Where It All Began

by Lorana Hoopes

  “So, I’ll see you Sunday for church?”

  I blinked; I had been expecting a kiss. “Um, yes, I’d like that.”

  “Great, I’ll see you then.” He squeezed my arms again and walked away.

  “Okay.” I watched him walk back to his apartment unsure of what had just happened. Shaking my head, I entered my own apartment and changed for bed. As I lay in bed staring at the white ceiling, I realized I still hadn’t asked him about his peace.

  The ringing of the phone jolted me awake the next morning. Blinking my eyes, I glanced at the clock before grabbing my phone. 10 am? I rarely slept that late. “Hello?”

  “Sandra? Were you still sleeping?” Raquel asked on the other end.

  I rubbed my eyes and yawned. “Yeah, I guess I was tired from last night. I’m surprised you’re awake; you were out later than I was.”

  “What are you talking about?” Raquel asked, “I stayed home last night and caught up on soaps.”

  Ice flooded my veins, and I was instantly awake. I pushed myself into a sitting position. “You weren’t with Philip last night?”

  “No, Philip’s sister was in town, so he took her out,” Raquel said. “Wait, why did you think I was out late last night?”

  I swallowed and bit my lip. I’d really stepped in it this time; should I till Raquel the truth? I traced the seam on my bedspread, “Um, no reason. I just thought I saw Philip’s car when we were leaving the theater, but I must have been mistaken.”

  There was a long pause and when Raquel’s voice came across the phone again, it dripped deadly icicles. “What did you see?”

  I cringed, glad this exchange was happening over the phone and not in person. “Um, we saw his car at the theater with the windows all fogged up. We thought it was you, or I did. Maybe that explains why Henry was acting so weird after,” I trailed off, realizing the last part was more for my benefit than for Raquel’s.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Raquel screamed into the phone. “I’ll call you later.” The phone went dead in my hand before I could even respond. Grimacing, I replaced the phone on the cradle and kicked off the covers. I would not want to be Philip today. Actually, Henry had some explaining to do as well.

  After showering and dressing, I squared my shoulders and marched over to Henry’s door. I rapped three times and leaned back, crossing my arms.

  “Well, hello,” he said with a smile as he opened the door.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” I poked my finger in his face.

  He blinked and took a step back. “Knew what?”

  “About Philip, last night, you knew he wasn’t with Raquel, and that’s why you acted so weird.”

  His face fell, and his shoulders slumped. “I wasn’t sure. I thought I saw blond hair before the windows fogged up, and I was hoping I was wrong. I wasn’t though, was I?”

  The sadness in his voice calmed my ire, and I unfolded my arms. “No, Raquel just called me and said she was at home last night because Philip was taking his sister out. I don’t have a brother, but I doubt I’d be steaming up a car with him if I did.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Henry gathered me into his arms. “I was hoping I was wrong about him, and that maybe Raquel was the one he would finally settle down with.”

  Tears filled my eyes as I raised them to meet his, “What can I say to Raquel? I feel so bad for her.”

  He brushed a tear from my cheek. “We can pray for her and for wisdom to know what to say,” he said. His finger continued down my cheek to my lips and traced them. My breath caught in my throat, and my lips parted. Please kiss me. His eyes stared deep into mine, and as he lowered his head, I closed my eyes, savoring the soft velvet feel of his lips as they met mine. It lasted only a moment, but it left me breathless. “Come on,” his voice was husky with emotion, “Let’s go pray for Raquel.”

  I followed him inside and to the couch. He held my hands in his as we sat down. Then he closed his eyes and opened his mouth. “Lord, we bring our friend Raquel to you. We know she is hurting at this time, and we pray for peace for her. Though it’s hard now, we pray for her to see the benefit in finding out before she married Philip. We also pray for the words to say to her. Help us be examples of you and show her your love as she grieves. Lord, I also want to thank you for bringing Sandra into my life. Please bless this relationship, and help us grow it in a way that would be pleasing to you. Amen. I hope that last part was okay,” he said. “It kind of just slipped out.”

  “It was perfect,” I said.

  Henry squeezed my hands and then leaned in to kiss me again. My heart skipped double time in my chest, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. The familiar tingling ran down my spine, and my breath grew labored. Then he pulled back.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, snapping my eyes open.

  He ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath. “I just needed to take a break before we did something we might regret.”

  I regarded him, trying to decide if I was flattered or insulted, but he appeared genuine. Then I remembered what he had said about the Holy Spirit, and it made sense. “Oh right,” I agreed. “Better to take it slow.”

  His face lit up, and then he sighed. “I’m so glad you understand. I have to get to work anyway, but you’ll still come to church tomorrow right?”

  “Of course,” I agreed, “I want to do some reading today anyway.” Though my mind understood Henry’s reluctance to go further, my body was still upset. A fire raged within. As I curled in my couch and opened the Bible, the fire slowly simmered and died out. The words themselves had a calming effect, and I found myself relaxing into the story.

  Raquel looked terrible when I entered work Monday morning. Her eyes were puffy and red, and her usually spotless face was splotchy. Even her lustrous hair was piled lazily in a disheveled ponytail. “I guess it wasn’t good,” I whispered to her as we filled out charts at the front desk.

  “No, he denied it at first, but when I told him you guys saw his car, he fessed up. I guess he had been seeing his assistant, Tiffany, the whole time we were together. I really thought he was different.” Her voice dripped with disdain as she said the other woman’s name. She sniffed and discreetly ran a hand across her eyes.

  I touched her arm. “You know I saw a lot of single men at Henry’s church yesterday. Not that you would go there for that reason, but maybe they would treat you better. Henry seems to, at least.”

  She stiffened slightly and drew her shoulders back. “No offense, but I don’t think that’s my cup of tea.”

  I smiled. “I didn’t either, but it’s kind of growing on me.”

  “Heads up ladies,” – Nurse Hatchet roared behind us – “We’ve got a trauma coming in.”

  We dropped our charts and turned to the incoming door.

  I sighed as I collapsed into bed that night. While I loved working in the ER, excessive traumas always wore me out. Today had been no different. A ten car pile-up on the Interstate had sent thirty or so people into the ER. I hadn’t had time for a lunch or even a break, and I had scarfed down dinner when I finally got home before soaking in the tub.

  Spying the Bible on the nightstand, I picked it up and began reading where I had left off. I still didn’t think God would accept me, and I hadn’t asked him to, but I found there was peace in reading the Bible and discussing it with Henry. The dreams had lessened, though I wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes I missed seeing and holding the boy, even if he wasn’t real.

  Most evenings I spent with Henry, having dinner and discussing our respective days. I continued to go to church with him and even made some new friends, but I still didn’t feel “good enough” for God. Raquel had started seeing another rich doctor, and was already sharing her apartment with him on weekends.

  When the year anniversary of my “procedure” rolled around, my heart grew heavy again. The dreams came back with a vengeance, and though I thought I had accepted them, they began to take a toll
on my concentration. I found myself turning to the bottle to sleep at night again, and every baby seemed to pull on my heartstrings.

  “What’s the matter?” Henry asked as we sat at dinner in a crowded restaurant.

  My head popped up. “What do you mean? Why would something be the matter?”

  He grasped my hand and stared into my eyes, “You’ve flinched at every cry from that baby over there, and you physically turned away when a toddler walked past you. Now, if you hate babies, we might need to have a talk because I really care for you, but I want children in my future.”

  My jaw dropped along with my heart. “Hate babies? I don’t hate babies.” I just killed my own a year ago, but I can’t tell you that. What could I tell him though? I had to give him some reason; maybe a half truth? “It’s just that,” – I bit the inside of my lip as the words formed in my head – “It’s just that I lost a baby a year ago.” It wasn’t the complete truth, but it was close.

  His brow furrowed, and he sat back. “I don’t understand. I didn’t know you were married.”

  “I wasn’t, but I was living with my boyfriend . . .” I trailed off as his face fell. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea; I suddenly remembered him saying premarital sex was a sin. Was that why he hadn’t made a move beyond kissing? “I’m sorry, is that a deal breaker for you?”

  He took a deep breath and tapped his finger to his lips. My heart beat like a jackhammer. Please don’t say yes repeated over and over in my mind. He opened his mouth but said nothing. Ba-bam, Ba-bam, the sound was deafening in my head. Just say something.

  Finally, he leaned forward again. “It’s not a deal breaker for me, but I’m a little disappointed. I always hoped that was something I could share for the first time with my wife on our wedding night.”

  My mind raced as I blinked repeatedly at him. Does he mean to say he’s a virgin?

  “You also have to know that I don’t condone living with someone or being intimate outside of marriage, and I won’t do that, but I do believe Jesus forgives, and it’s not my place to judge your past. I am sorry about your baby, though.”

  I barely heard the words that fell out of his mouth. “I’m sorry; do you mean to tell me you’ve never been intimate with a previous girlfriend?”

  Henry smiled. “No, I haven’t. I’m saving myself for marriage because that’s what Jesus would want me to do. You see God made marriage between one man and one woman as a way to procreate. He never meant for us to be intimate with everyone we date. That’s why the Bible says the man will leave his family and become one with his wife. God only meant for us to become one with one person.”

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around a man who didn’t crave sex. “But don’t you want to? I mean haven’t you in the past?” My face heated up at the scenario I was implying.

  “Yes, my flesh has often wanted the intimacy both with you and with past relationships, but I have chosen not to give in to the flesh. You see when I accepted Jesus as my savior, and the Holy Spirit indwelled in me, I didn’t want to do anything that would grieve him. I’m not perfect by any means, but I try my best to avoid temptation that would lead to sin. It keeps me from having to make hard choices I might regret later.”

  My breath caught at those words. Had he decoded my lie or was he just speaking in generalizations? Then the words sank in; I could have avoided that terrible choice if I had chosen the path that Henry had. Why hadn’t I ever heard about saving myself? The TV shows always showed people being intimate, sometimes even on the first date, and, even in school, we had discussed how sex was normal – if not expected – and we’d been handed birth control and condoms. We’d even spent a class period learning how to put them on bananas. But no one had ever said you didn’t have to have sex. No one had said there was power and respect in waiting. Would I have listened if they had? Probably not, once the imprint of “do it, it feels good” was there, it would have been hard to listen to anything else, but I was listening now. “I wish I had waited. What you’re saying makes a lot of sense, and it would have saved me a lot of grief.”

  Henry squeezed my hand. “Whatever grief you are experiencing, God can help you overcome it, if you put your trust in Him.”

  “I want to,” I began, “but I don’t think he’d want someone like me.” Tears welled up in my eyes and threatened to spill over. I blinked and wiped them away.

  “Hey, God meets you where you are and changes you from there. You don’t have to be perfect to meet Him.”

  Though I nodded, I didn’t really believe him. I wanted to, but it was such a terrible thing to have done. I just couldn’t give it all away.

  That night as I lay in bed, Henry’s words ran through my mind again. Could God forgive even the sin of killing my own child? I wanted it to be true, but how could he? I had thrown away the gift he sent me.

  I woke to the feeling of something on my face. Startled, I snapped my eyes open to see a toddler. His tiny hand touched my face again, and he smiled.

  “Mama,” he said and flashed a grin with only four teeth. He stood on the floor beside my bed, holding onto the side and bouncing up and down. “Mama,” he said again and clapped his hands.

  I tried to smile, even though a part of me knew he wasn’t real. I had taken his life a year ago. He was so beautiful, though. “Hi baby,” – I whispered as a tear rolled down my cheek – “Mama is so sorry. I’m so sorry I never gave you the chance to live.”

  The boy’s smile faded, and his small hand touched my wet cheek. I grabbed his little hand and kissed it. If only I could go back. If only. I closed my eyes as I thought of how to make it up to him, but when I opened them again, he was gone.

  “Even if God could forgive me, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.” Sleep did not return that night.

  “Whoa, what happened to you?” Raquel said as I clocked in the next morning.

  I glared at her. The dream and the lack of sleep had left me grouchy this morning. “You don’t remember?”

  Raquel cocked her head, “No, should I?”

  “It’s been a year.” I slammed the locker door and sank onto the bench in front of the lockers. “I thought it was getting better, but I had another dream last night.”

  “Oh, the procedure,” Raquel said, sitting beside me.

  I dropped my head in my hands. “And I lied to Henry about it. I was acting weird at dinner and he wanted to know why, so I told him I lost a baby.”

  Raquel shrugged, “That’s mostly true.”

  I whipped my head up, daggers in my eyes. “It’s not true at all. I killed my baby. I thought it would be easy and I’d forget, and some days I seem to, but then he comes to me in my dreams and breaks my heart again. And things are going great with Henry, but I don’t think he’d support my decision, and now I’ve lied. How do I build a relationship on a lie?”

  Raquel touched my arm, “Okay, first you need to calm down. While I agree lying isn’t the best thing to do in a relationship, it happened before you knew Henry, and you only stretched the truth a little. You seem really happy with him, so I’d try to come up with a way to forget...” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Or at least accept your stretching of the truth,” Raquel continued. “Maybe it was a mistake, but you can’t take it back, so perhaps if you accept it, it will get easier.”

  I sighed, but she was right. If I told Henry, I might lose him forever, and that thought scared me to death. I realized I was falling in love with him and didn’t want to be without him. “I guess you’re right. There is nothing I can do now, so I’ll just try to make better choices from here on out.”

  “That’s the ticket,” Raquel smiled. “Now come on, let’s go save some lives.”

  I decided the best way to convince myself I could move on from the past was to be the best person I could be from then on, so I joined Henry’s church and the choir. We joined a Bible study that met weekly, and I even began memorizing verses. On the outside, I tried to live as righteously as I could, hoping eventually it would change th
e inside to match.

  As Christmas rolled around, my joy grew, and I whistled as I decorated the apartment. This would be my second Christmas with Henry, though we hadn’t exchanged gifts the first year as we had only been dating a few months. I had bought him the perfect gift; it was now sitting under the tree, begging to be opened, and he was due any minute. Raquel and her latest fling, Greg, were also coming. I hung up the stockings and had just finished lighting a candle when a knock sounded at the door.

  Henry stood on the other side dressed in a green shirt and khakis. Warmth flooded my body as he held up a piece of mistletoe and kissed me. When we parted, I grabbed his hand, pulling him into the apartment.

  “I come bearing gifts,” he smiled and held up a small square box wrapped in red paper.

  “Ooh, I can’t wait to see what it is,” I squealed as I took the box. “Can I shake it?”

  He laughed, “Go ahead; it’s not breakable.”

  I held the box to my ear and shook it back and forth, but no sound came forth; it tightly held its secret.

  “Knock knock,” Raquel said as she pushed open the door that had been left ajar. “Merry Christmas.”

  I rushed to my friend, enveloping her in a hug. “Merry Christmas to you, too. Here let me take your coats.” After I hung up Greg and Raquel’s coat, I led them to the tree to deposit their packages. “Who wants egg nog?”

  “I’ll help,” Raquel offered, following me into the kitchen.

  I pulled four festively colored mugs down from the cabinet and filled them each with the creamy liquid. Handing two to Raquel, I picked up the other two, and we returned to the living room where we chatted idly as Christmas music played in the background.

  When I could contain my joy and curiosity no longer, I clapped my hands and surveyed my friends. “Okay, who’s ready for gifts?”

  They smiled, laughing at my exuberance, and I handed out a gift for each person. The little red box from Henry I picked for myself, holding it like a cherished toy. “Open yours first,” I nudged him.