Unbreakable

by Ruth Buchanan

  When at length he spoke, his voice was low and conversational. “You know, I grew up without a mom. She died when I was born. My dad did the best he could, but he got depressed and drank a lot. He had trouble keeping jobs. He wasn’t bad to me. It just seemed clear that his life would be easier if I weren’t around.”

  Rachel turned her face, resting her cheek against her knees. She risked a peek at him through a curtain of frizzy curls. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring straight across at the opposite wall. His long legs were stretched before him, crossed at the ankles. He looked entirely at ease, as if he comforted hysterical women every day. Maybe he did.

  Her heart turned over.

  “Right after I turned sixteen,” he continued, “we had a falling out. He told me if I was so smart, I should go live as a man and try taking care of myself. I bounced around for a while, living with my friends’ families and working part-time jobs, trying to save up enough for some classes at community college after I graduated. I knew I had to have a plan.” Almost absently, he extended a hand and used one finger to push her hair from her face. Only then did he turn his head and drop his gaze to regard her clinically. Holding her hair back with one hand, he pulled a wipe from the packet. “Sit up and close your eyes.”

  Rachel complied. There was a light, cool pressure as he ran the wipe around the corner of her left eyelid, working backward toward her temple and then down the line of her jaw.

  “I didn’t want to drop out. Apart from what that would mean for my future, I really liked school. I liked learning, and the schedule gave my life shape. I managed to stay in school until I graduated, but I almost didn’t make it. Especially toward the end of my senior year. I was having trouble finding a place to live, and my car needed so much work that I could barely keep it running well enough to make it to and from my after-school job. With the car eating up most of my savings, college seemed impossible. That’s when I started getting in trouble. Fortunately, I came up before a judge who had a firm belief in reform. She sentenced me to a hundred hours of community service in lieu of juvie.”

  “I never would have guessed,” Rachel was shocked at how low and dreamy her voice sounded. She cleared her throat. “What did you do?”

  “The records are sealed.”

  Two fingers rested under her chin. She tilted her head at their prompting, and he started on the other side. His face was very close.

  “That community service was my saving grace. Not only did it keep me from having a record, but I wound up working on a beach cleanup crew overseen by the man who’s now my sergeant. He took a liking to me and brought me home for a good dinner. He and his wife started in on me, railroading me into visiting their church—which is now my church. They made sure I heard the Gospel. She kept me fed, and he set me up with a five-year plan that involved community college and the police academy.”

  Fresh tears welled behind her closed eyelids. She heard a pop as Ian pulled a fresh wipe from the packet. He tipped her chin up, running the cloth down the right side of her neck. As he moved his hand to attend to the left side, his fingers brushed her throat.

  Her breath hitched. “I’m glad you’re telling me this.” She tried not to let her voice wobble.

  “I actually have a point,” Ian said.

  “Isn’t the point to calm me down?”

  “That, too. But listen. I know God had a purpose, and that everything happened according to His design, but also I know this: if I’d had a teacher who showed me half the care and concern you’ve shown for Lee Martin, my teen years would have been a very different experience. I probably wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.” He paused. “Then again, if I hadn’t gotten into trouble, I wouldn’t have met my sergeant, so perhaps that’s why the Lord allowed it.”

  Fresh tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. A quick exhalation of breath counted as his laugh.

  “Don’t start that again. I just finished getting you cleaned up.”

  Rachel opened her eyes just in time to see his crinkling at the corners. She dropped her gaze to his lips—just to check if he was smiling, of course. He was. Her gaze slid back to his.

  At the look she saw there, she squeezed hers shut again. All things considered, it just seemed safer.

  A quick tap against the door had Rachel’s eyes snapping open. She scrambled to her feet. Ian stayed seated as Lynn and Ann poked their heads around the door.

  Rachel’s look pinballed back and forth between the door and Ian as her face slowly caught fire.

  “What’s going on in here?” Ann’s voice was low and smarmy.

  Ian sighed. “Not much, unfortunately.” He stared amusedly up at them, his eyebrows twitching toward his hairline.

  Lynn cocked an eyebrow at Rachel as Ann broke into a pleased laugh.

  Distracted, Rachel attempted to push her hair back with both hands. She quickly remembered why this would be a bad idea. Tugging her hands free, she glared at her two favorite people in the world, standing side-by-side and framed by the outline of the doorway.

  “Well?” she asked. “What now?”

  Lynn smiled. “Lee says it’s time.”

  ~*~

  And so, with no further fanfare, Lee and Sharon were married.

  Well, almost with no further fanfare. When Rachel joined him at the front of the church to await Sharon’s second entrance, Lee bear-hugged the breath right out of her. He then put her down and used the pads of his thumbs to wipe under her eyes even as he laughed at her hair.

  The whole debacle leeched much of the pomp and circumstance from the ceremony. The wedding party and guests alike seemed overcome by a pleasantly-relaxed euphoria in the wake of their brush with danger. All trace of nerves gone, Lee and Sharon stood easily before the pastor, holding hands and grinning.

  As they exchanged their vows, Rachel turned to smile at Lynn, Ann, and Ian. Lynn gazed mistily at the couple, and Ann watched the ceremony with a half-smile. Ian stared straight at her. Her face warmed under that look, but in spite of her embarrassment, she dropped him a slow wink to mirror the one he’d given her earlier. Not only did his eyes crinkle, but both corners of his lips twitched at the same time.

  With whoops, the guests rose to their feet, clapping. Rachel turned. Lee dipped Sharon backward in an embarrassing kiss.

  In the front row, Deirdre Day looked as if she might spontaneously combust.

  Laughing, Rachel linked arms with Sharon’s sister and picked her way up the aisle, reaching a hand to exchange a low five with Ian along the way.

  Lee and Sharon hadn’t planned for dancing at the reception, but the overflowing joy of the guests almost demanded it. Someone pulled up a mix of dance standards on an electronic device while another guest retrieved portable speakers from his car. Meanwhile, everyone worked together to clear the chairs from the center of the hall, pushing them against the walls and stacking extras behind the row of ficuses.

  “Absolutely not.” Rachel leaned back against Ian’s tugging hand as he attempted to pull her onto the impromptu dance floor. “I’m not kidding.”

  Ian stopped pulling, but he didn’t release her hand. He stepped in close. “Why not?”

  She’d already done enough to embarrass herself today, what with the flying teep kick and the butter knives. She didn’t think she could handle showing her dance moves to the world—such as they were. “I don’t dance.”

  “I do,” Ann volunteered, stepping up beside them. She caught Ian’s eye and nodded toward the action.

  Ian ran his thumb down the inside of Rachel’s wrist before releasing her hand. He extended his other hand toward Ann, and the two of them broke into a smooth salsa, working their way toward the center of the floor.

  Rachel watched their retreating forms, nonplussed. “Well.”

  At least the two of them seemed to understand each other. For a moment she almost allowed herself to be swept away on a wave of worry. Then she realized that this situation could work to her advantage. Considering how often she’d found
Ian an enigma and how much difficulty she generally had communicating with Ann, it was nice to know she’d always have someone to consult about one or the other.

  Other than Lynn, of course. Thank God for Lynn. Rachel turned to regard her friend, who at that moment was craning her neck as if she’d spotted something of utmost importance across the room.

  “Do you want some cake?” Lynn asked.

  “Not unless there’s bacon on top.”

  While Lynn made a beeline toward the refreshment table, Rachel found a seat along the wall. She leaned her head back and crossed one leg over the other, foot bobbing in time with the music.

  She sensed a presence at her side and lifted her gaze to behold Deirdre Day looming over her. She shifted forward in her seat, uncrossing her legs and straightening her posture. To her amazement, Mrs. Day reached out and patted her shoulder. “I thought they were real knives too,” she said. Then she inclined her head and walked away.

  It wasn’t much, but this was probably as close to apologizing and mending fences as she ever came.

  Lynn returned, bearing a small plate of cake in one hand and a steaming cup in the other. “There wasn’t any bacon, but I brought this.” She seated herself next to Rachel and extended the cup.

  “Bless you,” she moaned, taking the coffee and raising it to her lips.

  “There wasn’t any cream.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Almost. The coffee was strong and bitter, but it warmed her blood and stiffened her spine. She blew on it until it was no longer steaming. She then sucked half of it down in several huge draughts.

  Two songs later, Ann and Ian returned, boogying the whole way. Rachel rose as they approached. Ann flopped into her seat, breathless, appropriating Lynn’s napkin to dab her forehead.

  Ian took the cup from Rachel’s hand, peered into it, and drained the rest in three gulps. Wordlessly, he passed the empty cup to Ann, grasped Rachel’s hand, and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

  “No,” she said, “I’m not kidding. I really don’t dance.”

  He turned to give her the look she’d come to love—the one that wasn’t a smile and yet somehow was. “We’re not dancing.”

  Then what were they doing? She met his eyes, her hand tightening on his arm.

  The song shifted to something light and mellow. Ian turned her to face him and looped his arms around her waist. Her hands rested against his upper arms.

  “We can just stand here like this,” he said.

  It felt so good—warm and close and safe.

  Slowly, Ian swayed in time with the music. Almost unconsciously, Rachel shifted her feet to match his rhythm.

  “Just like this,” he said into her ear. “We don’t have to dance yet. We can just take it easy.”

  Forget strobe lights and disco balls—Rachel’s face could have lit the entire dance floor. She closed her eyes and concentrated on not doing anything to ruin this one perfect moment.

  “I have to tell you something,” Ian’s voice was low and close.

  Rachel stiffened. This was it. He would tell her that tonight had been the last straw. She was too difficult to deal with. Her life was too ridiculous for him to handle.

  Ian’s eyes smiled down at her. “Stop panicking.” He flattened a hand against the small of her back, drew her in, and gave her three small pats. It’s O-K. “It’s nothing bad.”

  She drew a slow breath. It was now or never. “What is it?”

  He pulled back to look her in the eye. “I thought this would go without saying, but Ann says it doesn’t. So here it is. I think you’re amazing.”

  Rachel’s heart stuttered. She leaned back against his hands. “You do?”

  “Rachel, in the time I’ve known you, you’ve shown more courage than most women display in a lifetime.”

  In the time he’d known her, she’d been involved in a highly questionable series of disasters. Was he kidding with this?

  “You kept your head when you thought you were being stalked by a serial killer—”

  “But I wasn’t—”

  “You thrust yourself into harm’s way to stop a young woman from committing suicide—”

  “Chris had way more to do with saving Jessica than I did—”

  “And today you threw yourself in the path of a woman swinging a set of knives at someone you loved.”

  “They were plastic butter knives.”

  “You didn’t know that.”

  She dropped her gaze to his shirtfront and then wished she hadn’t. The sight of her own blood streaking the white fabric brought the tide of embarrassment flooding back. “Do you know that old saying,” she lifted her hands to cover the bloodstains, “about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread?”

  “You are a little quick on the trigger,” he admitted, his voice warm. “But even though you misread situations sometimes, I’ll give you this: you’re not passive. You act. You do things. It’s what I like best about you.”

  Her heart twirled a neat pirouette.

  Ian’s gaze held hers. “I didn’t like that you joined a dating service while I was trying to stealth-date you, though.”

  “I already quit,” she assured him.

  “I should think so.” He hitched her closer.

  She dropped her hands back to his forearms and leaned her forehead against his chest for a moment. Then she lifted her face to peer up at him, heart a-flutter and face a-flame. If she could just keep herself from saying something stupid, she just might scrape out of this situation with her dignity intact.

  “I’m sorry I bled on your tux,” she said.

  Ian released his breath on a laugh and stepped in closer, resting the side of his face against hers. “I’m sure it won’t be the last time.”

  26

  That night, after Rachel had showered, replaced her bandages, and cozied up in her most comfortable pajamas, she slid into bed, sighing to feel the cool sheets against her skin. When she reached to switch off the bedside lamp, her eyes fell on the Resolutions Notebook.

  She sat up and pulled it into her lap. She flipped the pages, reviewing her resolutions. As she considered the events that had come to pass since she’d written these back in January, she couldn’t help but laugh. No resolutions could have possibly prepared her. She remembered what Ian had said about God knowing in advance exactly what and who he needed in his life, even all the way back in high school before he had even become a Christian.

  Nothing hindered Him from viewing the entire wheel of time, turning it in His hands as He saw fit.

  What Rachel’s resolutions had been unable to prepare her for sufficiently, God had foreseen. He’d given her Coach Donovan to train her in the skills she would need. He’d put Demetrius Washburn in the park that day to call 911 when Craig Crocker had confronted her. He’d placed her pastor in her life to teach her the Scriptural truths she’d need. He’d put Ann and Lynn and Alex and Lee and Sharon and Ian and her students in her life to teach her, stretch her, and mold her. Best of all, He’d placed the Holy Spirit in her to guide her in truth.

  If she was ever to develop sensitivity and perception, it wouldn't come through trying harder to change. It wouldn’t come through her magically becoming an entirely different person. Her only hope for change lay in asking the Holy Spirit to change her from the inside out. She must not be overwhelmed by the mistakes of the past, but allow them to drive her to humble herself enough to rely on the wisdom of her friends while asking for the sort of insight that only comes thorough learning to walk in the Spirit.

  Rachel grasped the edge of the first page—the page detailing her resolutions—and ripped it from the notebook. She crumpled it in a ball and lobbed it toward the small trash can across the room by her bookshelf.

  Closing the notebook, she drew a line through the word Resolutions.

  Underneath it, she penned a new title.

  Devotions.

  Epilogue

  Over the years, Lee and Rachel continued to argue good-nature
dly over who had actually ruined his wedding: Rachel or Mavis. Not that anybody seriously thought Rachel had ruined anything.

  As Ann summed it up, "It’s hard to hold a grudge against someone who would willingly throw herself into the path of butter knives for you."

  Rachel’s actions at Lee’s wedding merely served to cement the family nature of their relationship. With Mavis likely to spend the rest of her life in and out of treatment centers and correctional facilities, and with Lee having no other blood relatives, it seemed only natural for Rachel to step in to fill the void. This, of course, had been her desire all along.

  Although they didn’t always live close to one another geographically, not a birthday, holiday, or family milestone passed without some sort of contact.

  Rachel’s children grew up calling Lee and Sharon aunt and uncle, just as their children grew up referring to Rachel and her husband as Aunt Rachel and Uncle Ian.

  Acknowledgements

  I finished writing this book the week that Hurricane Matthew blew over South Florida. The storm came just close enough to give me two uninterrupted writing days but not close enough to blow the roof off the house. Thank you to Nathan for blanketing my apartment in aluminum, thereby converting it into the world’s most secure writing bunker. Shout out to FPL for keeping the lights on, the coffee hot, and my laptop fully charged even as the trees in our neighborhood blew sideways. Also, thanks to the storm I was amused to imagine what Rachel would do in the event of a hurricane. (Answer: probably just die.)

  Thank you to Beef for acting as a constant voice of reason. To Joe for the police jargon and the tweaker videos; to Hermione for your help with Creole; to Dawn for the many, many meals and the peppermint oil; to Jodee for the crepes, coffee, and conversation; to Janiece for helping to nail down the end; and to Alissa for years of calm and steady friendship. Rachel never did learn to run, but thanks to you, I did—13.1 and counting.

  Thanks to Florida for being Florida. Living here isn’t all palm trees and ocean breezes, but I love it. (As one of my beta readers was quick to point out, the scene in which Rachel rolls into a ditch with a bag over her head to wrestle an angry tweaker is probably the most quintessentially-Florida scene in this book.)