Beyond the Storm: Quilts of Love Series

by Carolyn Zane

  Justin swallowed. “And now?”

  Her sharp laugh was really more of a sob. “I don’t have so much going on.”

  “Oh.” Justin nodded and swallowed again. “I know how you feel. I was thinking about talking my grandparents into moving back east with my family.”

  “And you?” This time, it was Abigail’s turn to swallow.

  “I’d go with them.”

  “Oh.” Abigail missed a step and reached out and clutched Justin’s arm just before she would have fallen. He steadied her, and they stopped walking and looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. Her eyes told him she hated that idea.

  His told her the same thing.

  He looked down at their hands, still entwined and sighed. “I think . . . I think that today is not the day to make big decisions.”

  “I,” she whispered, “think that, too.”

  When they finally made it back to Selma’s house, they stepped into the living room only to find Heather and Bob Ray crying. Abigail’s heart lurched as she looked into the dining room to find Selma and Guadalupe and even Elsa crying. Justin and Abigail froze and reached for each other, terror clutching their hearts.

  “What?” Abigail demanded. “What happened?”

  17

  Daniel Strohacker was dead?

  Selma motioned for them to sit down, but both Abigail and Justin remained standing, mouths gaping, eyes flashing, digesting this unthinkable bit of misinformation.

  “No.” Justin looked frantically back and forth among the tear-stained faces. “That can’t be right. There must have been some mistake.”

  Selma shook her head. “No, honey. I’m so sorry, but they . . . they . . .” the elderly woman dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she’d plucked from her sleeve, “. . . they have identified the body.”

  Abigail felt light-headed. The lump in her throat was cutting off her supply of oxygen. The room seemed to tilt. She reached out and gripped Justin’s arm for balance. He must have been seeing the same black spots dancing before his own eyes, because he clutched her back so hard it hurt.

  His eyes were wild and his mouth worked but no sound emerged. At long last, he was able to whisper, “What happened?”

  Bob Ray cast his bleary gaze on Justin. “They just now found his body. Under our . . . under . . . our place. Mrs. Carmichael called when a cadaver dog got a positive hit. It’s him—” Heather rubbed Bob Ray’s back and handed him a tissue. He took it and buried his face. “He was under there, to fix a leak. I should have been under there, man,” Bob Ray cried, his voice muffled.

  “Don’t say that,” Heather said and pressed her forehead against her husband’s. “I’m the one who called him.”

  “Nonsense.” Selma grabbed the tissue box on the coffee table, hobbled over to Justin and pressed it into his hands before she turned to eye Bob Ray and Heather. “This is no one’s fault, do you hear me? Daniel Strohacker was killed in a terrible storm. Not murdered by you two.”

  “But . . . why?” Abigail finally found her voice. “What about Jen? What about their tiny son? What about him? That does not seem fair or right!”

  “Honey,” Selma said with a sorrow-filled sigh, “life is not always fair or right.”

  Abigail stared at Selma, unable to react. Unable to process everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours. Numb now, like a computer overloaded and frozen up, she released her grip on Justin’s arm. The icons in her brain were spinning. Receiving error messages. Unable to display pages. Woodenly, she turned and left the grieving group to descend the stairs to her new bedroom. Closing the door behind her, she paced the floor. What now? What? Do something. Anything.

  Just. Don’t. Think.

  Eyes blank, she moved with an automated frenzy. She reached for her backpack, the bag from last night and the pants she’d worn yesterday. Dumping them out on the bed, she pawed through all her worldly possessions. Some jeans and tops. A pair of shoes. Some underwear and shampoo. And a whole bunch of tattered fabric. This stuff. These bits and pieces were all she had to show for her entire life. Scraps. Don’t think.

  She folded her clothes and stuffed them into an empty dresser drawer. The shampoo, her shears, and hair products she’d managed to salvage from the salon went on one of the shelving units under the window. She ran the carpet sweeper, dusted the bric-a-brac, fluffed pillows, and stacked books. The room, clean to begin with, was now spotless.

  All that was left on the bed were the shreds of material.

  Sinking to the edge of the mattress, Abigail slowly began to sort the bits of cloth. These were all fragments of people’s lives, she reflected as she traced her finger over the various textures of satin and beads, wool and cotton, rough and soft. A wedding dress. A pillowcase. A suit jacket, a blouse, a prom dress, a tie, a dog’s bed, some curtains, some upholstery, a choir robe, a stuffed toy, a costume . . . Abigail’s head dropped into her hands. And . . . a baby’s blanket. Danny was dead.

  The man who loved God with all his heart and soul and mind. Dead. Before he ever got to touch his son.

  No. Abigail inhaled a deep, angry breath. No! She thought of Jen, sitting there in that hospital with a newborn, grieving. Without her husband. This should be the happiest day of her life! She’d waited for it forever. She and Danny both! Her child would miss out on the best father ever to set foot on this earth. Where was the sense in that?

  “Where?” she shrieked at the ceiling and then flopped to the bed and pounded on the tattered fabric with her fists. “Why would You let that happen?” she raged as she clutched the blanket in bunches. “Why didn’t You save him? He was special! He loved You!” she shouted this accusation, not caring who was listening.

  Behind her, the bedroom door softly opened and Bob Ray’s wife stepped into the room. Without asking permission, she perched next to Abigail, so closely, their hips were touching. Crying herself, she handed Abigail a tissue, and then opened her arms. Though Heather was a stranger, Abigail leaned into her gentle embrace and allowed the younger girl to comfort her. And to quietly pray for her.

  Abigail woke to a knock at the door. Slowly, she sat up and pushed her hair out of her face thinking that was why she couldn’t see. But, the truth was, the light outside was gone now. Not really caring, she guessed an entire day had passed. She’d worn herself out crying in Heather’s arms. The last thing she remembered was Heather pulling a quilt off the other bed and covering her before she’d tiptoed out of the room.

  “Abby?” It was Selma.

  She cleared her throat. “Yes?” she croaked, her voice still rough from her tirade.

  “Honey, I have some food for you here.” The knob twisted and the door swung open. The smell of food permeated the air and made Abigail realize that she hadn’t eaten since . . . she couldn’t even remember. Selma set a tray on the dresser and then switched on a low glowing lamp by the door. Abigail blinked into the sudden light.

  “I made a pot roast. The power went on and off all morning, so I decided to defrost a few things. I fixed you some potatoes and gravy and a salad . . .” She crossed the room and, gathering the pillows off the other bed, propped her great-niece up before moving to get the tray. “I checked on you several times . . . so did your friend, Justin. I think he’s concerned about you, sweetheart. We all are.”

  Abigail rubbed her eyes first and then her face before she gave Selma a shivery smile. “I’m okay.”

  Selma peered through her glasses with bloodshot eyes. “Are you really?”

  “Mm. I guess.” She took the fork Selma handed her and began to pick at her food.

  “Eat, honey. You’ll feel better.”

  Too tired to argue, Abigail poked some roast into her mouth. The bits of cloth she’d spread out on the bed before Heather had come in had mostly fallen on the floor as she’d slept. Bending over, Selma picked those up and stacked them with the ones that still littered her quilt top.

  “What are these?” she asked, fingering the different textures and sizes.
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  Abigail chewed for a second and then swallowed. “Remnants. Literally.”

  “Ah.” Selma began to sort through them, arranging them according to color and size. Because she was a quilter, Abigail guessed. Must be habit. “These are not bits of fabric, you realize.” Chin wrinkled in thought, lips pursed, Selma adjusted her glasses. “These are the pieces that need putting back together.”

  “Found them all over the place, after the storm. Right now, they represent all my worldly possessions.” With a heavy sigh, Abigail scooped up a fork full of mashed potatoes and gravy and ate. The pot roast was tender and juicy and seasoned to perfection. Almost immediately she began to notice a difference in her attitude. In a blink, her plate was clean and her glass empty.

  “There’s more if you’re still hungry,” Selma offered as she settled the pile of scraps on the nightstand.

  “No, thank you, though. I’m fine.”

  Selma took the tray, set it on the dresser, then returned to climb into bed next to Abigail. She was so bird-like she took up hardly any space at all in the twin bed. However, the warmth she generated, body and spirit, was large and slowly worked its magic. Abigail snuggled in next to her and whispered to her grandmother’s younger sister, “Why, Selma? Why would God do that to Jen?”

  “Honey, God didn’t do it to Jen.”

  “Yes! He did. At the very least, He could have stopped it. Weren’t we all praying for Danny? Didn’t we ask Him to protect Danny? Didn’t Danny just have a baby? Danny trusted Him!”

  Selma plumped her pillow and made herself comfortable facing Abigail. “Did you like your hair salon?”

  “Uh . . .”Abigail frowned and scanned the ceiling plaster as she tried to second-guess her great-aunt’s weird line of thinking. Knowing Selma, she was going to take her on some circuitous route before she drove home a point. The road could be lengthy and sometimes convoluted, but usually ended up making sense. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, uh, it was pretty. It was stylish. I worked hard on it.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “God didn’t do that to your salon? Make it pretty? Paint the walls? Sew the curtains?”

  “I . . . well, no. I did.”

  “And the awards on the walls? Who won those?”

  “Me.”

  “God didn’t do that to you?”

  “No,” Abigail said and sighed. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then why are you blaming Him now? Why do you take credit for the happy things and blame Him for the bad stuff?”

  Abigail stared at the ceiling and sighed. The plaster made odd shapes in this light. One patch resembled a calf and another, an ogre. “Because it’s not fair.”

  “Fair.” Selma took Abigail’s hand and held it up next to hers in the dim light. The differences between the smooth, supple young hand, and the gnarled, spotted one were obvious. “What would be fair?”

  “Danny not dying.”

  “Danny had to die, honey. Just like me. And yes, even you. The mortality rate for human beings is 100 percent.”

  “But what about his son?”

  “What about him? He is going to die, too.”

  “Without a father.”

  “I suppose pointing out that he has a heavenly Father would sound trite to you at this point, but it’s true.” Selma reached over and smoothed Abigail’s hair behind her ear and cupped the young cheek with her hand. “When I was your age, I seriously thought I was placed on this planet to get a suntan. You know, to be happy. I was supposed to be happy. Clyde was supposed to be happy. All the kids were supposed to be— and live—happily ever after. We were supposed to accumulate stuff. Houses, cars, nice clothes, go on vacation overseas. Live the American dream. Get rich. Get slim. Get tan. Be happy. Happy, happy, happy. When we were done, we would go to heaven and be even happier. No stress, no strain, no thought, no pain. And no God. Didn’t need Him, because I was so busy being happy. But there was something missing. I knew it, even then, in the midst of my supposed ‘happiness.’ Then, on June 8, 1966, we lost everything. In a tornado, of all things. And suddenly, I wasn’t happy anymore. In fact, I was suicidal.”

  Abigail’s eyes widened. “You?”

  Selma nodded. “Me. I wasn’t happy. Couldn’t cope. Ended up in the hospital with what they used to call a nervous breakdown.”

  “Wow. I never knew.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s because that was the old me. The woman who blamed God because she wasn’t always . . .” Selma shrugged.

  “Happy,” Abigail finished for her. “What happened?”

  “I went through the darkest period in my life up to that point. And guess what? Instead of shopping and tanning, I was flat on my face, wishing I was dead and crying out to God. And He came alongside me and nurtured me and educated me, and suddenly, I was grateful for my sorrow and my loss, because it was the one thing that brought me to Him. I won’t kid you, Abby girl, it was hell on earth, but I’d do it all again because I’d been so lost in my sin before my Savior found me. I’d been looking for stuff and people to fill me up, when the only thing that could ever truly satisfy me was a relationship with Jesus. Because this life with all its stuff and activity is going to go away. For me. For you. For Jen and her baby.”

  The sounds of Guadalupe loading the dinner dishes into the dishwasher filtered down the stairs. Robbie cried. Rawhide barked. Then, it was still again.

  “It’s not about building our life here,” Selma continued. “A lot of people think it is, and they are flat out wrong. It is about building your relationship with the living God. The God who sent His Son to suffer, even worse than you are suffering now, so that your sins could be forgiven and you could stand righteous before God one day. Now that’s unfair. But He did it because he loves you so much. Can you believe that?”

  Tears began to leak out of the corners of Abigail’s eyes as she rolled to face Selma.

  “Life is full of tests. We can pass or we can fail. It’s up to us, how we react to the pain that comes our way. You can lie down and die, or with God’s strength, you can get up and fight. You can blame God or you can join Him. You can reject or accept. When a curve ball comes your way, how are you going to handle it? On your own, or trusting Him to help? It’s not easy to have faith, but then anything worth having never is. He never promised us that being a Christian would be easier than not. He just promised us He would never leave or forsake his children. And because He is always with us, we don’t have to be afraid. Of anything. Including death.”

  Selma swiped at a tear that rolled over Abigail’s nose and hovered at its tip. “I think it was Corrie ten Boom who once said, ‘When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.’ And so now,” Selma said, “when everything seems a mess, I can rest. He’s on the job. He’ll take care of Jen and the baby. And Danny is exactly where he wanted to be. With his Father.”

  In the quiet of early evening, Abigail closed her eyes and mulled everything Selma said, sorting, digesting, attempting to come to grips with it all.

  And as she did, Selma began to softly snore at her side.

  Justin stumbled out of the den and followed his nose to the kitchen where he discovered the aromatic pot roast. His eyes felt grainy and swollen and his throat sore. He’d been glad Abigail disappeared when she did. His meltdown hadn’t been pretty. Thank God Bob Ray was as big a wuss as he was, when it came to the death of a friend, because they’d both bawled like babies. Justin still couldn’t believe it was true. Danny.

  Dead. It was stupid, but he felt almost betrayed. Danny had always been there for him. Danny was the go-to guy. For everything from advice about building materials and clients, to God and women and godly women. And it wasn’t just the advice. It was the camaraderie. Danny was as much Justin’s brother as his own brothers were. Danny had rescued him when he was homesick and lonely. He’d shared his friends and family and church
. Now what?

  Staying here in Rawston seemed impossible now.

  Poking through the cupboards, Justin discovered a dinner plate and loaded it with the amazing-smelling stuff that simmered in the Crock-Pot. He was hungry as a bear. Slept the day away after his head and heart had nearly exploded from grief. He was sitting at the table finishing his second cup when Abigail came in. Like an idiot, he sat up and tried to fix his hair. He wished he’d taken a shower before he’d come in here to eat, but his stomach had been too hollow.

  “Hey.” Her smile was wan.

  “Hey.” He responded. Clearly, she felt as rotten as he did.

  “I just made a fresh pot of coffee. Want some?”

  “Love it.” She sank into a chair and smiled. “Good pot roast, huh?”

  “Must be. I had thirds.” He set the mug before her and filled it with dark, hot coffee. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Black. Thanks.” She took a sip and smiled in satisfaction. “Mm. And he makes good coffee? I’m tellin’ ya, Mister. Keep this up and I’m gonna marry you by sundown.”

  “I can do laundry, too,” he bragged. He put the coffee pot away and joined her at the table.

  She pounded her fist on the satiny oak. “That does it. Where’s the parson?”

  He chuckled and almost wished she was serious. “We’ve probably been through more in two days than most engaged people go through in two years.”

  “Weird, hmm? You can get to know a person pretty fast in a pressure cooker, huh? But interesting as it’s been? I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Me neither.” He shrugged and before he could rein in his mouth, blurted, “Although, I’ve known people for more time . . . that I’ve liked less.” He hoped she attributed the sudden redness in his cheeks to his newly steaming mug.