Happily Ever After

by Jenn Faulk

~David~

  He’d gone back to the room and changed into a suit... after reluctantly wiping the rest of that lipstick off.

  For all that wasn’t right here in this place, things were all right indeed. Cammie, in his arms, talking about forever...

  Once he was back downstairs, he made his way backstage, notes in hand and ready, hoping to find Cammie already there as well, waiting to sit with him before he was called to the pulpit.

  That was when he ran into his father.

  His father and a couple he didn’t recognize.

  “David,” Paul said, grinning, clearly up to something. The very name David and his sudden appearance had the couple standing taller. They were his own parents’ age. Convention people, likely. People he needed to impress for his father’s benefit.

  “Hey, Dad,” he said, pasting on a smile, looking to his father for an introduction, counting down the minutes until he could stop playing this game...

  “David, this is Daniel Boyd, Sara Boyd,” he said. “I believe they’re the missionaries you replaced.”

  And like that, Paul Connor changed the game.

  David hadn’t replaced anyone. Not like that. Or at least he hadn’t thought so. He knew now that they’d been forced out, of course, but he hadn’t known when he took the job.

  Besides, they hadn’t been forced out to create a spot for him. He’d just been another part of a plan. A plan he knew nothing about.

  But what had they been told about it all since? Were they playing Paul Connor’s game, too?

  Everyone wanted something. Paul, Kait, the board, the convention... could David trust anyone anymore?

  “Mr. Boyd, Mrs. Boyd,” he said, a moment too late, holding his hand out to them as they studied him... him with intense scrutiny, her with tentative warmth.

  “Hello, David,” Daniel Boyd said. “We heard your presentation earlier. Buy a donkey. Always the big joke.”

  “Yeah,” David said softly. “That was Piet’s idea.”

  “You know Piet?” Sara said softly. “Is he well?”

  “Uh, yeah,” David murmured. “Just got married, actually.”

  “To Kait?” Daniel asked, frowning.

  Well, their heartfelt sentiments on Kait matched up, at least.

  “Of course, to Kait,” Sara said. “We’ve been out of touch with Ana Marie for the past few weeks with her traveling, but we do keep up most of the time.”

  “She didn’t tell us much about you, though,” Daniel said. “Likely thought it would be...”

  “Difficult,” Sara finished for him. And from the looks on their faces, it was difficult.

  He couldn’t imagine.

  “Thank you,” Sara said, “for sending those Christmas ornaments to us.”

  “That was Cammie,” he said. “But I’ll let her know that you got them.”

  “Hey, David,” Paul said, putting his hand on his shoulder, cutting through the chitchat, like usual, “just wanted you to hear from Daniel here what happened. What the board did. Because I don’t think your friends let you know the whole story.”

  David prepared himself, even as Sara looked at him sympathetically and Daniel frowned further.

  “We were forced out,” he said. “The board was done with Namibia. We thought we were secure, but it changed. And it can change again.”

  It could. It very well could. David knew this. But his security wasn’t in a place, was it? Or even his job, right?

  Except it all seemed that way, given all that he’d just learned about why he’d been sent to begin with and what it meant for the rest of his life.

  Always linked up to Paul Connor.

  “Well, I appreciate the advice,” David said, knowing that it hadn’t really been advice. Just a warning.

  “And we appreciate you,” Sara said, genuinely. “Your stories about that church in Swakopmund, all those young people. It means something to us. If we can’t be there ourselves... knowing that the work is still going on there means so much to us.”

  David nodded, wanting to say many other things to them, but Paul gave them their goodbyes and moved away before he could.

  “So, I take it you were surprised to be brought out here,” he said to his son as they walked away. “Quick trip to the States and all.”

  “You could say that,” David told him. “But I don’t guess you were surprised.”

  Paul shook his head, grinning. Of course, he hadn’t been surprised. He likely had orchestrated the great majority of this whole fiasco himself.

  “No, the election committee talked to me about it a long time ago. Kept it a surprise for your mother and sisters, though. I only told them last week, about the time you probably found out as well. Wanted you to be their belated Christmas gift.”

  “Yeah, well,” David said, thinking of Kait and Piet, not telling him much of anything for three years. “We were all surprised then. Except for you.”

  “Wondered when you’d figure it out,” Paul noted.

  And David glanced at him warily, just as they stepped into the green room. “And by that you mean what?”

  “They tricked you,” Paul said, looking at his son straight on. “Tricked you into going there, not because of what you could do, but because of the publicity they could generate. I was irritated by it at first, but I was also impressed with their shrewdness, quite honestly. That’s why I gave it my big thumbs up once I figured out what was going on.”

  David didn’t miss this mention. Paul had known all along. Of course, he had. Was there anything he didn’t know?

  “That wasn’t all of it, Dad,” David said, aware that it was a whole lot of it. “It wasn’t just you. That wasn’t the whole reason they brought me out there. And it has nothing to do with what’s happened since I’ve been there.”

  “Maybe not,” Paul conceded. “And it didn’t turn out all bad, did it?” He grinned knowingly. “Cammie Evans. Wish I had been behind that missionary appointment so I could get the credit for doing something very, very nice for you.”

  “Don’t talk about Cammie,” David said, clear warning in his voice.

  “Didn’t say anything bad,” Paul laughed. “If I could’ve picked a girl for you, it would’ve been that girl. Would’ve tried to talk her into you myself, but you seemed to be able to handle that all on your own. Of course, if she can’t handle being the first lady when you take on the pastorate at New Life, we can find a better –”

  “Don’t, Dad!” David finally yelled at him. Yelled. At the biggest man in the convention. At the man who’d led him to Christ. At the man who’d taught him everything he knew about God. At the man who’d laid all the spiritual foundations in his life.

  What if Paul Connor had been wrong? He was wrong in what he was doing now. Could he have been wrong before, in vastly more important things?

  David’s faith was his own. It had always been his own. Even handed down and delivered by a man who didn’t get it right, didn’t always do it right... it was still truth. And David’s faith was his own.

  And it wouldn’t be ripped apart tonight, not by Paul Connor. Not by colleagues half a world away. Not by New Life-Dallas.

  David would survive this.

  “Well, mercy, David Paul,” his father sighed. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Cammie is a closed subject. Got it.”

  “Everything is a closed subject now,” David said. “I’m doing what’s right for me. And you’ve got to stop trying to change my mind.”

  “You’d be so great at New Life-Dallas,” Paul said again.

  “Dad,” he said to him, “you only want me to follow you there so that you can continue to control everything, even after you’ve moved on!”

  “How would I be controlling anything?” Paul asked. “You’d be in charge. Your own ministry now. The whole church later. You’d be in charge.”

  “As in charge as I’ve been my whole life,” David said. “I had to go all the way around the world to get out from under your thumb, and you tried to keep me from that. Yo
u’re still trying to keep me from that.”

  “David, that’s not how it is,” Paul said, correcting him even now.

  “It is,” David swore. “My calling is not like yours, Dad, but it’s still a calling. And my work doesn’t look anything like yours, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth something.”

  “Worth plenty,” Paul shrugged. “But you could do more.”

  His whole life had been like this. Hearing that he didn’t measure up to what Paul Connor thought was enough. When he’d been a weird little kid without any idea who he was or where he was going, he’d been a disappointment to his father. Once he figured it out and began growing into who he was going to become, the places where he served weren’t big enough. And when he left for the mission field, he’d been told his life would be a waste.

  He was tired. So tired of living in this man’s shadow and hearing, at every step on this road, that he wasn’t enough.

  “I’m just saying, David,” Paul said.

  He was just saying it. He’d been saying it forever.

  David took a deep breath and prayed that there would be some understanding. Paul was sincere in his faith, so surely... surely, he could hear God’s prompting in this, could be given some divine understanding, and could move past this. Surely he could be a voice of affirmation to David, as his father, as his spiritual mentor, and as his pastor, as he’d certainly been for all of David’s life.

  David prayed it so, even as he doubtfully raised his eyes.

  “Dad,” he said softly. “When is it going to be enough? When am I going to be enough? Doing what I’m doing? Living my life for Christ? I’m doing what you taught me to do, all those years, from the pulpit. I’m living for Him. When is it going to be enough? When is that going to be enough for you?”

  Paul regarded him for only a moment before he answered him. “You were made for bigger things, David Paul. Bigger things than what you’re settling for.”

  And it broke David just a little bit more, hearing this from his pastor, even as Paul Connor turned and walked away.