“I know what you mean. I’m getting clearer on what I don’t want, but I’m not yet sure what I do want.” He grew quiet and then glanced at her with a small smile. Tipping his head, he shrugged. “Maybe we should pray about it.”
“I haven’t prayed this much in my entire life put together.”
“Me either, but I think it’s growing on me.”
Somehow, Dani hadn’t remembered just how small the house he’d grown up in was. When they pulled up to it, her heart took it in as her spirit started asking questions she hadn’t ever thought to ask before. Like just why she always avoided coming here and how this place had shaped the man he was. There wasn’t an ostentatious thing about it. Other than it being in a place called Mt. Airy, there wasn’t a “putting on airs” quality to it at all.
In fact, they hadn’t even gotten out of the car when his mother came out of the house and down the steps as happy as anyone had ever been to see her. Even her own mother. There was more to that thought, but she didn’t have time to think it.
“Oh, Dani. Look at you, darlin’. You are a sight for sore eyes.” Her mother-in-law pulled her into a hug. “And my boy. Come on. Come on. Lunch is on the table.”
Throughout the meal Dani watched the two of them. There was such an easy connection there. She remembered it from when she had come here early on in their relationship. He fell right into the role of protector and helper for his mom as if he had never been gone. She wondered as she watched them how much he had taken on when his father passed away. As they talked in the living room after lunch, she let herself really look at the old photos on the credenza. She had seen them before but never quite like this.
He looked so much like his father had, and she wished she’d had the chance to meet the man. She was sure he would be so proud of how his son had turned out. She looked at Eric then, sitting on the couch next to her as he told his mom about Jaden and school and the little designs she had done at Sage’s, and soft love for him washed over her. Putting her hand in his, she smiled at him.
“You sound like you really like Ridgemount,” his mother said.
“We do. It’s so… different,” he said. “It’s slower, a little more sane.”
“And you, Dani? What do you think?”
Peace. That was what her heart felt when she looked at him. “I think it’s been very good for us.”
His mother smiled. “I can see that.”
“We’ve been going to church again,” Dani said, starting to see just how much life had changed for them. “And we have friends there. Good friends. Solid ones, who make the right things important like family and just being together.”
“Wonderful. I know things have been difficult for you. I’ve been praying about that a lot, and for both of you.”
“Well, thank you.” What was that word the pastor had used? Humility? Knowing you needed help and receiving the help gratefully and gracefully. “Please keep praying.” She looked up at him again and tightened her grip on his hand. “I think God may be doing some crazy rearranging of our lives.”
“He does that sometimes.”
“That he does.”
“We need to go out there over Spring Break,” Dani said as they headed home much earlier than she would have liked. There was something about that house, about the quiet, simple love she felt there. Strange how she’d never felt that before now, and now it was all she could think about. “I know Jaden would love to spend some time with her. Maybe she could even stay a day or two.”
Eric laughed softly, picked her hand up and kissed it. “I love you, you know that?”
“I’m starting to remember.”
When her mother called on Wednesday morning, Dani’s newfound peace scattered like bunnies at a gunshot. How could her mother do that so acutely?
“That witch is at it again.” It didn’t take 30 seconds for her to start the Celeste bashing, and Dani’s patience took a digger. “Taking everything wouldn’t be enough for that floozy. Now she is thinks she should be invited to Kim’s birthday as well.”
“Well, I’m sure she’ll come with Dad,” Dani said, trying to be diplomatic.
“Kim is my daughter-in-law, not hers, and I am so sick of everywhere I go she shows up like she’s a part of this family.”
“She is part of this family now, Mom. Like it or not, she is.”
“I don’t want her to be. Do you have any idea how it makes me feel to be right there while they’re acting like a couple of newlyweds. It’s disgusting.” She paused the vitriol for one breath. “Couldn’t you call Kim and get her to disinvite them?”
“Disin… No. Mom. I’m not going to do that. If Mitchell and Kim want them there, then they can invite whomever they want. They aren’t kids anymore. They’re grown adults, and they can make their own decisions.”
“But can’t they see how impossible this makes it for me? Maybe I’ll just stay home.”
Dani scratched her head. “Well, you’re a grown woman too, Mom. If you want to stay home, stay home. If you can show up and act like a grown up without throwing a temper tantrum and making everyone else miserable all the time, then that would be great too.” The words were out before she thought about how they would sound. However, once she’d said them, she realized how honest they were. “Look. I get it. You’re upset. He dumped you, and it’s horrible. Life hasn’t turned out the way you thought it would. But you’re making it a thousand times worse by thinking that the world is supposed to revolve around you. It doesn’t. It never has. And I think we’re all starting to break out of the shell of thinking that it’s supposed to.
“This whole little kingdom thing you’ve got going on worked great when we didn’t have a choice but to participate. Now that we do, all this drama and the emotional guilt-trips aren’t going to work anymore. I love you, Mom. I really do, but this making us choose thing has got to stop or you’re going to wind up losing more than you already have.”
“You would chose that floozy over your own mother?”
“I choose to love everyone in the situation. We’ve all made mistakes. All of us. But if you force a choice, you’re going to be the one who loses, not because we want you to but because we won’t be bullied by your emotional blackmail anymore.”
“Emotional blackmail? Danisha. What has gotten into you?”
“A lot of things, Mom, and if you took a second to think or ask about anyone else in the world, you would see that. You’ve lost a lot. I get that. But you have so much to be grateful for. You’re a beautiful woman with so much to offer this world, but you’re choosing to waste the time, talent, and energy you do have on complaining about what you don’t. I’m not judging you. God knows I have no place to do that. But you need to understand that you have a choice. You always have. You can choose to look at the good things in your life right now—me, Mitchell, Jaden, Kim, Eric, your health, your life. Or you can choose to look at all the things you aren’t so great. But that’s your choice, and none of us can make it for you.”
“Well,” her mother said as if she was thoroughly annoyed with her daughter and the whole conversation. “I don’t know what to even say to that. That you would choose her over me.”
Dani rolled her eyes. “Listen, Mom. I have to go, but I’ll be praying for you, okay?”
“Pra…”
“I love you. Gotta go.” And with that, Dani beeped the phone off. She closed her eyes, hating the ugliness of the situation. Right now is not forever. What holds the center of your heart? As she looked closer, she could see what held the center of her mother’s heart. “God,” Dani whispered, “please, please. We need a miracle here.”
That night as they got ready for bed, Dani rehearsed what she’d been thinking all day and did a final polish on just how to say it to him as she headed to the bed.
“So what would you say if I go over to Ridgemount tomorrow?” she asked, the words tentative as she pulled the covers back.
“Tomorrow?” he asked in confusion as he got in on the other s
ide. “I thought we were going on Friday.”
“I know, but…” She got into the bed, propped herself up against the headboard, and laid her hands on top of the covers. “I… think I owe my grandmother an apology.”
He absorbed that before nodding.
“I talked to Mom again today, and she’s just as stubborn and pig-headed about everything as always. I’m starting to see that maybe I got some things wrong about… well, about a lot of things. I really want to go when there isn’t this big church thing and everybody’s there watching us, just to talk, to see if… well, to see a lot of things.”
Eric smiled as he clicked off the light and reached over to gather her down into his arms. “I think you should go. If you need me to pick up Ja and hold down the fort, just let me know.”
When he kissed her head, Dani’s eyes pooled with tears. The thought that she had almost let his gentle, protective love slip through her grasping fingers… Her gaze drifted up to his, and she held his gaze tenderly, gratefully. “I love you so much.”
His smile was at first surprised and then mesmerizing. “Not half as much as I love you.”
Arching her lips up, she let herself fall into his care as he kissed her, once, then again. It had been a very long time.
Chapter 29
Calm would have been nice the next morning when Dani headed out after getting the others off to school and work, but calm was nowhere to be seen. Her spirit was jangling and jumping like a June bug on a hot light. She shook her head and blew out a breath. “Danisha, babe. You’ve got to get this together.”
Reaching over, she turned up the radio, and it was halfway through the first song before she realized this wasn’t her normal station. With a check of it as she navigated through traffic, she considered changing it. It was the same one Eric always listened to now. A Christian station. Definitely not her normal rotation.
Still, it wasn’t bad, so she left it on as her thoughts turned once again to the coming day. What to say. How to say it. What to ask. How to ask. “God, if You’re listening, now would be a good time to help me out.”
The little street where her grandmother lived looked like the cleaned up version of the projects. Each house had a style all its own, but each also had an issue of its own too. Falling fence sections, debris, downed tree limbs, a boarded up window or two, a clearly immobile car, and a basketball goal that was lying on the ground like it had gotten tired and decided to take a nap.
She averted her eyes. These people were not her problem to deal with. She had enough of those to last a lifetime.
At the end of the street, she parked and looked at the little off-white with chocolate trim house. The yard was the nicest on the block. In fact, the house itself was the nicest on the block. That gave her some hope. She slid out of the SUV and straightened her blouse. No business suit today. In fact, she hadn’t worn one since Scotland. Strange because they had been her armor against the world for nearly 10 years.
With a lift of her chin to ward off the emotional arrows that seemed to be pelting her from all sides, she walked up the little sidewalk, up the three concrete steps and knocked on the door. The inside one was open probably because it was an unseasonably warm day. She waited a second, then two and knocked again. What if she wasn’t home? That was an issue Dani hadn’t really considered until now.
She looked across the street, noticing without trying the board across the window on the left side of that house’s front door. Noise behind her swung her gaze back around, and noticing the puzzled, worried look on her grandmother’s face was just as easy.
“Danisha?” her grandmother asked as she pushed the outer door open, her face swinging from concern to delight and back again at split-second intervals. “Well, this is a surprise.”
“Hello.” Dani had no idea what to call the woman. Ms. P sounded too formal as did grandmother. Grandma just sounded weird. So she opted for none-of-the-above. “I’m sorry. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Bad…? Oh. No. Not at all. Come in, child. Come in.”
It took a breath and a nod to get herself moving. Inside, the little house was homier than she had remembered it, and the thought panged in her heart that at least it wasn’t a complete dump. Though that thought had more to do with her pride than any beneficence toward her grandmother.
When her grandmother turned, awkward crashed down around them. “Would you like to have a seat? I have tea. We could have some tea, if you would like.”
Dani was pretty sure this wasn’t how her grandmother had thought she would be spending this day. “No. No. I’m… fine.” She turned and looked at the furniture which wasn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. “We could sit, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly. Certainly.” Her grandmother held out her hand. “Let’s sit.”
Going over, Dani ran her hand down the back of her leg as if she was in a skirt rather than jeans when she sat. It was becoming painfully clear to her both inside and out that she should not have come.
“So,” her grandmother said, obviously trying to act like this was not an ambush as she too sat down. “What brings you out this way?”
Words jammed in Dani’s head, heart, and throat so she couldn’t sort them out enough to figure out where to start. “Hm.” She cleared her throat, nodding to get any of them to start. “I just… I haven’t been over since we’ve been working on the Attabury house, and well…” Her gaze got away from her, skittering over to the window and across the floor. “Hm.” She smiled when what she really wanted to do was cry. “I think,” she said finally hitting upon some of the words she had wanted to say, “that I owe you an apology.”
“Oh, child.” Her grandmother waved that away. “You do not owe me an apology.”
“Yes. Yes. I think I do.” Two more nods and she found more words. “When we started coming here, well, even before that, but definitely since then, I haven’t… I have… Well, we haven’t made the time to come over here to visit.”
“Why, yes you did. Eric and Jaden came for lunch one day after Sunday services.”
“Hm. Yes. You’re right. They did. I didn’t.”
A soft smile touched her grandmother’s face. “Well, now as true as that is, I don’t want you to fret too much about it. I certainly understand.”
“Do you?” Dani asked before she thought better of it.
The smile grew even softer. “I know what your folks think about me, about this place.” Her eyes slipped up and around the small room. “And a big part of me don’t blame them none. They moved on. They got their own lives, and this place… Well, it’s just a part of their pasts that they hope nobody ever asks about.”
“That’s just it,” Dani said, jumping in. “Why are we so… so… I don’t know. Arrogant? Conceited? So Mom wasn’t living on a hill in a mansion growing up. So what? Does that make us any worse than someone who did, or any better?”
“Danisha, you have become a very intelligent, strong, smart young lady. Surely you know how folks will judge you if they find a flaw in your story.”
She let out a breath. “But why? Why do we do that? Why do we think we have the right to do that? I mean, I’ll be honest. I’ve done it my whole life, looked down on people who had less than I thought I did. But it didn’t get me anywhere I ever wanted to be. Who was I to think I was any better than them? Because I owned a nice house or drove a nice car?” This breath deflated her. “I am so sorry. I am. The more I think about how rude I was to you…”
“Honey child, you were just living what you knew. I didn’t take no offense at it.”
“And that’s also what I mean.” Dani jumped to her feet and paced one way four steps before coming back around. “You… you are…” She waved her hand at the window. “Everyone here just loves you. They are all Ms. P this, and Ms. P that.” Sitting in something of a heap, she wove her hands together. “And that’s great. It’s awesome. It’s… what I always wanted people to think about me. But I have worked and worked and worked until I
very nearly lost everything, for what? Nobody out there even knows my name.” Her gaze came over to her grandmother’s, one part hurt, one part angry. “You know what they said when I left Drake?”
Her grandmother shook her head.
“Your badge,” Dani said, holding out her hand before sniffing and swiping at her nose. “They didn’t care. I spent hours, tons of them at that office, pushing everything else in my life aside so I could make a name there. And when I left, I didn’t even get to keep my badge. No one was sad I was gone. Not one person ever even called me to ask what happened, and when I walked out, most of them wouldn’t even look at me. And these were people I thought were my friends.”
A second and her grandmother exhaled. “To the world you will always be expendable. That’s why it’s smart to pick people who are real friends, not just the fair-weather kind.”
“I look back on it, and I think that’s what I’ve done my whole life. I haven’t seen people I graduated with high school or college in years. Most of them I couldn’t even tell you their name. Colleagues I’ve worked with, people I’ve met at Jaden’s school. It’s all so transitory.” Putting her gaze on her hands, she shook her head. “I… I’ve been reading…” A breath and she willed her gaze to come up to her grandmother’s. “We found a diary at Attabury. It was tucked in a secret compartment in one of the pieces Rachel is restoring.”
“A diary?”
Dani nodded. “It was Mrs. Attabury’s. Hazel’s.”
“Really?”
“I’ve read the whole thing now, a couple times actually, and… I was wondering if you might be able to answer some questions for me… about it.”
“Well, I can try.”
Once again sorting through the thoughts and words, Dani pieced together a first question. “Mrs. Attabury, Hazel, held Olivia, your mom, my great grandmother in very high esteem. I wondered what she thought of Hazel.”
Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5) Page 44