All Things New (Virtuous Heart)

by Donna Fletcher Crow

  “Nurse found it when I brought you in. Police have it now.”

  “But how did they know?”

  “I called them, before I headed up the hill with Charlie.” He sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. “OK, I was going to wait until you felt better, but the bare bones of it are this: I was going to Portland. We’ll talk about that later. I stopped for some coffee at a drive-through espresso place. That foreman of Carlsburg’s that Byrl used to date was there—owns the place, actually. He had just got off the phone with Carlsburg and was really steamed. He told me all about it because of Gayle. Carlsburg had fired him. Just like that, over the phone. Just like he had fired Gayle the night of her accident.”

  “Carlsburg fired Gayle?”

  Greg nodded. “She had refused to go along with his tactics. Alex made some extravagant accusation about Carlsburg having engineered her accident. A drugged drink or something.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll never know.”

  Through all the tangled tale, one thing was clear. “Greg, that clears Gayle, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m so glad. So glad.” She struggled to sit up, but dizziness held her down. “So what about Alex?”

  “He was afraid Carlsburg would try to pin Larsen’s murder on him. He was talking pretty wild, but the things he said made enough sense, combined with what I knew. I got right in the car and drove straight back to Seaside.” He took her hand. “A decision for which I’ll be eternally grateful.”

  “Mmmm.” Debbie wanted to say, “Me too,” but words were suddenly too much effort.

  A brisk young doctor came in and examined her. He prescribed ice for her bump, aspirin for her headache, and a nice long rest. They were in Greg’s car, almost back to the cottage, when she asked, “But why did he keep it—the airplane control?”

  “Alex is convinced that Carlsburg was planning to use it to frame him if the police got too close.”

  Debbie leaned back and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk about Ryland Carlsburg. She wanted to talk about Greg and her. But her head still ached. And the medication they had given her at the hospital was taking effect. Greg all but carried her into the cottage, and Byrl tucked her in bed.

  She was just drifting off to sleep when a thought jolted her awake. It was too dark to see anything in her room, but she stretched her eyes open anyway, aching to see. As if physical sight could show her what she sought. Greg had not said one word about them.

  Because he was there—because he had miraculously come back—she thought he had come back to her. But now she realized, he had said no such thing. He had come back to get the police. If Charlie hadn’t taken Greg up to Tillamook Head, he would probably just have turned around and gone back to Portland. And she would never have seen him again.

  Maybe she never would see him again. She struggled to get out of bed, but headache and medication overcame her.

  Chapter 19

  Physically, Debbie felt much better the next morning. Emotionally, she was still numb. But no matter, she was not going to lie in bed any longer. Whatever the day was to bring, she would be ready for it.

  She removed the bandage and washed her hair, taking her time about getting ready. Ready for what? She suddenly realized that everything was over. The lease on the cottage would be up in a few days. The business with Ryland was in the hands of the police. And Greg and Melissa were going back to Portland.

  She had experienced a sense of new beginnings standing on the cliff over the Columbia. But she had had no idea how new. Next Tuesday she would be starting an entirely new life. She almost felt she should change her name to symbolize the new person she had become.

  She walked out on the beach. It was a soft morning. Not really foggy or rainy, just a soft-focus lens on the world. And she was alone. Yet not alone. God was there.

  And for the first time in years, she found that was not a fearsome thought. She could hold out her arms as if to embrace Him with no fear of His judgment. There was now no need to hide from Him, thinking she had committed the unpardonable sin. All those years of believing that there was forgiveness for everybody else but not for her, all that time hoping she had salvation for dying, but knowing she had none for living, it all melted in a wonderful sense of His presence, His grace that extended even to her.

  But it was more than forgiveness, more than assurance, more than freedom. It was—it was love. There, in that moment, she fell in love. Just as she had fallen in love with Greg, and yet far more profoundly, more gloriously. She was in love with Jesus Christ.

  Yes! She wanted to shout and sing. She wanted to embrace the universe. She wanted to tell Greg. She turned and started toward his cottage, light with joy. Then she stopped. What if he wasn’t there? What if he had gone again?

  She stood, thinking. What if there was to be no more of Gregory Masefield in her life? She would miss him terribly, that was certain. She had never before known anyone she so wanted to share every moment of her life with as she did Greg. The thought of going on without him was a physical pain. An unbearable weight in her chest.

  Yet even as she gasped at the hurt, she knew that if he was gone she would survive. She had Another with her who would never leave her. She thought He had. For six years she thought He was no longer there. But she knew now that He had never left her for a moment. And never would.

  So she would never be alone.

  She moved forward.

  Her footsteps sounded hollow on the wooden steps to Greg’s back door. And her knock was equally hollow. Just as she had expected, there was no answer. He was gone. This time without even leaving a note.

  She walked back to the cottage. Slowly. Not smiling. But with her head up.

  She had taken two steps inside the living room when a small pink form flung itself into her arms. “Hooray, you’re here! We’ve come to ask you to marry us!”

  Debbie staggered to the nearest chair and collapsed with Melissa in her arms. She looked around the room, speechless.

  Byrl rescued her. “Come on, kid-o, let her catch her breath.” She pulled the child off Debbie.

  Greg strode across the room and sat in the chair next to her. “Sorry. That wasn’t very subtle. She got a bit ahead of me.”

  Byrl took a firm grip on Melissa’s hand. “Come on. We’ll go feed the seals.”

  “But, Daddy, can’t I give her the present first? Please?”

  Greg threw up his hands. “I didn’t plan it this way.” He looked pleadingly at Debbie.

  Debbie grinned and took the elegantly wrapped box from Melissa. She looked at Greg, questioning.

  “Go ahead, open it.” He smiled and shrugged, apparently resigned to his fate.

  Debbie’s fingers trembled as she pulled the blue satin bow off the package. The only noise in the room was of her fumbling with the pale blue tissue paper inside. Then her cry of delight. The Cybis Birth of Venus emerged from her bed of foam.

  “It’s ‘someday’; it’s ‘someday’!” Melissa bounced up and down, clapping her hands.

  “You remembered,” Debbie whispered, looking at Greg and shaking her head in amazement. She held the precious figure in her hand. Its beauty, its delicacy, its symbolism of birth—the birth of love, the birth of a new life—overwhelmed her. She caressed the porcelain with her finger. It was soft as velvet, warm, almost living. And it was from Greg.

  “Come on. Those seals are going to starve.” Byrl drug Melissa from the room.

  And then Debbie saw what she hadn’t noticed before. Nestled in the curve of a shell beside the goddess’s bare foot was a ring. A perfect pearl embedded in a band of wrought gold. She held it out. “Greg?”

  He hesitated before he answered. “Everything has happened so fast. It’s been more like watching a movie than really living. We still need time. Normal, day-to-day time. You need time and space to enjoy the new you. But I wanted something—some symbol of commitment. That’s why I got a pearl rather than a diamond.”

  “I love
it. It’s perfect. But—?” she still didn’t understand.

  Greg slipped to his knees beside her. “Forgive me for going off like that yesterday. I just had to think everything through. I had to be sure—for all our sakes.”

  Debbie looked at him, trying to understand what he was saying.

  “I had to find my own heart—after concentrating so hard on yours. I had to be sure I wasn’t in love with a dream version of my ideal.”

  “But you know how very far from ideal I am.”

  “And I know how far from perfect I am. And I know we have to live a real life together—not something from one of my textbooks. I had to be sure that we—with God’s help—could make it work.”

  “And?”

  “I’m sure. Every mile I got further away the surer I was. Can you forgive me for going off like that?” She started to answer, but he stopped her. “Let me try to explain.”

  “You don’t have to explain, Greg.”

  “Yes I do. To myself, if not to you. I had put my own feelings and desires aside. The important thing was that you get well. I was just so thankful that I could help you. And all the time I had kept at the back of my mind the thought that once that was over—when you were firmly established in your recovery—then there would be time. Time then to quit being Dr. Gregory Masefield, theologian and counselor, and be Greg Masefield, the man. I had been longing for that moment for weeks …”

  “And then it came and you weren’t so sure.”

  He stood and ran his fingers through his hair. “I was frightened. Incredibly, I had found you—the perfect woman. I hadn’t thought it possible, but I had.” He paused. “No, I couldn’t take any of the credit. It was all grace. God had dropped you in my lap …”

  Debbie nodded. She knew what he was building up to. “And then you took a good look at how imperfect I am. I know, Greg.”

  He shook his head and knelt by her again. “I hated myself for feeling that way. I told myself I was being legalistic, judgmental, unloving … But I knew ignoring my honest reactions would only lead to disaster. Nothing in my counseling study had prepared me for that. I had waited, and then, when I could at last take you in my arms without inhibition … Then I found myself turning away. Running, even.” He was quiet for a long moment. “And I almost lost you.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You married once for infatuation. You had to be certain what you were doing this time.” He looked at the ring, then at her hand. “And you? Are you sure?”

  She gave him a small smile and nodded. “The old Debbie was never sure of anything. This one is very sure.”

  He slipped the ring on her finger and took her in his arms. His kiss was the first one in a world made new.

  The Beginning

  For Further Reading

  Selby, Terry L., with Marc Bockmon. The Mourning After, Help for the Postabortion Syndrome. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990.

  Quotations and Retellings From

  Greene, Graham. The Power and the Glory. London: Heinemann, 1940.

  Potter, Beatrix. The Tale of Peter Rabbit. London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1902.

  Stevenson, Robert Louis. “The Swing,” in A Child’s Garden of Verses. London, 1885.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Terry Selby, M.S.W., and Dr. Thomas Tilden, M.D., F.A.A.P., for consultations and research assistance.