CHAPTER
Twenty-three

When a full day had come and gone since Nora had sent her unanswered text message to John, she sent another. Are you okay, John? I’m worried about you.

An hour passed without a reply. Nora spent that hour at her desk in her office at the Library on the Green trying and failing to accomplish work. She assumed there were plenty of girlfriends across America who were experiencing relationship problems and still managing to get an iota of work accomplished.

Alas, she was not in that group.

She dialed John’s number. His phone rang four times then went to voicemail. “This is John Lawson. I’m sorry, I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.”

Nora hung up halfway through the beep. The sound of his voice was so sexy and familiar that stupid tears rushed to her eyes.

She was closing down her computer—no sense sitting here doing nothing of value—when her phone dinged. A text from John.

You don’t need to worry about me, he’d typed. I just need more time.

Not a single one of the books on conflict had recommended the silent treatment. None! The silent treatment was death to a relationship. All the experts advocated deep, respectful, face-to-face conversations in which both partners communicated their feelings openly. She and John required a deep, respectful, face-to-face conversation! We need to talk. I’m coming over, she wrote.

No need.

She blinked with dismay at his words.

John was shutting her out. She’d been sticking up for him in her own mind, rationalizing his silence as best she could. She’d reacted to his withdrawal from her with six days of scared, hoping-for-the-best quiet. Now he was asking for even more time. More time wouldn’t help.

They had to address what he was going through and deal with it together. They simply . . . had to. You’ve been warned, she replied to him via text. I’m coming over.

On the drive to Shore Pine, Nora battled her frustration and fear. The experts recommended that couples converse when both parties were calm. Calm would be good.

She decided that she’d lead with an apology for how she’d treated him that day at The Grapevine. Then she’d ask him to share his heart with her. Then she’d share hers. Then they’d discuss their issues, and they’d kiss and maybe cry and everything would be all right. These were the bright hours at the end of a beautiful waning day at the end of a beautiful waning summer that they should be enjoying together, she and John.

Turning off the main road onto his private driveway, Nora braced herself for the sight of him. He’d likely be waiting for her on his front lawn with his arms crossed.

However, when she pulled up, she saw no sign of him. She tamped down her jittery nerves, lifted her chin, walked to his door, and rang his doorbell.

He didn’t answer.

She knocked with three composed knocks.

A full minute went by. His front door remained smoothly indifferent to her presence. She didn’t want to believe that their relationship had deteriorated to the point that he wasn’t going to open his door to her. Perhaps he wasn’t at home? Perhaps he was working late?

But she’d told him she was coming. If he’d been at work during their exchange of text messages, he should have said so.

She tried the knob. Locked. She rang the doorbell and knocked again. Nothing.

She walked around the side of his house, hunting for unlatched windows she could tug open and crawl through. Who locked all their windows on a summer evening when they could instead be enjoying breezes off the lake? John, apparently.

She’d be able to get in via his back deck. He kept the doors there open almost all of the time. When she reached the back of his house, though, she found it as shuttered as everything else. She couldn’t spot a single interior light. Facing the lake, she shaded her eyes. His boat was moored at the dock. No John.

She continued around the far side of the house, stopping only when she spotted a rock that looked as though it was begging to be thrown. She was usually a mild-mannered librarian, but nothing about this situation or her love for John was usual. Since the experts would definitely, definitely frown at her for throwing a rock through John’s window, she opted to send him one last text message. Her fingers trembled as she typed. I’m not going anywhere until I talk to you.

She stomped along the small path that ran parallel to the side of his house, head down, mouth set in a belligerent line. If he didn’t answer her text, she’d be forced to reconsider rock throwing. John might be the former SEAL, but she was the one who was about to dig in and fight—

“Nora.”

Her face jerked up.

He stood ten yards or so in front of her with deep-green pine trees at his back. His feet were bare. He had on black basketball shorts and a slightly wrinkled gray T-shirt with the SEAL trident imprinted on it over his heart. A short beard covered cheeks that had hollowed since the last time she’d seen him. His hair was in disarray.

He didn’t look like her John. He looked like the toughened, proven, intimidating man she’d first seen at Lawson Training.

She could see at a glance that he wasn’t doing well, which caused her indignation to crack and compassion to flood into her like water into a ruptured boat. The girl who loved to be helpful desperately wanted to help him. But she could only do that if he’d let her. Her instinct was to go to him and bend her fingers into his hair and plead, Let me help you. But his expression warned her, when she’d advanced to within a few yards of him, to come no farther.

Say you’re sorry, Nora. Lead with that. Then ask him to share what’s on his heart. Remember? Except . . . memories of him were crowding into her head and his distress was confusing her heart. “I . . . haven’t seen that T-shirt before,” she said.

———

John drew his eyebrows together. Seeing Nora again was pure torture. He felt like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs, and her first words to him had been about his T-shirt?

“I might have been able to see that shirt if you’d invited me over at some point during the past six days,” she said mildly.

He remained silent.

“But you didn’t. Invite me over.”

“No.” The word came out raspy.

She took a step toward him, and he took a step back. Instantly, she stopped.

The thin straps of her white sundress ran over the smooth skin of her shoulders. She wore her hair down, and she had on tiny gold sandals. She looked healthy and clean, and she made him feel worse and dirty and if she came any closer, he didn’t know what he’d do. Wrap her in his arms? Ruin the separation between them with hard, deep kisses? Beg her to look past his faults?

He hadn’t known what to do about Nora since receiving her text message yesterday and her messages today. He didn’t see how they could be together, but he wanted to drink a bottle of whiskey every time he thought about breaking up with her.

Since she’d rung his doorbell, he’d been sitting in his media room with his head in his hands, fingertips digging into his scalp, caught between wanting back what they’d had and knowing there was no going back. “Are you here to break up with me?” he asked.

Her face went smooth with shock. “No.” She started to speak. Appeared to think better of it. Started again. “There are . . . a hundred reasons why I wouldn’t want to break up with you, John. I stayed away these past six days because you asked me to and because I was honoring your request. I didn’t stay away because I wanted to. I’m here because I couldn’t go another hour without seeing you. Without apologizing to you.”

He stiffened. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Yes, I do. I reacted badly when Sherry told us about Brian, and I’m really sorry.”

“Your reaction was normal, Nora.”

“No, it wasn’t. We both know that I reacted badly. It took me longer than it should have to get my mind right after Sherry told us about Brian.”

“I don’t expect you to ever get your mind right about it.”

“John,” she said firmly. “Stop talking like that and listen to me. Hear me. I’m sorry for how I looked at you. For how I jerked away from you. I want you to know that that wasn’t my true reaction.”

He scowled at her in confusion.

“That was only my first reaction,” she said. “Not my truest.”

Many of the articles John had read about Brian Raymond had included pictures of Nora’s mother. Robin looked the way murder victims always look in pictures. Young and sweet and tragic. Nora resembled her. They had the same forehead, and Nora’s face was shaped just like her mother’s.

His heart and his body ached with love for Nora. But this situation was messed up, because looking at Nora filled his mind with thoughts of Robin and how she’d been murdered and by whom. He felt bad enough as it was. He didn’t want to be reminded that he was the son of a murderer every time he looked at Nora.

“John?” Nora asked.

“Every time you look at me from now on you’ll see Brian Raymond,” he said.

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.”

“I see you when I look at you, John. And you’re wonderful.”

“Then I’m the one who’s screwed up, because I do see Brian Raymond when I look at myself, and I see your mother when I look at you.”

“You’re going to have to choose not to see them.”

“I did choose not to see them. But they’re there anyway.”

They stared at each other, the air snapping with invisible sparks.

Just days ago he’d had the right to touch her, to hold her, kiss her. Now it felt as though a wall of glass separated them, as thick and real as the glass panels that separated his living room from his deck.

She straightened tall, her fingers curling into fists. “You’re not responsible for what Brian did. What happened a generation ago has nothing to do with you or me.”

“No? What about the Scripture verse that says that children will be punished to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents? That would explain why I’m losing my sight, wouldn’t it?”

Her mouth came open. “No! John . . . Let’s go inside. We can talk through all of this, okay? I think that’s what might help—”

“I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t”—he gestured back and forth between them—“do this.”

“Yes, you can.” Her voice wobbled, and he hated himself for upsetting her.

“No, I can’t. I don’t know who I am,” he confessed to her with painful honesty. “I need to figure it out before I can think. Before I can see you or myself clearly.”

“I can help you figure it out,” she whispered, taking a step toward him.

He lifted a staying hand.

Her movement cut to a halt.

“I need to be alone,” he said more harshly than he’d intended. None of this was her fault. He knew it wasn’t, and he didn’t want to hurt her. Ever. But her goodness was making him sick with his own darkness. Her mother’s face, looking out at him from her eyes, was damning him. “I just . . . I need to be alone. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do this.”

Time unwound, one second pulling into the next, before he turned, walked into his house, and locked his door. He stood in his foyer, arms crossed, trying to hold himself together while a storm howled within. He willed Nora to leave, because he couldn’t take it if she knocked again or said anything more or looked at him with that shattered expression.

When he heard her car start, he closed his eyes. Not with relief. With crushing loss.

He knew a thing or two about killing, and he wished he could kill Brian himself. He envisioned doing it. He thought in detail about exactly how he’d do it.

But the reality was that he’d been born too late to rescue Sherry or Robin or to kill Brian. Brian had taken his own life and was now just as dead as Nora’s mother.

Nora drove to the Bookish Cottage like a carrier pigeon flying instinctively home for protection and safety.

Her throat throbbed with unshed tears, and her pulse beat a depressing cadence in her ears. Keep it together, she kept telling herself. Keep it together, Nora.

She parked, made her way around the side of her house, and tossed her purse and keys onto her Adirondack chairs as she passed her deck. She kept walking until she reached the place where the grass and moss of her hill gave way to the strip of wet, rocky earth that rimmed the Hood Canal.

“I don’t know who I am,” John had said to her, and he’d looked and sounded anguished when he’d said it. He’d had no idea how appealing he was to her with his rugged body and his past glories and his vulnerabilities and his honor.

She’d tried to tell him that he was wonderful, but telling him he was wonderful had been like throwing a pebble into the Grand Canyon. Too little. No impact. She’d wanted to say so much more than she had. She’d wanted to refute the Bible verse he’d thrown at her to support the suggestion that God might be punishing him for the sins of his parents. She’d wanted to explain that his tarnished conception and fading eyesight were like age cracks in the surface of a Monet. If you had the intelligence to view the painting the right way, the cracks didn’t keep it from being what it was—a masterpiece.

Clearly, John hadn’t been ready to hear any of that.

She ran her hands down her face. Let her arms fall.

This struggle John was facing was bigger than she was. Far bigger than he was, too. She loved him, but she didn’t have the power to help him. This crisis was about his identity. This was about what was true and what was a lie. This was a battle of light and dark and, as such, was far, far above her pay grade.

She knew the One, though, who specialized in battles between light and dark.

She lowered onto the ground, letting her dress bell outward over her crossed legs, not caring that the damp would stain the fabric. She cleared her mind, preparing to pray for John. But what the Lord laid bare before her, with startling clarity, was . . .

Herself. Her own mistakes.

The day of her shopping trip to Seattle, she’d acknowledged that she had issues with letting God take control and issues with her singlehood. But her response to those realizations had largely been a self-help type of response. Choose contentment! Get your head straight about your singleness, Nora. Repair your self-image with a makeover.

When she’d started dating John, she’d loaded yet more responsibilities onto her own shoulders. Be smart, Nora. Protect yourself as much as you can. Take things slowly! And then, when her relationship with John had encountered its first trial, Make it right, Nora. Fix it.

Fresh certainty locked into place within her as she took in the details of her surroundings. She could not fix what was broken inside herself through self-help. She could not fix what was broken between herself and John through earnestness or well-meaning effort. She’d tried.

She’d failed miserably.

Three years ago she’d stepped to the helm and taken hold of the ship’s wheel of her life because it had no longer seemed safe to trust wholly in God. Since then, she’d attempted nothing larger than what her own human abilities could accomplish.

From this vantage point, however, she could see that her broken engagement hadn’t been an oversight on God’s part. He hadn’t fallen down on the job of running her life and accidentally let pain devour her.

That season of grief and dashed dreams, the season when she’d declared God to be the most unworthy of her trust, was actually the season when He’d been the very most worthy of her trust. He’d known that Harrison was not the man for her. Through her broken engagement, He’d been safeguarding her. But she hadn’t had the eyes to see it at the time. So, in her fear, she’d made God small.

She couldn’t continue managing five aspects of her life while delegating two to God. She couldn’t continue managing even two aspects of her life while delegating five to God. It couldn’t be Christ’s will plus her will. It had to be Christ alone.

Either He was the one at the helm, steering the ship’s wheel of her life, or she was.

Terror gathered, shaking and icy in her midsection. She wanted to draw back and protect herself from this precipice she’d come to because . . . what if He didn’t take her where she wanted to go? What if the future God had for her didn’t include John? Not a single fiber of her wanted that outcome. But if that was what happened . . .

Then Christ alone would be enough.

What if she never married?

Then Christ alone would be enough.

What if something terrible happened to one of her family members? Or her village went bankrupt? Or she was handed a diagnosis that rocked her the way John’s diagnosis had rocked him?

Then. Christ. Alone. Would be enough.

When she was scared or disappointed or racked with sorrow—that’s exactly when He would be the most trustworthy. In faith, she’d need to hold on to that truth regardless of what her eyes could see.

Nora dug her hands into the grass and pebbles, then bent her head. “You are trustworthy,” she whispered unevenly. “You are trustworthy.” She said it again and again, letting the chorus seep into her quavering heart and hungry soul. “I trust you with everything. My whole life. I want your will, Lord. Not mine. Just . . .” Her voice broke. “Just Christ alone. That’s what I choose. You’re enough.”

She prayed as hard as she’d ever prayed. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she humbled herself before the King of the Universe, God on His throne. He was not small at all, the way she’d tried to make Him. He was huge. The biggest thing there was.

She confessed her weaknesses and pleaded for His forgiveness. She thanked Him for His goodness. And she begged Him to fight for John.

“Remind John who he is. Remind him what his true identity is in you. Love John. Rescue John. You’re the only one who can.”

Letter from Sherry to John:

John,

Since we met the other day, my heart has been lighter in some ways than it has been since the day the nurse carried you out of my hospital room. In other ways, my heart has been heavy because I know the things I told you about Brian Raymond were very difficult for you to hear.

As you know, I’m no stranger to very difficult things. I can tell you unequivocally that there is joy and love and family and a future on the far side of difficult things. But, perhaps even more applicable to you in this moment, there is also peace, through the Lord’s provision, in the midst of difficult things. And that’s the sweetest peace there is.

You see, we so often long for a change in our circumstances. What’s ultimately of more value is God’s ability to strengthen us with power through His Spirit, so that we’ll be able to deal with the circumstances He doesn’t change. We can deal with them, John, if we have His supernatural power on our side.

I want you to know that I never regretted my decision to carry you and give birth to you. I’ve always been certain, ever since the day you were born, that I got that part right.

As I write this, I’m filled with gratitude to God because He led me to make the choices that, in turn, led you into the future He had for you. You were His son far more than you were ever my son, and God the Father was looking out for you every step of the way.

It’s clear to me that God placed you in the earthly family He meant for you to have. Now that I’m the age that I am and have experienced a few decades of motherhood, I’m sorry that I wasn’t the one who raised you. I’m sorry for all I missed, for all the things you and I didn’t experience together. Yet I acknowledge that the role of mother was not the role God had for me concerning you. I’m honored that He saw fit to give me the small part in your life that He gave me, and I’m amazed by the outstanding things He’s done through you. I’m full of expectation for the things He’s yet to do.

I’d like for us to stay in contact, but only if that’s all right with you.

Sincerely,
Sherry