Todd’s grin broadened. “You know what they say about a vow being established. If a declaration is stated three times, that means it’s established forever.”
Christy nodded. She didn’t know if Todd was trying to give her a final opportunity to change her mind, but nothing could prompt her to alter her declaration. He knew what these words meant to her, to him, to their future. Her vow before God was established.
“I love you,” she stated firmly, pausing between each word. This time an unexpected giggle escaped at the end. “I had it all planned. We were going to eat, and we were going to be all snuggly and romantic, and then I was going to tell you.”
Todd moved closer and took her in his arms. “How’s this for snuggly and romantic?”
Christy giggled again. “I can’t believe I just blurted it out like that.”
“You know,” Todd said, his deep voice rumbling from his chest, “I’ve been dreaming for the past week or more that you told me you love me.”
Christy pulled back and faced him. “Those weren’t dreams, Todd. I have been telling you. I told you the very first time on the camping trip, but you couldn’t hear me over the dune buggy motor. I told you again and again at the hospital while you slept, and also at Bob and Marti’s.”
“Then I guess I wasn’t dreaming.” Todd brushed Christy’s flyaway hair from the side of her face.
“No,” Christy said. “You weren’t dreaming then, and you’re not dreaming now. This is real. As real as it’s ever been for me.”
Todd’s silver-blue eyes were fixed on hers, filling her, adoring her, speaking to her all the cherished messages she knew he held in his heart for her.
Just then a daring sea gull swooped closer.
“Oh no you don’t!” Christy grabbed the spatula and swatted the air. “You guys stay away from the food this time.”
Todd reached for the tongs and flipped the bacon. “This is looking like it’s almost ready.”
“I have eggs and croissants, too,” Christy said. “And I even bought mango-papaya jam.”
“You are amazing,” he said. “How about some coffee? It’s strong, but I added cream and sugar in the Thermos, the way you like it.”
Christy knew Todd didn’t drink coffee very often, but when he did, he drank it black. She thought how considerate he was to remember she liked her coffee spiffed up and to be willing to drink it the way she liked it.
Side by side, heart by heart, Todd and Christy prepared their beach breakfast. The sea gulls kept their distance. The raindrops stayed to themselves on some other corner of the planet while the lazy sun stretched and peeked out from under its thick gray comforter every ten minutes or so.
Todd and Christy’s long, slow, private picnic leisurely rolled through the calm October morning. They laughed, teased, kissed, prayed, and ate until they could take in no more. Christy knew she couldn’t have asked for a more perfect morning. Everything was more wonderful than any dream she had ever dreamed of Todd.
Yet, as they gathered up the blanket and packed up the cooking gear, Christy felt uninvited remorse come over her. Todd hadn’t proposed to her.
She knew she hadn’t expected him to. Not really. But after she had opened her heart so wide and felt him responding with equal openness and joy, the next step should have been for Todd to say the life-changing sentence that naturally would follow. He needed to say, “Will you marry me?”
And he hadn’t said that at their picnic. He had said lots of other wonderful things. He had told Christy how he had been waiting for her to be sure of her love and to verbalize it. He told her that, yes, Doug and Tracy were right: He had known she was the one for him from that first day on this beach when he had seen her tumble to shore, draped in seaweed. He affirmed to Christy that there had been no other girls for him. She was the only girl he had ever kissed. The only girl he had ever loved. The only one.
But he didn’t say, “Marry me.”
They walked slowly through the sand back to the house. Todd hadn’t taken his medication before joining Christy on the beach, and he was suffering now. Christy carried the heavy picnic basket with the frying pan, dishes, utensils, and leftover jam. All Todd carried was the folded-up blanket and the empty Thermos, but those two items seemed almost too heavy for him.
By the time they entered the warm kitchen, Todd’s face was pale, and he had broken out in a sweat. He placed the blanket and Thermos on the kitchen counter and immediately went to bed, where he stayed for the rest of the day.
Christy knew she had no reason to feel anything but delight over their time together. Todd had given her every ounce of energy he had. She reminded herself of that when the nagging thoughts of Why didn’t he propose? came flying at her the rest of the weekend.
* * *
On Sunday morning Bob and Christy went to church together, while Todd stayed in bed and tried to regain some of his strength. Christy and her uncle both invited Marti to go with them, but she insisted Todd needed her.
As it turned out, the message that morning was on baptism, and Christy wasn’t sure that was what her aunt needed to hear right now. Marti needed to come to Christ and surrender her life to Him. Christy thought of her brother as the sermon came to a close. She wondered how he was doing and realized she hadn’t called home for more than a week.
Her parents would understand. Todd was her top priority right now. She knew they would be supportive of her decision to move forward in her relationship with Todd, too. Yet she felt sad that they were so removed from her life. The separation had begun when she went to Switzerland and had continued even after she settled into school at Rancho. She never had been the kind of daughter who discussed everything with her mom. Christy had grown up as someone who kept to herself and worked through life’s dilemmas quietly, in her room with the door closed.
Now that she had entered this next wonderful stage with Todd, Christy regretted that her mom hadn’t been the kind of mom who was a best friend and a pal. But then, Christy’s mom didn’t have that kind of relationship with her own sister, Marti.
“You know,” Bob said on their way home, “I made a decision this morning.”
Christy, thinking her uncle was ready to talk about his strained relationship with his wife, positioned herself on the leather seat of Bob’s Mercedes to pay full attention. It struck her that sitting in this position in ol’ Gus was a miserable experience. But in Bob’s car, it felt warm and comfy. She didn’t know what it felt like to sit in the front passenger seat of their new Volvo because she hadn’t had that pleasure yet.
“I’ve been doing what you suggested, Christy. I’ve been reading the Bible. I started in the New Testament with those first four books: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”
Christy nodded.
“And what I keep reading over and over is how Christ loved people through their weaknesses. He didn’t pretend their problems didn’t exist. He spoke the truth in love, but He said what needed to be said.”
Christy felt a little nervous. How did her uncle intend to live out his revelation?
“I’m going to speak some truth to my wife,” he said firmly.
“In love,” Christy added.
“In love.” Then Bob paused and said, “Christy, hand me the cell phone, will you?”
Christy handed it to him as he drove. She watched Bob punch in the automatic speed dial number for his home. “Are you going to tell her now? On the phone?”
“No, I’m checking to see if she wants us to pick up some lunch on our way home.”
Christy felt nervous about Bob’s plan while they stopped at Betsy’s Deli to pick up sandwiches and salads. She felt nervous as Bob drove down his street and pulled the car into the garage. She felt nervous when Marti entered the kitchen and asked if the deli had her favorite chicken salad.
To Christy’s surprise, instead of Uncle Bob’s blasting out to his wife how she needed to make some decisions and some changes in her life, he went to her, wrapped his arms around her, and said, “I
love you, Marti. With all my heart, I love you.” Then he kissed her soundly on her surprised lips.
Christy couldn’t remember ever seeing her uncle shower such affection on her aunt. Bob always had been kind and generous with Marti. But not passionate like this.
Marti pulled back, flabbergasted.
“I haven’t told you that in a long time,” Bob said, undaunted. “But it’s true. It will always be true. I love you, and I always will love you. I’d give my life for you, Marti. Jesus said, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God.’ I want your heart no longer to be troubled. I want you to trust in God.”
Bob paused in his message of adoration just long enough for Christy to grab two of the deli sandwiches and make her exit, saying she would check on Todd.
He was sitting in the living room by the window, reading one of the textbooks Christy had brought for him, along with a list of assignments from his professors.
“You wouldn’t believe what’s going on in there.” Christy settled in next to Todd and handed him a sandwich.
“Are they arguing again?”
“No, the opposite. Have they been arguing a lot while you’ve been here?”
“I couldn’t sleep the other night because they were yelling so loud about who was right and who was wrong. Bob backed down, as he often does. He apologized, but it didn’t settle anything.”
“Well, he’s in the kitchen right now telling her he loves her and would give his life for her and quoting verses to her.”
Todd grinned. “Was the sermon on the book of Ephesians this morning?”
“No, baptism. Why?”
“Ephesians 5 says husbands are called to love their wives the way Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. You know, the way He gave His life for us. It talks about the husband washing his wife with the Word to make her clean.”
Christy stared at the unwrapped sandwich in her hand. “That’s beautiful. And so poetic. But let me tell you, it’s weird to watch.”
Todd laughed. “I don’t think we’re supposed to watch a husband as he washes his wife.”
The imagery of Todd’s words stirred Christy. She felt herself blushing and turned away. They ate quietly while she processed the concept of being washed clean and made presentable to God by His Word. The thought tied in with what the pastor had said that morning about baptism.
“Todd,” Christy said, “I think I should get baptized.”
He didn’t look surprised by her sudden declaration. But then, she had been doing a lot of declaring lately.
“I was baptized when I was a baby. Or dedicated or something,” she said. “I don’t remember what they called it at my church in Wisconsin. I have a certificate that says the date and everything. But I want to be baptized now, as an adult, as a way of saying I choose to identify with Christ. To publicly show that I’m His follower.”
“Must have been a pretty convincing sermon this morning.”
“Not really. Well, maybe. I don’t know. I’ve thought about this before. And that whole picture of being washed and made ready like a bride, well . . .” Christy wondered if she should press forward with her thought. “I see the deeper symbolism of baptism. It’s like I said, I want to publicly take a stand and show I have set my heart on following Christ.”
Todd nodded. She didn’t feel the need for him to say anything. And she didn’t need to say anything. She and Todd were moving on to the next level of their relationship, and she had reached a point in her relationship with the Lord in which she was ready to move on to a new level with Him.
“Where would you like to be baptized?” Todd said when he was about halfway through his sandwich.
“I don’t know. You were baptized in the ocean, weren’t you?”
“How did you remember that?”
“You told me the night Shawn died when we were at the jetty. You said you were baptized on my birthday, July 27.”
“That’s right.”
“I think I’d like to be baptized at Riverview Heights since that’s our church now. I’m not really connected to my parents’ church in Escondido anymore. This is such a strange era in our lives, isn’t it? What do we call home?”
Christy thought about her comment as she drove back to Rancho Corona that night. It was already dark, and she wished she had started back earlier, but she hadn’t wanted to leave Todd. She thought about how Bob and Marti’s house felt almost as much like home as her parents’ house in Escondido—except that she felt as if she were sleeping in a covered wagon every night when she crawled into the raised bed in the southwestern guest room. She missed the pink ruffles more than she would have imagined.
Her dorm room felt temporary the way Basel had felt temporary. What Christy looked forward to was making her own home. A home somewhere with Todd.
She thought about how the weekend had gone. Their breakfast couldn’t have been more perfect. Even the way she ended up blurting her “I love you” turned out to be wonderful and thrilling because it had tumbled out.
That Todd hadn’t turned around and proposed didn’t bother her as much as it had when they were picking up after their breakfast. She could think of all kinds of reasons Todd hadn’t taken the next step. The poor guy hadn’t recovered from his accident, and the medication made him groggy so he still slept a lot. He probably needed a chance to clear his head and think things through.
Besides all that, Christy thought, as she turned onto the road that led to Rancho Corona, what would Todd and I use for money to start this new home of ours?
She smiled at the vision that came to her. She and Todd were cashing all their wedding gift checks and heading for the Bargain Barn. But at least they were driving there in the blue Volvo instead of falling-apart Gus.
Maybe everything will come together little by little.
17 The moment Christy stepped into the dorm room, Katie told her how terrific everything had gone in the youth group that morning. Seventeen students had shown up, and Randy’s band was so popular they were playing again at the church Tuesday night.
“Look,” Katie said, handing Christy a large get-well card. Pictured on the front was a crowd of funny-looking lions, tigers, and panthers. Inside the card read, We all miss you fiercely!
“Every one of the kids signed it,” Katie said. “We can mail it to Todd tomorrow. You would be amazed how some of them are getting serious about God. One of the girls stood up this morning and talked about how Todd had said on the camp-out that none of us knows when we’re going to die, and then the very next day he was in the accident. One of the guys brought three of his friends to church this week, and they all said they would bring some more friends Tuesday night.”
“That’s amazing.” Christy put the card back in the envelope and unpacked her weekend bag.
“I told you God was doing God-things.” Katie turned down her stereo and made herself comfortable on Christy’s bed since Katie’s wasn’t made.
“You’ll have to call Todd tomorrow to tell him all this,” Christy said. “He’ll be so excited. I know he’s been praying for the group every day. That is, when he isn’t sleeping.”
“He’s still pretty out of it, huh?” Katie fluffed up Christy’s pillow and leaned on her elbow.
“He’s doing a lot better.” Christy stuffed her dirty clothes into the bag in the back of her closet and flashed a big grin. “Yes, he’s doing a lot better.”
“What is that smirk on your face, girl?” Katie said. “Am I to read into your comment that Todd is doing a lot better because you finally made your grand confession?”
Christy stood up straight and, with her hands on her hips, said, “Yes, I did. Our breakfast turned out perfect, and my very incredible and wonderful boyfriend should have no doubt in his mind as to how I feel about him.”
“Ah, at last you can say, ‘I’m my beloved’s, and he is mine,’ ” Katie said with poetic flair.
“Where have I heard that before? It’s from the Song of Solomon, isn’t it?”
> “I guess.”
“Have you read that book lately?” Christy went over to Katie’s bed, briskly pulled up the sheets and comforter, and then tidied up Katie’s pillows, one of which was stuffed in the Little Mermaid pillowcase and the other in the Minnie Mouse pillowcase.
“Nope,” Katie said.
“I read Song of Solomon when I was in Basel, and it’s the strangest, most exotic, lyrical book. It only has eight chapters.”
“Did you read the part that says, ‘Your hair is like a flock of goats’?” Katie asked. “How romantic is that? Or that other line, ‘Your neck is like the tower of David.’ Oh, now, that sounds real attractive! If some guy tried those lines on me, I’m sure I’d fall instantly in love with him.”
Christy laughed so hard she had to sit down. “Now I know why poor Matthew Kingsley was checked off your list. He didn’t use the right lines on you.”
“Poor Matthew Kingsley,” Katie said with a sigh. “He never learned the goat hair pickup line back in Brightwater.” Christy laughed again. “Be nice. Matthew is still my dearest friend, you know.”
“Oh, I know. Don’t get me wrong. I think he’s a wonderful guy. He sure jumped in and ran the show Sunday. Matt’s a great guy. He’s just not great for me. I need someone with pizzazz!”
“Are you saying Rancho Corona is low on guys with pizzazz?”
“Yes, I would say that. But don’t read anything into this, Christy. I’m content. I honestly am. My days of searching for the perfect guy are over.”
“And why is that?”
“I’ve decided to become one of those Proverbs 31 women.”
“Is that a new club on campus?”
“No, but that’s not a bad idea. It could replace the ‘P.O. Box Club’ Sierra and I started in England.”
“And what did that stand for?” Christy asked.
“Don’t you remember? The P is for ‘pals’ and the O is for ‘only.’ Sierra and I were the only two members. Our motto was to be Pals Only with guys. But after hearing Sierra’s latest report on how she and Paul are getting along, I’m afraid our club has dwindled to one member. Me. So I think I’ll start a new club. P–31, for the Proverbs 31 woman.”