A Home for the Heart

by Michael Phillips

  We both hesitated, then stopped.

  His eyes were red. A pang stabbed my heart just to see the look of hurt and grief on his face.

  “Hello,” I said awkwardly, trying to smile.

  He returned the smile, though it looked just as forced as mine.

  “Just, uh . . . out for a little walk,” he said. “Needed a break from swinging that pick.”

  “I know. Pa told me.”

  “You were up at the mine?”

  I nodded.

  “What for?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “Me?”

  “I figured it was time we talked. At least it was for me,” I added. “I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

  Christopher smiled again, though the expression on his face was one of pain, not humor.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” he said. “You . . . uh, want to walk a little now?”

  “Sure,” I answered.

  Without planning any direction, we turned away from the pasture and began walking aimlessly off through the woods.

  Christopher was the first to speak.

  “I’m so sorry about all this, Corrie,” he said. “I . . . I just haven’t known what to say.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me why you got so quiet and quit talking to me all of a sudden.”

  “It’s not that easy to say,” he replied. “I don’t know if I even know myself.”

  We walked on a few more steps. It was quiet and I was so nervous for fear of what Christopher was going to tell me.

  “That was some speech you gave yesterday,” he said at length.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I had no idea . . . I mean, of course I knew you were a thinker and a writer—maybe I’d even say philosopher in your own way—but . . . that was a powerful and moving talk, Corrie. Those people were hanging on your every word.”

  I couldn’t help laughing, though it was still nervously.

  “I just try to tell what I’m thinking and feeling,” I said. “It’s no different than writing.”

  “No, you’re wrong there, Corrie. I’ve done a lot of writing and a lot of speaking and I know about both of them. You have a unique gift to move people, even to sway their thoughts and opinions. I just . . . I’m sorry, Corrie . . . before . . . before this last month, even though I knew you wrote newspaper articles, I just didn’t realize—”

  Christopher was fumbling for words. I’d never seen him like this!

  “I . . . I just didn’t realize what an important person you are, Corrie,” he went on. “I—”

  “I’m not an important person,” I interrupted.

  “Of course you are, Corrie. Why else would the governor of the state and even the President . . . why would they write you? Why would they want you working for them?”

  I kind of half shrugged.

  “I saw why yesterday,” said Christopher. “You are a powerful lady, Corrie. You are an influential person—whether in writing or speaking. They recognize that—Mr. Lincoln and your editor at the newspaper, the governor, those ladies over at Marysville. You’ve become an important figure in this state, Corrie. Even in the whole country.”

  As Christopher spoke, his voice rose in intensity. In spite of what he was saying, his tone wasn’t that of trying to compliment me. Instead, he sounded frustrated and agitated.

  “I don’t agree with that,” I said. “But . . . but even if it was true, what difference . . . I mean, why would that suddenly change everything between us?”

  Now it was my turn to struggle hard to find the right words.

  “Oh, but don’t you see, Corrie!” exclaimed Christopher, turning away from me, then back, clutching at the air with his empty fists in frustration. “Don’t you see? I’m not part of all that . . . I could never be part of that side of your life. That’s . . . that’s something you have done yourself. . . . And it has to be that way. . . . How else could it be?”

  “What . . . what are you saying?” I asked slowly.

  “I don’t know!” he cried. “Don’t you see what I’m getting at? How . . . how can . . . how could this ever work when . . . when you have another whole life . . .”

  He didn’t finish, but kept turning and gesturing with his hands in silent frustration for being unable to find the right words.

  “How can . . . how can what work?” I said timorously, terrified for what he meant, but having to know.

  “Between us!” Christopher burst out. “How can it work . . . how can a marriage work when . . . when two people have such different directions in life to pursue?”

  The dreadful words fell like an anvil dropping out of the sky straight onto my head. He’d said the words—how could a marriage between the two of us ever work!

  Christopher didn’t want to marry me after all!

  I should have known it would end like this! It was Cal Burton all over again. Who had I been trying to fool in thinking a man could be in love with me? I had made a complete fool of myself. I should have stayed at the convent. It was all a terrible nightmare!

  All of a sudden I don’t know what came over me. I started yelling like an angry little girl. The memory of those moments is mortifying.

  “If you’ve changed your mind and don’t want to marry me,” I cried, “why don’t you just say so? If I’m too ugly and you don’t like what I write and speak about, then just tell me instead of getting all quiet and avoiding me like I had the plague!”

  I burst into a fit of sobbing and ran off through the woods. I never wanted to see Christopher again. I never wanted to see any man again!

  I ran and ran, I don’t even know where—not along any path, just off through the trees wherever my feet happened to go.

  Finally I stopped, exhausted, threw myself down onto the ground, and just cried and cried, as sick at heart over how I’d lashed out at Christopher as from what he’d said.

  Never in all my life had I felt such misery as I felt in those moments. I lay there crying from deeper depths than I’d ever cried before.

  Christopher wasn’t another Cal Burton! How could I have even thought such a terrible thing?

  I loved Christopher—that’s why the pain went so deep. I loved him like I would never love another man.

  To lose a man like him . . . to discover that he didn’t love you as much as you thought . . . to place all your dreams of the future on a love you thought was mutual and so solid nothing could shake it—only to have it suddenly wrenched away. . . .

  I felt like a great knife had sliced me right to the core and cut out my heart and then a heavy booted foot had stamped on it. The hurt was so bad I couldn’t bear it!

  I cried and cried! I don’t think I stopped for twenty or thirty minutes.

  Finally the tears subsided. I took several quivery breaths.

  I lay on the ground another ten minutes. I smelled the scent of the pine needles so close to my face, but their fragrance meant nothing now. It only reminded me of a happier time of innocence, when all I’d had to think about was learning about God and nature and writing about it. Now I was learning about life and relationships and how painful they both could be, and even the warm and fragrant woods could not make the hurt go away.

  If only I could fall asleep, I thought, and sleep for a year. If only I could wake up and find that by some miracle it had all been a dream, that I’d never gone east, never been involved in the war, never been wounded, never met Christopher Braxton—that it had all just been a story I had made up in my mind . . . and that here I was at my home in Miracle Springs just like always.

  If only . . .

  Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  It startled me. I jumped to a sitting position and spun around.

  “Go away!” I cried. For all my heartache over yelling at him before, I couldn’t help doing it again. I was so full of hurt and anger and feeling sorry for myself that I wasn’t thinking straight!

  Christopher’s face looked like it had been struck a physical blow. He winced s
lightly from my words, as if they’d actually hit him, then stood up from where he’d knelt, turned, and obeyed my command, walking away without a word.

  The look on his face smote my heart, and I repented of my cruel and selfish outburst.

  “Christopher, please . . . please wait,” I said.

  He stopped, but still did not turn around.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Forgive me for saying that. I . . . I don’t really want you to go.”

  He turned. His face was wet. Tears were streaming down his face. Suddenly my eyes were full again. Whatever had happened, whatever had been said, I did love this man! I couldn’t bear to see him suffer so much that he cried.

  He walked over slowly and sat down beside me.

  We sat a long time, each trying to get control of our tears, and trying to figure out what to say.

  Christopher was the first to speak.

  “Corrie, Corrie,” he said softly—so softly I could barely hear him. “I am more sorry than I can ever say that you think I have changed my mind, or that I think you are not the most beautiful young woman in all the world, or that I don’t like what you write and speak about. Oh, Corrie, Corrie—forgive me if I have conveyed such things to you!”

  His voice was pleading and full of heartbreak.

  “I . . . I’m sorry for what I said,” I replied. “I don’t suppose I meant those things. It was just that you said our marriage could never work . . . and I . . . I couldn’t bear the thought that . . . that you didn’t want to marry me after all.”

  I put my hands to my face and started weeping again.

  Christopher reached out, touched the back of one of my hands tenderly with his fingers, then reached up and stroked my hair gently a time or two. I brought my hands down, but I still couldn’t look him in the eye.

  “I’m sorry, Corrie,” he said. “I never said I didn’t want to marry you.”

  “But . . . but I thought—”

  “Oh, Corrie! I want with all my heart to marry you!”

  “But you said—”

  “Only that I didn’t know how it could work. But I love you, Corrie!”

  Oh, those words! How could they not suddenly fan the flame in my heart to life again. At last I looked up. Christopher’s eyes bored straight in mine.

  “I love you, Corrie,” he repeated. “I love you!”

  Tears again filled my eyes. Tears of happiness, yet I was still so confused.

  Christopher saw it all, and understood.

  “I was only avoiding you,” he said, his voice full of compassion now, as if he was pleading with me to understand so as to undo all the misunderstanding he felt he had caused, “because I didn’t know what to say or do.”

  “About what?” I asked. “I still don’t know why it got so quiet and awkward between us all of a sudden. This last month has been so hard. I’ve missed you so much.”

  Christopher drew in a deep breath, then tried to explain.

  “The moment I read that letter you received from Governor Stanford,” he said, “something went astray inside me. I began doubting everything that had happened between us, all the things we’d written and said.”

  “Doubting . . . but why?” I asked. “His letter had nothing to do with you . . . with us.”

  “But it did! It had everything to do with us—because it had to do with your future. Suddenly I saw that by marrying me, perhaps . . . I don’t know—I don’t even know how to explain it! I saw that you had a potential future outside of me, one that has nothing to do with me. I saw . . . that you were a more important person than I’d ever realized . . . and that maybe you needed to do other things that would be impossible if you had a family . . . and maybe I began wondering if you wanted to do them. That’s when I began doubting myself, doubting that I was the right man for you, and wondering if you would be better off . . . not marrying me.”

  “Christopher, how can you even say such things? “

  “Then when you spoke at Marysville, Corrie . . . that was powerful. Your words rang with truth. You have a gift. You are an important voice. I . . . I don’t want to be the one to stand in your way. What if . . . what if you are supposed to run for an office of some kind one day—”

  “I don’t want to do that, Christopher.”

  “But what if it could happen—that is, if you weren’t tied down to a husband and family? I want the best and fullest possibilities for you, Corrie. I want your life to count for all it possibly can. What if you can influence and help more people in these other ways, through your writing and even politics . . . oh, I am just so fearful of being a detriment to all the ways God might have to use you! You are an important public figure, Corrie, whether you admit it or not . . . and I don’t want to be the one to keep you from fulfilling whatever destiny the Lord might have for you.”

  He glanced away, blinking back tears again.

  Now it was my turn to reach out and touch him alongside his cheek, which was still turned away from me.

  “Christopher,” I said. “All of that means nothing to me alongside you—don’t you know that? I love you too. The only destiny I care about for myself . . . is being your wife.”

  He turned and looked at me, wiped at his eyes a time or two, then smiled. I smiled back.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve never been through anything like this before.”

  “Neither have I,” I said.

  “Sometimes my self-doubts just get too strong to fight, and I succumb to what they tell me.”

  “Mine too. When you got so quiet and quit talking and giving me letters, I thought you had changed your mind about me. I thought your plan had worked so well that your time here was showing you that you didn’t love me after all.”

  “Never! But the time here did eventually show me that you had another life that was pretty significant before I came along. It made me think that you would be better off without me.”

  “I’ll say the same thing you did—never!”

  We were quiet a while. At last the woods seemed peaceful again. I drew in a deep breath. Now the pine fragrance was pleasant again.

  “I’m sorry for doubting you,” I said at length, “and for the things I said back there. I should have trusted you enough to just come and talk to you. But why, if all these things were in your mind, did you tell me to go speak at Marysville?”

  “Because we had to know if that was something the Lord might have for you in your future. You had to know, and I had to know. And I must admit I’m not altogether certain God wants you to put all that behind you. You obviously have a voice he can use. We just have to determine where Corrie Hollister the writer and speechmaker fits into our someday being Mr. and Mrs. Braxton.”

  “Almeda had to deal with the same thing when she married Pa. She was a successful businesswoman.”

  “We should probably talk to them about it.”

  We were quiet again for just a moment.

  “You’re always thinking of what is best for me, aren’t you?” I said.

  “I don’t know. I suppose that is usually what comes to my mind.”

  “You’re a good man, Christopher Braxton.”

  “I don’t know about that. I still struggle with so many things within myself. I’m sorry for withdrawing back into my shell like I did,” said Christopher. “It’s one of my worst faults. I tend to get quiet and introspective when self-doubts attack me. I know it’s hard for the people closest to me, but when it comes, I can’t help it. I just ask for your patience if it happens again.”

  “I’ll do my best to remember that.”

  “Whatever you do, please don’t doubt my love for you.”

  “I’ll try. But I get tossed about by self-doubts too.”

  “I guess we all do. But you and I have to learn to come to each other when things like this happen, not drift apart and quit talking. If we don’t talk when doubts and questions come, then walls and barriers will grow between us—that’s something we positively mustn’t let happen. And please come
to me when I get that way, because sometimes it nearly paralyzes me and I simply don’t know what to do.”

  We both breathed a deep breath, as if resolving to put the misunderstanding behind us.

  Christopher leapt to his feet, then offered me his hand and pulled me up. When I was beside him, he took me in his arms and held me tight.

  “I love you, Corrie. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m sorry I doubted your love. I should have known you wouldn’t quit loving me so easily.”

  “I will never quit loving you at all.”

  After a moment, he released me and we began walking slowly back toward the house.

  “Do you know the thing I feel worst about of all?” Christopher asked as we walked.

  “What?” I said.

  “That I didn’t say anything about your new yellow dress.”

  I laughed lightly.

  “I was being selfish to be so withdrawn, Corrie. Forgive me . . . again. I love the dress. You did a magnificent job, and you were absolutely beautiful in it.”

  “Thank you. I had to have something to keep me busy.”

  Now it was Christopher’s turn to laugh.

  “Well, I hope you can begin writing me letters once again.”

  “I will . . . if you will too.”

  “It’s a bargain!”

  By the end of the day, everyone else knew that the clouds between Christopher and me had blown away and the sun was shining again. They were all obviously relieved, though nobody asked what it had all been about.

  For the next week, whenever Christopher and I caught each other’s eyes, the smile that passed between us was a smile of love and trust on an even deeper level than before.

  Christopher had been right. Getting to know someone you love was a matter of going down to one layer beyond another. And that was worth doing even when pain and temporary misunderstanding was the instrument used to chip the hard crust away so the two of you could get down there.

  We never forgot the difficult lesson in communication we had learned—that when doubts and questions and frustrations and difficulties came we had to talk more, not less.