by T. K. Chapin
I smiled and patted her back. "I love you too, dear. What kind of Dad would I be if I wasn’t always there for you?"
She wiped her eye of a stray tear and smiled as she sat back down across from me. Emily was beyond special in my heart. She kept it beating after the painful divorce from her mother, Maria. I might have made mistakes with my ex-wife, but Emily wasn't one of them. God didn't bless me with a huge family, but what He did bless me with was an amazing daughter who kept me smiling each new day.
"You found it," she said, her eyes looking behind me.
Twisting in my chair, I looked over to see where she was looking. The coat rack. More specifically, I knew she was talking about my father's old brown leather jacket. Turning to her, I nodded. "It was in the far corner of the attic, but yes, I did."
"I wish I would have spent more time with him and less time being an angsty teen." Her tone was longing, her eyes slightly twinkling.
"You would've liked him a lot."
She smiled, spooning a mouthful of ice cream into her mouth. "I wonder what he saw in Grandma? She was a loon."
My heart hardened at the mention of my late mother. I didn't think of her often. She was a bitter and often angry person while she was alive. My daughter's question was one that had plagued me in my own life for years. What did Dad ever see? Even still, the question surfaces to my mind this day. He could have been alive still if it weren’t for her. Whatever the case, I knew it wasn't good to speak ill of the dead. Standing, I headed to the sink as I said, "We shouldn’t talk that way about the dead."
"Sorry. Have you sold the Camaro yet?"
She shifted subjects. I assumed it was an attempt to loosen the tight feeling of tension looming in the air at the mention of my mom. "Not yet. I do have a couple of people who have stopped by and checked it out."
"You’ll get it sold. You still working on my truck?” Emily had called dibs on the first classic truck I got after she graduated college. It was a deal we made.
I laughed and nodded. "Sure. Just a few more things to fix on it and then it’s yours."
Emily stood and took her bowl to the sink. "I’d better get going if I want to be able to get up and do my sunrise Yoga on time."
"You sure you're my daughter?" I asked jokingly with a smile as we came closer for a hug.
"Shut it, Dad," she said playfully as we embraced. It felt good seeing her again.
"You should get out here more often."
"I'm so wiped out after work most days. I’m sorry."
"I know, I know," I said, patting her back on the way to the front door.
Turning to me at the door, she looked at me with wide and hopeful eyes. "Thank you for not freaking out about Lighthouse. I know you don't entirely agree with it, but it means a lot to me that you didn't scream at me and run me out of the house earlier."
I felt ashamed that she expected me to do that. I knew that earlier in my Christian walk, I might have done such a crazy thing, but walking with the Lord for so long has taught me to slow down and pray more than I speak. "You're welcome. Have a good night and don't be a stranger."
CHAPTER FIVE
ON THE WAY HOME FROM the auto parts store a few days later, I stopped in at the Safeway to pick up a few groceries. Seeing the frozen lasagna behind the see-through glass door, I thought of my Emily and her visit the other night. More specifically, her question of whether she was pretty. It still broke me to know she wondered that. I used to cherish the fact that she hadn't met a guy yet in life, but after seeing that deep longing and sadness in her eyes the other night, I didn't want that anymore. I wanted her to be happy.
"Oh, dear!" A woman said as her purse hit the smooth cold floor of the frozen dinner aisle. I peered over through the open freezer door as I reached in. Seeing the contents of the purse spilled across the floor and the curly brown-haired goddess whom it belonged to struggling to get it all picked up, I was moved with compassion. Tossing my lasagna into my basket, I hurried over and helped her. Handing her the small beef tri-tip frozen dinner, our eyes met. Her beautiful green eyes looked back at me and I felt something deep beneath the surface ignite in the place where the memories of happiness and youth abided. We stood up together in the aisle.
"I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened," she said, shaking her head in obvious embarrassment.
"It's okay." I smiled and then turned and went back to my cart. Hitting on strangers wasn't something I did, even if I wanted to the second I saw her. She followed me and gently grabbed my arm.
"Sir?"
"Yeah?" I replied, stopping and turning around.
"This isn't like me, but could I interest you in dinner?"
"What?" I felt startled by the question, even though I was just thinking the same thing.
"I'm sorry." She shook her head and turned to leave. "I didn't realize . . . you're probably married. I'll be going now."
"Not married."
She turned, raising an eyebrow. “So is that a yes?”
Like a cold, damp fireplace generating just a lick of heat from a single ember, I felt something deep ignite again as our eyes met. I knew I'd regret it for a long time if I didn't say 'yes' to this beautiful mystery woman in the supermarket.
"Name's Ron Fields, and yes, I'll have dinner with you. How about tonight? Can we do it at my place though? I have a hungry cat waiting for food at home. I’m not much for cooking but I can cook a frozen Lasagna. How’s six o’clock work for you?" I said, motioning at the frozen rectangle that barely qualified as food and hoping she wasn’t taking me as a bit too forward.
"Sounds great, but let me cook for you. Let me get your address." She began digging in her purse for her phone.
"I haven’t been cooked for in years. You have a name?" I asked, trying my best to be charming.
Looking up at me, she smiled. "Yes, sorry, Teresa."
CHAPTER SIX
MILO JUMPED FROM THE COUCH and rubbed his side against my leg as I came in through the front door. He must have seen the twenty-pound bag of cat food draped over my shoulder, I thought to myself as he made sure to follow me through the living room and into the kitchen. Setting the groceries down on the counter, I took the cat food over to his dish and began to open it.
My phone rang over on the kitchen counter. Hurrying with the food, I poured a bit into his bowl and then went to answer it.
It was Maria, my ex-wife.
"Ronny, I need a favor."
My jaw clenched. I hadn't spoken to the woman in nearly a year, and she had the audacity to phone me for a favor? "Don't call me that, and what is it you need, Maria? I have plans tonight."
"Hot date?" She laughed. "You don't have plans, Ron."
"I actually do. I'm hanging up now."
"No, wait. I’m sorry. It's about Emily. Talk some sense into our daughter. I'm afraid she's embracing this new age garbage a bit too much, and I’m afraid what it’ll do to her.”
Raising a hand, I shut my eyes. "Stop right there, Maria. I lost her once. A second time won't happen."
"Oh . . . now you take a stand?" She laughed that condescending laugh that had littered so many years of our marriage. I was about to hang up when she said, "Please just talk to her."
Holding my tongue, I didn't say anything rude but instead simply asked, "Is that all you needed?"
Click! She hung up.
I slammed my phone down, hanging it back up on the hook. They call home phones archaic, but you can’t beat the satisfaction of slamming it down on the receiver. That woman drove me insane. I couldn't help but marvel at how I’d made it through twenty-four years of marriage with someone like her, but then again, I had a real job back in those days. Down at the bank, I'd work from morning till night. I never saw her much. After I quit that job and started restoring classics, we learned how incompatible we really were. We did try to make it work, and we made it for a long time in that mode of 'trying' until we gave up. We did it all. Counseling, individual therapy, and even a couples’ vacation to ‘restore o
ur intimacy’. I didn’t give up until she tried something new I didn't like very much—his name was Jim, a smooth-talking used car salesman who swooned her with a couple of compliments and smiles she couldn't resist. She left me a month after meeting him.
Turning my attention back to my evening with Teresa, I tried to do my best to forget the rude interaction with my ex. Tidying up around the house, I made sure it was presentable the best I could, and I even went as far as pulling out the scented candle from the top shelf of the bookshelf in the living room I had received from Emily last Christmas.
After being satisfied with how the house looked, I took a seat on my couch and pulled my Bible from the coffee table and brought it onto my lap. A bit of prayer and Bible study would do my heart and mind good going into the evening with Teresa.
Checking my watch, I saw I had a good forty minutes before she was due to arrive. Digging in, I opened the book of Proverbs, my favorite book in the Bible. I continued where I’d left off that morning in Chapter four. Reading verses ten and eleven, I felt the presence of the Lord stir within my soul as I read.
Listen, my son, accept what I say,
And the years of your life will be many.
I instruct you in the way of wisdom
And lead you along straight paths.
Proverbs 4:10-11
A truth settled into me. My earthly father had since passed away, but it was my Heavenly father who led me along straight paths. God is and always will be my Father everlasting. It was God who led me through this life, and it was He who instructed me and showed me the way to truth. Anything my father did when he was alive was God working through him. It was God all those times my dad took me door knocking for Jesus. It was God who found beauty in the face of a dirty and battered little blonde girl who lived in a trailer park. It was God then, and it's God now who is with me.
I praised God as a comfort came over my soul that I hadn’t found before that moment. "Thank you, God. Thank you for Your love for me that never runs dry, never runs out."
CHAPTER SEVEN
GETTING COMFORTABLE IN A STOOL up at the counter in my kitchen, I watched as Teresa shredded cheese for our tacos. I'd helped her with getting the shells into the oven while she browned the meat earlier, but for the most part, I had been asked to let her handle things. She wanted to cook for me. It reminded me of the days gone by, of not only when I was married, but when I was growing up and when Mom would cook for me and Dad. I could still smell the taco meat browning while I sat in the living room with the old tube TV and watched football as I lay on my dad’s chest.
"Have you ever been married?"
She raised her eyebrow as she looked over her shoulder. "No. Have you?"
"Yeah."
Finishing the cheese, she placed it back in the sandwich bag and moved it all to the side so nothing was between us. Leaning her arms on the counter, she looked me in the eyes with those pretty emerald gems and asked, "Do you still love her?"
I laughed. "No. That ship sailed long ago. Six years divorced now, but emotionally, it was over a long time before then." My eyes focused on hers for a moment longer, then traced her face, neckline, and then finally, her arms as I continued. "Any specific reason you never married?”
She shrugged a shoulder and stood up. "Not really. Sometimes, it doesn't happen. Doesn’t mean it won’t in the future."
"Okay, okay. I'll give you that." Picking up my glass of water, I took a drink.
She smiled at me as she glanced over all the prepping for dinner that had been done. "Dinner is ready."
After making up our tacos, we sat down at the kitchen table and I led us in a prayer at her request.
"We come to You today, Lord, and request You bless this food to our bodies. Help it give us nourishment and energy that we need. We pray that our evening goes well and that You are a part of it. Amen."
Lifting our eyes from prayer, she didn't touch her taco right away but instead, tarried a moment and watched as I took a big ole chomp out of mine. Catching her stare, I stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Something the matter?"
"No . . . I was just wondering . . . who is God to you, Ron?"
Smiling, I raised my eyebrows as I finished my bite and a lifetime of experience flooded through my mind, pricking my heart as it filled me to the brim.
"Who is God to me?" I replied, and picking up my red cloth napkin from my lap, I wiped my mouth, then continued. "He was there with arms wide open when my father passed away from a sudden house fire a few years ago. He was there when I lost my cousin in a boating accident in my youth. He was there in the eyes of my daughter on the day she was born up at Deaconess Hospital. Honestly, Teresa, every day, I see Him in the sunrise and experience Him in the stars I gaze upon at night. He's a cool breeze on a hot day and a cold drink when I'm thirsty. He's satisfaction in a world that gives none. To sum it all up, I'd say He's my Creator, my Maker, and the greatest love I've ever known or ever will know. He's my Savior and my salvation."
Her eyes were wide, her lips speechless. I didn't realize right away all that I said until I replayed it over again in my head. It was a lot to say on a first date, especially about God, but I was forty-eight. I didn't have time to dance around the truth, to hide and conceal what really mattered in my life. Courtship was only useful if it could lead to marriage, and hiding or withholding my beliefs wouldn't do me or her any favors. It'd only waste our time.
"I'm sorry if that was a bit more than you were asking for," I finally offered after another minute’s silence that was growing ever so awkward.
"No, no, Ron. I loved it. I didn't grow up in a religious home. I didn't ever try anything up until my mid-thirties."
"You started looking for God then?"
She nodded and looked at her taco, then back at me. "Yes. I want to know God more than anything. I feel this . . . this craving." She touched her chest. "I know He's out there somewhere, and I’ll find him someday."
"Let me take you to church on Sunday. Down at Pines Baptist. You can learn about the real and living God."
Picking up her taco, she nodded. "Okay, yeah. I'd love that."
CHAPTER EIGHT
AFTER DINNER, I BROUGHT IN my glass of ice water from the kitchen to join Teresa as she had already gone into the living room. I found her perusing the wall of memories I had hanging by the bookshelf. Not only were there plenty of old photographs, but there were quite a few little keepsakes on a shelf I installed last year.
“Did you make this?” She was joking as she pointed at a wobbly off-centered piece of pottery that Emily had made as a child.
I smiled.
“It must have been amazing,” she said, her words trailing off.
“What? Using that purple flowery ashtray?” I laughed. “Never smoked.”
She laughed and shook her head, then turned to me with a longing in her eyes. “No. Having a daughter.”
“Daughters are amazing. I think God gives them to us hard men so we get a little softer in life.”
She smiled and her eyes went back to the wall. “What’s the best memory up here?”
“It’s hard to pick just one.”
“Try.”
My eyes surveyed the pictures. Then I saw it. A picture of little Emily in her softball uniform when she was just a fifth grader. I pointed to it.
“Emily joined the Spokane Rockies softball team that summer, and I went to every practice and every game. The team wasn’t impressive at all. They lost every game they ever played, but man, I loved watching that little girl try to hit a ball and clumsily make her way to first base.”
Teresa laughed and raised an eyebrow as she looked over at me. “Huh. That’s the best memory?”
I smiled and looked at her. “Yeah, it is. It’s the seemingly insignificant things you remember most. There was one time in particular that I remember. It was right after the last game of the season, while I was sucking on the end of a juice box straw. Emily was off giggling and talking with the rest of her team, and she look
ed over at me. She got this smile on her face that lit up my world. It said thanks, Dad, for always being there for me.”
Teresa touched my arm and said, “Awe . . . you’re such a good dad!”
“Thanks. Enough about me—let’s talk about you. You mentioned you’re in real estate?”
“Yeah,” she replied. We went over and sat down on the couch. “I love real estate.”
“What’s your favorite part?”
“I think helping a couple find their perfect home has a reward in it that I just can’t get enough of. Especially when both the husband and wife just fall in love with a house and they see it as their home already. It’s truly magical.”
Her eyes glazed a bit as she talked, and I smiled and nodded.
“I’ve never thought much about it like that.”
She took a drink and set her glass down on the coffee table. “Every sale that is closed, I give the person, usually a couple, a house-warming gift to congratulate them. It’s a token of my appreciation for allowing me to be a part of the process. It’s so fun.”
“I bet you’ve seen some nice homes.”
She raised a brow. “Yeah. Spokane has some pretty swanky places. I think the place I’d want to settle down, though, would be out in Suncrest. Have you been out there?”
Shaking my head, I said, “No. I haven’t.”
She touched my leg lightly. “Ron, it’s gorgeous out there. It’s about twenty-five minutes outside town, kind of like Mead, but over more northwest, and it’s on Long Lake. Those lakefront properties are breathtaking.”
Recalling a trip out to Long Lake in my past, I nodded. “Wait, I’ve been out on Long Lake. That’s part of the Spokane River, right? Guess I never realized it was called Suncrest out there.”
“Yep.”
I nodded. “My buddy Charles and I went fishin’ out there years ago. It was nice.”