Chapter 5
Allison
I say goodbye to Luke’s mom—I found out his name from his mother—and hand his phone back to him. I was paying enough attention while I was talking that I realize I’m going to need to go to the ATM as well.
“I’ll just walk out with him. How much do I owe?” I ask, not wanting to get a whole lot of cash out. I don’t have a need for it, although maybe I’ll have more need than what I think if no places around here take cards.
The lady quotes me the price, and I turn to go out to the ATM. Luke is waiting at the door to open it for me.
He seems like a reluctant gentleman. Like someone whose manners are a little rusty, because he hasn’t used them in a while. If my guess is right, and he’s from the city, it makes sense. Not that people from the city are rude. I don’t mean that at all, it’s just... There’s definitely a difference between the way people are in the city and the way they are out here.
I definitely prefer being out here, and that’s why my parents and I and my two brothers are all shifting our main headquarters to the small town of Christmas Tree, Pennsylvania.
“Thank you,” I say as I walk through the door.
“No problem,” he says, and it sounds like there’s a little bit of irony in his voice. He’s put out by these unexpected roadblocks to what he was expecting to be able to do, and he is annoyed, but I like that he is still finding humor in things.
“Sometimes when we have these little detours in life, that’s when real life actually happens,” I say, pausing for a moment so we can walk side by side through the three or four inches of snow that is lying on the sidewalk as we head toward the ATM.
“Not that I’m trying to lecture you. Just making conversation,” I add.
“Okay. I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe I was being rude and didn’t even realize it.”
“No. Not at all. It’s very gentlemanly of you to share your room, because you didn’t have to. You had first dibs on it, and under every law of the universe, it should have been yours with no thought to me.”
“I guess,” he says. And I’m pretty sure he’s wondering if he made the right decision. I don’t want to be annoying, so as tempted as I am to make conversation, we walk the rest of the way to the ATM in silence. I figure if he wants to talk to me, he can start up the conversation. After all, I’m the one that’s putting him out, so I guess the least I can do is to try to be as considerate as possible.
He allows me to use the ATM first, and I consider not waiting for him but walking back inside. It is cold out, it’s still snowing, and I don’t have boots on. My feet are cold. But I decide that the nice thing to do is to wait on him. We can both suffer together, I guess. Since we’re going to be suffering together for the next two nights, unless the snow stops and everything clears up by morning.
“You didn’t have to wait,” he says as he finishes up at the ATM and walks over to me. I had walked a few steps away to give him some privacy.
“I just felt it was the right thing to do,” I say.
“And you always do the right thing?” he asks, and it seems like that’s the first attempt that he’s made to actually have a conversation with me.
I take two steps, the snow crunching under my feet. A gust of wind blows hard, swirling the flakes around as they shiver in the light.
“I guess I try to. I suppose I can think of a bunch of times in my life where I haven’t been successful, but yeah, I always try to do the right thing.”
“That’s a good way to live. I suppose it cuts down on regrets.”
“It does. It also is more of a blessing to the people around me, and it pleases God. And I suppose that’s the most important thing.”
He’s quiet, and I’m wondering if he regrets offering to share his room with a Christian.
Then he says quietly, “I think I got away from that. I haven’t thought about God for a long time, other than to want to shake my fist at Him a few times.”
“I feel like that sometimes too. But mostly I try to cultivate a feeling of gratefulness, because...He’s been so good to me.” And that was true. God really has been good to me. Maybe I haven’t gotten everything I’ve ever wanted, like a home and family of my own, but I’m close with my brothers, I have a best friend who is awesome and who is now with my brother, and it was like a special smile from God when that happened.
“Seems to me like He’s forgotten about you tonight,” he says.
“Well, maybe this is like what I said, sometimes the detours in life that you’re not expecting are where life really happens.”
“I think you believe that drivel,” he says, and it sounds a little bit short and condescending, but he also has humor laced in the words.
“I believe God orchestrates our lives, and sometimes just submitting to His will and allowing Him to do things that maybe we normally wouldn’t want, and that seem like they’re the worst thing in the world, are actually the times when God does His best work.”
“I see. And you’re speaking from experience?” he says, pausing at the door and looking at me, truly looking at me.
His eyes, caramel brown, and that short-cropped beard are appealing, and my heart does a little jig. Just a short one, but I catch it and reprimand it immediately. I’m not going to fall for a stranger. Especially one with whom I’m unexpectedly sharing a room.
“I am speaking from experience,” I say, giving him a tight smile and wanting to reach out to open the door myself as he pauses there for just a second. Then, he opens it, and I walk in. For some reason, I’m thinking that maybe my words should apply to me far more than him. Life happens on the little detours.