Chapter 9
Mertie turned to Garnet, her eyes narrow, trying to figure out what he was saying.
“Why?” Before she had come back with a baby, they had been separated for five years, while she had lived in Chicago, and he had finished going to school at Blueberry Beach, where the Raspberry Ridge kids had been bussed. He had told her that he was planning on going to school online as much as he could and commuting for the rest. Back then, it hadn’t been nearly as common as it was now, but he had found a way, not wanting to leave his parents.
But she had interrupted all of those plans, and he had ended up leaving Raspberry Ridge, leaving everything because of taking her baby. Now he was saying that he would have done that and more.
While she waited, it was his turn to look away. A muscle in his jaw worked as he seemed to study the flowing water behind her.
Finally his eyes looked at her again. “I guess because of our friendship.”
They had been best friends. But had their bond been that strong?
“Did you ever ask yourself whether or not I would have done the same thing for you if you had come to me and asked the same thing of me?”
“I know you would have.” His words were simple, easy, and they spoke of a faith in her, in her actions, in her general goodness, that she didn’t even have in herself. Not now, and certainly not fifteen years ago. She had been a spoiled, immature, young girl with a tendency toward wickedness and evil.
“How can you believe in me like that?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
“You believed in me the same way.”
“You were different. We laughed about how different we were.”
“About how well we fit together, about how we made each other better. About how together we could do things that apart we couldn’t. Isn’t this just the same?”
She tried to process his words, trying to see if she agreed, but she didn’t think she could. “It wasn’t a simple request. I asked you to change your life. Just like that.”
“Yeah.”
She’d actually asked him to find someone who would adopt her baby. She hadn’t come thinking that it was going to be him taking care of her daughter. She had wanted him to take care of the details, so no one could trace the baby back to her.
“I just asked you to take care of her. See to her until she was adopted.”
“That’s what I did.”
“You. You adopted her.”
“Yes. A sealed adoption.”
She hadn’t known. He had taken care of everything, and she had done what he said, trusting him implicitly while working on cleaning up the mess she made of her life.
“You never told me about the father.” He spoke softly, his eyes meeting hers before they went down, resting on his hands, which were clasped between his legs with his forearms resting in his lap.
“I was ashamed.”
Maybe it was his posture, the humbleness he showed, the way she knew that he cared about her and loved her daughter as deeply as a human being could. Or maybe it was just because she truly was ashamed, but she took two steps over and sat down on the other end of the bench. There was plenty of room between them, but her back slumped, and her eyes were cast down.
It didn’t even occur to her to look both ways to make sure no one else was listening before she started to speak. “I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was at a Christian college, working toward becoming a Christian speaker and author. I was hoping to get a degree in journalism or something close, so I could work for someone who was doing what I wanted to do and eventually either work my way up or strike out on my own.”
College hadn’t been what she thought it was going to be.
“When I went to a Christian college, I thought I would be surrounded by Christians. But I was surrounded by people who said they were Christians. There’s a difference.”
“I know.” He nodded his head once, jerking his chin down, but she had no doubt that he knew exactly what she meant. People who said that they believed in Jesus but who had never repented. Never turned from their sins, never asked for forgiveness, who just kind of picked up Jesus like a person might pick up a suitcase as they were walking along with their life, never changing.
“A person can’t have Jesus and not have a changed life.”
“I know. But at the time, I just saw these Christians, quote unquote, doing all these things that I had always thought were wrong and seeming to have no remorse for them.”
“I think that might be the most dangerous kind of people. People who think they received salvation, think they know Jesus, but have absolutely never shown a day of repentance, and have no concept of His holiness or the power He has to change a life.”
“Satan masquerades as an angel of light.” She’d seen that a lot in her ministry. People being deceived.
“He sure does. He deceives us in a lot of different ways.”
“I was definitely deceived. I said no the first few times my new friends asked me to go out with them, but college was harder than I thought it was going to be, and after midterms, where I got the very first F I’d ever gotten in my life, I agreed to go out. I... I was thinking of quitting.”
“That’s not you at all. You’re not a quitter.”
He knew her. She didn’t quit, no matter how hard it got. That reminded her of the day they climbed the bluffs together. She couldn’t remember whose idea it was, but he had gotten about four feet up and decided it was too dangerous, and he would rather be alive and live the rest of his life having never scaled the bluffs than get halfway up, lose his grip, and have his parents planning his funeral.
He had been wise.
She refused to quit.
“Remember the time you made it to the top of the bluffs?”
“I remember you standing below me, and I knew that if I fell, you would be there to catch me or die with me.”
“You would have smashed me when you hit me.”
“I know. I was so selfish. But as soon as you saw that I had almost made it to the top, you ran around and were there to offer me your hand as I came up over the edge.”
“You wouldn’t quit. I had never realized until that day that you truly wouldn’t quit.”
“I was stupid. Why didn’t you tell me how stupid I was?”
“I think I might have.”
She laughed. “I was just too stupid to listen. To actually hear what you were saying. But you were scared.”
“I was. Sometimes fear keeps us from doing stupid things.”
“I was scared, but my no-quit personality pushed me to the top. What’s wrong with me?”
“I think you channeled that part of your personality into the right areas. It helped you become successful.”
She’d become successful in the world’s eyes, true. But she’d given up her daughter in the process.
“So you went out with your friends?” he asked, going back to the subject they were talking about, but leaving the question open-ended so she could fill in the details she wanted to.
“It was a one-night stand. Everyone was doing it. There was no closeness, no knowing him at all. It was something you did with whoever you spent the evening with. It wasn’t even considered a walk of shame anymore whenever you woke up in some stranger’s bed, sober but hungover, and gathered your things up, maybe even took a shower in his room, before you ate breakfast together, or maybe not, depending on how you felt, I suppose, and then back to your life with no strings attached.”
“This is honestly not even a little appealing to me.”
“It’s not. It’s like we’ve become like animals. As humans, we have the ability to think and be better, but a cow will hook up with any bull available. Spend her heat cycle with whatever bull is in the pasture with absolutely no concern for him when she’s done with him, nor him for her. Then he moves on to a different cow and the cycle repeats. For animals, that’s totally natural. But as a human, I don’t really want to be on the level of an animal. We think we’re so sophisticated, getting rid of our ‘puritanical’ views and being sexually liberated, but in reality, we’ve lowered ourselves and become animals. It makes me sick to think about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. Maybe I needed that experience, to see how terrible it was. To see how we are degrading ourselves, when we actually think that we’re so suave and debonair.”
She had met people over and over again who thought the idea of being with just one person was so provincial, and it never entered their minds that rather than being elevated in their thinking, they’d actually become more base and animalistic. It never ceased to amaze her how people could be so blind. How she could be so blind.
“That’s the only time I ever did something like that. I couldn’t even tell you the guy’s name. I honestly don’t know. I saw him a few more times on campus, but either he flunked out or he was a senior. I don’t even know what we talked about, but we didn’t talk about anything that would help me find him. I couldn’t if I wanted to for Dabney.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“No. I really haven’t done well by her, and I suppose maybe that’s why the Lord has me here. Because I didn’t realize that until just now.”
“We’ve all made mistakes.”
“You haven’t.”
“I sure have. And I might be making a big one now. I quit my job two weeks ago. Last Friday was my last day. I applied to be pastor of the church here in Raspberry Ridge, and it doesn’t even pay a full-time wage. I have nothing else lined up, other than the little bit of money I make on my socials and blog. It’s not much.”
He looked sheepish, and it hit her that she wasn’t the only one with problems. His were just different.
“Then you have plenty of time to focus on your blog and your socials and get them to start making more money. In the meantime, if you’re living with your parents, you shouldn’t have a house payment—”
He put a hand up. “You’re right, but we’re not here to solve my problems. You were talking.”
She closed her mouth immediately. There she went, trying to tell him what to do, running his issues over in her head and coming up with solutions for him, while shoving her own problems aside.
But Garnet would not allow her to. He never had.
“Sorry,” she said, looking back down at her hands folded in her lap.
“Maybe you haven’t changed as much as I thought you had,” he said, and she heard humor in his voice.
She sighed and gave him a little smile. Unable to continue to sit still, she stood back up.
“So, you found out you were pregnant...then what?”
“That’s it. I found out I was pregnant. It shocked me to pieces, and I was a little angry at God for a while. I mess up once, and I get caught. It was frustrating when I saw other “Christians” around me who were sleeping around and doing what they wanted, while their ministries flourished and the professors loved them. Anyway, I started wearing big, baggy clothes. I was able to hide my pregnancy through the end of the next semester, and then, not many people knew that I came up here and stayed with Pastor and Mrs. Calvin that summer. They helped me hide it.”
“I wondered why I heard you were up here, but I barely saw you that summer. I felt like there was this huge chasm between us and I couldn’t cross it.”
“I’m sorry. It was all my fault. Mrs. Calvin got me a job online, which, back then, was rather rare. But I was able to work for several pastors out in the Midwest who wanted their sermons organized into a book. I spent the summer doing that. I didn’t make as much as I could have made if I’d been working even at a fast-food restaurant, but I made something. And most importantly to me, no one found out about my pregnancy.”
“Did you go to the hospital to have her?” He lifted his shoulder. “I’d always wondered how. I... I hated to think of you alone, scared, and in pain. It’s one of my regrets. If I would have known, I’d have been there.”
That was sweet of him to say, but she shook her head. “It had nothing to do with you. You didn’t need to be there.” There was something in his gaze, something in the way he moved his eyes, the way his hand clenched and unclenched, the way he looked away, that made her feel like he didn’t agree, but he didn’t say anything.
“Mrs. Calvin had a sister who was a midwife. It wasn’t ideal, but when I went into labor and refused to go to the hospital, she called her, and she walked us through it. Thankfully, from what I understand, it was an easy birth.”
That was not what she wanted to say. She remembered the fear, the pain, the worry that her daughter would die, and the horror that there was a small part of her that hoped she would. Because the problem would be gone. She hated that part of herself. Was embarrassed to even think it, and would never, ever admit that, but maybe that was part of the reason that she had worked so hard trying to become everything she could for the Lord. Not because she felt like she had to earn her salvation. She was clear on that doctrine, but because she felt so terrible for the awful thoughts that she had about the innocent baby in her body.
Garnet sat there, silent, not judging, waiting for her to say more, and the words slipped from her mouth.
“I never considered abortion, but there were times I hoped she died.”
She didn’t want to say that. Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth closed? Maybe it was because she was getting the feeling that Garnet gave her too much credit. She didn’t deserve it.
“It would have solved your problems. I think that’s a human thing, and it just shows you’re human. Wicked and evil and sinful like the rest of us.”
With her mouth open, she stared at him. He stared back, totally unperturbed about her deepest, darkest confession.
“I don’t think you mean that.”
“I know I do. You didn’t act on those thoughts. You wouldn’t have. But you wouldn’t have been human if you hadn’t had that thought, that wish that would get you out of the trial you were in, if you hadn’t gone through scenarios that would have gotten you out of it. The thing is, you didn’t dwell on those thoughts, but took them captive and got rid of them, feeling terrible that they were even there.”
He was right. That’s what she had done. She knew those thoughts were sin. She knew she had to get them out of her brain, couldn’t give them credence in any way, or she would end up being the kind of person she didn’t want to be.
“You always looked at me and saw the best. Always,” she said softly, the full weight of those memories coming back. He always saw the best in her.
“I just saw what was there,” he said simply.
Maybe that was true. It’s what he saw, anyway. Because there was only one person she trusted with her baby. Even Mrs. Calvin, who had offered to help her, wasn’t her first choice. Not only did she trust Garnet, she knew that Garnet would protect her at all costs. She had been right. He had made the ultimate sacrifice and given his life completely for her baby, making sure that nothing, not a whisper of her origin, had ever been breathed out loud and Mertie had been able to back completely out of the picture. Because Garnet saw the best of her.
Even not knowing where the baby had come from or any details, he looked at her and saw the best.
She moved away, walking toward the water. Studying it, thinking. She’d never actually thought about it, never considered the implications, the idea of what he had done, what he had sacrificed, and what she owed him.
“I can pay,” she said suddenly, remembering what he had said about quitting his job and knowing that, while she wasn’t a millionaire, she wasn’t the penniless, lost girl she’d been. “That would solve your problem!”
Maybe that was the reason God had brought her here! Because the man who had sacrificed his life to raise her daughter needed some of what God had blessed her with.
“I’ve made enough money that I could live in comfort for the rest of my life. I can keep you in comfort as well. Along with Dabney, of course.”
Her name was a little unfamiliar on Mertie’s tongue. She tasted it, rolling it around in her head, listening to the sound of it reverberate through her mind, and realizing that that was one more thing Garnet had done. No one knew her middle name. She never used it, she didn’t even use the initial. And he had given her daughter her mother’s heritage in a way that no one would ever know.
“I owe you more than I ever thought. What can I do to repay you?”