by Gail Sattler
“Yes, I’m sure they’ll see it often too. Bob Johnson is going to have lots of fun with it.”
“Bob Johnson? You mean Billy Johnson’s dad? I don’t understand.”
“Yup. Bob Johnson. He bought it this afternoon. I sold it.”
She covered her mouth with both hands and gasped. “You sold your car?!”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah. Well, I can’t drive for another ten months.”
“But ten months isn’t that long! Surely you could have waited for ten months!”
Mike turned his head and stared out the window. He knew how much she enjoyed driving the car, and he wished he could have let her continue, but he didn’t have a choice. “I needed the money,” he mumbled. “Bruce happened to mention how much Bob liked the car, being a collector’s edition, and he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I needed the money to pay the college.”
“Oh, Mike, I didn’t know! If you could have held on for just a little while longer, I’m sure you’ll have no problem getting a job now that you know you won’t be going to jail. I could have loaned you something if you were running that low.”
Henry plunked the tray of food in front of them. “You two looked lost in conversation, and you didn’t come when I called your number. Enjoy it before it gets cold.” He turned and hurried back to the drive-thru window.
“I won’t take a loan from you, Patty. I wouldn’t be able to pay it back for at least a year, and I can’t do that to you.” He reached over the table and covered her hands with his. “Come on. Let’s pray.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head. “Dear Lord, thank You for Your blessings, for Your kindness, and Your mercy. Thank You especially for this day, the decision of my court case, and I pray for Your will to be done in whatever the future holds.”
“Amen,” she mumbled.
Mike took a huge bite of Sir Henry’s special recipe. He had skipped lunch, and he was starving. Fish had never tasted so good.
“What about your father? I thought you talked to your father.”
He swallowed and sipped his drink to wash it down to allow himself to speak. “I’m not borrowing the money from my father. For once, I have to be able to do something myself without my father behind me picking up the pieces.”
“Didn’t he give you your job back?”
“Not exactly. He did give me a job, but not the same one I had when I left. The job he gave me doesn’t pay very well.”
Her eyes widened, and the pity in them made him lose his appetite. The last thing he wanted was for Patty to feel sorry for him.
“This isn’t coming out right.” He covered his face with his palms, then rested his hands in his lap. “Patty, I wanted tonight to be special because I’m not going to be able to see you very much for a very long time.”
Her eyes opened wide and she froze, with a lone French fry dangling from her fingers.
“You see, I’m going back to school.”
“School?”
“Dad wants to retire in a few years, and I have no real management or business skills. I have to be able to take over the reins of the company and run it successfully. When I paid for Darryl’s course, I also signed up for a business management course for myself. It starts in two weeks, and I should graduate next spring. I’ll be going to school full-time and working part-time evenings and weekends, starting at the bottom instead of the top this time. I’m going to be working in the warehouse, driving the forklift and doing the stock. While I’m learning how to run a company in the daytime, I’ll be seeing how it really works in a practical application at night.”
“You’re going to be a stock boy?”
He nodded. “I have to squeeze that in around my sentence of the community service, so that cuts into the time I can actually earn a salary, to say nothing of studying.”
“Oh.”
He wanted to reach over the table and hold her hands, but he could feel the grease from the fries on his fingers, so he didn’t touch her. “So I’m not going to have much time to see you.”
She gulped. “Oh,” she muttered.
“I also talked about something else with your father.”
She stared at him blankly.
Mike cleared his throat. “I asked if, as a pastor, he’d mind having a son-in-law with a criminal record.”
“Son-in …” Her face paled.
Mike sucked in a deep breath. “Today closes the book of my past sins. You’ve helped me through it more than I can say. You’ve been such a prayer warrior for me. You’ve supported me when I was weak, and I want you to know how much that means to me. In a way, you’ve been my mentor, but I don’t want you to be my mentor anymore. I want you to be my best friend, my help-mate, my partner.”
He wiped his hands on his napkin, stood, then walked around the table. Once he was in front of her, he sank down on one knee, pulled the squashed French fry out of her fingers, and covered her hand with both of his. “I love you, Patty. I know this is asking a lot, but I’d like you to think about the possibility of getting married after I graduate. I know it’s going to be hard, but knowing you’re there for me at the end will make it all worthwhile.”
Her eyes glistened, welled up, and tears streamed down her cheeks. “I love you too,” she sniffled. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
Joy like he’d never experienced surged through him. Mike stood, pulled Patty to her feet, and wrapped his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the sweet fragrance of her apple-scented shampoo, doing his best to ignore the heavy smell of the deep fryer that always permeated Sir Henry’s. He thought his heart would burst when she wrapped her arms around his back and squeezed.
The loud snort of Henry blowing his nose echoed behind him.
“That’s so beautiful,” Henry mumbled, and blew his nose again. “Can I take your picture? No one has ever proposed in my restaurant before.”
Patty sniffled, they separated, and she looked up at him. Her beautiful smile almost made him lightheaded. “Do you mind?” she asked.
The woman he loved just said she would be his wife. He wouldn’t have minded if Henry wanted to film a movie as long as he got a copy so he could look at it when the pressure of the next year threatened to overwhelm him.
He turned to Henry. “Only if you’ll come to the wedding.”
The flash of the camera was Henry’s reply.
Epilogue
Patricia watched the tears form in her father’s eyes. “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”
Mike lifted her veil and kissed her, but instead of the short peck they’d discussed at the rehearsal, he embraced her and kissed her fully. She leaned into her new husband and kissed him back in equal measure, until she thought her knees would give out. The sound of her father clearing his throat brought them both to their senses.
Her father wiped his eyes, cleared his throat once more, and addressed their guests in the church, which was packed with standing room only.
“Before Mike and Patty walk down the aisle for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. Michael R. Flannigan, Jr., I want to read this Scripture that Mike requested. Psalm 103, verses 1–4.
“Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits—
who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you
with love and compassion.”
Patricia smiled and squeezed Mike’s hand. The next six months were going to be difficult; however, after two months of struggling to see each other between school, his job, and his community service requirements, they discovered that his suspended driver’s license made it too difficult for them to see each other. So they just gave up and got married earlier than they had planned.
Autumn was a fine time for a wedding, and they didn’t care that they couldn’t take their honeymoon until after his gra
duation, although she did have a feeling that, when Monday came, he wouldn’t exactly be in the mood for his first class.
He smiled back, squeezed her hand, and they began their walk down the aisle. Joy radiated from him, so unlike the first day she’d shown up on his doorstep.
He had changed and grown so much since they met, not only as a Christian, but also as a person.
After his court case, he had worked hard on the last two steps in the AA program, which were “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out,” and, “Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”
He hadn’t come to know Jesus in the same way she had, but his love for Jesus was evident in every part of his life, both at school and on the job for his dad, and she loved him more every day because of it. He’d made new friends in the church, and he’d developed a wonderful ministry with the youth group, who loved him.
The church door opened to the parking lot, where four hundred people waited to shower them with rice. Instead of small bags, many members of the youth group held boxes.
A number of rice boxes began to shake, the sound increasing in volume. When she cringed, Mike leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Don’t worry, I knew what they were going to do. I have a plan.”
Patricia turned to her new husband. “You’re kidding, right?”
Mike grinned. “Wrong.”
They began their walk through the crowd of well-wishers, until they were at the section where the youth group was congregated. A split second before the torrent of rice poured upon them, Mike reached into his sleeve, whipped out a small umbrella, and opened it with a flick of his thumb. His free arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her close as the rice thundered onto the umbrella, slid down, and within a few seconds covered their feet.
Patricia raised herself to her tiptoes through the rice, wrapped her hands around his neck, and gave him a quick kiss, at which the crowd hooted.
“My hero,” she whispered.
Mike grinned. “Yeah?”
She gazed into his smiling eyes, eyes that radiated with pure joy. God really had pulled Mike from the pit. After intense soul-searching, some hard work, and much prayer, everything in Mike’s life was fitting into place. His future was set with his ministry, he was working toward high goals for his career, and within a couple of years, they would start a family. He’d met all the challenges and obstacles in his way first with prayer and then with courage and diligence.
Patricia grinned back. “Yes. You really are my hero.”
And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
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