Just to See You Smile

by Sally John

  “Semper fi, right?” she asked. “Always faithful.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  She grinned. “Do you remember working out with the boys basketball team one afternoon? You rolled up your T-shirt sleeves.”

  He groaned.

  “Drew told his mom about the tattoo, and she told me, and then Alec told us it’s a Marine phrase.” She laughed.

  “Guess you can’t say much against tattoos to the kids. They all know about your eagle and your semper fi banner. Youch! Didn’t that hurt?”

  “To a Marine?” he scoffed. “No way.”

  She smiled again. Such a great smile. “Anyway, thank you. For all of this. Those tapes helped. I can’t believe you put so much time into watching…” Her voice faded.

  “My pleasure.” He tilted her chin up and hesitated. She fit too well in his arms, in his home, in his thoughts. Best not to even start. “Mmm. This is not a good idea.”

  “Rules of engagement?” she murmured.

  “I’m making them up as we go along.” His eyes lingered on hers. “We’d never get to dinner, Princess.” Reluctantly he let go of her chin and stood. “And I promised to cook for you.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Uh, no.” He gave her a crooked smile and headed toward the kitchen. “Why don’t you stay put and relax?” While I go out here and cool down…

  Forty-Four

  Alec pirouetted Mandy around the kitchen as they both sang loudly and off-key. His younger daughter’s favorite music—a children’s chorus singing Christian lyrics to a hip- hop beat—blared from the stereo. At the counter, Amy shredded goat cheese, singing at the top of her voice. It was late afternoon, and they were preparing tacos for dinner. Drew was at basketball practice.

  What a day! Alec laughed, leapt in the air, and clicked his heels. The girls squealed and giggled at his antics.

  Sifting through the memories earlier in the attic was like jump-starting a dead corner of his mind, the corner responsible for creating romantic ideas. Once that was charged, the energy flowed. He finished long-standing plumbing and carpentry projects around the house. He planned Anne’s favorite dinner complete with chocolate cake. He wrote three notes that said “I love you” and posted them on the vanity, in her sock drawer, and on her pillow. He made a list of possible gifts he could buy her for Valentine’s Day. He thought of things he could do for her.

  He checked the calendar and noticed with dismay that he was scheduled to be out of town on business February 14! Why had he scheduled that? Because the date hadn’t meant a thing. His mind raced. Could he reschedule? He had to reschedule.

  Think about it. Pray about it.

  The phone rang. Amy answered while Alec turned down the music.

  “Dad, it’s Mom.”

  He took the cordless phone. “Hi, sweet—” Pausing, he consciously dropped the automatic tone. “Sweetheart. Annie. Love of my life. Bearer of my children.”

  “What did you break?”

  “Nothing. Actually, I fixed a few things.”

  “Great. Alec.” There was an edge to her voice. “It’s sleeting here. The forecast says it’s going to get worse. What’s it doing there?”

  “I haven’t noticed.” He stepped over to the sink and peered through the window above it. It was too dark to see anything. “Can you leave now?”

  “Cars are sliding across the parking lot.” Her voice trembled slightly. “It looks like a sheet of ice. It was fine 20 minutes ago when the last customer left.”

  They both knew how drastically winter weather could change within a few moments time. Those caught unawares… The silence hung heavy between them. Images played in his head, and he knew they’d been in Anne’s before she picked up the phone to call. “I’ll come get you.”

  “No! Please, Alec,” she nearly whimpered. “Don’t come. Don’t put me through that.”

  “Okay, okay. I won’t.” He wouldn’t. She had put him through that, traveling when she should have stayed put during an ice storm…

  “I’ll wait it out.”

  Drew walked through the door.

  “Hold on, Anne. Drew’s home.” He noticed his son’s odd expression, but thought it best not to ask what was wrong with Anne listening. “What are the roads like?”

  Drew shrugged out of his jacket. “Bad.” He chewed a corner of his lip and turned to hang up his coat.

  Alec darted over to him and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. Drew came back around. Alec looked up at his tall son. Alarmed at the little boy visage he saw there, he pressed the phone against his chest and mouthed, “What happened?”

  “The car’s fine.” His overgrown hands fluttered. “I sailed past a stop sign, but nothing happened! I wasn’t going fast, honest!”

  Alec patted his cheek, relieved. “Now you know how to drive on ice.” He put the phone to his ear.

  “Alec!”

  “I’m here.”

  “This is a toll call!”

  “Oh, yeah. Drew says the roads are bad here, too. Stay put.”

  “Charlie said I can go home with him. He doesn’t live far and it’s flat between here and there. I’ll call you in a bit. Bye.”

  “Bye. I love—” He heard the disconnection click.

  So much for wowing his wife with romantic surprises. With disgust he punched the off button. Romantic surprises? That was the least of his concerns! Charlie Manning was right where he should be, comforting Annie through one of her worst nightmares.

  In the midst of yet another public service announcement to stay off the highways, Anne snapped the radio’s power dial and walked out into the shop. She crossed her arms in an effort to stop her hands from trembling. “Charlie, what are you doing?”

  Her boss stood in front of the display of brushes, poking through them, lifting out one, then another. Had he heard her? Today’s flannel shirt was blues and grays that high-lighted his eyes and hair. In his left hand he held a shopping bag. Now he deposited a handful of brushes into it as he stepped over to the paints.

  Anne went to the window and shivered. Truthfully, she didn’t even want to ride down the street with Charlie. The city streets would not resemble the two-lane state highway or the parking lot. Still, to go out at all on a night like—

  “Anne.”

  She turned to face him.

  “You seem troubled.”

  Once again his perceptiveness sliced through her jumbled emotions. She didn’t know where to begin.

  “Perhaps staying at my house isn’t such a good idea. Your husband might get the wrong impression.”

  Anne chuckled at the absurd idea. “I told you that you remind me of my brother.” Tall, gaunt, artistic, a shade on the odd side. “The illustrator who lives in Oregon.”

  “And you remind me of my daughter, but Alec has no way of knowing that since I’ve never mentioned it to you. So I put myself in his shoes. If my wife were in this predicament, I’d risk life and limb to get to her.”

  “Alec won’t do that.”

  “I gathered that from your conversation. Sorry, I over-heard that part. At any rate, he’s a red-blooded male who will not be comfortable with you at another man’s house. Therefore, I’ve taken the liberty of calling the motel next door on my cell while you were on the other phone. They have a room. My treat. It’s what I would do for my daughter. And, I’d give this to her.” He handed her the shopping bag.

  “We’ll grab a canvas, too.”

  Anne stared at him, speechless.

  “Go and paint, dear lady.”

  “Oh, Charlie!” Tears sprang to her eyes. “This isn’t necessary.”

  “I think it is. Why don’t you get your coat?”

  A few moments later they stood again at the front door, coats on, lights off. Charlie held a canvas and an easel under one arm.

  Anne peeked in the shopping bag she carried; there were oils, brushes, a palette, a sketch book. “Charlie, I can walk to the motel.” The parking lot of the mini-mall in which the art store
was located abutted the motel’s lot. A ten foot snow bank separated them.

  “You’d have to walk out to the street and around. I’ll drive you.” He moved to open the door. “It’s not exactly out of my way.”

  “I prefer to walk.” Her voice sounded like a stranger’s.

  “Anne, what is it?”

  “I…I don’t want to…” She waited for the shudder to pass. “It’s the ice. I was in an accident seven years ago. The weather was like this.” Over the years she grew used to snow driving again. Ice storms were rare. If conditions predicted one, she simply didn’t drive.

  She went on. “Alec was home with the kids. I was in Rockville, finishing up Christmas shopping at the mall until late evening. I ignored the radio warnings and drove right into the storm. The car slid off of the highway.” She paused. “I was five months pregnant.” Another pause. “He would have been our fourth.” She wiped a tear from her eye.

  Charlie crooked his elbow and held it toward her. “Come on,” he said in his soft voice. “I’ll walk you over to the motel.”

  Forty-Five

  “Joel, this is wonderful.” Britte closed her eyes and inhaled the scents wafting from the forkful of fettuccine Alfredo she held up. “Mmm. Cheese and garlic. Salmon with some kind of honey-mustard sauce. French bread. Salad. Where did you learn to cook like this?”

  “That fiancée I mentioned? She was studying to become a chef.” He shrugged. “I kind of got hooked on the process when I helped Marti practice.”

  “Is she a chef now?”

  “I have no idea.” Soft jazz music filled the quiet space. He eyed her over a bite of salmon. Did he detect a waver of disbelief? “Really. It was a long time ago. Remember? I’m much older than you. Lots of water under the bridge. It’s like that Bible verse about old things passing away and everything becoming new.”

  She smiled. “I keep forgetting how old you are.”

  And he kept forgetting how young she was, how naïve.

  “Joel, what’s your family like?”

  “Typical middle-class, hardworking. Churchgoing, but not Christ-centered like yours. I’m guessing you were a little girl when you met Jesus?”

  “Nine.”

  “Then you’re ages ahead of me in that department. I was 30 years old.”

  “How did it happen?”

  Now the junk would come out. He saw the compassion in her eyes and knew she was indeed eons older in a spiritual sense. Could they ever truly meet on a level playing field? “Britte, it’s not a fairy-tale story like yours.”

  “I did not grow up in a castle!” Her tone was indignant. “My parents made mistakes. And I haven’t been perfect!”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s a relative term. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Cut class? Gotten a speeding ticket?”

  “You know that’s not the point. There are no degrees of badness. In God’s eyes, if we’re angry with a brother we’re as guilty as if we’ve committed murder. But if we have faith in Christ, He sees us as perfect. And one time I had two speeding tickets within a year.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “I’m shocked.”

  “I thought you would be.” She reached over and squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to tell me about the worst thing you’ve ever done.”

  He met her blue gaze. “You are one of a kind, Britte Olafsson. For years I’ve been successfully avoiding feeling too much. Jesus has given me work to do. And like a general, I can disengage the grayness of feelings and deal in the black and white. One, two, three, get it done. Now, every time I look at you, emotions just sort of…explode. Part of me wants to run away so I don’t have to deal with them. I don’t really know how to deal with them.”

  A momentary pain registered in her eyes. “Jesus dealt with them. He laughed. He cried.”

  “Yeah, but He was perfect.”

  “Maybe we could do it together.”

  He took her hand still covering his, brought it to his lips, and kissed the palm. Already he had said so much more than he intended, revealed the tip of that unfathomable iceberg of emotions. Lord, give me the strength to deal with them when the meltdown comes.

  Britte sat on the couch. This time Joel had chosen the recliner, a large one that suited his long frame. The footrest was down. He crossed his legs, ankle to knee, and sipped coffee. They had switched to decaf. The music still played softly. Blinds were shut against the cold night. She could hear the wind howling.

  Since kissing her hand, Joel had kept his distance, even while they cleaned the kitchen together. She sensed he was ill at ease after opening up to her. Had he ever discussed emotions before? She doubted it. From what little he had revealed of his family, she deduced that he came from a tradition of stoic, military males. Of course, she had almost guessed that from her own observations. No wonder he had migraines.

  He was telling her about becoming a teacher. “That’s genetic, too, from my mother’s side. She taught for 30 years before retiring. She’d still be teaching if Dad hadn’t retired as a mechanic and wanted them to spend more time together. She still volunteers. In the Marines, I liked every aspect of teaching, of bringing order to the chaos of untrained minds. After the service, I went to college. Then I taught high school history for four years. Once I saw how chaotic secondary school environments could be, I went to work on my master’s in administration.”

  “Let me guess. You became a principal to bring order to the bigger picture.”

  He grinned. “Do you know how ridiculous a general looks in a puny classroom?”

  She laughed. “Well, you have done a tremendous job of bringing order to Valley Oaks High. You’ve got my vote.”

  “Your vote doesn’t count.”

  A vague sense of disquiet threaded itself through her chest. “Joel, they’ll renew your contract after all the good you’ve accomplished. It’s so obvious what you’ve done.” They had to renew it.

  “Some people don’t like knowing we’ve got big-city-type problems at the school.” He shrugged. “If we don’t highlight them by attempting to remedy them, then they don’t exist. You look like you’re going to pop.”

  “I might.” Her face felt warm with anger.

  He smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Miss O. Want some more coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” They looked at one another for a moment, and then she prompted, “And so after the Marines you became a Christian?”

  “Not immediately. Britte.” He set his cup on the end table and looked at her again. “I was dishonorably discharged.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Forfeiture of veteran’s benefits. I had a good lawyer; he got the confinement sentence reduced to six months.”

  “Confinement? As in jail?”

  “I was court-martialed for disobeying orders. It’s a dishonor that doesn’t go away. The school board knows all about it and decided to hire me in spite of it.” He gave her a wry smile. “Other than that, my record was spotless. So to speak. Another relative term.”

  “Did you disobey orders?”

  “Oh, definitely. I was leading a four-man recon team in Kuwait. There were other teams out. Iraqis had been spotted. It was our job to figure out exactly where they were. My team split up. When all was said and done…” His voiced trailed off. She suspected his thoughts skimmed details, reliving, eliminating what he didn’t want to tell her. “One of my guys was wounded. His partner couldn’t get him through alone. I was ordered to pull out.” He gave her a tight smile. “We don’t leave anyone behind. My partner and I were in a good position to get the other two out. I informed my CO of my decision, told him not to send the chopper. It was getting near dawn. The timing was wrong. The chopper came. A Marine on board was killed picking us up.” His face went blank.

  “Joel?”

  He blinked.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded.

  “If he hadn’t died, would they have given you a medal for saving the ot
her two?”

  His chuckle was a dry rumble. “You sound like my dad. Bottom line, I disobeyed orders. Automatic discharge with dishonor.”

  In spite of the circumstances, she wanted to add, but knew that he would not hide behind excuses. Britte set the empty mug she had been clutching on the end table, sickened at the thought of what he had lived through. “Does that make you feel betrayed?”

  “Now you sound like Sam, asking questions about my feelings.” His stare and set jaw challenged her.

  “I think,” she offered softly, “this is how we deal with your emotions together.”

  “You really want to tackle that?”

  “Yes. It’s called friendship, Joel. I can’t have a relationship without being friends. I can’t do the man-woman thing without a friendship. Do you want to tackle that?”

  He propped his elbow on the chair arm and stuck his chin in his hand, quietly studying her for a moment. “You mean get rid of my politically incorrect biases?”

  She raised her brows. “If that’s what it takes.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, lady. Kingsley Marines don’t laugh much, and they sure don’t cry.”

  “All things are possible through Christ.”

  He rubbed his chin, the struggle evident on his face. At last he said, “No, I don’t feel betrayed. Not anymore. The Corps was my life from the time I could walk. I’d do it all over again. But the aftermath was…ugly. Marti bailed out. I was over the edge, aimless for about a year. Sam’s a ’Nam vet. He found me outside the VA hospital, drunk, feeling betrayed. He volunteers at the hospital, but he couldn’t get me inside for treatment. He took me home, later kept tabs on me, got me through the rough spots, got me into college in Chicago. All the time talking about Jesus. He didn’t really sink in for a few years. Not until I saw, truly saw, all that order He brought into this chaotic world. Britte, don’t cry.”

  She wiped at her eyes.

  “It all turned out for the best, Princess. It all turned out for the best.”

  Joel watched her trying to compose herself. He gripped the arms of the chair, refusing to comfort her…refusing to give in to the anguish rumbling through his chest like an armored tank. She could cry for the both of them.