

  “Is that a…a Bible?” Callie whispered to Lexie, peering down into the crate, confused.

  Lexie’s eyes darted down into the crate then immediately back to Delaney. “It is,” she answered, eyes narrowing on her friend’s face, watching her reaction closely. “Who is D. Hemming?” she asked Delaney.

  Delaney wasn’t about to respond to that question with the truth. She knew she’d be pinned to the wall with a firehose of questions she wasn’t ready to answer. So she shrugged with a tight little smile and said, “It’s just a care package from the people at my Aunt Beth’s church…the one I told you about, Lex.”

  Callie looked back at all the items, perplexed. She picked up the red bandana. “Wow. That’s some interesting evangelism. Do they want someone to blindfold you and forcibly read the Bible to you?” She giggled at her own joke.

  But Lexie didn’t laugh. Croissants? Dog treats? Whoever put this crate together had taken great care to assemble things that Lexie knew were meaningful to Delaney. The red bandana meant something. And so did the Bible. She would give her right arm to know who D. Hemming was. S
he’d bet her paycheck it wasn’t some sweet old church lady sending out welcome packages. She also had a feeling it had something to do with why Delaney had come back from Savannah like the walking wounded. But she wisely said nothing more about it.

  Later that night, Delaney lay on her bed at home with the items from the crate spread around her. She ran her fingers over the burnished leather cover of the Bible he’d sent her, and a little thrill shuddered through her. This book had once been profoundly sacred to her; she’d spent her youth and teen years poring over its scriptures, memorizing passages, and outpacing her Sunday school peers with her understanding of its narrative. But it had been years since she’d been near or read one. When she picked it up to open it, a folded piece of paper dropped into her lap from between its pages. The paper contained a note from Drew written in his clean, angular script:

  Delaney,

  If you’re reading this, it means you’ve had the courage (or the curiosity) to open the Bible I enclosed. I debated whether to put this note in there for fear it might remain inside the book undiscovered, but I’m told you are a former Bible Bowl champion, so I’m praying your previous love of this book will compel you to open it again.

  There is so much I want to say here, but I know you either aren’t willing or aren’t ready to talk to me. I can only say again how sorry I am for how our last conversation ended and that you left here believing I think less of you. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have a broken past of my own. I could never judge someone else for theirs.

  I’m hoping that the things in this box will help you remember our time together and the conversations we had about God. He loves you, Delaney, more than you can possibly comprehend. He went to great lengths to show you this while you were home. You said you were leaving the door open for God. If you were serious about that statement, then open this book. This is the doorway God will walk through to meet you.

  You are in my heart and in my prayers,

  Drew

  P.S. I can’t stop thinking about that kiss, beautiful.

  She had read the note countless times in the last two months. It was still tucked into the Bible, which now sat on her nightstand. For a week or two, the only time she went near the book was to pull Drew’s note out and read it again. Initially her eyes would skim the letter, rushing to get to the postscript. That one little line was like a pair of defibrillator paddles. It sent a current of electrical tingles straight to her heart every time she read it. Despite all she’d told him, he still called her “beautiful.” And it was no small comfort to her traumatized heart to know that he was as haunted by that kiss as she was.

  But with each unfolding, reading, and refolding of the letter, she had to open the Bible the note was in. She never stuck it back in the same place, and she found her eyes gradually drawn to the pages, glimpses of passages here and there capturing her momentary attention. Some days her eyes would linger longer, reading a few sentences or a paragraph. One rainy Saturday, she had curled up on the couch to read Drew’s letter again but set the note aside without opening it when she realized it had been placed between the pages of John chapter four. Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman at the well.

  “When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.’”

  The woman didn’t feel worthy. Delaney felt a pang of empathy. This is how she had always felt standing before God. It was how she’d felt standing in front of Drew in the garden.

  “Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’”

  She kept reading, brow furrowed, her mind meditating on the response of Jesus to this woman. The Samaritan woman was no saint. She’d been through many relationships with men. And Jesus knew this about her without her confession, yet he still did not judge her. He offered relationship to her instead and the promise to quench the thirst in her soul. She read those verses over and over. In the days following, she would return to that chapter often. Over time, she found herself drawn more and more to the Bible on her nightstand, guided by the seemingly random tucking away of Drew’s note, each day in a new place—one day a Psalm about the faithfulness of God, another day the attempted stoning of the woman caught in adultery, and yet another day the parable of the prodigal son.

  Now as she rounded the last curve of her two-mile run, she thought of how right Drew had been. The Bible he had prayerfully tucked into that little crate had become a doorway back to her faith. Each time she had the courage to step through it, God met her there. Bethany had called her a prodigal. She was right. She had fled from God a bitter and broken girl, determined to make her way in the world on her own. And when she came back home expecting the worst, God had given her Claire and Drew and Sasha and Refresh Station, and his gifts had continued to follow her all the way back to New York, including the crate of memories and the Bible she had loved as a child.

  There was no longer a doubt in her mind about the existence of God. She had not said the words aloud but the conviction was there. No one but God could have orchestrated this turn of events in her life. Only he could have brought Claire and Drew onto the canvas of her life and used them to draw out her deepest pain and her ugliest truths. But she struggled with understanding why. Why was God doing this now? He had done nothing to orchestrate any of these interventions when she was a child. He’d left her to fend for herself and figure it all out on her own. Was there some kind of grand lesson in it all? Some test she’d been forced to pass?

  Please, God, help me understand. I know you’re there. I don’t doubt it anymore. But I’m so confused about everything else. I have no idea what to do now.

  This had been the only prayer she knew how to pray. It had been the crux of her tentative prayer life for the last couple of weeks, and while the bleak gray cloud she had been living under for the last three months had finally begun to lift, a tendril of hope now pushing its way up through the soil of her heart, there were still so many more questions than there were answers.

  Slowing down to a walk and tapping her fitness band to check her heart rate, she looked down at Rogue, who was panting beside her. She reached into the small drawstring pack on her back where she kept an empty water bottle and a collapsible bowl. She strode to a water fountain near a park bench and filled both the bottle and bowl with water. Turning to sit on the bench, she set the bowl down for Rogue, who lapped the water up eagerly then jumped up on the bench and flopped down beside her.

  As she drank her water and cooled down, her eyes wandered over the park grounds. There were joggers and cyclists on the paths, what looked like a Tai Chi class being conducted on the lawn, and couples and families scattered around the park, throwing frisbees and walking dogs. It reminded her of the family day in the park she’d spent with Drew, Claire, and the other people of Refresh Station. She had thought about that day often, not just of the fun she’d had with Drew, but of the families and the sense of community they shared. Truly the landscape she was looking at now was not that different, she had to admit. There was nothing wrong with New York. It was a wonderful city, full of amazing people and loving families. She was the one out of place. She felt like an outsider looking in on happier lives—lives rich with relationships and based on something other than work and career. And she wanted that life.

  She wanted real love in her life, a man that filled her heart with joy and longing. She wanted to be a real wife to that man, capable of loving him back with the same devotion. She wanted babies to hold and children to raise. And she wanted her world surrounded by other couples raising families and doing life together. She had never had a longing for any of these things before, even with Danny. She would feel guilt
y about that except she knew he’d only wanted those things because they were on his checklist of necessary achievements—career, marriage, kids, and the right friends. In that order.

  She’d also come back from Savannah with a taste of what real friendship could look like. Her conversations with Claire and Bethany and her observation of the women of Refresh during their family weekend had given her a picture of sisterhood, something she’d known little of as an only child without siblings and a solitary life with few friends. But what had really opened her eyes to it was seeing and being reminded of the relationship that had existed between her Aunt Beth and Claire—how long they had loved and supported each other, the degree to which their friendship had defined them in the eyes of others, and the breathtaking way that Claire had honored her best friend in the days following her passing. It was a relationship that went beyond friendship. Claire had said as much herself.

  “Elizabeth Lowell wasn’t just my friend, Delaney. She was my sister…my Kingdom family. I could never do enough to truly honor her for everything she was to me. I thank God every day for loving me enough to bring Elizabeth into my world. She has been there for me through some of the most difficult moments of my life. There literally isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.”

  Claire had been calling her once a week or so ever since she got back to New York. She had called the morning after her conversation with Drew in the garden, and before Claire could barely say hello, Delaney told her that they could not discuss Drew, and Claire had chosen not to argue. She chose instead to support her with consistent encouragement, keep her updated on the progress of her Aunt Beth’s estate, and pray for her continually. She was truly one of the most amazing women Delaney had ever met, and every conversation with Claire had made her wish she had recognized what a gift her Aunt Beth had been.

  It also made her realize what kind of woman she wanted to be.