55

“Umm, Emma,” Darcy said, squeezing the bridge of her nose. “Remember you’re supposed to hold Eloise’s hand as you walk through all the townspeople.”

The play was tomorrow evening and the final dress rehearsal was a disaster. She lost three adults to Christmas Festival duties and two of her angels to a school choir concert. Emma seemed to have forgotten more lines than she remembered and Lizzie had a sore throat and couldn’t practice her solo. The batting was still white so it wasn’t a complete disaster.

“But Miss Dawsie, my’s hands awr getting reals hot and sticky. I bets Miss E’leez don’t wants to hold my hand. It’s gross,” Emma said.

“Yes, well, the show must go on, hot and sticky hands or not. And if Shelby doesn’t hold Guard Ann’s hand, how will she have enough spirit to help tell the story of the Baby Jesus and the very first Christmas? Doesn’t Shelby keep Guard Ann, umm, well…” How was she supposed to say that Shelby kept the mythical snow angel Guard Ann alive? Explaining the details of pyro-sequencing to a room full of undergraduates was growing more and more appealing by the day.

“Emma, you need to do what Miss Darcy says.”

“Yes, G-ma.” Emma’s blond curls seemed to droop with the correction.

Darcy glanced over her shoulder and offered Nancy Jessup, Emma’s grandmother, a soft smile. “All right team, let’s try it from the top. I’ll watch from the sound booth. Let’s run it through beginning to end. No stops. You miss a line, just keep going. You’ll be great.” Please Lord, don’t let me be a liar. Darcy climbed the flight of stairs to the perch at the top of the sanctuary and slid onto the seat beside Sissy Jenkins.

“Well, they’re terrible. Aren’t they?”

“Mrs. Jenkins, there’s a theory in the theater that an awful rehearsal translates into a perfect performance.”

“Well, at this rate they should be award winners tomorrow night.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Darcy smiled. “If you want to go, I can run the sound for the rest of the practice.”

“I’m not a quitter. Not like you.”

Darcy twisted in her seat. “Excuse me? What are talking about?”

“Finnegan said there was nothing between the two of you, but I have eyes. I saw you two smashing faces in front of Lulu’s house last Friday. Didn’t look like nothing to me. And yet, last night at the Leadership meeting, Finnegan said there was nothing going on between you two. A load of malarkey, if you ask me.”

Smashing faces?

Mrs. Jenkins saw her kissing, Finn? Maybe the floorboards were loose, and she could catch a break. Is a fall through to the sanctuary floor too much to ask, Lord?

Darcy faced Mrs. Jenkins. “I don’t know why Finn and I were a topic of discussion, but as he said there’s nothing between us.” Or at least there was nothing from him to her. There was a whole bunch from her to him.

“That’s what he said, and clearly, you are a quitter.”

Darcy gritted her teeth and focused on the performance. She wanted to yell at Mrs. Jenkins. “Momma didn’t raise no quitter” resounded in her mind, but she didn’t think stoking a fight with one of the founding LAS members was a good idea for Finn or her. Why wouldn’t Finn have told the committee he broke things off with her, not the other way around?

Shaking her head, she tried to focus on the play, but the thought of Finn denying anything existed between them stung with the fierceness of a thousand bees. Her vision fogged against the unfolding scene of Guard Ann coming to life, but none of the beautifully, sappy dialogue cut through the intense betrayal she felt. How could Finn have negated the powerful affection they had shared? She didn’t care, she had known him for less than two weeks. What she felt for Finn was as real as the fingers attached to her hands and the performance playing out before her. Two weeks or two years wouldn’t change the feelings she had for Finn, regardless of the lack of reciprocation.

She rubbed her cheek against her shoulder, willing the sob-fest onslaught to wait until she was safely snug under the mounds of blankets on her bed at Aunt Lulu’s.

“And that’s how the light came into the world.” Eloise voice cut through the sadness suffocating Darcy. “With the help of a few angels, and a lot of love from Heaven.”

“Better guys.” Darcy said, spinning out of her chair and away from the surly, unkind comments from Mrs. Jenkins. “Let’s wrap up. We have a big day tomorrow. We want to save our best for the audience tomorrow.”

Shuffling down the stairs, she lifted a silent prayer to be focused on the kids and adults dedicating their precious free time. God and this cast deserved her full focus. Her romantic quandary would have to be put on the back burner.

Walking down the aisle, her heart warmed at the sight of the cast, young and young at heart, circled in front of the altar.

“Miss Darcy, we aways prays befores a play. Rights, Miss E’loeez?” Emma asked.

Eloise nodded. “Your aunt started the prayer circle. She said asking for God to be the star of our production was the most important part of any play.”

Of course, Aunt Lulu remembered to keep God front and center when people were taking center stage. Darcy clasped Emma and Lizzie’s hands and a quiet peace seeped through her. She loved this church. The building was nice, but the people were amazing. “Who wants to pray for us?”

Eloise smiled, “Darcy, it’s a tradition that our director leads the prayer.”

“Shall we bow our heads?” Darcy shut her eyes against the beautiful wave of bowing heads and drew a lung filling breath. “Our Heavenly Father, we come together today to say thank You. Thank You for giving us a story to tell. Thank You for loving us so much that You chose to send Your Son to be our salvation. Thank You for placing willing spirits in each of our cast members and supporters. We ask, Father, that Your Glory might be seen through our humble performance. And that in all things You receive all the praise and honor. Please bless this play, the Christmas Festival, and Gibson’s Run so everyone who might join us in celebrating might know the true joy of knowing Jesus. In Your Son’s Holy Name. Amen.”

Murmurs of “amen” filled the sanctuary. Amidst calls to be in the education wing by six the following night for costumes and make-up, the cast retreated.

Darcy began rolling the batting to return the sanctuary to the holy state.

“Darcy.”

She turned at the kind tone of Nancy Jessup. “Can I help you, Mrs. Jessup?”

“Nancy, please.”

Darcy tied the wide ribbon to secure the roll of batting and nodded. “Nancy, how can I help you?”

Nancy sat on the front pew and patted the space beside her. “I was hoping I could help you.”

Biting the side of her cheek, Darcy laid down the fluffy roll and closed the few steps to sit. “Don’t you have Emma tonight? I heard Pastor Tom say Ryland and Tessa were having pre-marital counseling. Must be weird, right? Having your dad and your future father-in-law give you marital advice? Harper told me Ryland had a huge crush on Tessa all through school, so it’s nice it’s working out and all.”

“Darcy, I love my son and Tessa, but I don’t want to talk about them. I was hoping to offer you a little advice, if you don’t mind?”

“Oh, OK…”

“How do you really feel about Finn?”

Did this whole town know she was making out with the pastor in the middle of the street? Of course, the first time in like a decade she had caught feelings, Darcy would fall for the most visibly pious person in a town the size of a nickel. “Finn’s a wonderful man.”

“Yes, dear, I know. I was wondering how you felt about him, romantically, I mean.”

How did she tell this woman she loved Finn with all her heart and each minute she wasn’t moving forward in life with him a part of her was breaking? How did she say those words out loud when she could barely admit them in her mind? Darcy lifted her watery gaze to Nancy and swallowed against the words fighting to be spoken.

Nancy squeezed Darcy’s fingers. “My dear, even if you don’t say the words, the whole town can see the feelings. And right about now, I believe our dear, sweet, misguided Pastor Finn is in as much pain as you. Trying to stifle and disregard emotions will eat you up if you don’t let them out.”

If Darcy closed her eyes, Nancy’s words could have slipped through Penny Langston’s lips. Her mother lived for the melodramatic, and so it seemed did Harper’s mom.

“Mrs. Jessup, um, Nancy. I appreciate your caring, I really do, but whatever Finn and I have, or had doesn’t matter anymore. Finn doesn’t feel the same…what I mean to say is Finn doesn’t want…he needs a…” He needs a break? After two weeks of non-date kissing in the side streets of Gibson’s Run? If she wasn’t careful, the LAS ladies and Leadership committee would toss her out on her legging clad bottom, and she wouldn’t even get to see the Christmas pageant or attend Christmas Eve service with Lulu.

“My dear, we all heard Finn stumble over the same message last night. You both clearly have real feelings for each other.”

“But we’ve only known each other for two weeks.”

Nancy waved a hand as she leaned back into the pew. “I knew my husband for twenty-four hours the first time he proposed.”

“Twenty-four hours? He proposed after twenty-four hours. What did you say?”

“Well, no. He was always more impetuous than I. He asked me twenty-one more times. Each day for the next three weeks until I finally agreed, more because he was annoying but also because I was starting to fear he wouldn’t ask a twenty-second time and I really did want to spend the rest of my life with him.”

“Did you have a long engagement?” Three weeks from date one to proposal seemed fast, even for someone raised on Austen and the drama of first love romances.

“Well, comparatively yes. We were married the following month. Then he left for training camp and I left for my master’s program.”

Wait? What? “You got married and then moved apart?”

She nodded. “Carl was a romantic and one to play the long game. On our first date he told me he wanted enough children for a starting defensive line and he would follow me wherever I wanted to go as long as he could play football. He only made it a couple seasons in the NFL, but he was good to his word. I was on a graduate track for my PhD in literature and he quickly transitioned to coaching. He was an assistant to the linebackers’ coach at the university, and we settled into a nice quiet life. Our first four daughters were born by the time I finished my thesis, on track for tenure in five to seven years. And Carl’s star rose quickly too. After five years he was the defensive coordinator. Our lives were as perfect as I could have ever imagined — until the call.”

“The call?”

“The call to coach in Gibson’s Run. Carl grew up here. Small town boy. He loved this town, but I was a city girl. Columbus was as small as I ever wanted to go. I liked the constant sound of horns and the occasional comfort of a siren late at night. There is an energy to a city that seems to give you a drive you can’t explain if you don’t live there.

“And when Carl was offered the job to revive the football program at GRHS, he jumped at the chance. Only he didn’t tell me. He accepted the job. Bought a house. Hired movers. Enrolled our oldest in elementary school and never bothered to tell me he had an interview.”

“That’s awful!”

“Yes, well. Men have an odd way of communicating. But in the long run, he was right. I would have fought him every step of the way. And still did, for a little while once we moved to Gibson’s Run. But I soon found I had a new love, beyond my impulsive husband and house full of children. I fell in love with this town and the people.”

Nancy Jessup blurred in Darcy’s vision. She felt the same way about Gibson’s Run. She was as in love with this town as she was with Finn.

“I’m not saying it was always easy being married to the hometown hero. Our family was constantly watched for a wrong move or special treatment. We couldn’t argue in public or even disagree on where to have dinner. Living under a microscope isn’t easy. But the choice would have been not to have said yes to Carl all those years ago and what kind of life would I have had then?”

“Nancy, I love hearing your story, but I’m not quite sure why you are telling me.”

“Darcy, dear. You are embarking on two relationships. One with the sweet, yet slightly emotionally stunted, pastor. His job is extremely demanding. And it will often feel like he has put the job before you. But the love you clearly have for him and the love for you, he ineffectively tried to hide at the leaders meeting last night, will be more than enough to sustain and strengthen you.”

“But he broke up with me!” Her voice screeched against her own ears, reverberating through the perfect acoustics in the sanctuary. “Not exactly broke up… he stepped back from me. Whatever that means. He doesn’t care about me more than what your Leadership committee thinks.”

“My dear, we only asked him about your relationship because we were happy for him. He deserves happiness.”

Darcy shook her head. “If he really cared about me or wanted to be in a relationship with me, he would have said so.”

“And what about that fancy new job?”

“The new position has nothing to do with anything. I didn’t even tell him about the job. And besides, it shouldn’t impact anything. Elaine knows I need to stay in town to take care of Lulu.”

“But that’s only until Lulu gets better, then you’ll go back to your life, right?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I mean I haven’t made any definitive plans, but Gibson’s Run is the first place that has felt like home in a very long time. Regardless of what Finn and I are or are not, I have fallen in love with this town. A forty-five-minute drive for love doesn’t seem like too much of a compromise.”

“Does Finn know you are staying?”

“He should.” Shouldn’t he? But he had never asked what was next for Darcy. And she never shared. In reality, Darcy hadn’t known what was next until the pieces clicked into place over the last few days when Finn was playing a good game of hide and no seek.

“You might want to tell him.”