Chapter 8
Mertie opened the healing garden’s gate and pushed in. Vera had outdone herself with the design. A riot of colors greeted her, flowers blooming in profusion, and the sound of water drew her in, along the winding, paver-lined pathway.
It truly felt like an oasis, a vacation from her life, a place of comfort and rest. One of great beauty. Everywhere her eyes landed, they feasted on color and beauty.
She wandered along the path, coming to a soft waterfall where there was a small seat and a display of crosses. The sound of water felt soothing the whole way down to her soul.
It was a place that just invited a person to sit down and think about God and His goodness toward them.
She could definitely see why this was called a healing garden. It was almost as though she could feel her soul sigh with contentment and her whole being relax, allowing her mind to drift to God and His great love for her.
Somehow, sitting there, her thoughts felt more clear, her emotions less sharp, compassion and kindness stirring inside of her.
One great truth stood out among all of her other thoughts: she wanted to know Dabney. She had always wanted to know her daughter, giving her up had ripped a hole in the deepest part of her that had never healed.
Lord, is this why I’m here? You brought Garnet here and my daughter as well, and I’ve been running. Not just from them the other day at Bible study, but all of my life.
She was in the process of trying to figure out what she should do about her career. How she would reconcile the fact that she had a daughter, which would take the world in which she revolved by storm. It would be shocking. There would be people who would say that she wasn’t fit to be in the position that she was in because of her past. Christians were notoriously unforgiving and judgmental. Of course, at times it was necessary to not have people who thought it was okay to continue in sin while they were in leadership positions, but for someone who was remorseful, who had confessed their sins and asked forgiveness for it, should they be continually punished for it?
It was often a question she had to deal with, although not for herself. And while she could easily see the difference—someone who was living in sin, willfully going against the clear commands of the Bible, was completely different than someone who had made a mistake and had turned from that sin, admitting that it was sin, and had no intention of going back to it.
But would anyone want to listen to someone like her, someone who had such a massive mistake in their past? She would lose credibility. She would lose followers, and she wouldn’t be nearly as valuable a commodity to Zebedee, because while she figured that part of his offer was because he admired her and appreciated her writings, she didn’t delude herself into thinking that the money and popularity she would bring to the table wasn’t part of why he had asked her.
“Do you mind if I sit down?”
The question startled her so much she actually started to get up from the seat, turning toward the voice with her hand going to her throat.
The voice was different, deeper, more mature than what she remembered. But the kindness in his eyes was the same. It was Garnet. She almost didn’t need to look to know.
She rose, maybe because sitting while he stood made her feel like she was at a disadvantage, but she needed this meeting, this, hopefully not confrontation, but a discussion with him.
I guess since I didn’t go search for it myself, Lord, You brought it to me.
She smiled at the thought even as she held out her hand.
“Garnet. It’s been a long time.”
He eyed her hand, and maybe there was a bit of hurt in his eyes. At one point, they would have casually embraced, bumped shoulders, and grinned at each other. They had been best friends, after all. And had known each other better than anyone else in the world. That was before.
Finally he lifted his hand, sliding it into hers, gripping and shaking.
She wasn’t sure why that made her breath catch in her throat and why she had to keep her eyes from widening and work to not stare at where their hands were clasped between them.
Their hands remained clasped between them as they slowly stopped shaking.
For the life of her, Mertie couldn’t think of anything to say. Which was odd considering how many different situations she’d been in, how many different people she’d spoken with, how many people had brought their problems and questions to her, and she had calmly and rationally listened and answered. And now, her entire mind was blank, her mouth dry, with no words, no ideas forming in her head. All she could do was stare into the eyes of the man who used to be her best friend, who knew her deepest, darkest secret, at least part of it, and who had kept it faithfully all these years.
He hadn’t judged her, hadn’t told her what a terrible person she was, hadn’t given her any grief at all, hadn’t even tried to contact her.
She hadn’t realized until that very moment how much she owed him.
“You’ve changed so much,” he said, still staring at her, still gently holding her hand cradled in his.
His words snapped her out of whatever daze she’d been in, and she practically yanked her hand back away from his, jerking her eyes away and turning toward the water, wrapping her arms around her waist as though in protection.
“I’m still the same girl,” she said softly, knowing that if he had said you haven’t changed much, she would have argued with him about that, too. She just didn’t want to agree with him right now. Which was crazy. Because she needed to talk.
As she stared at the water, words came out of her mouth. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“I have as much time as you want.”
She shivered. Of course, Garnet had always been like that. Whatever she needed, he would be there to help her. He would give her whatever he could, as much as he could, anything she needed, up to and including raising her child. Although that was not what she had asked. She supposed that was just one more thing they needed to talk about.
“You can sit down.” It wasn’t a command, but it was a strongly worded suggestion. She always thought better on her feet. She would pace, move back and forth, the movement of her body allowing her to think. But she needed him to...be beneath her? She hated that thought, but she supposed being on her feet while he sat gave her an advantage.
He didn’t argue. He took two steps to the bench, sat, setting the book and notebook that he’d been carrying on it along with his pen, stretched his legs out before him, and fixed her with his serious, intelligent gaze. Compassion oozed out of every pore, but there was something else, something elemental and manly that made it so that it was hard for her to take her eyes off him.
She took a deep breath, wondering if she should offer to allow him to go first. After all, he was the one who had found her.
“Did you know I was here?” she asked, turning to him with the idea that maybe he had deliberately come here because he wanted to talk to her. Maybe this wasn’t about her leading up the conversation.
“Here in Raspberry Ridge? Yes. I recognized you immediately. You’ve changed.”
The second time he told her she’d changed. She wasn’t getting the impression that he thought the changes were good. The idea that she even wanted to ask probably showed exactly how flabbergasted he had her. Other people’s opinions of her hadn’t mattered for a really long time. As a Christian writer and speaker, she had to be concerned, solely and absolutely, with what God thought. Not with man. Yet here she was, wondering why he thought her changes were bad. If the vibe she was getting was accurate.
“No, here.” She spread her arm around, indicating the healing garden.
“No. I came here to study for Sunday’s sermon. There’s no office in the church, just a big open area in the sanctuary, a big open area for the basement and fellowship hall below. It’s as private as it is here.” He blew out a little puff of air.
She jerked her head, then figured she might as well ask. “Where would you like to start?”
“Our conversation?” he asked immediately, his brows going up, as though he wasn’t quite on her wavelength.
Before, when they’d been friends, they could finish each other’s sentences, and even if they didn’t think the same, he knew her well enough to know exactly what she was thinking. She had known him the same way. It was part of the draw for her.
He wasn’t the same as her. She knew he would be thinking something else, something deeper, something she hadn’t seen. And while they hadn’t talked about it a lot, since they were just children, and in their early teens, he appreciated the same about her. They were opposites, and pretty much in every area, but through circumstance, being the only children their age in the entire town of Raspberry Ridge, they’d grown close and had learned to appreciate their differences. Even exploit them at times. They balanced each other perfectly. She shook those thoughts away.
“Yes. Our conversation. Would you like to start?”
“You’re the one who said you wanted to talk to me.” He didn’t say he didn’t have anything to say, he just pointed out that the reason he had sat down on the bench was because she invited him to do so, and she said she wanted to talk.
She couldn’t be cold and aloof. Not when the first thing that she wanted to know came to her lips.
“How is she?” There was so much emotion in that one question. The despair and loneliness of the past, the absolute heartbreak of giving her daughter away. Memories of what she had done, and the knowledge that she could see in Garnet.
“She’s perfect.” His words were simple, spoken with absolute truth on his face and in his eyes. After he said it, a little smile turned the corners of his mouth. “Absolutely perfect.”
“You love her.”
He nodded. “I’ve loved her since the moment you set her little car seat down, her perfect face completely relaxed in trusting sleep.”
“You said she looked like a monkey.” Mertie almost laughed at the memory. She totally forgot until just now.
“She did. But a cute monkey. So sweet. Just precious. It hasn’t changed.”
“She’s bigger.”
“She’s still just as sweet, just as precious, just as dear to me as she was the first moment I saw her.” He was so sincere, so obviously in love with his daughter that Mertie was jealous.
Which was crazy. She didn’t come here to strike up a romance with the man who used to be her best friend. She had no time for romance in her life when she was going to be Zebedee Clinger’s partner, building an entirely new empire from their combined forces.
Mertie turned from Garnet and looked out over the top of the garden, to the deep blue of Lake Michigan. It was so beautiful here, so peaceful. Just taking a deep breath and allowing the serenity of her surroundings to calm her anxious heart.
Everything would work out. Of that, she was sure. She just wasn’t sure of where her place was supposed to be or what God had in store for her. She liked it when His leading was clear, not when she had to cling to His hand in faith that He was going to show her the way whenever it was time for her to make a move.
Right now, everything inside of her was telling her that she needed to walk away, to let her sisters bear the burden of cleaning up their parents’ home in order to sell it, and she needed to get out of Dixie, or she might end up blowing up everything that she had worked for for the last fifteen years.
“Does she know about me?” she asked, still staring out over the softly rippling surface of the Great Lake.
“No. I never told her anything. You asked me not to tell anyone. And I didn’t. Not a soul.”
“Even your parents?”
“My parents don’t know. Dabney doesn’t know.”
“You named her Dabney?”
“It was your middle name.”
She couldn’t believe he remembered. Of course, it was a hard name to forget once a person knew it. It was her mother’s mother’s name, and when she had been younger, she had hated it, but now she appreciated the fact that she carried something of her heritage with her. Her daughter did too, thanks to Garnet.
“I can’t believe you remembered,” she finally murmured.
“Of course I remember.” He said that like there was no doubt, but how could she know?
“I asked you to do a really hard thing.”
“I would have done something a thousand times harder.”
The words were simple but profound. They stirred her to her very soul.