by Gail Sattler
Either way, everything that was read or commented on showed that God loved everyone, no matter what kind of people they were or what they were doing at that point in their lives. Mike found it fascinating, and he had to admire every one of them for standing up for what they believed.
When the study part of the meeting was finished, they all chatted as they helped themselves to coffee, tea, and some wonderful homemade cookies. Everyone talked to him except Bruce, which left him feeling strangely relieved.
On the way home, he wanted to go out for coffee or somewhere he could talk privately with Patty without her feeling intimidated, which she would have at his house. Even though it was his car, he wasn’t driving and he couldn’t protest when she took him straight home, making it very clear that she had no intention of coming in.
After his disclosure earlier today, he could see a difference in the way Patty treated him. It wasn’t overtly noticeable, but she had erected a wall between them, and he had to find a way to break it down. It did encourage him that she had taken him with her tonight without complaint, which he hoped was a step in the right direction.
Once he was at home alone, Mike couldn’t quell a feeling of agitation. Any other day, he would have poured himself a drink and parked himself in front of the television, but that wasn’t an option. For a complete change of pace, in order to keep his mind busy, he turned the CD player on loud and played a few games on his computer. When he got bored, he did something he had never done before, which was to wash his kitchen floor since he no longer had a housekeeper to do it for him. He then vacuumed the entire house. After that, he dug through the fridge to see if there was anything worthwhile to eat.
Nothing soothed him.
Despite it being earlier than his usual bedtime, he decided to hit the sack early. As he reached for the light, he saw Patty’s Bible lying where he’d left it, and instead of turning off the light, he picked up the Bible. This time, instead of paging through for the highlighted parts, Mike started at the beginning of the book of Genesis and read until his eyes would no longer focus. Then he drifted off to sleep.
He woke to the sound of birds twittering, which meant only one thing. It wasn’t raining, and he would be joining Patty for lunch.
After a few unprofitable calls for jobs listed in the help wanted ads, Mike needed to do something to ease his frustration. A long bike ride was the perfect solution. He made and packed himself a lunch, including a couple of pieces of bread for the squirrel, and was on his way.
This time, as he leaned his bike against the church wall, instead of rushing across the grass to greet Patty, he stood in the shadows and watched her from a distance.
First she checked her watch, then emptied her lunch containers from the bag onto the bench, paused to pray, and took a bite of her sandwich. Then she tore a piece of bread off the extra piece she always brought and looked into the trees, waiting for the squirrel. Just looking at her calmed him and made him smile. She was kind and gentle, yet had a mind of her own and didn’t hesitate or have second thoughts to do what she thought it would take to keep him in line. No woman had ever made him want to stay in line until he met Patty.
Mike sucked in a deep breath, hooked his thumbs into the straps of his backpack, and walked quickly across the grass. Just as he started on his path, the little brown squirrel began to approach Patty. It was too late to turn back, and even though he slowed his pace, the squirrel turned and fled.
“Hi, Mike,” she called out without turning around.
Mike smiled. He wondered what she would do if one day it wasn’t he who approached. The thought caused a knot to form in his stomach. He didn’t want anyone else to approach her.
“I think I scared your chipmunk again,” he said as he sat beside her on the bench.
She grumbled something he couldn’t understand.
He tried to keep a straight face. “Pardon me? Sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“I said it’s a squirrel. It has a long bushy tail. It’s a solid color. It’s a squirrel.”
“Shh. Don’t raise your voice so much. You’ll scare it away.”
“You’ve already done that,” she mumbled under her breath.
Mike laughed and emptied his backpack. He held out a cookie toward her, waving it in the air. “I brought you a treat, but it’s bound to be a disappointment after those wonderful cookies last night.”
He held it in front of her, sweeping it in the air under her nose until she took it from his hand.
“You’re welcome,” he said, still grinning.
“Thank you,” she grumbled.
He continued to tease her and tell jokes until she couldn’t help but smile at him. The squirrel finally did return, and he sat completely still and silent while she fed it. Mike marveled at how a wild animal could be lured so close, even though he knew the answer. The same gentle spirit that drew the squirrel also drew him.
They stood at the same time when her lunch break was over. Mike slung his backpack over his shoulders and picked up her bag after she had deposited her empty containers into it.
With his heart in his throat, he grasped her hand and held onto it and, without saying a word, gave her a slight pull to start her walking back across the field and to the building. To his delight, she didn’t pull her hand away as they walked together. He couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt, something so simple as holding hands, compared to some of the things he’d done in the past with women he’d dated. Most of them, however, were far from pure, and their words and actions only showed what was in their hearts—they were as self-centered as he was. There had been times lately he’d come out of a relationship feeling used, and that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. A man and a woman were to cherish each other and treat the other with respect and dignity.
It was a bitter reminder that he didn’t deserve a woman like Patty.
When they arrived back at the building, she stood with him until he mounted his bike. He wanted to kiss her so badly he was grateful for the distraction of holding the handlebars.
“Good-bye, Mike.”
“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”
She opened her mouth, but then closed it again. His gut clenched to think she could have been ready to tell him not to come back. He rode off before she had the chance to think about it. He planned to be back to share her lunch break, not only tomorrow, but every day.
Mike touched up the gel in his hair and pulled his jacket out of the closet. Last night his friend Wayne had called to remind him that tonight was the annual car and truck show, and everyone had asked if he was coming this year. Of course, he was thrilled to be asked. He was very much looking forward to going.
He hadn’t seen his friends and had barely talked to them since he’d been arrested. Seeing Patty nearly every day had helped him when he felt left out of their activities, but now that he’d made plans to spend the next day without her, he almost regretted it, because he knew he would miss her. He’d missed her terribly on Monday when it had rained, but he’d seen her for lunch every other day. On Friday afternoon, when he was about to call her to see if she would spend the evening with him, Bruce had called unexpectedly to take him to an AA meeting, which he couldn’t refuse. What he had really wanted to do was to take Patty out. Today, now that Wayne was due to arrive any minute to pick him up, he wished that instead of Wayne, it was Patty who was coming to get him.
Mike shook his head. Even married men had to have a night or two out with the guys, and he wasn’t even close to being married to Patty, no matter how much he wished he could be.
The thought nearly caused him to stumble. He did want to be married to Patty, but wasn’t in a position to ask, even if he thought there was the slightest possibility she would say yes. Now that he’d told her what a jerk he’d been when he was engaged before, he doubted she would consider it. After all, who would ever want to set themselves up for heartbreak?
A horn honked in the driveway, so Mike set the house alarm, locked up, and
jogged to Wayne’s car. After they picked up their other three friends, they were on their way.
They laughed and had a great time, joking around all the way to the B.C. Place Stadium. The only thing Mike thought missing in the conversation was that for such old-time friends, they didn’t talk about anything important. Even Wayne, who was supposed to be his best friend, didn’t ask him how he’d been over the last few weeks, nor did he ask what AA meetings were like. Most of all, Mike wanted an opening to tell them that he’d done some thinking and to tell them that throughout all that had happened, he felt a deep inner peace. Somehow, he knew God was in charge of his life, and everything was going to be fine.
Soon they were mingling with the crowd, making the rounds touring all the new cars and trucks, and checking out most of the booths hawking automotive accessories of every imaginable description and possible use.
After stuffing themselves silly with corn dogs and French fries, Mike wanted to continue on and see everything else in the building, but before they got that far, they came to the beer garden.
His friends wanted to go in, because every year they made the beer garden the crowning glory of the whole auto show experience.
Mike froze. He didn’t come here to drink. He came here to have a good time and look at the new cars and the latest toys that went with them. Sure, in previous years he had enjoyed the beer garden, but this year it wasn’t on his agenda.
Apparently, none of his friends had considered that.
Travis gleefully announced the absence of a line and was the first one to enter, then Rick. Dave hesitated, but only for a minute.
When Mike didn’t move, Dave stepped back and pulled him by the arm. “Come on, Mikey, old boy. If you’re really on the wagon, you can have a soda.”
Mike didn’t want to sit in the beer garden and drink soft drinks while everyone else around him got drunk.
At his silence, Wayne nudged him. “This way, you can be the designated driver.”
Mike stiffened. They had never had a designated driver before. Warning bells went off in his head. To his friends, his arrest may have served as a warning about getting caught drinking and driving, not about actually cutting back on their drinking habits. It dawned on him that the only reason he’d been asked to come with them was because they knew he was going to stay sober, and they wanted him to drive. “I can’t be the designated driver. My license was suspended, remember?”
Travis patted him on the back. “Who cares? No one will catch you. Just drive the speed limit and stop for all the stop signs. Nothing will happen.”
Mike backed up a step. While he knew that if he carefully obeyed every little rule of the road, the chances of getting stopped on a busy Saturday night were next to non-existent, but that wasn’t the point. He had lost his license for a valid reason, and he fully intended to obey every restriction imposed upon him.
“No,” he said bluntly.
Travis patted him on the back again, then nudged him to start walking into the beer garden. “Aw, come on, Buddy. You wouldn’t want us to get caught or get in an accident because we were a little over the legal limit, would you?”
Mike stopped dead in his tracks and smacked Travis’s arm away. He knew what they had in mind. It wasn’t to be a little over the legal blood-alcohol limit. They planned to be a lot over the legal limit. “This is blackmail.”
“It’s not blackmail. We’re your friends.”
He turned to Wayne. “What would happen if I did get stopped, was arrested again, and your car was impounded? What would you do then?”
Wayne shrugged his shoulders. “That’s not going to happen.”
Mike clenched his teeth. No one thought it would happen to them, but sometimes it did. He never could have foreseen what had happened to him, but things like that happened all the time to people.
“No.”
“Coward.”
“I’m not driving. You guys are making a big mistake.”
His friends, including his very best friend, Wayne, started quietly clucking like chickens.
“I don’t need this. You guys are on your own.” He turned and strode away into the crowd, ignoring their rude comments behind him as he walked. He didn’t stop until he was outside.
Mike drew a deep breath of the cool night air into his lungs, but it didn’t relieve the numb feeling inside. These were his friends. Every year they went to the auto show together, and every year they had a good time.
He leaned against the building, out of sight from other people going in and out of the door. That was all he ever did with his friends, have a good time. Thinking back, though, he couldn’t really recall exactly what was so fun.
This year, in order to have their fun, his friends had planned this—to take advantage of him. What hurt the worst was their attempt at manipulation, trying to lay a guilt trip on him to get him to drive them home. By using his refusal to drink, the rest of them planned to get drunker than usual. They had seemed more chipper on the way there than usual, and now he knew why.
A couple of months ago, he would have been angry at being set up, but he wasn’t angry. Yes, he was hurt, but more than anything, he felt sorry for them that they would go to such means to get drunk. They weren’t going to have as good a time as they thought if they couldn’t remember the next day what they’d done. Also, no matter how “good” a time they had, their alleged fun would not be worth the hangover. He’d been that route himself enough times to know. But then again, it never stopped him from over-indulging, nor was it likely to stop his friends today.
He was not going to give in and break the law or disobey the conditions of his probation so his friends could continue to drink. Any efforts to convince them to skip the beer garden and simply cruise the auto show, which was what they came for in the first place, would be fruitless. Their barbed comments behind his back on his way out foretold that nothing would be different upon his return.
Mike looked down the street. It had gotten dark hours ago, and even though he was in reasonably good shape and he was tall enough not to be considered an easy mark, this was not the best area of town to be out alone late at night, even for a physically fit grown man.
He unclipped his cell phone from his belt and began to dial Patty’s number but stopped before he hit the last digit. He’d called her to bail him out when he had to pick up his car, but he wasn’t going to inconvenience her again, especially so late on a Saturday night. Nor did he want to further humiliate himself by asking her to come all this way and rescue him after his so-called friends had abandoned him. Instead, he hit the clear button and returned the phone to his belt.
Mike checked his wallet only to discover that he didn’t have enough money for a cab. He again looked down the street, ran his fingers through his hair, straightened his back, and headed for the nearest bus stop.
Being alone for so long waiting for the bus at night gave Mike time to think. After two transfers, and after regularly checking his wristwatch, he estimated the amount of time that his friends would be at the beer garden before they were asked to leave. From his seat in the back of the bus, he called directory assistance for the non-emergency number and dialed the police.
“Hello? I’d like to report a drunk driver.”
After he completed the call, he closed his eyes and prayed, knowing that even though Wayne would probably hate him, he had done the right thing.
Chapter 9
Patricia spread her lunch out on the park bench but didn’t open anything. Mike was late, but she was positive he was going to be there.
Once again, she checked the time. She hoped he was going to be there.
He had phoned early Sunday morning and asked her to pick him up for church. Of course she couldn’t turn him down. In the past month, she had seen amazing growth in Mike. She could see his perception changing, opening a little more every week to God’s wisdom and leading. All day long on Sunday he’d been uncharacteristically quiet, and when he finally did speak, he had asked some ver
y strange questions about friendship.
The best she could do on short notice was to show him the loyal friendship between David and Jonathan. When she asked why he was asking, he became evasive, which made her interpret his questions as a hint that he had decided to simply be friends and nothing more.
Being friends was also what Patricia knew was best, but against her better judgment, she wanted more than friendship with Mike. It wasn’t going to happen, nor would it have been right in their given situation. All her counseling training and experience taught her that after a trauma or upheaval in a person’s life, major decisions, especially matters of the heart, should be avoided until a significant amount of time had passed. Not only that, it was clear to Patricia that Mike still carried a torch for his ex-fiancée.
He’d also been very quiet when he joined her for lunch Monday. If he still hadn’t snapped out of his doldrums today, she planned to ask him what was wrong.
This time she saw him coming before the squirrel showed up for his daily treat. Today she anticipated him telling her all about the special Monday evening meeting at Claude’s house.
“Sorry I’m late. You should have started eating without me. This morning I was talking to Claude on the phone since he had the day off, and before I knew it, it was past time to leave.” He shucked off his backpack and sat beside her. “The meeting last night was great.” He began to remove his lunch from his backpack.
She opened her mouth to ask him about it, but he started before she could make a sound.
“The step of the night was ‘Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.’ And you know what? I did that, and I feel great.”
He grinned ear-to-ear, and Patricia could see that he wasn’t exaggerating. He looked great, unlike the quiet and somber person he’d been over the last two days. Today he was a different person.
“After the meeting was over and everyone left, I stayed and prayed with Claude, and it’s like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.” Instead of doing what she expected, which was to start eating his lunch, Mike enclosed both her hands in his. “God loves me, Patty. He cared for me even when I didn’t care about Him. He’s kept me safe, and He put you in my life. He put Claude in my life, and I don’t believe that any of this is an accident. Most of all, Jesus has already taken the punishment for everything I’ve done. Just because He loves me.”