“I don’t know how.”
They had been going room to room to room for the better part of an hour when a voice sounded at the front door that was neither masculine nor solid.
“Uh, hello? Anybody here? Caleb? Eric?”
“We’re back here,” Caleb called from where they stood in the kitchen, and together they went through the parlor to the entry.
“Where?” the voice came.
“This way,” he said as they both made it into the room, and their guest came in the other way.
“Oh! There you are. Finally,” Sage said. She had her hair up in a bandana-wrap thing made her look like the maid who just got off work. On her hip was one of her little ones and the other little one was holding her other hand. “Sorry. I was going to call, but then I thought I probably should come out here to tell you because…” She shifted and bounced the little girl on her hip. “This isn’t the kind of news you just give over the phone.”
Caleb wound his arms over his chest. “Something wrong?”
“Wrong?” Her eyes went wide. “Oh, no. Well,… not really but kind of.”
Eric fought not to laugh at the face Caleb made. He hadn’t been around Sage much, but he knew her flair for the dramatic was no act. That was really how she was.
“Okay, so I got a call from Derek just a little bit ago,” Sage said. She looked down at her little girl before trailing her gaze back to them. “It seems he and Jaycee are driving here. Tonight.”
“Driving?” That clearly didn’t set well with Caleb. “Aren’t they in Buffalo?”
“They were until this morning.” Although the news sounded dire, Sage’s eyes sparkled.
“Uh, okay? What gives? Wouldn’t it be faster to fly?”
“Well, yes. It probably would, but the doctor told Jaycee driving would probably be their better option.” She was sounding more and more excited, but neither Caleb nor Eric was understanding why.
“Okay. Are you going to tell us or are we going to have to play 20 questions?” Caleb finally asked.
Sage let out a breath that did nothing to dim the lights in her eyes. “Well, you knew Jaycee hasn’t been feeling well.”
Caleb nodded. “Food poisoning.”
“Yeah. Food poisoning. Except this is a little more serious than that.”
“More serious? What? Is the vertigo back?”
“Nope.” Sage grinned. Unbelievably the grin got bigger still, traveling up into her eyes so her entire face was shining with the joy.
“What?” Caleb asked in utter frustration. “Tell. Me.”
“Eep! Jaycee’s gonna have a baby!”
“What?” Caleb’s face fell in total disbelief. “She’s… Are you sure?”
“I am. Eeep! I’m so excited I’m about to bust.” However, instantly she grew serious. “But. She’s been throwing up, like a lot, and the doctor’s really worried about her. So she’s coming home until she either feels better and gets through the morning sickness or until my new niece or nephew is here.” Sage bounced on her toes. “Eeep! I can not wait to see her.”
Concern fell over Eric. “And they’re going to be here tonight? Maybe Ja and I should find other digs to sleep in.”
“Oh.” The excitement fell completely away. “I hadn’t thought of that. I just wanted to come tell Caleb so he knew they’d be here.”
A second and Eric nodded. “Maybe I should call Greg. I don’t want to be in the way out at the farm.”
All night long thoughts wisped into and out of Dani’s mind. Joel. Eric. Jaden. The lawsuit. Hazel. Tony. Home. Attabury. Scotland. Little Benjamin. Soldier Benjamin. The war. Christmas… And then they would start over again so that she didn’t even know if she was thinking or dreaming. Or somewhere in between.
Chapter 21
“So how are things?” Greg asked when Eric came to sit in the living room after putting Jaden to bed.
That was a great question, and Eric sighed on the thinking of it. “Attabury’s good.”
“And everything else?”
Absurdly Eric considered lying. “Dani’s in Scotland.”
“Lawyering?”
“Yeah.”
“Forced or volunteer?”
Eric put his head down. He couldn’t lie. He’d had the same thought. “I think forced. Their deal with Drake ran into a lawsuit or something.”
“But it feels like she wanted to go?” Greg asked, hearing what Eric didn’t voice.
The shrug hurt. “Wanted to. Needed to. Needed to get away… from me. I’m not sure.”
A second and Greg nodded. “Been there. On both sides of it.”
Knowing some of the one side, Eric swallowed. “How’d you get through it? How’d you know it wasn’t over for good?”
“The second time? A whole lot of prayer. The first time? Dumb luck I suppose. I can’t say it was good decision making on my part because trust me, it wasn’t.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“Sorry. Wish I could say, ‘Do this,’ and it would fix everything. Truth is, when there are two people in the situation, you do what you can do and you pray a whole lot for God’s best.”
“God’s best?”
“Yeah.” Greg sat forward a little. “You see, I think things can go off the rails a lot of different ways. It can be intentional, and not. It can be one person’s fault or another person’s. Sometimes it’s really nobody’s fault at all you. You just get to living and the thing goes off in a direction you didn’t intend for it to at all. But one of my favorite verses in the Bible is when Joseph says to his brothers who threw him down a well and sold him into slavery. ‘What was meant for evil and destruction, God meant for good.’” Greg shrugged. “Something like that anyway. Basically it’s saying it really doesn’t matter what happened, God can take it and make good from it.”
“I don’t know. There’s some pretty bad in this world.”
Slowly Greg nodded. “That’s true, but if you just wipe your hands of it and don’t do anything to change it, you become part of the problem… if you weren’t already. Look, Eric, you’re a good guy with a good heart, and I know you don’t want to lose your family. You just don’t know how to get back what you feel like you’ve lost. Now I’m no Pastor Steve, but I do know, God really can take what Satan means to take you down and make it the place where you have your first victory. I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.
“I have been in the middle of so much pain and anger that I literally did not think there was a way out. I watched my wife walk out that door… twice, and I didn’t think she was ever coming back… either time. But she did. And it was hard, and it took a lot of working on it, but God knew we could get here if we didn’t give up. I’m not going to lie. That whole have faith thing is a whole lot harder than they make it out to be. It’s incredibly hard in the midst of everything falling apart to still trust that God’s got a plan, and that plan is for your good, not your harm. To be honest, it felt a lot like hell. It felt hopeless and helpless and horrible, and honestly, all I had to hold onto was God, so that’s what I held onto, and I refused to let go no matter how bad it looked.”
“I want to,” Eric said softly. “I want to have that kind of faith.”
“Okay, I’m going to be really honest with you, as honest as I’ve ever been. It wasn’t my faith that got me through it. It was God’s. I told Him over and over that I didn’t even have the faith that this could work, so if He wanted it to, He was going to have to have enough faith for both of us. And He did. I don’t know how, but He did.”
Later, when Eric was in his room alone, he thought about what Greg had said about life falling apart and about not having enough faith for himself. Glad for the darkness and before he got into bed, he knelt on the floor next to the bed as he had done many years before. “God, I feel like this is slipping away. I feel like Dani… like she… I love her, God. I do. I love her, and I want us to work. But I can’t do this alone, Lord. I can’t. I need her to… I need…”
He stopped in the mi
ddle of the prayer. Why wouldn’t the words come? He struggled against them, trying to get them out as tears surged to the surface and coursed down his cheeks. “You know what she’s like, Lord. You know…” But those words stopped as well.
The middle of him heaved, so he was left gasping at the violence of it. Her… her… her… her… it was all Dani’s fault…. If she would just change… If God would just fix her…
From his knees, Eric collapsed onto the floor so he was sitting with his hands clasped in front of him. “This isn’t about her,” he whispered, remembering. “This isn’t about her. It’s about me.”
Oh, how that hurt. It tore through him, wrenching up pain. “God, please don’t take her from me too. Please… I can’t live without them. I can’t…” And then, like a flash of lightning, he was in another room, one he had all-but forgotten.
“Why can’t Daddy come back, Mama? Why did God take him?”
“I don’t know, Eric. I don’t. Okay? Now go get dressed or you’re going to be late for school.”
Late for school. Jaden was always going to be late for school. Eric squinted, trying to see the connection he felt but couldn’t place. Jaden sitting at the table, hovering over her breakfast. Him over his own years before as a life he had no control of swirled around him. He had learned to put his head down, to not ask questions because questions made Mama sad and angry. He didn’t like to see her like that though sometimes he couldn’t keep the words from coming out. She was overwhelmed with life, overwhelmed with the hand she had been dealt.
The emotions, all of them, bubbling just under the surface of that house. Emotions that often came out in fights between the brothers and screaming matches with Yvonne. Emotions that no one was allowed to talk about because there weren’t any answers.
Then he saw Jaden, swimming in those same emotions. It was like suddenly hearing the second verse to the song you’d been listening to your whole life.
“Oh, God, I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to do it differently. Help me learn. Please show me how.”
The next morning, still immersed in the questions, Eric went to the Bible study. He wasn’t at all sure how he could ask all the questions on his heart, but he hoped he could at least get some of them answered. The pastor started with a prayer and then opened the floor to those present which now, thankfully, included Derek.
“Well,” Derek said, tipping his head and letting out a breath, “I think you all know my big news.”
Smiles went around and quiet congratulations.
He let out another breath. “I gotta say, it’s not what I thought it would be. Jaycee’s being sick like this and all.”
“Having kids is one of the quickest ways I know to change everything about everything,” Luke said. “Found that one out the hard way.”
“But it’s worth it, right?” Derek asked, fatigue dragging on the tail of the question.
Greg nodded and smiled. “Having kids will teach you more than any other thing on the planet. They have a way of reorienting your life to something more than you, something bigger than you. Even now, look at you. You’re at this little one’s mercy already, and he or she isn’t even here yet.”
“That’s for sure. I haven’t changed plans this many times since I got my first cell phone.”
The others laughed.
“But it’s good,” Eric said, and he meant it. “It is. Even in the tough times, it’s good because they stretch you past yourself. Not that I got that until just recently, but I’m learning fast. With Dani gone, being daddy and mama is not the walk in the park I thought it was going to be.”
“How’s that going?” Luke asked. “Dani being gone and all.”
Eric tipped his head. “Well, I’d be lying if I said great. Ja misses her like crazy, and I can’t really do anything about that. It kills me to watch her trying to go on with life even though I know she’s really struggling.”
“Probably how your mom felt,” Caleb said softly. When Eric looked over at his friend, there was compassion in his eyes. “Don’t you think?”
A second and Eric dropped his gaze. “I was just thinking about that last night, how after my dad died, I wanted her to tell my why. Of course, she couldn’t, and she was dealing with a rough transition herself.” He squinted. “I was thinking last night about Jaden.” He cleared his throat. “And about me when I was little. How I’d sit at the table and try to be real still so I didn’t rock a boat I didn’t understand. My sister, Yvonne, would tell me to shut my mouth because I was making Mama sad with all my questions, so I decided, the less I talked, the better off everyone would be.”
“Shame,” the pastor said.
“Yes, it was,” Eric agreed.
“No,” the pastor said, his face falling into deep thought. “It’s shame. Shame. Not ‘a shame’ though I guess it was that too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t talk,” Luke said, and the pastor looked at him, smiled and nodded. “It was one of the first things we ever talked about with this stuff, and I still remember it all these years later. Shame snakes into a situation, and it convinces everyone that it’s better not to talk about it, to keep things bottled up and inside. So nothing ever gets dealt with, nobody can ever say what’s really going on, so everybody stays silent, and things just keep getting worse and worse.”
The pastor nodded. “Not that it can’t go both ways, but I think the women try to talk. When they get the message that we don’t want to or we’re just too busy, they stop, and everything gets bottled up and never released.”
“I think it’s like a broken bone,” Caleb said, and the others all looked at him with questions in their gazes. “Well, if someone breaks their arm, you’d take them to the doctor to get it set and fixed, right?”
Eric thought about Brayden’s dad in the hospital. “Whether they want to go or not.”
They all laughed softly.
“But when we get broken inside, like emotionally broken,” Caleb continued, “we don’t rush anybody to the emotional hospital, we tell them to deal with it, to get on with life, to get over it already.”
“And we start putting on fake smiles,” Luke said.
“Broken lives, fake smiles?” the pastor said. “Why do we do that?”
“Because we don’t want to admit what’s really going on,” Greg said. “It’s intimidating to be real with someone, anyone. Much less everybody.” His gaze went down and stayed for a minute. When it came up, he glanced at each of them. “The truth is, I didn’t want to come to this thing because you all knew about me, about my past, and you knew how those mistakes have affected your lives.” He looked at Luke. “Yours maybe most especially.” He shifted his gaze to Derek. “And yours too, I suspect.” He shrugged and his gaze fell. “It’s so hard to let other people see the wounds and scars, to be honest about them, even all these years later.”
Although Eric understood, he also saw the deeper meaning. “But it’s like what you said, God can take those things we totally jacked and bring good from them.” He glanced at the others and smiled. “When we first got here, I thought y’all were all perfect, and somehow I’d missed the boat. But I see now, we’re all struggling and because of that…” He glanced at Caleb. “Like the other night when things were royally falling apart around me, I could call Caleb and get some advice because I could say what was really going on. I could be honest about it even when I really didn’t want to be.”
“Not that I knew what in the world to say.” Caleb reached up and scratched his head. “Oh, man. That one really threw me. I was freaking out, trying to figure out why you called me and what I was supposed to say. I had no clue. I just tried and prayed whatever I said wasn’t going to make things worse.”
“I think that’s some of this,” the pastor said. “We’re all trying and using what we know, learning more and more as we go, for ourselves, yes. But also to help each other out.”
“It’s like when you came and talked to me about Rache
l that time,” Derek said to Caleb. “The best I knew to say was what the pastor had told me about me and Jayc. I totally did not feel equal to that conversation, believe me.”
“Huh,” Caleb said softly. “I never thought of that. I thought you were like the guru of relationships.”
Derek laughed. “Hardly. I’ve been feeling around in a dark room ever since… well, at least since I came here to tell the truth.”
“I think it’s important to realize we’re all practicing, and this isn’t a competition or a pass-fail test,” the pastor said. “It’s not about who knows more or how much. It’s about seeing ourselves and being on the same team.”
“On the football field,” Eric and Caleb said at the same time, nodding and laughing.
“Oh. Have I said this one before?” the pastor asked.
“Couple of times,” Caleb said with a laugh.
“Well, it’s true.” The pastor shrugged. “God says we are supposed to encourage each other daily. To me, that sounds like players on the same team. I think way too often we’re either competing with each other or trying to one-up each other instead of getting on the same team and learning to make an impact in this world. In fact, I was reading something just this week…”
The others laughed.
“I know. I know. Sue me.” The pastor shook his head. “It was about how most people in this life live in debt. Those who escape debt often end up in scarcity, so there’s not enough for anybody, and you have to take what you want, fight for what you want. Very few get all the way into health and even fewer make it to prosperity. But then the author talked about the top couple of percent of people who actually make an impact on the world. He was talking about wealth, like money, but I can see that paradigm working in the spiritual world as well.
“So few of us ever get out of spiritual debt. Even when we’re saved, we live like we are on a permanent repayment plan with the Bank of Heaven or something. Then if by some miracle we get out of that, we get dumped into the scarcity bin. I’ve said before I think we get God’s math so wrong. We think of God’s math like man’s math—there’s only so much good to go around, there’s only so much money, or faith or joy. Man’s math is all about subtraction and division. But that’s not God’s math at all. God’s math is all about addition and multiplication. Look right here in this room.” He smiled at them. “Right? We weren’t friends. I watched Derek on the television once in a while. I probably saw Caleb a couple times but couldn’t have told you who he was. I’d never even met Eric. Right? And yet, somehow, God’s been putting this thing together to give us other people on our playing fields. I don’t think that’s random. I think He’s got something bigger in mind.”
Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5) Page 30