Page 24

“Not to me. That’s not what I wanted to meet about.” Grace shook her head and put up a hand.

Claire took her hand and placed it over Grace’s, clutching it and holding it in her lap.

“Let me. I was unkind and unfair to you when we were in high school. And I should have apologized long before this. I gave you a hard time about Trevor. I said you stole him from me. It wasn’t the slightest bit true.

Everyone, including me, knew that Trevor had a thing for you.

I didn’t even really like him that much.

I just…wanted there to be some kind of contention between us, because after…

Yolanda died—” She had paused before saying Yolanda’s name.

It still didn’t roll off her tongue very well.

Grace flinched as well. But this was one of the things that she needed to get through.

“—I wanted to put distance between us. Being with you reminded me of the accident. And no matter how much time went by, I still felt guilty and bad. And every time I was with you, it just made it worse. Especially during the summer when we were out by the lake.”

“I felt the same way.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize. I was just looking for an excuse not to talk to you. It was childish and dumb, but it accomplished what I wanted it to. We didn’t talk for the whole last year.”

“And then I broke up with Trevor because I missed you.”

“I’m sorry. You should have been together and gotten married.” She paused and then furrowed her brow. “You’re engaged?”

Grace smiled and nodded, obviously happy.

“We are. I was stubborn. I was determined I was going to make something of myself. It’s true that I broke up with Trevor partly because of you, but it was also because I wanted to leave this town.

I wanted to show everyone that I could make something of myself, and for some reason, to me, success meant going to the city and making a lot of money.

So I got a good job, married a successful man, and I had it all before I lost everything.

They just repossessed my car last week. Finally. ”

“Ouch. Sorry.”

“It was a blessing and a relief. I mean, BMWs are nice—I’m not gonna lie. But the load of debt that I was under was just smothering. And my husband cheated on me and made me feel like I was worthless.”

“I know the feeling,” Claire said, knowing there was something else that she and Grace could relate about.

“You were married?”

“Yes. To a lawyer, and we have two children. He cheated on me, apologized, and we went to therapy, but then he had an affair with the therapist, and that’s when I said enough.”

“Wow. He sounds like a piece of work.”

“Yeah. But he does love the children. I think, anyway. I have them one more week, and then they go to Boston for the summer. It’s going to be hard, because I’ve never been separated from them before.”

“We have to do lots of things together this summer. I would imagine that it’s even more difficult because of losing your grandma. You probably were looking forward to summer with her.”

“Yeah. This all happened so suddenly. I just found out she had leukemia, and now she’s gone. And you’re right. I thought we had the summer to get reacquainted. But…we don’t. Obviously.”

“I hear through the grapevine that there might be something between you and Josiah. Remember that kiss?” Grace grinned and dipped her head forward, knocking her shoulder against Claire’s.

“Oh goodness. You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

“No. But there were a lot of people there. I’m not the only one who knows about it.”

“You’re the only one who knows how I truly felt about it.”

“That he was dreamy?”

“Don’t say that. It was a…really nice kiss, but I didn’t ever tell him that. I let him think that I didn’t enjoy it at all.”

“It was your first kiss. We talked about that for years afterward.”

“That might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but…yeah.” She grinned, remembering how they’d lain in bed at night talking about Jo siah and how she hadn’t expected the kiss to be that nice, and whether or not she should try to strike up a relationship with him.

They’d gone back and forth but eventually decided not to, and she couldn’t even remember why. Some stupid teenage reason, probably.

“You know, Josiah would have been a much better choice than what I did by running off and finding a big-city lawyer to get married to. I wish I could remember now why I decided that Josiah wasn’t the right guy for me, even though he was good at kissing.”

“I wonder that sometimes too. I wish Trevor and I wouldn’t have broken up, and I wish I wouldn’t have left the way I did.

But don’t you think everything that we went through helped us to become the people that we are now?

If we hadn’t left, if we hadn’t learned what we did, do you think we’d be talking here now? ”

“I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe we’d still hate each other.”

“I know that after the pain I went through, it shaped me into a much more compassionate, kind person who is interested in other people rather than just a narcissist.”

“Yeah. I can definitely tell you the things that I’ve been going through have changed me. I was much more interested in being with my grandma. Although it kind of makes you wonder why God ripped her away from me just as I was interested in getting to know her again.”

“That’s just another pain that will shape you and mold you into somebody that is better than the person you used to be.”

“I guess I’ll take your word for that.”

“You can. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m sorry I’m probably not going to be a very good friend.

I…have a lot going on. I don’t know if you know that Grandma’s house is in shambles, because I started painting the outside, and Josiah’s ripped the kitchen apart to put in new cabinets and redo it, and everything is scattered everywhere.

And… I don’t know. I’ll probably be depressed after my kids leave. ”

“It’s okay. I’ve been depressed before. And I think the best remedy for depression is to get out and hang out with someone fun. That would be me,” Grace said, winking, as though she knew she was being a little bit goofy.

“I see. You are the remedy for my depression. Gotcha. ”

“Seriously. I really would like to spend time with you this summer. Are you back to stay?”

“I’m not sure. I…probably will need a job.

I have to go through what Grandma did with her will.

But she told me she left me the farm and farmhouse and enough money to finish fixing it up.

But all of her other money was divided amongst all of her other grandchildren.

I have a subscription website that makes me a couple hundred dollars a month, but that’s not going to be enough to keep me going.

I do get some money from my ex-husband for the kids, and so far, it’s been dependable.

I suppose I should just assume that he’s going to do what he says, but given my experience… ”

“Totally understand. Even if he does do what he says he’s going to do with child support, it’s so hard to shove aside the fact that he didn’t do what he said he was going to do with his marriage vows.”

“Exactly.” She felt like Grace really understood her. Especially when it came to her ex. “You didn’t have children?”

“I wanted them so badly, but my ex said no. I’m so glad he did. Otherwise, it would make it so much harder.”

Claire could agree enthusiastically with that.

“Absolutely. It’s hard enough for you to go through your husband ditching you like yesterday’s trash, but to watch your children suffer—it’s so, so hard.

And then it’s really hard to encourage your kids to be kind to him and like him and not to tell them all the bad things that he’s ever done to you.

I wanted to turn them against him, but I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do.

It was…exceptionally difficult and sometimes still is. ”

“I can only imagine. God was good to me there. But on the other hand, Trevor and I have already talked about it, and we want to have children. I think we’re going to try for children right away.”

“Are you getting married soon?”

“Yeah. Our parents just got married not that long ago, and we kind of wanted to give them their own honeymoon time. But actually, we were talking about in the next couple of weeks just going to the preacher and having our parents as witnesses. We thought we might have a get-together after church on Sunday to celebrate. Kind of like a wedding reception, only low-key and no stress.”

“I love the idea of no stress.” She had to admit that the idea of not stressing was a good one.

And she was glad that the last things that her grandmother had talked to her about were some of the ways that she could keep from stressing—by being humble, by not having high expectations of what everyone else should do and be, by not being offended and not allowing herself to be offended over anything, by determining beforehand that she wasn’t going to take anything personally.

“I better get back. My children are coming home from school, and they don’t know about Grandma yet. Not unless someone on the bus told them.”

“I hope no one did. I do know that word has gotten around. If I know, and you and I haven’t talked in ages, then a lot of people know.”

“Well, hopefully they’re going to allow me to tell them. But I guess if not, I’ll handle that too.”

“I think we find, as we live, that we can handle a lot more than we thought we could. And that Jesus is with us every step of the way.”

“Amen.” They stood together and embraced.

“Thanks again for meeting me.”

“I really am sorry about what I did in high school and for not responding to your messages now too. We could have talked weeks ago if I had responded and answered you.”

“God’s timing.” Grace smiled, and it was obvious to Claire that there were no hard feelings. She did truly appreciate that.

“Let’s stay in touch,” Grace said as she put her arm through Claire’s, and they walked down the path together.

“Absolutely.” And she had every intention of keeping her word.