Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ella
The next morning, I stepped onto the back porch with a yawn, ready to do chicken chores.
There was a note taped onto my chicken boots that was quite long, and my heart beat wildly in my chest because I knew it was from Seth.
Last night, watching the movie had been wonderful.
He had been wonderful. Then he’d opened up and shown me his baby’s nursery, which broke my heart but also endeared me to him.
He seemed so fine and healed from having lost his wife and his child, and seeing that room just made me feel so normal.
I still hadn’t cleaned any of James’s things up.
I tucked the note into my pocket, deciding to do my chicken chores first. Seth had asked me to hear him preach, and it got really awkward when I said no.
But it felt like, if I stepped foot in a church, I was letting God win.
I was telling Him it was okay that He’d let my husband die. And it wasn’t!
I fed the hens, the cow, and the goats before heading back inside and sitting in my chair with Honey on my lap.
“What do you think this long note is about? Trying to get me to go back to church?” I asked my pet chicken, who pecked at the piece of paper as I pulled it from my pocket.
Peering down, I read Seth’s neat script.
Ella,
My sister-in-law was pressuring me to go to the singles’ night at church…
but I told her I had my eye on another woman.
One who is understandably not ready yet for new love.
I’m going to be so bold as to throw myself out there and say that this woman is you.
I know it’s too soon right now and that your husband can never be replaced.
All I need to know is, when or if you are ready, would you ever consider me in that way?
If not, then a friendship with you is something I will cherish as well.
My heart lurched into my throat as I finished the letter, eying the two responses he’d written with an open check box next to each, as we would do in middle school.
Just friends and Maybe more stood out boldly at the bottom.
It was too soon to think about something like this. My husband had only been gone a few months now, and I was pregnant with his child. I shook my head at the letter. Why would he do this to me? Make me choose something like this?
But I knew. In my heart, I knew there was a connection between us, and Seth had been a widow for a while now.
He was still young and would want a family of his own.
His family was probably pressuring him to go out and date, and it was sweet that he didn’t want to do that if there was any chance I’d be with him.
But it was a lot of pressure right now. The fact that Seth had been so bold as to say that he wanted me, a pregnant widow, made me like him all the more.
At that moment, I peered at the ring on my finger, and my mind went to a conversation James and I’d had right before we moved here. We were on hour seven of our drive and getting deliriously bored. James looked over at me and randomly said, “If I died, how quickly would you move on?”
I gasped at the weird turn of conversation. “You’re not dying! Why are we talking about this?”
James smiled his bright, toothy grin that always made him look ten times as handsome. “I love you to death, Ella, but you are loyal to a fault. If something ever happened to me, don’t become a nun, okay? I think a year is enough time to mourn me and move on. I’d want you to be happy.”
“Do you have cancer or something?” I asked jokingly, completely thrown by the conversation.
James chuckled. “No, I just love you so much, and I want you to be happy. Always.” He then reached over and squeezed my thigh.
“So if I die, you’re just moving on after twelve months?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest in hurt.
James shook his head. “Ella Collins. You are irreplaceable. If you die, I will die with you.”
I grinned, completely blown away by this man’s romantic nature. “I love you,” I told him.
“But I might get lonely after two years,” he’d added, and I’d reached over and punched him in the arm. We’d chuckled, and that was that.
Now, the conversation haunted me. I’d forgotten about it until this moment. Tears slipped down my cheeks, and I walked upstairs and slid back into bed, leaving Seth’s note lying open on the coffee table next to the fireplace.
Normally, in these desperate moments, I would turn to God and pray for guidance or His plan for my life.
Instead, my heart grew colder, and I was ashamed of it, but I couldn’t get out of this feeling that God had abandoned me when He allowed James to die.
I wasn’t sure if I would ever find my way back to Him, and that thought depressed me even more.