Sunday morning, I arrived at church just seconds before the start of the service. I didn’t want to put myself in the position of having to stand around and make small talk. Instead of my usual spot, I found a place on the back row, hoping to remain mostly undetected. It was a hope that proved utterly unworkable.
“Oh, Alisa!” Kristyn almost yelled when she spotted me. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She made her way over and hugged me, followed closely by Carleigh and Beth. It felt good to be welcomed. “Do you want to come sit with us?”
I shook my head. “Go ahead and sit with your families. I’m fine.” As they walked away, I took my seat, feeling less selfconscious than I would have expected. That’s when I noticed the young couple a few rows up. He turned to look at me and then whispered something to his wife. She slowly turned her head, but jerked around straight when she saw me looking at her. She said something to him, and soon I could see their shoulders shaking with silent giggles. As I looked away and scanned the room, I could almost feel the whiplash of heads turning. I’d expected no less, but that didn’t make it any easier.
I felt someone take the seat beside me and turned to look. Rick said, “Okay if I sit here?” His face looked as uncertain and insecure as he’d looked when he’d asked me for our first date—some twenty-five years ago.
“Of course.” I looked at him and smiled. I leaned a little closer and whispered, taking care to keep my tone light so that he didn’t understand it for anything but the light-hearted teasing it was. “What are you doing here?”
“All this time I’ve thought God was only a crutch for weaklings, but after watching what you and Kurt just did, I’m thinking He’s much more than that. And that’s what I want to be. More.”
He sat beside me during the service, and I prayed the whole time that he would hear what he needed to hear, that he would be moved to action, and that he would be open to the Spirit. As the service ended, he stood up and looked at me. “Well, how about I take my two favorite ladies to lunch?”
“Sounds great, and I’m sure Caroline will be thrilled.”
“Good. Maybe next weekend we can drive up to Templeton for a visit. Do you think Jodi and Monte would be okay with that?”
“I think they’d love it.”
It was Rick’s first visit since not long after Monte and Jodi bought the place. He drove slowly up the driveway, looking all around. “Wow, they’ve really fixed this place up since I was here last.”
“Yeah, your son has played a big part in that. He and Monte have been working themselves ragged, I think.”
Just then, a puff of dust began moving up the driveway toward us. I squinted into the sun and saw Kurt approaching fast on the quad. He skidded to a stop right beside the truck. “Hey. I saw you guys pull in. Thought I’d come grab Short Stuff and see if she wants to go for a quick thrill ride through the hills with me.”
Caroline was out the door and had her hand on the back of the quad, before she turned and looked at me. “Is it okay?”
“I guess it better be, since you’re already halfway on the thing.” I tried to give her a scolding look, but she’d stopped paying attention.
She climbed on behind her brother. “Go fast, Kurt.”
“You got it.” He peeled out down the driveway, and the sound of her squeals covered the hillside.
Rick watched them go, then turned to me. “I look at Kurt and how well he’s doing now, and I realize that once again Monte has been a better father than I ever was.”
“What are you talking about?”
He shook his head, and I was certain I saw tears in his eyes—something I’d seen only at his mother’s funeral and no other time. “During Christmas before Nick died, I heard him on the phone with a girl from school. He was telling her about our Christmas feast and about Monte and Jodi. I heard him say, ‘Monte has always been my role model.’ ” Rick’s voice cracked here, and he shoved his fingers through his hair. “My own son preferred Monte over me.”
“Is that why you’ve been so upset with Monte for the last few years?”
“I wasn’t going to blame myself for that, so I placed all my anger directly on Monte’s shoulders. Yep, that’s why.”
“Oh, Rick.” I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder. “It didn’t mean that you weren’t a good role model. Monte just shared the same faith, and that was very important to Nick.”
He put his hand atop mine. “Well, maybe I should have been more open to it then, instead of always … well, you know.”
“Nick loved you. You were a wonderful father and he knew it. I heard him say it a thousand times when he was telling me about one of his friends from a broken home. He always said how blessed he was to have you.”
“I’ll just bet.”
“Really, he did.”
“I wonder what he would say now, about his own family. It’s as broken as they get.”
I put my right hand on his cheek. “Yeah, well, I share plenty of the blame for that.”
We leaned toward each other then, and before any of our baggage could get in the way, Rick was holding me in his arms, kissing me like he used to before all this. I tasted the salt of tears, and wasn’t sure if it was Rick’s or my own.
The moment was too good to last long, and it didn’t. Too much distance had grown between us and too many barriers had risen in that space to be forgotten in an instant. When we pulled apart I felt everything—hope and doubt and fear and love and anger. We parked the car in front of the house, and I knew there was still much work to be done before all was well between us again. At least now, though, we were committed to getting there.