Page 22

“I think Cassie should start a restaurant,” Amara said as she sat at the table with Olive and Doyle. Hobert had gone to fill up her drink.

“She definitely makes delicious food. And she really seems to enjoy it,” Olive said, hoping that she didn’t sound as tired as she felt. She knew, after passing out, that she would probably be paying for all of this tomorrow, but she really wanted to stay and enjoy her sister’s wedding. Doyle had been phenomenal, taking care of Livvy, making sure that she had whatever she needed on her plate, and anticipating her needs before she even knew what they were. He had been amazing, and more than one time, she had thought to herself that she had given him up out of her stupidity.

And wished that there was going to be a second chance for her.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look so tired. I don’t want to keep bringing it up in case you’re trying to forget about it, but I just want you to know that I’m a little bit worried.” Amara leaned toward her and spoke softly, as though she didn’t want to throw all of her cares and concerns out into the open.

“I’m tired. I’m not going to lie. But Doyle has been amazing; I wouldn’t be here without him, but I’m glad that I am, because I don’t want to miss Mertie’s wedding. I’m assuming she’s not going to have another.”

“I think that’s what we all would like to hear. For her, as well as ourselves.”

“Are you still getting married next week?”

Amara grinned as Hobert came back, carrying her glass. “We’re hoping to. We weren’t planning on having it at the assisted living facility here, although I kind of feel like this was a good choice. There is lots of room, lots of friendly people, and the folks who live here are having a blast.”

“I doubt they’ve ever had a wedding in their facility before.”

“I have to agree,” Amara said, smiling her thanks at Hobert who handed her a frosty cold glass of water. “And I think they’re having the time of their lives.”

“I can’t believe some of these people are dancing,” Olive said, wishing she had the energy to get up and dance.

“Speaking of dancing, would you be interested?” Hobert asked, holding a hand out for Amara as a slow, sensual song came on.

“I would love to,” Amara said, and Olive doubted that anything had ever been more true.

She stood up, and they held hands as they walked out to the area that they cleared off in the cafeteria to double as the dance floor.

The place still smelled like mashed potatoes and a little musty, but the happy atmosphere, the smiling faces, and the camaraderie that seemed to permeate the entire building made any smells feel happy and add to the celebration, rather than detract from it.

“Are you up for dancing?” Doyle asked from beside her.

She glanced at the table where Livvy’s car seat sat with Livvy sleeping inside. That was another good thing about being at the assisted living facility. No one was going to take her baby. And she really, really wanted to dance with Doyle.

“I am,” she said, putting her hand in his, and while she didn’t exactly jump to her feet, she rose slowly, fighting the waves of fatigue and dizziness.

“I think we could just dance right here, if that’s okay with you,” Doyle said, pulling her slightly so that she stepped into his arms, and he put his arm around her, pressing her to him, and while it felt good to be so close, he also helped steady her and hold her on her feet, which made her feel even better.

They didn’t move fast but just swayed from side to side, which was perfect for her. She could lean into his strength and enjoy the music and the dance without putting too much effort out at all.

She felt a little like maybe she was cheating, but being in Doyle’s arms made everything worthwhile.

“I wouldn’t have had this day without you. I just wanted to thank you.”

“And here I thought it should be me thanking you for giving me one of the best days of my life. Other than that scare when you fell.”

“Sorry about that, although, is this really one of the best days of your life?”

“I held you more today than I ever have before. That makes it a good day.”

He smiled down at her, and she kind of thought that maybe he was teasing a bit. She wanted to laugh, but if he was being serious, she didn’t want to brush it off, because she appreciated the way he’d been treating her.

“I hope it’s okay, but I told Cassie about your sister.” That was a total change of subject, but she’d been meaning to admit to him that she had, just in case Cassie said something.

“Thanks for telling me. I don’t think I ever mentioned it to her, although I believe she was my housekeeper when the accident happened.”

“That’s what I thought too, and I told her so, but I figured that it was probably just something you didn’t want to talk about. I know the two of you were close.”

“We were. Especially since my parents seem so distant.”

“She said they moved to Canada?” She wanted to know everything there was to know about him.

“They did. I hear from them at Christmas, get a card. A halfhearted invitation to join them, when they’d be shocked if I said yes and more than a little bit put out.”

She laughed. “It’s very similar to my parents, only mine, instead of moving to a different country, they just kind of immersed themselves into their business. At times, it seemed like they even forgot that they had children.”

“Yeah, I remember they didn’t really pay attention to you, even when you lived in Raspberry Ridge.” He paused for a moment, as they swayed gently to the music, and then he said, “Why did you come back that summer?”

She hesitated, thinking back, knowing the answer that came to her mind immediately, but not wanting to say it if it wasn’t true.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. I just wanted to make sure I was saying the truth.”

“Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I wouldn’t want you to lie to me.”

“After being lied to by Ricardo, where he had a wife and kids on the side, and he didn’t bother to tell me, he acted like they didn’t exist, I’ve been very sensitive to lying. It...hurt at the time, but it cured me, because I had a tendency to tell little fibs that made things easier. Whether it was giving someone a compliment that I didn’t really mean or putting my sisters off by telling them I couldn’t get airplane tickets or something, you know?”

“Yeah. I guess that was never really something that I had a problem with, but I can understand how an experience like you went through would make you feel like you never wanted to do that again, after the way it hurt you.”

“It’s funny how our experiences do that to us. Finally opens our eyes to things that we hadn’t realized or known.”

“It makes me wonder what all there is that I really don’t know. You know? If our experiences open our eyes, there’s lots of things I haven’t experienced. What don’t I know?”

“That’s such a great point, and I’ve never thought of that before.” She was a little out of breath, but she didn’t want to stop talking. Doyle had always been an interesting conversationalist, talking about far more than just the weather or whatever people talked about when they did small talk. His conversations were deeper and more interesting. They often talked about ideas, and dreams and hopes, which were far more interesting to her than the weather. Which they couldn’t do anything about anyway.

“I guess over the years as I thought about that, it’s made me more sensitive or compassionate to people. They have experiences that I don’t, and I don’t want to dismiss that. Although, my experiences have shaped me as well. So there’s value in both sides.”

“That’s why it’s a good idea to read widely and talk to people from a lot of different walks of life.”

“It really shaped you as a person.” He laughed a little. “Even though I just want to stay here and live in Raspberry Ridge for the rest of my life. I suppose those two ideas contradict themselves, but you can read a book just as well in Raspberry Ridge as you can anywhere else.”

“That’s true, you can. And books definitely give you a slice of life that you might not have if you stay where you are and don’t read.”

“TV fits the bill a little bit, but not nearly as much, because even real-life shows are scripted.”

“Documentaries are great for information, but they don’t really give you the human side of things.”

The song ended, and people politely clapped. Olive didn’t let go of Doyle, and it was only partially because she thought she might get dizzy and fall again. It was mostly because holding onto him felt good and made her feel supported in a way that she hadn’t in a very long time, if ever.

“You know, you never answered my question,” Doyle said as another song came on, this one a little faster, but neither one of them moved, neither one of them stopped swaying, and they just kind of danced a little like that right beside their table and her sleeping baby.

“Which question?” she asked, wishing that her mind didn’t feel like such a mud puddle of mixed-up thoughts and snippets of intelligence that she could hardly see.

“Why did you come back that summer?”

“It was because of you.” She looked up at him, wanting to meet his eyes, for him to know that it was the truth.

He still snorted. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true. We’d been good friends when I moved away. We’d even written a few letters to each other.”

“I remember. Junior high especially, I guess when I started noticing girls, you were the one that always came to my mind.”

“And you were the one that always came to mine. I wanted to travel, I wanted to get away, I think now it was just searching for a home, even though I used it as an excuse. Regardless, I wanted to see you. I...compared every other guy I’d ever been with to you.”

“And were there a lot of those?” he asked, and then he wrinkled his nose. “I know that’s prying, but...”

“No. You have every right to ask. And you can ask whatever you want. I’ll answer if I can. But no. There weren’t a lot of guys. I was more interested in learning about different countries, and each one I looked at, I tried to think of how it would feel like to live there. I was searching for a home. Anyway, guys came and went, but there was no one serious, no one that I really went out with, other than a few dances here and there that I didn’t really enjoy. I’m not sure why. Maybe because they weren’t you.”

“I think she’s telling me that just to make me feel better.”

“No. I’m being honest.” She lifted her shoulder, unable to force him to believe her, although it was true.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you. It was right at the beginning of June, and you stayed the whole summer.”

“There was an apartment above Fran’s store that was open at the time, and she rented it to me. Probably cheaper than she should have, since she knew me, and I think she was happy to have me back.”

“I can see how she feels. I was so thrilled that you were back, I couldn’t believe it. And you’d grown up to be so beautiful.”

“You were everything that I had imagined, only taller.”

“I kind of shot up there about the time I was sixteen or so. I didn’t think I was going to stop growing. I kind of had nightmares about it.”

“That’s funny. I thought every guy wanted to be tall.”

“I think there’s a balance. You want to be tall, but you don’t want to be a toothpick. And tall guys have a tendency to be skinny. But I just didn’t stop growing. I didn’t want to be twice as high as whatever girl would finally look at me.”

“Well, you’re not twice as tall as me. And I suppose I’m the girl in front of you now.”

“You were the girl in front of me then too. You are beautiful. And you looked at me like you really liked me.” He looked over her shoulder, almost as though he couldn’t explain how she looked at him, but she remembered. He had been her friend, a good friend, maybe not her best friend exactly but her best friend in Raspberry Ridge. And she was so proud of how he had turned out. Not like he had anything to do with how he looked, but he was planning on doing an internship in the fall. It was different than most of the other kids who were just blindly going off to college like everyone else did, but he had plans that he had made himself, things he had thought about, and a way of doing things that didn’t involve following the crowd.

“I admired so much about you. More than your physical height, just the way you had decided to live your life deliberately, not following what everyone else did, but thinking about what your goals were, what you wanted, and doing that.”

“I was willing to give it all up, if you would have stayed.” He seemed doubtful again.

It was funny how she barely noticed the people around them, the way one song changed into another, but it didn’t really affect what they were doing. They just stood beside the table swaying, and she supposed the fact that she had already passed out once made it so the people weren’t looking at them oddly, like there was something wrong with them for not even dancing to the beat of the music, just happy in each other’s arms.

But that explained her whole relationship with Doyle. She had just always been happy in his arms. Happy beside him, happy with him.

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to give that up for me. I would have felt bad about it.”

“I would have been happy. Happy to do it, happy to be with you.”

“I don’t understand what you saw in me.”

“Looking back, I’ve wondered about that too. Not because of anything that I think was wrong with me, just...you’re so much better now than you were then. But maybe I’ve changed too.”

“You have. You’re mature, you’ve lived a lot, and back then you knew what you wanted, but I get that same impression from you now. Your confidence and your knowledge that you are living your life on purpose.”

“Isn’t that something that most people don’t do? Life happens to them, and it’s almost like they’re reacting to the things that happen, rather than deliberately making a plan and trying to implement that plan, even if it’s something as simple as wanting to show Jesus to the people that they meet. That can be a great goal, but then you have to deliberately implement that.”

“By reading your Bible, praying, having a relationship with Him, but then you have to apply what you know to your life. I think that’s where I get tripped up the most. I know it, but I can’t always do it.”

“Through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we rely on ourselves too much. We just need to lift our fingers up and let go.”

The upbeat song faded into a slower one, and someone dimmed the lights. Out of the corner of her eye, Olive could see Mertie and Garnet dancing while smiling into each other’s eyes and talking together.

She knew that Garnet had some things he needed to do, people who needed him, counsel he had to give, and they would be leaving, going back to their regular life and doing that, not even taking a honeymoon. But they had both said that they felt that the ministry was more important. They did plan a trip later with Dabney going along, because Mertie had told Olive that she felt it was important that they did things as a family together. Even though Dabney had seemed to accept her without too much trouble, she felt that the more things they did together as a family, the more it would give them time to bond.

“So did you really come back to Raspberry Ridge just for me?”

“I did.”

“Why did you leave?” he asked, and it was the closest that he’d come to broaching the subject that neither one of them had really talked about. The way she’d left, the way she’d broken his heart, the way he’d offered her everything and she had thrown it all back in his face.

“I guess because I was scared.” She looked aside; the weariness had not dissipated, weighing heavy on her chest, but he deserved answers.

“Scared?” he prompted.

She nodded. “You seemed too good to be true. You...treated me well, cared about me, didn’t push me to do things that I didn’t feel were right, you never tried to take things from me that I didn’t want to give. Unlike the guys that I had dated in high school.”

His hands tightened on her, and she hurried to say, “I got away from them quickly. It wasn’t a matter of me being taken advantage of, I just...appreciated the fact that I didn’t always have to be on guard against that, you know?”

He lifted his chin, but his expression remained serious.

“You were everything I wanted. Better than I remembered.” She looked away, staring at the dancers but not really seeing them, trying to remember her exact feelings that summer. She wanted to stay, everything that Doyle had offered her was exactly what she’d always wanted, but...

“I guess I was afraid of missing out. I had always wanted to travel, and everyone says, you gotta do it before you’re married, or you’ll never get it done. And maybe I just listened to that too much. I believed them. I thought it was my only chance to see the world. And I honestly can’t even say that I necessarily wanted to do that, definitely no more than I wanted to be with you. But there were all these other voices telling me that I would be making a huge mistake if I got married so young.” She took a breath, thinking again about how different that had been from what Doyle had chosen. “You knew exactly what you wanted, and even though everyone else was going to college and taking that well-trodden career path, you did something different. And I admire that. I guess I wish I would have had the ability to say no to the well-trodden path and to take your hand and go with you.”

He nodded some but didn’t say anything, and she worried a little that maybe there had been something in what she had said that had offended him or made him feel like she had done it once, and she might do it again.

That thought prompted her to say a little more. “I guess after things happened to me in Ecuador, and I was there by myself, sick, with my baby, and all I had was gone, I realized that the well-trodden path isn’t always the best path, but more than that, I changed. I determined that I wasn’t going to do the easy thing anymore or listen to the voices that tried to tell me that what I knew I should be doing wasn’t what I ought to do.”

“You did change. You’re very different. The same girl, same underlying personality, but the way you live your life is a lot different than it used to be. That’s a change I noticed almost right away.”

She smiled at his words. Grateful that it hadn’t been just a decision that she made, but an actual change that had happened to her.

“I wish it would have happened sooner.” Like the summer that she’d been here.

“I don’t think we should look back on our lives and wish that we had done things differently. Maybe obvious sin, we can wish away, but... God had a plan. We needed to go through the things we did in order to be where we are today.” He gave her a serious look. “As long as you get healthy. Which, I have every intention of making sure that you do.”

“You’ve taken better care of me than my mom ever did. Not that I’m comparing you to my mom. It’s different.” So much different. And better. Her mom always made it feel like she was an inconvenience if her mom had to take time out of her schedule to take care of her, but Doyle hadn’t made her feel like an imposition at all. Even taking care of Livvy seemed like something he enjoyed and not a pain or problem.

Another song ended, and there was clapping, and then the music started again.

“I think that it might be time for you to head home. You seem to be sagging in my arms, and while I don’t mind that at all, I’m kind of chomping at the bit to get you in and get you rested, because... I hope that we’ll have more days like today.”

He seemed a little uncertain in what he had just said, and she wanted to assure him that she had every intention of having lots more days like today, but was it really fair to say that, when he was right. She didn’t know what her health was going to be.

“I might never get better.” She lifted her brows and said that, voicing her deepest fear out loud. Part of the reason she didn’t want to go to the doctor was because she was afraid the doctor would say these were just episodes that she was going to have to deal with since she’d had a complicated version of malaria.

“Then we’ll deal with it.”

He lifted his brows as though questioning her. They hadn’t made any plans for the future, and maybe that’s what he was doing, trying to feel her out, see what she thought about it.

But she couldn’t agree with him, not when she didn’t know whether she could even be a contributing member of society, let alone a contributing member of their marriage.

She couldn’t do that.

“I’m ready to go. Let me make my way over to Mertie and congratulate her and give her a hug. And then we can head out.”

“We’ll go together.”