He disappeared through a set of double doors into the kitchen.
“What were we talking about?” Michael asked, pushing the laminated menu to the edge of the table.
“I don’t know. I might have been saying how happy I was that you called me back. Your timing was wonderful.”
“Sorry I missed your call the first time,” Michael said. “I had just stepped outside the truck to unhook the boat trailer. It took a little longer than normal because of the rain, but I saw you’d called when I got back in the truck.”
The waiter returned, topping off Michael’s coffee. They ordered the specials, one of each, eliciting compliments from Aaron, who took their orders to the kitchen without writing them down. When he was gone again, they sat without speaking, merely looking at each other.
Emma felt as though her heart had been flipped like a pancake since she first arrived in Juneberry. She wanted to tell Michael about the changes somehow but wasn’t sure how she’d put it into words. She wanted to tell him about the morning worship service, the conversation at Samantha’s—and how everything felt new and uncertain. Emma decided to temper her emotional earthquake with the wisdom of allowing the night to run its natural course.
“Tell me about fishing,” Emma finally asked.
“After church, I like to go to quiet places where I can be alone. I hadn’t been out on the water in a few weeks, so I hitched up the boat and drove over to Lake Greenwood for the day. I got such a late start that most of the other fisherman were coming in as I was going out. I saw that the clouds were getting dark to the north, but they were slow moving. So I headed out and was able to fish for about two hours before the first raindrop fell. Got a few bites, but no fish.”
“What do you do when the fish aren’t biting?” she asked, watching the light from the fireplace flicker on his forehead.
Michael thought for a moment. “I listen to the water lapping up against the sides of the boat. I think about things. Let all the stuff from the workweek fade away for a time.”
“It sounds relaxing.”
The waiter brought out the filet and sea bass, and a basket of oven-warmed bread that he placed on the table with a small container of honey butter.
“Is there anything else I can bring you tonight?” he asked.
“I think we’re good,” Michael said. Emma nodded her agreement and he was gone again. Michael asked if he could pray for the food and Emma agreed to that, too. Then he offered her a piece of bread and the two began eating.
“Why don’t you tell me about your day?” he said.
“I’m not sure I can put it into words. More than anything else, I think I’ve been moved by a sense of gratitude, Michael.”
He looked up at her, surprised. There was something about her that was different, tranquil perhaps, like she’d de-stressed enough from small-town living to have at long last caught her breath.
“What happened today to prompt that?”
“Not just today. It’s been happening all week, one day cascading into another. I can’t put it into words, but I feel different. I’ve been thinking back on the way you looked after me in high school and even how we felt about each other that summer, and I see what an incredible man you’ve become … and …”
“And it’s made you feel … grateful?”
“Yes. But saying that somehow seems smaller than it is.” Emma leaned her fork against the dinner plate, her eyes taking on the wandering look of searching for the right words. “Something’s going on with me; I just don’t know what it is. I knew it would sound confusing when I tried putting it into words.”
Emma reached across the table and took hold of Michael’s hand.
“Michael, don’t you feel sometimes like you’re part of a bigger story? Like there’s more going on that you can see or touch?”
Michael didn’t say anything. He just stared at Emma trying to read in her eyes just how much of the bigger story she had absorbed. He’d been aware of the larger story his whole life.
“That’s how this feels.”
o o o
It was 10:00 p.m. when the movie Christina and Bo were watching ended. Bo found the remote control next to the half-empty popcorn bowl and pointed it at DVD player, then the TV, shutting off the electronics.
“I think it’s time to call it a night,” he said, setting the remote down and squeezing Christina’s hand to rouse her.
Christina stretched. “I did pretty good there for a while, only dozed off right near the end.”
She yawned, stretching out her arms full length before dropping them gently around Bo’s neck.
“So was this Sunday a lonely one, or did we fix that problem?”
“I think we fixed it. How was yours?”
Christina gazed at him through sleepy eyes. “My entire weekend couldn’t have been any nicer. The barn dance, church this morning, Samantha’s party, and a movie night with you. All of my favorite things all wrapped up in one weekend. How did I get such a blessed life?”
Bo touched Christina’s face, twisting a strand of golden blonde hair around his finger.
“Because you’re a good person.”
She closed her eyes, resting her cheek against Bo’s hand.
“I don’t think that’s it, but I’m so glad God’s blessed me with you.”
She opened her eyes and kissed Bo.
“My favorite moments are the ones when it’s just the two of us,” she whispered in a voice so low he had to bend his ear to her lips to hear her. “I never feel more complete. I never feel more alive than when I’m with you.”
“You know I love you, too, right? Just don’t expect a lot of fancy words, ’cause you know I ain’t got ’em. But it would be a shame, probably a sin, if you never knew how much you mean to me.”
Christina closed her eyes, a smile curling up the corners of her pink lips.
“I’m not trying to be a pushy chick, but with all this good vibe going around, do you ever think about our being able to do this all the time? Do you think about us …” she paused. She knew Bo wasn’t particularly confident expressing his emotions.
“I think about it,” he said. “It’s like there’s two parts of me. One part wants us to be together, and another part just doesn’t want to lose you. I had a family once. I had a son, a commitment. I lived in a totally different way than you see me right now. And then, whack, one day it was all gone. She took a part of me away. I’m still not all here, Christina.”
Christina’s heart broke for Bo. “We could do it together,” she pleaded with him. “I could help you heal. I know God wants to restore you.”
“If I didn’t think that was possible, I’d have to let you go. I couldn’t keep you hanging on, but I’m not ready.”
Christina drew in a long breath, and let it out slowly. After two years of dating, it was so dispiriting seeing how much distance there still was to go. She closed her eyes for strength.
“I’m going to pray, Bo, that God will work this out.”
Christina started to sob. “I’m sorry, Bo, I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s just so strange how God can work out really complex problems with such grace and ease, and yet our situation remains unfixed.”
She wrapped her arms around the man she loved but couldn’t have. Closing her eyes tight, she prayed for God to break through.
~ Sixteen ~
Fall into these arms of mine
I’ll catch you every time.
—CLAY WALKER
“Fall”
Monday morning opened with a brilliant sunrise, a burning yellow-orange ball rising like mercury in the east. Along the mountain ridge, and on every tree in the valley, colors popped with an awe-inspiring vibrancy from the touch of a fiery sun.
Michael took note of the colors on his drive to the Macint
osh house, high in the hills above Juneberry. He parked on the gravel construction drive and, opening the door of his truck, stepped outside, breathing in the crisp morning air.
The coffee tasted just right, even if it was from a paper cup. It was strong medicine to help him sift through something Emma said to him the night before.
It was a much different time when the twenty-two-year-old Emma talked of “feeling grateful” under a Juneberry moon, just days before she disappeared. Grateful. For their relationship? Or for the opportunities that awaited in Boston? She left him days later, leaving only memories of their love behind.
Last night she said she was grateful. She said she felt different, too. How different? he wondered.
He thought back to their dinner, watching her talk in the honeyed firelight. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman in all his life. He never loved another woman as he’d loved Emma. Even in the dry years, those dozen distant summers when no one had heard a word from her and he’d doubted he’d ever see her again, the flame continued to burn inside him. He was certain it was this ongoing, unrequited love that doomed all of his dating relationships during the past dozen years.
Bo hadn’t yet arrived at the work site. The sun broke free above the horizon line, pouring warmth against Michael’s face and neck to soften the bite of the chilly autumn morning. He pulled on a pair of heavy leather work gloves and lifted a bundle of roofing shingles from his truck. With any luck, they’d finally finish the Macintosh roof that had been twice delayed by rain.
o o o
Noel Connor strummed his Taylor guitar on the patio in the quiet of morning, singing worship songs. The Bible rested open in front of him on the glass-top wicker table where the day before, Christina, Emma, his mom and sister, and Janette had sipped chamomile tea and chatted. Noel read a few verses from David’s psalms and made up his own songs, conversations between God and him. The sound of the pick against the guitar strings danced through the screens, reverberating into the yard with its birdbath, fountain, and stone walkway. God’s creation was majestic and alive to Noel. He closed his eyes and prayed to hear the Silent Voice.
o o o
Will lay in bed that morning watching the sun come up in his window, a prayer of thanksgiving moving silently on his lips. One week earlier, a Monday morning, he had sipped coffee alone at his kitchen table, not yet dressed for work, when he felt a tingling pain shoot down the length of his left arm. As crazy as it sounded, he’d do it all over again if he had to. He thought as he lay in bed, how life was better because of the heart attack. His prodigal daughter had come home.
He rolled out of his warm bed, and knelt down on the cold wood floor. “Thank You, Lord,” he said, eyes pressed shut, feeling the stitched patchwork of the quilt Hannah made them against the palms of his hands. “Thank You.”
o o o
Bo Wilson pulled in late at the Macintosh house. Usually, they could set each other’s watches by their routine. He was always on-site by sunup with a drive-through breakfast in hand and a well-fed dog hanging his head out of the passenger side window.
“You beat me this morning,” Bo conceded. He tossed Bear the last of his breakfast burrito. “What time did you get here?”
“About a half hour ago,” Michael yelled down from atop the roof.
Bo put on his tool belt and carried his coffee to the ladder; it made a hollow aluminum clanging sound as he fixed its position before climbing up.
“Why so early?” he asked when he’d reached the rooftop.
“Let’s say, I had an interesting night last night,” Michael said. He attached the compression hose to the nail gun. “When I woke up early this morning, I just didn’t feel like lying in bed and decided to avoid passivity.”
The aluminum ladder bumped and clanged against the side of the house again as Bo climbed off it. On the slanted roof they worked with care, securing their footing by walking against two-by-fours nailed into the rooftop.
Near the chimney of the four-thousand-square-foot home was the last, large section of unshingled roof. The flashing had already been installed and the sheathing was in place. Michael projected that about four hours of work lay ahead of them to attach the last of the roofing shingles.
“Let me guess; could Emma Madison somehow be involved?” Bo asked, kneeling down to work where he’d left off previously.
“You got it. She called me about five o’clock last night and we drove out to Anderson for dinner.”
“She called you? And you went to Anderson? That’s a long way to go for just a meal.”
Michael shot a nail into the top of a shingle, just touching the feeder tip to the upper corner, feeling the weight of the hydraulic gun tug. “We didn’t mind.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Bo said. “Anything out of the ordinary happen?”
“Well … she said she felt … different. I don’t know, is that out of the ordinary?”
Bo placed the next shingle flush against the one before it. He touched the nail gun to the corners. They worked left to right, overlapping a new row over the old.
“Different, huh? Good different?”
“I think so. She’s a tough one to figure out these days. We get along great, you know? Almost like old times … but …”
“Yeah, ‘but’ is right, Michael. Look, she’s only been in town a week, right? And how long does she plan on being around?”
“Not long.”
“Right, not long. So be careful. About the time you put your trust in somebody, you turn around and find they’re gone.”
Bo shot another nail in the roof.
Michael heard a deeper bitterness in his friend than he ever had before. “Is that how you feel about Christina?” he asked.
Bo grunted. “No way. She’s the exception to the rule. She’s the exception to every rule,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of women like her.”
“And you don’t think Emma’s cut from the same cloth?”
“I don’t. She left town once before, left you high and dry. Has she ever apologized or explained why she did that?”
“Apologized, yes. Explained, no.”
Bo shook his head.
“And she’s leaving in a few days …” Bo said, tapping the nail gun against the hard rocky surface of the roof. Michael knew Emma’s story touched all the dark places in Bo’s fears about the opposite sex.
“I’m not gonna say anything else, Mike, ’cause I want you to be happy, but I wouldn’t read too much into it. Even though she says she feels ‘different’ doesn’t necessarily mean she’s falling in love with you.”
“Yeah. But is it so wrong for me to find out what she means?”
o o o
Christina walked the quarter-mile hike to the end of her driveway, whispering a prayer for the restoration of her true love’s heart.
“Dear Lord,” she spoke in the quietness of early morning, “I praise You for the morning. I praise You for this day. I love You dearly and I trust You unquestionably. I pray for my love, Bo, whose heart was broken. Will You restore what is broken? Will You pick up the pieces of his shattered heart and mend them together again? Please remove the bitterness and hurt that’s choking out the life in this wonderful man. I believe in him, and I believe in You. May Thy will be done. I give my love for Bo over to You. I surrender it, and I give You Bo. I would gladly give myself for his healing. I love and trust You, Lord, and surrender him into Your loving hands.”
o o o
Emma took her coffee upstairs to the bedroom and set it on the table next to the bay window; a small wedding photograph of her parents balanced the other side. She sat on the red cushion in the window seat, parting the sheer nylon curtains that made the bay window the perfect place to think.
She heard a knock on the open bedroom door and saw her father standing there when sh
e looked up.
“I just thought I’d check on you,” he said, standing at the doorpost. “How was dinner last night with Michael?”
“It was great,” she said, her voice sounding soft and reflective. “We had a really good time.”
“Why do you look so sad then?”
“I’m not sad,” she said, feeling more transparent than normal. “I’m just confused.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Will said, stepping into the room, closer to where Emma sat in the bay window.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“That’s fine, we don’t have to talk.”
An antique Victorian chair rested between the two windows. Will drew it across the floor closer to Emma, making a scraping sound that was oddly comforting. He sat down on the needlepoint cushion a few feet from Emma. Outside, they heard the sounds of birds chirping, finches who normally stayed in Juneberry all year round. Emma sipped from her coffee cup, setting it back down next to the picture.
“I went through the stuff in those boxes, from the bedroom,” she said, pulling her feet up on the cushion and wrapping her arms around her legs.
“I’d forgotten all the stuff that was in there,” Will said, rubbing his hand back and forth across his chin.
“It’s impossible to be in this house and not think of her,” said Emma. “You keep pictures of her everywhere.” Emma pointed to the photograph. “I found your wedding album, and the copy of the Juneberry Register from the week she died. All my life there’s been this hole, this place where all my memories should be. But I never got the chance to really know her. You have so many memories with Mom, boxes full of them. Everything I have is a fuzzy, faded picture of someone I’m not sure I’m even remembering right.”
“I understand your loss. I feel it every day too.”
Will got up and walked over to the window and sat next to Emma.
“But you ought to know, your mother loved you more than anything in this world, Emma. We’d tried to have a baby for the longest time. Doctor visits, prayer. When you finally came along, you were the delight of her life. You slept in a bassinet in our room, and we would lie awake at night unable to sleep because we worried you might need us. Your mother fed, bathed, dressed, and treasured you for five years. When she got sick, she couldn’t understand why God would allow something to come between the two of you. It was so sad. I felt helpless to change what was happening.”
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