Two Steps Forward

by Sharon Garlough Brown

  Mara started to sauté the vegetables, then cracked the first egg into a bowl with one hand, no shells. It wasn’t hard to see where Hannah was going.

  “I’m not going to manipulate you into giving details,” Hannah went on. “I just need to ask. Is he abusive?”

  Define abusive, Mara thought. “He’s a jerk, that’s for sure.”

  “Has he ever physically hurt you?”

  “No. He’s stupid, but not that stupid.”

  “What about psychologically? Does he bully you?”

  “Lots of people have bullied me.” She cracked the last egg, added some milk, and began whisking vigorously. “I’m used to being bullied. Been bullied from the time I was a little girl. Like I was saying last night. I was always the rejected one, the one everyone made fun of. And don’t worry—my counselor has been helping me work through some of that crap.”

  Especially since some of the old pain had been stirred up again during the sacred journey retreat. God had used Charissa to bring it to the surface for healing. Poor Charissa. Please help her, Lord. Please let their baby live.

  “I worry about you,” Hannah said. “I knew you were in a difficult marriage. You talked about it being a marriage of convenience, at least until the boys are done with high school. But I’ve got to be honest. Hearing his yelling the other night scared me. It got me thinking that maybe I missed the signs.” She paused, then said in a quieter voice, “You don’t need physical bruises as proof.”

  Mara watched until the edges set, then carefully maneuvered the uncooked eggs and added some veggies. It was all about the timing. And the flip. It had taken her years to master the flip of the wrist and the pan. Not that Tom or the boys ever appreciated the beauty of a well-turned omelet. “Ahhh—crap! I forgot the cheese!”

  Hannah began ransacking drawers. “Can’t find a grater—want me to slice some really thin?”

  “Fast!”

  Hannah hurried and set the shaved slices on top of the eggs. Mara let it melt a bit, then tipped the pan over the serving plate and gently shook the omelet loose. Flip and . . . perfect.

  “Eat while it’s hot,” Mara said. “I’ll get the other one going.” Hannah sat down at the table. Mara searched until she found a cheese grater at the back of a drawer and then shredded some, extra fine into a bowl. Grating cheese into delicate little curls was one of life’s simple pleasures. “How is it?” she asked.

  “Delicious. Thank you.”

  She brushed some stray curls off the counter into the sink. “I think I missed my calling as a chef.”

  “It’s never too late.”

  “You’re right. I should find some people who’d appreciate some good meals. Maybe at Crossroads. I could go there several times a week to help, if I wanted. I haven’t because of the boys’ schedule. But maybe I should just go. I play with the kids there a couple times a month, but I’d love to help out with meals. More than just at Thanksgiving.” She turned around and faced Hannah. “They saved my life. I think I told you guys that.”

  “Yes.”

  Mara tucked her hands into the pockets of her robe. “My counselor’s asked me the same kinds of questions you’re asking. But I tell her what I’ll tell you. He’s never hit me. Sure, he’s good at making me feel like I’m about an inch tall. He doesn’t respect me. He’s constantly criticizing. He yells. There’s no love between us, that’s for sure. Never has been. But his salary pays the bills, I’ve got a roof over my head, and I make things work. There are days I think I deserve the whole thing, and I know what you’ll say about that. I know. Thanks for caring enough to ask the questions, though. I’m glad I have people in my life who care enough to ask.”

  Hannah set down her fork. “Mara. Promise me you’ll keep a bag packed, just in case you ever need it. Please. There are places you can go, people who can help. I’ll help. Meg will help. You don’t have to stay trapped in an abusive situation.”

  Mara turned her attention to the skillet again. There were plenty of women who had it much, much worse than she did, that was for sure. She had met them at Crossroads. She’d been one of them herself nearly thirty years ago, when she fled from Jeremy’s father and his rage at being found out by his wife. She had escaped from Ohio not only with the bus money he’d hurled at her, but with a goose egg on the back of her head and a bruise on her shoulder from where he had flung her against a bookcase. Three-year-old Jeremy had watched all of it from a corner of their lousy apartment, shrieking and begging Daddy not to hit Mama again. When Bruce raised his hand to strike Jeremy, Mara threw herself in front of her son and threatened to call the police.

  With one fist hovering in front of her face and the other hand coiled around her neck, Bruce hissed a warning: Get out of town before something worse happened to both of them. That was the last time she saw him. He stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door so hard a mirror fell from the wall and shattered. Mara thrust a few changes of clothes into a garbage bag, stumbled through the rain to the bus station, dragging Jeremy behind her, and took the first available bus as far as the money would take them, to Kingsbury.

  A few years after she married Tom, she found Bruce’s obituary online and wept with relief. After years of wondering if he would be able to track them down, after years of dodging Jeremy’s questions with evasive answers, she had finally been able to close that chapter and tell Jeremy that the father he no longer remembered had died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-four.

  She watched the eggs take shape. Tess. That was his widow’s name, the woman who had found out about the mistress and the boy and the apartment and who had come one night to pound on the door, thinking she would find Bruce there. But she found only Jeremy and Mara, and though Mara attempted to deny it all, there was no denying that the brown-skinned toddler sitting wide-eyed on the bed was the spitting image of his father.

  Mara finished making her omelet and sat down at the table with Hannah.

  “You okay?” Hannah asked.

  “Yeah.” She took a bite and chewed slowly. “Wanna hear a story?”

  While Mara narrated her tale about Bruce and Tess and Jeremy, Hannah listened without interrupting, her face etched with the same pastoral concern and compassion that had caught Mara’s attention the very first time they met in September at New Hope. “You know what my counselor says about why I put up with so much crap from Tom and the boys?” Mara asked.

  Hannah waited for her to answer.

  “That it’s my ‘normal.’ That I don’t know what it’s like not to be bullied, so I can’t imagine a different way of life. It’s like I know I live in a cave, but I’ve lived in it for so long that I’ve got it decorated the way I like, and it’s comfortable. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” Hannah murmured. “I do.”

  They ate in silence, their forks clinking against the plates until Hannah spoke again. “I think sometimes we look—sometimes I look at my own pain, and I compare and measure it against what others are going through, and I tell myself, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t feel bad because so-and-so has it so much worse.’ Maybe I think it’s a noble and godly way to deal with suffering. But all I’m doing is trying to minimize it, trying to shrink it to a manageable size where I can control it or deny it, and I end up taking it into myself where it turns toxic, and I never offer it to God in prayer.”

  Hannah fingered a cross, constructed of two intersecting nails, dangling from a simple black cord around her neck. Mara had never seen her without it. “I’m working through some of those comparison impulses right now,” Hannah said, “learning how to be honest with God about where it hurts. It’s hard. But I’m discovering that any movement away from the presence of God is movement in the wrong direction. My sorrow, my suffering, my sin—all of it is meant to be an offering to him. All of it belongs at the foot of the cross. You’d think I would know that. I’ve been a pastor for a long time. But sometimes we’re better at seeing things in other people than we are at seeing things in ourselves.”

  M
ara whistled. “Amen, girlfriend. Preach it.”

  Hannah

  Nathan draped his arm around Hannah’s shoulder as they exited the sanctuary after worship. “How about meeting my pastor?” he asked.

  Hannah hesitated.

  She had worshiped a couple of times with Meg at her church, but this was the first Sunday she had worshiped with Nathan and Jake, and she had sensed the inquisitive, appraising eyes fixed on her from the moment she sat down beside him for the service. Not that anyone seated near them voiced surprise when Nathan introduced her during the greeting time. In fact, she seemed to be the only one who felt any hint of awkwardness. Even Jake seemed at ease. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she fully relax into being in a relationship, especially when other people were around?

  Nathan rubbed her back. “It’s okay if you’re not up to it. Just thought I’d ask.”

  “No. I’d like to meet him. Thanks.”

  While Jake disappeared with some friends, Hannah and Nathan waited in the narthex until the pastor, whom Hannah guessed to be in his early fifties, finished other conversations. “Nathan!” he said, pumping his hand warmly. “Good to see you!”

  “Thanks, Neil. I wanted to introduce you to an old friend of mine, Hannah Shepley.”

  Nate was intuitive. So intuitive. He knew she would feel more comfortable with that designation than with something more romantic. She felt herself relax when she shook Neil’s hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Hannah. Glad you’re here.”

  “Thanks! Nice to meet you too. And thanks for this morning. Great sermon.” In fact, for the first time in a very long time, Hannah had managed to participate in worship without evaluating every element of the service. Talk about a work of the Spirit.

  “Hannah and I were in seminary together years ago and lost touch,” Nathan explained. “But she’s up here on sabbatical now from ministry in Chicago, and in God’s providential ways of working things together, we’ve reconnected.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Much to my delight.”

  She felt her face flush.

  “Isn’t God something?” Neil said, smiling. “How long are you on sabbatical, Hannah?”

  “Another six months.”

  Neil’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “I know,” Hannah replied. “Unheard of, right? Extremely generous church.”

  “Well, if you find yourself pining for ministry opportunities, I’m sure we can find you something to do.”

  Nathan laughed. “Oh, no way, Neil! This woman is on strict orders to rest. And play. She’s been put on a celebration regimen. For the good of her soul.”

  “I hear you,” Neil said. “All of us could do with a bit of that.”

  They chatted a few minutes before Neil excused himself. “I’m sorry,” Nathan said to her after they walked away. “I was out of line. I shouldn’t have spoken for you like that. But I feel protective of you, of your time. I want you to get the most possible benefit from your time off so that when you start serving again, it will be from a place of rest and abundance. And Neil’s not kidding. He’d put you straight to work.”

  “I know. Thanks.” Hannah took his hand. “Probably best that he knows right up front so he won’t tempt me in one of my weaker moments.”

  “Well, I hope you’ll be tempted by my offer,” Nathan said. “I’ve got to do some shopping for Jake. He’s hoping for a certain game for Christmas, and I’d be delighted if you’d join me for an excursion to the toy store and then lunch at our house.”

  “I haven’t been in a toy store for years,” Hannah said. “Sounds like the perfect place to practice playing.”

  Hannah should have known that the toy superstore would be swarming with pregnant women. And mothers pushing strollers. And mothers shopping for toddlers. And mothers corralling children who were clamoring for the latest and greatest everything. There was a reason she always shopped for her nieces online.

  She veered away from the infant toys and supply aisles and immersed herself instead in the sporting goods section. Nothing to be wistful about when she was staring at football and ice hockey accessories. “Thought I’d lost you!” Nathan said when he came around the corner pushing a shopping cart. “Want a football helmet?”

  Hannah chuckled. “No.”

  “How about a hot pink tennis racket?” He removed one from a hook and pretended to volley.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Ahhh . . . let me get you something to play with. What did you have when you were little that you loved?”

  That was an easy question to answer. “A brown bear named—wait for it—Brown Bear, who was my closest friend and confidante. Kept me company during all of our moves. And we played lots of board games. Mom was great at Scrabble.”

  “Like mother, like daughter,” Nathan commented. “What else?”

  Hannah thought a moment. The memory that surfaced surprised her. Daddy had returned from a sales trip and had his suitcase open on the bed. There was always something for her in Daddy’s suitcase, and he always pretended he’d brought her socks. Or a tie. She waited patiently while he unpacked. As he hung up the last pair of trousers in the closet, Hannah peered into the case. Empty.

  Daddy turned around and looked at her. “Nothing in there for Hannah-banana?” he asked.

  She shook her head slowly. It was okay that he’d forgotten.

  “Well . . . hmmmm . . .” He patted around inside the suitcase, inspected pouches, lifted it up off the bed. Nothing. “Look under the bed,” he suggested. “Maybe it fell down there.” She looked. Still nothing.

  When she got up off her knees, he was holding something behind his back. “You didn’t think I’d forgotten you, did you?” he asked. “How could I forget my favorite girl?” He presented her with a pinwheel, a wonderful, magical pinwheel that spun its colors in the breeze. She loved that pinwheel.

  She could still smell his cologne.

  Maybe she should have gone to New York to be with her family for Christmas. Maybe staying in Kingsbury to be with Nate was a very selfish thing to do.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded slowly, then told him about the pinwheel. And her second-guessing.

  “You’ve spent your whole life thinking only about what other people want and need,” Nathan said quietly. “It’s okay that you’re learning to figure out what you want and need right now. Your senior pastor and congregation insisted that you do that work, remember? They’ve invested a lot in you, to make sure you do it. And if I see signs that you’re becoming curved in on yourself—that you’re only thinking about your own needs and desires—I’ll tell you, okay?”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise. You know me. I tend to speak the truth.”

  She laughed. That was true. Painfully true at times.

  “C’mon,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I’m a man on a mission now. They’ve got to have pinwheels around here somewhere.”

  After encountering puzzled looks from a couple of young sales associates (“Aren’t those, like, summer garden things?”), Nathan eventually found a small bin tucked away in a far corner of the store, filled with foil pinwheels. “Look!” he exclaimed. “A whole bouquet of flowers for you!”

  Nate was right. Hannah hadn’t made the mental connection when she described her father’s gift, but the multicolored pinwheels were shaped like flowers with bright, shiny petals.

  “How about a dozen?” he asked, removing several from the container.

  Hannah smiled. “How about one?” she replied, taking a purple one from his hand. When he looked like he was going to argue with her, she said, “I’m not resisting abundance. One makes it special, okay?”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. Thank you.”

  Clutching her gift, Hannah walked with Nathan to the front of the store, where he chose what appeared to be the shortest of the multiple serpentine check-out lines. When several minutes passed with no forward progress, Nathan became visibly agitated. “I know Ne
il asked the congregation to think about ways to practice Advent disciplines of waiting,” he said, “but this is ridiculous.”

  The cashier flipped on the blinking light, indicating that someone ahead of them was being difficult. “Oh, come on,” he muttered. “Should’ve picked that lane there. Look. That guy in the green shirt would have been right in front of me. We could be almost through by now. Sorry. This always happens. I always choose the wrong one. Never fails.” He drummed on the shopping cart. “That lane over there looks like it’s moving. Want to switch?”

  Hannah shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this might be the perfect spiritual discipline for you.”

  He scoffed.

  She tugged on his sleeve and grinned at him. “Look at all the people you could be praying for while you wait.”

  He put his elbows on the cart and held his face in his hands. “Okay, fine. I’ll start intentionally picking the longest lines. But only during Advent.”

  “And I’m going to fast from listening to Christmas music until Christmas Eve,” Hannah said.

  “Oh, no, you’re not.”

  “What do you mean ‘No, I’m not?’”

  “You’re not one of those people who starts listening in October, are you?”

  “No, I always wait until after Thanksgiving.”

  “So you already practice delayed gratification. And you’re supposed to be yielding to the Spirit by practicing celebration, not fasting. If Christmas music is a source of joy for you, then feast, Shep.”

  The blinking light turned off, and they inched forward. “Okay, fine,” she said. “I’ll compromise. I’ll only practice fasting from music this week. And I’ll read and pray with the carol lyrics instead.” That would probably be a deeply satisfying and enriching experience, a way for familiar words to become fresh again.

  “I’ll give you a hymnal when we get to my house,” Nathan said. “If we ever get to my house.”