The Forgiving Hour

by Robin Lee Hatcher

Dakota wished he could say the same. There were few memories, and most of those were tinged with unhappiness.

  “Dakota?” Wanda said softly, drawing him back to the present. “I hope you’ll come to see me again, I’d like to tell you about my husband. We were only married three years, but I think he must have been quite different from the man you remember.” Her words echoed his earlier thoughts.

  “Yeah, I think he must’ve been.” Impulsively, he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

  “If he’d had a little more time, I think he would have called you himself.” Her eyes welled with tears. “He had many regrets.”

  Dakota discovered he couldn’t form a cohesive reply, so he simply nodded. Then he turned and strode toward John, who was waiting beside the car.

  “Claire?”

  She looked up and suddenly realized Jack Moncur had been talking to her for several moments without her hearing him. “Sorry, Jack. What did you say?”

  “I was asking about the Rinker closing. Have the papers arrived?”

  “No. I’ll call the title company right now.”

  He frowned. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” She reached for the phone. “Just a little distracted. Everything’s fine.”

  Obviously, her longtime friend and boss wasn’t fooled, but he let it go. “Let me know when those papers arrive,” he said, then disappeared down the office hallway.

  Claire finished the call, ascertaining that the courier service would be delivering the needed documents soon. She buzzed Jack in his office and relayed the information. But the moment she pushed the intercom button again, turning it off, her thoughts returned to her son. Dakota had called an hour before to say he and John were headed back to Boise.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I get to my place,” he’d told her, “no matter how late it is.” He knew her well, knew she would want him to call even if it was after midnight.

  She hadn’t asked him about the funeral, about his father or his father’s widow. She hadn’t asked if he’d found himself with a sibling or two. She hadn’t asked any of the things she’d obsessed about for the past twenty-four hours. She was fairly certain she didn’t want to know the answers.

  Once again someone speaking her name interrupted her musings. This time it was Alana who stepped into her office. As usual, Claire’s best friend, dressed in a chic Donna Karan outfit and wearing tiny diamond earrings glittering on her lobes, looked like a fashion plate.

  “I was hoping I’d catch you here,” Alana said as she settled onto the chair opposite Claire. “I need a favor.”

  “Sure.” Her answer came quickly and easily. After all, Jack and Alana had done her many favors over the years. “What is it?”

  “I’m giving a dinner party for some business associates of Jack’s tomorrow night. They’re coming in from Seattle. I’m short one person. Will you fill out my table?”

  “I take it the odd person” — her pun was intended —” is a single man.”

  “Of course.”

  “Promise me you’re not matchmaking.”

  “I promise.” Alana crossed her heart, but there was a teasing twinkle in her eyes all the same. “Strictly business.”

  She suspected it wasn’t strictly business. Her friend was a diehard romantic who couldn’t bear to see Claire still single after all these years. She’d made numerous attempts to pair her up with one man or another.

  As if reading Claire’s mind, Alana said, “It isn’t as if Dakota isn’t grown. He’s gone from home. You don’t have to worry about an evil stepfather.”

  “Alana.”

  “Well, isn’t that the excuse you used to use?”

  “It wasn’t an excuse.”

  Her friend dismissed her comment with a wave of her hand. “One bad apple doesn’t mean the whole barrel is rotten. You might find a real hero if you’d just open your eyes.”

  “You’ve been reading historical romance novels again. I can tell.”

  Alana stood. “And you’re changing the subject.” She smiled. “Dinner is at six-thirty, so please arrive by six o’clock. And wear that pretty black dress of yours, will you? It’s smashing with your blond hair.”

  She was right. Matchmaking. “Whoever he is, I won’t be interested. Just remember I told you so.”

  “We’ll see,” her friend answered breezily before leaving.

  As fate would have it, Sara didn’t have to worry about how going back to school would affect her relationship with Vince Lewis. That very same evening, when he came over for a barbecue in the apartment complex common area, he announced that he was being transferred to Atlanta within the month.

  She halfway expected him to suggest she go with him.

  He didn’t.

  Then she waited to feel disappointment.

  She didn’t.

  “I’ll miss our tennis games,” he told her.

  “Me too.” She motioned for him to have a seat on the couch. “I’ve got news of my own. I’m going back to school. Just nights, but I’ve decided I want to get a business degree.” She sat beside him.

  “Good for you. I think that’s a great idea.”

  “I was going over the information when you got here. I’ve got one year of college behind me already.” She felt her earlier excitement bubbling up inside again. “I think if I applied myself and took classes in the summer, too, I could get my degree in four years.”

  Vince took hold of both of Sara’s hands and squeezed them. “I know you can do it. Will you send me an invitation to your graduation?”

  “You bet.” But deep inside, she suspected they would have lost track of each other by then.

  Who knew where either of them would be four or five years from now?

  Claire answered after the first ring, and Dakota knew she’d been sitting next to the phone, waiting for his call.

  “Hi, Mom. It’s me. We’re back, safe and sound.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “We made good time.”

  “I’m glad John could go with you. Be sure to thank Maury for letting you boys use his car. I’d have worried myself sick if you’d driven that clunker of yours.”

  “I’ll thank him.”

  “Do you have to work tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. Eight o’clock.”

  “Then I’d better let you get some sleep.”

  Ask me what happened, Mom. Let’s talk, get it out in the open, then release it once and for all.

  “I’m glad you’re home, honey.”

  “Mom —”

  “I love you.”

  He sighed. “I love you too.”

  “Good night.”

  “Night, Mom.”

  A moment of silence, then the other end of the line went dead.

  Dakota gently placed the phone in its cradle. He’d been praying for his mom for nearly five years. At first, he’d expected God to work an immediate miracle in her heart. After all, once he’d found Jesus, he couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see the truth too. But she couldn’t see. The miracle hadn’t happened. Not yet. If anything, she’d grown even more resistant with the passage of time.

  I desire all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth.

  “I know, Father,” he said, his gaze still locked on the telephone. “So when’s it going to happen?”

  My son, there’s an appointed time for everything. Wait upon Me.

  Patience, Dakota silently confessed, had never been one of his strong suits.

  The golden days of summer marched onward. Long days that teased Boise residents with a breath of coolness in the mornings, then turned blistering hot beneath a relentless afternoon sun. The foothills to the north of the city turned brown. Newscasters warned of the fire danger; people made it a habit to check the sky for telltale signs of smoke drifting above the pine-covered mountain peaks. The reservoirs slowly emptied their contents, leaving boaters anxious about the demise of their favorite summer pastime. The Boise River ran low; more than one person tak
ing a lazy float in an inner tube suffered a broken tailbone when they hit submerged boulders. Drought became an all-too-common topic of conversation. Not only between farmers but also between servers and customers in restaurants and between total strangers waiting at bus stops.

  Feeling separated from her son emotionally as well as physically — a separation for which she was to blame but seemed unable to alter—Claire tried to fill the void in her life with busyness. She worked long hours at the office. She accepted more invitations to Alana’s dinner parties and met a surprising array of single men. She joined a health club and worked out, losing five pounds and improving muscle tone and endurance. She gardened, and her skin took on a bronzed hue. She went to art-house movies, and she read big blockbuster novels and tell-all celebrity books.

  She stayed busy, busy, busy.

  Dakota called her, dropped by to see her, and tried to breach the invisible wall she’d constructed between them. She wanted him to breach it, and yet she caused him to fail. Her intractable nature kept the wall in place. She resented the peace and maturity she saw in her son even while she admired those same traits in him. As time for the new school year approached, he contacted her less frequently, his days eaten up by work and selecting classes, church activities, and, she suspected, a new girlfriend.

  Claire felt displaced, perhaps even invisible. She was thirty-eight. Not old, yet there were times she felt ancient. Her role as someone’s wife had ended eight years before. Her role as someone’s mother was no longer preeminent. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn’t help wondering, Who are you?

  She received no answer.

  PART 4

  Faith, Hope,

  and Love

  Now abide faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.

  1 Corinthians 13:13

  TWENTY-ONE

  JANUARY — THREE-AND-A-HALF YEARS LATER

  The airport terminal was crowded. Travelers pulled rolling suitcases behind them as they rushed to their appointed gates. Others, just arriving, hurried to the three carousels in the baggage claim area in the lower level. Small children played tag around rows of connected seats. A baby cried, either hungry or tired. The roar of jet engines rattled the glass windows as a plane lifted off the runway.

  It was all a bit overwhelming for Claire, who was admittedly a nervous flier.

  “This way.” Dakota pointed toward Concourse B after grabbing her carry-on from the security checkpoint conveyor belt.

  She nodded.

  “It’s not much over an hour-long flight. That’s no time at all.”

  “I know.”

  “Read your book. You’ll be there before you know it.” He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Remember to have some fun while you’re there. Don’t just work twenty-four hours a day.”

  His reminder wasn’t as necessary today as it would have been a few years back. Claire had come through a rough patch emotionally, but thanks to numerous self-help books, she’d overcome the worst of it. The breakthrough came when she stopped thinking about her deceased ex-husband. She never thought about him anymore. Well, rarely ever. And her relationship with her son was once again healthy and strong.

  Now she was off to Seattle, Washington, to open a satellite office for Jack Moncur. Her stay there was temporary. Just a few months. But she’d discovered she was actually looking forward to the new challenge. The realization had taken her somewhat by surprise. She wasn’t exactly the adventuresome sort, and she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been outside of Idaho.

  She glanced up. “You’ve arranged for time off in March? You’re still planning to come see me?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be there for your birthday. I’ve already got plans for us to take the ferry up to Victoria for a couple of days.” He frowned. “Hmm. I forget. Will you be twenty-nine this year?”

  “Very funny, coming from my almost twenty-four-year-old son.”

  They found Claire’s gate and sat in a pair of vacant seats near the Jetway. Dakota placed his mom’s carry-on bag on the floor between them.

  “Any chance Cynthia will be coming with you?” Claire asked, referring to the young woman he’d been dating this winter.

  “No.” He shook his head. “I told you. She’s seeing someone else.”

  “I’m sorry. I liked her.”

  “So did I. But we weren’t in love. If she’d been the right one, God would have worked things out between us.”

  Claire barely kept from rolling her eyes. She and her son would never agree about religion. She’d reached a point in her life where she realized that whatever she was, whatever she was going to be, was up to her. That good old-fashioned truism of pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps was the motto she lived by nowadays. Life was what a person decided to make of it.

  “You surprise me, Mom.”

  “What about?”

  He leaned closer and, in a low voice, said, “Because you won’t even consider getting married again, but you can’t wait for me to find somebody and tie the knot.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Is it?” He raised an eyebrow and gave her one of his most charming lopsided grins. “Why?”

  “I don’t need a man in my life. I’m older and settled in my ways. I’ve already had my family. I’m quite happy the way things are.”

  The look in his eyes said, Are you?

  She ignored the unspoken question, turning to watch as disembarking passengers spilled from the Jetway of her arriving plane.

  I am happy, she argued in silence. I have a rewarding job, and I’m financially secure at last. I’ve raised a son and managed to put him through college. I have a lovely little home that I’ve decorated just the way I want, and my time is my own to do with as I please. Why wouldn’t I be happy?

  “You’ll call me when you get to your condo?” Dakota asked, wisely changing the subject to something more prosaic.

  “Of course.”

  “Did I mention that I’ll miss you while you’re gone?”

  As she turned her head to meet his gaze, she smiled, and her irritation with him vanished. “Yes, but it’s nice to hear it again.”

  A boarding announcement blared from the speakers in the ceiling, interrupting whatever he might have said next. She immediately got to her feet, then picked up her small carry-on bag. Dakota stood too.

  “You’ll go by the house once a week and make sure everything is okay there?”

  “I will.”

  “Be sure the thermostat stays set at sixty. I don’t want any pipes to freeze if Boise gets a cold snap.”

  He grinned. “It’ll stay at sixty. No pipes will freeze.”

  “Check the mailbox, just in case something doesn’t get forwarded.”

  “Okay.”

  “If there’s a problem of any kind —”

  “Then I’ll take care of it.” Chuckling, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine here. Just make sure you have a great time in Seattle.”

  Her row was announced.

  Dakota walked with her as far as he was allowed. The flight attendant took Claire’s ticket and welcomed her aboard. Feeling a sudden panic, Claire turned toward her son. He grinned, kissed her on the cheek, then gave her a gentle push toward the Jetway.

  “Have a great time, Mom.”

  Oh, why did I ever tell Jack I would do this?

  Dakota watched her go. When she reached the bend in the Jetway, she looked over her shoulder, as if hoping he would call her back. He smiled and waved, and at last she moved on, disappearing from view.

  This experience was going to be good for her, he thought as he followed the corridor toward the security area and the escalators beyond. He was nearly there when he heard someone call his name.

  He stopped and looked around.

  “Over here.” Eli Jennings raised an arm, catching Dakota’s attention.

  And ri
ght behind Eli, coming out of Concourse A, was the rest of the Jennings bunch, one of his favorite families from Sunrise Fellowship. They were all there — Kristina and Jared, their three sons and three daughters-in-law, and more grandkids than Dakota could keep track of.

  Before he could ask what had brought them to the airport, his gaze alighted on the one unfamiliar face in the crowd. For one breathless moment, the world stood still.

  “This is our daughter, Sara,” Kristina said, but her voice seemed to come from far away. “Sara, this is Dakota Conway. He goes to our church.”

  She smiled. “Hello.”

  “Nice to meet you.” He smiled back.

  “Sara’s been living and going to school in Colorado,” Kristina continued, “but she’s finally coming home to stay.”

  “Welcome back.” Dakota held out his hand.

  “Thank you.” She took it.

  He didn’t want to let go. Ever.

  “She’s been hired to head up the personnel department at Master Resource Industries.”

  Dakota thought it was Jared Jennings who dispensed that bit of information, but he wasn’t sure. He still couldn’t drag his gaze away from the burgundy-haired vision before him.

  If perfection existed, he was looking at it.

  A blush colored Sara’s cheeks. She dropped her gaze to his chest and gently withdrew her hand.

  Realizing what he’d been doing—staring like an idiot, holding her hand as if his life depended upon it — he felt the heat of his own embarrassment inching its way up his neck. He cleared his throat as he took a step backward. “Hope to see you again soon, Miss Jennings.”

  She glanced up. Her smile returned. “I’ll be at church tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll see you there.”

  “Definitely.” He felt like a kid who’d just won a trip to Walt Disney World.

  Later he would wonder if he’d bothered to say good-bye to the rest of the Jennings clan. It was nothing short of a miracle that he found where he’d parked his car and managed to drive home without running a red light or ending up in the barrow pit.

  “Go on. Admit it,” Darlene said to Sara a few hours later. “You liked Dakota Conway.”