Chapter Ten – Epilogue
It’s been about a year now since the Sunday when we all were baptized together. I’m now going to Boise State and am still working at Chick-fil-A. I haven’t chosen a major yet but am thinking of pre-law, since I still want to be a lawyer. Cathy no longer works at Chick-fil-A after she finished her massage therapy training and got her license. She makes pretty good money doing massages and is happy with what she does. We still see each other occasionally when we have the time, and every now and then she’ll give me a massage, but nothing else happened between us, despite the dream I had. We both are trying to remain celibate until we get married, but sometimes it’s pretty tough. Cathy has become like a sister to me. We talk all the time on the phone and I can tell her just about anything. I think we will one day get married, but for now school is my main priority.
My dad and Carol are happy together. A couple of months after they were married Carol found out she was pregnant and she gave birth to a healthy little boy in June they named Joshua. Carol stays home and takes care of Joshua, and my dad is still a Coast Guard recruiter, but he talks about retiring soon. He says he wants to go to college and get a teaching certificate and teach grade school. Karl is attending Boise State and we share an apartment together. He still works at Chick-fil-A but we usually work different shifts. We both passed driver’s training and got our license but we still walk nearly everywhere we go and I’m still saving for a car. Right now paying for college, rent and everything else that goes with living is more important than having a car.
A few days after being baptized I called my mom and we talked for a long time. I told her I forgave her for cheating on my dad and she confessed she was wrong, and is not very happy right now being married to Jerry McCoy’s father. She explained how she misses my dad and me, and still loves my dad and regrets having the affair. She told me Jerry dropped out of school and is trying to get his GED while working at Wal-Mart nights stocking shelves. He still lives at home and my mom gets stuck cooking and cleaning for him and his dad. My mom also brought me up to date on what my sister Mary is doing and how she is expecting a baby real soon, but still doesn’t know the baby’s gender yet. Mary and her husband still live in Lowell and are happy together.
Danny Boyle worked at Chick-fil-A for nearly a year and graduated with Karl and me. He just completed Coast Guard basic training and is now assigned to a ship out of Sitka, Alaska. He went to church with us a few times and got baptized, and really caught fire for the Lord. He wants to go to college and hopes to become a preacher some day, but joined the Coast Guard after talking to my dad and learning about the education benefits he can get after finishing his enlistment.
I never did go to one of the dances Kelly invited me to at her church. She told me they have dances nearly every month and I was welcome to come anytime I felt like it. Kelly moved back to Utah after we graduated and is going to BYU now like she wanted. She plans on going on a mission when she is old enough.
After I started seeing Cathy, Kelly didn’t seem to want to talk to me much after that. It was funny how things changed after that weekend for me. For some strange reason I kind of lost the desire to know anything more about the Mormon religion. I am still curious about some of their believes and how they are different from what the Bible teaches, but I now know Mormons are just people like everyone else, seeking the Lord. Whether their Jesus is the same Jesus in the Bible or a different Jesus is no longer important to me since I found Jesus for myself, and am growing in a relationship with Him. Every day I try to read the Bible on my iPhone and I try to remember to say a prayer whenever I get stressed or just to let Him know how my day is going, and to give thanks for the day. In subtle ways I see Him working in my life, but I still struggle with sin like everyone else, but now I know I’m forgiven. For a little while after I was baptized I questioned whether it was for real. The entire first week after I moved to Boise seems like a dream to me now. Maybe it’s because so much happened that first week and I was living in a kind of a fog. Thinking about everything else that happened that summer, with my parents getting divorced and having to chose between my mom and my dad, I can even see the Lord working in my life before I even acknowledged Him.
Going to college full time and working is tough finding the time to go to church every Sunday, but I can usually get a ride with Carol and my dad. Karl and Cathy sometimes come too. Every now and then I run into Jeff at church. He still calls me Boston Boy even though I think he really knows my name. The insurance company finally decided to total Jeff’s car and he bought a newer Honda Civic. Sometimes he’ll give Karl and me a ride home from church.
Sometimes I stop and wonder what life would be like if I never moved to Boise with my dad and stayed in Lowell with my mom. Something tells me God would have brought me to Him some how and I would have ended up being baptized, but just not like the way it all happened in Boise.
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About the Author:
Jim Barnes graduated from Boise High School with the class of 1978 and now works and lives in Boise after spending 20 years in the Coast Guard living all over the country. This is his first novel.
Connect with Me Online:
My blog: https://www.outofbarnes/blogspot.com
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