by Myra Johnson
I couldn’t explain it. I only knew I wouldn’t be able to let all these bottled-up feelings go until I faced her again. “Please, Clifton, it’s just something I need to do.”
“All righty.” He shrugged and continued on into town. A few minutes later he pulled up at the main entrance of St. Joseph Mercy Health Center. “I’ll park and wait for you, okay?”
“No, don’t. I have no idea how long I’ll be.” I patted my purse. “Got my phone. I’ll call Sandy to come get me.”
“Julie Pearl—”
“Please, Clifton. Go back to the Swap & Shop. Grandpa needs you more than I do.”
He finally relented and drove away, while I limped inside and made my way to the information desk. “I’d like to ask about a patient, please. Renata Channing.”
“Sure, I’ll look her up.” The volunteer checked her computer screen, and then her smile slowly faded. “Are you a relative of Mrs. Channing?”
“I, uh . . . no.”
“Then all I can tell you, dear, is that she is no longer a patient here.”
“She was released?”
The volunteer pursed her lips. “Mrs. Channing has been transferred to another facility.”
Like I couldn’t guess what kind. Had Aunt Geneva made those arrangements? It would be reassuring to believe Larry had cut his business trip short so he could take care of his wife, but somehow I suspected that wasn’t the case. I thanked the lady and shuffled away.
Plopping into an empty chair in the hospital lobby, I fished my cell phone from my purse and hit the speed dial for Sandy’s cell. As I counted the rings, I wondered if Sandy would even be working today. For all I knew, Micah may have changed his building plans all over again, now that his intention to restore the resort for “Jenny” no longer had any relevance.
Sandy answered on the third ring. “How’s it going, girlfriend? You up and at ’em yet?”
I watched an elderly man in a hospital-issue robe scoot by with his walker. “I’m up, but hardly at ’em. Where are you?”
“At the office. We had some repairs and cleanup to do after . . . you know.”
For no good reason, I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Is he there?”
“Yep.” Sandy lowered her voice, too. “And as maniacally workaholic as I’ve ever seen him.”
I heard Micah’s gruff tone in the background. “Is that Julie? Let me talk to her.”
My stomach lurched. I gripped the phone with both hands. “Don’t, Sandy. I’m not ready—”
Muffled sounds, Sandy’s feeble protests.
Then Micah’s voice. “Julie. Where are you? We need to talk.”
CHAPTER 40
It wasn’t twenty minutes before Micah’s red pickup pulled up at the entrance to St. Joseph’s. Micah stepped from the driver’s side and waved to me across the hood. By the time I hobbled outside, he had the passenger door open. I slanted him an uneasy smile as I levered myself into the seat.
Sliding behind the wheel, Micah started to fasten his seatbelt, then noticed I was fumbling with mine. With tenderness he removed my trembling fingers from the buckle and snapped it into place. For a moment our gazes met, and in the depths of his clouded gray eyes I read regret, anguish, love.
He broke away, his Adam’s apple working furiously as he steered the pickup toward the highway.
I noticed we were heading west. “Where exactly are we going?”
“No idea. And I don’t care, so long as it’s as far from the resort as we can get.”
Considering the autumn chill in the air, I came up with an idea. “How about the science museum? We’re headed that direction, and it shouldn’t be too crowded on a school day.”
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Apparently every elementary school in the county had decided today was perfect for a field trip. A line of bright yellow school buses dwarfed the few passenger vehicles parked in the lot.
Micah slapped the steering wheel. “Any other suggestions?”
“Just park. Let’s go in.” I brushed away a trickle of wetness from my cheek. “Getting lost in the crowd sounds pretty good right now.”
After Micah paid our admission, we wandered into the exhibit hall, dodging hordes of laughing children as they darted from one display to another. Teachers and chaperones meandered through the melee with deer-in-the-headlights stares.
I slipped my hand into Micah’s as we paused near the pendulum, watching it trace gentle arcs with trickling sand—so long as the motion wasn’t disturbed by impatient kindergartners. I sensed Micah’s impatience, too, in the tension in his forearm, the grim set of his bearded jaw.
And why was I so reluctant to be alone with him? How could things get any worse than they already were?
“Come on.” I led Micah toward the stairs. We bypassed the rowdy concessions area and exited to the outdoor deck, where relative (if chilly) quiet reigned under soughing pines and leafless oaks. I slid onto a picnic bench, and Micah settled beside me. At least this way I didn’t have to face him, but the warmth of his thigh against mine was almost as unnerving.
“Julie, I—”
“Micah, there’s—”
“Okay, you first,” he said with a hoarse laugh.
I shivered, and he drew me into the shelter of his arm. I took a deep breath. “I know what set Renata off. It’s because I told her I knew—” I choked, barely able to get the next words out. “It was all a huge mistake, Micah. I . . . I’m not Jenny after all.”
“So I gathered.” His gaze slid my way. “You saw the DNA results?”
“No, but something else just as convincing. Some old photos Geneva Nelson gave me.”
He kept his arm around my shoulder, but he inhaled long and slow. “I think I always knew. It seemed too good to be true.”
I braved a look to search his face. “Are you okay?”
The muscles in his cheeks knotted. He pulled his arm away and fisted both hands on the scarred surface of the table. “That woman—what she did to you, to us—it’s unforgivable.”
I covered his hands with my own. “Don’t you understand, Micah? Forgiveness is the only choice we have.”
He shot me a look of utter disbelief. “You’re saying you can forgive Renata for the way she strung you along all this time? For playing with our lives? For creating this crazy fantasy that Jenny hadn’t died?”
“If I want to stay sane, yes. I have to forgive her. Like I said, it’s our only choice.”
“You want choices?” He clambered to his feet, then shook his fist at me. “How about hating her? How about demanding she pay for what she’s done? How about—”
“Stop, Micah. Stop and listen to yourself.” I swung my legs to the other side of the bench, wincing when my injured foot scraped the corner. Rubbing the pain away, I continued, “What have you gained by despising Renata all these years, besides ulcers and a broken heart?”
“I wouldn’t have a broken heart if she weren’t so vindictive, if I’d never gotten involved with her in the first place. And Jenny, poor little innocent Jenny—” His gaze settled on me, and his face contorted with renewed grief and guilt.
“Micah, don’t.” I rose and wrapped him in my arms. “I’d give anything if I could bring Jenny back for you. But I can’t. And you can’t, either. Not by holding onto your hatred for Renata, not by rebuilding the resort.”
“But—”
“No, listen to me.” I took his face between my hands, the rough feel of his beard so familiar, so dear. “We can either forgive Renata and put the past behind us, or we can let bitterness eat us alive. Don’t waste any more time hating her or yourself, Micah, not when you could be spending that time loving me.”
He pulled me close and kissed my forehead. “I do love you, Julie. When you walked out on me, when you said we couldn’t be together anymore, something inside me died.”
I took a half-step back. “Don’t look to me to complete you, Micah, because I can’t. I meant what I said before. As long as you’re holding so tightly to
guilt and hate and anger, there’s no room in your heart for love.” My voice broke on a sob. “There’s no room in your heart for me.”
~~~
I don’t think we said five words to each other on the drive back to the resort. Micah offered to take me all the way to Caddo Pines, but I didn’t think it was such a good idea under the circumstances. His nearness only worsened the pain of letting him go. Again.
He parked the pickup next to Sandy’s car in the paved parking area beside the house. When he shut off the engine, the silence settled over us like a heavy quilt, yet neither of us made a move to get out.
Finally I reached for the door handle. “I should go. Tell Sandy I’ll wait for her in the car.”
“Julie . . . help me.”
The words were barely a whisper, torn ragged from a parched throat. I jerked my head toward Micah and saw the brokenness in his staring eyes, trained on some object beyond the windshield.
Before I could answer, he continued in the same rasping voice. “When Jenny drowned—such a precious little girl—nothing about my life made sense anymore.” He sighed long and loud, his gaze sliding sideways to meet mine. “Not until I met you, Julie. Your spunk, your sass, your determination to rescue that mama dog and her pups.” A tiny chuckle vibrated his Adam’s apple before he turned sober again. “But your eternal optimism—it scared me. I wasn’t ready to let go of the past . . . or maybe I just didn’t know how.”
I swallowed against the tightening in my throat. “Will you ever be ready?”
“I’m trying. I want to be.” He pressed clenched fists into his eye sockets as his chest heaved on a choking sob. “I need you, Julie. Help me!”
I stretched my arms around him and tucked his head beneath my chin, already wet with my own tears. “It’s okay, I’m here. Always.”
Always.
CHAPTER 41
If I’d had a voice for singing, I’d have been belting out the “Hallelujah Chorus” that day. But healing the heart can be a slow process, and Micah’s wounds had festered so long that it would take much more than a single afternoon to set things right.
So we took things one step at a time, starting with convincing Micah to come to church with me the following Sunday and meet my friends. I knew I could trust them to welcome him without judgment, and they didn’t let me down. Coincidentally (or not), Pastor Ed just happened to preach on my favorite scripture, the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price. Then he ended with the verse that says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Then Micah squeezed my hand, his warm breath tickling my ear. “My treasure’s sitting right here beside me,” he said, and my heart filled to overflowing.
For Thanksgiving, Micah invited me to his mother’s house in Fort Worth. I hesitated leaving Grandpa and the Swap & Shop during one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year, but Grandpa insisted that between him, Clifton, and Katy Harcourt, they’d manage just fine without me. Even so, I made Micah promise we’d be back late Friday.
Micah’s mother turned out to be a lovely lady, a widow once again since Mr. MacDonohoe had passed away three years ago. She made me feel right at home, although she wasn’t very subtle with her hints about Micah and me tying the knot one of these days. Micah would get extra quiet, and I’d keep my eyes lowered and hope I wasn’t blushing too bad.
I made it through the visit and a wild and crazy weekend at the Swap & Shop, and things started settling into a comfortable routine. With Clifton taking over several of the more demanding tasks around the flea market, a spring had returned to Grandpa’s step. He looked rested, serene, like a king surveying his realm. By nature he always had to be doing something—dusting a shelf, straightening a display—but there was an ease about him I hadn’t seen since before our lives got turned upside down last June.
Then Christmas came, and I was blessed to watch another dream come true.
“Okay, folks, it’s that time.” A computerized fanfare accompanied the DJ’s announcement. “All single gals to the dance floor.”
Micah nudged me with his elbow and grinned. “I believe that includes you.”
I crossed my arms and tried to look hurt. “What? I thought I was already spoken for.”
“Oh, you are. You definitely are.” His grin became lecherous, and I had to suck in my breath at how handsome this guy looked in a tux.
“Julie Pearl Stiles, get yourself out here right this minute!” This, from the woman in white who reigned over today’s festivities. Sandy hoisted her billowing skirt and trotted up the three carpeted steps at the right of the Pedersonville VFW hall stage. Flinging the long folds of her tulle veil over one shoulder, she surveyed the giggling single girls jockeying for position under garlands of silk flowers and red crepe-paper streamers.
“Best not keep the new bride waiting,” Grandpa said. “Clifton’s looking mighty anxious to get his honeymoon started.”
“Grandpa!” I’m sure I blushed an even deeper shade of crimson than my antique velvet bridesmaid’s gown.
Grandpa winked. “Facts is facts, ain’t they? Now go catch that bouquet.”
I minced across the scuffed parquet floor in my pointy-toed, too-tight, dyed-to-match satin pumps. On the stage, Sandy casually waved her gorgeous white calla lily bouquet as she inspected the hall for any single female stragglers. Ushered over by her three gawky preteen granddaughters, a sixty-something widow joined the fray, and I quickly found myself engulfed in a sea of satin, lace, velvet, and lamé.
“Okay, I believe we’re ready.” Sandy nodded to the DJ, who did an extended reprise of the electronic drum roll. With a quick but studied glance in my direction, Sandy turned her back to the dance floor.
“Wait!” came a high-pitched yell from behind me. “Unfair advantage. Julie’s too tall.”
I huffed. “Like I can do anything about it.”
Sandy cast me an accusing glance over her shoulder. “You know she’s right, Julie. It’s not fair to everybody behind you.”
“Okay, I’ll move to the back.” And why am I suddenly so resentful about this? It wasn’t like I really wanted to catch the thing. Neither Micah nor I needed the added pressure.
The “sea” parted, and I reluctantly stepped to the rear. I’d barely turned around and planted my feet when a collective gasp went up from the crowd. I looked up to see a white missile zooming right at my head. I heard a scream—did that come from me?—and the next thing I knew, I was crushing white calla lilies to my red velvet bosom.
“Yes!” Sandy.
“Nooooooo!” Every other female on the dance floor.
~~~
“Very clever, grasshopper.” I touched foreheads with Sandy, the mangled bouquet between us. The lush scent of calla lilies filled my nostrils.
“Hey, didn’t I always tell you one day you’d be thankful for your height? You made a perfect target.”
Clifton rested a possessive hand at his new bride’s waist. “So when are you and Micah going to make it official?”
I waved a hand. “Please, Clifton, it’s too soon to even think about.”
“Think about what?” At the sound of Micah’s voice, I nearly dropped the bouquet. He caught it with one hand, offering me a plate with the other. “After your amazing feat of Amazonian athleticism, I thought you could use another piece of wedding cake.”
Clifton rocked on his heels. “We were just asking Julie when you two are planning to tie the knot.”
Put the guy in coat and tails, comb his hair, stick a beautiful brunette on his arm, and he thinks he can get away with anything. “Clifton . . .” My voice rose on a plaintive edge.
Micah cleared his throat, eyes downcast. I wanted to melt through the floor.
Sandy came to our rescue. “Oh, Cliffy, honey, look at the time. We need to hit the road soon.” She squeezed his bicep and cast him a meaningful glance.
Clifton’s eyes widened along with his silly grin. “Well, all righty, then. Let’s get out of these
fancy duds and blow this pop stand.”
While the happy couple disappeared to change into traveling clothes, I resumed my maid-of-honor duties by overseeing the distribution of rose petals and tiny, tulle-wrapped plastic bottles of wedding bubbles. My smile was beginning to feel like lockjaw, but at least the activity gave the nervous tension between me and Micah a chance to cool.
Forty-five minutes later, with Clifton and Sandy on the first leg of their romantic getaway to a beach condo in Pensacola (courtesy of Micah’s extensive resort connections), I busied myself in the VFW kitchen helping Mrs. Doakes and Mrs. Monroe pack away the leftover hors d’oeuvres and wedding cake. I glanced through the pass-through to see Micah, tux coat removed, perched on a stepladder ripping streamers from the ceiling and handing them down to Clifton’s dad. I sighed, unable to stifle a twinge of envy that my two best friends were now happily married. Could it really happen for me and Micah someday?
“That should do it, Julie Pearl.” Sandy’s mom burped a Tupperware lid on a bowl of mixed fruit. “Thanks so much for all your help, sweetie. And you tell your grandpa I’ll be more than happy to help out when the time comes to plan your wedding.” She drew me into a hug. “Why, you’re like a second daughter to me, darlin’.”
“Thanks, Mrs. M. I love you too.”
“Julie, you about ready?” Micah stood across the counter, shrugging into his tux sleeves.
“I thought I’d ride home with Grandpa. We’re so close, and you’ve got the drive back to Hot Springs yet.”
“Already spoke to him. He said to tell you he’ll see you at home later . . . and no hurry.”
No hurry, huh? Was everybody ganging up on us?
I stepped around the counter and let Micah drape my white wool shawl around my shoulders. “About what Clifton said, I just want you to know I—”
Micah silenced me with a finger to my lips. “I hadn’t planned it like this—I was going to wait till New Year’s Eve. But here we are, all dressed up for a wedding, you looking like a royal princess and me looking like . . .” He chuckled and lifted his shoulders. “Well, like the maitre d’ at the Four Seasons. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is . . . Julie, you’ve changed my life.”
