“I love you,” a male voice whispered softly in her ear.
Startled, since she had assumed it was Jen who had kneeled beside her, she turned quickly toward the voice. “Ra–Randy? What are you doing here?”
His cheeks stained with tears, he warily slipped an arm about her, whispering, “Although you and I have grown apart over the past few years, Sylvia, I want you to know there has never been anyone in my life but you. I have so missed the closeness we used to have. You were always so wrapped up in our children’s lives—I guess I was jealous of the time you spent with them.”
She rubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “Jealous of our children?”
He nodded, wiping at his own eyes. “I—I was so busy at the newspaper, we never had time for each other. I have acted like the typical midlife-crisis male and let my ego cloud my judgment. I responded like the old fool that I am, wanting to move out and find myself. I knew better, Sylvia. I knew I was going against God’s will. Looking back, I cannot imagine how I ever let myself try to put the blame for our failed marriage on you. But thanks to you and our one last Christmas together, I now see what a fool I have been. I didn’t fully realize what a mistake I was making until I got back to my apartment after leaving you that last night we had together. I have been miserable ever since. Spending the week with you and realizing what I was about to give up made me see things in a new light, but I was too proud to admit it.”
“But—but the divorce papers! They were delivered to me just yesterday.”
He scrunched up his face and drew in a deep breath. “I didn’t know my attorney was going to have them delivered that soon. I was sick about it when he told me. What that must have done to you! I’m so sorry, Syl.”
“But—but what about Chatalaine? What are you going to do about her?”
“I—I know you don’t believe me about Chatalaine, but sweetheart, honest, there never has been anything going on between us. You can talk to her if you want and ask her yourself. We’re both invited to her wedding next week.”
Sylvia’s jaw dropped. “Chatalaine is getting married?”
“Yes. She’s been engaged for nearly a year and madly in love with the man she’s going to marry, almost as madly in love as I was with you when we were young—and as I am now.” He dipped his head shyly. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, Syl. I’ve asked God’s forgiveness for my stupidity.”
“But the apricot roses? I thought they were for her. When the florist called—”
“He called you?”
She nodded. “Yes, and he said you’d made a big deal about making sure they were apricot roses when you’d ordered them.”
Randy let out a slight chuckle. “And you thought they were for Chatalaine?”
“Who—who else would they be for?”
“Syl, do you remember when we attended old Nick Bodine’s funeral last summer?”
“Yes, but what has—”
“I spoke to his wife after the service, and she mentioned Nick had sent her apricot roses on her birthday every year since they’d been married and how much she was going to miss receiving them on her next birthday. I asked her when that was, then wrote it down in my appointment book.”
“You sent the apricot roses to Mrs. Bodine?”
“Yes, I always liked Nick. He was a good worker and always had a kind word for everyone. I sent them to her on her birthday, with a note telling her to pretend Nick had sent them to her and to have a Happy Birthday.”
Fingering the heart-shaped necklace, she leaned into him, overcome with his thoughtfulness. “Oh, Randy, that was so sweet of you. No wonder you insisted they be apricot roses. I’m sure she loved them.”
He slipped his finger beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. “Syl, do—do you think you can ever forgive me for walking out on you like that?” He hugged her tightly to him.
She smiled through tears of happiness and caressed his face with her fingertips as she rested her forehead against his. “Oh yes, my beloved husband. I can forgive you, even as God has forgiven both of us. Despite everything that has happened between us, I have never stopped loving you. I, too, had my priorities all mixed up. While I loved our children and wanted them to have the best lives possible, they were a product of our love and not a substitute for it. God never meant for them and all the other things in our lives to become a wedge between us. I’m the one who let that happen, and I’m sorry. So sorry, I ever doubted you.”
After falling on each other in a loving embrace, they suddenly realized, except for Harrison and Jen, who were sitting on the front pew smiling with happiness, the church was empty. Everyone else had gone. They had been so caught up with each other and their love for one another, they hadn’t even noticed.
“You have no idea how excited and happy we are to see the two of you together again,” Jen said, her eyes clouded with tears as she hugged both Randy and Sylvia. “We’ve been praying for you, asking God to bring the two of you back together where you belong.”
Randy kept one arm about Sylvia but extended his free hand toward his pastor. “I–I’d like to keep serving on the church board, if you think it’d be okay. That is, if my wife agrees. I’m going to make many changes in my life, but leaving my wife isn’t going to be one of them.”
He turned to Sylvia, squeezing her hand between the two of his, his eyes filled with tears, his voice cracking with emotion as he spoke. “Would you—could you even consider taking me back? Let me move back home—after what I’ve done to you?”
Sylvia, too, succumbed to the tears that pleaded to be released. Though he spoke the words she had longed to hear, prayed to hear, she found it difficult to speak. Each heartbeat told her she could trust him. He would never leave her again. “Oh, Randy, of—of course, I’ll take you back,” she said between sobs of joy. “Spending my life with you is all I’ve ever wanted.” She grabbed onto his shirt collar with both hands and drew him to her, placing a tender, loving kiss on his lips. “Come home with me, darling, where you belong. Where I want you. Where God wants you.”
“That’s exactly where I want to be.”
Sylvia leaned into her husband as Randy kissed her again.
“Hey, you two, break it up,” Jen said, rubbing at her eyes and reaching to touch Sylvia’s arm. “You’re making Harrison and me cry, too.”
“Yeah,” Harrison added, circling his arm about his wife’s waist. “We tough guys aren’t supposed to cry.”
Randy planted one more quick kiss on Sylvia’s lips, then wiped his sleeve across his face. “From now on, I’m setting limits on the time I spend at the newspaper. It’s time I get my ducks in a row.”
Sylvia let out a giggle at the word ducks, as Randy sent her a smile at the little joke only the two of them understood—about his pajamas.
“Of course, we still want you on the board, Randy. You have always been an important part of this church. You’re a great asset to us—and to God.”
Randy nodded toward their friends. “Well, I’d better get my wife home before she changes her mind. Thanks for caring about us, you two, and for praying for us.”
Harrison reached out and gave Randy’s hand a hearty shake. “Our pleasure. It’s always nice to see God answer prayer and bring a couple back together. Guess I’ll see you two sitting in the third row next Sunday morning?”
Randy nodded. “You bet. Right where we belong.”
As Randy turned his key in the lock when they reached home, he leaned over and kissed his wife. “Until I spent that week with you, babe, I never realized all the things you did to make our house a home.”
“I loved every minute of it.” The scripture God had given her the night she had prayed and asked God Himself to give her a plan flooded her memory and gave her cause to thank Him. “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.”
Once inside, they walked hand in hand up
the stairway and into their bedroom. Randy paused in the doorway, his eyes scanning the area. “You’ve moved the furniture! I like it this way.”
“Moving the furniture is only one of the many changes I plan to make, Randy. Remember what Aaron said Christmas Eve when he was passing out the gifts?”
Randy frowned, as if he was not sure what she meant.
“When he saw the various presents I had given you and acted as though he was upset because he didn’t get as many, he said, ‘It’s okay, Mom. After all, that old man is your husband. He’ll be around long after us kids move out for good.’ He was right, Randy. It’s time you and I began to think of the two of us as a couple and not only as a family. We need to concentrate on us and our needs, as well as those of our children. I want us to do things together, sweetheart. To grow old together.”
He gave her a toothy grin. “Will you still love me when we’re in a care home and I’m wearing my yellow ducky pajamas?”
“Even then!” She wrapped her arms about his neck and planted a kiss on his lips. “Will you love me when I’m wrinkled and my breasts droop to my waist?”
He laughed, then returned her kiss. “I’ll probably be so senile by that time, I won’t even notice!”
She tangled her fingers in his hair, much like she’d done when they’d first begun to date. “I hope God grants us many more years together, Randy. We’ve lost so much time. I want us to make up for it.”
“We will, dearest. We’ve been given a second chance. I want to make the most of it, too.”
She leaned into him, enjoying their intimacy. This was where she belonged. In the arms of the man she loved. How close she’d come to losing him—losing everything she held near and dear.
“Syl,” he said, his voice taking on a low, throaty, tender quality as he lovingly gazed into her eyes. “Thanks to you and your love and patience with me, this didn’t turn out to be our one last Christmas together. I love you, babe.”
“I love you, too, Randy.”
About the Author
JOYCE LIVINGSTON has done many things in her life (in addition to being a wife, mother of six, and grandmother to oodles of grandkids, all of whom she loves dearly), from being a television broadcaster for eighteen years, to lecturing and teaching on quilting and sewing, to writing magazine articles on a variety of subjects. She’s danced with Lawrence Welk, ice-skated with a Chimpanzee, had bottles broken over her head by stuntmen, interviewed hundreds of celebrities and controversial figures, and done many other interesting and unusual things. But now, when she isn’t off traveling to wonderful and exotic places as a part-time tour escort, her days are spent sitting in front of her computer, creating stories. She feels her writing is a ministry and a calling from God, and she hopes Truly Yours readers will be touched and uplifted by what she writes. Joyce loves to hear from her readers and invites you to visit her on the Internet at: www.joycelivingston.com
Dedication
I dedicate this book to all of you who are struggling to keep your marriage together. I was eighteen when Don and I were married (a mere child!), standing at that altar with my head in the clouds, smiling and repeating those vows without fully realizing the lifetime commitment I was making. However, six children and oodles of grandchildren later, I’m still happily married to the same godly man. If you learn one lesson from this book, may it be this: Love thrives in the face of all life’s hazards, except one. Neglect.
A note from the Author:
I love to hear from my readers! You may correspond with me by writing:
Joyce Livingston
Author Relations
PO Box 719
Uhrichsville, OH 44683
Copyright
ISBN 1-59310-877-X
Copyright © 2006 by Lauralee Bliss. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of Truly Yours, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., PO Box 721, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. NIV ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
One
“Ouch, that hurt!”
Debbie Reilly yanked her finger away to observe the trickle of blood oozing out. She climbed down the stepladder and dodged the string of Christmas lights that dangled from the doorway into the third-floor nurses’ lounge.
“What happened?” inquired the registered nurse, Mrs. Whitaker. She stood by her cart of medications, pouring pills into cups to distribute during the coming noon hour.
“Must be a broken bulb up there or something.” Debbie strode off to the clean utility room to find a bandage. From the hallway of the White Pines Health Care Facility where she worked as a nursing assistant, Debbie could hear the variety of voices emanating from the rooms of the residents. There were Harold White, a World War II veteran who complained about the rations he had to eat; Sylvia Hubble, who babbled about working in a dress shop; and Delores Masterson, who stroked and talked to a pretend cat nestled in her lap. A few others were calling out the names of loved ones.
Debbie fetched a bandage from a box. She began removing the wrapper when, above the noises in the hall, she heard a faint voice like that of an angel, singing a song from days gone by. Debbie smiled to herself as she neatly wrapped the bandage around her sliced finger. The singing beckoned her to the room, and Debbie peeked in to find Elvina Jenson struggling to force her chubby arm through the sleeve of a blouse.
“Let me help you with that,” Debbie said to her.
A smile spread across her plump face. “Thank you so much, dear.”
Debbie helped her fit one arm at a time through the sleeves, then buttoned the blouse down the front. She stepped back and watched the unseeing gray blue eyes of the woman stare straight ahead from where she sat on the edge of the hospital bed.
“Now, would you mind getting me my earrings?” Elvina asked.
Debbie opened the drawer of the nightstand to fish out the pair of gold earrings Elvina insisted on wearing every day. When she did, her leg brushed a rectangular box sitting on a stool. Debbie handed Elvina the earrings, then turned to see the gift tag still attached to the top with a piece of tape. Bits of Christmas wrapping paper clung to the sides of the leather case. To Gram, she read on the tag, With love always, Nathaniel J. “An early Christmas gift?” she inquired of Elvina whose fingers fumbled to attach the pretty gold earrings to her earlobes. “Or a late Thanksgiving gift?”
Her head turned in the direction of Debbie’s voice. “What was that?”
“The box here. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I see the tag on it.”
Elvina’s face again broke open into a broad smile. “Oh, my box. Nathaniel gave it to me last evening. He said he couldn’t wait but insisted that I have it now. We laughed at the songs we played on it last night. I love it so much.”
Debbie furrowed her forehead in puzzlement. “You mean it plays music?”
“Of course, dear. It’s a record player.”
Debbie unfastened the twin clasps and lifted the lid to find an old-fashioned turntable, arm, and needle that fit into the grooves of the record. “You don’t see these around,” she confessed. “I remember my family owning one when I was little. Then, one day, they became obsolete. Now we have compact discs. Internet downloads. A whole new wave of music.”
“Nathaniel is so kind,” the older lady con
tinued. “He told me about those fancy music boxes they have nowadays, but I wanted my record player. You see, mine was taken from the house when I came here. Most of my most precious things were sold.” Debbie watched the tears well up in the woman’s eyes. “But Nathaniel searched in antique shops all over the Roanoke area until he found one exactly like my old one. He wouldn’t tell me what he paid for it. Can you imagine?” She shook her head. “And to think that things like that would end up in an antique store. Now, can you help me put on my lipstick?”
Debbie went once more to the drawer, sifting through the combs, bobby pins, and other assorted junk tucked inside before finding the tube of lipstick. Elvina sat patiently on the bed while Debbie traced Elvina’s dry lips with color. In an afterthought, she put a dab of lipstick on each pale cheek and rubbed it in lightly to produce a blush.
Elvina chuckled. “Trying to doll me up so I can get a man?”
Debbie’s cheeks heated at Elvina’s question. “Why not? You’re young at heart.”
Elvina laughed merrily. “You’re so sweet. I was hoping you would be working today. I tell Nathaniel all the time about my nurse who comes and takes care of me during the day. He’s still single, you know. I tell him all the time he needs to settle down. But he has his own way of doing things.” She reached out and patted Debbie’s arm. “Do you have a man in your life?”
Debbie slid the cover over the tube of lipstick and tossed it back into the drawer. “No man yet.” She tried to suppress the thought that stirred up a wave of emotion.
“That’s too bad. How old are you, dear?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Dear me. Twenty-eight and no man. I had four babies by the time I was your age. I had six children, you know.”
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