“She asked you what?” Bailey spoke to her husband in disbelief once they were behind closed doors that night.
“You heard me right. Is there any chance it’s true?”
Bailey stared at him, thinking that she had been more tired lately.
“When is your period due?” Evan tried.
“It was due yesterday, but it’s not unusual if I’m a few days late.” Bailey sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes still on her husband. “Maybe we should get one of those test things like I did with CeCe.”
“I already did.”
“When did you do that?”
“When you were asleep this afternoon.”
Bailey smiled at him. “That was very sweet of you.”
“I’m a sweet guy,” he teased her. “So do you think it’s true?”
“I don’t know. My breasts are a bit sore, but that could mean my period is coming.”
“Lily did say she was wrong once.”
Bailey looked amazed. “Tell me again what she said.”
Evan filled her in as best as he could remember and ended with, “She says it’s in your eyes.”
All Bailey could do was shake her head and laugh a little. Evan left the chair he was sitting on, came forward, and gently pinned his wife to the bed. He didn’t say anything until he had first taken a moment to look into his favorite pair of large, dark eyes.
“I hope it’s true, Mrs. Markham.”
“And if it’s not?”
Evan’s smile was mischievous. “We’ll just have to keep trying.”
Lily could tell it was early without looking at the clock, but she was still wide awake hours before it was time to leave for church. Moving as quietly as she could manage, she rose and slipped into running shorts and a T-shirt. She saved her shoes and socks for the veranda, deciding to take Gabe’s suggestion and head out toward the beach.
And all went fine, right up to the moment she sat down to put on her shoes. Thinking she was all alone, the door’s opening nearly frightened her out of her wits.
“I’m sorry,” Gabe spoke quietly after he had seen her start. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I was just thinking I was on my own.”
“Well, feel free to tell me if you would rather run alone.”
“Actually,” Lily began after seeing that he was in running garb as well, “I was going to say the same thing to you. I might slow you down.”
“I doubt it. Do you like to stretch a little?”
“No, I just start slowly.”
She was so like her brother at times that Gabe smiled before saying, “Well, let’s get going.”
They headed away from the veranda and started down the beach. Lily glanced at the empty cottages as they passed them, realizing that running with Gabe meant she could ask some questions.
“Is it noisier when you have guests, Gabe?”
“Somewhat. We rarely have the beach to ourselves when we have guests, but it doesn’t bother anyone. It’s just a way of life. A lot depends on how many children the guests have. They naturally tend to be more noticeable. If, however, we’re booked with couples, we see only snatches of our guests.”
Lily, who could easily see how romantic this place could be, found her mind distracted for a few minutes. Romance was not something she dreamed about all the time, but for a moment she let her mind go. She always thought she would marry, but being 24 years old with no prospects made her wonder a bit. Nevertheless, she wasn’t giving up hope. She knew that God might have someone for her yet.
A glance to the side told her that Gabe’s mind was on something too. Had she been running with Jeff, she would have told him that someday she might honeymoon right in one of these cottages, but it wasn’t something she thought Gabe would wish to hear.
“Have you been back to see Wang lately?” Gabe asked.
“He was in the kitchen on Thursday, but I haven’t been back to the restaurant. Is he doing well?”
“Yes. I saw him yesterday, and he asked about you.”
“He’s very kind.”
“Yes, he is. Did he do any matchmaking the day you visited?”
Lily laughed. “No, but Jeff mentioned that to me. It’s almost impossible to believe.”
“Believe it,” Gabe told her dryly. “It’s done with great reserve and subtlety, but it’s still done.”
Lily shook her head and sped up a bit when Gabe increased the pace and changed their direction.
“Is that how Ashton got engaged? Does Wang take credit for that?”
“No, but he probably wishes he could. He put Evan and Bailey together.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“Ask them about it sometime. It’s a fun story.”
“How often does he work on you?” Lily teased him with the first thing that came to mind.
Gabe shook his head good-naturedly before saying, “A little more all the time. He left things alone when I was battling with cancer, but now he’s back in full—” Gabe cut off when Lily came to a complete halt, her breathing coming hard as she stood and stared at him.
“Gabe,” she whispered, her eyes telling him she was upset, “it’s been so long since Jeff’s written of that. I completely forgot. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine. I was just given a clean bill of health.”
“Do I need to apologize for anything I’ve just said?”
“No!” Gabe stated emphatically, starting to run and catching Lily’s arm long enough to get her restarted. “And if you start changing toward me, watching every word and checking for signs that I’m all right, I’ll be forced to dump you in the ocean.”
“I won’t change,” she said quietly. “I’m just disappointed in myself for not remembering.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Do you hate to talk about it?”
“Not at all.”
With that Lily fell silent, but Gabe was coming to know her quite well.
“All right, Lily, spit it out.”
“Spit it out?”
“Yes. I know you have about ten thousand questions racing through your mind. Let’s have them.”
Lily laughed a little but still asked, “Was it awful for you?”
“At times, yes.”
“What was the worst?”
“How sick I got from the treatments and being so tired all the time.”
“Was there a particular verse that helped you?”
Without hesitation Gabe quoted, “I love the Lord, because He hears my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live.”
“The first two verses of Psalm 116,” Lily said when he paused.
“That’s right. The next two verses go on to talk about the cords of death and asking God to save us, but I just claimed verses one and two. I had no guarantees that God would heal me—it might not have been His will—but I wanted to call on Him for as long a time as I had, knowing He would listen.”
“Thank you for telling me, Gabe.”
“You’re welcome.”
Again silence fell between them. Gabe glanced at Lily’s face, which gave nothing away this time, but he was coming to sense more than see when she had something on her mind.
“What? No more questions?”
Lily laughed but did feel free to ask one more.
“It was Hodgkin’s lymphoma, right?”
“Yes.”
“What do they do to give you a clean bill of health?”
“They take a blood test and an X-ray.”
“Is it uncomfortable?”
“No, but because of my treatment, I’m allowed only two Xrays a year.”
As she usually did, Lily caught on quickly and said, “So you don’t want to break a limb.”
“Exactly.”
“Thank you for explaining it to me.”
“You’re welcome.”
They arrived back at the house before Lily noticed where they were.
“How long have we been out?”
Gabe looked at his watch. “Almost an hour.”
“It goes so much faster when you run with someone, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” Gabe said as he held the door for Lily to go inside.
All was still quiet, but Lily was hungry. She thanked Gabe for running with her and made her way to the kitchen. Gabe didn’t follow. At least, not right away. Something had come to mind that surprised him. He turned back to the patio door, his eyes on the beach, but his mind was on something else altogether.
The test Bailey took the next morning was positive. Evan held his wife in his arms while she cried. The children were sure to be looking for them at any moment, but right now they needed this time alone.
“Are you all right?” Evan finally asked.
“I would be better if I wasn’t so faithless.”
“Why were you faithless?”
“I thought I was too busy and tired right now to conceive. I was sure it would never happen.”
Evan smiled down at her.
“Why do we think that it’s only our faith that makes things happen?”
“Arrogance.”
“I think you’re right.” Evan gave her another hug and asked, “When shall we tell the kids?”
“Not until we’re ready to have everyone know. I’m not sure CeCe can keep this under wraps.”
“How about the guys and your folks?”
“Today if we get the chance. That way if I act weird, they’ll understand.”
“I’ll call my dad tonight.”
These small details out of the way, the two went back to morning preparations, but Bailey did everything on automatic. Her heart was pondering this small new person in their life and the day they would finally meet.
“Okay, the tune we’re using this morning,” Pastor Stringer said as the morning service began, “is ‘Jesus the Very Thought of Thee.’ You’ll find the words on your worship sheets. Let’s stand and sing.”
The music piped up as Lily found the song, but she never got past the first few words of the second line. Her eyes looked in horror at the words on her paper, not needing an explanation to understand the pastor’s intent.
Jesus the very thought of Thee,
Bores me, I must confess;
Putting You first in all my life
Int’rests me even less.
I’ll give you time on Sunday morn—
Then I will sing and praise;
But after that, my time’s my own—
Mondays through Saturdays.
Demand no more of me, O Lord—
There is so much to do;
I have a life, I can’t afford
To waste it all on You.
“It’s not exactly what you thought it would be, is it?” Pastor Stringer asked softly when the music died down and his congregation stood soberly before him. “But it’s often the way we think. In no way do I wish to mock the original song, but I know for my own life that sometimes I need these wake-up calls. Please be seated.” Pastor Stringer gave everyone a moment to settle.
“We’re going to keep talking about God’s expectations for us this morning,” he went on, and Lily opened her Bible to the passage where he directed. She had only a vague sense of his preaching in this book before and, with that sense, Lily felt disgusted with herself. What have you been doing each time you’ve sat in this church, Lily Cathleen? That this was only her second time to attend a Sunday morning service did not immediately come to mind. She was determined to be hard on herself, and that was the end of it!
She remembered in time to be hard on herself later and not to miss a word of the sermon again.
Sunday dinner was a feast. Lily bit into the ham, which tasted of pineapple, and let her eyes slide closed. For a moment she didn’t even want to chew.
“Lilyee’s praying!” Celia announced in a voice that would not have helped her had it been true.
Lily’s eyes came open as she stopped herself from laughing. Seeing the merriment in her eyes, the other occupants of the table joined her.
“I take it you think the ham is good?” Ashton questioned.
“It’s delicious,” Lily answered once her mouth was empty.
“Thank you,” Bailey said with a smile. “It’s my mother’s recipe.”
“Speaking of our mother,” Gabe put in, his own plate giving evidence of how much he liked the meal, “did anyone mention to you, Lily, that we’ll be going to visit Mom and Carson in ten days?”
“No, they didn’t. Is there something I can do while you’re away, or do you just want me to keep things going as usual?”
“You’re going with us” at least three people said at the same time.
Lily’s eyes got a bit round over this announcement, but no one bothered to elaborate. Evan wanted to talk about the sermon, and the table talk was soon off on that.
When everyone had commented, Evan added, “I especially liked what Pastor did with that song.”
“That was an eye-opener, all right.”
“He has perspicacity,” Lily said quietly, thinking how much she had enjoyed the service too. She kept eating after this, so it didn’t come to her attention that everyone at the table was staring at Gabe, and that Gabe was staring at her.
Since some time in high school, Gabe had loved to use that word. And for years, whenever any of his siblings or Evan teased him about getting married, he would say that he would marry the first woman he found who knew what “perspicacity” meant.
“What was the word?” Peter asked, causing everyone to feel rescued.
Lily assumed she was to answer.
“‘Perspicacity’ means acute mental vision or keen discernment. And what that means, Peter, is that Pastor Stringer is able to see things very clearly. He’s able to explain things he has in his mind very well. If he has a thought, he’s able to tell someone about it in a way that he will understand. Did that make sense?”
Peter nodded.
Lily then noticed that everyone was looking at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said right away, her eyes dropping. “I should have let someone else answer that.”
Everyone at the table denied it, but because this event had been somewhat unsettling to all of them, they changed the topic. They ate together for another ten minutes while the children shared what they had learned in Sunday school, and then Evan rose and moved Peter and Celia to the kitchen for their dessert. This rarely happened, so Gabe and Ashton were watchful. Lily felt a little tense but couldn’t have explained why.
“We have news,” Evan said when he came back, not wasting any time. “Bailey’s expecting.”
“That’s great,” Gabe said, immediately pushing away from the table and going to give his sister a warm hug. Ashton was next, his smile huge as he hugged his sister and then Evan.
“Congratulations,” Lily said to both of them, but other than that, she remained quiet. She had been sorry she had spoken up on the matter the night before when Evan and Bailey turned in early. Lily didn’t know them well enough to broach such a private subject, and she had been bothered by it ever since.
“Have you called Mom?” Ashton asked.
“I was going to, but I think it will be more fun to wrap a baby bonnet for her birthday.”
The men loved this idea, and before it was over, the suggestions grew outrageous.
“How about a bassinet? Do you think she would catch on then?”
“I know,” Ashton put in, “let’s have a diaper service pull up while we’re there. She won’t be able to miss that.”
The children heard the laughter and came to the door, albeit quietly, since they had been told to stay put, but their father motioned them out. That the subject had to be changed immediately did not occur to Evan right away, but thankfully the children were too young to notice how many shared glances were exchanged as the cleanup crew went to work on the dishes.
Lily was having a great time but still wished she had kept her mouth shut. For the rest of the day she prayed for a time when she might ask Bailey to forgive her.
On Monday morning Lily sat at the bottom of the front steps and forced her feet into the in-line skates that Evan and Peter had handed her. She already had a helmet on, along with elbow and knee protection. Peter had tried to give her his wrist protectors, but they were too small.
“Okay, Lily.” Evan skated over from where he’d been circling the driveway to see how things were going. “How do they feel?”
“All right, I think.”
Had Lily waited until she stood up, she would not have answered so agreeably. They hurt! And they didn’t hurt just her feet, but the back of her legs as well. She was distracted for a moment when Peter skated up to her with ease, but just watching him told her she was never going to master this. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if Jefferson had wanted her to learn this, but she realized just in time how rude that would sound.
“This is what I want you to do,” Evan instructed. “Hold onto the porch railing and just move along the pavement, real easy-like. Can you do that?”
“I think so,” she said on a gasp she wasn’t able to control. Her feet felt encased in rocks.
“It hurts a little at first,” Evan encouraged, “but you’ll get the hang of it in no time.”
“Hi, Lilyee,” Celia called from the porch.
“Hi, Celia,” Lily managed but didn’t dare look up at her. She was certain if she took her eyes from her feet, she would go sprawling onto the pavement.
“You’re doing good, Lily.” Peter came up to skate next to her. He smiled up into her face, but Lily wasn’t willing to shift her eyes for him, either.
“How’s it coming?” Evan skated up after a few more turns around the drive.
“Okay,” Lily said, knowing she was lying through her teeth.
“Does it hurt too much?” Evan asked.
Lily didn’t answer. She was trying not to fall, but mostly she didn’t want to lie anymore. That she could tell Evan how this felt did not occur to her. They were taking time to help her, and she wasn’t going to repay them with complaining.
Not sure if he should tell her to quit or give her time, Evan looked up to see Gabe headed their way, some papers in his hand.
“I’m going to put these on your desk, Evan,” Gabe began. “I just came across them on my desk. I thought I had already given them to you.”
“What are they?”
“Those contracts from Mains.”
Evan nodded. “They knew they wouldn’t hear from me before the first of the year anyway, so it’s not a problem.”
“How’s the skating going?”
Evan smiled. “I would say she’s pretty miserable.”
Gabe laughed a little as both men watched Lily trying to make her way along the porch.
“Are you going to let her off the hook?”
Evan suddenly looked at his brother-in-law and asked quietly, “Why don’t you go see how she’s doing?”
Gabe’s eyes came to his. “And what would be your point in my doing that?”
“I don’t know. She’s always been the most comfortable with you and Bailey. And I guess I find it hard to believe that you’re not just a little interested.”
“I’ve only known her for three weeks.”
“You met her three weeks ago; you’ve known her for years. But all that aside, I’m not suggesting you propose. Just get closer.”
While the men discussed this, Lily finally made it to the end of the porch. All she could think about were her feet. Peter was trying to talk with her, so Lily forced herself to listen.
“When you get really good, Lily, we can go all the way out to the road and back.”
Lily wanted to groan at the very thought but did her best to smile at Peter. She turned around slowly, wondering how long she could do this.
“How is it going?” Gabe asked.
He had come up without Lily noticing. When she turned around, it was to find him directly in front of her.
For just a moment Lily’s eyes pleaded with his. She then glanced in Peter’s direction before saying, “I’m not sure I’ll ever be as good as Peter.”
“Whose skates are those, Pete?”
“Mama’s.”
“Do they fit you, Lily?”
Lily looked him in the eye and shook her head over her own stupidity. Her voice held wonder when she admitted, “I thought it was my not being used to them. They are too small.”
Gabe smiled. “And you’re in agony.”
Lily dropped her eyes.
“Can you look at me?”
Lily did, her face now composed and still.
“Was there some reason you felt you couldn’t tell Evan and Pete?”
“Do you not find me ungrateful when I complain, Gabe?”
“When have you complained?”
“How’s it going?” Evan approached.
“The skates are too small,” Gabe informed him.
“Oh, mercy! I’m sorry, Lily.” Evan was genuinely contrite. “Let’s get those off.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Evan,” Lily said as she and Peter worked the buckles. “I appreciate your trying to show me.”
“It doesn’t matter, Lily. You’re still working on your tennis, and I think Gabe is going to teach you to golf this week.”
That Gabe had no idea this was the plan was communicated with eyes that told his brother-in-law that he knew what he was up to. Since Lily was bent over busily removing the skates, Gabe even had time to roll his eyes at Evan’s mischievous grin.
By the time Lily and Peter looked back up, all vestiges of teasing and motives were gone from the men’s faces. Lily thanked Evan and Peter again and headed back to the house. Peter ran to put the skates on the porch for Lily, and for a moment the men were alone again—something that was fine with Gabe. Clearly the scene yesterday at the dining room table had put thoughts into everyone’s mind. Well, it had put thoughts into his mind too. But before he let them run too far, he had a few questions he wanted answered.