Chapter 11
“What made you do that?” Mertie asked, and Garnet thought that maybe if she had been a mom, she wouldn’t have needed to ask.
“I couldn’t stand the idea of sending her to school. Couldn’t see doing that, knowing that I was going to have to unteach so many of the things that she was going to learn while she was in the classroom.” He hated to admit the next part, because it made him feel like he wasn’t a good provider, but it was the truth. “I couldn’t afford the Christian school in our town, so that left me one option. Homeschooling. It turned out to be the best option, sometimes God backs us into a corner and we have no choice but to do what He wants. That was one of those times. And I probably needed that, or else I would not have chosen to homeschool. It was the hardest option, requiring the most from me. I love my child, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to make the sacrifice, spend the time. Plus, I didn’t know if I could.”
“Why not? You’re so smart. You always got good grades in school. If anyone would be wondering about whether or not they could homeschool, it would be me.”
“The grades are just one thing. I wasn’t able to teach. I...can never find the right words. You, on the other hand, know almost intrinsically what people need to hear to get them to understand. You know how to...sell things. And I don’t mean that in a mean way, I mean that you can break it down, get them interested, bait the hook, so to speak, and break things into small bites that they can understand. I just seem to dump everything in a disorganized way on someone’s lap, and they leave shaking their head, frustrated because they’re more confused after I talked to them than before.”
He laughed, and she laughed along with him, and somehow their shared laughter made the years fall away, and while he didn’t feel as close to her as he used to, it didn’t feel like there was this huge divide between them that he had felt at the beginning of the conversation. It felt like maybe they could get what they used to have back again.
He caught himself mid-thought. That wasn’t the goal. He wasn’t trying to get back what they used to have. He wasn’t trying to build on that, wasn’t trying to have a relationship with Mertie at all. He just...wanted his daughter to know her mother.
And there was a part of him that said that it would be good for Mertie to know her daughter.
She sighed, looking off at the rows of crosses to the right, testament to the son that Vera and Dominic had lost and the other children who were buried in the graveyard by the church.
It was a beautiful graveyard, carefully kept and maintained by Vera and Dominic. They had done an excellent job with it, and in the short time that Garnet had been back in Raspberry Ridge, he had enjoyed the evening walks through the manicured grounds. Someday he would have a headstone somewhere. Unless the people who were left after he was gone decided to cremate him, which he didn’t particularly want. It just didn’t seem biblical. Although there was no prohibition against it. It just wasn’t his preference.
He liked to think of himself in the graveyard, alongside other people who had walked this earth before him or alongside him. Or even after him eventually. All together. Perhaps it would be a little while before he was completely forgotten.
Although, the Bible clearly said this life was like a vapor. Here for a little while and then it vanished away. People weren’t supposed to remember him. They were supposed to remember Jesus. That was the point of his life.
How could he do that with Mertie? Help people remember Jesus, especially their daughter.
It made him sad to hear her say that she had a big, important offer that she didn’t want to let go of. In his mind, that just screamed something that was not important, one of those red herrings that drew a Christian’s attention away from what God actually wanted them to do and onto themselves, their success, their legacy, so to speak.
But who he was he to judge? He didn’t know her heart, he only knew his. And it was toward Dabney, wanting the very best for her.
It had always been toward Mertie, wanting the best for her too.
They sat in silence for a while, neither one of them saying anything, and Garnet thought that perhaps their conversation was over.
He didn’t mind sitting in silence beside her. They spent plenty of time in their youth studying together, reading together, and even watching TV and movies together. He had been as comfortable with her in silence as he was in conversation.
They definitely didn’t have that same level of comfort back, but now that he had spoken with her some, he knew that the same Mertie that he’d known growing up was in there somewhere. This woman, so confident and serene, hadn’t seemed like the same girl, but he caught glimpses of her.
“Does she really want a mom?” Eventually Mertie broke the silence with a question that Garnet couldn’t have foreseen.
He considered how to answer. He wanted to turn it, to give her an answer that would either make her feel guilty, or pull on a heartstring, or somehow move her to want to be Dabney’s mother, but that wasn’t the right thing to do. It wasn’t right to manipulate people to get them to do what you wanted them to do. Even if what you wanted them to do was a good thing, it still wasn’t right.
“Yes. She does.”
“Why haven’t you ever gotten married?”
He huffed out a breath. “That’s a good question.”
“I was serious.”
“Why haven’t you?” He didn’t mean to turn the question back on her, but he didn’t want to have to answer it. He wasn’t sure. He supposed there were a lot of different reasons, and each contributed to the real reason.
“That’s easy. Getting married would get in the way of what I wanted. I want to be a Christian speaker and author. I didn’t have time to mess around with dating and breaking up and finding someone. And no one looked at me and decided that I was the one and came up and asked me to marry them. Not that I would have said yes, but I would consider that a lot more than I would have considered, ‘Hey, you want to go out?’” She looked over his shoulder. “Considering what happened the last time I went out, I wasn’t doing that again.”
Her voice lost its confidence in volume as she ended, and his heart went out to her. It must be a terrible memory. A terrible experience, something that had marked her, that she would probably take to the grave.
“Have you forgiven him?” He was surprised at the words as they came out of his mouth. But that was the first thing that came to mind when he heard what she said.
“That’s a good question,” she said, laughing a little but not looking at him. And, he noticed, also not answering him.
“That’s a no.”
“Are you perfect? Aren’t there skeletons in your closet? Are there things that you need to get right with God?”
“Yeah. I need to forgive you.”
That made her head jerk around. “You resent me giving you Dabney? But... You said you loved her. I thought you appreciated the fact that you had her. You said that you fell in love with her as soon as you saw her. You could have given her up for adoption.”
She talked about Dabney like she was just a thing that he could get rid of if he didn’t really want it.
“I could never have done that.”
“You should have said something. I could have found someone else. Mrs. Calvin would have been willing. I just didn’t know for sure that she would have my back. The way I knew for sure that you would. I never doubted you.”
“And you had no reason to. I never said a word.” He’d already said that, but it was true. He had never even considered saying a word. He’d done everything he could to protect her. Even though there was a part of him, a part that he didn’t want to take out and examine too closely, that had been hurt when she had come to him with someone else’s baby. He would never say anything to her about that. After all, it would ruin the friendship that lay between them if there was jealousy there in his heart. Jealousy relating to another man being with Mertie.
“I’m not sure what I did that you need to forgive, but I’m sorry,” she said, and he believed she was sincere.
He shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just... Sometimes I resented the fact that you took advantage of our friendship, but it only happened because I allowed it, but if I didn’t blame you, I had to blame myself, and there were times over the last fifteen years I didn’t want to do that.”
“No. You’re right. I did take advantage of our friendship. I wish I wouldn’t have now.”
“No!” He wanted to be emphatic about this. “Sometimes, we look at things and we wish that they would have happened differently, and I admit that there were times where I resented the fact that I had a baby to take care of, because it inhibited me from doing exactly what I wanted. But at this point in my life, looking back, I can see that this was the exact best thing for me and God knew it.”
“Why do you need to forgive me?” she asked again softly.
He pressed his lips closed. Why indeed? “I suppose there was always a part of me that wanted you and me to raise her together.”