The spattering on the roof above filled him with guilt. Fifteen minutes ago the rain had started, and now it was just a steady sound of shame. In the dark of their bedroom, J.D. had waited long enough. He climbed out from under the warm covers and then reached for the pants on the nearby chair.
“What are you doing?” Teri’s voice asked behind him.
So she’s not sleeping, too.
“I’m gonna go get them.”
He wondered if Teri had been thinking about the mother and daughter.
“Now?” she asked.
“Yes, now. While it’s cold and wet and raining.”
There was a pause. Then she asked the obvious.
“How are you going to find them?”
Buttoning up his shirt, J.D. realized he didn’t quite know. “I’ll figure it out.”
“J.D. . . .”
His wife had been mostly silent since their argument earlier that day. He knew that Teri hadn’t changed her mind at all, but was instead slowly starting to retreat. She knew he hated it when she did this. Turning inward, building and fortifying a wall that sometimes was impossible to get through. Sometimes—many times—J.D. had to just give up and wave the white flag. But in this case, he knew he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. It had been long enough.
He slipped into the bathroom for a moment, then started to make his way out of the bedroom.
“I’ll be waiting,” Teri said. “For all of you.”
“Thanks.”
Now he had to figure out where to even start to look.
• • •
ON THE DRIVE toward the shelter where he had met the cute girl and her strained mother, J.D. prayed. He asked God to help him find them. He just wanted to help them in whatever way he could. Maybe he should have asked them earlier, but he didn’t. Now, as the wipers tried to keep clearing away the rain so he could see, J.D. was reminded that you sometimes didn’t get a second chance in life. To offer to help out a stranger. To ask forgiveness from someone you’ve hurt.
Or to say goodbye to a daughter you love.
Words came to mind. The young girl talking about their orange dorkmobile. Then something else.
The parking lot a block away.
Lily had said something about that in passing when talking about their car. He had simply forgotten about it. Well, almost forgotten about it.
He parked alongside the curb next to the lot. It was half full and had a fence around it. J.D. wondered if they had to pay to park in it overnight. Even if they did, it was still cheaper than a motel room.
Nobody needs to sleep in their car. Not these days.
Maybe they had gotten lucky and found space to sleep in the shelter. But something told him they hadn’t. It had been a gentle nudge. Well, maybe not so gentle. Pulling him out of his bed. That’s what it had been like. And maybe it had been the Holy Spirit getting his attention. J.D. wasn’t sure.
He slipped the flashlight into his coat pocket, then realized he’d forgotten his umbrella. That was okay. Maybe the rain falling on his head would allow some of his hair to grow back. God could work miracles and maybe that’d be one of them.
He walked through the rows of cars, and it only took a few minutes to find the vehicle. It stood out like a toddler’s drawing in an art museum. The flashlight pierced through the windows, and sure enough there was a head moving around in the driver’s seat.
Hope I don’t scare them . . .
It was definitely Samantha. J.D. could tell just by seeing the long hair. Her face turned, eyes squinting and shielding themselves with a hand.
“Samantha?” he called out to the closed window and door.
By now he was pretty much soaked, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t want to freak them out, but he also wanted them to know there was a better place for them to spend the night.
“What do you want?” the woman called out from behind the glass.
She sounded alarmed and defensive.
I don’t blame her.
“Look—I’d like to offer you a place to stay—to get out of this weather.”
“How’d you find us?”
The window hadn’t moved an inch. Samantha was blocking any view to the other seat, but J.D. was pretty certain Lily was sitting right next to her.
“Your daughter mentioned you sometimes slept out here. But—with the rain . . . I knew the shelter would be jammed. So I looked around for an ‘orange dorkmobile.’ And there you were.”
“We’re fine, really,” Samantha said.
He could feel his arms start to shake. This coat wasn’t helping much, either.
“I know. But you don’t have to stay out here.”
“Just because we’re on the street doesn’t mean I’m not a good mother.”
“The thought never crossed my mind,” J.D. said.
He knew she was wondering whether he was telling the truth. Maybe she was weighing their options, trying to decide if he could be trusted, wondering how safe it might be to go home with a stranger.
“Look, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I need to know what this is about,” she said.
“Fair enough,” J.D. stated.
He wiped rain off his face even though more simply filled its place.
Just tell her the truth.
“My wife and I? We had a daughter of our own once. But we lost her. And since then, we haven’t felt anything but her loss.”
The woman just looked at him, the fire in her eyes suddenly dimming. J.D. knew he was talking to a kindred spirit. This mother knew a little about loss.
“Truth be told,” he continued, “I think we need this more than you do.”
For a long moment J.D. stood there, soaked, silent, waiting for some kind of answer. But that’s all anybody could do. Ask and then wait.
Just like they’d done for so many years with their Heavenly father. Asking for the ache to go away. Waiting for it to leave them. Yet they were still asking and still waiting.
The mother turned her head for a moment, saying something to her daughter, then she turned back at him.
Her answer was barely audible behind the window.
“Okay.”
That was enough for J.D.