She picked up the handset from its cradle, not looking at the Caller ID. “Hello.”
“Hey there.” Susan. “How was the camping trip?”
“Good. Too short. We had a great time and couldn’t have asked for better weather. We were the only people in the campground the whole time we were there, but another family was checking in this morning while we were breaking camp.”
Susan said something, but Allison couldn’t understand her.
“Hold on a second. I’ve got the music on too loud.” She hurried into the living room and turned down the sound. “What did you ask?”
“Have Tony and Meredith left?”
“Yes. Maybe half an hour or forty-five minutes ago.”
“How’re you doing?”
There came that doggone lump in her throat. She swallowed it. “Okay.”
“Really?”
“No. I’m missing Meredith.”
Susan was silent for a few heartbeats before asking, “And Tony?”
“What about him?”
“Are you missing him too?”
“No . . . Maybe . . . I don’t know.”
Susan laughed. “Maybe you need to figure out which of those it is.”
“Susan, haven’t we been over this before? If you’re suggesting I might want to get back together with Tony, you are way off the mark. That ship sailed a long time ago. Sure, I care about him. You and I’ve talked about that before too. He’s the father of my daughter. I’m glad we can be friends. But I wouldn’t want to go down that same road again. Not for anything. I let go, the way God told me to. Now I’m moving on.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Neither,” she answered, more sharply than she meant to. “Just speaking the truth.”
“Okay. Okay. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
Allison drew a deep breath and let it out. “I’m not mad.” And she wasn’t. She just didn’t want her thoughts to go in that particular direction a second time today, with or without her friend’s queries.
“I’m glad you’re not mad. Now that that’s settled, want to come for dinner after church tomorrow?”
“I’d better not. I’ve a lot to do after having fun the last two weeks. I need to catch up so I can hit the ground running on Monday.”
With any luck, all that work she needed to do would get her over the hump of missing her daughter.
Allison
The Kings Meadow Community Theater performed The Importance of Being Earnest on the last weekend of September. Susan and Ned went with Chet and Allison to the Friday evening production. At the restaurant afterward, they unanimously declared the play wonderful and funny. Then each ordered a different kind of pie. When the dessert came, the plates were moved around the table clockwise, everybody getting a taste of each confection.
Music played softly through the truck’s speakers as Chet drove Allison home. They seemed to have run out of conversation, riding in silence along the ink-dark highway. Only when Chet turned his pickup into Allison’s driveway did he speak.
“I enjoyed tonight. Glad you weren’t so busy you couldn’t go.”
Allison had been too busy to do anything but work over the last three weeks. She’d begged off from several invitations—Chet’s and others—before tonight. “I’m glad I could go too. It was fun.”
Chet braked to a halt and killed the engine. The dash lights remained lit, bathing the interior of the cab in an eerie glow. Chet turned to face her. “There’s something I need to tell you, and I didn’t want to do it over the phone or in front of Susan and Ned. I’ll tell them later.”
A shiver of alarm passed through her. She wasn’t ready for more of a commitment. If he was about to ask—
“I’m going down to Reno. To see Marsha.”
Alarm was followed by relief.
“She’s finally agreed to meet with me,” he said.
Allison nodded, not sure what would be the right thing to say.
“She’s been seeing a counselor this summer, and she wants to talk about what went wrong.”
“I’m glad, Chet. It should be good for both of you. When are you going?”
“Next week.” He cleared his throat. “I thought I was ready to let go of her, Allison, but I’m not. Even after the divorce I’m not. I want the boys to have their mother with them, if at all possible. And I’d like my wife to come back too, if and when she’s ready.”
“Of course that’s what you want.”
“I didn’t mean to lead you on. I like you a lot, but I—”
“You didn’t lead me on, Chet. I’m glad to have you for a friend. I’m not ready for more than that either. Others might not understand, but I do.”
He was silent for a time, then said, “I’ll walk you to the door.” He got out of the cab.
Allison waited for him to come around and open her door. She also waited to feel at least a little disappointment. But she wasn’t disappointed. Not in the least. It truly was enough for them to be friends and nothing more. The door opened and Chet offered his hand to help her down from the cab. Then they walked side by side up the steps to the front door.
After unlocking the door, Allison looked at Chet again. “I’ll be praying for your meeting with Marsha.”
“Thanks. I’ll take all the prayer I can get.”
“Good night, Chet.”
“Night, Allison.” He turned on his heel and returned to his pickup.
Gizmo greeted Allison with his usual excitement when she entered the house. She told him to wait as she listened for the sounds of Chet’s departure. Only after she knew he was gone did she take Gizmo outside.
The night was chilly, and she pulled her sweater more tightly about her as she waited for the dog. Overhead, the sky was clear and dotted with countless stars, some looking close enough for the treetops to touch. Her second winter in this house would soon be upon her.
Her thoughts went to Aunt Emma, as was common. Although Allison hadn’t read about it yet in the diaries, she’d heard stories of her aunt’s early days in the log house. No indoor plumbing other than a pump in the kitchen sink. No electricity, so lighting had come from oil lamps and candles. Heating had come from wood in the fireplace in the living room and coal in the range in the kitchen.
What a difference eighty years made.
Last winter Allison had paid to have a man keep her driveway plowed so she could still come and go in her SUV. What had Aunt Emma done? She must have been trapped in the house for months at a time some winters. How had she stood it? She’d already had so much to bear. A lonely marriage. A miscarriage. And apparently a cheating husband.
Last night Allison had read the entry where Aunt Emma wrote her suspicions about Alexander’s infidelity. It was hard not to hate the louse, even decades later. But Aunt Emma hadn’t hated him, at least not yet. Obviously Emma Carter had been a more forgiving person than Allison was. If Tony had ever been unfaithful—
“Pray for Tony, Allison.”
She could see in her mind where Aunt Emma had stood when she said those words.
“Pray without ceasing. We are often ignorant of the work God is doing in the unseen realms. Miracles happen when we least expect them.”
“But I didn’t get the miracle, Aunt Emma,” she whispered now. “I prayed. I wanted it. But I didn’t get it.”
Emma
May 23, 1933
Spring is here at last. Copper and my milk cow are shedding their winter coats. The hens spend more time outside the coop than in it. And Isaiah and Jeremiah have discovered a whole new world out of doors. I worry they will get eaten by a predator, but they refuse to be shut up inside so I must let them have their freedom, despite the dangers.
Freedom. I thought much about the word over the winter. I contemplated what it means to be free in Christ, and I resolved that freedom in Christ is the only kind of freedom worth anything. Every other kind of freedom pales beside it. And if I am free in Christ, then I will know freedom w
herever He leads me, even if He should lead me into a prison cell, as He did the apostle Paul, or into a solitary life in a log house in the mountains of Idaho, as it seems to be now for me.
I continue to pray for Alexander. I wish he might know this freedom too. I understand now, as I could not understand before, that he was bound up on the inside. I wanted him to fill my every need, needs that can only be filled by the King of Kings. It is not fair to put that kind of burden on another human being. I am sorry for putting that burden on Alexander. I wish I could tell him that.
Allison
Thanksgiving was just four weeks away. Christmas another four and a half weeks after that. Allison had made her arrangements for the trip to Texas, departing on the eighteenth of December. She would stay with Meredith over Christmas and New Year’s and return to Idaho on the third of January.
But what to do about Thanksgiving? Last year she’d played hostess to her daughter and some of her new Kings Meadow friends. This year she’d received several invitations to the homes of others, but she had yet to accept any of them. What was her problem? Why did she feel trapped by inertia?
It was a Thursday morning. Allison sat at the kitchen table, her Bible open to the book of Galatians on the left, her journal open on the right. She wrote the final words of a prayer and, when the pen stopped moving, whispered, “Amen.”
And that was when she heard His voice in her heart, as clear as if it were audible. It would bring Me pleasure.
She didn’t have to ask God what would bring Him pleasure. It was mysterious, the way the Holy Spirit communed with the spirit of men and women who followed Him, but it was clear. He meant Tony. It would bring Him pleasure if she was with Tony.
For Thanksgiving?
For life.
She couldn’t seem to draw breath.
It would bring Me pleasure.
Maybe hearing His voice wasn’t as easy and clear as she’d thought. God wouldn’t say that to her. It was the Lord Himself who’d told her to let go, to move on, to make a new life for herself. She’d obeyed. Surely God wouldn’t ask her to go back.
What if this was a trick of the enemy?
Icy tentacles circled her heart.
Or worse, what if God was asking her to go back and Tony’s sobriety didn’t last?
It would bring Me pleasure.
She got up from the chair and left the kitchen. At the living room window, she stared outside. The gold of the tamaracks and aspens mixed with the green of the lodgepole and ponderosa pines. So beautiful. It was the home the Lord had provided. A place for her to retreat to, a place where she was able to heal. Would He truly ask her to leave it?
The phone rang. She was tempted to ignore it, but before it went to voice mail, she reached for the handset.
“Hey, Allie.”
Her heart stopped and then raced. Why had Tony called at this exact moment? Right now when she felt confused and afraid.
“I thought maybe you weren’t home.”
“No. I’m here.”
She hadn’t talked to Tony in six or seven weeks, and yet he’d called her now. The timing seemed too exact to be coincidence.
“I heard you’re definitely going down to Texas for Christmas.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I was wondering if you’d like to join me for Thanksgiving.”
God, this is crazy. I have to be mistaken.
“A couple of guys from my recovery group and their wives are coming over. One of them’s my sponsor. It wouldn’t just be the two of us, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
It wasn’t.
“How about it?” he pressed.
She could tell him she had another invitation. It was the truth. She had several. He didn’t have to know she hadn’t accepted any of them yet.
“Allie?”
She let out a held breath. “Okay. I’ll be there unless the roads are bad. What can I bring?”
“A couple of pies?”
“Sure. Pumpkin and cherry okay?”
“You bet. I’m glad you can come, Allie. I’ll talk to you again before Thanksgiving gets here.” He was silent a moment, then said, “If you want to bring somebody, it’s all right with me.”
He meant Chet. He believed she and Chet were an item. She’d let him believe it even though they weren’t. Yet God had already removed any chance of there being another man in her life. Hadn’t He? At least that was how it seemed in this moment.
To Tony, she said, “No. There’s no one I want to bring. Unless you mean a little four-legged somebody. Have dog. Will travel.”
Tony laughed. “Gizmo’s always welcome.”
The sound of his laughter seemed to quiet her unsettled spirit.
They said good-bye, and Allison punched Off on the handset.
“Lord, I hope You know what You’re doing.”
Allison
Early on Thanksgiving morning Allison lay in bed, nestled beneath her down comforter, reluctant to get up. She wasn’t in any great hurry. She’d made the pies yesterday. The roads were clean and dry. Even with plans to arrive at Tony’s house before the other guests, she didn’t need to leave for several more hours.
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. When she opened her eyes, she turned her head on her pillow, her gaze going to the corner of the bedroom, to the dress form and wedding dress Emma had worn with a heart full of hope, not imagining the difficulties that lay ahead of her.
Allison had reached 1932 in Aunt Emma’s diaries. Some of the entries had brought her to tears. She’d cried for her aunt and for herself too. Their situations were similar in many ways and yet dissimilar in others. Through the pages of these journals, Allison had not only unearthed a family secret, but she’d watched her great-aunt mature from an uncertain, unhappy, sometimes desperate wife into a strong woman of faith. Emma hadn’t been born with faith and strong character. God had allowed life to mold her, to refine her.
Grandma Elizabeth, according to one entry, had told Aunt Emma divorce wasn’t the unforgivable sin. But Allison knew from experience divorce often felt like it was, even when infidelity or abandonment by an unbelieving spouse gave a person biblical permission to end a marriage. Was that why Aunt Emma had gone to her grave keeping her failed marriage a secret? Or had it been only to please her sister? Perhaps future journals would tell her that.
Allison closed her eyes again and prayed for the day ahead. She prayed for a safe drive down to Boise and back again. And she asked God to make it clear what she should say to Tony today. If she should tell him what she’d felt God speak to her. Did she dare tell him? It wasn’t as if Tony had said he wanted more than the congenial relationship they now enjoyed.
With a sigh, she tossed aside the bed coverings and sat up. She was tired of wrestling with the questions and confusion. She hoped a shower would wash them away for a few hours.
Since moving out of the house a year and a half before, Allison had not been near her old home, let alone inside of it. It felt strange to stand on the stoop and ring the doorbell.
Tony answered the ring, an oven mitt on one hand. He grinned. “You made it.”
Her stomach fluttered as she set Gizmo down and watched the dog run into the house as if he remembered being there as a puppy.
“Come in,” Tony said.
Allison drew a tentative breath and stepped inside, her gaze sweeping the living and dining rooms. It was both familiar and foreign. Tony hadn’t bothered to replace the furniture she’d taken with her to Kings Meadow, so it felt empty. A woman’s touch was definitely absent.
Tell him.
Her pulse quickened. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t. She didn’t know what to say. She would never know what to say. What if she said the wrong thing? What if—
“I’m about to mash the potatoes.” Tony closed the door. “Okay if I let you hang up your own coat? Join me in the kitchen when you’re through.” He held out his hands to take the tray holding the two pies.
She handed it to him,
then removed her coat and hung it in the entry closet. When she entered the kitchen a few moments later, she said, “Smells good in here.”
“Hopefully I haven’t ruined the turkey and stuffing. First turkey I’ve ever been in charge of roasting.” He turned off the burner under the pot of potatoes. “I was tempted to call you about six o’clock this morning to make sure I was doing it right.”
“I’m glad you didn’t call.” Allison sat on one of the tall stools behind the island. “I slept in for a change.”
Tony turned from the stove and shot her a smile. “It’s good to have you here.”
“It’s good to be here.” Fear tried to remind her of all that had gone wrong within these walls. Faith pushed the bad memories away.
“Want something to drink? I made coffee a little while ago, and there’s diet soda in the fridge if you’d rather have something cold.”
“I’m good for now. Thanks.”
Gizmo pranced up and sat on the floor in front of Tony.
“Smell the turkey, buddy?” Tony said.
The dog lifted a paw, begging with his eyes.
“Sorry.” Tony shook his head. “I know the rule. No people food for Gizmo’s sensitive stomach.” He looked at Allison. “Right?”
Tell him.
Her insides felt tied in a gazillion knots as she opened her mouth. That was when the doorbell rang. Gizmo darted out of the kitchen and Allison closed her mouth. Tony went to open the door.
While Tony welcomed his guests and took their coats, Allison got off the stool and made herself useful, draining water from the pot of boiled potatoes. She found a large mixing bowl where she’d kept them. The new hand mixer was stored in its proper place too.
Tony reappeared in the kitchen doorway, followed by two couples, both of the women carrying their contributions to the Thanksgiving meal. One of the couples looked familiar to Allison. The others were strangers. Tony performed quick introductions. Although he introduced her as Allison Kavanagh, he left off the fact that she was his ex-wife. She supposed they knew that.
Thanksgiving dinner was a pleasant affair. The conversation was enjoyable, and Allison felt among friends. She couldn’t help noticing how comfortable Tony was as he played host. How at ease he made others feel too. It hadn’t always been that way.
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