Barefoot

by Brown, Sharon Garlough;

  She had refused to rest, hoping to receive any kind of comfort her mother might offer. But none came. No words of affirmation. No words of gratitude. No words of response to any of Meg’s numerous declarations of love. Pleas for love.

  Who has made it difficult for you to approach God with confidence in his love?

  “A mother who didn’t tell me she loved me,” Meg wrote.

  Not once.

  Not ever.

  Resuscitated grief gashed her throat like shards of jagged glass. She wasn’t ready to forgive that.

  Not yet.

  Maybe not ever.

  Hannah

  You’re not their pastor, the voice inside Hannah’s head reminded her. Not a counselor, a social worker, or a spiritual director. But a friend. A sister. A companion on the journey. A prayerful listener. And a discerner of a time to keep silence and a time to speak.

  Mara reached for the box of tissues on the table. “Tom stole Brian from me. I stole Kevin from him. All of my sons were taken. Even Jeremy. I stole him in adultery. How come I’ve never even thought about that before? It’s like all I saw was my own pain, my own suffering. Like I was the only victim in everything that happened with his father.” She blew her nose in a long trumpeting blast. “And now what am I supposed to do? Here I’ve been writing all these ‘I forgive you’ letters the past few months, been trying to let go of all my bitterness toward all those girls who bullied me, and now I find out that the letter I need to write is a ‘Please forgive me’ letter. To the woman whose husband I stole.”

  “Do you think you need to actually send something to her?” Meg asked. “Or could you write the letter, just between you and God?”

  Good question, Hannah thought.

  “I don’t know,” Mara said. “Jeremy’s done all the twelve-step stuff. I know there’s something in there about making amends, as long as you don’t hurt somebody by doing it. He did a lot of that a few years ago.” She blew her nose again. “I don’t even know if Tess is still alive. Guess I could search on Facebook or online. That’s how I found Bruce’s—Jeremy’s dad’s—obituary years ago. Internet search.”

  “So maybe that’s the first step,” Meg said. “But I don’t know. Sounds like something to talk about with your counselor.”

  Mara nodded. “Sorry, guys. I’m a mess. An absolute mess.”

  Meg rested her hand on her shoulder. “This was a hard exercise, but I’m glad you chose it, Mara. I saw some things I needed to see, things I need to pray through. Thank you.”

  Hannah wondered if Meg would freely share those things once Mara was finished processing her discovery. It might be easy to discount her own experiences in light of Mara’s story.

  “I just feel so stupid,” Mara went on. “And blind. Another charge against me to add to my long list: adulterer.”

  Hannah was about to remind Mara that there was no condemnation in Christ, that this was an opportunity to see the depth of Jesus’ love again, to receive his mercy and compassion and forgiveness, when Mara said with a sigh, “I know the drill. I do. I know what my counselor would say—I’ve heard it so many times—that we see stuff when we’re ready to see it, right? The whole ‘light shining into darkness’ thing. I get it. I do. And I know the whole ‘no condemnation’ thing too. I know that here,” she said, tapping her brow, “but why can’t I get it here?” She pounded her chest. “Longest distance in the world, right? The distance between my head and my heart.” Mara closed her eyes and leaned forward on her elbows, palms pressed against her forehead.

  A time to keep silence, Hannah thought. And let the Spirit work.

  Charissa

  Charissa arrived forty-five minutes early to her classroom on Tuesday afternoon, the same classroom where she’d sat for freshman writing courses—honors classes, not the standard one she would be teaching. This was it: the moment she had dreamed about ever since she was a little girl gathering neighborhood kids around her chalkboard to play school. She was always the teacher.

  A whiteboard had replaced the board Dr. Bauer once used. She could still see the chalk smeared on his dark V-neck cardigans and corduroy trousers, could hear his gravelly, monotone voice reciting Shakespeare. He retired after her sophomore year, making way for the more dynamic and popular Dr. Allen, who, she remembered with a smile, had sent her a very kind email that morning to say he would be praying for her as she taught her first class. And John had risen early to make his special chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. And her mother had called to say how proud she was. Show them who’s boss, her father had said when he picked up the extension. Find your power position in the room and teach from there. Set the tone early for your authority—no nonsense. Get their respect, and then you can ease up later.

  She chose a red pen from the desk drawer and printed her name on the dry erase board in large letters: Professor Charissa Sinclair.

  On second thought, she wasn’t technically a professor yet, and someone might object to her using the title. She took the eraser from the metal lip beneath the board and wiped out “Professor.” But the red lines still showed. She rubbed harder and stepped back to inspect. Still visible. She rummaged through the desk drawer, looking for a bottle of spray cleaner. Nothing. She licked the tip of her finger and rubbed again. Marginally better. She wrote “Instructor” where “Professor” had been.

  But now it looked like she had made a mistake spelling “Instructor.”

  Maybe another classroom had a bottle. She scavenged through empty rooms along the hallway until she found one. Then she spritzed her board clean and started again.

  Instructor: Charissa Sinclair.

  But then what would the students call her? Mrs. Sinclair? She still thought of her mother-in-law whenever anyone called her that. She spritzed the board again and wiped it clean. Maybe black ink was better than red. Red screamed “trying to exert authority,” while black was at rest in it.

  She wrote the words in black ink. Instructor: Charissa Goodman Sinclair.

  But then what would the students call her? Mrs. Goodman-Sinclair? She should have asked Dr. Gardiner for input. What did the other graduate students go by? First names, probably. She couldn’t remember how Dr. Gardiner had introduced her on the first day of class.

  “My name is Charissa Goodman Sinclair,” she said when she re-introduced herself to her students twenty minutes later. “You may call me Ms. Sinclair.”

  A few students in the back row whispered to one another. One of them snickered.

  They looked so young. She probably looked young to them too. She shouldn’t have pulled her hair into a youthful ponytail. Next class she’d do something more sophisticated. A twisted chignon, perhaps. “Dr. Gardiner has already given you the course overview with the syllabus, so I’m not going to cover any of that ground again. If you have questions, you may see me after class or send me an email.” She wrote her email address beneath her name on the board, surprised by the tremor in her hand. Did the letters look squiggly?

  Make the butterflies fly in formation, her mother often said.

  Find your power position and keep it, her father added.

  She squared her shoulders, planted her hands on the podium, and glanced down at the lecture notes she had prepared. Since Dr. Gardiner had not spent adequate time making a case for the importance of learning to write well, Charissa had decided to begin there. Some of the students would need to be reminded that this required course had value for their lives, no matter which career path they would choose. “This is a course in the study of written rhetoric,” she said. “Rhetoric is an ancient art that has its roots in the classical period. The term rhetoric is from the Greek rhetor, from which we derive our word ‘orator.’ In the words of Cato and Quintilian—”

  A cell phone rang. She pretended not to hear.

  “—an orator, in the best sense, is ‘the good man speaking well.’ Or, in our case, the good woman.” Crickets. Not a single chuckle from any of the female students. She coughed once into her fist. “T
he health of Greek and Roman democracy depended on excellent rhetoric: good leaders arguing well in order to—”

  Another ringtone from the far back corner. She looked up from her notes. “Everyone, please turn off your phones.” A few students reached into backpacks to comply; others left their phones on the desks. “—good leaders arguing well in order to persuade for the common good. In our day too we need people with the skills to lead in a complex society. That means being able to write well. In this course, you’ll learn how to question, analyze, and argue logically and skillfully. This course—”

  From somewhere in the back corner, an exaggerated yawn, followed by a few chuckles.

  “—this course is not about blogging or tweeting or expressing yourself creatively. It’s about using research and analysis, and writing clearly. Excellent writing skills are essential for success in college. Beyond that, excellent writing will give you an advantage in the workplace. Research shows that professionals spend about forty-four percent—” From her peripheral vision she saw several students texting. She stopped speaking and glowered at them, waiting for them to notice. One nudged the other, who put his phone back on the desk. “Phones away,” Charissa said. “Turned off and stowed away. And starting next class, no laptops.” A collective groan erupted at this decisive strike against Internet surfing. “You can bring notebooks and pens and do things the old-fashioned way.” She glanced down at her notes again. “—professionals spend about forty-four percent of their time writing. People who can write well advance more quickly in the workplace than those who can’t. So regardless of which major you will choose or which career path lies ahead of you, writing well and persuasively is an essential skill.”

  “The syllabus doesn’t say anything about not having laptops in class!” one of them called out from the back corner. “That’s how I take my notes.”

  “I didn’t write the syllabus. Consider this an addendum.”

  “Consider this paranoia,” he said in a low voice to the student next to him.

  Punk kid.

  She glanced down at the printout of digital photos next to each student’s name. Justin Caldwell. She wondered if he was any relation to Cameron Caldwell, who graduated in Charissa and John’s class at Kingsbury. Also a punk. John would remember him.

  The students had seemed so polite and engaged with Dr. Gardiner, responding with eagerness and insight whenever she posed questions. By the end of Charissa’s first half-hour of solo flight, however, it was obvious most of them regarded her as a substitute teacher unworthy of respect. Shoulders back, her mother’s voice instructed. And her father added, Show them who’s boss.

  Hannah

  “Did I catch you in the middle of anything?” Nathan asked when Hannah picked up her phone.

  “No, nothing that can’t wait.” She set Meg’s washer to an extra rinse cycle and pulled the knob.

  “I need a favor,” he said.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Jake forgot his gym bag at our house, and I’ve got a meeting I absolutely can’t miss. Normally, I’d let him deal with the consequences, but—”

  “No—it’s okay, Nate. I’m happy to do that for him.” More than happy, actually. Not only was the errand a tangible way to serve Jake, the sort of thing a mom—or stepmom—might do, but Nathan asking for that kind of help felt like a particularly intimate threshold being crossed. “When does he need it?”

  “By three o’clock, if possible. Practice is right after school.”

  “I can head to your house now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Is there a spare key somewhere?”

  “Under the big empty flowerpot on the patio. He said the bag’s in his room, probably on his bed.”

  “Okay. On my way.”

  “Thanks, Hannah. I really appreciate it.”

  She left a note for Meg, who had fallen asleep beneath a fleece blanket in the recliner Nathan had delivered for her. Propped up, Meg was able to rest for longer stretches without coughing fits, but her coloring was ashen, and she had lost weight. Hannah had observed enough depression over the years to wonder if it accounted for some of Meg’s lethargy. Probably time for a gentle conversation about getting some help.

  The overnight snow had refurbished the dingy piles along the roadsides, and the unfiltered sunlight glinted off the pristine canvas to reveal all the grime of winter on her car. Hannah reached into the console for her sunglasses. After she finished at the middle school, she would join the long lines at the local car wash.

  “Hey, Chaucer.” In his crate in the kitchen, Chaucer thumped his tail. Nate hadn’t given any instructions about letting the dog out. Hannah took off her boots by the front door and then texted him. Don’t let him out, Nate texted back. He’ll be okay. “Sorry,” she said, reaching her fingers through the grate to pat Chaucer’s silky golden head. “Your dad says wait.” Chaucer looked at her as if he understood and lay back down.

  Hannah had never been upstairs and wasn’t sure which room was Jake’s. Directly opposite the landing was a small study crammed with books and nautical accessories on the shelves and desk, not unlike Nate’s office on campus. Adjacent to the study and also overlooking the front yard was Nate’s room. She lingered in the doorway: dark taupe walls and dark wood furniture, a laundry basket with a pile of folded clothes beside the sliding closet door, and a queen-sized bed covered with a blue and brown plaid comforter. She would not cross the threshold into his sanctum.

  Would not.

  Except to take a closer look at a framed picture on his nightstand.

  It was a photo of the two of them standing together outside the seminary chapel, smiling, young, full of life, his arm draped around her shoulder, her hands clasped together. She had no memory of the photo being taken, no memory of ever having seen a picture that would have been snapped before she spurned his romantic overtures and fled to another school half a country away.

  He had kept it. For seventeen years.

  She touched his relaxed, unlined face and compared her own reflection superimposed on the glass to the earnest girl staring back at her.

  Thank God Nate had recognized her in the New Hope courtyard that day in October. Thank God.

  She set the picture down, careful to match the angle in the line of dust on the nightstand. They should have a new picture taken, something she could send her parents. She would ask Jake the next time the three of them were together.

  Jake’s door across the hallway stood open, his room a chaotic but endearing amalgam of boyhood and adolescence: a Scooby-Doo poster alongside graffiti and skateboard art, a few Lego Star Wars models alongside baseball trophies on the bookcase, a tattered teddy bear monitoring the scene from high upon the top shelf. On his rumpled bedspread was his gym bag, a note affixed to the handle: Hannah, look outside.

  Bewildered, she picked up the bag and stepped toward the window­­sill to pull aside the curtain.

  Below, clearly visible in the yard, was a message composed with tracks on the fresh fallen snow: Marry me?

  And beside the question mark, the man she loved—the man she had always loved—was kneeling and watching her face in the window.

  Tuesday, January 27

  11 p.m.

  Nate and I are engaged. I can hardly take it in. I’ve been sitting here in Meg’s house just staring at the ring on my left hand and replaying the moment when Nate placed it on my finger. We both cried. I wrote my Yes with my footprints, except I was so overwhelmed that I wrote my “s” backwards. And that made us laugh and cry harder.

  He apologized for the subterfuge but said he was fairly confident I would be willing to help Jake out at a moment’s notice. As soon as I said I was on my way, he tamped out the words in the snow, then hid next to the shed in the backyard until he knew I was in the house. “Told you I had a meeting I couldn’t miss,” he said. I’m so glad I didn’t let Chaucer out without texting first! I would have wrecked the whole plan.

  Mom was so excite
d when I called a little while ago—said she and Dad suspected things would move forward quickly—and wanted to know what date we had set. We haven’t set one. That’s the part that’s still really unclear. Nate and I talked about it a long time today. He said he didn’t wait to ask me because he knew he was ready to take the next step in commitment and sensed I was, too. Now it’s the question of timing. How long an engagement? Open-ended? That feels too hard.

  Now that it’s real—now that we’ve crossed this next threshold together, I need to have an honest conversation with Westminster. Or at least with Steve. I don’t have a clue what ministry will look like after June. I just know that eventually, I’ll be serving as a married woman, not as a single one. And that will bring significant changes to the way I’ve served for the past fifteen years. I see now how God has been preparing me for this the last few months, giving me a longing for a different way forward, a different rhythm. I don’t know what that rhythm will look like. But I’ll be working it out with my husband, Nate.

  Lord, it feels like too much abundance. Too much good. Like you have let me “be full” and have “all things.” And I don’t know how to say thank you. I feel like I’m sitting beneath an overflowing cup, and I don’t have the capacity to take it all in.

  So, Lord, enlarge my cup to receive your fullness so that everything I offer others comes out of the abundance I’ve received.

  Meg cried with joy when I got back and showed her my ring. Mara and Charissa are already talking about bridal shower plans. I haven’t told Nancy yet. I think I want to talk to Steve first.

  I can’t believe I’m engaged.

  I just realized—Nate and I will be going to the Holy Land to walk in Jesus’ footsteps as an engaged couple! The three of us will be there together as an “almost” family. I asked him how Jake felt about everything. He said Jake was the one who helped come up with the idea of using his gym bag as a ruse. That makes me so happy. So incredibly happy.