9

 

Pia’s departure seemed to be the cue for everyone to call it a day. Within a half hour, David turned from cleaning the grill to find himself alone with his uncle and Mrs. Mallory.

“That was great, Uncle Andy. I enjoyed it.”

“Me too, but I always have a good time at these barbecues.” The older man’s gruff voice lowered. “We need to talk, David. Got a minute?”

He shrugged. “Sure. We can go to my place, if you’d like.”

His uncle turned to wave at Viv and raised his voice. “I’m going with David for a little while, Vivvy. I’ll be back to help clean up.”

“I’ve got this. Don’t worry about it.” Mrs. Mallory picked up a napkin off the ground and waved it at them, as though shooing them off. “Not much to do after everyone takes their dishes away.”

“Well, come on, boy.” Uncle Andy strode off toward the cottage David now called home. Once there, he pushed open the door and urged David inside. “Now, we got some talkin’ to do.” One long finger pointed toward the worn recliner David should have replaced a year or more ago. “Sit.”

David plopped down on the chair, wondering what was rattling around in that old noggin.

His uncle pulled a dining chair close. He lowered his lanky frame onto it, linked his fingers and hung them between his bony knees, then leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. David squirmed beneath that direct stare, feeling the probing gaze right down to the center of his soul.

“I thought you’d handle Pia’s situation a whole lot better’n you have, David.” When David’s head snapped up in response to her name, his uncle gave a sharp shake of his head, and his white hair—still thick and unruly—bounced around like twigs in a gale. “What? You think I don’t know you’re sweet on her?”

“Uncle Andy!”

“Oh, hush, boy. You didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in a fire pit once you walked through that gate out front. But you sure blew it when she opened up her heart to you. Just couldn’t bring yourself to tell her the past she’s so ashamed of wasn’t important to you, could you?”

David’s gut clenched. He had blown it.

Pia responded to the message he’d preached by telling him things about herself that couldn’t have been easy to reveal. And he’d listened. But he hadn’t offered any words of counsel, not as a pastor, and not as a man. He’d been petrified…not only by her past, but also by his own.

Rayanne Massey’s face haunted his dreams at night. His encounter with her had stolen his confidence and his ability to offer sound counsel to any woman, ever again.

The poor girl came to him an emotional mess. Weeping, depressed…suicidal. He’d felt all those things in her, known she needed more help than he could offer. Still, he’d counseled her from his heart and soul then begged her to get professional psychological assistance.

It hadn’t been enough. Mere hours after she left his office, Rayanne took her own life.

Bile rose in David’s throat. He couldn’t counsel Pia. He’d already proven he didn’t have what it took.

He hadn’t told his uncle why he left Dallas and accepted the local position. Only God knew that he had come here on a desperate odyssey of faith, trying to decide whether he’d missed his calling.

Surely a real minister…a called minister…would have been able to save Rayanne. But David hadn’t.

He huffed out a breath and met the older man’s direct gaze with a defiant one. “Look, if you have something to say, just say it. Your angel pals might get it when you talk in circles, but I don’t.”

Uncle Andy fixed his gaze just over David’s head and cocked his own, as if listening. Finally, he nodded, and his piercing blue eyes pinned David’s. “All right, boy. You want plain talk, then plain talk it is.” He brushed a hand gently over the cover of the worn Bible resting on a table next to the recliner, then picked it up and laid it on David’s lap. “The gift and callin’ of God are without repentance.”

David’s throat closed and he looked down, fixing a frozen gaze on his clenched fists. His uncle knew. Somehow he knew how badly David had failed in Dallas.

“I don’t know what you think you did wrong back there in the big city, son, but I do know this.” A gnarled hand appeared and rested atop David’s. “All you can do is deliver the messages God gives you. Once His words leave your lips and fall on the ears of those He means ‘em for, it’s out o’ your hands—whatever the situation. God gives each of us—man, woman, boy, and girl—the choice to do right or do wrong…to obey or disobey. To accept His grace, or toss it to the winds and follow our own mistaken paths.” He tapped a crooked finger on David’s wrist, and his gravelly voice gentled, as though he spoke to a hurt child. “Our Father will let us do that, David, even if that path leads to our own destruction. He’s not a God who forces His will on a single soul.”

David’s throat closed around a huge knot, but he raised his head to look at his uncle, who suddenly seemed as lucid and sane as any man he’d ever known. His vivid blue eyes held vast wisdom and understanding. “Uncle Andy, I—I failed. I couldn’t make her see—”

“No.” Andrew held up a hand and shook his head. “You didn’t fail, son. You delivered the message, and she refused to hear it. It’s not in your power to make a person accept God’s wisdom.” Sliding from his chair, he knelt and pulled David’s unresisting form into his arms, just as he’d done when, as a child, his nephew needed comfort and assurance. “We have the God-given freedom to make our own choices—even if they lead to disaster.” A loving hand cupped the back of David’s head, and his uncle’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Or to death.”

All the pain he’d been holding inside burst forth in a sob that scraped his throat raw, and David collapsed in his uncle’s arms. Cleansing tears flowed from his eyes and soaked the fabric across the older man’s shoulder. Deep inside his heart, a dam cracked and crumbled, releasing the pent-up pain and doubt so he could give it back to God.

A few minutes later, he excused himself long enough to blow his nose and splash cold water on his face. Then he settled in across from his uncle at the table and pulled in a breath that felt deeper and cleaner than any he’d drawn in months.

“Uncle Andy…about Pia.” He cleared his throat and looked up to find the older man wearing a teasing grin.

“You know what needs to be done, son. Just do it.”

The old man crossed to the front door and stood for a moment with his twisted fingers curled around the knob. “I’m going back out to help, although if I know Vivvy, it’s all done by now.” He pushed the door open, and David noticed the last streaks of a dying sunset over his uncle’s shoulder. They’d been inside longer than he realized. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that little cottage across the way couldn’t use a bit o’ comp’ny.”

The door closed and David stared at it for a full minute before shaking his head and talking into the empty air. “Was that Uncle Andy talking or one of those angels of his?”

He let himself out and strolled towards the “little cottage across the way.”