by Gayle Roper
“Well, my father will like him,” I said as we pulled up to the curb by our lane.
Drew knew exactly what I was talking about with this comment out of the blue. “He’s vivid.”
I laughed and Chloe sat up, looking at both of us strangely. “What’s so funny about that?”
Knowing I could never explain, I shooed her out of the car and climbed out after her. I turned to give Tinksie a hand as Ruthie descended on us.
“Where have you been?” she demanded of Drew. She stood with her hands on her hips, her eyebrows slammed together.
He didn’t sigh or roll his eyes or mumble things under his breath—he was such a nice man—so I did it for him, at least the sighing part. The other two parts I did mentally.
“It’s a long story,” Drew said. “I’ll tell you in a few minutes.”
Ruthie opened her mouth to protest, but Jenna spoke faster.
“Hello, Mom. How are you?” Her voice was almost steady.
Ruthie blinked in surprise, then broke into a great smile, giving me a slight picture of the young girl she had once been. “Hey, Jenn. How’s my girl?” She opened her arms and hugged Jenna.
“Ruthie? Ruthie Canfield? Is that you?”
We all turned to see Carl standing beside the limo with a huge smile on his face. “I’ve been wondering what happened to you.”
“Carl!” Ruthie released Jenna and focused on him. “You have?”
“Yeah, after Mick died. I was afraid something had happened to you too.”
Ruthie spread her arms and actually did a little twirl. “As you can see, I’m fine.”
She did look relatively good. She must have showered sometime today, and though she was still wearing my clothes, her hair was clean and her skin had a bit of color.
“You going back to AC tonight?” Ruthie asked.
Carl nodded. “Want a ride?”
And just like that Ruthie was gone.
“Well, at least you got a hug out of her before she took off.” Chloe patted Jenna’s back kindly.
“Yeah. I guess that’s something anyway.”
“But it’s not the best something,” Drew said. “You were the best thing.”
“Me?” Jenna’s voice squeaked with surprise.
I smiled at him. He really was a wonderful man.
“You.” Drew gathered her close for a hug. “In spite of the fact that she hurt you repeatedly over the past few days, you approached her.”
“Graciously,” I added.
Jenna’s shoulders straightened as she stepped from her father’s embrace. “I did good?”
“You did more than well,” Drew said. “I’m very proud of you.”
Jenna glowed.
“It’s that boundary thing,” Chloe said. “You’ve got to decide what your boundaries are and then let everyone know. She’s your mom, and you’ll be polite to her, but you’re not riding off with her on the back of some motorcycle.”
“Or in some mile-long limo,” Jenna added.
“And I’m not going to jail to visit my father,” Chloe said. “Maybe someday I’ll write to him, but that’s it. He was going to kill my mother and my aunt!”
I didn’t want her entangled with Eddie at all, but I also didn’t want her building up a layer of hatred toward him. It was too destructive an emotion. Boundaries allowed for forgiveness. God modeled that truth for us when He gave us principles for living but offered forgiveness when we failed to meet His standards.
But that was a talk for another day. Chloe was thirteen, a mature thirteen in many ways, but still thirteen. She’d been scared and threatened today. Lectures on the virtues of letting go of offenses could wait. There were plenty of years for those talks. In the meantime, I’d ask God to give her a heart to pray for Eddie’s salvation. I should pray daily for the same thing myself, and I actually might.
“Libby?” Andrew Melchior put a hand on my arm. “I’ve been doing some serious thinking over the last few hours. I’m not certain that Stella was wise when she wanted you and Tori to live together in her house, especially since it’s clear you are bearing the bulk of the responsibility.”
“She most certainly is,” Tinksie said, outspoken as always.
I smiled at his concern. He had proven a good man to have around in a crisis, and I appreciated his being part of the team that helped Chloe, especially since he barely knew us. “It may not have been the wisest thing Aunt Stella ever did.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have been good legal counsel for her if I hadn’t worked out an escape clause.” His hazel eyes danced behind his lenses.
“There’s a way out?” I felt hope spring to life. I could go home!
Drew sighed. “I definitely will have to buy E-ZPass.”
“Do you want a way out?” Andrew asked.
Did I? “Not if it will cost Tori her inheritance.” That much I knew.
“It won’t. Nor you.”
“Chloe?” I raised my eyebrows in question. She shrugged, clearly uncertain.
“We need to think about this, to pray about it.”
Andrew blinked a bit at the mention of prayer, but his eyes were warm with understanding. He patted my hand. “Of course, my dear. Take your time. I’ll be at your service when you decide. It has been a joy to assist you today.”
“Andrew.” It was Tinksie, and she looked belligerent for some reason. “Tell her.”
“Not now, Tinksie.” He spoke to her with what sounded like a warning.
“Tell her,” Tinksie repeated.
“James, it’s time to take your wife home,” Andrew said, his voice tinged with anger.
I felt embarrassed by this sudden show of contention between these people who had seemed to care deeply for each other. What in the world could Andrew have to tell me that would raise such ire in Tinksie? What secret? What information? Had Aunt Stella left some other instructions?
James studied me for a minute, then turned to Andrew. “I agree with Tinksie, Andrew.”
Andrew looked as if his pet cocker spaniel had taken a chunk out of his leg.
James gave a slight smile and his voice was gentle. “It’s time. Way past time. Tell her.” Then he took Tinksie’s arm. “Come on, kid. I need a drink.”
I watched them walk down the lane, two old people with tigers’ hearts thumping in their chests.
“I’d never have met them without Aunt Stella,” I told Andrew. “For that I must be grateful to her.”
“How about us?” Jenna asked. “You wouldn’t have met us either.”
I put my palm against her cheek. “That would have been a great loss.” I looked over her head at her father. “A great loss.”
He grinned, and pinwheels of color and hope twirled through me.
“But what are you supposed to tell Mom, Mr. Melchior?” Chloe asked. “I’ll never sleep until you tell.”
Tinksie suddenly turned and shouted, “April twenty-third.”
I frowned at her. April twenty-third? Certainly a significant date, at least to me, but what did it have to do with anything?
Then the pieces clicked into place and I nodded. Suddenly a lot of things made sense, a lot of questions were answered.
“April twenty-third’s your birthday, Mom.” Chloe looked confused. “What’s that got to do with Mr. Melchior?”
I searched his face, wondering how different Tori’s and my lives might have been. I didn’t know what I felt, what I was supposed to feel at the enormity of what might have been.
“I was forty-eight,” he said, his hands spread beseechingly. This suave, confident man seemed—what? Fearful was the best I could come up with. Afraid of my reaction and my response. His uncertainty seemed only fitting given my own.
“I was married with three children. Stella was forty-five. We thought about the situation from every angle possible. The only thing we never considered was an abortion. We didn’t believe it was right.”
I nodded. Abortion wasn’t right, but an adulterous relationship of many year
s’ standing was?
“Stella was the one who thought of Jack and Mimi.”
“I imagine they wangled a good price?” I asked with unexpected bitterness. I wondered how much money had exchanged hands.
His smile wasn’t pleasant. “Oh, we were happy to contribute regularly to your care. It was the other issues that were problematic, like getting to see you. You’d have thought that with all my years before the bar, I’d have been able to do better, but…” He shrugged. “It took everything I had to get Stella the once-a-year visits.”
Had she done Tori and me any favor by putting us in Jack and Mimi’s care? I stared at the man before me, a distinguished and accomplished professional who upheld the law instead of breaking it. I thought of Aunt Stella, who had doted on me, in contrast to Mimi, whom I never could please. But I’d met Madge because I was raised by Jack and Mimi, and because of Madge, I knew Jesus and had an anchor in my life.
God’s hand at work, making bad situations turn into good ones, redeeming hurt and wrong with salvation and—I glanced at Drew-love?
Andrew continued, “She couldn’t handle the idea of you girls going to some stranger where she’d never see you again. Those visits were her lifeline. She’d come home full of stories about you, about how beautiful and smart you were. She would have the photos she’d taken framed and keep them out in the bedroom where she could see them. ‘See how much they look like us?’ she’d say. And she’d cry.”
His eyes filled with tears, and in reaction, mine did too. I tried to put myself in Stella’s place. What would my life be without Chloe?
“And then Jack and Mike ended up in jail. Stella was so concerned for you two. She asked Mimi if you could come live here with her, with us, but Mimi said no. She was facing enough bad opinion without being known as the mother who wouldn’t keep her kids.” He sighed and shrugged. “Life is compromise.”
I stared at this man, my father, and wanted to yell that no one had asked my opinion about these compromises. Instead I clamped my lips tightly. Bruised as I felt, I knew Andrew and Stella had done what they thought best. I also knew I was too emotionally exhausted to do or say anything for fear it’d be the wrong thing. But we did need to talk.
“Andrew, will you come to dinner tomorrow evening? Just you and me?”
He glanced toward the house with its shiny black door. “I haven’t been in there since Stella died.” He looked old and alone, his charming veneer stripped by fatigue and sorrow. Vulnerable.
“Tomorrow night,” I repeated. “Seven o’clock. Learn to know me a bit. Then you can take on Tori.”
With a nod, he turned and walked toward the Avenue of the Arts, his hand raised to flag a cab.
Chloe was staring at me wide-eyed. “Is he—?”
I nodded. “My father. Your grandfather.”
Chloe looked after him and watched him climb into a cab. “At least he’s nice.”
“At least he’s nice,” I agreed. Such a little thing to say about one’s parent. Such a big thing when you couldn’t say it.
Drew spread his arms to shepherd us all into the house.
“Girls, bowls of ice cream,” he ordered as he walked me through the living room, dining room, and kitchen and out into the garden. “Four of them.”
He slid the door shut, leaving them behind. I saw their faces as they watched his hand slide down and take mine. Their eyes were huge, and they had their hands over their mouths to keep from laughing—or screaming. A parent being romantic with someone not the other parent must be somewhat traumatizing, though it didn’t worry me enough to keep from threading my fingers through Drew’s.
He led me across the patio to the back of the yard by the weeping cherry. He stopped and looked back at the house. I followed his gaze and saw only a waterfall of graceful, leafy branches.
“No one can see us,” he murmured as he pulled me close.
“Mmm.” I leaned into him. “Good man.” After the day’s terrors and revelations, he felt solid and true. “Bet they can see our feet.” They were intertwined as our fingers had been. “They’ll be scarred for life.”
He grinned. “They’d better get used to it.”
My heart somersaulted against my ribs, and I rested my head on his shoulder.
“You okay?” He rubbed his hands up and down my spine.
I nodded as I felt the day’s stress seep away. “Seems to me you’ve had to ask me that question way too many times in the short time we’ve known each other.”
“When it bothers me, I’ll complain. In the meantime, before our chaperons arrive…”
He kissed me.
Epilogue
Six months later
WE STOOD ON THE CURB on the first evening of the new year, listening to the sound of “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” once again as another string band marched by. It was my first Mummers Parade in spite of having lived within an hour of Philadelphia all my life. I was pretty sure it was going to be my last if I ever defrosted enough to go home.
Tonight was our last night in Aunt Stella’s house. Mark and Tim across the lane had introduced us to a professional couple who worked with Tim, and they were delighted with the chance to buy the house.
Both Tori and I had decided not to invoke Andrew’s escape clause, which amounted to him, as executor of the estate, having the authority to declare the co-tenant restriction invalid. Instead we thought we should abide by Stella’s will since it spelled out her final wishes for her daughters. It was the one thing we could do for her. But now my sister and I were equally glad to be going our separate ways. The six months had been difficult for both of us. We were so dissimilar, and proximity hadn’t healed the many rifts of thought and principle. Rather it had spotlighted our diverse opinions on almost everything.
“Sleep with the man, girl,” she kept telling me, one of our biggest areas of disagreement. “You’re going to drive him away with this little virgin business.”
“He’s a Christian too, Tori. His position on sex is the same as mine. After marriage, like the Bible says.”
She snorted. “Ben didn’t say so, you know. He had an illegitimate son.”
“Ben is someone Drew studies, not someone he emulates, especially when what Ben says or does is contrary to Scripture.”
She’d roll her eyes and rush out to meet Carl and Ruthie at the limo.
When Ruthie first started riding back and forth on Tori’s Atlantic City runs, Tori had tried to be nice. At least that’s what she said. Since she and I define nice differently, I wasn’t quite sure what she meant. Whatever, the niceness didn’t last long.
“The woman is certifiable,” Tori declared. “She should be medicated.”
“You should ask her if she’s taking her pills.”
Tori seemed horrified. “Not me. Do I look like a nurse? I just put up the privacy window and make believe she’s not there.”
We also disagreed on how to react to Andrew. I had spent time with him, had him to dinner frequently. In fact, the four of us—Drew, Chloe, Jenna, and I—were to meet him for dinner at his favorite restaurant tonight at eight.
“I don’t want to know him,” Tori insisted. “He abandoned me for thirty years. Why should I forgive that?”
“Why shouldn’t you? He’s a nice man. Lonely. He needs us.” I didn’t add that he needed Jesus, because I knew she’d have a fit. But he did, and he let both Drew and me talk about issues of faith. He’d even stopped being embarrassed that we were so naive as to buy into faith. In fact, he was beginning to ask intelligent questions, and I had high hopes for him.
I couldn’t say the same for my twin.
“It’s so much more than ‘You say to-may-to and I say to-mah-to,’” I told Drew as I huddled close in an effort to keep warm in the frigid January chill.
“Well, it’s almost over.” He slid his arm across my shoulders.
“The one thing I’m really going to miss is having you across the street.” I meant it. Not seeing him every day would be hard with me at ho
me and him up in northern Pennsylvania.
“I’ve got my E-ZPass all mounted on the front window, ready to cross into the wilds of New Jersey as often as I can manage it.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I’m just glad it’s only for seven months.”
The first Saturday in July was to be our wedding day. I felt the unfamiliar bulk of my engagement ring under my glove. I’d been wearing it exactly—I glanced at my watch—eighteen hours and fifteen minutes, having received it at midnight as the New Year broke. Drew and Sam Pierce, the jeweler, with help from the girls, had put the small, beautifully wrapped ring box inside a shoebox stuffed with lots of little beautifully wrapped empty jewelry boxes, then wrapped them all with the Inquirer’s Sunday comics.
When Drew handed me the gift, I knew the shape immediately. “They never found the jewelry,” I said sadly. “Whatever Eddie did with it, it’s gone. And he’s not talking.”
“Well,” Drew said, “at least I can guarantee that the contents of this box are not stolen.”
The right box was the tenth one I opened, and by that time I was laughing and crying so hard I could barely see his face when he said, “I love you, Lib. I came to Philadelphia to learn about Ben, but I found something much better. I found my second chance provided by the gracious hand of the Lord. I’d like to be your second chance. Will you marry me and let God make all things new?”
I don’t know how long it took him to come up with that speech, but it was all I’d ever longed for and more.
“Finally!” A voice floated from the second-floor landing. “Now we can come down and get something to eat?”
“Did she say yes?”
“What do you think?”
Giggling and almost as excited as Drew and me, our daughters came streaking down the stairs.
They were the main reason we were waiting the full year to marry. We wanted them to see that time is needed to test a relationship even between committed believers, because marriage is a covenant that should be entered into with great care and not be broken. We also wanted to give God time to confirm ever more strongly that our commitment was wise and right. On this latter point I had no doubts.
