by Lyn Cote
“Okay, boys, give me and Mr. Lassater a minute to get changed and we’ll be right with you.”
The next bright and beautiful morning, all of them sat in the large picnic shelter near the main office. Dressed in shorts and summer dresses, many of the resort guests had gathered for an informal Sunday worship service.
After a full day and night at the resort, Gracie had begun to relax—except when Jack was right beside her, as he was now.
And another cause of tension—in front of them, Mike and Sandy sat shoulder to shoulder. That didn’t bother her much. But watching Jack stare at the backs of their two parents did. Jack might be right for once. Sandy and Mike might be more than friends.
Then, before Gracie’s startled eyes, her dad put his arm around Sandy’s shoulders. So Jack had been right. Her dad and his mom were…an item.
Conflicting emotions cascading through her, she glanced up at Jack. The stormy look on his face told her that he hadn’t failed to notice her dad’s move. She felt blindsided herself.
A hymn was announced and they all rose, holding a tattered sheet with words to several traditional songs. Someone strummed a guitar and began, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”
Jack shifted on the seat and probably not because the bench was hard.
“All our sins and griefs to bear,” Gracie joined in, observing how her dad and Sandy shared a song sheet. Well, she couldn’t have chosen anyone better for her dad. The only problem now—Jack. She leaned close to his ear. “Don’t be so obvious,” she whispered.
He glanced at her, obviously disgruntled.
“Let it go.”
Now he glared at her.
Dear Lord, what am I going to do with this man? He’s going to upset his mom if he keeps this up. And she doesn’t deserve that.
“What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer,” Gracie sang in her tenuous soprano voice. This is hard, Lord. I didn’t think my dad would marry again. But he has a right to love again. I know that. Still, she felt a stitch in her side, a growing pain.
Her mother’s face floated through her mind. Her mother had been gone nearly a decade. And Sandy was definitely a sweetheart. Gracie swallowed down her own emotional reaction to her father becoming interested in another woman. “Oh, what peace we often forfeit,” she sang. “Oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”
The hymn ended and everyone shuffled around and reseated themselves.
Andy promptly climbed onto Jack’s lap while Austin hurried around the bench and clambered onto his grampa’s lap. Austin put his arms around Mike’s neck and stared over Mike’s shoulder at Gracie and Jack.
“I’m not a preaching pastor,” said a slight man in his early thirties who was standing at the front. The wind blew his long hair around and he pushed it away from his face. “I’m a youth pastor at a church in Milwaukee. But the Groshkys asked me to give a brief message today in this beautiful natural setting.”
His easy conversational style made his congregation settle down and give him their attention.
“As I stand here, I’m filled with gratitude for the opportunity to be able to steal away from the city for a week of sunshine, swimming and fishing.”
The audience responded with applause and some murmurs of agreement. “God has created a beautiful world. But man, because of his desire for his own way, has caused a lot of problems. Here it’s almost easy to forget that drugs are destroying lives and evil men plot murder. But we’re taking a vacation from all that.”
Gracie and the people around her sobered. She thought of the hacker and whether he would try to breach Jack’s new system.
“Use this time away from everyday responsibilities,” the preacher continued, “to tell each other the things you’ve been too busy to say, like ‘I love you.’ ‘You mean everything to me.’ ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to fix things between us.’ ‘You’re right.”’
A few chuckled at the last phrase.
The youth pastor grinned. “I say that final one a lot. Maybe I need to say it even more often.” He glanced at a pretty young mother in the front row and grinned. “I don’t think I have to belabor the point.”
“I’d just like to remind you that the Lord wants us to settle any disagreements or grudges we have before we come to him to worship. In his Sermon on the Mount, Christ said…” He lifted his Bible and read, “‘You have heard that the law of Moses says, do not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment. But I say, if you are angry with someone, you are subject to judgment….”’
Gracie glanced at Jack. You are angry, Jack. Please let it go.
“Jesus goes on to teach the crowd who had gathered in a natural setting, just as we have gathered here, The Lord’s Prayer. Let’s stand and recite it together.” The preacher raised his hand.
The informal congregation rose. Jack held a drowsy Andy in his arms while Mike held Austin.
“Our Father who art in Heaven.” The pastor led them.
When they came to the part “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” Gracie glanced up at Jack’s sober face. If only you could read my mind, my heart and accept my love.
The next day, Gracie and Sandy were in the kitchen making dinner. At the table, Sandy sat stirring a deep chocolatey brownie mix from a box. At the sink, Gracie rinsed and began tearing lettuce for a salad. In the large room behind the women, the boys were taking a break on the couch and watching the only cartoon show on the only station they could get on the cabin’s ancient rabbit-eared TV. Outside the kitchen window over the sink, Jack and Mike were grilling chicken.
Gracie listened to the cartoon antics and Sandy stirred the batter in the bowl while humming to herself. Jack and Mike stood on opposite sides of the grill with their hands in their pockets—the picture of men avoiding one another.
Gracie sighed.
“Are they still acting like jerks?” Sandy asked.
Surprised, Gracie turned, but grinned. “I’m afraid so.”
“What are we going to do with them?” Sandy broke another egg into the batter.
Gracie looked out the window. Her dad glanced at Jack and said something. “Dad just said something to Jack,” she reported.
“Good.” Sandy cracked another egg.
Gracie studied Jack, waiting for him to respond. Finally, Jack said something. Her dad nodded. “Jack finally said something.”
“Wow,” Sandy crooned. “They better be careful—they might actually start a conversation. What’s wrong with men?”
Gracie shrugged. “Hold it! They’re facing each other.”
“Wow!”
“And now…Dad’s talking and Jack’s listening.”
“Be still my heart!” Sandy pressed a hand to her chest.
Gracie chuckled. It was a relief to laugh about the tension between the two men in their group. She, and evidently Sandy, too, had been aware of it though they hadn’t discussed it.
But more reassuring was the way Jack’s stiff posture was loosening and the way he was actually listening to her dad.
I don’t know what they’re talking about, but thank You, Lord.
Five days later, after night had cloaked the sky above the tall pines, Jack and Gracie stood in front of the cabin. Though it was well after their bedtimes, Austin and Andy stood between them. The four of them all stared above at the full moon. Though happy to have the boys with them, Gracie thought fleetingly of basking in the moonlight with only Jack.
“Okay now, boys—” Jack looked down into their upturned faces “—I’m going to show you how to find the North Star, just like my dad showed me when we were on a camping trip.”
This comment surprised Gracie. Jack rarely mentioned his father and especially not in terms of happy memories.
“What’s the North Star?” Austin asked, his chin pointing skyward.
“That’s the star that people use to find their way at night if they get lost,” Jack said.<
br />
“Uh-huh,” Andy agreed. “But we’re not lost.”
“Well, you need to know this before you ever get lost,” Jack explained.
The twins nodded at this bit of wisdom.
Gracie smiled because she knew that Jack’s star lesson was way beyond the boys, but the attention he was giving them could only be good. And in two days, they’d be back in Chicago.
Dear Lord, please let Annie and Troy make progress before we get home. I don’t want them to break up. They do love each other!
“Now…” Jack dropped to his knees on the pine needle-littered ground in front of the cabin, so he was at the boys’ level. “Look up there. Follow my arm.” He raised his arm toward the night sky.
Andy leaned against Jack’s right shoulder while Austin leaned against the left. Both boys stared upward.
“Now I’m pointing to the Big Dipper—”
“What’s a dipper?” Austin asked.
“It’s a…it’s a—” Jack fumbled for a word.
“It’s like a cup with a long handle,” Gracie supplied. It was easy to see why the twins adored Jack. He gave them his full attention. How did he know how to do that?
“Right.” Jack grinned at her.
“And that’s the big one?” Andy asked.
“Yes,” Jack said. “Watch how I trace it. It’s just like your connect-the-dots books. See, here’s the bowl of the cup and here’s the long handle—”
“Is it a bowl or a cup?” Andy asked, leaning harder against Jack.
“The bowl is the round deep part of a cup that holds liquid,” Gracie said, as the lake breeze wafted around her ankles.
I wish there weren’t so many cross-currents here. I need to know more, understand better. Why had Jack turned against his dad when Sandy and Cliff broke up? Why had he taken it as a personal betrayal, when others in the same situation didn’t?
“Oh,” Austin said.
“And now the North Star is over in this direction…” Jack continued.
The boys imitated Jack as he rotated to the right.
“Here’s the Little Dipper, and the North Star is directly at the top of the handle.” Jack put an arm around each boy. “How’s that?”
“Ooh…” the twins enthused.
Had Cliff been like this when Jack was a child? He must have been, or how could Jack know just how to behave with the twins?
Mike and Sandy came down the porch steps behind them. “Can you two put the twins to bed?” Mike asked. “We’re going to go for a moonlight stroll.”
“Sure,” Gracie replied.
“Have fun,” Jack said. “We’ll get the twins turned in.”
Gracie looked up at Jack’s expression. His words had come out easily and without any edge. Had he accepted the fact of their parents as a couple?
After telling the twins to mind, Mike and Sandy wished them good-night and strolled away, holding hands.
Soon, Gracie and Jack settled the twins into their bunk beds and, without exchanging a word, wandered back out onto the porch again.
“What a beautiful night,” she murmured, looking out at the moonlight rippling like silver lace on the water.
Jack came up behind her. “Do you think my mom will be okay with your dad? I mean…not just tonight, but…as a couple? Will they be all right together?”
Chapter Eleven
Gracie turned to look at him. The intense expression on his face drew her closer. How could she make him understand? No matter—she had to try. Her peace of mind and that of everyone else concerned depended on it.
“Of course, Jack. They’re already great together. Don’t you see that?”
Chin down, he nodded.
“Then, that’s good, right?” she ventured, edging closer to him.
Turning away, he gazed out at the lake. “I just never thought Mom would get serious with anyone again.”
“Why not?” This was more than mere possessiveness on Jack’s part. She could feel it.
Leaning away from her, he propped his hands on the rough porch railing. “Because of her health problems…how bad she felt after my dad left her and before he left her.”
After his reply, Gracie’s hope of persuading him to accept her dad and his mom together faltered. To describe his attitude as glum fell short. To progress up to merely glum, he’d have had to sound much more cheerful.
“Jack—” she touched his arm tentatively “—your mom is a wonderful woman. But when I realized that you were right, that my dad was interested in your mom as more than a friend, it surprised me, too.”
“Why?” He settled onto the porch railing with one knee bent. He faced her. An owl hooted in the distance.
“He loved my mother so.” Gracie felt her throat thicken. “Mom’s been gone almost ten years and he’s never dated anyone.”
“Never?”
His white shirt glowed in the moonlight, making it her focus. Her fingers itched to stroke its soft cotton. She shook her head. “When she’d been gone about a year, friends started trying to ‘fix’ him up with dates. But he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Mom was too special.”
“What happened to your mother?” Jack leaned forward.
His nearness made her quiver. “Cancer. She got sick the year before I started high school and they thought they caught it, but it came back after a year and then…” Gracie lifted her shoulders a fraction of an inch. Speaking of her mother’s death still had the power to cast a pall over her. “She just got worse and worse.” She paused. “It was hard to lose her.”
He rose in one smooth motion. His strong arms went around her. “I’m sorry.”
She inhaled sharply. How long had she yearned to be right where she was—in Jack’s arms? I shouldn’t allow this. I should pull away. I’m not like my mom, not like Annie. I’m not that special. No one could love me the way they were loved. But Jack needs me…maybe… Stopping her thoughts, she relaxed against him, luxuriating in his solid strength. I need you, Jack. I don’t want to but I do.
“I was a senior in high school when my dad left,” Jack murmured into her hair.
Gracie held her breath. Jack rarely ventured into personal emotional territory. Aside from knowing about his antagonism toward his dad, all she knew of his past, Sandy had told her as a friend.
“I’d gotten used to Dad being gone all the time. His schedule was crazy. But it always had been. But one morning, I came down to breakfast and Mom was crying…” His arms tightened around her.
She pressed closer to him. Oh, Jack, I hear how much this wounded you.
“I’d never seen my mom cry before.” He paused to suck in air. “It shook me up. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. But then I started watching her and I noticed how Dad had been coming home later and later and how a lot of nights he was away. I’d always thought he was at the hospital with an emergency operation, so I hadn’t questioned it.”
“He was cheating?” Gracie rested her cheek on the vee of skin at his open collar. His flesh was warm and reassuring in spite of this emotional storm.
“Well, he got married a week after the divorce was final.” Jack’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “I think that’s a telling indicator that he had been having an affair while he was still married.”
“Oh, Jack, how awful for Sandy, for you.” Sliding her cheek to his shoulder, she gazed up into his face.
“It was worse for my mother. I couldn’t forgive my dad for making her cry. And he’d really used her.”
“Used her? How?” Her hands resting on his shirt, Gracie pulled back to get a better view of his expression. Sandy had never mentioned this.
“They married young—in their undergrad years. My mom quit school and began working to support them. Over the years, she managed to get her degree, but she was the primary wage-earner until my dad finished his medical school and residency.”
“I didn’t know that.” Gracie recalled how Jack had immediately taken Annie’s side against Troy for reneging on their agreement. This exp
lained Jack’s immediate and negative reaction to Troy.
A loon wailed from the other side of the lake as though scolding them.
“It wasn’t fair,” Jack muttered. “They had a deal. Mom worked to help put him through school and she should be benefiting from her hard work today, not some other woman.”
Of course Jack would insist on fairness. “This world is often unfair.” Gracie smoothed his shirt with her hands, feeling the contours of his chest under her fingertips. “But your mom never seems bitter about Cliff.”
“She says I should forgive him. She has.” He leaned his stubbly chin onto her forehead.
She slid her arms around him and clasped them behind his back. “I think she’s right, Jack. Forgive others as God forgives us. You know that.”
“What about justice?” His voice was hard.
She felt the movement of his chin as he spoke. Never had she felt so connected to Jack as she did at this moment. Despite the depressing topic, her heart soared with a silent joy. “That’s God’s business, not ours.”
“That’s easy to say, hard to do.” He pulled her even closer. “Just look at your sister’s situation. Aren’t you angry about how Troy and his family are trying to say your sister is not keeping her vows?”
They were so close, she felt each word expand his chest.
Lord, what’s happening here? Jack is finally opening doors he’s kept shut for years. I’ve always wanted this closeness, but am I reading too much into it?
She brought her mind back to the topic at hand. “Yes, but their opinions are motivated by their love for Troy. And in the end, they won’t matter. I have to keep an open heart or irreparable damage could be done to our family, and Austin and Andy would suffer the most.”
“I don’t want those little guys hurt. I hate divorce.” Jack’s voice roughened.
“God doesn’t like it either. He knows that it only brings broken hearts. But it happens, and we are responsible for how we behave after one takes place.” She closed her eyes and breathed in the clean fragrance of soap mingled with Jack’s scent. “Holding grudges does no one any good. Jack, your mom has gone on with her life—”
