Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
bumfuzzled (adj.): confused, perplexed, or flustered
Sure, every city benefits from a dedicated mayor and other titled public servants.
But any town worth its weight in bronze historical markers also has that one man or woman known to all, a person who occupies their golden years by quietly showing up wherever need arises.
You know the one—white hair, willing hands, dazzling mansion awaiting their arrival in eternity.
Funny how this is also the person least likely to care about mansions.
Anyway, in Charity Falls, this person is Rob Roberson.
Rotary Rob, as most of us have taken to calling him.
Two Saturdays a month, Chase and I volunteer here at the food bank.
Rob greets us in his usual way, as if we’re his favorite people on the planet.
We enter through a side door, and Rob stretches out a hand to ruffle Chase’s hair.
Chase dodges it, which doesn’t seem to discourage Rob. “Great to see you, young man!”
Chase enters the stockroom with chin held high. He may not be the high-fiving type, but he knows he rocks his job here.
The Rotary Club’s food bank operates out of a cute little old blue bungalow on Elm.
The interior walls have been removed so the original kitchen and dining spaces adjoin to offer one enormous room lined with shelves.
A long stainless steel island runs down the middle of the space and serves as the staging area for new food donations.
At the moment, said island is littered with random overflowing bags and boxes awaiting the attention of someone excessively committed to organization. This would be my son.
“This is a disaster!” Chase says, marching to his usual station. He surveys the disorderly state of the shelves, scowl deepening.
Rob and I exchange a smirk. Chase will never, and I do mean never, abandon his pie-in-the-sky expectation that all the food items will remain as tidy as he left them two weeks earlier.
“Well, son,” Rob says, “afraid you’re absolutely right. We got pret’ near cleaned out. Don’t know what we’d do without our all-star organizer! Lots of new grub to stock. Think you’re up to it?”
Chase levels Rotary Rob with an adorable glower that says Are you crazy? I could do this in my sleep and sets to work sliding cans of diced tomatoes into perfectly aligned rows. Checking expiration dates. Turning labels front and center. Tossing dented cans.
My son and I are donut-fueled.
We began our day, as per our tradition, at the bakery. Again, Chase bypassed anything that involved colored sprinkles and eyed the maple bars. Again, he wasn’t ready to chance it and opted instead for his go-to, a glazed donut and orange juice.
“Really appreciate your help as always, Lucy,” Rob says with tenderness. “Wish more of our volunteers were so faithful. Afraid we’re a bit short-staffed again. Myrna’s down with a cold.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Mind keeping an eye on the front?”
I pause, then say, “Sure. I’d be happy to.
” True, but also not true. After a week manning the reception counter at the Messenger, not to mention all the careful maneuvering that’s been required to avoid smacking into the hefty chip on Brad Vickery’s shoulder (for which I’m happy to claim full responsibility), my social battery is on zero.
Holing up back here in the stockroom with Chase sounds more to my taste.
Needless to say, I offer to start a pot of coffee for the guests anyway.
I once watched a documentary showing how an octopus can cleverly evade predators by encasing itself in shells and undersea debris and then lying perfectly still like it’s part of the sea floor.
What a trick! But there’s that darn gut check.
If I’ve learned anything over the past several weeks, it’s this: Camouflage is no longer the goal.
Not that guests of the food bank are to be feared.
I have been one of them—folks who for whatever reason find themselves in need of a hand-up.
No one’s immune to an unexpected change of fortune.
A certain itinerant preacher from Galilee famously said that when we are brought low, this is when we’re most blessed. I lived this reality.
My own rock bottom takes on a different shape when I look back on it today. It’s so clear now that I was being held. Carried. Even if I didn’t recognize it in the moment. No matter what comes my way, I must hold on to this, never looking to my circumstances to affirm God’s presence.
He said he has two addresses, so to speak.
One, the “high and holy place.” My little brother, Mikey, gets to experience this, but I can’t go there yet.
The other place God says he resides is wherever humble, hurting people hang out. I don’t know quite how this works—that God can be everywhere all the time but especially near to those suffering.
I run the sink faucet, fill the coffee carafe.
Imagine it. God’s whole heart is to revive the devastated and discouraged. No wonder I’m less aware of him when I’m well fed and comfy. I send up a prayer that I’m able to embody hope for anyone who arrives this morning with a crushed spirit.
Two and a half hours later, after welcoming a steady trickle of guests, my heart is full, and my energy’s holding surprisingly steady.
One young mom shared the heartbreaking specifics of her diminished circumstances and welcomed my offer to pray with her.
Tears were shed, and they weren’t only hers.
Still, I miss working alongside Chase. An opportune moment arrives, so I carry my mug of tea along with a list of items that could use replenishing back to the storeroom. From down the hallway, a low voice that is definitely not Chase’s reaches my ears. Then a rumble of laughter.
Wait. I know that warm rasp. I round the doorway.
And then, full stop.
For a minute that feels like twenty, I look back and forth between my son and my new old friend Wyatt Hayes, trying and failing to make sense of this sudden convergence of two very, very distinct parts of my life.
It’s impossible to hide my surprise in seeing Wyatt here. On the other hand, Wyatt doesn’t appear the least bit surprised to see me.
“Are you . . . looking for me?” I ask. Although, sheesh. Why flatter myself? Everything isn’t always about me. There must be a perfectly plausible explanation for Wyatt’s appearance here in this nondescript place completely off the beaten track, where Chase and I generally fly under the radar.
Wyatt slips his hands in his pockets. Then he removes his hands. It’s like he doesn’t know what to do with them. He’s wearing a black long-sleeve that says A LITTLE DIRT NEVER HURT with a graphic that depicts a country road disappearing into a forest.
“I . . . yes. You see,” he says, scrubbing a hand down his jaw, “funnily enough, I’ve been looking for a way to get involved.
A service project or something. And then Nytasha mentioned you had some kind of ‘dreadful obligation’”—he pauses to use air quotes, how cute is that?
—“preventing you from attending her thing, the wilderness thing, and—”
I scrunch up my face. “That’s not at all what I said.” I may not always be excited to abandon my cozy nest on a Saturday, but these shifts always turn out to be a joy for Chase and me. I certainly would’ve never painted my role at the food bank as a thing to be dreaded.
“Yeah, it didn’t sound like you. Which is why I pressed for more details.”
I quirk a brow. “Well, aren’t you quite the investigator.”
“Job hazard.”
I’m trying to play it cool here and quell a thought that ignites all kinds of uninvited sensations. Is Wyatt . . . pursuing me?
Unlikely. After all, he knows all about Chase.
Knows I’m not the kind of woman who’s easy to date.
Unless . . . oh, yuck. What if . . . I mean, I wouldn’t have pegged Lieutenant Wyatt Hayes as the kind of guy who’s just out looking for a casual hookup, a little fun.
But what other explanation can there be?
Why would a man with a nice, settled, uncomplicated existence and everything to offer knowingly move toward a woman attached to a ready-made family, especially one that includes a neurodivergent child?
I hate to question the good officer’s motives, but . . .
Oh, c’mon, Lucy. Do you look like a “fun girl”?
Fair point. But hey, I’m a single mom—it’s my responsibility to question motives.
The alternative, the idea that Wyatt Hayes is here because I’m so utterly irresistible is equally ridiculous. I swig on my tea.
“So I told Nytasha that I was helping you.”
Bad timing on the swig. Liquid shoots up my nostrils. “You what?” I cough out.
“Yeah, I know. Not my most shining moment. So, yeah. Here I am, hoping to make good on it.”
I’m still alternately hacking and clearing my throat.
Chase turns from his organization project. “You okay, Mom?”
Wyatt rips off a paper towel from a roll attached to the wall and offers it to me. “Yeah, you sure you’re alright?”
“Fine,” I croak. I still can’t explain why the combination of these two male faces simultaneously looking at me has me so off balance.
“Look, Lucy,” Wyatt says, “I didn’t mean for this to be weird.
I really have been looking for ways to volunteer, and this sounded like a cool place to start.
Except that now I realize how it might look.
Anyway, I came by to inquire whether the food bank was in need of any helpers, and Chase kindly offered to show me the ropes. ”
Note to self: Explain stranger danger to Chase once again. Why hadn’t he checked in with me about this? He should know better!
“I recognized him from the article you wrote,” Chase says, as if reading my thoughts.
Huh. Well. Okay then. I feel my inner hackles relax.
I can’t say I’m reading anything other than sincerity in the lieutenant’s little speech.
“I see,” I say. “You should know, there are probably easier ways to get involved. Rest assured, my son will hold you to the highest of human standards. You’ve been warned. ”
“Oh, I quickly came to that realization. What do you think, Chase? Am I doing okay for a newbie?”
Chase raises his chin, squints at the shelf behind Wyatt. “So far, so good.”
Wyatt’s smile is so deep the corners of his eyes crinkle. He side-eyes me.
“Also, funnily?” I say.
“What?”
“Earlier. You said funnily.”
“You thought I said funnily?”
“Oh, you definitely said funnily.”
“Nope. No way. No self-respecting officer of the law would say funnily. I mean, do I look like the kind of guy who says funnily?” The man raises his hands as if to invite my scrutiny. Unfortunately, this has the natural effect of activating his biceps.
Look away!
I have my shallow moments. I can own this.
When I open my mouth to respond, hoping something witty somehow emerges, instead I hear my son’s voice.
“You definitely said funnily,” Chase says plainly. With Chase, facts are facts. He motions to the shelves still waiting to be stocked. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Lieutenant?”
I shimmy my eyebrows at Wyatt in a told-ya-so way, and now, I must say, he looks adorably contrite.
Possibly the last thing in the world I expected to witness here today was my almost-nine-year-old son dealing out a proper chastening to a sheriff’s lieutenant four times his size.
And now it’s high time I collect the items on my list and return to my own assignment. “Excuse me,” I say to Wyatt, plucking three boxes of pancake mix from the shelf next to him. Our arms brush lightly. There’s warmth coming off him and the faint smell of woodsmoke.
“Slacker,” I whisper.
For a few fanciful moments as I make my way back down the hall, I allow myself to wonder, What exactly is the lieutenant’s game? And if it has anything to do with Chase and me, what makes Wyatt think he’s up to it?