Chapter 11 #2
My face fell at the mention of Seth having been through a lot, and Ruthie looked guilty, like maybe she thought I already knew his story.
“It’s not my story to share,” she whispered.
I simply nodded, my heart hammering in my chest as I looked at Seth in a new light.
Had he lost someone, too? Or maybe he’d had a medical scare. Now, it was going to eat at me until I figured it out. I had been too busy yelling at the guy to try to get to know him.
“Walk me out?” Ruthie asked me, and I nodded.
“Bye, girls. See you next week!” Maggie waved.
I waved back, not even arguing about meeting up next week because I’d had more fun than I’d thought I would. I grabbed my now empty Crock-Pot and followed Ruthie outside. The wind smacked into us as the door opened, and I shivered. White balls of fluff fell from the sky and onto the steps.
First snow! It was snowing.
I now regretted the dress, even if it was long.
Ruthie smiled, looking up at the sky as small flakes fell onto her nose, but I could only view the little white fluffs with dread.
I wasn’t ready for snow. I had to get electric animal drinkers so the water wouldn’t freeze. I’d have to blow out the sprinkler lines. I had—
“You okay?” Ruthie looked up at me, and I realized she was at the bottom of the stairs, already waiting for me, and there was a line at the top as everyone waited to come down.
I was stuck halfway, thinking of the snow and all the work it would be for me now that James was gone.
“I…just wasn’t ready for snow yet.” I shared, laughing nervously.
“I can help ya.” Seth’s deep voice came from behind me, and I swallowed hard.
“That’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”
Why was I so stubborn?
“I can help you, too,” Ruthie said. “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve learned to do since Zach died. I have an air compressor and can blow out sprinkler lines in ten minutes.” She snapped her fingers.
I grinned at that. I really liked Ruthie.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured them both as I walked down the steps and pulled my coat tighter around me.
“You need a ride?” Ruthie noticed me looking across the distance of the two houses, and I laughed.
“That would be nice.”
I got into her little Mazda and held the Crock-Pot on my lap. I watched Seth struggle to get into his house with the two piled-high plates and bowl and smiled. But I found myself wondering what hard times he’d been through like Ruthie had mentioned.
Ruthie began to drive us toward my house. “So, do you want to hear my story?” she asked.
I had wanted to know how she’d lost her husband so young, but I didn’t want to pry. “If you don’t mind sharing,” I told her as she pulled up to my house and put the car into park. The heat blasted out of the vents, and we both put our hands up to warm them.
“I met Zach at a church conference when I was eighteen. We were engaged by nineteen and married by twenty. I knew God had chosen him just for me. He was everything I wanted in a man. He was so funny, we laughed all the time, and he supported my dreams, pushing me to open my own bakery at twenty-two when most people didn’t even own a house yet, much less a business. ”
I smiled. “He sounds amazing.” He sounded a lot like James.
She sighed wistfully as she reached up to grasp the ring she wore at her neck.
“After only two years of marriage, Zach had an accident at work. He was in construction, working on the new mall over in the next town, when the wire holding a beam snapped and it came down and crushed him. He died instantly.”
It was like all the oxygen had been stolen from the car and I couldn’t breathe. My heart bled for Ruthie at that moment. How tragic and unexpected.
“My future, my happiness, my forever. Crushed and died instantly,” she said, her face contorting. It was so similar to how I’d lost James.
I reached out and held her hand. It felt good to be there for someone else when so many had been there for me.
She shook her head. “I blamed God. And if I’m being honest, I still don’t understand it all, and I carry anger over why.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why does God allow tragedy when He can spare it?
I completely fell out of my faith. Took a baseball bat over to the church and bashed the sign right in. ”
I gasped. “You didn’t.”
She chewed her lip, looking guilty. “I did. But I paid for it the next day. I was just so angry.”
“I get that,” I told her, feeling relieved to hear that someone’s experience had been so similar to my own. I had a flashback of my chopping the wood like a maniac with the axe and nodded.
“I shut everyone out, especially God,” she told me. “Which just made the healing harder. I got depressed. I almost lost my bakery. Everything was just…bad.”
A tear slipped free from my eye, and I swiped it away.
“Then Maggie found me,” she declared, and I laughed.
“Of course she did!” I said.
Ruthie grinned. “That woman can smell a widow from a mile away!”
We both had a good chuckle at that. I was almost too scared to ask the question that had been burning on my tongue.
“What brought you back to God?” My voice was small. I didn’t want the answer because I almost liked being mad at Him right now and didn’t want to have to let go of my anger. It had become my companion.
She sighed. “A lot of things. I started going back to church with Maggie.”
“The same church you bashed their sign in?”
She grinned and nodded. “Pastor Jake is a very forgiving man.”
Hah. I’d barely met him the one time James and I went to church before he passed, but the pastor seemed nice enough.
“I started reading my Bible again, talking to God again even if it was only to tell Him I was really unhappy with my circumstances.”
Well, I’d done plenty of that, but then I’d gone radio silent because that was easier than having to deal with a God who would allow my sweet husband to be taken from me.
“And in the end, I landed on the fact that maybe God had a higher purpose for Zach’s death and I just couldn’t see it yet. That gave me hope.”
A higher purpose for the death of her husband? I just couldn’t believe that.
I squeezed her hand. “Thanks for sharing that with me.”
She nodded. “Anytime. He’s been gone now for two years, and sometimes it feels like yesterday. But I’m okay now, and you will be too.”
Leaning over, she gave me a hug, and my throat tightened as I forced myself to keep it together.
“I’m glad I met you,” I told her. “I just moved here, and I don’t have any friends my age.”
She smiled. “Just Maggie?”
I nodded, and we both laughed.
She plugged her number into my phone. “I own Blessed Bakery on Fourth Avenue in town. You should stop by.”
My face lit up. “I’ve been meaning to! That place looks so cute.” The outside was a whitewashed brick, while the pale-blue letters gave it a Breakfast at Tiffany’s vibe.
I wished her good night and unlocked the door of my house.
Honey jumped up from her place in front of the fire and greeted me with pecks and purrs.
After soaking the Crock-Pot in the sink, I looked at the pink leather Bible I’d thrown in the corner one night in a fit of rage and walked over to it, picking it up and setting it back on the table.
My fingers itched to open it and read a passage, but I just wasn’t ready. I did, however, remember that Seth had left a note that morning, and I’d forgotten to open it. I did so now. Would it be another funny joke or…
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” - Matthew 5:4
I know you didn’t want any more Bible verses, but this one really helped me when I lost my wife and unborn child. -Seth
I gasped as a sharp pain tore through my chest like a hot knife had gone straight into my heart.
There it had been, all day long, just sitting here, waiting for me to open.
The thing that Ruthie had said wasn’t her story to tell.
The thing Seth had been through. He’d lost his wife… and his unborn child.
As if sensing my distress, Honey hopped up into my lap and nestled into it, pecking at the loose fibers of my dress.
Seth had lost someone, too, and here I was going through something so similar to him and he hadn’t said a word. Maybe he didn’t want to diminish or take away from my pain, and that just made me respect him that much more.
I went to bed with a heavy heart that night.
Ruthie, Seth, and myself—we’d all lost so much and so young.
At that moment, I understood the verse in the Bible that spoke about not loving the world.
I hated this fallen world more than anything right now.
I’d much rather have been in heaven where there was no more death and no tears.
But as it was right now, I was pretty sure my entry card had been revoked.