She knelt beside the bed and pressed her palms together. This was too big for her to handle. Who better to turn it over to than God? Cali pushed her nose under her elbow, and Ruthie looped her arm around the Lab’s neck.
“After all,” she told the dog, “if God could change Saul’s heart and the hearts of kings, He can surely change Gray’s.”
And if that prayer wasn’t answered in the way she hoped, she would have to change her own heart…and let him go.
The prowler’s capture had warranted a two-minute spot on the eleven o’clock news in which the anchorman explained that the delusional man had been apprehended while searching for his dog. Then the fickle media moved on to a three-car accident in neighboring Henrico County.
By the next morning, Ruthie’s attention had turned to creating a display on the back wall featuring Sobo’s hats and some stylized heart-shaped wrought iron pieces. Hard and soft. Cold, wintry colors and warm textures. Opposites.
Back to that again. Last night she had fallen asleep wondering if she should just set her concerns aside and try to find a way to meet Gray in the middle. Wishing it was even possible to mesh a relationship around two such divergent beliefs.
And while she was wondering about the future, what about children? Was it possible to raise a child with two differently believing parents and not have the little one grow up confused and searching, possibly in the wrong places?
The front door to the shops opened and closed several times, so she needed to hurry and finish this job before any customers needed her attention. She moved a beveled-glass picture frame and temporarily set it on a small round display table where it wouldn’t get broken while she climbed up to arrange the pieces on the wall. With a knee hold on the waist-high storage cabinet along the back wall, she climbed up onto the surface to drape some beads over the decorations for a feminine and festive effect.
“I’ll spot you.” Savannah appeared beside the cabinet and held her arms up in preparation to catch her if she fell.
A customer with a two-year-old daughter in tow paused to watch. “Ruthie, please be careful. You’re making me nervous.”
Milena, a regular at Gleanings and especially at Milk & Honey, had become a mother a few months ago after a trip to China to adopt little June. Since then, her mothering tendencies had widened to encompass everyone in her path, whether young, old, friend, or stranger.
When the new mom had first brought June to the shop to show her off, Ruthie’s thoughts had gone immediately to the baby she and Gray might have had if they had stayed together. Would their child have had dark hair and warm-toned skin like Gray’s? Would the genes from Sobo’s lovely almond-shaped brown eyes have been passed along through Gray to the child, or would there have been a hint of Ruthie’s hazel eyes and reddish hair in their blended traits?
Now that she and Gray were back together, albeit connected by a fraying thread, there was another thought to add to her futuristic musings. Would the child go to church with her and learn that red and yellow, black and white, we’re all precious in His sight? Or would that child stay home on Sunday mornings and learn that God is a fairy tale and that you have to rely on your own strength to get by?
She moved to one side to straighten the gold-and-black hat with the asymmetric brim, and her foot slipped on a scrap of paper that had been left on top of the cabinet.
Savannah and Milena gasped as one. Little June, thinking it a joke, squealed with delight, then giggled in anticipation of her doing it again.
“Ruthie, please come down,” Milena pleaded. “Let me help you.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted as she righted herself and nudged the paper off the cabinet to avoid a repeat performance. “You go ahead and shop around. Holler if you need me.”
Milena grabbed June by the hand. “We’ll go over there where we can’t watch you.”
“Speaking of needing you,” Savannah said, her head tipped back and arms outstretched as if fully expecting her to fall. “How is Mrs. Bristow? Is she back to climbing the rose trellis yet? Considering your monkey antics today, I’m beginning to think you and she may be more than honorary relatives.”
The bell over the door jangled again. The sound of money, Savannah had called it. All of the Abundance entrepreneurs welcomed the Saturday surge of customers.
She gave Savannah a quick update on Sobo’s health and filled her in on the unresolved situation with the doll. “The aunt’s birthday party is today, so it looks like we’re going to have to break the news about the doll to Sobo very soon.” She started to bend down for the pile of bead necklaces at her feet, then thought better of it. “Would you mind handing me the purple beads?”
Sobo’s recent health crisis had driven home the unwelcome reality that Ruthie’s loved ones were getting older. Only God knew how much longer she would be able to enjoy their company, so she needed to make sure to spend plenty of quality time with them now.
The Bristows—all of them—were her family. Without them, she would be as adrift as the day her mother died.
No, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her honorary grandparents.
“What about you and Gray?” Savannah persisted. “You two seem pretty happy together. Does that mean your faith issues have been resolved?”
Ruthie focused on straightening the items on the pegboard wall. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her friend, who would surely be able to see the conflicted feelings in her eyes—the joy of being back together with the man she loved, tempered by the feeling they were incomplete without the faith that had once connected them on a very deep level.
“Progress is slow,” she admitted. “He has his heart set against God, but I’m praying and believing he’ll eventually turn around. Hoping for sooner rather than later.”
It had to be soon if their relationship was to survive. The longer she waited for Gray to return to God, the harder it would be to let go if this proved to be an irreconcilable point between them.
Savannah fell silent, an unusual occurrence for her bubbly friend.
Finished with arranging the wall display, Ruthie turned to ease herself down from the cabinet and found Savannah staring at a stern-faced Gray.
“That’s not what we agreed,” he said, his voice grim.
Savannah looked as if she’d rather be anywhere but here, but being the true friend that she was, she stayed and extended a hand to Ruthie. “Here, let me help you down.”
“No,” Gray intoned. “I’ll let her down.”
If Ruthie hadn’t otherwise been focused on coming up with an explanation for her overheard comment, she might have taken a moment to mull over his odd choice of words.
Savannah scurried off and glanced over her shoulder at Ruthie, an expression of apology on her face for bailing out and leaving her to deal with Gray’s dark mood alone.
Gray lifted a hand, and Ruthie reluctantly accepted the help he offered and gingerly clambered down.
He closed his fingers around her hand and grasped her elbow to steady her. Holding her this close made him want to pull her into his arms. But to do so would sacrifice his integrity. His sense of honor. The request to keep faith off the table had been a sincere one, and her comment to Savannah told him she hadn’t taken it seriously, that she had merely been biding her time until he changed his mind.
Why did she have to go and ruin everything just when he thought they were doing so well?
Ruthie looked up at him with big eyes. She reminded him of the time when, as a teenager learning to drive, she had accidentally bumped her car into his in a clumsy attempt to parallel park. She had clearly been scared he would blow up at her for having dinged his precious Miata.
But he hadn’t then. Definitely wouldn’t now either, even though she had dinged something far more precious than a car fender.
His trust.
The situation with Jake Rayner had taught him he couldn’t count on God or anyone else to take care of him and the people he cared about. People had to take care of them
selves. Right now, he needed to protect himself from her unreasonable expectations.
What hurt most was Ruthie’s unspoken message that he wasn’t enough. That he would only be good enough if he would just ignore the life lesson he had learned in Afghanistan and come around to her way of thinking. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that his friend was dead because Ruthie’s God had ignored the kid’s pleas.
Maybe he wasn’t enough. If so, he was sure to disappoint Ruthie at every turn. What kind of a relationship was that? In addition to protecting himself, he needed to do the right thing and protect her from endless disappointments that would surely arise when he couldn’t—and wouldn’t—become the kind of person she clearly wanted him to be.
He directed her to a quiet corner, away from the customer who studied an assortment of decorative wall clocks. In backing up, he bumped against a small display table, and he felt more than heard something wobble and fall. A millisecond later the brittle sound of broken glass filled the air.
He turned and stared down at an ornate picture frame that had split into four jagged pieces, then bent to pick up the sharp fragments.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ruthie said, touching a hand to his arm.
He yanked away from her. “You don’t understand. I do worry about it.” He scooped up the pieces and piled them on the cabinet where she’d been standing a moment earlier. “That’s me,” he said, pointing to the shards of glass and bent silver frame. “The frame can’t be fixed, and God and your prayers can’t fix me, either.”
He gripped her by the upper arms, and she seemed so small in his hands. Her eyes had reddened, and she blinked back the moisture that threatened to spill over. Oddly enough, they didn’t seem to be tears of remorse for having broken their pact but rather of disappointment. In him.
“I really wasn’t trying to fix you,” she said, her gaze pleading with him to understand.
That was the problem. He didn’t understand. Didn’t understand why a young soldier had to die, nor did he understand why she persisted in believing a fable. Why she expected that he should believe it, too.
“I just thought that—”
“That I would become what you want me to be? That I’m not enough just as I am?” He thought of the church hymn that promised he would be accepted just as he already was. What a cruel joke.
But it was no more cruel than staying in a relationship that defined him by what he wasn’t. By the person he could never be again.
“I can’t be the person you want me to be.” He reached for Ruthie, but she pushed his hand away.
She squared her shoulders and stood as tall as she could in his looming presence. All this time, she’d been wishing, hoping, dreaming, and praying that they’d overcome the one obstacle that kept them apart. She had hated when their relationship had broken up while he’d been at war, and now she hated that their recently renewed relationship had become a war front in its own right.
She wanted him to believe as she did, but he just couldn’t do it. As long as they were together, this would be a point of contention between them, no matter how they bargained to abide by the status quo.
With a note of heartbreaking finality, she summoned from deep inside herself the courage to tell him, “I can’t be with you and not want you to know and love God as I do. And I refuse to continue to cling to what I now know is false hope.”
She felt the heat of Gray staring down at her. She bit down on her lips, which puckered from an attempt to hold back the sob that caught in her throat but which might otherwise look as if she were begging to be kissed. She’d done enough begging and conceding. Now was the time to hold firm, not only to her faith beliefs, but to what she wanted in a romantic partner and possible future mate. Even if it meant letting go. As much as she wanted otherwise, this relationship—this man—was obviously not meant for her.
Her chin trembled, and she regretted that he saw her weakness. Hoped he wouldn’t read the sign of emotion as mixed feelings or, worse, uncertainty over what she was about to say.
“You were right the first time,” she told him, her voice stronger than the spaghetti noodles that suddenly inhabited her bones. “This can’t possibly work between us.”
Gray pushed a hand through his hair. Despite his initial anger over her refusal to give up on her hopes of converting him back to being a believer again, he had not expected she would use this IED to resolve their differing stands. The sob that she’d been trying so valiantly to hold back now lodged itself in his heart. Her chin quivered again, making her seem small and delicate.
Delicate, yes, but he knew from experience that she could set her jaw in stubborn determination when she wanted something strongly enough. Although he wouldn’t—couldn’t—change his heart to appease her, he had no desire to throw away all the other things that had been going so well between them.
“Let’s talk,” he said and tried to steer her toward the shop’s exit. “You’ll close Gleanings, and we can go over to Pizza Piazza for lunch. We can order breadsticks. Like old times,” he urged, and belatedly realized he was using food to bargain with her. “Let’s not be hasty. We can work this out.”
She shook her head. “I’m not hungry,” she said, letting him know without saying so that she would not budge from her stance.
These weren’t old times, and what had worked for them in the past no longer brought them to a common ground.
The customer at the wall clock display lifted one from the shelf and tilted it in Ruthie’s direction to get her attention. Both hands on the clock pointed straight up.
Ignoring the woman, she finished what she had to say. “I’m sorry, Gray, but this isn’t working. It’s better we end it now.”
Now it was his turn to struggle to hold back the emotion. He tried not to notice her reaction. Eyes unnaturally wide. Biting her lip. Trying desperately to keep from crying. Any other time, his instinct to protect and comfort her would have compelled him to take her in his arms and hold her until all was well again.
Unfortunately, all would never be well between them again. Their happy little experiment to coexist with opposing mindsets had failed.
He pulled some bills from his pocket and left them on the cabinet to pay for the broken frame. Bent and shattered. That was exactly how he felt.
“I’ll see you around at Sobo and Pop’s,” he said and turned toward the door.
Ruthie watched in silence as he paused to pick up a small shard of glass from the floor.
Seeing her opportunity, and apparently oblivious to what had just transpired between her and Gray, the nearby customer hustled toward Ruthie, clutching a weathered Allentown clock to her chest as if a greedy shopper might snatch it from her.
“Are these all the clocks you have? I was looking for something similar to this one but a little bigger and maybe a different color.” The woman held it out at arm’s length and seemed to consider the possibilities. “I suppose I could paint this one. Maybe change out the hands for an antique spoon and fork.”
Gray rose to his feet, clearly as dumbfounded as she was that anyone would consider altering such a great-looking clock.
Ruthie looked from the woman to the timepiece, finally settling her gaze on the open design of the large meshed gears and Roman numerals. Still reeling from their breakup, this one at her own hands, she was so shocked by the woman’s outrageous question that it took a moment to form the words to reply.
Gray set the final shard of glass on the pile with the others. He was right…their relationship was as irreparably broken as the bits of glass that lay in front of her. In his mind it was broken because she wanted God in it. But she knew that for herself, any pairing without God in it was destined to come apart.
“If you change the clock, you’ll ruin the patina,” she told the customer, but her gaze never left Gray’s face. “In this case, it’s best to leave it alone and just appreciate it for what it really is.”
Chapter 12
Ruthie’s dream that God would change G
ray’s heart had been crushed. The truth was that his heart had indeed changed.
It had hardened even more than ever.
The Dear Jane letter had hurt so much that she’d thought she would never heal. She had thought nothing could be worse than reading that the man she loved more than anyone on earth wanted nothing more to do with her. Yes, that had hurt, but to be the one who broke up with him—in person—was much, much worse.
Four years ago, she had somehow managed to distract herself from the heartbreak by immersing herself in opening Gleanings and focusing on turning it into a success. Back then it had worked for brief periods of time, so today she attempted once again to stay too busy to think.
Unfortunately, business slacked off for a little while after lunch, and Savannah had started puttering with the wedding dress. Her friend, on realizing the pain it caused her to look at it, had started to tuck it away, but Ruthie had insisted Savannah shouldn’t alter her work schedule on her behalf.
Ruthie turned away from the sight. For the next couple of hours, she threw herself into her shop duties and hovered over customers in an attempt to erase the words that echoed in her brain: It's better we end it now.
For as little as she had accomplished this afternoon, she should have gone home. The distraction wasn’t working.
What weighed heaviest on her soul was not only the fact that she had given up on Gray…but worse, that he had given up on God. Permanently.
Savannah ambled over from Connecting Threads. “Ruthie, honey, is there anything I can do? I just hate seeing you looking this miserable.”
Ruthie looked up from her paperwork and wondered inanely if Gray and Daisy were still going over his security company’s paperwork. She met her friend’s compassionate gaze. Today Savannah wore a vintage wrap dress that she had refashioned with embroidered embellishments over the bodice and a sheer flowy skirt to cover the bottom.
This modernized version looked very little like the original and very much like Savannah. Ruthie’s attention dropped to the long fluff of white fabric draped over her friend’s arm.
Her Redeeming Faith Page 15
