Leaves of Hope

by Catherine Palmer

  “I know you well—you are neither hot nor cold; I wish you were one or the other! But since you are merely lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth!

  “You say, ‘I am rich, with everything I want; I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that spiritually you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked….”

  Jan laid her hand on the page and lifted her head.

  Chapter Twelve

  Beth could hardly believe what she had done. When the wheels of her plane touched down at Heathrow Airport on the outskirts of London, she clutched her cell phone as though it were a lifeline that might drag her back toward sanity. Toward reality and common sense. She should call Miles and say she had changed her mind. Tell him not to meet her flight. Tell him to cancel their tickets to India. Tell him she never wanted to talk to him again.

  Less than a week before, Beth had been sitting at the edge of a rose garden in Texas while her mother carefully explained the perils of rash behavior. Choose wisely, Jan had instructed her daughter. Your safety and security should be paramount. Don’t do anything to jeopardize your future happiness.

  How seriously Beth had listened as she helped pull weeds and tried to believe her mother’s message. Only fools took risks. And Bethany Ann Lowell was no fool.

  But the moment she was away from her mother’s influence and warnings—actually while driving away from Lake Palestine in her rental car—Beth had felt a surge of desire course through her veins. When she recalled that sensation now as the jet taxied toward the terminal, she truly believed her sudden and overwhelming sense of urgency had been sent from God. She knew it so well. It was that old familiar shove as the Lord pressed her to get out there on the racetrack, run, go for the prize, take up the cross and follow Him.

  Not a single true believer mentioned in the Bible ever sat around and grew roses. Back at her apartment in New York, Beth had searched the Scriptures to make sure of it. She was right—every New Testament Christian she read about had kept busy working hard on behalf of Christ, speaking out in public, making sacrifices, even putting their lives in peril.

  The male disciples had taken the greatest risks. Peter and Andrew had abandoned their careers to become disciples of Jesus. Paul sailed through storms, endured shipwrecks, beatings, imprisonment and even a snakebite. Stephen had been stoned to death. There were so many others. And the women Beth found mentioned in the New Testament were no less gutsy. Many of them—including Christ’s own mother—had risked their reputations and even their freedom to follow Him to the cross where He was killed. Later, a woman named Dorcas, who had been raised from the dead by Peter, went on to lead many people in the town of Joppa to a saving belief in Christ. Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, was an ardent Christian—so outspoken that she and her husband had been driven from their house in Rome and forced to move to Corinth. But even there, Priscilla risked her life by welcoming Paul into her home. She and her husband even accompanied him on his missionary journey to Ephesus.

  People who really followed Christ simply couldn’t sit still. That was all there was to it. Beth turned her cell phone over and over in her damp palm as the plane came to a stop, and people began unbuckling their seat belts. Christ had charged Christians with setting down their TV remote controls, getting up out of their recliners and telling the world about Him. A true believer had to go places. Speak out. Face danger.

  Beth stood and tugged her black leather carry-on bag from the overhead compartment. It had been a long flight, and instead of napping, she had stewed most of the way across the Atlantic. Yes, she definitely believed that Christians were to stride out of their comfortable nests and speak boldly about Jesus whenever and wherever they could. But was that why she had phoned Miles Wilson and arranged to go to India with him to meet her birth father? Could she honestly verify that without the least qualm?

  Setting down her carry-on bag, Beth released the handle and rolled the bag behind her as she followed the other passengers through the plane’s door. In a few minutes, she would see him again. Had she come all this way just to lead Miles to Christ? Or was it his blue eyes and charming accent and fascinating past that had beckoned her?

  Could it be both? Did God allow that sort of thing?

  And what about Thomas Wood? Did Beth ache to meet the man because she needed to make sure that her birth father had heard about Christ? Or did she just want to find out if she looked like him? Was she a little missionary, trotting here and there around the globe with the aim of spreading the good news of salvation? Or was she—as her mother had always insisted—a nosy, pushy girl who had ants in her pants and couldn’t sit still and had to pry into everything that interested her?

  The line through British customs seemed to take forever, and Beth finally decided to use the time to do the dreaded chore she had put off way too long. As she inched her bag forward, she dialed her mother’s phone number. It would be late Saturday evening in Texas. Probably her mom would be dyeing her hair again.

  But instead of the familiar “Hi, Jan Lowell speaking,” Beth heard the answering machine kick on.

  “Hello, this is the Lowell residence,” Jan’s recorded voice said. “No one’s available right now, so leave a message. And remember—as Victor Hugo wrote in Les Misérables, ‘The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.’ Have a happy day!”

  Beth swallowed as the message from her mother ended. Always some infuriating quote! The joy of her teenage years had been threatened daily by her mother’s ever-changing answering machine passage from some noted writer. Beth’s friends had ridiculed her mercilessly, mocking Jan Lowell’s perky Texas accent as she reminded them of a famous phrase that Shakespeare, Milton, Thoreau, Emily Dickinson or Larry McMurtry had written. Of course, Miz Lowell, as the kids called her, had taught high school English for so many years that most of them had been her students, and they all adored her. Still, those awful messages…

  As the machine finally beeped, Beth’s heart was hammering so hard that she half expected airport security to accost her for harboring an explosive device. The supreme happiness of life? Who had the luxury these days to even think about things like that? She swallowed at the nervous lump in her throat.

  “Hey, Mom, it’s Beth,” she began after the signal. Her voice sounded way too high and trembly. “I don’t know where you could be at this hour. I hope you’re okay. I had planned to talk to you, but anyway, I’ll just leave this message to let you know I’m in London. I, uh…I decided to look up Miles, after all. And I also need to tell you that…well, he and I are going to India. Not as a couple or anything like that, okay? It’s not how you might think. Miles is just helping me get there, because, you know, he owns the tea estate and it makes sense that he could cut through the red tape and all that. So anyway…I wanted to tell you that I will be meeting him…my birth father…Thomas Wood…and I hope you’re not upset about that, because I definitely don’t want to hurt—”

  Another beep cut Beth off as the machine in Texas hung up. She considered redialing, but she was nearly at the front of the line now. And she suddenly realized how terrible it had been to tell her mother this way. They’d had such a good time together. Seemingly in perfect harmony. Now Beth had made this decision and had just gone and done it. She hadn’t asked permission—not that she needed to. Still, she could have had the courtesy to tell her mom what she was up to before actually leaving New York. This way, the cowardly way, Beth had blurted it all out to an answering machine. It felt like one of those e-mails she realized she shouldn’t have written just after clicking the “send” button. Oh, she did that far too often.

  “Next, please.” The customs official beckoned Beth forward to his glassed-in booth.

  Feeling like she might topple over from exhaustion and stress, she made it past customs and through the security gates into the terminal. She walked out onto the tiled floor. And there he was. Just like that. Miles Wilson was waiting for her as he had promised.

  “Beth!” Hi
s face broke into a smile, and his blue eyes lit up. He strode toward her like a battering ram bearing down on a castle door.

  She swung her purse around to blunt the first assault as Miles wrapped her in his arms and drew her close. “I’m so pleased you decided to come after all,” he whispered.

  The purse had done no good at all. As it turned out, the attack came from another direction entirely. Beth shivered at the warmth of his breath on her ear.

  “Hello, Miles,” she managed.

  He leaned in to kiss her cheek, but she pulled back and stepped to one side.

  “Wow, that’s a long flight,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve done it so many times, but I always forget.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  She tried not to meet his eyes. “It’s nice to be here, but I am definitely going to need a nap.”

  “Good, then,” he turned and slipped his arm under hers. “I’m putting you up at Wilson House, where morning naps are required by law. Wilson House is in Belgravia, but the traffic shouldn’t disturb you. We’re right on the square, and most of the homes there have been converted to embassies. Nothing but the occasional protest march or holiday ball to break the silence. Every country has its own holidays, you know, and some of the customs can be shockingly—”

  “Wait!” Beth stopped walking and held up her hand. “I have a hotel reservation. I told you that in my last e-mail.”

  “I canceled it for you. No point in spending the money when you can stay with us.”

  “Us who?”

  “Malcolm and me, of course.” He grinned, lopsided and charming and way too handsome, as he started her moving forward again. “We’ve got the old family place now that Mum and Dad are sadly gone. Several nice guest rooms, a top-notch domestic staff and a French chef. You and I are leaving for India tomorrow anyway, so why not?”

  “Well, but I—”

  “Ah, there’s Charles.” He lifted a hand to wave as a shiny black limousine pulled up to the curb outside the terminal. A moment later, a liveried chauffeur had stepped out of the car and was opening the door for Beth. Miles nodded to him. “Thank you, Charles. Very good of you, my man.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Feeling as though she had stepped back in time to a London where footmen drove carriages while lords and ladies chatted mindlessly, Beth slid onto the black leather seat and settled her purse beside her. This was not going according to plan, but she couldn’t summon the resources to fend Miles off. Too handsome, too quick-witted, too well-heeled. The parapets had toppled, and the lady of the house was in grave danger of total invasion.

  “I really would rather go to a hotel.” She mustered one last counter move as Miles joined her in the rear seat. “Staying in a house with two bachelors doesn’t make me comfortable.”

  “Bachelors, are we? Malcolm will like that.” He chuckled. “I’m afraid we tend to think of ourselves as a pair of crotchety jossers—geezers, I think you Americans would call us—growing older and mustier by the day. Malcolm is far worse off than I. At least I have the good fortune to travel the globe. My brother ferries back and forth between the house and the office with nary a pause for breath. We should take him out, you and I. Dinner tonight, perhaps. Malcolm is fond of fish and chips, I’m sorry to say. Somewhat plebian dish for a man of his rank, but he can hardly be swayed from it. What is your opinion of fish and chips, Beth?”

  The sum total of the long hours of flying, the tension of worrying that she was making a serious mistake, the lack of sleep…all had suddenly converged the moment Beth leaned back against the cool leather and stretched out her legs. She experienced the sensation that a one-ton weight had dropped onto her body. It sank her more deeply into the cushioned interior of the limousine as it pressed every last bit of energy from her muscles. She felt she had turned into butter somehow. She was oozing onto the seat as she swiveled her head and tried to make sense of what the man beside her was saying.

  “Fish and chips?” she repeated. “Good.”

  “Excellent. You’ll get some rest while I pop back to the office and check on Kenya. The pluckers there have asked for a raise, as they regularly do, and I’m in the midst of sorting things out. One can hardly raise the pluckers and ignore the factory labor, can one?”

  Beth fought her way through dark clouds that had begun to gather around her vision. “Uh…pluckers?”

  “Tea, of course. One never picks tea leaves. The bud and the top two leaves must be carefully plucked by hand and tossed into a basket. Incredibly laborious process, but no one has thought of a faster or more efficient way to do it. And it does provide employment. Very important in the Third World where Wilson Teas does most of our business. We considered planting tea in America once. An experiment. There are some environmentally suitable places where it might grow, you know. I’m the one who thought of it, actually. Malcolm has no imagination whatsoever. But sadly, the costs are prohibitive.”

  “I’m sorry,” Beth mumbled, wondering what he was talking about.

  “At any rate, I shall tackle the Kenya matter while you sleep. Then, this evening at six straight up, Malcolm and I shall transport you to the finest fish and chips purveyor in Belgravia, of which there are not many. It is a rather foppish neighborhood, though not so much now as it was when Victoria reigned. Belgrave Square used to be the place to live. But now one can never be sure what one might find when opening the door in the morning. Incredibly diverse lot living near us these days. We have the embassies of Spain, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Ivory Coast, Turkey, Mexico and one other…oh, yes, Portugal, all within sight of Wilson House. Did you know that Mexicans shut down business for an entire month at Christmastime simply to celebrate? Feria, they call it. Dancing in the street all night long. Dreadful din. And the Norwegians…”

  Jan tried to get through her front door without Jim following, but no such luck. He was right on her heels, asking if she still had any of that blueberry cobbler she’d served him the other day. She did, and she considered fibbing. But lately, ever since Beth went away and the old Bible came out from its cardboard box, Jan had been feeling the prick of conscience. You could hardly tell a lie when you’d just read about God giving Moses the Ten Commandments.

  “Mmm-mmm, fresh blueberries,” Jim mused aloud, shaking his head as he toddled after her toward the kitchen. “Frozen blueberries. I can take ’em or leave ’em. But those fresh ones just can’t be beat.”

  Jan had no choice but to feed the man. How could she refuse? Earlier that evening, he had picked her up in his nice clean car and driven them down countless curving, dark roads to the home of a member of their Sunday school class. She would never have found her way to the fellowship dinner if Jim hadn’t offered to take her.

  “I’ll give you the recipe,” she told him. Kicking off her shoes, she stepped to the refrigerator in her stocking feet. “It’s not hard to make at all. You start with biscuit mix.”

  “Not me.” He held up a beefy hand. “I can barely boil an egg. I am getting better at cooking as time passes, I’ll grant you that. But cobbler? No, I’d prefer just to drop in here and mooch a slice of yours every now and then.”

  “We did have dessert at the social, Jim,” she reminded him. “I think you ate three of those peanut-butter cookies and a piece of pie.”

  “Chocolate silk pie. Now, that was good.” He cocked his head at her. “Say, were you watching me? Trying to keep me honest?”

  “Well, you’ve got diabetes, Jim, and you need to take off a few pounds. Those aren’t my words, they’re yours. So, I’m just telling you what you already know.”

  “All right, all right.”

  “But here. Take this cobbler and don’t tell the doctor who gave it to you.”

  He laughed as he settled onto a chair at her kitchen dinette. Jan cut herself a small square of the dessert and sat down across from him. As much as Jim Blevins could annoy her, she had to admit this evening had been fun. She’d been trying to read the directions with a flashlight while the
y negotiated the narrow, winding lanes and tried not to hit another car, a deer, a possum, an armadillo, or anything else that might think it had a right to the road. By the time they finally arrived at their host’s house, they were both giggling.

  People probably suspected something was going on between them, Jan surmised, but they were wrong. It just felt good to be silly occasionally. To have companionship. To share an enjoyable event with another person.

  “You know, you’re a killer at that trivia game,” Jim observed. “I never met anyone who knew where Borneo was.”

  “Oh, it’s just useless information. I remember some things, and other facts go straight out of my head. A few weeks ago, my daughter called me from Nairobi, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out where she was.”

  “Well, where was she?”

  “In Africa. Nairobi is the capital of Kenya. It’s over on the east coast.”

  “Why would anybody ever want to go to Africa, is what I’d like to know.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought. But Beth was helping an American family to move there. She’d found them a house and a school and all that. Beth said she loved Botswana so much, she’d move there herself in a heartbeat.”

  “Botswana?”

  “It’s another country in Africa. Farther south and toward the middle.”

  “You couldn’t pay me enough money to live in Africa. And it’s not what you might think. I don’t care whether people are black, white, yellow or purple polka dots. But all those wild animals? Snakes? Do you know they’ve got the fastest snake in the world in Africa? I saw a TV show about it. The mamba—mean, aggressive thing. No, just give me good ol’ Texas. I’d take on a rattler before a mamba any day. At least with a rattler, you’ve got some warning before it strikes.”

  Jan carved a bite of cobbler with her spoon. She had always said she would never leave Texas, and that still made sense. But she wasn’t so sure a rattlesnake was any kinder than a mamba. If Beth liked Botswana so well, maybe Jan would, too. Not that she would ever consider leaving the United States. Not in this day and age. But still. It was something to think about.