Chapter 8
“Good morning.” Simeon set a steaming mug of coffee on Abigail’s nightstand and slid a hand along her shoulder. A wave of optimism and gratitude rolled over him. After months of not knowing how to help her—how to fix their marriage—things were finally looking up.
Just starting the adoption process had seemed to lift her spirits, and though he could see that things were still weighing on her, he felt like she was at last willing to move forward now. Yesterday, she’d even gone for a hike with him. And she’d agreed to go to church and lunch at Dad’s today—for the first time in months.
“Do I smell coffee?” Abigail opened her eyes slowly.
“You do.” Simeon bent and kissed her cheek. “Are you still up for going to church?”
“Oh.” Abigail closed her eyes, and for a moment Simeon worried that she was going to change her mind. But she opened them again and gave him a weak smile. “Of course.”
“Good.” He stroked her arm again. “Because we have a lot to thank God for.”
Her smile drifted, but she nodded. “We do.” She reached for the coffee and brought it to her lips. “Perfect.”
“Yes, you are.” He bent again, this time kissing the top of her head.
“Simeon, don’t—”
“Don’t what? Kiss your head?” He would be more than happy to kiss her lips instead—he just didn’t want to make her spill coffee on herself.
“Don’t call me perfect,” she whispered.
“All right, fine.” He kissed her head again. “You’re not perfect. But you are perfect for me.” He strode toward the door. “You have plenty of time to shower and get ready. I’m going to go take some measurements in the baby’s room. I thought we could go furniture shopping this week. Start getting everything ready for the home visit.”
“Wait. Simeon—” Abigail’s voice carried into the hallway.
“What’s up?” He turned and poked his head back into the room.
She was facing the window on the other side of the room but staring at her coffee cup.
“Abigail?” He stepped into the room. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head and looked at him over her shoulder. “No. I just wanted to say thanks for the coffee.”
“Oh. You’re welcome.” He studied her for a moment, trying to figure out if there was something more.
But her smile looked genuine, and she waved him off. “Go. Do your measuring. I’ll be ready for church in a little bit.”
An hour later, Simeon was just finishing a rough drawing of a potential layout for the baby’s room when Abigail came in. He stopped with his pencil hovering over the paper. She was wearing a creamy white shirt with a floor-length floral skirt. It reminded him of something she would have worn when they’d first met.
“You look beautiful.” He crossed the room and pulled her into his arms, letting the pencil and paper fall out of his hands as he brought his lips to hers and tangled his fingers in her hair.
“Hey.” She pulled back with a protest, but she was laughing. “You’re going to mess up my hair. I thought we were going to church.”
“Right.” Simeon dropped his hands from around her and worked to catch his breath as he picked up the paper and pencil. “Let’s go.” He stashed the drawing in his desk drawer and escorted her out to their vehicle.
“We’ll have to get a car seat,” he said as he opened her door.
“Simeon.” Abigail turned to him with worried eyes.
“I know. I know.” Simeon kissed her cheek. “I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. I’m just excited. For us.”
Abigail nodded and got into the vehicle. Simeon forced himself to rein in his enthusiasm on the drive to church. As excited as he was about the possibility, it wasn’t going to do any good to get Abigail’s hopes up that the process would go quickly when their caseworker Janice had warned that it could take months or even years to be chosen by a birth mother. From now on, he’d do a better job of showing restraint. Of helping her manage expectations—even if he couldn’t manage his own.
A sigh came from Abigail’s side of the vehicle as he pulled into the parking lot at Beautiful Savior, and he glanced at her. She was gazing out the window at the big brick church.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Everyone will be happy to see you.”
She nodded, but her smile held a thousand nerves.
He pulled into a parking spot and got out to open her door, grasping her hand in his as they walked toward the church. Inside, he spotted his best friend Liam standing with his arms around Lydia—the half-sister Simeon and his siblings had only learned about a year ago. She’d quickly become one of the family, though—and as soon as she and Liam married this summer, Liam would officially be family too.
“Good morning, you two.” Lydia stepped away from Liam to offer Abigail a huge smile and an even bigger hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
Liam held out a hand to Simeon. “Hey, man.” His raised eyebrow said what his words didn’t. Simeon nodded in response to the unasked question. He knew Liam had been worried about him and Abigail—he was the only one in the family who knew about their miscarriages and troubles—but now he didn’t have to worry anymore.
Simeon wrapped an arm around Abigail’s back as they followed Liam and Lydia into the sanctuary. They made their way to the front of the church, where his brothers Joseph, Asher, and Zeb already sat with their wives Ava, Ireland, and Carly. His youngest brother, Benjamin, was still away at school but would be graduating in a couple of weeks. His sister Grace and her husband Levi would be here for that too. Maybe that would be a good time for him and Abigail to share their good news.
There wasn’t enough room in the pew to fit four more, so they slid in behind the rest of the crew. The others all turned to greet Abigail, and Simeon’s heart filled. He was so grateful that his own family had embraced her the moment he’d brought her with him from Ecuador. She’d had no family or belongings of her own to return to, so she’d rented a small apartment in River Falls until their wedding.
He slipped an arm around her shoulders, sighing in contentment as she leaned into him. When they’d said their vows in this church, he couldn’t have imagined what the next few years would put them through. But it felt like they were finally coming out on the other side, and he trusted their marriage would only be stronger for it.
Thank you, Lord, he prayed silently as Dad stepped to the front of the church to begin the service.
“Good morning.” The deep, warm voice drew Abigail’s eyes to the front of the church. Her father-in-law, Abe Calvano, was smiling out at the congregation. His eyes landed on her, and she was pretty sure his smile grew.
Abigail tried not to tense her muscles. He wouldn’t be smiling at her if he knew what she’d done.
Then again, Simeon wouldn’t be sitting here with his arm around her either. He’d been so happy the past two days—and Abigail had forced herself to act happy too. To act like she expected that any day now they’d get a child. Even though she knew better.
“I’m glad you came,” Simeon leaned closer to whisper in her ear, his warm, comforting scent cocooning her.
She nodded as he handed her a hymnal. “Me too.”
It’d been months since she’d been to church, and the truth was, she didn’t even know if she shared her husband’s faith anymore. If she ever really had.
She certainly hadn’t been a believer when her parents had shipped her off on that mission trip to Ecuador. She’d been plenty good at putting on an act, though—at least at first. Somehow, as she’d heard the pastor there, as she’d listened to Simeon talk with passion about God’s love and what Jesus had done to save sinners, she’d wanted to know more.
She’d believed it was true. She’d believed Jesus had died for her sins.
Or at least she thought she’d believed it.
But maybe that had all been part of the act. Maybe she’d been so good at pretending that she’d convinced herself.
Whether she’d once believed or not, it was getting harder and harder to believe now.
The hymn ended, and Pastor Calvano invited the congregation to stand. Abigail had to bite back a gasp as her eyes fell on her sister-in-law Carly at the end of the pew in front of them. Simeon had told her a few weeks ago that Zeb and Carly had announced they were expecting. But Abigail hadn’t been prepared for Carly to be showing already. Zeb looked down at his wife, the hardened police officer’s expression all mushy and adoring.
Abigail averted her eyes, but the room seemed to spin a little, and Simeon’s hand pressed to the small of her back.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, shooting her a concerned look.
“Yeah. Fine,” she whispered.
His eyes remained on her as they retook their seats, and she concentrated on looking interested in Pastor Calvano’s reading.
After a moment, Simeon’s eyes shifted off her, and her gaze went back to Carly. But now that they were sitting, she couldn’t see the baby bump.
She covered her own stomach with her hand, aching for the little lives it had held and lost. One more sign that God hadn’t forgiven her after all.
She lost track of the service until Pastor Calvano moved to the pulpit to deliver his sermon. For some reason she couldn’t explain, Abigail felt her attention zero in on him.
“Y’all ever had jury duty?” he asked. Somewhere in the back of the church, someone groaned, and Pastor Calvano laughed. “My thoughts exactly.” The congregation chuckled, but Abigail’s fingers curled in on themselves until her nails sliced into her palms. She’d never had jury duty before, but she’d sat in front of a jury . . .
“Oh, I tried to get out of it,” Pastor Calvano continued. “But nothing worked, so on the day of the trial, I found myself at the courthouse. Now, if you’ve never been in a courtroom, let me tell you, it can be a pretty intimidating place.”
The whole room went blurry, and Abigail was suddenly back there. In that courtroom. On that stand. Seeing the way the members of the jury were looking at her. The man who had frowned the entire time she’d testified. The woman who had curled her lip in disgust. The white-haired grandmotherly type who had given her a gentle smile but also shaken her head every few minutes.
Pressure on her shoulder brought Abigail’s attention back to the church. She shifted forward, so that Simeon’s hand fell off her shoulder. He let it rest on her back.
“And if I was just a juror and felt that intimidated,” Pastor Calvano was saying. “Imagine being the defendant. Sitting on the stand. The judge looking down on you from the bench. The prosecutors staring you down from their table. The jury sitting in the jury box, dissecting everything you say.” Pastor Calvano shook his head. “Truth be told, I actually felt a little sorry for the defendant. Not because he was innocent. But because the prosecution kept piling on the evidence of his guilt. You know those pictures of the scales of justice? It was like I could see one side getting heavier and heavier. Kind of reminded me of a teeter-totter. Remember those? Fun, unless you got on with a kid who was bigger than you and wouldn’t let you down. Well, this guy might as well have had an elephant on the other side of his teeter-totter for the weight of all that guilt.”
Abigail felt her past pressing against her, cinching tight around her lungs until she wasn’t sure how she was going to take another breath. The weight of all that guilt.
“And no one asked how sorry the defendant was for what he’d done,” Pastor Calvano continued. “No one asked what he’d done to make up for it. Because it didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything he had done. Justice had to be served. But as I sat there, listening to the district attorney hurling all these accusations at the defendant, I couldn’t help but picture a different accuser and a different defendant. And the defendant was me.”
Abigail’s head jerked up. There was no way Pastor Calvano had ever stood trial.
“And it was you,” he continued. Abigail’s stomach turned in on itself. But Pastor Calvano kept going. “And the accuser was Satan.”
Abigail dropped her head, staring at her lap. She didn’t need Satan to accuse her. She already knew the charges against her were valid.
“The thing is,” Pastor Calvano said. “There might as well be an elephant on the other side of our teeter-totter too because we have committed the sins Satan accuses us of. We are guilty.”
Abigail’s chest squeezed so tight she didn’t know how her heart was still beating, but somehow it was—so loudly that she couldn’t hear Pastor Calvano’s words any longer. She was guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Pastor Calvano paused, looking thoughtful. “We found him guilty. And the judge sentenced him to be punished. Because that’s how justice works. When someone breaks the law, they have to be held accountable. They have to pay their debt to society for their crime.”
Abigail thought she had paid. She’d testified. She’d changed her life. She’d become a different person, a better person. But maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe she was just as guilty today as she had been then.
“We already know we’re guilty, right?” Pastor Calvano picked up his Bible. “God commands us to be holy as he is holy. But we fall so far short of that: ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ And for that, we deserve to die: ‘the wages of sin is death.’”
Pastor Calvano shook his head, looking grim. “That’s a lot of law, isn’t it? It hurts, doesn’t it? Makes us quiver in our boots. Because when we hear it spelled out like that, we can see what we deserve. See where we’re headed. See the punishment that belongs to us: hell.”
He paused for only a beat. “But here’s the thing the accuser doesn’t want you to know—the end of the verses I just read: ‘The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’”
He beamed a smile around the church, then added, “And the verse that starts, ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,’ ends with, ‘all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.’ Justified. As in, declared not guilty. Not because we’ve kept the law perfectly. Not because we’ve paid our debt for our sins. But because Jesus has done both of those things in our place. We get on the stand in God’s courtroom, and Jesus says, ‘All these things you’re accusing them of? I’ll take those on myself. I’ll pay for them. Punish me.’ He lifts that elephant right off our teeter-totter. And he replaces our sin with his righteousness. So when God looks at us, he doesn’t see a lawbreaker. Instead, he sees a lawkeeper. Not an enemy but his child. Not our old self with all its corrupt and deceitful desires but ‘the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.’ Amen.”
Abigail stood with the rest of the congregation, trying to focus on Pastor Calvano’s prayer, but all she could think of was that elephant sitting on the other end of her teeter-totter. And she doubted that even Jesus could remove it.