four

Charissa

No matter how hard Charissa tried to flatten and smooth the bulges, her light blue cardigan retained the shape of the hanger. She should have double-checked in the mirror before she left the house. Now she would have to stand in front of her freshmen with protruding horns on her shoulders.

Great.

She wasn’t going to lecture in her shell top. Justin Caldwell and his back row posse would be distracted by her enlarged breasts. Since undertaking the freshman writing section, Charissa had perused the professor ratings site multiple times, and she could guess which students had given her chili peppers for hotness. She was not flattered. She was flattered, however, by the students who ranked her as hard. “Professor Sinclair” was no easy A, several complained. This gratified her. One student had written that the course had “confirmed his desire to write.” But then he’d proceeded to say that Charissa had helped him “hone his grammer skills.” Obviously, he hadn’t put his review through a spellchecker.

She really shouldn’t put much stock in the reviews, she thought as the students straggled into the classroom. She also shouldn’t be Googling her name. But it was a regular habit now, one she had tried unsuccessfully to fast from. Maybe next Lent she would apply more diligence to conquering her vanity.

“I’m returning your first drafts,” she said once she had taken attendance and closed the door. “Phone away, Justin.” She handed him his paper. He kept typing. She stood beside him, waiting, wishing she could snatch the phone out of his hand and bop him on the head with it. “Now.” He shoved it into his backpack.

“For the most part, these were strong first efforts,” she said, returning to the lectern. “However, I noticed that some of you only concentrated on the first paragraph of the article in your analysis. In your revisions, you’ll need to incorporate the entire breadth of Berry’s essay. In other words, make sure you read all of his argument before you attempt to write your interpretation and critique.” Honestly. Did they think she was stupid? That she wouldn’t notice they had only read the first page of the essay? “The other thing that was lacking in most of your reflections is the acknowledgment that he wrote this essay in 1971. So in what ways are his observations about American politics and culture prophetic and timely for our postmodern context? Don’t merely quote from his essay. I don’t want summaries of his salient points. Interpret it. Wrestle with it. Demonstrate you’re thinking critically, and then use the rhetorical skills you’ve been learning to respond with high-quality prose.”

Most of the students were too busy skimming through her margin notes on their papers to be listening. She took a sip from her water bottle and waited for their attention. “Before I divide you into pairs for peer review, I want to offer some thoughts about the revision process in general. Many students, when they undertake editing, consider only the lexical level of the text. They look only at word substitutions, believing their primary task is to choose better words. And while word choice is important to our prose—while strong, precise language enhances our arguments—revising is not simply a matter of using a thesaurus as you rewrite. Think big picture. Think about theme. Think about—”

Not passing out. She was suddenly lightheaded again. She took a longer sip of water. The websites said it was important to stay hydrated, to—

“Think about big picture. Big picture themes and—” She wiped her brow with a hand that was becoming blurry. “Don’t be afraid to cut sections that don’t serve the larger purpose of—” Even if you’re attached to—

Faces spun and swirled. She was grabbing, grasping, staggering, plunging. Down.

If this incident ended up on social media, heads would roll. Charissa wasn’t sure which student had first raced to her aid, but Justin was way too close when she came to, and she didn’t like the smirk on his face when he glanced at his phone before pocketing it. “Are you okay, Ms. Sinclair?” Sidney, one of her favorite students, was kneeling beside her.

Charissa rolled gingerly to her side. She still felt too woozy to stand.

“What can I get you?” Sidney asked.

All around Charissa students were stooped and staring. Thank God she had worn slacks and not a skirt. “I’ll . . . nothing. Nothing.” She pushed herself up to a sitting position and rested her head on her knees. If this fainting drama was going to become a regular game in Bethany’s repertoire, she didn’t want to play. “I’m okay, everyone. Back to your seats.” But she hesitated to rise.

“Can somebody go get someone?” Sidney called out.

“No. No, I’m fine.” Charissa willed herself to stand but then gratefully sat down in the chair Ben dragged forward. She should carry snacks in her bag, almonds or cheese, something with protein. She would be fine once she ate something.

“Ten minute break,” a voice commanded. She looked up to see Nathan Allen enter the classroom, motioning for students to head out. “Back in ten,” he repeated as they exited, chattering. He closed the door behind the last one. “Let me call John for you.”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Charissa.”

“He’ll just worry.” She hadn’t landed on her belly, thank God, but her elbow was sore. She must have absorbed the force of the fall on her right elbow. She clutched it against her body.

Nathan eyed her with concern. “I think it’s unwise not to get checked. Make sure you didn’t injure yourself.”

“I’ll be okay. Just another bruise to the ego.” She attempted a wry smile. “No permanent damage done.” Which was more embarrassing: missing her final presentation last semester because she overslept or fainting in front of a room full of students? Though no blame could be assigned to this mishap, it might prompt Dr. Gardiner and the other faculty to question whether she was fit to fulfill her responsibilities. She would need to talk with Dr. Gardiner as soon as possible to preempt decisions being made on her behalf.

“Let me take the rest of your class today,” Nathan said. “I’ve got nothing scheduled for the next hour.”

“I’ll be fine. Thank you, though.” She stood up—too fast, apparently—and caught herself before she lost her balance. At a minimum she wasn’t fit to finish her lecture, and it wasn’t fair to the students to place them in peer groups without proper instructions. She gave a defeated sigh. “On second thought, maybe I should head home.”

He reached into his blazer pocket for his cell phone. “I’ll call Hannah. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind coming to pick you up. I don’t think you should drive right now.”

The way she felt at the moment, she wasn’t going to argue.

True to Nathan’s word, Hannah arrived at the university library parking lot half an hour later. “Where to?” she asked as soon as Charissa clicked her seatbelt into place. Belts were increasingly uncomfortable.

“Home, please.”

“You sure you don’t want me to take you to the doctor?”

“I’m sure. I think I just need to eat something and lie down.” The two-pack of oatmeal cookies from the vending machine hadn’t alleviated her lightheadedness. “Thanks, Hannah.”

“No problem.”

If Mara had been the one to chauffeur her home, Charissa might have been peppered with questions or subjected to well-intentioned pregnancy tips and personal anecdotes. But Hannah was quiet on the drive, and Charissa, who was not adept at small talk, wasn’t sure how to engage her in conversation. Usually, Hannah was the one who guided meaningful interactions. Maybe she was tired. “You feeling okay?” Charissa asked after traveling several blocks in awkward silence. “We missed you in worship on Sunday.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Just a bit of a headache.”

“Nathan was telling us at church about your house. That’s great you don’t have to worry about putting it on the market.”

“Right. Big answer to prayer.”

“When do you have to go down there to pack everything up?”

“Saturday, I think.”

“Well, if you need any help when you get back here unloading boxes or anything, I’ll volunteer John.”

Hannah did not take her eyes off the road. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

When they arrived at the house a few minutes later, Hannah did not turn off the car. “Do you need some help getting inside?” she asked.

“No, I’m fine, thanks. You’re welcome to come in for a minute, Hannah, if you’d like.”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll let you get your rest. Let me know if you need anything else, though, all right?”

“I will,” Charissa said. “See you Friday, then?”

“Friday?”

“For our Sensible Shoes—”

“Oh, right,” Hannah said. “Friday.”

As Charissa carefully ascended the front steps, she added another name to her growing list for prayer: Becca, Mara, Jeremy, Abby. And Hannah Allen.

Becca

In the land of knights and castles, chivalry was dead. With a disdaining glance Becca passed by half a dozen guys who kept their seats on the Tube, not even rising for a mom with two little kids. “Hold on here, sweetheart,” the mother said, placing one child’s chubby hands onto a pole while clutching the younger one. The only people speaking in the carriage were tourists, distinguished by their accents and lack of balance as the train sped out of the station and pitched to the right. Becca had once stood with the same two-fisted grip on the overhead bar. Now she made a point of trying to stand nonchalantly so as not to call attention to herself. Not that Londoners were bothered to pay much attention. She focused on the colorful grid of crisscrossing lines on the maps above the windows and exited when the train screeched into Russell Square station.

“Could I have a coffee, please?” she asked the elderly cashier at the café in the square. On this unseasonably mild early spring morning, the park was filled with dog-walkers, joggers, and readers. As the cashier poured her drink, she watched a few patrons disregard the instructions not to feed the birds. The brazen pigeons weren’t fooled by the hawk and owl statues.

“There you are, love,” the cashier said, setting her drink in front of her. His kind smile nearly undid her. Becca quickly counted out her change and found a table where she could study without distraction. She was way behind on a few assignments, and though her professors had been patient, her grace period was drawing to a close. Mourning, she had discovered, had an expiration date beyond which there remained little sympathy and understanding, except perhaps by those who had also suffered loss.

“But we just want the old Becks back!” Pippa had said when Becca bowed out of another invitation to a karaoke night. “Come on. It would do you good to have a laugh.”

She wasn’t interested. She looked up as a man in a tracksuit jogged by and began doing lunges, stretches, and push-ups against a nearby park bench.

Not interested.

Even her high school and college friends, some of whom had sent a flurry of concerned and consoling emails when they first heard the news, had returned to the preoccupations of their own lives. She didn’t blame them. Not much, anyway. No doubt some of them had suffered losses she had never acknowledged or understood, either.

At the table adjacent to hers, a young woman about her age was tossing crumbs toward a white pigeon. “Shhh,” she said, when she saw that she’d been spotted. “Don’t tell anyone.” She brushed off her hands and poured from a small ceramic teapot on her tray.

Becca studied her face. The gesture of pouring tea had triggered a memory. “You look familiar,” she said, scanning for possibilities until she landed on the most likely one. “You don’t work at the hotel near here, do you?”

“Yes, at the Tavistock. But I’ve got the day off today.” She pivoted toward Becca, her expression brightening with recognition. “I know you; you came for tea with your mum a few times, right? Americans. She was over here to visit before Christmas.”

Becca tried to push down the lump in her throat. Why had she started the conversation? Now the inevitable question was on its way. Of all the places to land for coffee . . . of all the people to land next to . . .

“Such a nice lady, your mum. She wrote a commendation letter for me and gave it to my manager when she left. I’ve never gotten a letter like that before, and I didn’t have a chance to thank her. So kind of her.”

Yes, Becca thought, that was the sort of thing her mother would have done. Before any polite inquiries could be made, she blurted out, “My mom died.”

The girl looked stricken. Maybe that’s what Becca was hoping for when she stated it so bluntly: shock. Maybe she wanted sympathy from a stranger since sympathy from friends was waning. “Your mum—”

“Yeah. Cancer.”

“She never said—”

“She didn’t know.” Becca wrapped both hands around her coffee cup and stared at a trio of pigeons vying for more crumbs. “I’m Becca, by the way.” If she was going to confide such news to someone in a park and potentially depress them, it seemed only fair to introduce herself.

“I’m Claire. And I’m sorry, I don’t remember your mum’s name.”

“Meg. Meg Crane.”

“Mrs. Crane. Yes.” She looked at Becca with deep compassion and said, “You have her eyes.”

Those eyes now welled up with tears. Pippa had met her mother. Harriet had met her mother. Simon had met her mother. But none of them had ever thought to make that simple observation. I hope our baby has your eyes, her father had written to her mother the day they saw the ultrasound picture. Becca had found the card on her mother’s desk and had tucked it into her purse after the funeral, one of the few cards she had decided to take with her to London. It was a well-traveled card.

“I’m sorry, Becca, I didn’t mean to . . .”

“No. It’s okay. It’s just . . .”

Claire nodded. “I know.” Something in her voice told Becca that she did, in fact, “know.” Maybe part of experiencing grief meant developing a fine-tuned radar for identifying kindred spirits. “I knew she was feeling poorly when she was here,” Claire went on, “that she had to go home early, but I had no idea she was so unwell. I’m so sorry.”

That wasn’t the cancer, Becca silently replied. That was her grief. Over me. She reached into her bag for a tissue and blew her nose. “Thank you. I remember she said you were kind to her.” Kind when I wasn’t, she thought, and the truth of that admission pained her to the core.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Claire asked. “About your mum?”

Becca considered this a moment, then repositioned her chair slightly. Yes. As a matter of fact, she did.

It was the airplane effect, Becca told herself as she poured out her heart to Claire over the next hour: sit down next to a stranger on a plane in Chicago, and by the time you’ve reached, say, Philadelphia, you know their entire life story. Or they know yours.

While Claire listened without interrupting, Becca recounted some of her favorite childhood memories: watching old Cary Grant films together, dancing with hairbrush microphones to Frank Sinatra standards and ABBA songs while Gran was away, listening to her mother play Debussy or Chopin or Liszt. “She tried to teach me to play piano, but I was more interested in ballet. So Mom saved for lessons for me and came to all of my dance recitals.”

“She sounds like a wonderful mum.”

“She is. Was.” Becca bit her lip. “Here”—she reached for her phone—“I’ll show you a picture of her. I mean, you’ve seen her. But this was just a few days before . . .” She scrolled through photos until she found the one she was looking for, the one with the blue butterfly resting on her mother’s shoulder. It was one of her favorites, not just because of the expression on her mother’s face—the surprise, the wonder, the joy—but because something in the way the light was shining into the atrium made it look like her mother’s face was shining too.

“Ohhh. She’s beautiful.” Claire’s eyes brimmed with tears.

How could it be that a relative stranger could be so deeply moved by her pain when her friends hadn’t expressed any interest in photos or stories? “The color of the butterfly, that’s the same color as the dress she was going to wear for her best friend’s wedding. But she died the week before. So I offered to wear the dress and stand in her place.”

“I’m sure your mum would have been happy about that.” Claire handed the phone back to her.

Becca couldn’t help it; she kept talking. “She told me this story about my dad—he died before I was born—how he had invited her to a Valentine’s Day dance when they were in, like, ninth grade. And she saved and saved her money because there was this blue chiffon dress she wanted to buy. But when she took my grandmother to the store to see it, Gran didn’t like it. So Mom didn’t buy it. But then when she saw this bridesmaid dress, it looked just like the Valentine’s gown.” Becca pressed her palms against her eyes. “I wish she’d had a chance to . . .”

It was all the chances, wasn’t it? All the missed opportunities that fed Becca’s regret, all the future opportunities that fed her sorrow. “You know what I’ve been thinking about the past few days?” Becca said, rubbing her face. Claire waited. “My own wedding.”

“You’re getting married?”

“No. I mean, not yet. I mean, I’m in a serious relationship with someone, but . . . no.” She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I’ve been thinking about the future, about how I won’t have a dad to walk me down the aisle, how my mom won’t be there to share the moment with me. To share any of the moments with me.” That’s the part she couldn’t fathom, couldn’t accept: the finality of it all, the never, ever again-ness of it. Never, ever again would she receive her mother’s comfort. Never, ever again would she share her mother’s joy. And though they had said goodbye with love and tenderness, never, ever again would she have the opportunity to regain her mother’s trust. Or her approval.

“That’s really hard,” Claire said. “I’ll be praying for you.”

Even though Claire didn’t say the words in the carefree, flippant way Becca had heard others say them, she stiffened. Prayer was the easy offer people often made to those who were grieving. Whether they ever followed through with it, she couldn’t say. It didn’t really matter, either. What good was prayer? Prayer was just words spoken into an empty void that might make the person praying feel better but didn’t accomplish anything of any significance whatsoever. “Well, thanks for listening.” Becca gathered her trash and shoved it into her empty cup. “Sorry to dump on you like that.”

“It’s no problem. Any time. I mean that. You can drop by the hotel any time.” Claire removed a scrap of paper from her purse, scrawled a phone number on it, and handed it to Becca. “Do you go to church at all?” she asked.

“No.” Becca wasn’t going to have this conversation. A shame too, a potential new friendship being aborted as soon as it began. She shoved the scrap into her purse, just to be polite. “Sorry, I’ve got to run.”

Claire looked like she wanted to say something more, but Becca slung her bag over her shoulder. “Please drop by any time,” Claire said, “if there’s anything you need.”

Yeah, no. Becca thanked her and with a casual wave, strode across the park. Obviously, Claire was a “Jesus person.” And what Becca didn’t need was Jesus.

Mara

“She’ll be rolling over in no time,” Mara said to Abby as Madeleine lifted her head and did a mini-pushup on the apartment living room carpet. “That’s how Jeremy used to get around. He’d roll from one side of the room to the other.” She couldn’t believe how much her granddaughter had changed in only two weeks, and this cemented her resolve: even if Abby and Jeremy privately accused her of being overbearing, she was determined to see Maddie weekly, if not several times a week. She wouldn’t let them renege on their babysitting offer.

If Abby had been surprised to see her mother-in-law at eight-thirty in the morning, she hadn’t voiced any objection. After dropping the boys off at school, Mara, on a whim, had decided to pop in unannounced. “Why don’t you go lie down?” she said. “I’ll watch her. I don’t have to be at Crossroads for another hour.”

“Jeremy didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“My shift at the hospital changed. I work second now. I’m so glad to be off nights.”

“Oh. Guess he forgot to mention it.”

“It’s a new change. Just started this week.”

So they probably wouldn’t need her to help out with babysitting a few mornings a week. Maybe she could help with evenings when they both had to work. If Jeremy had work.

Abby rolled Madeleine onto her back and set the activity gym above her, rattling a plastic monkey to get her attention. Maddie beamed. “Who’s a smiley girl?” Abby said, moving her face toward Maddie’s to touch noses. Maddie giggled. “Who’s a smiley girl?” Maddie laughed, a gurgling little baby laugh that made Mara laugh too.

“Oh, that baby!” Mara said, sliding to the floor to be near her. “I just want to gobble her up, she’s so cute.” Mara squeezed the blue elephant’s belly. The squeak made Maddie laugh again. “Is she sleeping any better?”

“I think we’re getting there.”

“Amazing, the difference a good night’s rest makes.”

Abby nodded. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, I’m fine. Thanks. But get yourself something. I’ll watch her.”

While Abby made herself a cup of tea, Mara lay on the floor beside her granddaughter, tickling her tummy and rattling her toys. Baby therapy made the whole world better. “I think maybe I upset Jeremy last week,” Mara said when Abby returned with her steaming mug. “I assume he told you about my basement idea.”

“Yes. It was a really generous offer. We were grateful for it.”

“I’m not sure he was.” Mara sat up on the carpet, her fingers resting on Madeleine’s tummy.

“He knows you want what’s best for him. For us. I think it’s the whole needing-to-provide-for-his-family thing.”

“Yeah, I get that. I wish I had thought it through before I offered. You know me, I get in trouble for speaking without thinking.”

“No harm done, Mom.”

Mara kissed Madeleine on both cheeks. She would do anything for any of them. Anything in her power.

“I’m glad you stopped by this morning,” Abby said, her face partially concealed behind her mug. “I was about ready to call you.” Mara raised her eyebrows inquisitively. “I’m worried about Jeremy. I think he might be drinking again.”

Mara felt a fist strike her gut. “What makes you think that?”

“Last week before my shift got changed, he came home late a few nights. I thought maybe I smelled it on his breath. He acted okay, but . . .”

“No. No, I get it. Even a little bit could . . .”

“Right.”

Alcohol was not something Jeremy could manage in moderation. He’d been sober for five, maybe six years now, and he had worked terribly hard to get there. Though Abby no doubt knew about his past struggles with addictions, she had only ever known him as clean.

“He’s under a lot of stress right now,” Abby said, “and I know he’s feeling discouraged. Depressed, even. I told him I’m willing to move. If the economy doesn’t pick up here, we should go some place where he can find a job.”

Mara pretended this news was not also a fist to her gut.

“My parents said it’s a bit better down in Ohio. But I’m thinking maybe even farther south. Like Texas, where he could work construction year-round.”

Texas?

Abby set her mug down on the coffee table and swept Madeleine up into her arms, nuzzling noses. “If he could find something full time with benefits, I could quit my job and stay home with Maddie. He knows that’s what I want, what we both want.”

Mara would do anything for them. Anything in her power. But letting them go?

Oh, God.

No.

Later that afternoon, while supervising meal preparation at Charissa’s house, Mara asked her if she knew anything. “No, nothing. John hasn’t said anything to me about it.” Charissa repositioned her knife and continued her slow chopping of vegetables for the stir-fry. She was determined to win her cooking bet for the week. “And I hope it’s not John that led him into temptation. I overheard him invite Jeremy out for drinks one night. I never asked where they went. I’m sorry! If we had known about this, we never would have—”

“No, I know.”

“He hasn’t been at church the past couple of weeks.” Charissa scraped the green peppers into the oil and jumped back, startled, when the pan sizzled and spit. “Abby came alone with Madeleine last week—she’s asking great questions about life and faith—but I don’t think John got very far when he tried to ask Jeremy how he was doing. I’m sorry, Mara. I’ll be praying. Is there anything else we can do?”

No. Nothing. There was nothing else anyone could do.

Hannah

Hannah poured herself a first cup of tea and stared into the predawn darkness. She ought to have returned Mara’s frantic phone call about Jeremy. Instead, she’d waited a few hours and then emailed a perfunctory message to say she would pray. So far she hadn’t. Not wholeheartedly, anyway.

She wished she could skip the Sensible Shoes Club meeting. She supposed she could tell them that she was leaving for Chicago early tomorrow morning and didn’t have the energy to undertake both. That wasn’t technically a lie. She didn’t have the energy. More than that, she lacked desire.

At Nathan’s urging, she had emailed Steve early in the week to let him know she would be coming to town to pack things up. He had immediately replied, inviting her to participate in the worship service. She declined. “Then how about a farewell reception after the second service?” he wrote. “A chance for us to wish you well.” Reluctantly, she agreed. She wondered if Nancy and Doug would be there.

Nathan shuffled into the kitchen in his robe and slippers. “You’re up early.” Usually Nathan was in his chair with his Bible and journal by the time Hannah came downstairs. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Not great.”

“Was I snoring again?”

“No.”

He measured out the coffee grounds and switched on the pot. “A lot on your mind, huh?”

She nodded. Tomorrow she would cross the threshold of her house for the first time in almost eight months. She and Nathan would pack up her possessions at her home and her office—with both of them working at it, they might finish in a single day—and spend the night at a hotel. Then, after enduring the hastily organized reception, the speed and timing of which would only heighten the rumors swirling about the “real reasons” for her departure, they would load up the U-Haul and leave her life behind. “I really hope Heather’s not planning on hovering around while I pack up,” she said, still staring out the kitchen window into the darkness. “I want time alone in my house.”

“So tell her that.”

“I’m not going to tell her that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t tell people what I want.”

“Or what you need,” he added quietly. He probably didn’t mean for the words to sound like an accusation.

Hannah set her mug down on the counter. He turned her gently toward him and took her hands in his. “So practice,” he said. “Practice with me. Say one thing you want.”

She hesitated. If she said the words, “I want,” then there ought to be something significant that followed. The coming of the kingdom, for instance. Or being a faithful steward of everything God had entrusted to her. Using the words for lesser things seemed selfish.

“C’mon, Shep. Anything.”

She stared at him a moment. “I’d like . . .”

“Try fast. Unfiltered. I want . . .”

Okay, fine. He wanted direct? She would be direct. “I want to sleep on your side of the bed.”

Nathan laughed. “Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s yours. We’ll switch tonight. What else?”

When she didn’t reply for several long minutes, he asked, “Are you self-editing right now, or do you really not know what you want?”

“Both.”

“Okay. Say something you’re editing, then.”

Hannah closed her eyes and blurted, “I want a house that’s ours.” She opened her eyes to check his. Inscrutable.

“Say more.”

Since there was no turning back, and since he would continue to ask follow-up questions until he was satisfied she was telling the whole truth, she took a deep breath and said, “I want a house where I feel like I’m not a long-term guest, where I feel like I’m not invading space.”

“You’re not invading—”

“No, listen”—she held up her hand and touched her finger to his lips to keep him from interrupting—“you asked, and I’m telling you the truth, Nate. This is your space. Yours and Jake’s. It’ll always be that. No matter how we redecorate or rearrange, it’s your house. And I don’t know how to fit into it, how to make it mine. Ours.”

The coffee pot stopped gurgling. Upstairs an alarm clock buzzed. Jake would be rising for school soon. She should not have started this conversation. “See? I should’ve kept it to myself.”

He poured himself a cup of coffee. “That’s not what I was thinking.”

“Then say something. What are you thinking?”

“That I wish you felt comfortable talking to me about your heart. I thought we had worked through some of this, that you were being honest with me, that you weren’t hiding behind the ‘everything’s fine’ mask.”

“You knew everything wasn’t fine. I told you I was struggling.”

“I know,” he said. “I know you’ve been struggling over everything with Westminster, with Heather, with Meg. But I didn’t know you were unhappy here.”

She wasn’t unhappy. Did she say she was unhappy? He had asked her to name desires, and she had named one. Now she wished she hadn’t. This was why she didn’t speak her heart, because speaking the truth created too much possibility for conflict. Easier to keep quiet, offer her longings privately to God, and pray for the grace to accept whatever gifts were given rather than trying to orchestrate them for herself. “Forget I said anything. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“So what were you going to do, continue to feel miserable and displaced and keep it to yourself? That’s no way to do marriage, Hannah.” Footsteps padded upstairs; Jake was on his way down. “We’ll talk about this later,” Nathan said, in a tone that probably was not intended to make her feel like an eight-year-old. Then he greeted Jake with a cheerful, “Hey, bud! How about some eggs?” Without finishing her tea, Hannah tightened the sash on her robe and went upstairs.

He had a point, she thought as she filled the birdfeeders and sorted mail at Meg’s house. But he wasn’t sharing his heart, either. There were obviously things going on with Jake that Nathan had decided not to confide to her. She wasn’t asking him to betray Jake’s trust. But surely there was a way to talk about how he was negotiating his stress as a dad without disclosing private details about his son. How did a husband and wife share their inner lives if that husband wouldn’t talk about his role as a father?

From the kitchen window she watched grateful chickadees swoop toward the feeder. How she wished she and Meg could sit at the table together over a pot of tea. Meg wouldn’t judge her for feeling desolate, for feeling like a stranger to her new life. Meg would listen with compassion and pray for her. Not that Mara and Charissa would be unsympathetic. But Hannah didn’t feel the same sort of connection and intimacy with them as she had felt with Meg. It was that simple. She missed her friend. Desperately.

Funny how Meg’s house, which had felt so oppressive and lonely the first time Hannah entered months ago, had now become one of the few places where she felt like she could listen to her own soul and breathe.

She sat down at Meg’s table, head in her hands. Two weeks. Only two weeks until Good Friday, and she had never felt so unprepared. Usually she was diligent about praying through Lent, reflecting on the ways she was being invited to die to self and live to Christ. Maybe she hadn’t thought much about Good Friday and Easter because she had spent so much time thinking about it when Meg was dying. She had spent hours meditating on the crucifixion and resurrection texts. So why did she avoid them now?

Charissa had asked her to choose the text for reflection tonight. But when she had thumbed through the prayer exercise notebook, nothing grabbed her. It sounded terrible to say, didn’t it, that nothing from Scripture grabbed her attention and invited her in? But it was the truth. She didn’t feel like reading the Word. She didn’t feel like praying. At least she wouldn’t have to participate in the worship services at Westminster. Attend, yes. Under compulsion. But lead? No.

She rubbed her eyes. She was yielding to spiritual dryness without searching for springs. She knew that. But she was too tired to search. That was the truth. Maybe she needed God to pursue her in the barren, weary landscape of her soul.