Promises of Tomorrow

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  Yet, wasn’t that how she was already acting?

  “It might take a while,” she warned. “I’m afraid it’s kind of a long tale.”

  “I don’t mind that,” Marie said. “Tell us everything. Or, at least everything you’d like to share.”

  Harley, with his kind eyes, looked at her directly. “I know you don’t know any of us, but I promise we’re not asking to be nosy. We might be able to help in some way.”

  She doubted that. But, well, today had taught her that relying only on herself wasn’t working out so well.

  No, all keeping secrets had done was make things even worse and, obviously, make her even more alone.

  It was time to share her story.

  “My mother had let me order a tray of sandwiches and a couple of bags of chips for the party. She’d even made a raspberry sherbet and ginger ale punch so we could all have something kind of fun and fancy to drink.

  “I made a cake, which almost turned out all right. To cover up the sinkhole in the center of it, I made a ton of icing. I even decided to make it look Christmasy by adding green food coloring to the icing.” She looked at the crowd. “It turns out that you really don’t need all that much to make it a pleasing shade. Mine, I’m sorry to say, was not that.”

  Their uninvited guest was sitting so uncomfortably, it looked like she was on the witness stand. Marie’s heart went out to her. It was becoming apparent that they didn’t have anything to fear from her. She was simply a young college girl in the middle of some kind of personal problem.

  But even though it might have been kinder to leave Beth alone, that wasn’t their way. They liked to help one another out. Or, in this case, get in one another’s business.

  Leaning against her husband, Marie gave the girl an encouraging smile. “What’s been going on, Beth?”

  Beth released a ragged sigh. “Like I said earlier, my name is Elizabeth Trainor. I grew up down in New Albany, and I’ve been going to Oberlin College for the last two years. I’m in the conservatory there.”

  “Do you play an instrument?” Katie asked.

  “Vocal studies. I sing.” The girl shook her head as if to clear it. Her long black hair fanned around her shoulders before she smoothed it away impatiently. “The reason I’m telling you this is that Oberlin is a pretty small college in the middle of farm country, really.”

  “I’m familiar with Oberlin,” Tricia said. “I think a few of us are.”

  Beth took a deep breath before continuing. “I like to sing, and I like to study music. A lot. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, even back in high school. And I’m pretty shy.” Beth swallowed. “Maybe that’s why I fell for Joel so hard.”

  “Joel?” John asked.

  “He’s my boyfriend. I mean… he was.”

  Was. So Beth was in the middle of a breakup. Things were beginning to make sense. “So, Joel fell hard for you too?” Marie asked with what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

  Beth nodded. “Joel was a lot like me. He liked music, didn’t like crowds, and was a little awkward too. Best of all, he didn’t expect anything from me other than for me to be myself. We were kind of like two peas in a pod.”

  Kendra, who was sitting on the floor, curved her arms around her knees. “Nothing sounds bad about that.”

  Beth’s eyes widened. “Oh, there wasn’t! I mean, Joel was great. We were great.” She bit her bottom lip, then added, “We fell in love almost immediately.”

  “You had love at first sight,” Kendra said.

  “Just about.” She smiled softly. “But you know how when you’re in a relationship and it feels a little tentative, like you need to take baby steps until you figure it out? It wasn’t like that with us. From practically the first time we met, we got each other. It was easy.”

  “That’s a blessing,” Marie said. Noticing that some of the boys’ expressions were turning bored, she tried hard not to smile. Even her wonderful John wouldn’t want to hear too much more about Beth’s romance with Joel.

  The girl continued. “Even my parents thought our relationship was special.” Her voice lifted. “It was so funny… ever since I told my mom that I started dating a guy and that I really liked him, she would give me all kinds of warnings. Say how I didn’t know what I was doing and that no one knew what love was when they were eighteen.”

  Marie glanced at John. “I seem to remember being told something like that before.”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We both were told that.”

  “When my parents met Joel, they were prepared to dislike him. They had come to college armed with a whole bunch of arguments about how I shouldn’t jeopardize my future because of a guy. But within two hours, my mother whispered to me that she had been wrong. She could tell that Joel and I were a really good match.”

  Will cleared his throat. “So, not to be rude or anything, but what happened?”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m telling you all about Joel and me falling in love.” She opened her mouth, then shut it quickly. It was obvious that the words were becoming harder and harder to share.

  “What happened, Beth?” Kendra prompted.

  “A little over two months ago, Joel got the flu. It hit him really hard. So much that I ended up taking him to the student health center, even though everyone knows they don’t do much there besides the basics.”

  “Did they help him?” Will asked.

  Beth’s expression went carefully blank. “Ah, no. They gave him some medicine that was supposed to help with the symptoms and told him to go back to his dorm room and sleep. So he did. But instead of feeling better in a couple of days, he just got worse. He was really having trouble breathing, and his fever spiked. Then he started acting strange, like he wasn’t sure where he was. It… it was really bad.”

  “Oh, my word!” Marie said.

  Beth nodded. “We all got really scared. I called his parents and told them what was going on. His mom drove right out.”

  All of them were completely focused on Beth’s story now. “What happened then?” Harley asked.

  “His mother put him in her car and drove him home. They live in a little town near Erie, Pennsylvania. And, um, as soon as the doctors saw Joel, they admitted him into the hospital.” Beth visibly shivered before regaining her composure. “Two days later, he died.”

  Marie gaped at her. “Your boyfriend died from the flu?”

  Beth nodded. “Everyone acts like it was just some freak accident. And it really was. Joel was healthy. I mean, it wasn’t like he had some heart condition or something. He was fine, then he was sick, then he was really sick. And then, two days after his mother came down to Oberlin and took him to the doctor, she called me to say that he’d died.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “And that was it. He was mine, and then he was gone.”

  “I’m very sorry,” John murmured. “You must have been heartbroken.”

  “I was. I am.”

  “And you’re also alone now,” Katie said, her expression filled with understanding.

  “Yes.” Beth nodded slowly. “Everyone was shocked. No one could believe it. I told my parents, and they both cried. Four days later, we all went to Erie for Joel’s funeral. All I had left of him was just this black coffin.” Obviously struggling to retain her composure, she added, “His parents were nice and all, but they’d never seen the two of us together. They didn’t really understand how close we were.”

  She swiped a tear from her face. “It wasn’t like they cared, anyway. I mean, I might have loved Joel, but he was their son. As far as they were concerned, I was just some girl he dated.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I took a week off. And then I went back to college. Oberlin is expensive, and even though I’m there on scholarship, I still have a lot to keep up with. I just kept thinking that all I had to do was get through these two months.”

  “It’s only been two months?” Tricia as
ked.

  “Almost three. Joel died at the beginning of October. Now it’s almost Christmas. It’s been the longest ten weeks of my life.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Marie said. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” She gave them a small smile. “I promise, I’m finally getting to why I ended up here.”

  “You take your time,” Will said.

  “No, I’m almost done. Anyway, after all that, I felt like I never got to have time to just grieve, you know?”

  When several of the girls nodded, Beth continued. “As soon as I finished finals two days ago, I got on my computer, located a cabin not far from here that I could stay in for two days, and got out of there.”

  “But?”

  “But when I got inside, I realized that I’d been had. The whole place is awful. Even worse than here.” Her eyes widened. “No offense.”

  “None taken. We’ve realized that we made some mistakes about this place too,” Marie replied. “The pictures online looked a lot better.”

  “Well, my cabin is really more of a glorified shack. It looks like a place for old men to hang out in when they go hunting or something.” She shivered. “And it’s infested with spiders. I’m talking lots of them. Everywhere. I could hardly close my eyes last night, I was so scared of them crawling on me.”

  “So you decided to walk away from it?” Nate asked.

  “Oh, no. This morning, I realized that all I’d brought with me was some money for food and a couple of protein bars. I decided to look around to see if there was some kind of little country store or something nearby.”

  “Let me guess,” Nate said. “There wasn’t a single store in sight.”

  Beth almost smiled. “If there is, I didn’t find it. I couldn’t find anything that looked like a store at all. I was thinking that at least I had some silence and time to think about Joel, but then I fell and I got lost and started wandering around. And then I ended up here.”

  “You poor thing. You’ve been fighting spiders and a cold shack and you haven’t eaten anything.”

  “I’m okay. I’m just sorry that I got so lost and bothered all of you.” Her brow wrinkled. “I don’t know when I’m ever going to get better. I don’t know how much time has to pass in order to feel like my insides aren’t broken,” she said, each word running into the next. “I just wish someone could tell me why someone like Joel had to die. He was so young.” She swallowed. “He was everything to me. And now I’m alone.”

  They all remained silent as she visibly composed herself. “I really am sorry. I promise, I’m not usually the type of person who cries all the time and tells her whole life story to strangers.”

  “You can cry all you want,” E.A. said. “I think you’re right. Maybe you needed a good cry today.”

  Looking around at the rest of her friends, each one staring at Beth with compassion in their eyes, Marie felt a burst of warmth inside her. “Actually, I think the Lord brought you to us for a reason,” she said.

  Beth swiped her eyes with a wad of toilet paper that someone had brought her. “I can’t think of what that could be, unless it was to make you all think again about checking out cabins’ reviews and references before you rent them on the Internet.”

  “No, there’s another reason,” Marie said. “You see, all of us have lost someone dear to us, as well.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes. His name was Andy. We were his good friends for years and years. Decades, really. We all loved him… and then he too died too soon.”

  Beth gaped at her.

  “So, if you were looking for someone who might understand how you’re feeling, I think the Lord just directed you to the right place,” Harley said. “Beth, all of us have been feeling the very same thing you have. I can promise that you aren’t alone.”

  “We also decided to have a gift exchange. The rules were simple: the gift had to be wrapped, it was supposed to be something any of us would like, and it couldn’t cost more than five or ten dollars. I brought eight monster-size chocolate bars. Someone else brought two jars of homemade salsa.”

  Turning to Will, Marie frowned. “Unfortunately, one of us decided to bring a pair of guinea pigs.”

  “I don’t understand.” Beth wasn’t sure what else she could say. She’d gone from reluctantly sharing her story about Joel, to being surprised by the looks of compassion and understanding she was receiving, to hearing this stunning announcement.

  The youngest woman there, who had been leaning against a handsome Amish man while Beth had been talking, got to her feet. “Any of us could tell you about Andy, but I’ll do the honors. Andy was my brother, you see.” Her voice turned rough. “About two years ago, he committed suicide.”

  “Wow.” Realizing how unfeeling that sounded, she struggled to find better words. “I mean, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “No, I’ve said ‘wow’ a time or two, as well. Sometimes there are no appropriate words to say.” She looked over to her husband. When he nodded, she continued. “I know suicide isn’t the same as dying from the flu. However, I can tell you that all of us were really close to him and we loved him. We feel like we’ve lost not just a close friend, and in my case a brother, but also a part of ourselves.”

  “Tricia’s exactly right,” Marie added. “One day, we were at Andy’s house, thinking nothing would ever change. But then it all did. He left us far too early.”

  Beth stared at the group of people surrounding her. They’d been able to put everything she’d been feeling but hadn’t known how to describe into words. “Everyone says I need to get over him,” she said hesitantly.

  “Already?” Marie asked.

  Beth nodded. “It wasn’t like we were engaged or married or anything.” Opening herself up even further, she said, “But I hate when they say that. I don’t know how missing someone can be measured. Does it matter that we didn’t have a label telling the rest of the world that we were in love?”

  “Nee,” Katie said. “Grief is a private thing, jah?”

  Kendra spoke again. “It’s been a hard couple of years. We’ve all been struggling. We’ve grieved together. We’ve cried, told stories about the things Andy used to do that we miss. We’ve struggled with our guilt and regretted the things we never told him.” She inhaled. “I, for one, would give a lot if I could see him for even one more day.”

  “We’ve also learned some things,” Marie said. “I’ve learned not to take good days—or good friends—for granted. I’ve also learned to come to terms with the fact that some people are destined to be in our lives for only a limited amount of time. That’s the Lord’s will, I think.”

  Beth nodded. “I know what you mean. Sometimes, I’ve found myself trying to make deals with God. When Joel was sick, I asked Him for one more day. Now I’d settle for one more dream that Joel is in.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I found that it didn’t really help,” Marie said quietly. “The pictures and the memories and the hurt all pierced sections of our hearts. And because of that, none of us are the same.”

  “Did anything help?” Beth asked.

  “Oh yes,” Marie’s husband, John, said. “Time.”

  “You’re in the worst of it now, I’m afraid, Beth,” Will murmured. “You’ve lost someone dear to you and there’s nothing you can do to make it better besides grieve and cry.”

  “And then wake up and try to do something the next day,” Katie added.

  “Are things better for all of you now?”

  The question seemed to take them all off guard, and they exchanged looks.

  John spoke first. “For what it’s worth, I’ve learned a couple of things that do help. The first is that keeping everything inside doesn’t solve anything.”

  “Pretending not to be sad doesn’t help much either,” Tricia added. “All it does is push everything away to one side. Then, before long, it creeps back.”

  Katie nodded. “As soon as I started admitting that I was still upset
and even angry sometimes, things started to change for me.”

  “You think it’s okay to be mad? Won’t God think I’m being selfish?”

  “I think we’re all selfish by nature. Jesus knows that,” Kendra said. “And maybe even mourning the loss of a friend is selfish, you know? Because the person we are missing is in Heaven now. What we’re sad about is our loss.”

  “I miss him so much. And, just as bad, I miss everything we had planned. I feel like Joel’s death means that all the things I’ve been hoping and praying to happen aren’t ever going to come true.”

  “Maybe they aren’t going to,” Harley said. “Actually, they probably won’t.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel much better.”

  “Right now, it probably doesn’t. However, in time, I think it will,” Marie said. She smiled. “I mean, look at all of us! Not a one of us thought we’d be okay after Andy died. And though we all still miss him, his dying made other things happen for us. Maybe they would have happened anyway, but we’ll never know. And you know what? We’ve all learned to come to terms with that in one way or another. That is something to hold on to, I think.”

  “My mamm really wanted those guinea pigs gone,” Will said. “Bringing them to the party was a good idea.”

  “Oh, nee. Don’t you blame bringing them on me, Will,” his mother called out. “I would have told you that nothing good ever comes from putting tiny pigs in a gift bag with a couple of carrots and tissue paper.”

  After their deep conversation, they’d gotten busy in the rustic kitchen. When they determined that the water worked fine and that the oven and small refrigerator were hooked up to a propane tank, everyone prepared the snacks they’d brought.

  “Tomorrow night we’re cooking a real meal,” E.A. explained to Beth as she opened a cooler and pulled out a seven-layer taco dip. “Tonight, it’s all about snacks.”