“I never been here before.” In the rearview mirror I saw him dust his gaze back and forth between the side window and the windshield. When we reached the top, he pulled himself forward in his booster seat, craning his neck and pointing out the windshield. “Hey! We can see the ocean from way up here.”
“Yup, we sure can.” His enthusiasm made my heart leap a little. Knowing the cabin was empty, I pulled into the grassy driveway and turned off the ignition.
“We coming here? It looks like Lincoln Logs!” Jer’s forehead wrinkled when he was unsure of what I might say.
I pulled the key out of the ignition and swiveled around to him. “We sure are. Want to go investigate?”
“Yeah.”
“’Kay,” I whispered. “Come on.”
I unlatched his booster seat and he dropped into scattered pine needles and bounded away from me. If I hadn’t jogged over and scooped him up, he might have scaled the tiny cabin built from logs smooth enough to resemble toy pieces. We pressed our noses against a wavy glass pane, squinting and straining to see through the gauzy curtain that hung over the window.
“Are we like spies or something? I seen this on TV, Mama, and you’re supposed to be wearing black clothes.”
I giggled. “So are you.”
He wiggled from my grasp. “Let’s go see what’s ’round here.”
I chased after my son, noting that the speed he’d gained over the last few months corresponded with the lengthening of his young legs. The air felt crisp and clean up here, and I gulped breaths in an effort to keep up with him.
“Look, Mama! A jungle gym!”
As I had hoped, the former tenants left the play area intact. I’d wanted to ask Fred if the play set belonged to him, but living up here was dream enough. Why push it? I kicked my toes through dried leaves and needles, and then settled against the squeaky fence to watch Jer scramble up the slide. He threw a guilty look over his shoulder, knowing this was not allowed in preschool, but I laughed and waved him on.
Lord, will I be able to pull this off?
Arms crossed, I glanced around the property, imagining us living here, Jer and me. I pictured smoke curling from the stone chimney, golden light showing through the windows, maybe a puppy romping around the rustic backyard.
Something about that fantasy felt all too familiar. I’d had this dream before when married to Len. Oh, I would never have done anything about it. I’d promised myself to him for life, believing in the sanctity of marriage.
But every once in awhile, when Len was away and before I learned the truth about his criminal activity—and worse, his ongoing, remorse-free affair—I’d wonder what life would be like without him. I’d picture Jer and me living somewhere not unlike this quaint cabin. I’d grow a garden of vegetables and he’d chase our dog in the yard until the sun dropped beyond the horizon and I called him in for dinner. Len never appeared in that picture.
The memory made me feel ashamed. I’m not worthy of your sacrifice for me, Lord.
Jer tumbled off the steps and landed with a thud, breaking me out of my self-imposed misery. I rushed to him, hoping not to see this moment end with his tears. Instead, his laughter broke through the clouds forming in my heart.
“That was fun! I’m going again!”
He scrambled up the stairs then, taking the same old chances, not worrying whether he’d keep his footing this time—or come tumbling down again.
Had I ever been that carefree? Could I ever be? As I stood there, my heart sank a little. Unlike my son, I was afraid of falling.
Chapter Seventeen
I hadn’t meant to be so lax in attendance. Gage had invited me to church with him for weeks, but I’d put him off.
Ever since Wednesday when Fred called for me from his hospital bed, inciting the curiosity and downright suspicion of others at work, I’d begun to feel like a pariah. Between Letty’s near silence while restoring the door project the rest of the week, Timo’s raised eyebrows, and a few snarky stares from the others, it appeared that I had been tagged the brownnoser of the day. Scratch that—make that the month.
If that weren’t enough, I had my own conscience to deal with. Sure it was clear when it came to Fred and Sherry. They had hired me to decorate the cabin, and I jumped into the task with eagerness, hoping that the miraculous would occur, and I would somehow earn enough to live in it too. Nobody needed to know about that.
Deeper issues, though, kept cropping up, reminding me of my unworthiness and need for something other than a long walk at the beach. Any day now, Len would show up here, and how would I handle that? What if he wanted partial custody of Jer? Or, to patch up our failed relationship?
And what about Seth and his belief that somehow I’d been the one to walk away from my commitment to marriage? True, Len was responsible for the ultimate sever, but shouldn’t I share in the responsibility, remembering how I had fantasized about singleness?
I needed God to show me what to do.
Gage stopped at the entrance to a long hall. “Do you want me to walk with you to Jer’s Sunday school class?”
I waved him off. “No, go ahead and sit. I’ll come find you in a minute.”
“Let’s go, Mama!” Jer pulled me by the hand down the hall and into a sea of preschool-aged children. A couple of women blocked the entrance but parted rather than let Jer plow right through them.
“Hello again.” A middle-aged woman with straight silver hair and round wooden beads in primary colors hanging around her neck greeted me. “Good to see you. Please sign in.” She tapped a clipboard, then took off toward two young boys sparring with a couple of plastic chairs.
“Divorce is so easy to come by these days, but look at what it does to the children.”
I jerked my head around. The women blocking the doorway now stood to the side of it, chattering on as if in a bubble.
“If people realized the long-term effect of divorce on children,” the other one said, “they wouldn’t agree to one so quickly, would they?”
The first one bobbed her head. “Mm-mm, no ma’am. I don’t think they would.”
My pen hovered over a blank line on the sign-in sheet, but my mind spaced out on my own son’s name. Maybe if people had a little compassion and realized the reasons behind a person’s divorce, they wouldn’t be so quick to judge!
“Did you have a question?” The Sunday school teacher reappeared at the clipboard with a smile and a questioning gaze.
I stared at her. “Sorry?”
She pointed at the clipboard.
I blinked. “Of course. Sorry. Lost in thought for a moment.”
She patted my shoulder. “Happens to me all the time. Not to worry. He’ll be safe and sound with us.” After I filled out the line with Jeremiah’s name and my signature, she handed the pen to a parent waiting behind me. “Enjoy the service.”
With a vague nod, I spun around and hurried past the two women who continued to share their opinions about my life.
Callie met us after church in the late afternoon for a stroll in downtown Otter Bay. Okay, downtown was a stretch. More like Main Street USA, with a candy shop, knickknack boutiques, and a corner bank. Kind of like Stars Hollow from an old Gilmore Girls episode, only with two thrift stores, and that whole beachy West Coast vibe going for it. The entire town, it seemed, stepped out of their homes on Sunday afternoons wearing their flip-flops and frolicking about the streets on sunny days like this one.
“Wish I could’ve joined you at church. How was the sermon today?” Callie bit into a caprese sandwich she picked up at the deli before meeting us.
“Oh, fine.” Yeah, that’s good, Suz. Don’t give it away that you weren’t listening all that much.
Gage picked up the conversation. “It was all about the woman at the well. Erik talked about how surprised the woman was that Jesus would actually talk to her.”
“Oh, right.” Callie licked one finger, then pointed it in the air. “Because not only was she a Samaritan, but everybody knew she l
ived with a man.” She turned to Gage. “I always thought that was a twentieth-century-and-beyond thing, but whatever. Anyway, it would have been a no-no for a respectable Jewish man to speak to her, especially in public.”
I nodded as Jer clung to my hand, swinging my arm front and back like a seesaw. “Yes, uh-huh, the woman at the well.”
We stopped in front of the town thrift store, just a rock skip from the Dairy Cone, and waited for Callie to finish her sandwich. A movement through the thrift-store window caught my attention, and I pressed my nose against the glass, shading my eyes with one hand.
Gage continued. “Anyway, she got over her surprise and—”
I turned to him, my hand still shading my eyes. “Who did?”
“The Samaritan woman.”
“Ah, that’s right.” I went back to peeking through the window.
“So when Jesus offered her water, she was all for it. But she was thinking he meant real water, not spiritual water. She didn’t want to have to keep making the journey to the well and thought if she drank the water he talked about, maybe she’d never be thirsty again.”
Was that Letty? I pushed my nose against the glass again, then pulled back. I’d just left a skin smudge against it. Gross. When I leaned forward to take another peek, the woman I’d seen through the thrift-store window had vanished.
Callie finished her last bite of sandwich. “Then there’s that part where Jesus starts telling her things about herself, things he could only know if he was, well, God.”
Gage nodded. “At first she thought he was a prophet, but then he revealed to her that he was the Messiah. Up until that point, she had kept mostly to herself. But when she realized that she’d met Jesus, she became so excited, she ran off to tell everyone about him.”
I’m not sure who resembled fish more—me pressed up against the glass or the myriad customers swimming through the thrift store’s clearance rack. When no sign of Letty resurfaced, I backed away from the window.
Callie’s eyes searched Gage’s face, one hand propped on her hip. “I love that story.” Her voice was breathless when she said it, and somehow, I couldn’t imagine her using the same tone when complimenting the pastor.
Gage smiled at her and tweaked her nose.
She knocked his hand away and laughed. “I’m serious! I love God’s heart in that story. How though we may have things from our past we’re ashamed of, God changes us by his grace and uses us to win others to him.”
I watched as my brother grinned and pulled his fiancée in close to nuzzle her cheeks, the words splashing over me afresh. God changes us by his grace. Is it possible that Len had experienced God’s life-changing grace in a prison cell? Could I believe it to be true?
Gage broke my reverie when he squatted down until face-to-face with Jer. “Ready for some ice cream?”
You would think my brother had invited Jer to Disneyland. My son threw both arms around my waist, squeezed tight, and looked up at me with that toothy grin of his. “Let’s go eat lotsa ice cream, Mama.”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “Before your dinner?”
Jer wiggled his head up and down, and I shot Gage a mock withering look. “Okay, buddy. Just this once!” I paused. “And you know what? I’m having something with mocha in it.”
Jer pulled away and began to skip. “I want something purple!”
Gage screwed up his nose and mouth, but Callie pushed him along, laughing all the way. “Purple’s all the rage, my love. Get with it.”
I followed them all to Dairy Cone, stopping short of the entrance when something familiar caught my eye. I swiveled toward the thrift store, and there stood Letty on the sidewalk rummaging through a bag. Back inside the ice cream store, Gage was holding Jer up to the freezer case. Callie stood next to them, reading off the names of the different flavors. They won’t miss me. I slipped away and walked up to Letty.
She jerked her head up. “Oh. It’s you.”
“I thought I saw you in there.” I flicked my head toward the thrift store. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” The words sounded hollow, but what could I do? She’d been ignoring me for days, and I wanted to break the ice somehow. I hoped to fix whatever had turned her cold toward me.
“So what? Now we’re going to talk about weather?”
I smiled. This was the Letty I knew and loved. “So what’d you buy me?”
She frowned. “Oh, this? Just some old rags to use around my house. Nothing important.”
“My family’s in the Dairy Cone. Will you join us?” She didn’t answer right away. “I’m buying!”
Letty scowled. “You make me sound cheap. Okay, I’ll have an ice cream, but if I gain even a single ounce, you will hear from me.”
I looped an arm through hers and laughed, pulling her along. “Come on, my friend. Let’s go get fat together.”
With our old camaraderie held together with tape and twine, we entered the ice cream shop. Callie and Jer huddled around a chipped metal table while Gage caught sight of us and dragged over two more chairs. We hurried and ordered our cones—raspberry swirl for her, mocha chip for me—and joined the rest of the clan.
And that’s when I noticed Seth and Holly quibbling at the corner table. How could I have missed them? I didn’t mean to stare, but never before had Holly looked so . . . animated. Her curly hair bobbed each time she jabbed her forefinger at his face. Seth stared back at her, his expression as frozen as the ice cream in my cone. Silence permeated the air.
Callie spoke first. “Looks like trouble in Paradise. I’ve seen Holly perturbed before, but she’s giving him what for like nobody’s business.”
One of Gage’s eyebrows rose. “Perturbed?”
Callie grimaced and swatted his arm. “Stop it. What would you call it, then?”
He turned his head only to have every woman around the table lunge for him. He swiveled back to us. “What did I do?”
“You can’t look at them,” I barked. “It’s rude.”
He laughed under his breath. “Oh, really. And what are all you ladies doing, then?”
Letty watched him, stone faced. “Observing.”
He pressed his lips together, clearly unable to read Letty and know how much she enjoyed messing with him. I loved how easy it was to play my sweet brother. He rested one elbow on the table and eased his gaze over to Holly and Seth’s table. “Why didn’t you tell me we were observing? If I’d known, I’d have gotten into proper position.”
Okay, so he wasn’t all that easily played. Touché, big brother.
A spoon clattered to the floor. Holly stood, kicked her chair under the table, tossed a wadded napkin onto the table, and fled the Dairy Cone. To his credit, Seth attempted to charge after her, but before stomping out, Holly told him in no uncertain terms to leave her alone. With no shame for guidance, all four of us—Jeremiah excluded—gawked as Seth slunk into his metal chair, an embarrassed frown on his face. Not to mention the added insult of a melting sundae.
Callie flicked her chin in Seth’s direction. “You should go over there, Suz. He needs a friend.”
“Can’t. We’re not friends anymore.”
Letty let out a sigh. “What did you do to make him mad?”
My fingers clenched. Letty had done the same thing as Seth: cast blame on me. “He said some pointed things about me . . .” I glanced at Jeremiah who noshed on the final bites of his waffle cone. “Things both untrue and unfair. He has this twisted philosophy that he understands how I got to this particular spot in life. And that I carry the bulk of the blame.”
“So stop acting like a wounded animal and set the record straight. And if he still won’t accept you as you are, then as the Bible says, shake the dust from your feet and move on. It will be his loss.” She shrugged in a dramatic, que sera, sera kind of way.
Gage drummed his fingers on the table, but when I glanced at him, he threw both hands up. “Don’t look at me. I’ve been here before and know when I’m outnumbered.”
I scowled
. Seth’s opinion of me still hurt. “People in love don’t just up and leave. Not unless they’ve got a reason.”
Callie nudged me out of my pity party. “You could offer him a little grace today. It’s Sunday, after all.” Her love of God’s ways, coupled with her nurturing spirit, made Callie a gifted camp director. I admired her and didn’t take her advice lightly.
Seth did look miserable over there, sitting alone and slurping his soupy ice cream. Maybe I could follow Callie’s advice and offer him an olive branch. He looked like he could use a friend, and, as Letty pointed out, I needed to set some things straight with him. My gaze swung back to my artist friend, who with ice cream finished, had begun playing “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” with Jeremiah.
With a resigned sigh, I pushed away from the table. Maybe this would be my twofer—a time to patch up two relationships in one day. Purse and heart in hand, I approached Seth.
Chapter Eighteen
I don’t know why a simple walk across to an ice cream shop required this kind of effort, like I was about to interview for some competitive job with the cranky head honcho of the corporation. Seth hadn’t noticed me yet, so would it matter if I kept on walking out the door and up Main Street? I took another breath, another step. Seeing Seth slumped in that chair, looking much like a little boy whose water pistol had just been taken away from him, made me continue to put one foot in front of the other.
He didn’t glance up when I reached his table. Instead, he offered a slight nod. A tiny smile attempted to form on his lips, one that seemed to say, “It figures.” I think he may have even stifled a groan.
He wasn’t going to invite me to sit; I could tell. So I pulled out my own chair and plunked myself into it. “Wanna tell me about it?”
He kept his head down but raised his eyes, surprising me. I thought they’d be filled with loathing, but instead I saw pain. Seth’s downcast eyes made him look as if he wanted to cry. It shook me. Had Holly broken his heart?
“You don’t have to say anything, Seth, but if you want to talk about what just happened, then I’m here.”
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