Chapter 3
3
T ravis shut the water off after washing his hands and grabbed the towel to dry them with.
“About that,” he said, figuring that this was a good opening, although maybe not the best time. He didn’t want to upset her while he still had an hour or so he could stay. Her aunt and uncle would not mind him staying if he couldn’t get out, but there was no reason for him not to leave. And he didn’t want Ellen to get in trouble. Not that they wouldn’t totally understand and welcome him into their home if they were there. It was just the idea that he showed up and stayed the night the one time they left.
“About that? What do you mean?” Ellen said, standing at the door to the mudroom with her hand on the knob as he hung the towel back up.
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” he said, figuring that Chewy deserved a little rest.
He flipped the light off as he left, closing the door behind him and following Ellen to the kitchen where she grabbed a container out of the refrigerator.
“It’s not quite as good warmed up, but it will be food and that’s better than nothing.”
“You make the best country-fried steak I’ve ever eaten,” he said. “I’ll eat it warmed up any day.”
The smile that turned the corners of her mouth up was pleased and happy, and made him feel good to have put it there. Especially since it was probably going to disappear once he told her his news.
“We’re in the kitchen,” she reminded him as she dished some steak out on a plate and put mashed potatoes beside it before she put the plate in the microwave. Then she turned with her hands on her hips and eyed him with a serious look. “I’m listening.”
“Good. Lots of times, I feel like I’m talking to you and your head’s in the clouds somewhere.”
“I always listen to you. You know that.”
He grinned but didn’t admit that she was right, although she was.
Instead, he said, “Ford wants me to go to Brazil. He has business down there, and it’s not doing so great. He’d like to see it get turned around, and he said that this would be my best opportunity to get experience.”
“Brazil?”
He nodded.
“Do you speak Portuguese?” She tilted her head. “Is that what they speak there?”
“Yeah, although there are some tribal languages too, I believe. Regardless, I don’t speak it, although Ford has sent me several links for software and I’ve started learning. I know how to ask for a beer.”
“Well, that’s helpful,” she said with more than a little sarcasm in her voice.
“Hey. You never know. I suppose if I get captured by headhunters, it would get their attention anyway.”
“Headhunters?”
He kicked himself. He shouldn’t have joked about that. She probably didn’t realize just how much jungle was left in Brazil. He certainly hadn’t until he started looking into it. He figured he would be pretty safe where he was going, but it definitely wasn’t North Dakota.
“There is still some jungle, but nowhere near where I’m going. I was joking.” He lifted his brows and held his hands up to try to get her to believe him as the microwave beeped.
She pressed her lips together, not buying into his protestations of innocence.
“Look, I wasn’t trying to get you to worry about me. Ford wouldn’t be sending me down if I wasn’t going to be safe. You know that.”
“I know,” she said, but she didn’t sound happy.
“And this might surprise you, but God takes care of people in Brazil just as much as He takes care of people in the United States.”
“Wow. I could get offended over that statement, because I know it, except I deserved it. Because you’re right. I wasn’t thinking about God taking care of you at all. I was getting upset because you were going somewhere dangerous, and I thought… I thought you were coming home to stay.” She kept her head down as she used a spoon to stir the mashed potatoes and then lifted the plate and put it back in the microwave. She kept her back to him after she pushed start, as though she didn’t even want to look at him, which hurt his feelings just a little. Surely she wasn’t that mad at him.
“I wanted to. I still do. I… I could tell Ford no.” But he didn’t want to.
He saw her shoulders go up as she pulled in a deep breath, and then she blew it out slowly. Finally, she turned around until she faced him on the other side of the counter as she pulled one of her lips back and then looked at him.
“Ford has done so much for you, I’m sure you have zero desire to actually do that. Plus, he’s been right about everything he’s tried to teach you. You… I’m sure you want to do whatever he wants you to.”
“Would you give me advice? As a friend?” he asked softly.
“Advice?” She lifted her brows and looked at him.
“You’re my friend. You want the best thing for me. What would you say I should do?”
“I say you should do what you think God wants you to do.”
“That’s the right answer,” he said, his eyes narrowing some. And she smiled with a guilty look on her face. She knew she was just parroting what she was supposed to say.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Do you know for sure that God wants you to go to Brazil?” she asked, and he did not miss the note of hope in her voice.
“No. I don’t. I feel like it’s the right thing to do because Ford has been so good to me. Every single thing that he’s asked me to do has been beneficial in ways I hadn’t even imagined. I can’t imagine that this would be any different. Even though, I really, really do not want to go. Not at all. Not even a little.”
“How soon?” She looked at her hands.
“He just told me tonight that he wants me there next week.”
“Next week?” she asked, her voice squeaking a bit. “You’re going to miss everything in my senior year. You promised to take me to prom!” Then she closed her mouth. Snapped it shut actually, and contrition stole across her face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m making this harder for you, and it’s already a hard decision. You… I think you should go. You’re right. Ford has gone out of his way to make sure that you’re equipped to run whatever business you decide to run. And… The last time we talked, you said you’d made more money already than you ever thought you would in your lifetime.”
“I’ll be able to buy my own farm, and almost certainly pay cash for it, if I do this.”
“And that’s what you want,” Ellen said, and she didn’t sound quite as sad anymore. The microwave beeped, but she didn’t move to get his food out. “How long?” she asked, and he thought that the smile she pasted on her face was one of those smiles that said “I’m trying to pretend to be happy even though I’m really not.”
In a way, that made him happy. He didn’t want her to be joyful that he was leaving. Mostly because of her, he wanted to stay. And he never wanted to see her unhappy. Not for anything, but especially not over stuff that he had done. He did truly feel like this was the best decision, and he had no reason to believe that it wasn’t what God wanted him to do. Sometimes it could be a little nebulous, trying to figure out the difference between what he wanted and what God wanted.
What he wanted often overshadowed what God wanted, but God did give him people to confide in, to consult, and to give him their advice.
Ford was one of those people, but Ellen was too. She had always been wise beyond her years. Mature and capable. He trusted her and valued her friendship.
“At least two years. But it could be longer. I probably won’t be back much, if at all.”
“I imagine the plane ride down there is…a really long one.”
“Yeah. And the work that is there for me to do is pretty hard and involved. I’ll be…busy.” Not too busy to talk to his friend, but definitely busy. Especially if he was able to do what Ford was hoping he would and turn the business around, making it profitable.
You could ask her to marry you and take her down with you.
She turned to get the food at the microwave, and Travis closed his eyes against the temptation that thought elicited. He wanted to. He didn’t know exactly how she felt about him, but when he was facing the idea of being thousands of miles away from her, for years, the idea of taking a risk like that made sense, except it wasn’t fair to her.
She would miss the rest of her senior year. She wouldn’t have a high school diploma. She wouldn’t graduate. She’d miss her prom and all the other things that high school seniors expected to do. She’d have to leave Chewy. She’d have to leave her Highland cows and the businesses that she’d grown, and give it all up for him.
Yeah, it was tempting, because he wanted it. But if he loved her, he had to make the decision that was best for her, and so he pressed his mouth closed as she set the plate of steaming country-fried steak in front of him.
“So what are you doing between now and next week?” she asked after he said a short prayer over the food.
“I was going to spend tomorrow here, and then Ford has a few things for me to do, plus I have to get ready to go. I haven’t seen my brothers in a couple of months.”
“I’m worried about Roger,” Ellen said right away as she set a glass of water down in front of him and then grabbed one for herself out of the tap.
“Yeah, me too. Have you heard anything?”
“Not really. He just… He seems to be really tempted by the things that the wrong crowd does. I guess there are people who struggle with those kinds of temptations. I really don’t, so it’s hard for me to understand why he just doesn’t turn his back on those things and start working toward something that’s good. But I guess we all have our weaknesses.”
“We sure do. And you’re right. Roger always seems to have been drawn to wickedness and sin. But I know other people who have weaknesses. Alcohol addictions, food addictions, porn and electronic addictions, cheating addictions, any of those things can destroy marriage, although not all of them would necessarily be qualified as sin.”
“Well, there were no cigarettes when the Bible was written, so we could hardly be warned about that,” she said with a laugh.
“We don’t know. Maybe there was. But I think any kind of addiction is dangerous. The Bible clearly says that we should have control over our flesh. If we allow addictions to control us, or if we can’t break free of them, then it’s a sin, whether or not the actual action is a sin.”
“I agree. But I don’t think Roger thinks he’s really doing anything wrong. He’s just kind of skating down the edge. There are some drugs that have been legalized, and of course alcohol and tobacco are legal as well.”
“Of course. But if our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, we shouldn’t be putting anything in it that damages it, and that goes beyond alcohol and drugs and cigarettes. After all, potato chips aren’t exactly good for you, and yet we put them in our bodies all the time without thinking about it. That’s socially acceptable.”
“Good point. I hadn’t really thought about that.”
“Most people don’t. We like to have our little things that we like to look at and point our fingers at, you know, the wicked sins that we’d never do. But there are those things we do to our bodies that are almost just as bad. Soda would be another one. There’s nothing good in soda. Are we damaging our body just as much by drinking soda as we are by smoking cigarettes? All that sugar, all those empty calories, all of those things that are bad for our heart and for our insulin levels and our weight, and yet Christians are totally okay with people drinking soda and eating potato chips, it’s just the cigarettes that we have a tendency to say are sins.”
“You always make me think.”
“You make me think as well. Actually, because of you, I’ve delivered puppies.”
She laughed. “I’m so glad you came. Have I thanked you? I guess I was a little bit overwhelmed, but thank you. Thank you so much for dropping everything and running to me when I needed you.”
“Of course,” he said. He wanted to say more. To say that he would always do that, which is how he felt, and he wanted that to be true. But if he was in Brazil, he wasn’t going to be able to drop everything and go running to help her. He couldn’t ask his brother Roger to help.
That was his biggest concern. Up until this point, he’d been able to text Ellen any time, call her, and stop in to see her at least every few months. Now, he was facing years potentially without seeing her at all. It was almost more than he could stand.
That alone would be enough to make him decide that he didn’t want to go. Except… He knew it would be for the best.
“Travis?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m going to miss you. A lot. Not just because you come save me every time I need you.”
He allowed her words to settle deep inside, filling all the spots that longed to stay, to take her hand, to tell her that he loved her and wanted her to wait for him. He couldn’t do that. It wasn’t right. Although he would wait for her. Faithfully.
“I’m gonna miss you too. I… I know I already said I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t think it was the right thing to do.”
“I know.” She didn’t say anything more, and they ate in silence. He ate slower than he should have. Because of the storm. He should have hurried, getting out before the snow got any deeper, but he couldn’t make himself do that. It was an hour before he pushed away from the counter, their dishes long since washed by Ellen, and stood.
“I better go. Should have left a while ago.”
“Be careful.” She didn’t mention the storm specifically, and he figured that she meant she wanted him to be careful in general, not just tonight.
“I’m always careful.”
He gave her a jaunty smile, but she shook her head.
“I mean it. You know I care about you. Please. Be careful.”
“For you. I’ll be careful.” And faithful. “You take care of those pups. I want to see them grown up and trained when I come back.”
“They’ll be trained and sold before you get back,” she said, although the sadness in her voice was covered by a fake happiness she tried to project. But she wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all him.
“You be good. I’ll see you around,” he said, and he smiled at her before he turned around and walked out.