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It Happens Every Spring
Copyright © 2006 by Gary Chapman and Catherine Palmer. All rights reserved.
Cover illustration copyright © 2006 by Doug Martin. All rights reserved.
Authors’ photograph by John Capelli/Capelli Photography. All rights reserved.
Designed by Jennifer Ghionzoli
Edited by Kathryn S. Olson
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the authors or publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chapman, Gary D., date.
It happens every spring / Gary Chapman and Catherine Palmer.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-1165-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-4143-1165-6 (pbk.)
1. Ozarks, Lake of the (Mo.)—Fiction. I. Palmer, Catherine, date. II. Title.
PS3603.H367I86 2006
813’.6—dc22
2006023891
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Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 08 07 06
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
FOUR SEASONS SUMMER BREEZE
FOR MY HUSBAND, TIM,
with whom I have shared all the seasons… and how grateful I am for our summer love!
ALSO FOR CC McCLURE,
beautiful woman, friend, and bookseller. Thank you for urging me to write about the lake.
C.P.
Years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.
C.S. LEWIS
The Horse and His Boy
NOTE TO READERS
There’s nothing like a good story! I’m excited to be working with Catherine Palmer on a fiction series based on the concepts in my book The Four Seasons of Marriage. You hold in your hands the first book in this series.
My experience, both in my own marriage and in counseling couples for more than thirty years, suggests that marriages are always moving from one season to another. Sometimes we find ourselves in winter—discouraged, detached, and dissatisfied. Other times we experience springtime, with its openness, hope, and anticipation. On still other occasions we bask in the warmth of summer—comfortable, relaxed, enjoying life. And then comes fall with its uncertainty, negligence, and apprehension. The cycle repeats itself many times throughout the life of a marriage, just as the seasons repeat themselves in nature. These concepts are described in The Four Seasons of Marriage, along with seven proven strategies to help couples move away from the unsettledness of fall or the alienation and coldness of winter toward the hopefulness of spring or the warmth and closeness of summer.
Combining what I’ve learned in my counseling practice with Catherine’s excellent writing skills has led to this series of four novels. In the lives of the characters you’ll meet in these pages, you will see the choices I have observed people making over and over again through the years, the value of caring friends and neighbors, and the hope of marriages moving to a new and more pleasant season.
In It Happens Every Spring and the stories that will follow it, you will meet newlyweds, blended families, couples who are deep in the throes of empty-nest adjustment, and senior couples. Our hope is that you will see yourself or someone you know in these characters. If you are hurting, this book can give you hope—and some ideas for making things better. Be sure to check out the discussion questions at the end of the book for further ideas.
And whatever season you’re in, I know you’ll enjoy the people and the stories in Deepwater Cove.
Gary D. Chapman, PhD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
One evening after a book-signing event, I was sitting at a restaurant with CC McClure, manager of Downtown Book and Toy in Jefferson City, Missouri. After I had related several stories about my life in a small community on the Lake of the Ozarks, she suddenly stopped me and asked, “Why aren’t you writing about the lake?” Well, because I hadn’t thought of it…and I probably never would have if CC hadn’t suggested the idea. In fact, I might have forgotten all about it, but a few weeks later, a note came from CC again urging me to write about the lake. So, dear friend, here’s your book. And thank you so very much!
Through the process of writing It Happens Every Spring, many people encouraged and supported me. On a summer afternoon in Denver, the Lord led Dr. Gary Chapman—a complete stranger to me at the time—right into my path on a crowded conference-room floor and cleared the way for us to discuss the idea of partnering on a writing project. Thank you, Gary, for embracing the vision that your God-given concept of The Four Seasons of Marriage and the seven strategies for healing broken marriages could come alive through fiction. What a joy it is to partner with you in this project!
Ron Beers and Karen Watson of Tyndale House Publishers first had the foresight to pair a nonfiction author with a novelist. I am so grateful for your hard work in taking this fiction series from concept to reality. Kathy Olson, my amazing editor, is a gift from God. I can write with confidence, knowing she will help shape my words into a story worth reading. Mydeep thanks to everyone at Tyndale: marketing, sales team, public relations, warehouse, and all who partner with me in this ministry.
My family provides the cocoon in which I feel safe to dream, plot, and write. Thank you, Tim, for nearly thirty years of marriage. How grateful I am that your careful pen edits each word of my manuscript before it goes into the mail. Bless you for taking on so many responsibilities at home so that I can be free to work. Geoffrey and Andrei, I am so proud of my two sons—heavenly miracles, both of you. I love you all so much.
Catherine Palmer
CHAPTER ONE
The night lightning struck a power pole on the west side of Lake of the Ozarks, Patsy Pringle knew right away there would be trouble in Deepwater Cove. The sizzling bolt of brilliant radiance brought a deafening clap of thunder and knocked out the electricity in all of the neighborhood’s twenty-three houses. Lightbulbs blinked off, computers fried, televisions died, and dogs scooted on their bellies to hide under beds.
Up the road from the cove, at the Just As I Am beauty salon in the little town of Tranquility, Missouri, the blow-dryer in Patsy’s hand whined down to nothing, bringing Esther Moore’s weekly set-and-style appointmen
t to a sudden end.
“Well, I’ll be,” Patsy said. “Good thing you were my last appointment of the day. I’m going to have to shut her down.”
“Nuts,” Esther muttered as she patted her damp hair. “I’d better head home and rescue Charlie. My husband couldn’t find a candle with a search warrant.”
Patsy fished a flashlight from the drawer at her styling station and snapped it on. As she helped the older woman locate her purse and keys, she worried about the widows in the neighborhood. Deepwater Cove was home to seven of them, ranging in age from sixty-three to ninety-four. This early in March, many would have had their electric heaters on during the storm. She hoped they could find enough blankets to stay warm.
“I’ll bet Boofer is beside himself,” Esther said. “That mutt is too fat to get behind the sofa these days. He’ll be howling and Charlie will be bumping his bony old knees on the coffee table trying to find the dog. The power company probably won’t get the lights back on for hours. They never do. Well, bye, Patsy. Charlie will be itching to get out in his golf cart and check on the neighbors.”
“Tell him to be careful,” Patsy warned. “The rain is starting to freeze up.”
She frowned as she pictured the elderly man maneuvering icy, narrow roads in the lake community’s preferred mode of transportation. Deepwater Cove boasted fifteen golf carts, though the nearest eighteen-hole course was all the way over in Osage Beach. A reliable golf cart could carry a fishing pole, a tackle box, a minnow bucket, a stringer of crappie, and a dog. It could get a person to the lakeshore, the mailbox, a neighbor’s house, or clear around the cove and back again. The logic was simple, Patsy acknowledged. If a golf cart could take you somewhere, why walk?
As she raised an umbrella and led Esther Moore through the driving downpour toward her car, it occurred to Patsy that right away both women had worried about the neighbors. Plenty of other things could have come to mind—drainage ditches overflowing, roofs leaking, tree limbs snapping off in the wind. But, no, the people were first. Of course neighbors would check on each other. That’s just how it was in Deepwater Cove.
“A little storm won’t stop Charlie once he gets out in his cart,” Esther shouted over the howling wind. “ ‘Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’—if I heard that once, I heard it a million times. Charlie wasn’t a mailman all those years for nothing.”
Brenda Hansen was in the basement painting a dining-room chair when lightning struck the electric pole right outside her house on Sunnyslope Lane in Deepwater Cove. Startled by the peal of thunder and the sparks shooting through the darkness, she dropped her paintbrush on the floor. The cat, who had been curled up with his tail over his nose in the cold room, yowled, leaped straight up, and landed with all four feet in the tray of pink paint. The instant his paws hit the chilly liquid, he squalled again, bounded out of the tray, and darted for cover.
“Oh, Ozzie, now what?” Still jumpy from the earsplitting thunder, Brenda looked toward the electric pole.
A man stood just outside the basement’s sliding glass door. Tall, thin, dark. Another burst of zigzag light brightened the sky, and she saw his beard and long hair and dripping pants. He was staring at her.
“Steve!” she cried out. Realizing instantly that of course her husband wasn’t home, she ran for the stairs and grabbed the rail. Falling, stumbling, scraping her shins, Brenda catapulted herself up to the main floor of the house. “Lord, help me. Lord, Lord, please help me,” she prayed out loud as she felt her way through the living room in the dark.
Had she locked the basement door earlier today? No, she had pushed back the glass and pulled the screen across to let in fresh air and ventilate the paint fumes. What if the man was inside already? What if he came after her? Was that him following her up the stairs?
Brenda couldn’t see a thing as she lurched across the tiled foyer. Just as she reached for the dead bolt, someone pounded on the large, double-paned window set into the insulated-steel front door.
It was him.
She could just make out his shape—towering and unkempt—on the porch. She slammed the bolt and fell back against the wall, sure she was going to be sick.
Where was the cell phone? How soon could the sheriff get to Deepwater Cove? Eight minutes, someone had told her once. Just long enough for a person to die.
“Knock, knock, who’s there?” The voice outside the front door was deep, male, and eerily loud. Though the thermal window in the door kept out the weather, it certainly didn’t buffer the sound of the man’s words as he called to her, “It’s me, Cody!”
Brenda shut her eyes and swallowed. She didn’t know anyone named Cody. Especially not a tall, bearded, serial strangler who roamed quiet lakeside neighborhoods on rainy nights. She should run down to the basement again, pull the sliding glass door shut, and try to lock it.
“I can see you right there,” the man called over another roll of thunder. “Hi, I’m Cody!”
Brenda pressed her back against the foyer wall and began to slide away from the door. Where was Steve when she needed him? Off showing a house to someone in the middle of a spring thunderstorm. He would come home with a big sale under his belt and find his wife lying in the foyer, murdered.
“Do you have any chocolate cake?” the man outside asked, tapping more softly on the window. “I’m hungry, and I like chocolate cake. A lot. Triangles are okay, but I like squares better. Because you get more icing thataway.”
Brenda thought her cell phone was probably in her purse. She couldn’t remember the last time she had called anyone. Or gone shopping, for that matter. Life had been so empty lately. She hadn’t had a reason to pick up her purse in days, but she always kept it on a low table in the foyer. She took a sideways step along the wall.
“Can you hear me, because I’m asking about chocolate cake.” The man tapped on the window again. “Because I’m wet and hungry. My daddy told me that anyone might give you food, but only a Christian would give you chocolate cake, too.”
Her heart thumping half out of her chest, Brenda glanced at the window in the front door. The man had cupped both hands against the glass and was peering at her through them.
“No!” She shook her head furtively, unwilling to look at him but unable to stop herself. “Go away!”
“Are you a Christian?” he asked. The question held a plaintive note. Another flash of lightning made his long, tangled hair glow. He had blue eyes and filthy teeth. “I’m hungry.”
She shook her head again. “Go! Shoo! Get away from my door!”
“Okay.” He drawled out the word in a Missouri backwoods accent. Oh-kye.
As the man’s shoulders sagged and he turned away, Brenda lunged for the corner of the foyer. In the darkness, she knocked over the hall table, discovered her purse wasn’t there, and curled up in a ball on the frigid tile floor.
This was just like Steve, she fumed. Leaving her alone so he could show off one of his listings. They rarely ate dinner together anymore. He never seemed to have time for her. And when he was home, all Steve could talk about was closing costs and termite inspections and septic tanks.
Brenda hugged her bent legs and rested her forehead on her knees. For what seemed like the hundredth time, she wondered what had gone wrong. She had eagerly awaited her “empty nest” life and had looked forward to all kinds of activities—redecorating the house, volunteering at church, joining the local garden club, and sewing to her heart’s content. Maybe she could fulfill her dream of one day starting a little interior-design business.
Even better, she and Steve would have unlimited time together once the kids were on their own. They could travel, dine out together, go to movies, entertain guests, and take regular sunset boat rides.
But it hadn’t turned out like that at all. Steve was never at home, and without someone to share her plans with, they began to seem pointless, far-fetched, even boring.
Christmas had come
and the kids arrived home from school, but they left again quickly—bright eyed and eager to get back to their friends and classes. Nowadays, Brenda had trouble getting out of bed and finding things to do. It was so quiet and lonely in the house. If the kids had still been around, she never would have fallen apart over a simple Missouri thunderstorm or a stranger at the door. You couldn’t collapse if someone needed you.
Now she was all alone in the big, empty house with some crazy man on the front porch. He would probably cut her into pieces and throw her in the lake, and who would even care?
“Because I saw Jesus downstairs in your basement.” He was back at the door, knocking on the window again. “I did. I saw Him. He was looking at me.”
“Jesus doesn’t live in this house!” she shouted. “Go away! Just leave me alone!”
“Because I saw Him. That’s why I asked about the chocolate cake.”
“You can’t have my chocolate cake, okay? I made it for…for…” Who had she made the cake for that afternoon? She was on a perpetual diet. Steve usually took clients or colleagues out to dinner at the country club.
“Are you a Christian?” the man asked. “Because my daddy said—”
“Listen, what is your problem, mister?” Suddenly angry, she leaped to her feet. “You can’t just go knocking on people’s doors in the middle of a rainstorm when the electricity’s off! You can’t just ask for chocolate cake! And for your information, Jesus does not live here!”
He brushed his finger under his nose. “Okay.”
“So go away before I call the police!”
“Okay.” He scratched his head. “I’m hungry. Do you have any kind of food? Because if Jesus doesn’t live here, I could eat potatoes. Or bread.”
“Are you even listening to me?” she asked him through the window.
His face lit up in the darkness. “Oh! I forgot the magic word: please. That’s what I did wrong. I knew I must have forgot something. Hi, I’m Cody. Please can I have some chocolate cake? Please?”
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