~ ~ ~

 

“WHAT ARE YOU thinking about?” I asked. We were sitting at the airport, waiting for our flight to be called. She still didn’t have any idea where we were going for our honeymoon.

“Just wondering about what kind of surprises are in store for us in our future . . .”

I looked at her skeptically.

“What?” she asked.

“I don’t think there’ll be a whole lot of surprises . . .”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” I said, shrugging “just that you’re pretty predictable.”

“I’m not predictable!” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“Laci, are you serious? You’re probably the most predictable person I know!”

She stared at me with her mouth open and didn’t say anything.

“You don’t think you’re predictable?”

She shook her head at me.

“You wanna hear how it’s gonna go?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re going to fly to . . . to somewhere today, and when we get there you’re going to complain about how much money it must be costing and how we could be saving a lot of hungry children or something with all that money instead of ‘wasting’ it on ourselves. I’ll spend the first three days trying to convince you to relax and enjoy yourself and you’re going to be so anxious to get to your new job in Mexico that your mind won’t even be with me. How’m I doing so far?”

She pursed her lips together because she knew I’d pegged that just about right.

“Then,” I continued, “we’ll arrive in Mexico and decide on our house. Of course it’s got to be a BIG house because you’re going to want to have about ten or twenty babies, plus we’ll want lots of room for the kids when they come to our house for the outreach program.”

She was going to be working for a Christian outreach organization . . . the same one we’d volunteered with when we’d gone to Mexico on our mission trip the summer before we’d started high school.

“We’re going to have Cheerios and lollipops in the carpet and we’ll never get to have any good furniture or dishes or anything because all the little rugrats will destroy anything nice.”

“Our rugrats or the outreach rugrats?” she asked.

“Both.”

“Okay,” she said. “Go on.”

“I’m right so far, aren’t I?” I asked.

She bit her lip and gave me a tiny smile.

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe about it,” I said. “I’m totally right and you know it.”

“Well, keep going,” she said. “What else?”

“Okay. Well, let’s see. You’re going to be taking the youth groups to the orphanage about twice a week, right?”

She nodded. We hadn’t done that when we’d gone down there . . . we’d only ministered to children who had lived in a landfill.

Lived in a landfill.

“All right then. I suspect I’ll be getting a lot of calls from you at the orphanage. ‘David? Do you think you could come over here and try to fix this door? David? There are some wires sticking out of a wall and I’m afraid one of the kids might get shocked. Would you come and take a look at them? David? They really need me to stay late . . . would you mind picking up some Chinese take-out?”

“Chinese take-out?”

“Anyway . . . so then you’ll get pregnant and you’ll keep working about eighty hours a week until the baby’s due and then we’ll fly home so we can be with our parents when the baby comes and you and your mom are going to buy him every outfit that’s available in Cavendish.”

“Him?”

“And then,” I continued, ignoring her, “we’ll fly back to Mexico with the new baby and carry on until you get pregnant again. This cycle will pretty much repeat itself until you hit menopause.

“OH!” I said. “And I almost forgot! In the meantime, you’ll keep growing your hair out and sending it to Locks of Love until it turns grey!”

“They take it even if it’s grey . . .” Laci said.

“What little kid wants a wig made out of grey hair?”

“They sell it . . .”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay, so then you’ll be doing that until you die. Anyway, admit it. That’s pretty much the way it’s going to be.”

“And what are you going to be doing during all this time?” she asked.

“Working like a dog and hoping for a little bit of your time, I guess.”

She smiled at me, but then turned serious.

“What if that’s exactly what happens?” she asked. “How are you going to feel about it?”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about it,” I said. “I’m just along for the ride.”

“It does too matter how you feel about it,” she argued. “I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

Laci looked at me with concern.

“I don’t really want anything,” I said, kissing her. “Except to be with you.”

“Oh, come on now,” she said, smiling. “If you could do anything . . . what would you do?”

“Laci! There’s no point in even having this conversation. God wants me to go to Mexico so I’m going to Mexico. I haven’t even thought about what I’d do if it was up to me . . . I really don’t know.”

“Oh,” she said, “I do. I know exactly what you’d do. I’m not the only one who’s predictable!”

“I’m not predictable!”

“Right . . .”

“What then?” I demanded. “What would I do?”

“Okay,” she said. “We’d stay fairly close to Cavendish . . . but closer to the ski slopes than Cavendish is. We’d probably live on the water somewhere . . . like a cabin on Cross Lake or something. We’d go water skiing in the summer and snow skiing in the winter and fishing no matter what the weather . . . how am I doing so far?”

I grinned at her . . . that actually sounded pretty good. Maybe I was predictable.

“Oh!” she continued. “And our cabin would have a hot tub! I know how much you like a hot tub. As a matter of fact, I may not know where we’re going for our honeymoon, but I would almost bet my life that there’s going to be a hot tub there. Am I right?”

“In our room,” I nodded.

Her mouth dropped open.

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not.”

She shook her head and I knew she was trying not to ask me how much all this was going to cost.

“I know this isn’t exactly your first choice of things to do . . .” she said.

That was an understatement.

“And,” she continued, “I just want to do whatever I can to make you happy.”

“You already do,” I said, rubbing her hand.

“That’s sweet,” she said, “but I’m serious. You’ve got to let me know what you want.”

“There are a couple of things that I want . . .” I admitted, looking down at our hands and touching her rings.

She tucked a leg underneath her.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Three actually,” I finally said. “Three things that I really want and then you can have your way about everything else.”

“What are they?”

The first two were easy and I didn’t think she’d give me a hard time about them so that’s where I started.

“First of all,” I said, “I want you to promise me that you’ll forget about everything else and just enjoy our honeymoon. Don’t think about going to Mexico . . . don’t think about how much money it’s costing. Just relax and let’s enjoy being there and being with each other. We’re never going to have this time in our lives together again and it would be really nice if we could try to make the most of it.”

“I promise,” she said, “but I’d enjoy it even more if I knew where we’re going.”

I hadn’t even let her look at her boarding pass when we’d gone through security and I’d made her sit with her back to the gate where the flight was posted.

“You’re going to know soon,” I said, looking at my watch. “As a matter of fact, if you listen carefully you’re probably going to hear an announcement for our flight pretty quick.”

We were going to France. As soon as we’d gotten back from our mission trip and started high school, Laci had switched her elective language class from French to Spanish because she knew she’d be going back to Mexico one day. The French class (the one she’d dropped out of) had gone to Paris when they were juniors. Laci had never complained about it or anything – she’d never even mentioned she was aware that they were going or that she was missing it. But I knew she’d missed it and I wanted her to go now.

“What are the other two things?” she asked.

“Whatever house we get, I’m going to need an office.”

She nodded. I was fortunate enough to have found a job with an engineering firm that allowed me to work from my home . . . even a home in Mexico. My degree was in structural engineering with an emphasis in earthquake engineering. In addition to working with architects to design buildings, I’d be doing a lot of international work – traveling to areas after an earthquake to inspect buildings for structural damage. As long as I had the Internet I could really work from anywhere and Mexico City wasn’t actually a bad place to be based out of.

“I need my office to be completely off limits to kids,” I said. “ALL kids. Our kids, the outreach kids . . . I can’t have juice down in my keyboard and grilled cheese sandwiches smeared all over my scanner.”

She smiled at me.

“I mean it, Laci. I need a space to myself . . . you know? Something that’s just mine.”

“Are you going to let me come in?”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “Like you’re going to have any time for me . . .”

“David,” she said, cocking her head at me. “Come on . . .”

“So,” I said, smiling, “that’s the second thing, okay? No kids in my office. Not even one . . . not ever! Got it?”

“Got it,” she said. “What’s the third thing?”

I hesitated because I wasn’t sure how she was going to react. I also wasn’t sure why I felt so strongly the way I did. I didn’t know if God was leading me or if I was just trying make myself feel better about my lousy attitude toward Mexico.

“I want you to talk to Aaron when we get to Mexico,” I said. Aaron had been our program leader when we were on our mission trip and now he was the director of the entire Mexico City outreach program. He’d hired Laci.

“About what?” she asked.

“I want you to tell him that you won’t accept a salary.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean . . . you can do the same job he hired you for and you can work as long and as hard as you want to . . . but I don’t want you to take a paycheck.”

“Why not?”

“I want to support what you’re doing . . . I guess it’s my way of trying to help out. Aaron can use the money to hire another staff member.”

“There’re lots of ways you’re going to be able to help out, David”

“I don’t want to, Laci,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t want to go back to that landfill . . . I don’t want to get to know these kids . . . I really don’t want to be involved.”

She tilted her head at me.

“Do you really think that you’re going to be able to live down there and have all those kids in our house and not get involved?”

“Probably not . . . but I can try.”

She gave me a slight smile.

“Anyway,” I said. “I just feel really strongly about this . . . that this is how I want to help out right now. Are you going to be okay with that?”

“I think it’s fantastic,” she said, her smile growing.

“Really?”

“Really,” she nodded.

“Your attention please . . . Flight 1873 to Paris will begin boarding in five minutes. Flight 1873 to Paris will begin boarding in five minutes.”

“Is that ours?” she asked.

I grinned at her and nodded.

“Paris?”

“You don’t want to go to Paris?”

“Isn’t that going to be really expen–” she caught herself just in time.

“Come on now, Laci. I’m only asking for three things here and then you can have your way about everything else. Enjoy our honeymoon, keep the little rugrats out of my office, and let me support you. I’ll never make you do anything else. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal!” she said, kissing me and wrapping her arms around me.

I hugged her back and I really did mean what I was saying.

 

 

 

I had no idea that one day I would force her to leave Mexico even though she desperately wanted to stay.