Chapter 41
Forty-One
elegiac (adj.): expressing sorrow, often for something now past
The following Wednesday evening, Chase is off somewhere with his grandparents. Strains of banjo and guitar float up to my balcony from one of the many music venues in town. The last ribbons of a cantaloupe sunset dissolve into twilight.
And I keep slipping into a daydream that I’m sharing all this with Wyatt.
Lord, why do you allow me to want something I can’t have?
I spot the first star. Or maybe it’s a planet. I really should know these things.
Could it be I’m the one denying myself, more comfortable crawling in fear back into old protective patterns?
Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
“Knock-knock!” My mother’s singsong voice. “Don’t get up, honey. I’m just setting something down on your counter.”
“Mom, what are you . . . another gift?”
“Hang on! Be right there. Hey, what’s with all the gray-haired people wearing tie-dye I keep seeing around town?”
“Folk music festival. Come join me. You can listen for free out here.”
“That certainly explains it. I thought I’d time-traveled back to the seventies. Should I start the kettle?”
“Definitely. And grab that chunky blanket off the couch for yourself. Where are the boys?”
It normally takes a lot to get Mom to settle. Already she looks pretty relaxed in the other rattan chair. “Chase wanted to show Papa some special places around town. Something about historical plaques.”
I chuckle. “Sounds like Chase.”
“Ahh, isn’t this nice? I’m glad we finally have a quiet moment. I keep thinking about that opinion piece you wrote in this week’s paper. I know I already commended you about it, but I have a few more thoughts.”
“Okay.”
“Ultimately, what you’ve been writing about lately is hope.
And it seems clear to me that you and I find ourselves on a similar spiritual wavelength.
Both wanting to give God freedom to write his best story through us.
Both aware of the collective anxiety all around us.
Both caring deeply about putting goodness into the world, for just such a time as this. ”
I set down my mug. I’ll let it cool a bit more. “Hmm. Well, I liked what you said about hope in church on Sunday. About how we sometimes defer our own hope. I keep thinking about it.”
“I find that very interesting.”
“How so?”
A sudden thunk, then a rumble.
Mom startles. “What’s that?”
“Just a pine cone falling onto the roof. See, there it goes, rolling off the edge.”
“Oh yes, of course. Honey, here’s the epiphany.
What if it’s time for us to join our stories?
I mean, they’re already intertwined.” Mom dovetails her fingers together.
“Divinely, painfully, joyfully, eternally intertwined. But also, our journeys are different in ways different readers might relate to.”
I tuck my feet under myself, snug my blanket tighter. “Readers?”
“Remember a while back, I shared that bit you wrote about Nana with my editor?”
“You shared it with who? Mom!”
“Bridgette Madsen at BeLoved. Didn’t I mention it?
You know, I talk about her all the time.
Anyway, I pitched her an idea, and she loved the concept.
Loved your writing. Loved what you bring to the table as a younger woman.
And anyway, then the piece you wrote in the Messenger .
. . well, everything went click-click-click for me. So I sent her the link to it. And she—”
“Click-click-what? Mom, I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying that maybe it’s time we put our stories together—in a book. Sweetie, you are a beautiful woman, learning beautiful, significant things about what it means to give your best yes to something. And I’m just a girl who can’t say no!”
For some reason this strikes me as so funny I erupt in laughter.
“It’s true, I can’t!” Mom says, laughing along.
“It’s so true,” I say. “But I still have no idea where you’re going with all th—”
On a dime, Mom turns serious. She taps me on the nose twice with her pointer finger, saying, “Honey. Follow.”
Again I feel a giggle coming up. How did I never notice how hysterical my mother is?
“Lu Lu. We both want to explore what it means to put goodness, truth, and beauty out into the world, am I right? Doing so may look different for you than it does for me in my season. But what is universal is that, at times, it will cost us all something—an uncomfortable yes, or an uncomfortable no.”
I inhale deep. “I’ve allowed feelings to run my life for way too long, Mom.”
“I think we’ve both found it challenging to run toward the harder thing and trust that God wants to work through our weaknesses. I have to believe there are plenty of women with the same struggle.”
I think I’m tracking now. “What’s the bottom line?”
“Is that a harmonica?”
Have I mentioned my mother is super distractable?
“I think so. Mom. Bottom line.”
“I want you to pray about cowriting a book with me, each of us drawing from our past hurts to talk about our future hope. Together.”
“Oh.” I let this sink in. “You mean, remotely together.”
“Well, yes . . . or maybe no.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning your father and I are . . . having a conversation about what the future might look like. That’s probably more than I should say for the moment.” Mom shivers. “Also, it’s freezing out here.”
***
“What’s this about?” Mom asks once we’re back inside. She’s flipping through my lovely new hardback of Pinot and Peril, a gift from Steph Stoneback.
“Oh. It’s about a CIA operative who—”
“No, Lu, I mean this inscription.”
Thanks for helping me find my moxie. Keep writing!—Steph
“Crazy story. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”
“Why not now?”
“Because right now I have to figure out what to do with this . . . air fryer? Mom, this looks spendy. Why so many gifts lately? Did you win the lottery?”
“You are going to love that. Your father and I have one, and it’s just perfect for the two of us. Perfect for the needs of a . . . small family.” Mom lets her words trail off mid-sentence. We both hear the implication—Chase and I are only two. The smallest size a family can be.
My heart drops to my stomach. Because what goes unspoken is that we both, very recently, allowed hope to bloom that this might change.
Mom takes my face in her hands. “Oh, Lu Lu. I just . . . I just wish I could somehow make up for all the ways I’ve fallen short as a mother. If I could go back and—”
“Oh, Mama. That’s not necessary. Really.” It isn’t fair to chain my mother to old resentments. I need to set her free, for my own healing and hers. The last thing I want is to keep my mom in some kind of emotional prison. Mom was only ever doing the best she could. I get that now.
How can I begrudge the ways she turned her pain in a positive direction? Maybe it didn’t always help me, but it helped so many. Blazing a trail for other women in ministry. All the heat she’s taken over the years, speaking her heart and mind.
Carly Montgomery is a hero of the faith.
Our family broke, and we all coped with it in our imperfect ways.
“While we’re at it, though,” I say, “I apologize for the ways I’ve fallen short as a daughter.”
“Well, that’s about the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Besides, aren’t we all in the process of being made new?”
“Mmm. Yeah. I suppose our stories aren’t meant to be so neatly defined with beginning, middle, and end.” Which goes against human logic. Not to mention classic story structure.
“You got it, girl. It’s more like we begin, and we begin again, and then we begin again.”
Mom opens her arms. I step into them. And we hug, and we rock, and then we hug some more.
When at last we part, we keep the connection going through clasped hands.
I’ve grown to love looking into my mother’s face close-up. Every line an arrow, pointing to the people she’s loved, pain she’s borne, times she’s laughed.
“I wonder,” Mom says, “if you and I have both been feeling stuck because we’re not meant to write an ending, but rather a new beginning.”