Chapter 15 #2
“Yeah. When I told him about the gold, he said”—Frankie made air quotes—“that it sounded like a golden opportunity to visit Acadia.” He smirked. “Dad’s humor is pretty lame.”
Tim exhaled sharply. The storm had just changed course.
Sunday night church. Ugh. Who started that idea, anyway?
Maisie was in a foul mood. She slumped in the passenger seat as Pops drove them down the road toward his church. “Why do we have to go?”
“Because I’m facing a very demanding week. I need fortification, and this is how I get it.” Pops’s tone left no room for argument.
Demanding for him, maybe. But for Maisie, this week looked like it was heading toward a train wreck.
She scowled out the car’s window. Her mom had called to ask about the weather in Acadia and if she needed mosquito repellent, and Maisie had made the mistake of telling her that Frankie’s dad might be in Acadia this week.
Might. Mom went nutso. Said she had to hang up immediately and go shopping for new clothes.
New clothes. Because apparently, the fact that she and Frankie’s dad had once shared a moment back in Grand Teton meant this week would be their destiny.
Yeah, right.
Maisie had been excited when Mom said she was coming. But the second Frankie’s dad entered the equation, Maisie ceased to exist.
And as if that weren’t enough, Frankie hardly knew she existed too.
Inside the church, Maisie followed Pop into a pew and sat down.
She saw someone a few pews in front of her and did a double take.
Scout? She hardly recognized her. She looked adorable in a blue blouse.
See? Maisie knew she’d be adorable in something that wasn’t ranger green. Blue looked good on Scout.
Blue.
Blue like blue-haired Sophie. Maisie’s bad mood dropped a few more notches. She crossed her arms, sinking lower into the pew as the service started.
She didn’t even try to sing along with the first hymn. She was fuming over Frankie and Sophie. How could they be a couple when they just met a few days ago?
Maisie had been so sure this summer would be different.
Her summer. Frankie’s summer. The summer he’d finally see her—not as some tagalong kid but as her.
The braces were gone. She’d worked on her “cool.” She’d traded unicorn notebooks for novels with serious themes, like The Hunger Games.
She listened to the music she knew he liked.
She even gave PBS a shot because he said that was all he watched.
She tried, anyway. Once. When Netflix didn’t have anything good and The Bachelor wasn’t on.
And yet, just like in Grand Teton, Frankie still saw her as a kid.
I’m never enough.
Not enough for Frankie. Not enough for Mom. And apparently, not even enough for Pops. He’d always been busy, but summers with him had been special. He made time. Time for breakfast together, for his famous spaghetti dinner, for long, meandering talks where she felt like she mattered.
This summer . . . he was always working, always rushing off. Not one shared meal. Not one real conversation.
It was like she’d just faded into the background, barely a blip on anyone’s radar.
She was only half listening to the sermon, tuning in and out, until the pastor’s words suddenly cut through the noise in her head. Something about love coming out of the blue to a young woman named Ruth. First the word blue, then love. Love always got Maisie’s attention.
“Ruth the Moabite was a looked-down-upon foreigner,” the pastor said. “A widow, with no future to speak of. She wasn’t chasing a dream as she followed her mother-in-law Naomi back to Bethlehem. She was just trying to survive. And yet, in the middle of this, God was at work with a remarkable plan.”
Chasing a dream. That was what Maisie was doing this summer.
“Ruth didn’t scheme to meet Boaz,” the pastor said.
“She wasn’t looking for romance. She was picking up leftovers in a field, doing the only thing she could do.
And Boaz noticed her. Not because she was trying to impress him but because of her faithfulness.
Because of the kind of loyal, selfless person she was. ”
Maisie squirmed uncomfortably in the pew, her stomach twisting. Ruth had been loyal, faithful, selfless. And Maisie had been . . . a schemer.
So many schemes.
Convincing Mom to let her come to Acadia to visit with Pops when she really wanted to see Frankie. Begging the orthodontist to take her braces off early, just so Frankie would notice how much she’d grown up. And then the worst of all: taking that envelope from Pops’s office . . .
She’d told herself it was curiosity. That she just wanted to help. But if she was being brutally honest, she’d taken it because she didn’t want to be left out. She wanted to be part of the shipwreck mystery. She wanted a reason to spend time with Frankie.
Well, she got her wish.
And in the process, she’d made a massive mess.
I’m a schemer. The worst schemer . . . ever. She was thoroughly ashamed of herself.
“Ruth had no idea,” the pastor said, “that God would end up placing her in the lineage of King David. Of Jesus himself. The best stories are the ones God unfolds in his perfect timing. It’s always best when we let God write our story.”
The pastor, Maisie was pretty sure, had been staring her down as he said it.
Text message conversation between Scout and her counselor, Elizabeth:
Scout
Sorry to bother you at this late hour, but you told me to text when I did it. And I did it! Today, I went back up Precipice Trail.
Elizabeth
Good for you! Did you look down?
Yes, ma’am! And lived to tell the tale—in more ways than one. You were right. The best views come after the hardest climbs.
I’m proud of you, Scout.
Me too. Right up until that big moment got one-upped. Get this: My father is here.
Well, isn’t that something. Looks like you’ve been given another opportunity to face hard things head-on.
That wasn’t the wisdom bomb I was looking for.
What were you looking for?
I was hoping you’d say that I’ve hit my personal growth quota for the year.
Scout. You stared down one of the scariest trails in the country and came out on top. You can handle this.
You haven’t met my father.
Then maybe it’s time you do.