She unrolled some bubble wrap—not the unsatisfying miniature bubbles but the large, bloated ones—and popped a few between her thumb and index finger. John waved at her to be quiet, pressed the phone more tightly to his ear, and disappeared down the hallway.
Tossing the bubble wrap aside, she seated herself at the dining room table, opened her laptop, and checked email. Junk. Ad. Coupon for a manicure.
“I’ll talk to her about that,” she heard John say. “No, I know. Thank you. Just haven’t had a chance.”
Junk. More thoughts from her mother about how to restore her reputation. Ad. Junk. Message from Emily. Subject: Prayer exercises for your group.
“No, nothing’s final, Mom. . . . Not sure. End of the summer, maybe . . . mm-hmmm . . . right . . . no, I know. I appreciate that.”
Appreciate what? she wondered.
She drummed her fingers on her laptop before clicking on Emily’s message: Hey, Charissa! So excited you guys are going to continue your journey together! I’m attaching some prayer exercises to get you started. Our leader, Sarah, developed these with her mom for a class they led at New Hope a few years ago (you met Katherine Rhodes, right?), and she said she’s happy for me to pass them along to your group. It’s been a life-changing experience for us—amazing how the Holy Spirit brings the Word to life in different ways that speak right to where we need to be addressed. Let me know if you have any questions about anything. And let’s get coffee or lunch or a walk on the calendar—lots to catch up on!
John’s replies were becoming more clipped and cryptic. Evidently, he didn’t want Charissa discerning what was being said on the other end of the conversation. Great.
She opened Emily’s Word document and skimmed through it. Some of the exercises were ones they had done at New Hope in the fall during the sacred journey retreat: prayer of examen, praying with imagination, pondering images of God and how they are formed.
She could probably benefit by returning to the image of God exercise, not having given it much thought or prayerful attention a few months ago. She couldn’t even remember what she had written about. God as helper, maybe.
Yes. That’s the image she had chosen: the God who helped her succeed, the God who gave her strength and ability to achieve all of her own plans and purposes to the highest possible standard. She sighed. She definitely needed a less self-centered image as she inched her way forward toward deeper conformity to Christ.
“What haven’t you had a chance to tell me yet?” she asked when John entered the room. The startled look on his face indicated he wasn’t pleased she had overheard his side of the conversation.
“Nothing.” He shoved his phone into his back pocket and busied himself in the closet, rearranging hangers.
“Don’t play games with me, John. Just tell me your mother’s latest idea for us. Something about furniture? Carpeting? What?” Maybe someday he’d have the courage to tell his mother that while they were grateful for the gift, they were going to make their own decisions about what to do with it. If Judi had this many grand ideas about decorating the house, what kind of advice would she attempt to give once the baby was born?
“You don’t want to know,” John said, his voice muffled in the closet.
She closed her laptop. “Ummm, yes. I do.”
He emerged with a stack of scarves, hats, and gloves. “Don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”
She sat back in her chair, arms crossed, chin lowered, eyebrows poised and waiting.
“You know my mom, how she was, like, über-mom, involved in everything, always there for us, no matter what we needed, what we were doing. Her whole world revolved around Karli and me.” Which was one reason why Charissa was glad her in-laws lived two hours away. A little bit of distance provided a buffer zone that, for the first eighteen months of their marriage, had worked relatively well. But now that the first grandchild was on the way—
John set the clothes down on a chair and raked both hands through his thin brown hair, which, Charissa had recently noticed, had begun to recede like his father’s.
“Just tell me,” she said. “You’re making it worse.”
His hands were still pressed on top of his head. “She just wants to make sure our baby has the best possible life, wants to make sure we have the freedom to make the right choices, without financial pressure.”
Charissa narrowed her eyes at him. “And?”
“And . . . she said she hoped you didn’t feel pressure to keep going with the PhD at a frantic pace, hoped you felt free to take some time off once the baby’s born.”
She clenched her jaw. No wonder John hadn’t found time to talk to her about that yet.
He threw up his hands. “Like I said—”
She pushed back from the table. “If I had known there were so many strings attached to the gift, I might not have said yes to accepting it.”
“No—see? This is why I didn’t want to tell you, because you’re jumping to conclusions!”
“Not a very far leap to make, John. What? Did they give us a down payment so I wouldn’t have to work? So I’d give up my career? Be barefoot and pregnant? Is that what she’s hoping for?” She reached for a scarf, a hat, and a pair of gloves from the discarded pile.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.” Bundling herself up, she marched off into the biting wind chill of a frosty New Year’s Eve.
two
Mara
At the sound of the doorbell, Bailey skidded into the entryway. Mara tried to push him back with her foot, but he raced around her, barking. Kevin grabbed him by the collar while she opened the door.
“Whose dog?” Jeremy asked as Madeleine woke in her carrier with a howl.
“Oh, oh—it’s okay!” Mara reached for the handle so Jeremy could take off his coat. “I’m so sorry! Tom got Brian a dog.” Not wanting to offend Abby with a string of expletives, Mara muttered them silently. Bailey, still barking and lunging, broke free of Kevin’s grip and began jumping on Abby, who had retreated into a corner by the front door. “Brian!” Mara shouted. Madeleine cried harder.
“Down!” Jeremy commanded. “Get down!” He tried to snatch Bailey by the scruff of the neck, but the dog was too fast for him and careened behind the sofa.
Brian slunk into the family room, hands shoved into the pockets of his baggy jeans, red hair visible beneath his Detroit Tigers cap. Without acknowledging anyone, he called to the dog, who bounded toward the basement. Brian slammed the door behind them.
Mara exhaled loudly and set the carrier down on the carpet. “I’m so sorry,” she said as she embraced Abby. Jeremy unbuckled Madeleine and tried to soothe her in his arms.
It wasn’t how Mara had pictured dinner together. Even from a distance, Tom had managed to wreak havoc.
She hated him.
No. She didn’t hate him. “Hate” was too common a word. She despised him. Detested him. Loathed him. Abhorred him. Were those stronger words than hate? Maybe she’d make a list of words she could use to describe what she felt for him.
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “We’ll make sure the dog stays in the basement while you’re here.”
Madeleine was still gulping air with her wailing. “Hey, baby girl,” Jeremy cooed, “hey, hey—that’s no way to greet your Uncle Kevin.”
At the words “Uncle Kevin,” Kevin stood up straighter. With fifteen years between them, Jeremy and Kevin had never spent much time together. Jeremy had always harbored deep animosity toward Tom, not only for the way he treated Mara but for the way he had bullied Jeremy when he was a teen. Kevin, who had always had a close relationship with his father, had never shown any inclination toward developing a relationship with Mara’s oldest son.
Leave it to a baby to provide a bridge.
“C’mere,” Jeremy said, still bouncing her gently in his arms. “Come see your niece.”
Kevin hesitated, then approached and extended his index finger to stroke her jet-black hair. As Madeleine began to quiet, Jerem
y beamed at his half-brother. “Look at you! She settled right down. You’ve got a magic touch.” Without replying, Kevin stepped backward, eyes still on her.
Mara motioned toward the family room. “Come and sit down. Dinner’s almost ready.” While she turned on the fireplace, Abby and Jeremy nestled together on the couch, Madeleine in Abby’s arms. Rather than retreating upstairs to his room or downstairs to play video games with Brian (as he had done on Christmas Day), Kevin reclined in a chair that afforded him a good view of his niece, though he pretended to be more interested in his cell phone.
“So, Kevin, I hear you were at Crossroads again today,” Jeremy said. “How’d it go?”
Kevin shrugged.
“He’s a star with the kids,” Mara replied. “They love him.”
“I bet they do. I used to love it when older kids came in to play with us there.”
Kevin looked up from his screen.
Mara had never shared with Kevin or Brian the story of how she and Jeremy had landed at Crossroads when Jeremy was three, not because she was ashamed of the time they spent there but because she had never thought the details of her past were relevant to their lives. Kevin and Brian had enjoyed a privileged childhood: safe suburban neighborhood, father with a good income, excellent education, and plenty of extracurricular activities. But now that Kevin had experienced her old world—now that he had grown fond of spending time there—now seemed as good a time as any to divulge part of the story, especially since Jeremy had provided an opportunity for an undramatic segue.
She rubbed her palms back and forth on her thighs. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you, Kevin, that Jeremy and I lived at Crossroads for a while when he was little.”
Kevin’s eyebrows shot up. “With all the homeless people?”
“We were the homeless people,” Jeremy said, the gap between his two front teeth visible when he grinned. As a teenager, Jeremy had been self-conscious about that gap, but Mara didn’t have the money for orthodontics, and Tom sure wasn’t going to shell out money for his stepson. Kevin and Brian didn’t appreciate how easy their lives had been up until now.
“You lived there for, like, how long?” Kevin asked, the mental wheels visibly grinding.
“Until I was able to get an apartment and find a job,” Mara said. “They took care of us, were like a family to us.”
Kevin stared at her, his lips parted. “So that’s why you always volunteer there?”
“Yep.”
“Does Dad know?”
“Yep.” Tom knew all the details about Mara’s past, though he had never much cared. By the end of the evening, Brian would probably know too.
“Did they have the Christmas shop this year?” Jeremy asked. “I remember getting to choose a couple of gifts for you. They gave us play money, and we could buy things.”
Mara rolled up her jeans to reveal Santa socks.
“No way! You still have them?”
“Still have the coffee mug you dropped too—glued it back together for a pencil holder.”
Kevin slouched in his chair. Mara would have paid good money to know what he was thinking about their former life.
Abby repositioned herself on the sofa, the vinyl squeaking beneath her. “Kevin, do you want to hold her?” she asked.
Kevin stared at his phone again. “Nah . . . I don’t want to break her.”
Mara understood his reluctance: Madeleine looked like a beautiful porcelain doll, with caramel macchiato skin, a shade lighter than Jeremy’s, and with dark hair and striking almond-shaped eyes like Abby.
“You sure?” Jeremy asked, scooting over so there was room for Kevin between them.
He looked up. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
“Okay. But when she’s a little older, we’ll put you on our babysitter list, all right?”
“Okay.”
When it came time for dinner, Brian insisted on taking his plate of ham and rice—Mara always cooked him rice because he hated sweet potato casserole—down to the basement. Rather than arguing with him, she told him to keep his dog down there with him. “I’ll let you know when it’s time for pie,” she called to his back.
Jeremy shook his head when the basement door slammed again. If Kevin hadn’t been sitting at the table, Jeremy might have freely voiced his opinions about Tom, the divorce, and what she should do about Brian and the dog.
“Sweet potatoes?” Mara asked, passing the dish.
Jeremy and Abby exchanged a meaningful glance before he spooned a large helping onto his plate. “We’ve been talking, Mom, about what to do when Abby goes back to work. And I know you have a lot going on right now”—barking from the basement—“but we were wondering whether you’d be willing to babysit Madeleine for us, probably just a few hours a week until we figure out a long-term plan.”
Since a squeal of delight might have awakened the sleeping baby, Mara replied with a more subdued, “Of course! Thank you so much for asking!” Weekly hours with her granddaughter! She couldn’t believe it. It was far, far above and beyond anything she had hoped for or imagined.
“We’ll pay you,” Jeremy said, reaching for Abby’s hand.
“You absolutely will not pay—”
“No, Mom. Abby and I talked about it. We know you’re going to be looking for work, and we don’t want to interfere with that, but we thought maybe a few extra bucks might help out right now. Abby will probably be on the night shift, at least to start, so we’re thinking that even if you could come over for an hour or two, a couple of days a week, just so she can sleep . . . ” He looked at Abby and stroked her hair as tears began to wind down her cheeks.
“Sorry,” Abby said, hiding her eyes behind the cloth napkin.
Jeremy pressed her face to his shoulder and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, babe. Wish I could make enough money to—”
Abby shook her head, unveiled her face, and kissed him. “No, no, it’s okay. I’ll be okay. We’ll make it work.” She tapped her chest as she looked at Mara. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, fighting to keep control of her quivering voice.
Before Mara had much opportunity to savor the generosity of the gift—or to engage them in extended conversation about Madeleine—the basement door opened, and Bailey trotted into the family room, yelping. Abby scooped Madeleine up from her carrier and cradled her at the table.
“When’s the last time you let your dog out?” Mara asked. Brian did not reply. “You’re gonna have to take him on walks every day. Early in the morning, after school, at night.”
“He can go in the backyard,” Brian said.
“You can’t just let him out there without a fence. You’ll need to walk him.”
Brian loaded his non-heirloom plate with two slices of ham and a mound of rice and shoved it into the microwave. Arms crossed against his chest, fork in hand, he waited for the timer to count down.
Mara started her own mental countdown.
The microwave beeped.
“Leave your food on the counter, take your dog out, and then come back and eat.”
Brian started eating as he sauntered through the family room, grains of rice spilling onto the floor behind him. Bailey, nose to the ground, vacuumed them up, then sat down beside the table and whined.
“Brian!”
The basement door slammed.
Kevin put his napkin down on his empty plate. “I’ll take him,” he said, picking up the leash that had been tossed onto the back of a chair. Tail wagging, Bailey spun in circles while Kevin tried to fasten the lead to his collar. “Hold still!” Kevin commanded. Bailey began to jump. “Sit!” Bailey sat. “Good boy.” Kevin patted Bailey’s head.
“Take a flashlight,” said Mara.
“I’ve got my phone.” Kevin held up his light.
“And a bag for dog poop!”
He pulled a plastic bag from the cupboard.
“Thanks, Kev.”
“Yep.”
As soon as the front door latched behind him, Mara exhaled with a long sigh. “
Welcome to my world,” she said.
Jeremy pushed his chair back a few inches. “Brian’s getting worse, Mom. He’s always been a tough kid, but he’s getting more aggressive. I don’t like it. I don’t like you dealing with it. What can I do to help?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing anyone can do. Brian hates that Tom has left him here with me. I think he’s hoping I’ll get so sick of dealing with him, I’ll beg Tom to take him to Cleveland.”
If Brian kept this up much longer, he might just get his wish.
Hannah
Hannah added SEE to the D of Nathan Allen’s PONDER and drew three Scrabble tiles: X, B, Q. Great. At this rate she would never catch him.
Nate played HEEZE, with the Z in a triple-letter box.
“Heeze?” Hannah demanded. “What kind of a word is heeze?”
“A real one.”
She squinted at him.
“What are you going to do, Shep? Challenge me?” He rested his newly shaved chin on his palms—no more salt-and-pepper goatee—and taunted her with a single raised eyebrow from across the kitchen table. During their last round, he had challenged her about Zen and won—invalid proper noun. He thought her irritation a hilarious irony.
She stared at the board, wondering if it was worth the risk of losing a turn. The word might be legit. Knowing Nate, he probably studied up on obscure words in his spare time. In fact, it was quite possible he had been actively preparing ever since she beat him in a best of five match on Christmas.
He hummed the theme from Jeopardy.
“Oh, shush.” She rubbed her temples, concentrating. Though she and Nathan had only been dating about six weeks, the two of them had met as seminary students almost twenty years earlier. Even with their many years of life apart from one another—she serving a church in Chicago and he serving a church in Michigan before transitioning to teach English literature at Kingsbury University—Hannah was surprised she couldn’t see through him well enough to detect a bluff. She was fairly adept at reading people. Usually. And Nathan lived transparently. Usually. But when it came to competition, his game face was on.
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