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Esther
One week after Esther met Derek, she found him sitting on the front steps of the church. She’d left home early to unlock the building and get some heat going, and there he was. She stopped on the sidewalk, unsure of how to proceed. Should she turn around and go back home until the other ladies arrived? Then they could all deal with him together?
She didn’t want to call Roderick Puddy again. They couldn’t be bothering that poor man every time one of them got a splinter.
Derek spotted her. Oh no. Too late to turn around. He lifted his arm in a genial wave, and she tried to make her return wave just as friendly.
She got her feet moving again. “Good morning, Derek! How are you today?” The closer she got, the more nervous she got. She still wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she got there.
“I’m all right.” He studied her. “Don’t worry. I won’t follow you inside until others get here. I don’t want to make you nervous.”
Should this self-awareness comfort her? Or frighten her further? “I’m actually not going inside just yet.” She forced a smile. “It’s still early.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
She looked around the yard, trying to come up with a lie. Why had she come to church so early if she wasn’t going to go inside? She could claim she’d come to rake the leaves, but there was no rake. She could pretend to check the mail, but he was sitting inches from the mailbox. She could say she was going for her morning walk, but then ... “Actually, Derek, I was going to go inside, but now I’ve changed my mind. I’ll think I’ll wait for the others.” She braced herself, waiting for him to be offended.
He nodded understandingly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He stood up. “I was just eager is all, and I’ve got nowhere else to go. But I’ll go for a walk. You go on inside and get things ready. I’ll come back later.” He smiled, but his eyes were sad. He came down the steps toward her.
She felt guilty. Maybe she shouldn’t be so nervous. God would protect her. “Nah, it’s all right. You can come in.”
He watched his feet as he walked. He shook his head. “Nope. You were right the first time.” He kicked at the leaves. “I’ll go try to find a rake.”
She watched him go and then, realizing how cold she’d gotten with all her indecisiveness, hurried inside. She locked the door behind her and then went to turn the heat up. Barbara’s son Kyle had finally gotten the furnace working, and they’d even managed to squirt a bit of oil into the tank, so they wouldn’t have to mess with the space heaters today. Those had worked well enough, but they’d flipped two circuits in the process. She didn’t need to be trudging up and down the stairs during the service to flip circuits.
With the pastries out and the coffee on, she sat in the front pew to catch her breath. All the windows were installed now, and the soft morning sunlight streamed through the windows and lit up the old wooden cross over the altar. Thank God for Kyle. He’d done a lot of work on the place already. It still looked like a work in progress, but it no longer looked like an abandoned building.
Her pocketbook started to vibrate and she pulled it closer to her and dug out her phone. She assumed it was one of the ladies calling to say they were feeling under the weather. It was getting to be that time of year. But her heart leapt when she saw the caller ID. It was her daughter!
“Christy! Good morning!” She made no attempt to keep the glee out of her voice.
“Mom ...” That’s all she said, but Esther could hear the pain.
“What is it? Are you all right? Is it Zoe? Or Danielle?”
Christy swallowed hard. “We’re all okay. Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. But ...” Her voice cracked. “But I am scared. It’s Zoe. I don’t know what to do, Mom. She won’t listen to me. She won’t stop.”
