A Silence in the Heart (Holmes Crossing Book 4)

by Carolyne Aarsen

  So Velma had kept her distance.

  When this Emily girl called her, she took it as a sign from God. A positive sign. They went out for coffee a couple of times, and Emily said she was willing to help Velma and Tracy meet again. It took some coaxing, but finally Velma had agreed.

  So here she was.

  “I understand you are foster parents,” Velma said, taking another sip of her coffee, her nerves jangling.

  “Yes. Right now we’re taking care of a young boy named Kent. He’s in school now with our own children. In fact, it was Tracy who found out about his situation. His mother was in an abusive relationship and was gone a lot. She took him into her home until he was placed here.”

  “I guess she sympathized with him,” Velma said with a melancholy smile. “I didn’t always make such good choices when it came to the men in my life.” She pressed her lips together against an unwelcome surge of regret over past mistakes. "What if she turns away from me? What if she changes her mind?"

  "She's agreed to come to our home knowing you're here waiting for her." Then Emily paused, giving Velma a careful smile. "But I do want to warn you not to expect miracles."

  "You said she's a good girl."

  "She's not a girl. She's a woman who has dealt with a lot in her life and has come out stronger for it. She's her own person."

  "Then she doesn't need me in her life."

  "You’re her mother. That will never change. Every foster child we’ve had in our home has missed their mother and grieved for the loss of them. You just have to show Tracy that you're worth needing. Show her you can be trusted. But that will take time." Emily straightened, listening. "Here they are."

  Velma's heart kicked into overdrive. Her mouth became dry, and right now she yearned for something to ease the jitters in her stomach.

  No. You don't. You can do this on your own.

  I can do all things through Christ.

  The Bible verse eased her somewhat, but her hands still trembled.

  The sliding doors opened with a muted rumble. "Hello," David called out. "Anyone home?"

  Emily got up from the couch in the living room and gave Velma an encouraging nod. "Here. In the living room."

  Velma smoothed her hands over her skirt again but stayed where she was, her back to the kitchen, looking out the window onto the snow-covered yard. She shivered, waiting.

  "Tracy, you're looking marvelous," Emily said. "Hey. Let me see your ring." Emily sighed. "It's gorgeous. Did you pick it out yourself, David?"

  "I had some heavy hints dropped at my feet by way of catalogs with pages folded over. I can be taught."

  "He's definitely a keeper," Tracy said with a husky laugh.

  Velma swallowed and then slowly got up and turned to face her daughter. She had to do this, no matter what happened.

  Tracy's bright smile accented the happiness that glowed from her face. David had his arm around her, and when Velma came around the couch, she saw him look up at her and then tighten his grip on Tracy. Hold her even closer.

  "Hello, Tracy," Velma said. "I heard you got engaged."

  Tracy leaned into David, and for a moment, Velma thought she might not even acknowledge her. Then she nodded. "Just a couple of days ago," Tracy said.

  "Congratulations. I heard he's a good man."

  "And Tracy is a wonderful woman," David said, caution in his voice.

  "I know that. I think I've always known that," Velma said. She swallowed.

  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . . Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace . . . He will make all things right if I surrender to His will . . .

  May as well just jump in, she thought.

  "I have to tell you, Tracy. I'm sorry for leaving you alone," she said, her voice quivering. "For making you scared. For being a lousy mother." At that, her voice broke and she wanted to quit.

  But now, she had to do this. Her sponsor reminded her that she had to face the pain that she had caused. She had warned her it might not help. She had hurt her daughter many times. And Velma had to accept whatever might come her way. But for Tracy, she had to do this. Not because she hoped to gain anything by it, she reminded herself.

  "Why are you telling me this?" Tracy asked. It wasn't hard to hear the pain in her voice, or the mistrust.

  "Not for me, Tracy. I'm telling you 'cause you need to know. 'Cause I want to try to be a better mom. And I'm trying to start by letting you know that I know I wasn't always a good mom. And I'm sorry. For you. I'm sorry."

  There. She'd said it. Not exactly the way she had written it down. But it was out.

  Tracy looked up at David. He smiled down at her. Kissed her gently on her forehead, and then together, they walked toward Velma. Stopped right in front of her.

  Tracy's mouth was quivering. "Thanks for that, Mom," she said. "It's a good place to start."

  "I want you to forgive me," Velma said. "I can keep going, if I know you will forgive me."

  Tracy clung to David's hand. "I have been forgiven so much. I've been given even more." She nodded. "Yes, Mom. I forgive you."

  Tracy lifted her face as fat, wet snowflakes kissed her warm cheeks. David stood behind her, his arms wrapped protectively around her waist. It was done. The visit she’d been dreading and hoping for was over.

  "How are you doing?" he murmured, his voice a gentle rumble in her ear.

  "I'm fine," she said, closing her eyes, surrounded by warmth and love. She released a long, satisfied sigh. “I am really and truly fine.”

  "Your mother was smiling when we left."

  "That's good." Tracy turned and looked up at her future husband, love shining from her eyes as she cupped his face in her hands. "I'm glad you convinced me to try again. I couldn't have done it without you and Emily."

  David brushed away the snowflakes clinging to her face, his eyes following the motions of his fingers. "I think you could have. You have a strength that amazes me, Tracy."

  "I'm not that strong. I was glad to have you beside me. Holding me."

  David kissed her mouth. Then her cheeks. "You are a wonder to me, Tracy."

  She stroked his cheeks as she sent up a prayer of thanks. "No, David. I'm not a wonder, you are. You've stilled the voices in my soul. The angry voices that always cried unworthy and unfair. You've shown me that love can be a silence in the heart."

  He kissed her again and then pulled gently away. “And now I have something else I want to show you.”

  “More long-lost relatives?” she teased.

  “Nope. Even better.” He led her to his truck and opened the door for her.

  “My Christmas present?”

  “You are very smart.”

  “But it’s not Christmas yet, and why don’t you wait? I mean, you know I love surprises.” Why would he show her a Christmas present now?

  He touched her nose with his finger and winked. “Patience, grasshopper, and all will be revealed.”

  “Okay.” He looked so excited, she wondered what else he could possibly do for her that he hadn’t already done.

  Made promises to her she knew he would keep and help her reconcile with her mother. She felt as if her cup was full, overflowing, and pouring out.

  He got into the truck, gave her a mysterious smile, and turned on the radio.

  Country music sobbed out of the speakers—twangy guitars and mournful lyrics, completely at odds with how she was feeling right now, but still David said nothing.

  “You’re not going to give me even the slightest hint, are you?”

  He just shook his head.

  She knew David well enough that she wasn’t going to be able to either coax or charm the news out of him, so she sat back, allowing the moments of meeting her mother to settle into her soul.

  “I’m glad you went through with this visit with your mom,” David said, reaching across the console of his truck and covering her hand with his. “I think it was a good move.”

  “In the right direction anyway,”
Tracy said.

  “She seemed happy to see you.”

  Tracy nodded, still sorting through her emotions and reactions. “I guess you’re never done being a mother, even if you’ve not been the best one.” Then she looked over at David. “Seeing Juanita and her life gave me a glimpse into the other side of mine. Let me see that maybe my mother felt as defenseless as Juanita did. I still can’t condone the choices Kent’s mom made, but at least now she’s got some support from Emily.”

  “Emily and Jack are good people.”

  “They are,” Tracy agreed, tightening her hand on David’s. “They really are, and I’m happy for Kent and Juanita that he’s staying with them.”

  “That’s good to know. I know how hard that was for you too.”

  “And next week I get to meet your family.” She forced a cheerful tone to her voice, but truth was, she was nervous. After meeting Art’s family and dealing with their censure, she wasn’t sure she wanted to put herself through that again.

  “My family will love you,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “They are good, solid, caring people.” He flashed her a quirky grin. “Like me.”

  “Then I’ll be in good hands.” She grinned back at him and then looked out the window again, puzzled when they made a turn off the road before they got to Holmes Crossing. “Where are we going?”

  “To see your Christmas present,” he said.

  “Can you give me a hint?”

  David pursed his lips, tilting his head back and forth as if sorting out his thoughts. “Okay. Chickens.”

  “Chickens,” she repeated. “We’re going out for dinner and we’re having chicken. I mean, that’s really nice, but you could have waited for Christmas for that one.”

  “Oh, my child, you think too small,” David teased. “I’ll give you one more. Milk cow.”

  “You’re buying me a milk cow? To put in my apartment?”

  “The chickens will need company.”

  “I’m so confused,” she said with a laugh.

  “One more. Clothesline.”

  Tracy felt a shiver trickle down her spine as he listed off the three of the things Tracy had yearned for. The wishes she and Danielle had gone over again and again.

  She felt as if she was on the verge of something she didn’t dare entertain.

  Then they slowed down and turned into Eva Swanson’s driveway, snow swirling around the truck. And that’s when Tracy saw it.

  The For Sale sign stapled to a fence post.

  She swallowed, hardly daring to let her mind go where her hopes and yearnings had already landed.

  “Why are we here?” she asked, her voice small, hesitant. Almost fearful.

  David parked in front of the small house with its cozy dormers and peeling paint and shifting verandah, and turned to her. “I bought this place.”

  The four words dropped one at a time into the pool of her heart, resurrecting ripples of dreams.

  “You bought this,” she repeated, trying to find where to put all of this.

  “Yeah. I did. Along with her milk cow, her chickens”—and he waved at the line strung between two trees—“and the clothesline. You’ll have to take care of the malamute or the horses. I did my part.”

  Tracy could only stare at the house, trying to let everything come together so she dared understand.

  “Tracy? Are you okay?”

  She pulled in a long, slow breath, her heart pushing against her chest, and then she turned to David.

  “So you own this place.”

  “Well, technically Eva still does until I go to the bank and sign away my soul and our future first-born child, plus I have to convince my future wife to put her name on the mortgage because there’s no way I’m taking care of cows and chickens on my own—”

  Tracy caught his head with her hand, pulled him close, and stopped his flow of nonsense with her lips. He slipped his arm around her as well, returning her kiss and then pulling away, his forehead resting against hers.

  “Of course, if you don’t want your name on the mortgage,” he continued. “I know you had your heart set on the Stinson place.”

  She gave him a gentle shake. “You are just talking crazy now.”

  “So you’re okay with this.”

  Old sorrows melded with new joys, and tears of both welled up in her eyes. “David, I’m so okay with this, I should have it branded on my forehead.”

  “Well, that would look odd, but I would still love you.”

  She laughed and swiped at her tears with one hand, looking deep into his eyes. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I am so blessed to have you.”

  His expression grew serious as he stroked her cheek with his hand, fingering away another errant tear. “It goes both ways, you know. You make me complete in the way no one ever has.”

  She smiled again, kissed him again, and then jumped as someone knocked on the window.

  Eva Swanson stood by David’s side of the truck, wrapped in an oversized denim coat, her breath a cloud of fog roiling around her.

  “You two coming in for coffee,” she groused as David rolled down the window, “or are you just going to sit out here and neck with your truck running and depleting the ozone layer?”

  David laughed and winked at Tracy. “If coffee is on, we’re game.”

  “We need to sign some papers too, so come on in,” she said, tossing her head at the house and then tromping off in her heavy winter boots, her arms holding the coat close.

  “She’s almost as grumpy as Edgar Stinson,” David said as he closed the window again and turned off the truck. “But I think she’ll be a lot more fun to deal with.”

  “As long as you’re doing the dealing,” Tracy said as she got out of the truck, looking up again at the house that needed some work but had oh so much potential.

  David came alongside her and put his arm around her. “So, Miss Harris, soon to be Mrs. Braun. You ready to have a look at your new place?”

  Tracy just shook her head, still trying to absorb it all. Then she turned to David and smiled.

  “Let’s do this thing,” she said.

  Then together they walked up the snowy sidewalk to the door of the house and stepped into their future.

  Afterword

  I hope you enjoyed reading about Tracy and David and their journey to forgiveness and acceptance.

  Reviews are often how I choose my next book so I’m hoping you can help some future reader choose this one. Therefore I would be truly appreciative if you could leave a review for this book here:

  A SILENCE IN THE HEART - REVIEW

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  If you haven’t read the other Holmes Crossing books you can find out more about them here or you can keep reading the excerpts following.

  THE ONLY BEST PLACE

  ALL IN ONE PLACE

  A SILENCE IN THE HEART

  ANY MAN OF MINE

  Excerpt - The Only Best Place

  Smile. Think happy thoughts. Take a deep breath and…

  “Hello. I’m Leslie VandeKeere, and I’m a farmer's wife."

  No. No. All wrong. That sounds like I'm addressing a self-help group for stressed-out urban dwellers.

  I angled the rearview mirror of my car to do a sincerity check on my expression and pulled a face at my reflection. Brown eyes. Brown hair. Both the polar opposite of the VandeKeere signature blonde hair and blue eyes repeated throughout the Dutch-based community of Holmes Crossing.

  During the past hour of the long drive from Vancouver to here, I'd been practicing my introduction to varied and sundry members of the vast community of which I knew about four and a half people. I'd been trying out various intros. That last one
was a bust. I'd never been a farmer's wife. Would never be a farmer's wife. I’m a nurse, even though my focus the next year was supposed to be on our marriage. Not my career.

  I cleared my throat and tried again. "Our year here will be interesting."

  Worse yet. Most women could break that code faster than you could say "fifteen percent off." Interesting was a twilight word that either veered toward the good or the dark side.

  Right now my delivery was a quiet and subdued Darth Vader.

  I had to keep my voice down so I wouldn't wake my two kids. After four Veggie Tales and a couple of off-key renditions of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," they had finally drifted off to sleep, and I didn't want to risk waking them. The eighteen hour trip had been hard on us. They needed the rest. I needed the rest, but I had to drive.

  I stretched out hands stiff from clutching the steering wheel of my trusty, rusty Honda, the caboose in our little convoy. My husband, Dan, headed the procession, pulling the stock trailer holding stage one of our earthly goods. Next came his brother-in-law Gerrit, pulling his own stock trailer loaded with our earthly goods stage two.

  I had each bar, each bolt, each spot of rust on Gerrit's trailer indelibly imprinted on my brain. Counting the bolt heads distracted me from the dread that clawed at me whenever I saw the empty road stretching endlessly ahead of me.

  A road that wound crazily through pine-covered mountains, then wide open, almost barren, plains. Now, on the last leg of our journey, we were driving through ploughed and open fields broken only by arrow-straight fence lines and meandering cottonwoods. Tender green leaves misted the bare branches of the poplars edging the road, creating a promise of spring that I hadn't counted on spending here.

  I hadn't gone silently down this road. I had balked, kicked, and pleaded. I had even dared to pray that a God I didn't talk to often would intervene.

  Of course I was bucking some pretty powerful intercessors. I'm sure the entire VandeKeere family was united in their prayers for their beloved brother, son, cousin, nephew, and grandchild to be enfolded once again in the bosom of the family and the farm where they thought he belonged. So it was a safe bet my flimsy request lay buried in the avalanche of petitions flowing from Holmes Crossing.