by Gayle Roper
That’s when I realized I’d raised my bandaged cheek to him. “Very funny.” I sniffed and let myself into the darkened house without a goodbye of any kind. It was a relief to be alone.
I crossed the main room quietly, taking care not to disturb Mary and John, who were already in bed in their room at the top of the main house stairs. Was Mary like my mother, who never slept until Patty and I got home from wherever we were? Or did acceptance of rumspringa allow her to sleep? Or maybe plain old exhaustion from her heavy workload pulled her under. Whatever, the house was silent about me.
When I went through to my stairs in Jake’s addition, I could hear his TV faintly in his front room. Did he have a social life, friends he did things with, or did he spend every Saturday night in front of the tube?
I got ready for bed slowly, weighed down not only by the humid August heat but by my thoughts about life and its complications. I hated it when I started thinking before I fell asleep. It guaranteed a restless night and a relentless morning headache. In a stab at getting a good night’s rest, I imagined myself picking up my thoughts about Mary and her worries and Jake and his sterile life and putting them in the chair by the window to bother Big Bird throughout the night.
But I couldn’t rid my mind of worries about Todd.
Here I was, twenty-seven years old, twenty-eight in November. For two years I’d been dating one man. At my age, that often meant marriage. Mom and Dad certainly hoped so. Todd was, after all, a lawyer.
“Not engaged yet, Kristie? But he’s so nice and handsome.”
“Not yet, Mom. Be patient.”
Unspoken was her thought that Todd would rescue me from the artsy life I was living. In Mom’s mind I was as Bohemian as they came, spending all my time kicking up my heels and accomplishing little. She had no concept of the thought and planning and time that went into a watercolor. She didn’t understand that the actual painting itself was only part of the process.
I climbed into bed and plumped the pillows behind me. I took a pencil and a piece of paper. I titled it TODD: GOOD QUALITIES. It didn’t take me long to make an impressive list.
1. Fine Christian
2. Good lawyer
3. Good salary
4. Active at church
5. Handsome
6. Intelligent
7. Loves me
I stopped and bit the eraser off the pencil. I spit it out and grabbed another piece of paper.
TODD: BAD QUALITIES
1. Thinks my ideas and preferences are dumb
2. And me too
3. Has no sense of humor
I placed the two lists side by side.
Dear Lord, do seven good qualities mitigate the force of three bad ones?
And what would Todd say if I told him about the key?
“What? You took a key from a man you’ve never seen before in your life, making a promise with who knows what implications? Who was this man, Kristie? Can you trust him? Was he setting you up for something? Why’d he give you the key and not his family or a friend? What are you supposed to do with it? What if he dies?”
He would run his hand through his hair the way he always did when he got upset. “Kristie, you should have thought!”
It’s terrible when you can’t even have a mental argument with someone without him pointing out your foolishness.
I snapped off the light and slid down on my pillow. Well, I might not have been thinking when I took the key, but I was thinking now. Too much.
I woke to the rattle of a buggy and the clopping of hooves. I glanced at the luminous dial of my clock radio. Three a.m. Ruth and Elam were home.
Almost immediately I heard a second buggy pull into the drive. Aha! Someone other than Elam was bringing Ruth home. Curious, I went to my window, but I couldn’t see anything because of the jutting of the ell.
I hoped Ruth’s romance was running more smoothly than mine. Of course, that wouldn’t be hard.
I went back to bed and fell into a fitful sleep, only to waken at dawn. I lay there with the predicted headache and listened to the morning farm noises. John and Elam would be in the barn feeding the animals and milking the cows, the extent of their Sunday labors. Mary and Ruth would be fixing a simple breakfast, after which the family would go to church, scheduled today at Uncle Sam Zook’s farm over toward Paradise. I smiled. Going to worship in Paradise.
I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but after a half hour of tossing and turning and muttering threats at myself, I finally admitted that I was awake for the day whether I liked it or not. I sighed and got up. I went in to the living room and took Big Bird’s cover off his cage, and he chirped a good morning. I gave him some fresh food and squirted water into his dish from one bottle of the case I had slid under my bed. With no running water up here, bottled water loomed large in my future.
My future. I got the Todd evaluations I’d written last night and stared at them.
Dear Lord, is it just pride that makes me feel Todd doesn’t appreciate me, the real me? After all, he was very nice, and he had many fine qualities. Maybe after we’re married, I can make him realize that he makes me feel stupid.
“Ha!” I said aloud. “Do you really think you can change a thirty-year-old lawyer who’s as set in his ways as anyone you’ve ever met? Who are you kidding, girl?”
Big Bird chirped at me happily. He loved having conversations.
“What do you think, Bird? I haven’t got a chance, have I? It’s Todd as he is or not at all.”
Nodding his head vigorously, Big Bird sang.
I sighed and reached for It’s Up to You, the book by Clarke Griffin that both the Zooks and I were reading. I found my place.
The Holy Spirit woos us. He draws us, convicts us, teaches us. But God in his wisdom seems to have left the privilege of final choice to us—and with this privilege comes the responsibility for our choices.
Sometimes we make mundane decisions—to floss or not to floss—and sometimes we make eternally significant ones—to believe or not to believe.
Many times we make wrong choices, and rather than accept accountability, we make excuses limited only by our imaginations.
“My parents always found fault with me. That’s why I criticize my wife and kids.”
“Everybody cheats on their taxes. Why shouldn’t I?”
“Well, Billy started it!”
All these excuses for wrong behavior are just that—excuses, justifications for our falling short. It seems to me that as long as someone else is responsible for our troubles, we have no hope of solving our problems. If someone else consciously or unconsciously makes my choices for me, am I not well and truly trapped? Am I not hopeless?
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,” Joshua said to each individual in Israel. He could not decide for the people even so proper a thing as worshipping God. Each had to choose alone and bear the responsibility for the choice.
The clopping of hooves caught my attention. The Zooks were leaving for church. I glanced at my clock. Seven fifteen.
I watched the buggy disappear out of sight. Did the Amish make fewer choices than I did? Or did they just make different ones? Or the same ones in different garb? Someone brought Ruth home last night. She had to make decisions about him, didn’t she?
“And what decisions should I make?” I asked my reflection as I combed my hair.
I heard no answer.
6
I was so happy with the church I had found in Lancaster. The people there loved God, and it showed in their worship and in their concern for each other. They welcomed me from the beginning, and it was there I had met Todd.
Today I found him waiting for me as usual when I came in the front door. I smiled wanly as he followed me down the aisle and sat beside me. Sitting together was a habit we’d fallen into, and in one of those blazing moments of insight I realized it probably meant a lot more to him than it did to me.
Another thing to note in the negative column of my Todd lists.
&nbs
p; I turned sideways in my seat to put down my purse and Bible and was surprised to see Jon Clarke sitting behind me.
“Hello,” he whispered, and I nodded my head in acknowledgment.
I turned back to the front, frowning. For some reason, I wasn’t certain I wanted him sitting behind me. As it turned out, I had difficulty concentrating on the Scripture reading. I stumbled over the words of music I’d sung for years. Instead of worshipping, I wondered whether the back of my hair looked good. Or whether I had any tags showing at my neckline. Or whether Todd looked too possessive. Or whether Jon Clarke noticed I wasn’t blood spattered today. When the congregation stood for the benediction and the pastor said amen, I couldn’t remember a word he’d said.
I stood frozen in place as the congregation began to move toward the exits, afraid Todd would turn to me, afraid Jon Clarke wouldn’t.
Just turn around and smile sweetly. Say something deep and significant like, “Nice service.” No need to be as tongue-tied as a junior-high girl. Besides, you can’t stand here like a pillar of salt forever.
I slanted my eyes for a quick peek at Todd and was relieved to see him greeting a couple on the other side of the aisle. I took a deep breath and turned self-consciously to pick up my things from the pew. I found Jon Clarke looking directly at me as if he’d been waiting for me to turn.
“How’s your cheek today?” His eyes under their improbably dark brows smiled.
My hand went to my bandage. “It’s fine. I forget about it most of the time. Except when I smile. Then I feel a tug.”
“Then you mustn’t smile.” And he grinned so disarmingly that I automatically smiled back. I winced.
“Jon Clarke!” a voice called.
Jon Clarke raised his hand in salute to a man several pews in front of us, and then he turned back to me. “Are you free to get dinner with me somewhere?”
“Dinner?” I said intelligently, surprised and pleased.
“Or are you already busy?” He glanced at Todd.
I glanced at Todd too, still talking with his far neighbors. He was probably assuming we were going somewhere to eat because we usually did. But his comments and attitude last night still rankled, and his assumption wasn’t good enough. Besides, an invitation in the hand…
I turned to Jon Clarke. “No, I’m not busy. Not busy at all. I’d enjoy having dinner with you.”
He nodded. “I may be a few minutes,” he said as the man who’d hailed him a moment before approached us.
“No problem,” I assured him.
As he slowly made his way through the crowd, shaking hands as he went, I slid out of my pew at the end away from Todd. I was almost in the narthex when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Where do you think you’re going in such a hurry?” Todd asked, but with a smile to show he meant nothing I could interpret as criticism. “I expected you to wait for me.”
I shrugged.
“Well, where shall we eat?” he asked. “What are you hungry for?”
“I can’t go with you today,” I said with surprising ease.
He blinked. “Why not?”
I smiled sweetly, feeling again a slight pull in my cheek.
When it became obvious I wasn’t going to tell him, he cleared his throat. “Look, you’re not still mad at me about last night, are you?”
“It wasn’t one of your finer moments,” I said. “Or one of mine, for that matter. And no, I’m not mad.”
“Good,” he said, relief evident in his face. “Then let’s go.” He put his hand in the small of my back to guide me to the door.
“I just said I can’t, Todd. I wasn’t playing games. I really do have other plans.”
He stared, obviously startled that I’d made plans that didn’t include him. “But, Kristie—”
“If you’ll excuse me?” And with that I walked to the ladies’ room. I hung around in there for ten minutes, and when I finally peeked out, I was relieved to see that Todd had gone and Jon Clarke was still talking to people. I sat on a bench in the narthex and waited.
Finally Jon Clarke joined me.
“I’m sorry.” He took my elbow as we walked. “As I told you yesterday, I’ve been away for several years, and there are so many people to see.”
“So this is your home church?”
“As close to a home church as I’ve ever had. I’ve come here off and on since I was a kid. My aunt and uncle brought me along whenever I visited—which included my junior and senior years of high school. I lived with them while my folks were in Brazil on an engineering job.”
“You were away from your parents for two whole years?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “We all survived. I didn’t want to finish my high school career in Brazil, so I stayed here with Uncle Bud and Aunt Betty Lou. Nobody forced me or anything. My choice.”
“Funny. I was just reading about choices this morning.”
“It was one of the best choices I ever made, at least spiritually. Since Mom and Dad sort of ignore God, the years here grounded me in Him.”
I thought about my parents, who were committed to God almost as much as they were committed to the law. What would it be like to grow up in an unbelieving home and never go to Sunday school and church?
“I also attended regularly when I went to Lancaster Bible College,” he continued. “I worked with the youth pastor here for a couple of years before I took my own pastoring job in Michigan.”
“Well, no wonder everyone knows you. Where’s your real home—where your family’s from, I mean?”
“San Francisco—at least for most of my growing up. That’s why Mom and Dad always sent me to Lancaster County for the summer. Country air and all that.”
“I left my heart,” I sang, before I realized what I was doing.
Jon Clarke looked at me and laughed.
I flushed and realized Todd was right. It was a stupid habit.
We stopped beside Jon Clarke’s car.
“What about my car?” I asked. “Shall I follow you wherever we’re going?”
“Let’s just leave it,” he said. “We can come back and get it later.”
I looked at my car, and he turned to look too.
“Does it really look like a taxicab?” I asked.
“Only if you’re very conventional and yellow means cabs, not sunshine, bananas, and buttercups.”
I smiled happily. What an insightful man.
Because many of the finest restaurants in the Lancaster area are owned by Mennonites, they’re closed on Sundays. We decided to try Cracker Barrel just east of town on Business 30. We had to wait a few minutes for a table, so we shopped in the general store, which was loaded with autumn and Halloween items.
“Jon Clarke, look at this.” I pointed to a Halloween witch who cackled every time someone walked by her. “She’d get on your nerves very quickly.”
He looked slightly pained but not at the witch. “Do me a favor? Call me Clarke. My mother’s a displaced Southerner, and she has the Southerner’s love for double names. I don’t.”
“You don’t go by Jon?”
“My father’s named Jon, and two Jons would be confusing, so I’ve always used Clarke. But Aunt Betty Lou calls me the whole thing, just like Mom. People around here followed her example.”
“What’s your mother’s name?” I asked, curious.
“Mary Rose.”
“Nice.”
“She’s lucky. I have an aunt named Charlotte Mabel, who’s called Lottie Mae, and another named Dolly Belle. Anyway, I sign my name J. Clarke Griffin.”
Griffin, I thought as we followed the hostess to our table and placed our orders. “Reverend J. Clarke Griffin.”
“Dr. J. Clarke Griffin.”
“Right. Graduate school. I forgot. Well, it sounds fine. It also sounds familiar, though I can’t imagine why.”
“It sounds strange to me. Too new. I imagine I’ll get used to it at the college, though.”
“You’re teaching?”
�
��Just like you.”
“Hardly on the same level.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I can’t imagine what I’d do with a roomful of little kids.”
“And I with easily bored college students.”
We took turns playing with the triangle peg game resting on our table. He kept ending with three pegs, and I managed to get two about half the time, three the rest. Neither of us managed one. Still, I beat him overall. Great strategy for impressing a first date. Well, not a date exactly. Maybe a first conversation? a first afternoon? a first meal?
If he couldn’t take a woman besting him in peg jumping, he wasn’t the man I thought he was.
The waitress arrived with our food, and Clarke pushed the peg triangle to the back of the table. “You’re good, but I’ll get you yet.”
I grinned. “Not if I can help it.”
As we ate our lunch, we talked about the morning’s message (he talked; I mostly listened as I hadn’t been able to pay much attention) and after that I shared how much I was enjoying my first weekend at the Zooks’. Then I found myself wanting to know more about what he was doing when not rescuing damsels in distress.
“What are you teaching?” I asked.
“A class in practical Christian living and one in night school on pastoral counseling.”
“And the rest of the time?”
“I’m opening a counseling center through the church. I like teaching, and it’ll help me until I get established, but my heart’s in counseling.”
“Like me and painting and teaching.”
“You’re a painter? I didn’t realize that. That’s great.”
“You sound like you actually mean it.”
“Of course I do. Don’t most people?”