Leaves of Hope

by Catherine Palmer

  Now, sitting in a London pub far away from Jan Lowell, Beth regretted to the bottom of her heart that she hadn’t been a better daughter. It had been so hard to watch her father lose his abilities one by one. She had hated knowing that his mind was perfect—as brilliant and lucid as ever—inside that fragile, immobilized shell of a human body. And so, Beth had found reasons not to go home often. Each time she did see him, it hurt so much that she stayed away longer the next time. Until finally he went.

  A thousand times she had wished she could bring him back. Not the silent, shriveled man, but the hearty father who had ridden her piggy-back on his shoulders and had taken her to the zoo to see the zebras and had taught her to love history. She missed her daddy so much.

  But he, too, had been part of the conspiracy. Why had her parents lied about Thomas Wood? Why had there even been a Thomas Wood? It wasn’t right! It wasn’t fair! She didn’t want another father—a first father who had somehow preceded the one she had loved with all her little-girl heart.

  “You don’t care for our jackets?” Miles reached across the table and prodded the edge of her uneaten potato. “Too dry?”

  “Hey, you touched it with your fork!”

  “I’m perfectly disease-free, I’ll have you know, though there might be a parasite or two floating about—left over from my childhood in the tropics. Occasionally, I think I might have a touch of malaria. But you won’t catch that from anything but a mosquito. Do give your jacket a try.”

  “I’m not hungry. I’m just…” She pressed her lips together in an effort to force back the tide of emotion that swelled through her all over again.

  “I realize you want to be going.” He studied her for a moment. “Do you want to know the part of your conversation with your mum that interested me the most?”

  “You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, Miles.”

  “Boorish men do that. Nasty habit. It was the way you described your life. You told your mother you were running a race. You painted a picture of yourself that I couldn’t get out of my head. I saw you taking off everything, stripping yourself down—”

  “Mr. Wilson!”

  “Not like that. The baggage. The past problems, the secrets, the things most people lug around with them everywhere they go, not even knowing they have them. But you said you’d thrown all that off, and you were running unhindered toward the finish line. The idea of it fascinated me. I couldn’t get the picture out of my head. You, running that race.”

  Beth looked into his blue eyes and realized that he meant what he was saying. For once, the uncouth, aggressive boor had taken a back seat to this earnest man who was telling the truth. He wanted to understand.

  “Paul,” she told him. “The Apostle Paul. He used images of running, training and racing toward a finish line in his letters to the early Christians. I’m guessing he might have been an athlete.”

  “How did you happen to have that Bible in your bag?”

  “I carry it everywhere.” She reached down into her purse, pulled out the small leather-bound volume, set it on the table between them and flipped the onionskin pages. “Best guidebook you’ll ever find.”

  “Better than Frommer’s?”

  “This is the guide to life.”

  “And you’ve got it memorized?”

  “Hardly. But I know it. I use it like a radar screen to sift through everything coming at me. It helps me identify and filter out things I shouldn’t have in my life.”

  He smiled. “Such as Brits with muddy boots?”

  “You definitely lit up the screen. Major alert. Proceed with extreme caution.”

  “That bad, am I? How do you know?”

  “I don’t. I hardly know you. First impressions can be wrong, but in the airport you came across as incredibly self-centered. You needed a place to rest your boots, and my bag was handy. Didn’t matter how many times I asked you to move your feet, you always put them back.”

  “I did indeed. And you’re quite right about me. I’m selfish. That’s the essence of it.”

  Beth prayed silently before responding. “A true Christian ought to be the opposite of self-centered. He’s Christ-centered. That’s how you can tell. There’s a nice line drawn between the two groups. On one side are those who live to please themselves, advance themselves, enhance themselves. You can spot them a mile away. On the other side of the line are those who live to please God, advancing Him and His message. They’re usually easy to recognize, too.”

  “And never the twain shall meet across that impermeable line.”

  “Actually, we meet all the time. It’s just that if you’re running the race, you can’t afford to get weighed down. You care, love, help, teach—all that. But you don’t bond. Paul called it yoking. Don’t yoke yourself to unbelievers, he said.”

  “So, Beth…you never do anything to please yourself? I seem to recall a rather determined young lady speaking to her mother in a decidedly defiant manner. She refused to apologize for opening a box she’d been told not to touch. She instructed her mum to get to the point. She even—”

  “All right!” Beth held up her hand. “I confess. I’m human. I wasn’t very nice to my mother that night. In fact, I haven’t been kind…or loving…not since I opened the box. And you’re right about the rest of it, too. I shouldn’t have looked inside that carton, because Mom had told me not to touch any of the boxes in the room. I felt justified because my name was on it. But the fact is, I disobeyed.”

  “Are you still a Christian, then? Still running the race? Or have you gotten your feet tangled and fallen over onto the other side of the line?”

  Beth stared into Miles’s blue eyes and shook her head. “Why are you asking me all this? What difference does it make to you?”

  Miles leaned back in his chair and poured a second cup of tea. Without answering, he added milk and sugar and began to stir. Finally he looked up at her.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you,” he said. “Met a lot of people in my life. All nationalities. Hundreds of languages. Different customs. Religions. Rituals. There aren’t too many places left in the world that I haven’t seen. I’m quite comfortable everywhere—and with every sort of person. I blend in well, like a chameleon. If I choose, I can become almost invisible. And nothing disturbs me. Storms, earthquakes, jet lag, mud, heat, wild animals—not a problem. But you…you’re troubling.”

  “Why? You don’t even know me.”

  “I realize that. It’s the heart of the issue. I can’t pin you down. I can’t peg you into your place. You don’t fit.”

  Beth searched the man’s face and tried to understand what he meant. She felt overloaded. It was hard enough to adjust to the reality of a living birth father without this persistent Englishman bugging her.

  Not only that, but Miles was on target in his assessment of her. Beth had been selfish with her mother. From the moment she read the note in the teapot, Beth had been furious. She hadn’t given her mom’s feelings a single thought. Her own situation, the confusion and loss and anger, had consumed her. But how was Jan Lowell coping with everything? And why hadn’t her daughter bothered to wonder until now?

  “I don’t know why I make you uncomfortable, Miles,” Beth said, setting her napkin on the table and reaching for her purse. “I’m sorry, because you’ve been very nice to me. In fact, you’re kind of a mystery, too. You flared up on my biblical radar screen. My first impression of you wasn’t great. I thought you were selfish—and you obviously thought the same thing about me. But when you gave me your business card, and then in your office, and now here in the pub…well, you’re not like I first pictured you.”

  “Which side of the line do you think I’m on, then? Am I a Christian, like you?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I am indeed a Christian. Malcolm and I were tottled off to church every Sunday with our mum, if we were living in a town that had a church, that is. We’re English, you know, which makes us members of the Church of England by birth. So, you see, that
puts me onto your side of the line.”

  She started to reply, but he held up an index finger. “Am I a Christian like you? I’m afraid I am not. No idea where a Bible might be located inside my house. There may not be one. Never go to church. Haven’t prayed in fifteen years. Don’t think about the Apostle Paul or running races or being yoked with unbelievers. And I suspect all of that puts me on the wrong side of the line, in your opinion.”

  “My opinion doesn’t matter. God is the one who sees and knows our hearts. All I can do is look at how you behave, where you place your priorities, the things you say and do. The way a person actually lives out his faith gives evidence to its reality in his life.”

  She set her purse strap over her shoulder. “Anyway, listen, Miles, it’s been nice talking to you, but I have to go. I’ve got to figure out what to do about my father. And my mother.”

  As she rose, he stood, as well. “Come to India with me,” he said. “I’ll smooth the path for you.”

  “No part of this is going to go smoothly. It can’t. Thanks for asking me again, but there’s no way I’ll go to India with you.”

  “Wrong side of the line? No yoking with unbelievers?”

  “I don’t yoke with anyone, Miles.” She stepped past him. “Thank you for the lunch.”

  “See, now that is exactly what I’m talking about.” He followed her toward the front door of the pub. “What did you mean—I don’t yoke with anyone?”

  “You know what I meant.” She stepped out onto the sidewalk and began to look for a taxi.

  “No, I don’t. It’s these idioms you toss about. Running races. Yoking. I feel like you’re talking in code. It unsettles me greatly, because I’ve always been good at interpreting what people mean, even when they’re speaking some obscure dialect.”

  Beth stopped and swung around. “Let me give it to you in plain old English, then. I won’t go with you to India, Miles, because I’m not interested in our having any kind of a relationship. Not casual. Not serious. And certainly not physical. I realize this sounds weird—and even I can hardly believe I’m doing it, because nobody in my generation seems to understand this—but I’m committed to purity until marriage. The Bible teaches it. I believe it. I’m living it. So leave me alone, okay?”

  For some reason, Beth again fought a lump in her throat and the sting of tears behind her eyes. Why was Miles pursuing her like this? Couldn’t he see that she needed him to back off? He was just some British tea dealer with muddy boots and a slim connection to her birth father. Did that mean she had to explain herself to him? Did she have to reveal every stupid mistake she’d made in dealing with her mother? Was it necessary for her to divulge her entire world view, including her most private beliefs about intimacy?

  “I have to see you again,” he said.

  A taxi pulled up to the curb. Beth faced Miles as he opened the door for her and then straightened. “You can’t see me again,” she told him.

  “You don’t understand. I must see you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to know you better.”

  “No, you don’t. Miles, I’m nothing to you. We’re acquaintances. We don’t even like each other that much, remember?”

  “I’m falling in love with you.”

  She stared at him, her mouth falling slack. “What?”

  “I—I can’t understand it. It’s never happened to me before. I don’t do this sort of thing, honestly. But…please. Beth. Let me take you to dinner tonight. At least give me that.”

  “No.” She tossed her purse into the back seat of the taxi. “No way. Absolutely not. I’m returning to the States the day after tomorrow. There’s nothing here, Miles. Nothing between us. Nothing.”

  Without allowing herself to look at him again, Beth slid into the taxi and shut the door.

  Chapter Nine

  Feeling as though she were balancing a basket of eggs on her head, Jan sat down on the edge of the sofa. She hated coloring her own hair. Such a mess! It didn’t matter how carefully she wrapped a towel around her neck or how hard she tried to keep the disposable gloves over her wrists or how perfectly she situated the shower cap over the mass of mucky hair. She always managed to splatter dye across the bathroom walls and sink, down her neck and usually into her eyes.

  Then she had to wait twenty tedious minutes, hoping no one would knock on her door, while the color set. And she didn’t even get to use Desert Sunset anymore. Auburn Glow was a ridiculous shade. Jan could hardly believe the company would put it on the shelf. But what other choice did she have? If she didn’t stick with Auburn Glow, she would have to try at least fifteen different hues from three or four other companies. And how could you trust such a diverse group? Oh, they all promised rich color, silky hair, deep conditioning, total gray coverage, the whole nine yards. But you couldn’t be sure.

  Disgusted all over again, Jan clicked on the television. She couldn’t lean back on the couch, and she certainly couldn’t open the curtains enough to let in the last of the sunlight. Tonight she would have to watch her game shows in the dim, murky glow of the lamp on the side table near the couch.

  Lately, nothing seemed to be going right. Moving to the lake was supposed to be fun and refreshing. She was going to paint and decorate and garden to her heart’s delight. But somehow all she could do was think about her family. They had gone missing. All of them.

  John had died.

  Beth had gotten into a huff and run away, as usual.

  Bobby was busy working on computers in Houston. Evidently he was dating some young lady, but he wasn’t ready to bring her to Tyler to meet his mother. This meant he never came home, either, because he always wanted to be with Ashley.

  Billy lived in Tyler, but summer was the busiest time of year at the nursery. He rarely visited, and then he only stayed an hour or two. He lived in an apartment with a bunch of his buddies from high school, which didn’t bode well at all in Jan’s opinion. Those boys had spent most of their free time figuring out how to get into trouble. Just because they were college graduates now didn’t mean they weren’t capable of mischief. They ought to get married and start families. That would settle them down.

  Jan sighed audibly. She sounded like some grouchy old lady. And she looked like one, too, perched on her sofa with red dye in her hair. Here it was, Friday night, and she had nothing to do. No one to talk to. With the Fourth of July holiday coming up the following Monday, even more weekenders than usual had been arriving at the lake all afternoon, unloading their cars, lighting barbecue grills, running back and forth to the shore to play in the water or take boat rides or fish off the dock. Dogs raced everywhere, barking and baying and chasing the children. People wearing bathing suits or shorts strolled up and down the narrow streets of the little community, arm in arm, chatting.

  Well, Jan could hardly be jealous of them. She’d had a good, full life—not that it was anywhere close to being over. The weekenders were actually quite annoying. So much activity and so many cars, and then the firecrackers and barbecue grills. Every Friday through Sunday afternoon, the whole area took on a different feel, a different sound, even a different smell.

  It wasn’t as though Jan were being forced to sit in the half darkness, dyeing her hair on a Friday night. She had plenty of options. Rent a movie. Take a walk to the shore and watch the birds. Order a pizza—though she was on a diet these days. Not two hours ago, Jim Blevins had dropped by with Trixie to ask if Jan wanted to ride into Palestine with him to hear the church choir’s Independence Day cantata. Evidently the choir performed the musical numbers for church members a couple of times before the big community picnic and fireworks display in the park in Palestine on Monday. Jan had begged off, telling Jim she already had plans.

  Dyeing her hair was a plan. Besides, she didn’t want to go out with Jim Blevins, and she couldn’t figure out how to get that message across. The man was clueless! No doubt he’d been so used to getting his way in his marriage that he’d forgotten how to read a woman’s
subtle cues. One of these days, Jan was going to have to tell him point-blank, “You’re too old for me, Mr. Blevins, and besides that, you need to lose some weight, and I don’t much care for your dog, either. So, if you’d please quit—”

  The doorbell sounded so loud in the darkened living room that Jan jumped a foot high and nearly fell off the couch. Oh, no! Who could be outside her door at this hour? Probably a weekender needing directions to a restaurant or wanting to borrow a can opener. She would pretend she wasn’t home.

  Sitting quietly and holding her breath, Jan waited, hoping whoever it was would give up and go away quickly. The second time the doorbell sounded, she turned around, knelt on the sofa and peered through the lace curtains. A determined bunch, these weekenders, as if the full-timers were just living at the lake to serve them. There was no way Jan would open that door in the midst of an Auburn Glow dye job, no matter how desperate the person happened to be.

  “Mom? Are you in there? Open up!”

  Good gravy, it was Beth! Jan clapped her hand onto the shower cap that covered the glob of red goo in her hair. This couldn’t be happening. Pastel chalk pictures of children lay scattered from one end of the house to the other. The refrigerator was all but empty, because she’d been on her new fruit-and-cereal diet. And what if Jim Blevins dropped by after the choir concert to give Jan a report? What would Beth think of that?

  “Mother?” The doorbell sounded a third time.

  Jan flinched. There was nothing to do but let her daughter inside. Oh, well. Beth would just have to see how her mother had declined. How things had gone to pot over the past month. How Auburn Glow and Jim Blevins and living at the lake had turned Jan into the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.

  “Beth? Is that you?” Jan opened the door a tad. “You’re by yourself, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

  “Mom, what’s going on? Is someone in there with you?”