All That Really Matters

by Nicole Deese

  “I love you.” I spoke the words again, relief intermixed with conviction. There were so many solutions we didn’t have, and yet, this was one answer I knew for certain.

  Her pained features morphed into a look I couldn’t quite identify. “But love shouldn’t be forced to live in our disappointments and loss.”

  “It’s not forced to live there—it chooses to.” I framed her face in my hands. “Love lives in the hard places with us because that’s what sets it apart. That’s what makes it love.”

  “I love you, Silas.” Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. “I’ll never be able to deserve you, but I love you just the same. So, so much.” Her lips curved into a smile so sweet I had no choice but to press my lips to hers, if only for an instant. But as I drew back, she whispered, “And maybe that’s exactly why this all hurts so deeply.”

  I nodded, pulling her close again, her meaning as clear as it was true. Even through the elation and hope we’d found in each other, our grief over what had been lost remained.

  We stood there together, arms wrapped around each other, until our breaths became as quiet as our unspoken thoughts.

  “How do I tell them?” she asked softly. “How do I tell the residents that everything we’ve worked so hard for this summer is canceled—the Dream Big Scholarship, The Event, the Murphey Grant, the expansion project. All of it lost.”

  “We’ll tell them together.” I ran my palm down the back of her head, her neck, her tensed shoulders. “Circumstances change, Molly. These kids know that better than most. There will be other years.”

  “Not for them.”

  Because none of them would be here in another five years for us to try again for the Murphey Grant.

  “I know.” I pulled her close as defeat pressed heavy against us both. “I know.”

  37

  Molly

  Of the many times I’d been inside the fireside room this summer, listening to weekly highs and lows while eating gooey cookies made by Glo’s bakers-in-training, last night’s impromptu meeting was the first that had not been met with empathetic smiles and whoops of delight. Instead, it was as if the room’s normal energy had been dialed back completely, leaving nothing but a lifeless tomb in its place.

  Silas had insisted on taking the brunt of their questions, sparing me from the rising emotion I’d fought to choke down while he explained why The Event had to be canceled. Why their hard work on the grounds, in the kitchen, and in making and gathering auction items no longer had a purpose. How the expansion would now become a goal earmarked for an undetermined year in the future. For an undetermined group of residents who likely would have no connection to any of them.

  As Silas had spoken to them in a patient tenor that could calm even the most chaotic of storms, I’d steadied my gaze on the framed blueprints above the unlit fireplace, the ones Jake had gifted the house out of hope for his brother’s vision. A vision nearly as heartbreaking as the tears that had slid down Monica’s rounded cheeks and the slumped shoulders Devon had tried to shrug off once he realized the songs he’d been rehearsing on his guitar had been for nothing.

  After the meeting, Wren had been the one to jog after me, her voice as tender as the hug she offered. “Please don’t feel bad, Molly. We all know how much work you put into this for us.” I’d nearly buckled under her kindness. I didn’t deserve it. Not when I’d been the one to lose the scholarship and the matching grant.

  “You’ve all put in just as much work as I have . . . it deserved to be seen, to be shared and celebrated with the world. I hope you know that. I so wish . . .” I’d clamped my mouth closed, breathing through the warning tingle in my nose. “I wish I could have made it happen for you all.”

  Now, nearly twenty-four hours later, as I strolled through the east lawn alone, crunching over fresh pea gravel and taking in the beauty of yellow daffodils surrounding a stage that should have been the backdrop to a history-changing event for The Bridge . . . I allowed my heart to grieve in full. For what had almost been. And for all that had been lost.

  While Silas had spent the better part of the morning making calls to the organizers of the Murphey Grant to ask for an extension on the August thirty-first deadline, I’d made some calls, too. Canceling the rental furniture, place settings, sound equipment, and catering. Every call ripped off another layer of failure, especially when I’d called Val.

  She’d been horrified over everything that had transpired—not being able to stop Ethan from freezing my accounts when she’d gotten wind of it, the cease and desist order, the loss of the brand we’d built together. All things neither of us had any control over. Despite her adamant refusal, I’d sent her funds to reimburse the cost of her trip out here. There simply wasn’t a good enough reason for her to spend the money or the time to fly out here now, not when The Event had been canceled, and not when I couldn’t offer her a replacement job at Makeup Matters with Molly . . . seeing as there was no more Makeup Matters with Molly.

  Disbelief clouded my mind as I looked to a sky swirling with muted pastels and streaks of sunlight. In a past life, I would have taken a selfie in this spot. I would have studied my phone screen, filtering the colors into the most eye-catching shades and then summarizing the moment with a vague inspirational quote no lengthier than 140 characters.

  And by the time I’d finished, I would have missed it all. The regal bow of a lowering sun, the brilliance of an unfiltered horizon, the palpable depth of a sensation no single hashtag could ever describe.

  A light breeze tickled the hair at the nape of my neck, and I turned my head toward the manor, feeling it again: the strangest desire to give up, to let go. Not only the dreams I’d once envisioned for my own life, but the dreams I’d had for this house, for this program, for a fundraiser that should have been a breeze given my platform and influence.

  And yet . . . my efforts hadn’t been enough.

  Rarely did I sit in the tension between my plans and God’s, between my wants and His, my way and His. Instead, I’d become an expert at throwing all my best efforts at problems bigger than myself and finding detours of escape without ever stopping to ask for guidance.

  “I’m listening now, God.” Now that I have nothing left to give and nothing left to offer anyone. My burdened shoulders sagged under the weight of that truth. “What do you want for this program? And what part am I supposed to play in it now?” I swallowed against the tightening in my throat, wishing I could go back in time and ask that of Him weeks ago.

  Months ago.

  Years ago.

  Fresh humility fell over me as I rotated to view the entire property, silently pleading for God to intervene.

  “Molly?”

  I jumped at the sound of Glo’s voice coming up behind me.

  I whipped around and she put her hands up. “Sorry, hon. Didn’t mean to startle you, but we’ve been trying to track you down for nearly an hour. Finally had to resort to our security cameras.”

  “Have I really been out here for that long?” That didn’t seem possible, and yet the sky was now a deep shade of violet, the grass shadowed in dusky gray and taupe.

  “Not sure how long you’ve been out here.” She smiled, something like mischief twinkling in her eyes. “But I do know your presence has been requested in the fireside room for a meeting with some very important people.”

  The levity of her tone and the hand she extended toward me came with a peace I’d been craving since the moment Ethan showed up at the front door. As I linked my arm through hers, I couldn’t help but glance up at the darkened sky, begging God to tune my ears to whatever He was up to now.

  As I walked down the hallway toward the fireside room with Glo, Silas wasn’t far behind us. Apparently, he’d received the same summons. He followed on the heels of a subdued Diego, his inquisitive expression much like my own.

  Silas inclined his head to me. “You know anything about this?”

  “Not a thing. Any luck on getting an extension on the Murphey Grant?�
��

  He gave a resolved shake of his head, confirming what we both knew. We were out of time and out of options. Silas took my hand and lifted it to his mouth, sealing it with a kiss before letting it drop as our escorts walked ahead of us and entered the room. All sounds of shuffling feet ceased, and the hushed voices we could hear from the hallway dropped to a soft murmur.

  The instant we cleared the doorway, we stopped, frozen in our tracks at the sight awaiting us.

  Shoulder to shoulder, lining the entire back wall, were all twenty-two residents at The Bridge, each of them holding up a handwritten sign on white poster board. I read them one by one, from left to right, my heart pounding as their words drilled straight through my chest.

  Devon: Broke. No family.

  Monica: High school dropout. Fear of homelessness.

  Amy: Insecure. Bad relationships. No place to call home.

  Diego: Addicted. No job. Sleeping in my car.

  Wren: Grieving and afraid. No hope. No friends.

  As we neared the end of the line, reading and stepping our way down the row in silence, my hand hovered close to my heart, as if the action alone might soothe the ache. It didn’t.

  As we read the last sign, Monica gave a cue for everyone to flip their signs over, and I gasped, taking several steps back to read them all at once.

  Wren: No longer afraid. Enrolled in community college. Deep friendships.

  Diego: Sober ten months. Mechanic school. Roommates like family.

  Amy: Know my worth. Relationship with God. Thankful for my community.

  Monica: Second year studying in PA program. Savings account. Security.

  Devon: Part-time job. Full-time friends.

  Silas and I didn’t move from our places on the carpet squares. But the way he cleared his throat and shifted his feet told me I hadn’t been the only one affected by the powerful display of vulnerability and strength. Wren stepped forward, her shy smile as steady as her blue-eyed gaze. She focused on me.

  “We understand why you say The Event has to be canceled. But you’ve also said our efforts deserve to be seen by the world. And that our voices deserve to be heard by people who could help our cause.” She paused, looking at the others around her. “Each of us know kids our age who weren’t fortunate enough to secure a home like this, or be in a program that helps them make a plan for their future. We think we can do something about that. Maybe it won’t bring in as much as we could have raised with the fancy dinner, but we all have stories to tell about what our life was like before The Bridge and what it’s like now. We want to ask you to help us share them—not some day in the future, but now, while we still have time.”

  Only, time was the one thing we didn’t have. August thirty-first was only days away.

  “Wow, this is . . . ” I felt the weight of the room on my shoulders. On my heart. I studied each of their hope-filled faces, holding back a laugh-sob when Devon made pleading hands while he waggled his thick eyebrows in anticipation. But while I wanted nothing more than to say yes to them, and to create a special series post to promote each of their stories . . . I no longer had a platform to do so.

  I looked at Silas, who seemed to be dealing with his own inner turmoil. No doubt he saw his oldest brother in each of these kids’ signs. The Carlos who could have avoided much of his strife and addiction if only he’d been given a chance to thrive, a home that supported him the way The Bridge supported these twenty-two lives. But we both knew it couldn’t happen like this. Not without a tried-and-true strategy, not without the use of a visible platform. Gaining any sort of traction on a single post would be next to impossible. It had taken me nearly three years to grow the kind of visibility these kids hoped to reach in days. Even for a glass-half-full thinker like me, I refused to be the one to fill them with false hope. Not again.

  I swallowed and lifted my chin to address them all with the same courtesy and respect they’d addressed us with. This time I wouldn’t let Silas be the deliverer of bad news. I was the one who had let them down, not him. I was the one who made promises I couldn’t keep. “What you’ve done with these signs is powerful. A brilliant idea that should make you proud of your testimonies and of a program you’ve worked and succeeded in . . . but I’m afraid what you’re asking can’t be done. Not in so little time and not with so few resources. I don’t have a platform I can access. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers who can share your stories with the world and link to a donation account. Even if I had those things, the timing would still be tight to raise the funds we need by the deadline.”

  “I have five hundred followers,” Monica said, stepping out and lowering her sign. “And I’m on a few study group pages for my classes at school. I can ask them all to share our posts, and they all have people who would share them, too. It’s a great cause.”

  “And I have almost a thousand on my Instagram,” Amy said. “And one of my old foster sisters has nearly four thousand. She’s in a pop band.”

  “As of today,” Devon said, glancing at his phone screen, “I have two hundred and thirty-six fans on TikTok. But that’s only because I just signed up when I got my phone. I’m sure I can wrangle up more.”

  “See?” Wren pleaded. “We can do this if we all work together.”

  I glanced back at Silas, whose steadfast gaze was trained on the kids.

  “I’m so sorry, I know how much this means to you all, but those numbers simply won’t be enough to get us there.”

  “Would you say that to a waiting kid?” Diego asked, his voice tinged with tears. “Because if not for Silas going to bat for me after I failed my mechanic exam, I’d be back on that list. And I’d probably be living under a breezeway or in a friend’s car. What’s the harm in us trying? If not for The Bridge, every one of us could have been a statistic for homelessness, addiction . . . and worse.”

  My throat burned so badly I could barely speak. “I don’t want to say no to you, Diego. I don’t want to say no to any waiting teen on that list, but I . . . ” And then, although I had no reason to pause, no reason to hesitate, I was suddenly out of words. Because my ears had heard it that time. The I in a sentence it had no right to be in. Because my answer wasn’t only pointing to my lack of resources, it was pointing to my lack of faith. My lack of control. My lack of a calculated outcome.

  These twenty-two kids who stood before me, these twenty-two kids who’d been beaten by life’s hardships and trampled on by traumas I couldn’t even imagine, were all willing to believe in the God who made the impossible possible. And why wouldn’t they? Each of them was living it now. Each of them knew where they’d be without this house. Without this hope. Suddenly, their ask was so much bigger than a vision board or an off-the-page goal. Their ask was about lives being rescued and souls being saved from the prowling darkness of a world I’d only glimpsed from the safety of my cushy existence.

  Not anymore.

  “Molly?” Silas’s tender voice drew my eyes up to his. “What do you think? Can you help them share their stories?”

  The irony of the same man who’d once scolded me for posting a video from his lobby now asking me to link a video of his residents to an online fundraising campaign wasn’t lost on me. Just like this moment. Just like this giant task before us.

  And now, for an entirely different reason than when I’d first walked into this room, my heart began to pound and my palms began to sweat. I didn’t know how it would all work out or if we’d even raise enough for a single mattress to be added to one of the cottages, but I did know what my answer had to be. Because I finally understood the question being asked. It wasn’t about what I could give or what I could offer or what I could create in my own strength.

  The real question, the bigger question, was about what God wanted to do with that waiting list of hurting kids—an answer, I realized, He’d never intended to come through my efforts alone.

  Joy and determination rose within me. “I think I have no grounds to say no, especially since your online fo
llowers now outnumber mine by a hundred percent.” Laughter bounced off the walls. “Let’s do this.”

  38

  Molly

  If ever there was a need for a good under-eye concealer, it was today. Only there was no time for makeup routines or hair styling or any form of my usual Mandatory Recording Day Protocols. Filming had to begin within the next ninety minutes if we were going to be able to record, edit, post, and promote in time to get any kind of traction for our Bridge The Gap fundraising campaign. The night had been short and the morning had come early, and there were currently sixteen residents waiting for either me, Glo, or Clara to review their notes on what The Bridge had provided them during their time in the program.

  While they had been preparing last night for their short on-camera testimonials today, I’d been researching with Val. She’d video chatted with me until the wee hours of the morning, propped on a soggy Chinese take-out box, providing moral support through my phone screen. What I wouldn’t give to have her here with me in person today! Val was quite literally the savviest woman I knew. Even still, when you only had hours to research how to fundraise using social media . . . the results were limited at best. After we’d exhausted our efforts and our go-to resources on Google, the answer of how to pull this off had never been more clear: We needed a miracle sent on a two-day express from heaven.

  “Molly?” Glo waved me over to the pretty garden area where she and Diego worked to set up the lights and tripod on the stage the way I’d instructed. “Can you explain about the angles again? Should the sun be in front of the interviewee or behind them?”

  I opened my mouth to answer her, only to hear my name being called from somewhere behind me by Amy. The number of nervous tears that had already been shed this morning was at least five times greater than the cups of coffee I’d consumed.

  Amy marched toward me, waving her notes in the air. “Monica and I have identical lines planned for our interviews—is that allowed? Does one of us need to change our testimony?”