Chapter 18
Mertie was right, Garnet did have a good time, and he was sure that his mom did too. Thankfully she wore a hat, because she had barely been outside at all, since she’d spent so much time caring for his dad. It made his soul smile and warmed his heart to see his daughter and his mom having such a good time together. His daughter even convinced his mom to wade in the lake, although she didn’t actually go swimming. He and Dabney spent some time in the water, and they even got a kite in the air that his mom had stuck in the picnic basket.
In all, it was three hours until they stepped back up on the porch, but Mertie had used the three hours constructively, if the scent of chocolate chip cookies wafting out the front door as he opened it was any indication.
“I smell cookies!” Dabney said, looking first at him and then at her grandmother.
“I do too!” his mom said, and he wasn’t sure who sounded more excited. “I can’t remember the last time I had homemade chocolate chip cookies that I didn’t have to make myself.”
“You guys better get going in the house, or I might run you down in order to get myself in there, because if there are cookies in there, I think I ought to be testing them, just to make sure they’re safe.”
It was a common line, maybe a dad line, but the ladies in his life laughed as he held the door open and they walked in.
Both of them knew he wouldn’t run them over to get anywhere, even out of a burning building, but they laughed along at his joke anyway.
As they walked into the kitchen, Mertie stood up from where she was bending over the stove, a tray of cookies in her hand.
“I’m not sure whose apron this is, but I hope it’s okay that I borrowed it.”
It was a pink frilly one and looked like one that his mom had had for Dabney years ago when she was still small. It barely covered much of anything, but Mertie somehow made it look cute and stylish at the same time. Maybe that was just what happened to clothes when Mertie put them on. The way she carried herself, the confidence that exuded from her, the caring and compassion that underlined everything she did, couldn’t help but make her attire look professional and casual at the same time. Or maybe he was just biased, and everything she did was perfect to him.
He had a feeling that the latter was true.
“Can I have a cookie?” Dabney asked, and Garnet looked down at her. She seemed eager, almost childlike, when normally she seemed reserved and mature. She was acting her age, and he wondered what it was about Mertie that drew that out in her.
“Of course. I was hoping you guys would eat them. I certainly can’t eat all of these myself. I’ll be sick as a dog if I try to do that.”
She waved a spatula over the counter at the far end.
“Those are the first ones I took out, so they should be the coolest. But if you want one that’s still warm, you might want to choose one from here.” She waved her spatula over the middle cookies, and that’s where Dabney chose. His mother had gotten plates and handed one to Dabney and then one to him.
“I think I’m going to take two,” she said as she did just that. “I take it Rudy didn’t wake up?”
“He did for a little bit. He seemed confused, but when I told him you guys were at the lake, that seemed to calm him down and he closed his eyes. I kind of wonder if he’ll even remember waking up when he actually does get up from his nap.”
“He probably won’t. He’s used to me being there all the time, and it probably was concerning that I wasn’t sitting beside him.”
“He did seem a little scared at first, but he settled right down once he heard me talk about the lake. I guess you guys have been living beside it long enough that those words penetrated.”
“That makes sense,” Helen said as she nodded at the door. “Dabney and I are going to go sit on the front porch for a little bit.”
She smiled at him as she went out, and Garnet wondered if maybe she had an idea which way the wind was blowing.
She hadn’t said anything at all while they were sitting at the beach, but Dabney had been with them almost the entire time, or maybe she just hadn’t wanted to interrupt their interlude and her very rare bit of time away.
“If I didn’t know better, I think I just got permission from my mom to stay in here and talk to you.”
She laughed. “I don’t think you need permission. She knows that you and I were pretty much joined at the hip since we’ve been born.”
“There were a few years where I didn’t know where you were, and I assume you had no idea what I was doing.”
“Right,” she said, her voice totally devoid of the humor that it had held just seconds ago.
He hadn’t meant to make her sad or even to push the conversation in a serious direction. He wanted to laugh with her. But he also wanted her to know that friendship wasn’t all he wanted.
He wanted to think they had plenty of time, except... They didn’t. She would be leaving.
“How long do you think you’re going to be here getting your parents’ house ready to sell?”
“I’m not sure. My middle sister, Olive, hasn’t even made it here yet. Amara is pretty wrapped up with Hobert, but she also doesn’t want to do too much without Olive approving it, even though Olive said she didn’t really care. You know how that goes, you throw out the one thing that they wanted to keep. And then you hear about it for the rest of your life.”
“Yeah.” Maybe he was a little distracted, because he was busy saying a prayer that Olive wouldn’t come for a very long time, since it sounded like that was the only thing that was going to keep Mertie around.
She seemed to hesitate. “If I’m going to accept the offer I have, I’ll have to leave soon. And they’ll just have to deal with things without me.”
He swallowed. That could mean she’d leave this week.
“Have you talked to Doyle since you’ve been back?” Mertie asked, filling out the next tray with cookie dough as she spoke and not seeming to realize she’d shifted his world.
“Doyle McKenny?” he asked, surprised that she would mention him, and to his chagrin, a little bit of jealousy squeezed at his heart until he remembered that Doyle and Olive had been like Mertie and him. Best friends, constantly together.
“Yeah. I thought Olive would be excited to come back and see him. Surely he’s grown up by now.”
“I actually heard that he made some great moves in the Chicago real estate market, and I believe I heard he’s a billionaire now. I don’t think he’s going to show up in Raspberry Ridge anytime soon.”
Mertie looked disappointed but not crushed, and he was pretty sure that her interest was purely for her sister’s sake.
“I always thought that Olive held the torch for him. When we moved, I lost you, and she lost Doyle. I seemed to handle that kind of thing better than she did, and I felt like she always wished that we could go back. Then when we finally did, Doyle was gone. I think she wouldn’t mind seeing him again.”
“I know seeing you again has been really nice for me.” That really wasn’t on the subject, but he wanted to spend the time they had talking about them, or their relationship, or at least their daughter. Even though he wasn’t the father, biologically, he was still her father, and Mertie was her mom. She was their daughter.
Mertie put the tray in the oven, closed the oven door, and stood with her back to him for a moment. He hadn’t moved from where he stood at the table after setting the picnic basket down by the floor.
Slowly she turned around to face him.
“Seeing you has been really nice for me too. In fact, seeing you and talking to you has made me reevaluate exactly where I was in my life.”
She paused for a moment and then slowly walked across the kitchen floor, putting a hand on the chair beside him, leaving a distance between them, which he longed to close, to touch her, to have some kind of physical connection.
“I think I mentioned to you that I had just been offered... The biggest opportunity in my career landed in my lap, and I thought only a fool would say no. But... I’ve been struggling really hard with what to do.”
He couldn’t stop the thrill that leapt inside of him, that she was even considering something other than seizing the biggest opportunity of her career with both hands.
“What do you think the Lord wants you to do?” He knew that was what he needed to say. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but it was the right thing.
“I’m not sure. I just think He brought me here to Raspberry Ridge, brought me back to you, knowing that...you have wisdom, discernment, and an ability to see things that I don’t. That was brought home to me during your sermon today.”
He didn’t feel wise. He didn’t feel exceptionally discerning either. She had complimented his sermon, which he appreciated, but he wasn’t sure if she had meant it. What she was saying now said to him that she truly had.
“I don’t think, if I were you, I don’t think I would trust anything I say in regards to what you should do with your future.” There, that was the honest-to-goodness truth and maybe a warning too.
“Why?” she said, tilting her head, her fingers playing with the back of the chair. “I trust you. I know you’re not going to tell me to do something that you don’t think I should or that you think would hurt me.”
“No. But I might be selfish. I might have an ulterior motive. Might want you to do something that is not what God wants you to do. He is definitely not selfish, and He doesn’t have any ulterior motives, other than your good and His glory.”
“You mean you have another motive other than God’s glory?”
“Sometimes I want things. As a man. A human.”
“I didn’t know pastors had feelings.”
He knew she was joking, and they chuckled together. “I suppose you get that in your ministry as well. People seeing that you write and speak for the Lord and assume that you don’t struggle with selfishness and pride and any kind of sin, that you’re perfect.”
“I think that’s a problem with ministry. There is that fine line. Where you need to be living the things that you preach, but you’re still human, and you’re never going to be perfect.” She looked down. “I guess that was part of the reason that I put my daughter out of sight and out of mind. I didn’t want to ruin the illusion of perfection. I worked hard at it. Not that I ever claimed to be perfect,” she said quickly. “But people expected that for me. They wouldn’t be very happy or supportive if they found out about the sin in my past.”
“I think they would relate to you more. A lot of times, especially if you’ve grown from your mistake. If you can call it that. I mean, God takes our mistakes and makes something beautiful out of them. Dabney. I know that the night you spent with that guy was sin, but the fact that Dabney is here just underlines the fact that God could use your sin and make something beautiful out of it.”
It still bothered him, the idea of her with someone else, but he shrugged it off. That was something he couldn’t change. He couldn’t do a single thing about it, and while he figured he would always have some jealousy in that area, he needed to push it aside.
“I suppose that’s part of what I’ve been learning. That I don’t have to be perfect. That maybe there are lessons I could share with people about mistakes I’ve made, what I’ve learned. But I also think that maybe my learning process isn’t complete.”
He held his breath. When she didn’t say anything more, he prompted her, “What do you think you still need to learn?”
“I’m still thinking on it,” she said, then she turned back toward the oven. “I think my next tray of cookies is done. You haven’t tried them yet. How am I supposed to know if they’re any good?”
“I can tell you they smell divine,” he said as he picked up a cookie, disappointed she wouldn’t continue to talk to him.
He bit into it, and he figured he should have known that if Mertie did it, it would be perfect, but it was definitely the best chocolate chip cookie he’d ever had, although he would never tell his mother that.
He had just swallowed when his phone started to ring.
Mertie looked over her shoulder. “Do you need me to leave?”
“No.” He pulled his phone out, looking at it before he spoke to her. “It’s Vera Miller. I hope everything’s okay,” he said as he put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Garnet. I’m sorry to be bothering you on Sunday afternoon.” Vera sounded like she was out of breath.
“It’s okay.”
“I just want to let you know that I’m at the hospital. Getting ready to have a C-section.”
“Congratulations. Do you need help?”
“No. Actually, they won’t let anyone except Dominic in, but I was supposed to meet with Norma Jean tomorrow morning for Bible study. I’m...not going to be able to make it, and I would cancel, but I think she really needs it. Maybe even her husband. I was hoping you could go.”
“Sure. They live out on the road by the store?”
“Yeah. That road.”
“What time?” he asked, hoping that she would be able to get it out, because it sounded like she was in distress. Obviously, if her twins were ready to arrive, she was probably excited, even in labor, he wasn’t sure how that worked with a C-section.
“Nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Also, I’m looking for someone to watch our kids. I have Skyler doing it, but she already has Gertie and her own child, and... I don’t know who to ask.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, knowing that a small-town pastor often did things like this, and even though he wasn’t hired yet, he racked his brain to think of who might go and watch Vera’s four small children that she was in the process of adopting with her husband.
“Does she need something?” Mertie asked softly, obviously hearing at least his side of the conversation.
“She needs someone to watch her children, the kids she’s adopting, since she’s having a C-section right now. You know of anyone in town who could do that?” He couldn’t think of anyone. Maybe Amara could.
“I can do it. Does she need me to go now?”
He stared at her. Of course she could do it. Mertie could handle anything, even four small children, but he had wanted to spend the afternoon with her. Had wanted to get to know her, talk to her, convince her that she should stay in Raspberry Ridge and be a mom, and...be more than a friend to him. But if that wasn’t what the Lord wanted for her, he didn’t want her doing it.
There was some mumbling on the other end of the line. Possibly a doctor or Dominic talking to Vera. He didn’t wait for her to say anything to him but said, “Mertie and I will go watch your kids.”
“Perfect. Thank you so much. Mrs. Higginbotham can come this evening, but they were visiting friends this afternoon. It’ll just be for a couple of hours.”
“We’ll be right there, so Skyler can go back to taking care of Gertie and her daughter.”
“I’ll have Dominic text her and let her know. I need to go. Thank you so much,” Vera said.
Garnet swiped off his phone, holding it in his hand for a second before he said, “I told her we’d leave now.”
“I heard you.” Mertie was already bending over, taking the trays out of the oven. “These are going to be a little undercooked, but they’re going to have to do. Actually, I’ll box some of these up, and we’ll take them for the kids.”
“Good idea. I’ll go tell Mom that we’re going to be going out for a bit. Vera has someone coming this evening, but she said it will be a couple of hours.”
“All right. We can handle it.” She looked over her shoulder and gave him a confident smile. There was no doubt in his mind that Mertie could handle it. She had a rock-solid confidence that just exuded from everything she did and made him feel confident at the same time. All he had to do was look at her and know that God was in control. He never met anyone else who pointed him to the Lord so clearly and effortlessly.