Nearly

by Deborah Raney

  Claire had been to Becky’s house on several occasions, and she was struck again by the homey clutter that pervaded the decor.

  “Please excuse this filthy house.” Becky swiped at some imaginary dust.

  The refrigerator was cluttered with childish art projects and fingerprinted with smudges of grape jam. The remains of breakfast were still on the table, and down the hallway Claire could see the rumpled, unmade bed in the master bedroom. The house wouldn’t be featured in an upscale decorating magazine anytime soon, but Claire found it charming. This wasn’t just a house, it was a home. And the warmth it exuded began to comfort Claire immediately.

  “Do you want something to drink?”

  “Maybe something hot. Thanks.”

  “Here, let me take your coat and then we can go into the living room where it’s not quite such a pigsty.”

  Becky turned on the burner under the tea kettle and then ushered Claire into the large, cozy living room. Claire took the proffered seat on the sofa in front of the window. Becky sat down beside her.

  “Talk to me, Claire.”

  “Becky, I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Is it Michael?”

  “Yes. I… we made a terrible discovery Saturday.”

  Becky waited in silence for her to continue, but her curiosity was unmistakable.

  “You know that I had . . . well, a rather lonely childhood?”

  Becky nodded.

  “There was—there’s always been this secret hanging over my head. I’ve never told anyone, Becky—not a soul—because it was something we just didn’t talk about in my family.” She paused, not sure how to go on. She'd never even hinted to Becky about this part of her family’s story.

  “For heaven’s sake, Claire. What is it?” Becky’s curiosity finally became too much for her to contain.

  “Oh, Becky, you won’t believe this. Michael was… he was my brother.”

  “He what? Claire, you’re not making any sense.”

  Claire hesitated a moment, then began to pour out the whole strange, terrible truth.

  Becky was stunned. “This is just unbelievable! I mean, what are the chances? Never in a million years . . .” she stuttered, shaking her head in disbelief. Finally, she seemed to remember Claire’s anguish, and her voice turned sympathetic. “Oh, Claire. What are you going to do? Do you… do you still love him?”

  “I don’t know what I feel for him now, Becky. It’s like he’s become two different people in my mind. Oh yes, I still love the Michael I knew before Saturday. I love him even more, if that’s possible. But I don’t know if that man even exists anymore. I keep getting Michael and Joseph all mixed up in my mind. I don’t know how to separate them.”

  Then she voiced her greatest fear. “Oh, Becky, I’m so afraid he will hate me for this. How can I ever be anything to him but a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to him? If I were in his shoes, I’m not sure I’d ever want to see me again. But, Becky, I don’t want to lose him.” She paused, then whispered again, “I don’t want to lose him.”

  Becky put her arm around Claire and let her cry. After a while she slipped quietly into the kitchen and came back with two steaming mugs of tea. Claire took a sip and felt the hot liquid sear her throat and spread warmth throughout her body. She took a ragged breath and, wiping her eyes, looked over at Becky. “Thanks.”

  Becky put an arm around Claire’s shoulder, and what she did next, Claire would never forget. Crying along with her friend, Becky began to pray aloud for her. No one—not even Nana—had ever prayed for Claire like this before. The act was all the more precious because it came at a time when Claire’s prayers didn’t seem able to reach the heavens themselves.

  “Oh, dear God,” Becky began, her voice echoing Claire’s anguish, “Claire is hurting so badly, Lord. I don’t even know how to begin to help her. But you do, Father. You know exactly the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of this whole thing. Please, God, show her what you want her to do, how you want her to respond. Make it clear if she should go to Michael. And, please, be with Michael, too. He must be hurting as deeply as Claire is. I know how much you love them, God. Both of them. You’re so much wiser than we are, Father. We trust you to give Claire the answers she needs.”

  Becky spoke naturally, as though God were sitting there in the room beside them. Claire marveled that her friend spoke to the God of the universe as though they were personal friends. She'd never heard anyone pray aloud in such a casual conversational tone, and yet it seemed so very right. Claire raised a tear-stained face to her friend’s glowing smile, and she felt such a sweet love for Becky. How strange that in the midst of the deepest grief of her life she could be learning about God’s goodness, His intimate care for her.

  She leaned over and gave her friend a hug. “Thank you, Becky. It’s such a relief to talk to somebody about this. It’s so good to have somebody praying for me when I can’t seem to get through myself. You . . . you make it seem as though God is right here with us.”

  Becky laughed. “But He is right here with us, Claire. And I won’t stop praying for you. I wish there was more I could do. I wish I knew what you were supposed to do. But I don’t. All I can do is pray—and trust that the Lord will show you the answer.”

  “Just letting me talk it out helped more than you can know. Thank you so much.”

  “Let me drive you back to the school to get your car.”

  Claire waved her off. “I’d prefer to walk. I need time to think.”

  “I understand.”

  She left her friend’s house and walked slowly back toward the school. Her path led her through modest neighborhoods where children played on lawns patched with melting snow. But she scarcely noticed her surroundings. As she walked, she thought over and over about Becky’s prayer and the intimate relationship—it almost seemed to be a friendship—that Becky shared with God. It was a new understanding of God for Claire. And she realized with awe that true to His promises, God was revealing himself to her even in her deepest anguish.

  That night at home she was again overwhelmed by sadness as she thought about Michael and the abrupt rift in what had seemed such a promising friendship and romance. But slowly, things were beginning to sort themselves out. Claire was starting to make this thing that had happened between her and Michael become real in her mind. Slowly, she was turning and separating the pieces of the puzzle so she could begin to fit them together in a way that made sense.

  Chapter 16

  The week wore on, and with each day Michael didn’t call, Claire’s spirits floundered a little more. Still, she found comfort in learning to pray more freely, knowing now that God didn’t expect fancy words or Thee’s and Thou’s. He simply desired a conversation with her. Slowly, she was learning to listen to God’s side of the conversation—His Word. The Scriptures comforted her as they never had before. Passages that had once seemed inconsequential now became alive and full of meaning.

  A curious solace in the whole ordeal was that since the disclosure of her past relationship to Michael, Claire had not had even one of the nightmares that had haunted her sleep before with such predictable frequency. Most nights she fell asleep with a prayer on her lips. She wondered fleetingly if the two were related.

  Though her prayers did not seem to bring her any closer to an answer, it was a comfort to be able to confide her fears in One who truly understood and cared. If not for that, she would have drowned in her heartache.

  Since the confrontation with Michael, Claire had avoided calling Millie Overman, fearful that the woman would press her for information about her relationship with Michael. Millie had closely followed Claire and Michael’s courtship and fancied that she herself had played a part in their romance, since she'd introduced them.

  Fearful that she would run into Michael, Claire also avoided visiting Millie at her Riverview apartment. She dropped her landlady a short note saying simply that she’d been thinking of her, and letting her know that Smokey was doing fine. She
hoped the postcard would allay Millie’s curiosity, but it proved to accomplish the opposite.

  Millie called, concern in her voice. Claire deliberately kept the conversation light and almost managed to avoid the topic of Michael altogether. But as they were saying their good-byes, the old woman asked, “What do you hear from Michael Meredith? I haven’t seen him around here lately.”

  “I… I haven’t talked to him for a while, Millie.”

  “Well, he must be out of town or something. I haven’t seen him around here all week. I thought maybe you two had run off together.”

  “No, I don’t know where he’s been.” She tried desperately to keep her tone nonchalant.

  “Aren’t you two still seeing each other?” Now Millie sounded genuinely concerned.

  “We’re just friends, Millie. He doesn’t report his every move to me.” She knew she sounded overly defensive. And at the same time, she wondered if what she’d told Millie was even true. Could they possibly be friends now that they knew about their ties to the past?

  “Now, Claire, you don’t owe me any explanations, but I hope you know by now that you can talk to me about anything. I may be an old woman, but I’m not so ancient that I don’t remember what it was like to have a young lovers’ spat.”

  Claire remembered the warmth of Millie’s concern and friendship the night she'd invited her for supper. No, she didn’t owe the woman an explanation, but she suddenly felt that Millie would be her ally in this. She tried to think of how she might give her some hint of the situation that existed between herself and Michael without revealing too much. “Millie, we did have a… a misunderstanding. I’m not sure if we’ll be seeing each other again, but it’s all right. It’s not the end of the world.” She wished she believed her own statement.

  “Don’t worry about it, honey. If it was meant to be, it will all work out.”

  “I know you’re probably right. But, Millie, please don’t say anything to Michael if. . . if you see him.” She was dangerously close to tears, and Claire knew the emotion in her voice wouldn’t be missed by her landlady.

  “Honey, do you want to tell me about it? Sometimes it helps to have a sympathetic ear.”

  “Thank you, Millie. I do appreciate that, but I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it yet.”

  “That’s all right. You just remember, though, I’ll be here when you are ready.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot to me. It really does.”

  She pressed End and plugged her phone back in to charge before letting the familiar, cleansing tears come again. It touched her that Millie seemed to genuinely care for her. It was almost like having Nana in Hanover Falls.

  Nana. Ordinarily, she would have called her grandmother and cried “on her shoulder” long distance long before now. But Nana was too closely tied to the whole situation with Michael. Claire knew it would break her grandmother’s heart to discover that the awful mistake her family had made regarding Joseph had followed Claire into adulthood, had tracked her to Hanover Falls, and robbed her of the only taste of true happiness she had known. No, she could never let her beloved grandmother know her anguish. She had to find a measure of peace for herself in this revelation of Michael’s identity before it could be anything but a burden to Nana.

  However, it filled Claire with a bittersweet satisfaction to know that some day, when the time was right, she would be able to tell Nana that she'd found Joseph. “Your prayers were answered, Nana,” she would say. “He is doing well and he knows the Lord.”

  Late in March, Claire went to church for the first time since she'd found out the truth about Michael. She felt like an impostor standing in the overflowing sanctuary of her church singing hymns of victory when she felt so defeated.

  She sat in a pew near the back, and when morning worship services were over, she hurried out to her car, desperate to avoid answering any well-intended questions. She backed her car out of the stall in the crowded parking lot and waved with false gaiety to Jarrod Hamilton, who was escorting his younger sisters to the family van.

  At home she decided to go for a walk before lunch and went to change into jeans and sweatshirt. Smokey was curled up in a comatose ball at the foot of her bed. When the cat heard the closet door open, he stretched and opened his jaws in a wide yawn, then tucked a gray paw under his chin and went back to sleep. Claire shoved him aside with misplaced irritation and sat down on the end of the bed to put her tennis shoes on.

  The weather had been cloudy and drizzly for almost two weeks, but now brilliant sunshine streamed between puffy cumulus clouds. She set off with a growing feeling of hope, suddenly refreshed at the mere sight of the sun.

  Almost against her will, her path led her past Mario’s pizza place and the band shell park where children’s laughter rang out just as it had the day she and Michael had sledded there. Finally, circling home, she walked by Riverview Manor and near the apartment building where Michael lived. She rued the many miles she'd walked with Michael around the small town because now, no matter how she tried to shake thoughts of him, everything she saw, every sound she heard reminded her of him—and of the sweet romance they'd begun.

  She had not seen him for almost a month now, and no one seemed to know where he was. She'd inquired discreetly of their few mutual friends to no avail and had finally stooped to allowing Becky Anderson to call his office on the guise of civic club business. Becky had been told by a secretary that Mr. Meredith was on vacation and that he would return the following week.

  Claire suspected that he'd gone to see his family in Springfield. It hurt her deeply that he had not told her he was going away. And yet, how could she blame him? He owed her no explanations. He owed her nothing.

  Claire moved woodenly through the rest of the day. Sadly, she realized the deep joy she'd felt in her new life in Hanover Falls was gone. The cozy house in which she'd taken such satisfaction no longer offered the warm refuge it once had. Smokey had become an annoying responsibility. Even the smiles of her students couldn’t evoke the happiness they once had. It seemed every vestige of joy had been stripped from her life on that cold night.

  Chapter 17

  The night following Claire’s revelation, Michael tossed sleeplessly in his bed. Wielding denial like a shield, he deflected the stinging questions that assaulted him from every direction. He could not allow them to penetrate his mind because he had no idea how to answer them.

  Through a long night of turmoil, he'd finally reached a place of accepting Claire’s awful words as the truth. He knew in his heart that she was Kitty Anderson from the family in St. Louis, but he was still grappling with the reality of what it all meant for him—for them.

  How would it change his life? How could he remain in this town where he might run into Claire at any moment? He had come to love her deeply. Was that now to be denied him? And if so, would he be forced to move away from the place that had finally become home to him? Would he have to quit the job in which he was just now beginning to feel confident? What would he tell his family? Could his spirit survive another devastating blow like this? What choices did he have?

  He went through the next two weeks in a fog, short-tempered with his coworkers, unable to make a sound decision, feeling completely unorganized and incompetent.

  Beth VanMeter, his assistant administrator, had a much lighter class schedule this semester, and her presence at the manor took a great deal of pressure off of him as far as the actual work load. But at the same time, it meant he had to work closely with her. Had she still been spending much of her time away from the office, he might have been able to make himself scarce, might have been able to hide the despair he was feeling. But Beth picked up on his distress immediately.

  She'd shown unwavering patience with his moodiness for the first few days, but finally she'd apparently had enough. Never one to defer to him as her superior, she confronted him one morning after she'd repeated a simple question for the second time without receiving even an acknowledgment that he'd heard h
er.

  “Michael, I’m not sure what it is that’s bugging you, but don’t you think it would be wise to take some time off and just get out of here for a while?”

  “What?” He stared at her as though she were speaking a foreign language, then shook his head to bring her face into focus. “I’m sorry, Beth. What did you say?”

  She laughed hollowly. “You are obviously somewhere far, far away. Why don’t you just go. Get out of here. Take a week of vacation. Heaven knows you’ve got it coming with all the extra time you put in while I was carrying a full load last semester.”

  He knew she was right and he didn’t have the strength to argue with her. Later that afternoon he checked the manor’s schedule against his own calendar and pulled himself together enough to have an informed discussion with Beth about the things that would need to be taken care of while he was gone.

  On the office calendar he penciled in his impromptu vacation for the following week and went to talk to Vera Johanssen to see if she had any concerns that needed to be dealt with before he left.

  “Good for you, Michael,” Vera told him with motherly concern when she heard about his upcoming vacation. “It’s about time you took a break. And don’t you worry about a thing here. Everything is under control.”

  “Thanks, Vera. By the way, is everything okay with the . . . uh, the issue we discussed a few weeks ago?” He was speaking in code because they were at the nurses’ station where several aides were hovering. In truth, in the wake of Claire’s revelation about their childhood connection, he'd nearly forgotten his conversation with the former administrator, Gerald Stoddard, that had caused him such deep concern at the time.

  Now he sensed the slightest hesitation in Vera’s demeanor. But her voice was light when she told him, “Nothing that can’t wait.”

  Michael was alarmed and it showed in his face. “Has. . . has something else happened?”