“That’s my point!” he said when she suggested this on their drive home. “You’ve got lots of people you’re connected to, people who are encouraging you in your faith. I don’t even feel like I have a pastor I can talk to. Just Tim.”
John had no doubt vented his frustrations to his old roommate. At least when Charissa complained to the Sensible Shoes Club about her mother-in-law, no one knew her.
“Tim said we should find a church where both of us feel comfortable.”
Charissa set her jaw. Another church? No way. She wasn’t leaving the church where she had spent her whole life. No. If John felt that uncomfortable, then maybe he could find somewhere to worship without her. Couples did that sometimes. “Do whatever you have to do,” she said. “But I’m going to my church.”
“My church, see? My PhD. My career. Where’s the ‘our’ in our marriage?”
Charissa flinched. He had just kicked the fender. But the ice didn’t budge.
Hannah
Sunday, January 11
6 a.m.
I was so tired and jet-lagged by the time I got here last night, I didn’t have the energy to write. What a day. I’m still trying to process Nathan’s declaration of love—a declaration he made years ago, but it means so much more to me now, now that I’m able to receive it without fear. And the look in his eyes when I told him I loved him too—I don’t have words. Just gratitude for what the Lord has done in bringing us together. For giving me a second chance. For giving us a second chance. Thank you, Lord. We’ve agreed to be in prayer this week, seeking God about what’s next for us. But I think the unspoken longing is that we desire to be together.
Why do I hesitate to write the word? We desire to be married. I want to marry him. There. I give you that specific naming of desire, Lord. And right now my soul is like a giddy teenager because I think he wants to marry me, too. We didn’t use the word. We talked about “timing” and “commitment.” But he knows now that if he asked, I would say yes. And that’s a huge leap forward. So I’m praying about what this means for my return to Westminster and how we will navigate a long-distance relationship. Or engagement. Speak to us, Lord, and let us hear you. Nate says he has some material on discernment that we can look at together after I get back.
Last night when I opened my suitcase I found six dated envelopes, one for each day I’m here. He must have tucked them in there when he was putting my suitcase into the trunk. Today’s note has a verse from Zephaniah 3:17: “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” And here’s the prayer he wrote: Lord, let Hannah know your presence, right in the midst of her family as she spends the week with them. Thank you for being with her as the Mighty One who saves. When she is agitated, quiet her with your love. Let her experience your delight in her today. Let her hear the joyful song you sing over her, and let her not resist your exuberance and abundance. In Jesus’ name.
He knows me so well. It’s a striking image to me—the image of God as a lover shouting to the world that he delights in his people. I do find myself resisting the loudness of it. But can I receive the shouting for joy? “This is my beloved! I take delight in her!” Help me embrace your delight, Lord, without shrinking back with the too-muchness of it.
I hear the coffee grinder downstairs. Dad must be up.
Lord, open doors for conversation and connection today. Whatever you have in mind. Wesley’s words return to me again: Let me have all things, let me have nothing. Even if that means not getting the closure I want, Lord. I am yours; you are mine. Let that be enough for me.
Hugh Shepley, wearing the same tan robe he had worn for decades, turned to greet Hannah as she entered the kitchen in her fleece pajamas. “Did I wake you up?” he asked.
“No, I’ve been awake for a while.” Since about three, in fact. It always took her a few days to adjust to the time zone change. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss his sandpaper patch of stubby gray whiskers. Evidently, he had relaxed his predawn shaving regimen since retirement.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Sure. Thanks.”
He withdrew from the cupboard two familiar mugs, a World’s Greatest Dad mug she had given him for Father’s Day when she was about twelve and a Golden Gate Bridge mug he had brought her as a souvenir from a sales trip to San Francisco. After all their moves over the years, she was surprised her parents had retained childhood relics.
“I like the new place,” Hannah said, glancing out the rain-spattered window toward the woods. The two-bedroom condo on the outskirts of Eugene would have a good view of the foothills when they weren’t shrouded with clouds.
“Your mom says she’s not moving again.”
Hannah smiled. Her mother had said that for years.
“I told her okay, until we get too old to manage the stairs.”
“You’re looking pretty spry to me, Dad.”
“You should see me on the courts! Still got a pretty good tennis game going, for an old guy.”
Nathan played tennis. Maybe he and her father would play someday.
He handed her the mug and kissed the top of her head, the aroma of the roasted blend transporting her through time to a breakfast table in California when she was fifteen. “Glad you’re home, sweetie.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Home. What a funny word. Despite Brown Bear greeting her from a chair in the guest room with a “You forgot me” reproach, this condo smelling of fresh paint and new carpet was not home. Maybe she would take Brown Bear home with her to Kingsbury. Or rather, back to Kingsbury or Lake Haven. Home to Chicago. Or maybe West Michigan would be more than a temporary home someday.
Footsteps creaked upstairs. Any window for a private conversation with her father over breakfast had now closed.
She glanced at the clock on the stove. Nate and Jake would be getting ready for worship soon. Maybe she would go online later and listen to Neil’s sermon. “Found a church home yet, Dad?”
He sat down across from her and unrolled the newspaper. “Not yet.”
“Any good prospects?”
“Ask your mom. She’s visited a couple.”
“Both a little too woo-woo Jesus for me,” her mother remarked from halfway down the stairs.
Hannah laughed, nearly sputtering her coffee back into her mug. “‘Woo-woo Jesus?’ What does that mean?”
Jane Shepley, also wearing a robe she’d had since Hannah was a little girl, waved her hands in the air. “You know—loud band, drums, everybody clapping their hands and singing these songs I’ve never heard of. How do you know what notes to sing if they only put the words up on that big screen?”
Hannah had frequently heard the same kind of objections at Westminster. No matter what kind of compromises they tried to reach, the worship wars waged on.
“Maybe you can find something a little more traditional,” Hannah said, picturing a small church with hymnals, an organ, and a large wooden pulpit in front of a stained-glass window, not unlike the multiple churches they attended when Hannah was a child, in many different towns. “Want me to do some research? See if we can find a place to go together this morning?”
“No, I can watch something on TV sometime.”
Hannah decided not to launch into a theology of worship and the “importance of community” speech.
“Did Westminster stop posting Steve’s sermons?” Jane asked as she put two slices of bread in the toaster. “They haven’t had anything online for a while.”
Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know.” She hadn’t been checking. She wondered if Heather, the intern who was living in her house while she was away, had preached yet. Probably.
“Hugh, what kind of cereal?”
He smoothed the front page. “How about corn flakes?”
“How about you, Hannah?”
“I’ll get it, Mom.”
She motioned for Hannah to sit down. “I’ve got
it.”
Hannah leaned sideways to catch a better view of the options. “Raisin Bran, please.”
Jane started slicing bananas to put on the cereal. Hannah hated bananas on cereal. “Just the cereal for me, Mom—thanks.”
“You need some kind of protein or fruit.”
“I’m all right.” Bananas had a very narrow bandwidth of acceptability on the ripeness continuum, and the ones hanging on the hook beside the sink were too speckled and brown for Hannah’s taste.
Jane opened the fridge and removed a few clementines. “Here,” she said, and filled a bowl for the table.
From above the rim of his newspaper, Hugh cast Hannah a “Just humor her” look. Hannah reached for a napkin and started peeling, fastidiously removing the rind threads.
“Here’s a plate,” Jane said, placing before her a bowl of cereal without bananas and a china dish. Hannah brushed the fragments of peel onto the plate and crumpled the napkin. “Bet Westminster is missing you. What do you hear from them?”
“Not much.”
Hugh lowered the newspaper and peered over his glasses. “No hard feelings, I hope? Aren’t they the ones who pushed you into this? Insisted on you taking this long a break?”
“Right—no hard feelings. But we set some boundaries before I left so that I would get the rest they hoped I’d get and so that the intern could settle in without me casting a shadow over her.”
“Tough shoes to fill,” he said, smiling at her. “How’s she working out?”
“Fine, I guess. I don’t ever hear from her, so I assume everything’s good.” The smell of burnt toast wafted toward the table. Her mother had always liked her toast blackened.
“Must be strange having someone else live in your house, take over your office,” Jane said.
Hannah punctured the membrane of a clementine slice with her fingernail to squeeze out a rogue seed. “It was really hard the first couple of months, felt a bit lost with no work to do. But I’ve settled into a rhythm now. It’s been good.”
“Even so,” she replied as she lavishly spread strawberry jam on both slices, the knife scraping like a shovel on a sidewalk, “I wouldn’t like it, having someone in my space. I think I’d feel replaced.”
“No one can replace our Hannah, Janie. Huge loss for them, I’m sure. Can’t imagine anyone else on staff having a better work ethic.”
Right, Hannah thought. That good old Protestant work ethic that, without Steve’s timely intervention, might have destroyed her. She and Steve would need to have long conversations about how to navigate a return with different rhythms, rhythms that might frustrate a congregation accustomed to having her boundary-less devotion and undivided attention.
“And what about Nathan?” Jane asked. “We met him, Hugh, remember? When we visited Hannah years ago at seminary? He lived in the same dorm, didn’t he, Hannah? Nice young man. I think he studied in England or something. Oxford, maybe.”
“That’s right,” Hannah said. Her mother had a good memory.
“Can’t place him,” Hugh said. “Bring any pictures?”
“No. Sorry, wasn’t thinking.” Had the two of them ever taken a picture together? Talk about an oversight. She would need to remedy that as soon as she and Nate were together again.
Jane brushed some toast crumbs off the collar of her robe. “And what about his son? What’s he like?”
“Jake’s a good kid. Pretty easygoing for a thirteen-year-old.”
“Tough age.”
“Yes, but he and Nate are close. Really close.”
“And what about Jake’s mom?” she asked. “Is she in the picture?”
Not yet, Hannah thought. In fact, she was surprised Nate hadn’t heard any update from her. February, Laura had said. And February would soon be upon them. “She’s been living overseas,” Hannah answered, “but she and her husband are moving near Detroit in a few weeks.”
“How would you feel about being a stepmother?”
“Janie!”
“I’m just saying, these are the things you have to think about if you’re serious about being together.”
Hugh put down his newspaper and leaned back in his chair. “You serious, kiddo?”
Hannah’s face flushed. Having never dated anyone in high school or college, this kind of conversation with her parents was unfamiliar territory. She wiped her hands on another napkin, the citrus fragrance lingering on her nails. “We’re talking about the future, about what it might mean after I go back to Chicago.”
“The long-distance thing isn’t ideal,” he said, “but lots of people make it work.”
“Not for long, Hugh. That’s hard on a couple, being apart.”
Hannah watched for any flicker of facial expression to indicate whether this was her mother’s testimony, the difficulty of being married to someone who was constantly on the road. But no meaningful glance passed between her parents.
“What about Nathan?” Jane asked. “Would he be willing to move to Chicago?”
“We haven’t talked about—”
“I mean, you’ve got a great job there,” she went on, “a job you love. It would be a shame to be uprooted from the life you’ve established for yourself.”
Was this another oblique reference to her own story, to the number of times she had been uprooted from homes and communities she loved because of a husband’s job?
Watch for openings and pray, Nathan’s voice said.
“We did it,” Hugh commented, returning to his cereal bowl. “Lots of times.”
Hannah didn’t need reminding. Summer after kindergarten. Christmas break during second grade. Summer after third grade. Summer after fourth grade. Spring break during seventh grade. Summer before ninth grade.
Hannah decided to use a very thin edge in an attempt to pry open a potentially significant conversation. “Yes, but it’s not easy,” she said, “especially on a teenager. I wouldn’t ask Nate to do that to Jake.”
“You turned out fine, though, didn’t you?” he said, a bit of milk dribbling down his chin. He wiped it off with the back of his hand. “Never had to worry about my Hannah. Could always count on you for being responsible. Resilient.”
“Resilient” was not the word she would have used to describe her childhood self. But her father had evidently constructed a narrative that gave him a measure of peace. She swirled her spoon around in her bowl and opened her mouth to say—
“Now, our Joe on the other hand—” He gave a wry smile and laughed.
“He turned out fine, Hugh.”
“Sure he did.” He reached for a clementine and began to peel it. “But he sure gave us a run for our money. And his Katie—oh! she’s a spitfire. Did we tell you what she did to Riley’s hair?”
Segue complete, her parents spent the rest of breakfast sharing humorous anecdotes about their Christmas visit with their grandchildren in New York and chuckling over the antics of two mischievous little girls who felt no pressure to be anything other than little girls.
Meg
The glossy black surface of her upright piano provided a mirror for Meg to watch her young student’s face while she tried to count dotted quarter- and eighth-note rhythms. “I can’t do it!” Chloe said, banging her hand down on a row of keys.
“You can do it. I’ll help you.”
“Just play it for me so I can hear it!”
“If I play it for you, then you won’t learn how to count it for yourself. You’ll just copy me.”
With a theatrical sigh, Chloe lowered her forehead onto the keys.
“Let’s clap it again,” Meg said. “Come on. Clap it with me: ONE and two AND THREE and four AND ONE . . .”
“Knock, knock!”
The front door creaked opened, and Meg glanced over her shoulder, hands suspended midclap. “Rachel!” Meg jumped to her feet.
“Surprise!” Rachel entered carrying an overnight bag, her strawberry blonde hair a bit darker shade than when Meg had seen her in the fall. “Oooh—sorry! Didn’t know
you were teaching.” She set her bag down.
Meg embraced her older sister. “What are you doing here?”
“Told you I’d be back in January, remember? Just wasn’t sure when. I ended up with an extra day in Detroit, so I decided to drive over.”
Meg said, “I’ve still got a few more lessons and then—”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I want to go through some of those photo boxes up in the attic, get some pictures of Daddy to take with me.”
Meg had forgotten all about Rachel’s plans. “I brought the boxes downstairs,” Meg said. She and Hannah had started the process of sorting through old photos so she could assemble albums, and she had already filled a couple of books with photos of her life with Jim. But she hadn’t done anything with photos of their father yet, and she didn’t want Rachel removing pictures without her seeing them first. “Wait until I finish teaching, and we can sort through them together.”
“I know what I’m looking for,” Rachel said. “Carry on! Don’t mind me.”
“But—”
Rachel gestured toward Chloe. “Go ahead—didn’t mean to interrupt. Where are they?”
“In the parlor, but—”
Rachel clicked her tongue. “Boxes in the parlor? Mother would be mad.”
“Why would your mom be mad?” Chloe asked, twirling a pigtail braid around her finger.
Rachel said, “Because she was a mean old lady who didn’t like anyone making a mess in her house.”
Meg tried to shush Rachel with her eyebrows.
Chloe looked at her socks. “Is that why I always have to take off my shoes?”
“You still make them take off their shoes?” Rachel scoffed.
Meg shrugged. “Habit.”
“From now on, leave your shoes on, kiddo,” Rachel said.
Chloe eyed Meg quizzically. “You can if you want to,” Meg murmured.
Just as Rachel picked up her bag and headed toward the staircase, her cell phone rang. “Oh, hey, Becks!” Rachel said, her voice echoing in the foyer.
Becca! Meg had been trying to reach her for a phone conversation all week.
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