Get Cozy, Josey!

by Susan May Warren

  Anton’s face hardens. “How would you know?”

  “Because she was at Sasha’s house, bringing her food.”

  Sasha, Sasha. I’m scanning my brain—Oh, Sasha, their widowed daughter-in-law with two little children. I look at Maya and see the truth on her face. Maya’s been bringing food to someone in need. Reaching out beyond herself, her pain. Pride and affection surge through me, and I can barely stop myself from throwing my arms around her.

  “She does it nearly every day. I see it because I’m staying next door, at Leonid’s house.”

  From behind her, a man who could be the Other Man puts his hand on Ulia’s shoulder. Oh, that’s bold.

  Except that Anton looks up at him and nods, as if to say, “Hey, it’s okay that you stole my wife, let’s all be friends.”

  I’m so confused.

  “I thought you left me,” he says quietly.

  Uh, me, too! Me, too!

  Ulia’s voice softens. “I wanted to. I was tired of us. Tired of wishing for something better. But I love you, Anton, and I don’t want to leave you. I know about your mistakes…but I miss you, and it only took a couple of weeks staying with my brother to figure that out.”

  Oh, brother. Oh. Brother.

  Again, I feel like I’m in the middle of a Santa Barbara episode, because Anton’s eyes actually get glassy. And he takes a step toward his wife. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause all this. I thought you’d left me because…” His gaze cuts to Maya.

  Maya shrinks back a bit, and I get it.

  He thought Maya told Ulia about their affair. Okay, that was a leap, but when you’re in the middle of a soap opera, those kinds of leaps are easy. Expected, even. In fact, here’s another easy one—Anton burned down the community center, which is also the home of his former mistress, to destroy his wife’s livelihood and maybe even enacting revenge and killing his mistress in the process. How am I doing? I probably could write an episode of Santa—

  “You did this?”

  Obviously I’m not the only one doing the math here, because Chase, in a total soap-opera response, lets go of me and launches himself at Anton.

  He grabs Anton up by the shirt. “You set this fire?”

  Anton has his hands on Chase’s wrists.

  They go down in the mud. Chase is speaking half-Russian, half-English, and it’s not pretty. Much of it sounds like it’s coming from a place inside Chase I don’t know.

  “Is this how you treat people who have worked hard for Bursk, to help you build new lives? Don’t you care about anyone but yourself? No wonder Ulia left you!”

  Chase dodges a punch, and I scream, pushing Justin’s face into my jacket.

  And then Nathan appears, grabbing Chase, yanking him off Anton.

  But Anton isn’t finished. He finds his feet and takes another swing at Chase. Vasilley nabs him by the arm. There’s a lot more power in Mr. Skin and Bones than I thought.

  Chase rounds on Nathan, and for a second I think he’s going to take a swing at him, but he shakes himself free.

  Nathan steps back, hands up. “It’s not worth it, Chase.”

  Chase gives him a long look. Then he turns, and the despair on his face makes me want to weep.

  My man is down for the count.

  Without a word, Chase walks away.

  The militia guys finally decide to pick sides. They drag Anton away from the crowd. I notice that Ulia follows.

  Behind me, the rest of the building caves in with a thunderous roar.

  “Mommy!” I turn to see Chloe tugging at Maya’s hand. She’s wide-eyed and afraid.

  I scoop her up and hold both my children tight. Chloe wraps her legs around me. Justin is shaking.

  “Shh,” I say, watching the fire begin to smolder. It’s going to burn long into the night, however. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I see Nathan standing at a distance. But he’s not looking at me. His eyes are on Maya. He crosses to her and pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her.

  Oh.

  She looks at me, and I see tears spilling down her cheeks. Spaceeba, she mouths.

  Now I have tears, too.

  Slowly I turn and walk home, my children clinging to me.

  The house is dark when we enter, and Chase’s jacket, a puddle of soot on the floor, confirms that he made it home. His boots, caked with mud, lie on their sides as if he flung them off.

  I put the kids down, de-layer them and dump their clothes in a pile. Wash day will be fun tomorrow.

  The fire is dying. I open the furnace and throw in a chunk of coal. I set Chloe and Justin on the sofa, pile toys around them and turn on a cartoon.

  Then I look for Chase.

  He’s sitting on the bed, his head in his hands. His shoulders are shaking.

  I get scared when I see Chase’s shoulders shake. “Chase?”

  “I meant to do this right.”

  His words still me. Meant to do what right? I hold my breath.

  He looks up at me. His eyes are red. “I’m sorry about that, back there. I—Anton probably did set the fire, but I shouldn’t have done that. If anyone is to blame for you losing everything, it’s me.”

  He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have followed my ambition to Siberia. I should have taken you home.”

  I blink at him, and the verse I read—was it only an hour ago?—flashes through my mind. Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us. And love speaks the truth.

  “Babe, listen. I do feel as though I’ve been running around Siberia a little bit unprotected. I needed to know that you were still the guy who would ride in on his motorcycle in the dead of night and rescue me, and I wasn’t always sure that was true. However, I’m not sorry we came to Siberia. I’m not thrilled about having an outhouse, or about letting Nathan so far into our lives that you thought we were having an affair—and don’t look at me like that, because we’re not, and didn’t, and that’s all I’m going to say about that—but I’m not sorry about the rest. I’m not sorry for giving these women a sense of accomplishment, or for helping Olya get back her daughter, or for holding down the fort while you went hunting with Vasilley so he could find Jesus. And I’m especially not sorry about being stretched so far I thought I might break, and discovering I had more in me than I realized. So you don’t get to take the blame for all the bad or the good stuff. God gets that.”

  I sit down and lean against him. “And He’s bigger than you. He can take it.”

  Chase doesn’t smile, but he puts his arm around me and closes his eyes. “Oh, GI. I just wanted to do more here. Something that would really change their lives. Do good.” He sighs deeply and I can practically feel his exhaustion. “Would you read something?”

  Would I read something? Like the Secret Journal of Chase Anderson? Oh, I suppose, if you insist. I school my voice. “Um, sure.”

  He pulls his journal from under the bed and hands it to me.

  I feel like I’m being given access to his heart. The Chase I don’t know. Yet.

  He leans back on the bed as I open the book. “Where do I start?”

  “Anywhere. But don’t stop until you read the part where I say that I know you and Nathan didn’t have an affair but I wouldn’t blame you if you did. And be sure not to skip over the section where I realize that everything I’ve done over the past five years is a failure.”

  What?

  I close the journal without reading it. “I’m not going to read that, because it’s not true.”

  His eyes are still closed as if he doesn’t want to hear what I’m saying. And now I’m angry.

  “Hey, we have two adorable, incredible kids who love their daddy. And unless I’m mistaken, we have the nicest outhouse in all of Siberia. So don’t tell me that you’re a failure.”

  I get a little smile. But it quickly vanishes.

  I put the journal down on his chest. “Could it be, though, that you were supposed to see that God has something bigger for you?”

  He opens a
n eye.

  “Could it be that God brought you out to Siberia, not so we could change the economic future of the people of Bursk, but their spiritual future? Maybe Nathan is right—I would make a fabulous pastor’s wife, because you were meant to be a pastor.”

  “Nathan said that to you?”

  “Yes. And he feels sick about putting us in this position. He wasn’t after me, Chase. But he knows he can’t be our friend anymore. Or at least not our roommate.”

  Chase looks at me. “He told me that you’d make a fabulous pastor’s wife, too. He also told me that maybe God was doing more in my life than I was willing to see.”

  Well, that could apply to all of us, couldn’t it?

  “The thing is, GI, I…uh…” Chase clenches his jaw, as if the words have to be wrestled out. “I came here because I was selfish. I saw my life spiraling down to nothing in Gull Lake, and I panicked. And when you were so supportive, and enduring, it just made me feel worse, and then I couldn’t talk to you, and then Nathan could, and I got jealous.” He attempts a smile. “You wanted the guy who would show up on his motorcycle. I wanted to know that you’d still jump on the back and ride with me anywhere.”

  Oh, is there any doubt? I lean over and kiss him, and his arms go around me.

  “Forgive me, babe?” he whispers.

  I love forgiveness. Especially when it includes Chase holding me, his lips on mine, making me remember just why I went to all those high-school football practices in the Minnesota cold. I suppose it was just a warm-up to the real thing.

  He finally sighs and leans back. “Nathan asked me how long I was willing to wait to become the man God plans me to be.”

  I touch Chase’s hair and smile. “And?”

  “Not a day longer.” He sits up and takes my hand. “Maybe I could be more.” Something gathers in his eyes, something that fills my heart, and I see the Chase I knew years ago, when he first dreamed of following God into the hinterlands. “Maybe I want to start over,” he says softly. “Be a blank slate for God to write on.”

  A blank slate. I love that. A do-over, except with everything we know now.

  “Except, I’m not sure how to get there, Jose.”

  I take his hand, run my fingers over the calluses. “Olya told me not long ago that you have to get naked to get clean. Seems like a good place to start, huh?”

  So for the second time today, I find myself praying. And beside me is the man I’d happily follow anywhere.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Already Home

  Dear H,

  I owe you an apology. Because I get it now. Really get it.

  Nathan and I weren’t having an affair. But I let him inside my heart, and you saw that. It wasn’t on purpose, and it happened one day at a time, without my awareness but definitely with my consent. I suppose if I had let myself, it could have been something more, but well…because of you, and God and even my beloved Banya Girls, it wasn’t.

  In fact, what I didn’t know is that Nathan has been seeing Maya—you remember her? The pretty woman who came to dinner?

  Did I tell you that the community center burned down? Anton, the mayor, set it on fire. He blamed Maya, but I knew she couldn’t do that—not after the way her husband died. And when Anton’s wife showed up, apologizing for leaving him, and then confronted him, he admitted what he’d done. Apparently not long after her husband’s death, Maya and Anton had a brief affair—something she cut off, but he kept pushing for. Eventually he hated her for not giving in. Maya felt so guilty, she started taking meals to Anton and Ulia’s widowed daughter-in-law, Sasha, and her children. But I think that was more about redemption and restitution. Ulia got that part, thankfully. But Anton was afraid of losing his wife, and he thought maybe Secrets of Siberia gave her too much freedom, so in desperation, he burned our business down, hoping to scare Maya with the fire, too. He claims he wasn’t trying to kill her, and maybe that’s the truth. He’s in the town jail, awaiting trial.

  I know. I’m telling you, there’s more drama in frozen Bursk than a Saturday night in Gull Lake!

  Forgiveness is contagious, and the entire village is going through a sort of revival. Nathan has started a church, and even the men are attending.

  Anyway, I wanted to tell you that there are things you can count on. Like, it doesn’t matter where you live, just who you live with. And submission doesn’t mean that you have to surrender your brain, just your heart. I think the best relationships are the ones where everybody wins. Marriage is a partnership, not a division of labor. A life carrying burdens and joys, together. Helping each other. At least that’s what I’ve learned living in Siberia.

  I believe you and Rex are going to make it, H. Talk to him and trust in his love for you. I know you can work it out. Even in Gull Lake. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to give up what you think is most important, because God has a way of making your surrender feel like a reward and giving you back even more than you gave up.

  Forgive me, please, for letting you down?

  Rock on,

  Josey

  I shouldn’t be surprised that the news of the fire made it all the way to Moscow. After all, it’s not every day that a man burns down the biggest building in town in a jealous rage.

  And, of course, Chase had to include this cheery event in his analysis of Bursk for Voices International.

  I am surprised, nonetheless, when Dalton and Maggie appear at my gate nearly two weeks later. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” Maggie says as she crosses the threshold.

  Maggie is walking elegance, even in a Siberian village. She’s wearing a jacket lined with rabbit fur, and of course, I notice the boots—supple brown leather, obviously imported.

  “I especially love the outhouse,” she says with a smile.

  I’ve decorated it for spring with a spray of lilacs, and it’s hard not to come out woozy from the smell. The fragrant floral smell, I mean.

  I drop my shovel where I’ve been digging rows for a garden. I’m not sure why I’m doing this—we leave in just a few weeks—but I figure that Misha and Anya will appreciate having seeds in the ground. It’s the least I can do for the people who gave up their home for us.

  The sun is high, and we’ve set our clocks forward. I am thrilled that the days are lengthening.

  I embrace Maggie, and then little Steven, who runs into the house looking for Justin and Chloe. Dalton wraps me in a one-arm hug. “I hear you have a decent sofa.” He smiles, and I’m trying to figure out how it will hold two.

  Not that I’m complaining.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Chase told us about your little village home, and I just had to see it for myself,” Maggie says. Her brown eyes are twinkling.

  I should mention here that it was Maggie and her State Department connections that really got Chase’s peanut-butter cottage industry off the ground. And I have a feeling she’s not just here to share a cup of tea.

  I find out the reason for their visit at dinner—we’ve graduated from soup and moved onto mashed potatoes and cutlets.

  “Chase told us about your business, Josey. And we want to help.” Dalton spears another cutlet and puts it on his plate. “In fact, we’d like to start similar businesses in native villages all over Russia.”

  I stare at Chase, and he looks as surprised as I am. But I win this contest because behind my surprise, is shock that he was talking about Secrets of Siberia in Moscow.

  Chase smiles at me. “Want more potatoes, Chloe?”

  “No tatoes!” Chloe says, and pushes herself away from the table. As she gets down, she paws the ground and lets out a neigh.

  Oh, we’re moving on to larger animals. My little pony.

  Maggie doesn’t notice the equine in the family room—she’s intently focused on Chase and me. “And the best part is, we want you and Chase to move back to Moscow and run the business. You will have offices in WorldMar, and we’ll fund your first year, just to get you off the ground.”
r />   “Are you saying it’ll become an NGO project?” Chase asks.

  “No, no. It’ll be a business. But one that we’ll both have equal stakes in,” Dalton glances at Maggie, his eyes betraying his excitement.

  “We can have investors lined up in no time,” Maggie adds as Steven pushes off her lap and gallops in a circle with Chloe. Maggie is pregnant again, and has the smallest, cutest bulge. I wonder what it’s like to have them one at a time.

  “Listen, with Maggie’s State Department connections, we can figure out how to fast-track shipments out of the country. It’ll streamline everything. We could even set up a warehouse in New York City. Think of it—you and Chase can travel to the villages and help people develop their crafts. With Chase’s experience working with the elders, I’m sure he can bring them to agreement, especially when he shows how the proceeds can benefit the village—medicines and vaccinations, new structures, anything the village needs, basically. Chloe and Justin can attend the best schools in Moscow,” Dalton says, leaning forward and giving me a sly smile, “and Josey can have indoor plumbing!”

  But I’m starting to like my outhouse.

  Okay, not that much.

  “What do you think?” Dalton says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Can we lure you back to Moscow?”

  It’s late by the time we clean up, get the kids in bed, pull out the sofa bed and finally climb into our own bed. We keep our voices low because Maggie and Dalton are in the next room.

  Chase’s hand finds mine in the darkness. “So, GI, what do you want to do? Move to Moscow? Or,” he says, rolling over, his whiskers brushing my cheek, “should we go home?”

  Oh, boy. What is it they say about history repeating itself?