Always There: Christian Inspirational Romance

by Georgia Grace

  “Okay. But I’m not calling anyone else Daddy.”

  “Deal,” Elise said with a smile.

  In her heart, Elise wondered why Jilly was asking these questions right now. Did she sense something was going on with Ben?

  Her mind was getting away from her. Jilly knew nothing about Ben. She’d never even mentioned him in all of the years Jilly had been on this Earth. But children are smart and intuitive, she thought. Maybe Jilly wouldn’t like Ben. Maybe she wouldn’t like Ben anymore. What if Sandy didn’t like Ben? Would she have to separate them at family functions?

  Good Lord. Her mind was off the tracks completely now.

  ***

  The rest of the day was taken up with cleaning, catching up on laundry and grocery shopping for dinner guests. Elise was happy to have a diversion because when her thoughts weren’t on Ben, they were on Barb.

  Her heart ached every time she thought about Dave and what he was going through. Watching the love of his life fade away before his very eyes couldn’t have been easy. She knew all too well what it was like to see the person you loved lying there, but their soul was already gone.

  It wasn’t often that Elise allowed herself to think back to that day. The worst day of her life, second only to seeing her Daddy on the floor of their living room.

  Elise had gone to her book club that morning, stopping on the way home for an expensive coffee drink. Jilly was at school, thankfully, which saved her daughter the memory that Elise herself had after seeing her own father die.

  She pulled into the garage, got out of the car and walked into her kitchen. It was spacious with granite countertops and hardwood floors. It always made Elise feel safe and secure to walk into her elegant home, and it was a far cry from the moderate middle class home she’d grown up in. Going from rags to riches felt like an accomplishment, but it had all been built on a house of cards.

  She called for Ted since his car was in the driveway, which was odd. He’d told her he was going to a meeting downtown and kissed her goodbye as she fled out the door to her book club but he was going to be late at this rate.

  “Ted?” she called as she walked all over the house. “Huh. That’s weird. Maybe he rode with Evan,” she said to herself, referring to Ted’s trusty assistant.

  Never in a million years did she expect what she saw next. She walked into Ted’s office, intent on leaving him a sweet love note that he would find later while she was at her PTA meeting. At first, she almost missed it, but then she saw the tip of his expensive Italian leather shoes peeking out from behind his large mahogany desk.

  “Ted? Ted? What’s wrong?” she yelled as she ran around the desk and saw him lying there, a bottle of pills on the plush carpet beside his right hand. The bottle was empty and he looked like he was just asleep. Peaceful. Serene. She shook him as hard as she could, but inside she knew he was already gone. The void of his presence took her breath away as she laid her head on his chest. No heartbeat. No sounds of life. His hands were cold, his cheek offered no warmth to her lips.

  “Dear God, why…” she screamed. Just as she yelled, Sandy came around the desk.

  “Elise, what happened?” she said as she fell to her knees beside her friend. “Oh no…”

  The rest of the day was a blur. 911 was called. The ambulance came. For what? There was no saving him. Friends showed up. The police. Someone picked up Jilly.

  The memories came flooding back to her. It was a day she never wanted to think about again, but she always did. What Ted had done colored every moment of her life whether she liked it or not. She missed him. She hated him. She loved him. She ached for him. So many emotions mixed around in her heart that she thought she might never sort them all out.

  And maybe she wasn’t supposed to. Suicide wasn’t a normal part of life for most people. It wasn’t the way life was supposed to end. Normal would’ve been the two of them in rocking chairs on their front porch holding grand babies one day. The emotions she felt were to be expected, and maybe time would help to heal those wounds one day. She hoped so.

  “Hello? Earth to Elise?” Sandy said, waving her hand in front of her friend’s face.

  “Oh. Hey!” Elise said with a smile, trying to snap out of her daze. She had been covering the picnic table outside of the RV with a red and white checked plastic tablecloth when Sandy had pulled up, family in tow.

  “You okay? You looked like you were in a trance.”

  “Just running through memories in my mind,” she said, a sad smile playing across her lips.

  “About Ted?” Sandy could read her mind.

  “About that day. I haven’t let myself think about it in a long time.” Elise smoothed out the tablecloth.

  “Why today?”

  “I don’t know. Guilt, maybe?”

  “Inappropriate guilt, Elise. Ted changed the rules. You don’t deserve to be punished for it. You have to go on, live your life. Take things slow. But guilt isn’t necessary in this case. You hear me?” she said, pointing her finger. Elise smiled.

  “Hey, boys!” she said to Sandy’s sons as they jumped out of the rented minivan.

  Ben would be there any minute, and Elise was a nervous wreck. She felt like a celebrity was coming to visit, which made no sense since Ben was just a simple man, no one special to anyone else but her.

  “So, when’s Ben getting here?” Sandy asked.

  “Any minute now I would think.”

  As if on cue, Ben drove up in his modest compact car. He was starting over, and Pastor Tex had found him a car that he could make small payments on. It was dark blue with one window taped up, but it did the job. Ben wasn’t too proud to take help when he needed it.

  Everyone stopped when he pulled up, and Elise felt sorry for him. It was like he was on display, and he’d had no idea all of these people would be there.

  “Ben, hey…” Elise said, pushing past everyone and walking toward him. He was carrying a box of doughnuts that he’d picked up at LouLou’s Doughnut Shop in downtown Seaview.

  “Hey…” he said, smiling with those dimples that melted her heart and caused her to lose her senses. He also looked a bit confused.

  “Ben, I want you to meet some people. My friend, Sandy, came in from Atlanta yesterday and surprised me! Sandy, this is Ben…”

  “Hi, Ben,” Sandy said, smiling as she reached out to shake his hand.

  “Hey,” he said, his shyness becoming apparent as he looked down.

  “And these are Sandy’s kids. Megan, Dylan, Joey and Sam…”

  Ben smiled and waved at each of the kids before they parted like the Red Sea to show Jilly standing on the steps of the RV staring at him.

  “And this must be Jilly,” he said softly as he walked toward the RV with Elise following closely behind him.

  “Yes. Jilly, this is Ben. Remember me telling you about my old friend?” Elise said, smiling in the hopes that her daughter might crack a smile soon too. She didn’t.

  “Hey, Jilly,” Ben said. Elise was sure she heard his voice crack.

  “Hey,” Jilly said. “What are those dents in your cheeks?” she finally asked which caused everyone to bowl over in laughter.

  “Those are called dimples, Jilly,” Elise chided. “Sorry, Ben,” she said laughing.

  “No problem,” he said. Jilly walked down the stairs toward him but then continued on, running off with Megan. He sighed.

  “Give her time. She just met you. She’ll get used to you being around,” Elise said quietly as the others started firing up the grill.

  “Oh, so I’ll be around more often?” he asked, dimples on full display again.

  “Well, I guess that’s up to you,” she said.

  “Let me tell you something, Elise…” he said, poking her in the arm. “I’m not ever letting you out of my sight again.”

  Elise’s stomach did a somersault. She felt like a lovesick teenager all over again, but it felt pretty darn good.

  ***

  “So, Elise decides that we need to save t
his cat that was living out beside the laundromat. I kept telling her that the cat belonged to Mr. Flanders who owned the place, but she wouldn’t believe me. So, we sneak down there at nightfall and go to snatch the cat, but old Flanders was waiting for us. He came out from behind the dumpster and Elise runs like a rocket straight across the parking lot and falls into the creek on the other side of the road. Well, old Flanders calls our parents and we got into a ton of trouble, but the best part was looking at Elise, all drenched and wet holding onto that bag of cat food she brought along…” Ben said, sobbing through his laughter as he took the last bite of his hamburger.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t funny!” Elise said pointing at him. “He just stood there and laughed instead of dragging me out of that nasty water.”

  “Those were good times,” Ben said, wiping tears from his eyes.

  “Oh, I could tell some stories about you,” Elise said, but as she quickly scanned the table she could tell by the children’s faces that their stories were getting old. After all, what kids wanted to hear stories from what they considered to be “old people”?

  They’d spent the last hour eating and laughing around the picnic table. Sandy had warmed up to Ben quicker than Elise would’ve thought which eased her mind quite a bit. In fact, Sandy had given her a few looks throughout the evening that indicated her approval.

  The sun had set, and the warm night air made for a comfortable evening with friends. Elise realized that she’d never felt more at home than she had living in Seaview. It wasn’t just the place, but the people. If only Sandy would relocate, it would be heaven on Earth but that was never going to happen. Sandy was a city girl through and through.

  “Are we boring you kids?” Elise asked, grinning at her daughter and Megan who both had their chins resting in the hands.

  “Kinda,” Megan said with a giggle. Sandy playfully slapped her daughter on the hand.

  “Megan Marie!”

  “It’s okay. I’d be bored too,” Elise said laughing. “Hey, I think the community center is playing a movie in about fifteen minutes. Maybe ya’ll could go see it?”

  The kids all cheered in unison and were halfway down the sidewalk before Elise could blink her eyes. Sandy started clearing the table, tossing paper plates and half drunk sodas into the large garbage can on the edge of the property.

  “Thanks for inviting me tonight,” Ben said softly as he stared at Elise across the picnic table. His gaze was a bit unnerving to her, almost like he was staring straight through her soul. When he looked at her, she saw herself. Her real self.

  “You’re welcome. It was actually nice having you here. Brought back old times,” she said. “We had a lot of good times, you and me.”

  “That we did,” he said with a wink. “And I hope there are many more to come.”

  “Hey, guys, I think I’m going to join the kiddos at the movie. Is that okay, Elise?” Sandy asked.

  “You don’t have to…”

  “I want to,” Sandy said smiling as she turned and walked toward the community center.

  “I hope we didn’t make her feel like a third wheel,” Elise said as she turned sideways and put her feet on the long wooden seat.

  “I think she knew we needed to talk.”

  “Do we?”

  “Want to take a walk down at the beach?” he asked, and Elise’s heart immediately started thumping out of her chest. She hadn’t been alone with a man - any man - in more than a decade. And this was her childhood crush asking her to walk - at night - down by the beautiful ocean. It was a sure recipe for disaster.

  “Sure,” she heard herself say without any logical thought. Ben had always had that effect on her. Logical thought just flew right out the window. Of course, she’d never been overly logical herself, hence the cat story Ben had just told.

  She locked up the trailer, grabbed her cell phone and slipped on her flip flops before they headed down to the wooden walkway leading from the campground to the beach. She could hear the roar of the big screen TV in the community center as they passed by and saw Jilly sitting in Sandy’s lap as they laughed at some animated flick.

  They tossed their shoes off at the end of the walkway and stepped into the warm, soft sand. The sound of the waves rolling in and out were a calming background to Elise’s racing heartbeat. She felt like blood was pumping throughout her body harder than it ever had in her life. In fact, she could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears, a fact that would’ve normally concerned her but didn’t seem so critical at the moment.

  “This is a beautiful beach,” Ben said as they started walking. Lights from the community center started to become harder to see as they made their way down the beach.

  “It is. I’m so glad I chose this as our first stop,” Elise said.

  “First stop? You plan to go further?”

  “Well, that was my original intention. I was trying to live out Ted’s big dream of taking this RV up the East coast. But then I fell in love with Seaview and the people here. I don’t want to leave my church, and I have Dave to think about now…”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure…”

  “Why were you trying to live out Ted’s dream when he crushed all of yours?” The question hit her like a lightning bolt, and it hurt. Not because Ben said it but because it felt true in her soul. Why was she doing this? It wasn’t her dream, and Ted had squashed all of her dreams the moment he swallowed those pills.

  “I don’t know really. I guess I thought it might help Jilly heal. But I never expected that all of this would happen,” she said, waving her arms around.

  “This?”

  “This whole new start. I feel like Seaview has always been my home, but I just found it. It’s weird.”

  “That’s why I never left. There’s just something about this place and the people. It’s my little pocket of peace on this Earth.” She understood just what he meant.

  “Now, can I ask you something?” Elise said.

  “Of course.”

  “Where do you want to go from here?”

  “Well, Rocky has given me a lot of work, so I’m thinking of starting my own contracting business…”

  “No, I don’t mean that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With us.” It was the most forward question she’d ever asked in her life.

  Ben looked at her and smiled. “Well, Elise, why don’t you just get right to the point?”

  “No use in delaying the conversation since I rarely get a moment alone without Jilly,” she said with a chuckle.

  “True. She’s an amazing kid,” he said.

  “Don’t stall, Ben. Just say what’s on your mind.”

  He stopped and sat down on a big rock at the edge of the sand. “Sit with me,” he said softly. Elise sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Can I be honest?”

  “I would hope that’s all you’d be…”

  “I never expected to see you again, El. I had resigned myself to a life of working hard, giving to others and learning more about God. I was actually becoming okay with that. When you came to Seaview, it rocked my whole world and turned everything I thought about my future upside down.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “No, no… You don’t understand. That’s a good thing. God has put us together so many times in so many ways, but the timing was never quite right. We were young, you were ambitious, I wasn’t ready, you got married….”

  “Ben, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I feel in my heart that the time for us is right now, Elise. I can’t go another day of my life without telling you that I love you. I’ve always loved you, but I didn’t know how to show it. You’re the one for me, Elise, and you always will be whether you decide to take a chance on me or not. You’ve been my heart since I was in the seventh grade, and you’ll be my heart until it stops beating as an old man in a rocking chair.”

  Elise literally couldn’t take a breath. It was like she was in her own ro
mantic movie. How she had longed to hear those words from him in middle school and high school. If he’d said something before she married Ted, she would’ve stopped everything and gone with Ben. She’d always known he was the one.

  “Say something, Elise. Please. My heart’s going to explode if you don’t,” he said with a nervous laugh.

  “I have a daughter,” she blurted out, which wasn’t at all what she meant to say or wanted to say. She most certainly wouldn’t be cast in a romantic movie anytime soon.