Splitting Harriet

by Tamara Leigh

  “What did Anna say about what happened?”

  “She didn’t respond, not even when I found the bracelet in her pocket. She ignored me as if I wasn’t even there. And neither has Paul been able to reach her. The moment we got home, she went into his office and hasn’t moved from the chair since.” Leah touches my arm. “Please try. I don’t know what to do.”

  And I do? “All right. Do you want to go in with me?”

  “I don’t think you’ll get anything out of her with me there.”

  “Okay.” Lord, this is not okay! Though I could have played the starring role in I Was a Teenage Preacher’s Kid, I don’t know how to deal with teenagers in crisis. Nothing worked for me except getting kicked in the teeth over and over until there was nothing for me but to crawl back to You and my family. Practical experience. Practical pain. Practical redemption.

  “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

  I nearly take offense at the compassion in Leah’s eyes, but I know that she feels for me and the position she’s placed me in. “I’ve never done this, and I don’t know what to say.”

  “Neither do we, but if there’s anyone who can relate to Anna, it’s you.” She smiles softly. “Just let God work through you.”

  And if I make things worse? Shoulders back, I step past her and grip the doorknob.

  Anna sits in a large chair opposite, her petite figure overwhelmed by its depths. Guessing it was strategically chosen over the sofa, I return to a time when I isolated myself from anyone who might try to sit beside me and smother me with her presence. Score one for Anna.

  I ease the door closed. “Hi, Anna.”

  From behind a curtain of long, dark blond hair, she looks me up and down before returning her gaze to the bookcase behind her father’s desk.

  I move farther into the room. “Though I often see you around church, and I know you’ve seen me, you probably don’t—”

  “I know who you are and what you’re doing here.” Once more, her resentful green eyes turn on me. “I don’t want to talk to you or anyone.”

  “I know, but considering what it took me to get here, I’m going to sit down.”

  A glimmer of interest enters her eyes.

  I sink to the sofa and ease back, only to realize how tired I am. But then somewhere a clock is chiming the eleventh hour. Ten minutes later, the only thing that has changed is that I’ve burrowed deeper. Hmm. I do have to get up early for church. Maybe I should try another tack.

  I reposition one of the cushions in a corner of the sofa and turn so that I’m more lying than sitting. Apparently that arouses Anna’s interest enough for her to flick her gaze over me.

  I clear my throat. “It was a motorcycle.”

  Life in Anna, as evidenced by a flutter of lashes.

  I clasp my hands behind my head and lower my lids.

  The girl’s stubborn streak persists to the edge of sleep. “What do you mean it was a motorcycle?”

  I lift my lids. “That’s how I got here—on a motorcycle.”

  “So?”

  “I haven’t been on one for more than eight years. It scared me a little—actually, a lot.” Feeling my mouth curve, I let the smile come. “It also excited me.”

  Her mouth tightens. “I’ve heard about you, and your motorcycles, and your guys, and…”

  Regret pierces me. “I’m sure you have.” I straighten and push up my sleeve to reveal the crown of thorns. “Just so you know that everything you’ve heard about me—all the rumors of how I rebelled against my family, church, and God—are true.”

  Her eyes widen on either side of a nose that, for the first time, strikes me as being a little large for her pixieish face.

  “Like it or not, I understand what you’re going through, Anna—at least, some of it. And if you ever want to talk, I’ll sit down with you.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t want anything from you or anyone.”

  “I know the feeling.” I rise. “I guess that concludes our talk. Good night.”

  I feel her stunned silence as I cross to the door but don’t look back. I’ve done what God asked of me, and now it’s up to her.

  As I step into the hall and close the door, Leah and Paul appear. Their worried faces catch at my heart, but it’s their joined hands that give it a hard squeeze. How many times did I see my own parents’ fingers tightly intertwined, as if each was a life preserver for the other? Too many.

  Lord, please spare these two the anguish I caused my parents. And if You can use me to make a difference, do. I’ll try, even if it hurts to go there again.

  Pastor Paul leads me toward the front door.

  “Did she say anything?” Leah asks.

  “A little. Unfortunately, she’s not ready to talk, but when she is, I’ve told her I’ll be there.”

  Pastor Paul summons a smile somewhere between gratitude and sorrow. “Thank you. I know we’ve had our differences, but I appreciate your coming out tonight.”

  “Yes.” Leah nods.

  I smile. “I’d better get home.”

  Leah turns to a table and scoops up her keys. “I’ll drive you.”

  Ten minutes later, I swing my legs out of the car. As I close the door, I’m broadsided by impulse and tap on the window. She lowers it, and I meet her gaze. “I’ll be praying for your family.”

  Moisture rims her eyes. “Thank you.”

  I cross my lawn, bound up the steps, and throw open the screen door—only to falter at the sight of what protrudes from the knob.

  Mystery of the missing keys solved.

  Harri’s Log: • ? days until Maddox returns from Knoxville, where he’s been for twelve days and counting (Why am I counting? And when is he coming back?)

  • Day of The Coroner rerun (Lisa’s taping for us to watch tomorrow night.)

  • Day of Quilt Till You Wilt/Crop Till You Drop event (forty-seven signed up—oh my!)

  • 18 days until Jelly Belly replenishment (holding up well, though wouldn’t mind a Jelly Belly tip—exactly when is Maddox returning?)

  • 171 days until the completion of Bible #8

  Did you miss me?”

  His voice carries across the gymnasium and loops the loop in the vicinity of my heart. He’s back. And how I wish his return didn’t affect me. How I wish I were oblivious to the passing of days since he told me I’d miss him and I assumed he was referring to the completion of his consulting job at First Grace.

  “Did you?”

  At the sound of his shoes advancing over the wood floor, I call over my shoulder, “Oh? Were you gone?” I resume the task of arranging the centerpiece around which finger foods will be placed for those attending Quilt Till You Wilt/Crop Till You Drop.

  “What about my motorcycle?” He goes around the table, places his palms on it, and leans into my peripheral vision. “I’ll bet you missed that.”

  I meet his dark eyes fringed by long, long lashes. You did miss him. Even those curls that could use a haircut and that imperfect nose.

  He grins. “Admit it, Harri. You liked sitting on the back of my big, bad motorcycle.”

  Why are we having this conversation? After all, considering the words we exchanged about Stephano’s pursuit of me, Maddox should have closed up shop on any feelings he had for me. Did he?

  I step back to clear his soaped scent from my senses. “I assure you, riding on your motorcycle is not an experience I intend to repeat. So how was Knoxville?”

  “Ah. You were asking after me.”

  “Actually, Pastor Paul made the announcement that you were called back to the church there.”

  He gives a crooked smile that makes me want to press it straight. Not a good idea. “You’re a tough one, Harriet Bisset.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” I return to where I earlier set out paper plates, utensils, and napkins. “Were you able to work out the kinks in the Knoxville church?”

  To my dismay, Maddox follows and hovers as I straighten the utensils. “I woul
dn’t call them kinks. The church’s vision needed to be revised to accommodate a greater increase in numbers than originally projected.”

  As I fan the pretty pink napkins, I draw a breath that makes my nose tingle with awareness of the scent of him. Buying time to allow the heat in my face to recede, I reposition the plates. “Then the church is continuing to grow.”

  “Very much.”

  I smile. “Thanks to the marketing genius of Maddox McCray.”

  The turned-up corners of his mouth ease. “I’m good at what I do, Harri, but the thanks goes to God. He’s the one moving through that body of believers. I’m just allowing Him to use me to His end.”

  Noble comes to mind, but I nip the sarcasm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Or if I did, I shouldn’t have. I’m just still not sure about all these changes.”

  “I know.” His smile puts in another appearance, and he sweeps his gaze around the gymnasium. “It looks like you have another successful event on your hands. Close to fifty participants, Harriet told me.”

  A thrill goes through me. “That’s right, and the majority are under fifty years of age. Amazing, hmm?”

  His regard falls to my bowed mouth. “You’re heading in the right direction, Harri, not only for the ladies of First Grace, but for yourself.”

  I start to thank him but am stopped by that last bit he just had to tag on. Meaning what? That I was heading in the wrong direction previous to his arrival at First Grace? That without him, I—

  “What’s happening with that series on dating we talked about?”

  Had Maddox popped me between the eyes, I can’t imagine being more startled. I didn’t take him seriously that night on my porch when he talked about the stars and the enormity of God. “You were serious about that? I thought you were baiting me.”

  He frowns. “I was baiting you, but I was still serious about reaching out to First Grace’s single young women.”

  I shrug apologetically. “I haven’t put anything together. Of course, even if I’d taken you seriously, I doubt I would have had time for it. I’ve been busy.” Not only organizing tonight’s event but putting together the café’s fall menu and helping plan the jamboree that Maddox so helpfully suggested. Then I was asked to speak to Anna again, but with the same result. Lastly, there’s my social calendar, which, though previously nonexistent, now includes Lisa, Stephano—

  “How’s Stephano?”

  Is he just guessing that Stephano is one of my reasons for being busy? “Um…fine.” Actually, more than fine. With Maddox’s departure came renewed enthusiasm that shifted him nearer his usual high-gear self.

  “Are the two of you starting to see each other regularly?”

  Awkward with a capital A. “We’ve gone out a few times.” In addition to the night Stephano took me to dinner, which ended with Maddox delivering me to Pastor Paul’s home à la that big, bad motorcycle, there was the symphony in the park last Saturday and lunch this past Wednesday. But getting serious? Stephano kissed me again both times, but it didn’t compare to Maddox’s kiss, or the night I wrapped my arms around him as he sped me through the dark.

  “Anytime you’d like me to take you for another ride…” Maddox says as if reading my thoughts.

  He is still interested. I look down and give my jacket a tug.

  “I’ll let you get back to work.” He steps past, leaving the lingering scent of soap on the air. And a knot in my throat.

  Lord, is it really the bad Harri who’s attracted to Maddox? Or is it the good Harri who’s simply too afraid to trust You and Your will for her life? I really do like his motorcycle…

  “I’ve never done this before. Is this your first time too?”

  I nod.

  Leah studies my attempt to create a lasting memory with fancy scraps of paper, adhesive, stamps, stickers, decorative scissors, and—oh yeah—photos. “Nice choice of papers, Harri. And the speech bubbles are cute. You don’t like it?”

  What is there to like? Though I followed the demonstration given by Elva’s granddaughter, my scrapbook page resembles something I would have toted home from kindergarten. “I probably should stick with quilting.”

  “Nah, you just need more practice,” Lisa says at my elbow—Lisa who surprised me when she showed up for tonight’s event, entering First Grace’s doors for the first time in a dozen years. “I’ll bet you didn’t catch on to quilting immediately.”

  I look longingly at the quilting table. Only three of the older ladies are there, among them Bea, who I expect to appear as scandalized as her tight-lipped expression presented at the start of the event. Surprisingly, she seems to be engaged, even if grudgingly, as two young ladies bend over her quilting block and point and murmur and nod. Harriet and Elva are similarly engaged, yet unlike Bea, they make no attempt to suppress their smiles and laughter.

  As for the others in our quilting circle, with the exception of Jack, who bowed out of tonight’s event, they’ve joined me for this demonstration of the supposedly addictive piecing together of photographic memories.

  I scan the others’ first attempts—some good, some not so good. Turning back to my sorry attempt, I grimace. Whatever happened to six orderly photos to a cellophaned page? What about all this space wasted on decorative borders and doodads? In the time it’s taken to compose a rather ugly collection of three pictures, I could have filled half an album.

  I shake my head. “Way too much work.”

  “A labor of love.” Leah smoothes a hand across her page that features four cropped photos of Anna. “I just wish she knew how deep our love is. And God’s.”

  Weaving my gaze among the participants who have left their scrapbooking to enjoy the finger foods and each other’s company, I settle on the far wall, where Anna has been camped out for the duration. But she’s no longer there.

  When three sweeps of the gymnasium bring no Anna to light, foreboding creeps over me. As she has been grounded since the shoplifting incident, might she have slipped away to make up for lost time?

  “Oh!” Lisa bemoans. “I got glue up your nose.” She holds up a cropped photo of the two of us at her fifteenth birthday party. Far more than the glue up my nose that she’s dabbing at, I’m struck by the existence of the photo she kept despite the distance that tore between us years ago. And by the smiles on our faces… both of us oblivious to what a difference a year could make.

  “Hey!” Maria calls from the other side of the table. “Squeeze together.” She brandishes a camera and gestures for Leah and Lisa to move in on either side of me.

  “One… two… three!”

  An uncertain smile makes it to my lips before the flash goes off.

  “Moving on!” She hurries to a table brimming with experienced scrapbookers.

  “Do you remember this?” Lisa taps the photo.

  “I do. Those were… good times.”

  She grins. “Nice that they’re back, hmm?”

  Are they? I have enjoyed spending time with her over reruns of The Coroner, and the banter at the café has been uplifting. “Very nice.”

  Lisa scans a page of speech bubbles. “So what should I have come out of your mouth? Maybe, ‘I’m a party animal!’?”

  No, that came later.

  “How about ‘This girl just wants to have fun’?”

  That came later too.

  “Or ‘I am so outta here!’?”

  Later yet. As soon as my eighteenth birthday hit, I was out the door—

  Remembering the missing Anna, I glance at Leah, who’s humming as she searches for the right spot to place a miniature bow. Not wanting to alarm her, I say, “I’ll be back.”

  Five minutes later, bathrooms, hallways, and deserted classrooms yielding no sign of Pastor Paul’s daughter, panic begins to unfold.

  Lord, please don’t let her be doing anything foolish.

  Knowing I’ll have to tell Leah her daughter is missing, my feet drag as I head back to the gymnasium, but then I catch sight of the doors that lead to
the parking lot. It’s half an hour before the event concludes, so Jack might be out there, since I slyly suggested that Bea would appreciate someone to walk her home. If Anna left the building, he might have seen her.

  I have my answer when I step out into a black-and gray-smudged night set with sporadic clouds under a bright moon.

  “Hello, Harri.” Jack raises a hand. “This young lady and I have been having a chat.”

  Farther along the bench sits Anna, looking even more petite compared to Jack, whose bulk is hardly diminished by sitting.

  “Oh?” I cross to them and glance from one to the other.

  Jack nods. “We were talking about the dangers of smoking.”

  A subject with which he’s painfully intimate, having lost his wife to throat cancer.

  His brow grooves. “Seems Anna here doesn’t care what happens to her lungs.”

  Oh dear. “I’m afraid to ask how you got on to that subject.”

  Jack rises. “Best let her tell you.” He pats me on the shoulder as he walks past. “Think I’ll see if Bea’s ready to head home. ’Night, Anna.”

  She turns her head away.

  When it’s just Anna and me, I lower to the left corner of the bench and clasp my hands to wait her out. I don’t have long to wait.

  “Old people think they know it all.”

  “Some of them do know it all.”

  She makes a sound of disgust. “I knew you’d defend them.”

  “What I mean is that, relative to you and me who have years ahead of us before we experience enough to advise anyone on certain aspects of life, the older folks have a lot to teach us.”

  She peers at me through the silken hair falling across her brow. “And yet you want to advise me on being a preacher’s kid.”

  I want to advise her? As much as I long to deny it, I decide to shoulder the blame. “That’s different. Being a preacher’s kid is one of the few things I have a great deal of experience with—good and bad.”

  “Good!” She snorts. “What’s so good about being a PK?”