“My dad when I was in high school and my mom a few years ago. Then my grandma.”
“Any brothers or sisters?” he asked. She noticed his T-shirt was torn at the ribbing around the neck. This guy needed a few tips in grooming. But he had managed to look fantastic at Chet and Rosie’s wedding.
“Ah, no. Just me.” Alissa’s mind quickly sprinted away from his question.
A kind smile spread across Brad’s unshaven face. “You’re a strong woman,” he stated. “My dad left before I was born. I mean, it’s nothing like what you’ve been through. But it made my sister and me really close. I told you about her. Lauren. The one with the cat. Anyway, sometimes I wonder if he’s dead, my dad. He just vanished. Is he in hell? Or did he turn to the Lord?”
“There’s no way of knowing,” Alissa said, feeling the pain of the words as she said them.
“Sugar?” Jake called from the kitchen.
Alissa looked over her shoulder at Jake, holding up a pink and white box of granulated sugar. “Yes. I mean no. Or, well, how about half a teaspoon. Thanks, Jake.”
She could hear him fumbling in the drawer for a teaspoon as she turned her attention back to Brad.
“I may be all wrong on this,” Brad said, using both his hands to smooth his hair back off his face, “but I hold on to the hope of the fifty-fifty thief principle.”
“Which is …”
“When Christ hung on the cross, two thieves were beside him, right? One on either side. And one of them, the guy on the right, I think, said, ‘Remember me.’ That was it. Nothing else. And Jesus himself promised the thief he would be with him that day in paradise.”
Brad got up and went to the kitchen counter to pick up the full cups of coffee. “This may sound crazy, but I wonder how many people in that final breath turn to Christ. How many people will we be shocked to see in heaven? It could be a fifty-fifty thing. Half are stubborn until the very end. Half turn in that last moment. That’s why I think there’s a fifty-fifty chance I may see my birth father some day.”
Jake joined them as Brad offered Alissa the cup of aromatic java and sat down again beside her.
“Your theology is pretty shaky,” Jake said. “I could shoot it full of holes in a second. But I won’t in front of our company.”
“Don’t start acting polite on my account,” Alissa said, taking a cautious sip of the frothy layer floating on top of Jake’s gourmet brew. A sip of the cappuccino came next. “This is good, Jake.”
“My years as a waiter have paid off,” he said. “Now, if we could only find a useful trade for brain-boy, here.”
They both turned to look at Brad. “So,” Alissa asked cautiously, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Chapter Thirteen
I think I want to be a teacher this week,” Brad said, taking a quick drink from his mug. “Or maybe a counselor. Stick around. It changes each semester.”
“I’m just glad we got past the firefighter and train engineer phases,” Jake said with a tip of his mug to his roommate.
“How did you two meet?” Alissa asked.
“In college. At the Christian club on campus. Neither of us was much interested in the frat route or apartment life. We were pretty stoked when we found this place.” Jake pulled the lever on the side of the brown recliner where he sat. With a jerk, the footrest popped up.
“Are you still in school?” she asked.
“Sort of,” Brad said.
“I’m long done,” Jake said. “But Bradley here thinks he needs a master’s in psychology. I told him he’s already a master psycho in my book.”
Alissa drew her cup to her lips to hide her telltale smile. She wondered if Brad analyzed Jake the way Brad had analyzed her the night he had helped her move from the condo.
“What about you?” Jake said, turning his perfectly chiseled face toward Alissa. “Where did you go to college?”
“In Boston. No place you ever heard of.”
“I’m sorry about your parents and grandmother,” Brad said. “That they’re gone, I mean. I can’t imagine what that would be like.”
Alissa started to feel uncomfortable again. While they were talking about Jake and Brad, she felt fine, comfortable, and like one of the gang. But when the conversation turned to her, especially her personal tragedies, she felt like running away. It was an old habit, and one she didn’t know if she could break.
“Tell me about your acting, Jake,” Alissa said, changing the subject as quickly and smoothly as she could. “I hear you were in an aspirin commercial.”
“Please. It’s not aspirin. It’s a pain reliever. There is a difference, you know.” He described his adventures during the three days the sixty-second spot was shot with his posing as a mechanic. It sounded like a lot of tedious work. “Then in April I did one for toothpaste, but it hasn’t aired yet as far as I know.”
“Like we would know,” Brad said. “We’re never home long enough to watch TV.”
“I have an audition next week for a part in a made-for-television movie. That would be a great foot in the door.”
“When I was little we lived in Argentina, and there was this guy who did gardening for us,” Alissa said. She rested her cup in her lap and continued her story. “He was on the news one night because at another house where he did yard work he helped stop a robber with his rake. I remember asking for his autograph the next time he came to work for us. He was so shy. That was my first brush with a movie star. And now you!”
Jake smiled his appreciation for her gentle ribbing. “One day,” he said, “you’ll say you knew me when.”
“And then I’ll be his agent,” Brad said. “Or maybe his stockbroker, if he makes it really big.”
They talked until after three in the morning. Alissa probably could have kept going until the sun came up. The guys seemed wide awake, too. But she needed to use the restroom. When she thought of how Jake had searched for a cup and a spoon, it made her leery of using their facilities. Besides, she had to work in the morning. She needed at least a few hours of sleep.
Both men walked with her out their back door and over to her back door. “Not locked,” Jake said with a wink for Alissa alone. “That’s a good thing. We’d probably have to break in through a window or something.”
“Good night, you guys, and thanks a lot for everything. I …” she felt all choked up and ready to cry. “This was a good night for me. I’ve needed friends for a long time. I’m glad I moved in here.”
“And who do you have to thank for that?” Brad teased.
“Oh, brother!” Alissa said. Turning to Jake she asked, “How do you put up with his need to be thanked all the time?”
“Same way I’ve put up with everything else. I ignore it.”
Alissa shook her head, laughing instead of crying, as she thought she might a few seconds before. “See you later.” She opened the door and slipped into the solitude of her comfortable home.
Home. That’s what this feels like. What a night. What a day and night! I have so many thoughts and feelings I’m processing in such a short time.
She thought about Brad’s fifty-fifty theory as she got ready for bed. Even if the odds weren’t fifty-fifty, a possibility still existed, be it ever so slight, that one of her parents or her grandmother might be in heaven. Might. It was a big might. The harder reality was that as much as heaven was real, so was hell. And people really went there. And somehow that still felt unfair, even though she knew all the logical reasons God created a place where souls would be eternally separated from him.
Alissa pulled up the sheet to her chin and rolled over on her side. “There’s so much more I don’t understand, God,” she whispered into the still of the night. “So much I don’t know. I stopped learning about you somewhere along the way. And when I did, I think I stopped trusting you, too. I’m sorry. I want to move forward. I feel as if you broke up a big hunk of ice in my life today. Now keep it moving, flowing. Let it turn into a river of life.”
As Al
issa drifted off to sleep, she thought of a song the congregation used to sing at one of her churches. The words went on about some “river of life flowing out of me.”
The song was still on her mind when her alarm jolted her from bed at 7:30. It was maddening to only remember part of a song. She tried to brush it from her thoughts at work that day, without much success.
When she got home, she went right to the bookshelf in the living room where Shelly kept all her books. Alissa scanned the titles until she found the one she was searching for, a hymn book.
After changing from her work clothes and popping in a microwave dinner, Alissa made herself comfortable on her wicker love seat and patted the cushion for Chloe to hop up and join her. With her steaming hot halibut cooling on a plate and a purring Chloe by her side, Alissa began to scan Shelly’s old hymn book for the river of life song. It didn’t seem to be there. However, another hymn caught Alissa’s eye. Then another. And another.
She spent the evening, oblivious to the time, reading each stanza of each song and finding herself astounded that she had never heard these songs before. In all her church experiences, the songs had been choruses. The words appeared on the wall of the church, shot there by an overhead projector.
They were nice songs. She loved them, in fact. They were cheerful and easy to remember. But these hymns were so much deeper.
Brad tapped on her back door sometime after sunset, and she nearly jumped off the love seat.
“Sorry,” he called out through the open door. “I saw the light on and wondered how you were doing. Were you dragging this morning?”
“No, not too bad. How about you?” Alissa went over and opened the door, welcoming Brad in for the first time. It felt natural. None of the tension that had sparked them both off when they first met was present now.
“Do you know a lot of old hymns?” Alissa asked.
“Some. Why?”
“Listen to this.” She read the words to a hymn written by Samuel Wesley in 1864:
“The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord,
She is His new creation, by water and the Word
From Heav’n He came and sought her, To be His holy bride
With His own blood He bought her, And for her life He died.
“Though with a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed
By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping;
Their cry goes up, ‘How long?’
And soon the night of weeping, shall be the morn of song.
“Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war
She waits the consummation of peace forevermore
Til with the vision glorious her longing eyes are blest
And the great Church victorious shall be the Church at rest.”
Alissa put the hymn book down and looked at Brad. “Who does that make you think of?”
“Mildred Stanislav,” he said without blinking.
“No,” Alissa said. “Think about it.”
Brad thought a half a second and with a shrug said, “Mildred Stanislav. She used to play the organ at the church I grew up in. I know she played that one. She would play real loud on the last verse.”
Alissa tilted her head back and said, “Never mind.”
“Why?” Brad asked, making himself at home in the wicker chair next to Alissa. “Who does it remind you of?”
“Rosie, of course. She was a vision glorious at their wedding. And she’s gone through so much trial and tribulation, but she’s prevailed.”
Brad seemed to consider her observation for a while before saying, “You know the hymn isn’t talking about a bride-bride. It’s about the Church. The Church is called the Bride of Christ. You’ve read that, haven’t you?”
“I suppose I have, but it never hit me before.” Suddenly an even stronger image came to Alissa’s mind. For so long she had stayed away from churches of any kind, saying they were all messed up. But that wasn’t the Church’s fault, the Church in the universal, biblical sense, at any rate. The Church was the Bride, and she was promised to Christ. He was coming back for her, no matter how long it took. Just like Chet and Rosie.
“I never saw this before,” Alissa said. “Look at the terrible stuff that happens to churches and in churches, just like this hymn says. But even though she’s been abused and deeply wounded, she’s still his bride. He loves her.”
Brad tried to make eye contact with Alissa. “Are you talking about Rosie now? Or the church? I lost you.”
Alissa broke into a gigantic smile. “It’s the same picture in my mind. Rosie making her way toward Chet in that beautiful white gown, those flowers in her hair. That woman has endured horrible things over the last fifty years, but she’s not bitter.” Alissa looked over at Brad and took pity on him for his confusion.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” she said, feeling a puddle of tears forming in her lower eyelids. “This is just for me. I had to see this.”
“See what?” Brad asked.
“That you don’t turn away from the bride. You don’t speak badly about her or act like you don’t know her. As imperfect and battered as she is, she’s still his bride, he loves her, and he’s coming back for her.” Alissa took a breath and blinked away her tears. “What I’m saying is that I want to go back to church.”
Brad paused a moment, taking in her words. Then he said, “So, what took you so long?” Alissa realized he had used that same phrase on her at Starbucks when she had hesitated before placing her order. Perhaps Brad thought of this as some kind of friendly phrase. But to her it sounded rude.
Alissa wasn’t sure if he meant what took her so long to explain her conclusion or why did it take her so long to decide to go back to church. She wisely decided not to push it. “Can you recommend a good church around here?”
“I’m kind of partial to the one I’ve been going to for the last four years. Genevieve and the girls go there, too.”
“Steven doesn’t go?”
Brad shook his head. “No, but we’re working on him.”
“What time Sunday? I definitely am going with you guys.”
“You can catch a ride with me at nine, if you want. I teach junior high guys’ Sunday school the first hour, then I go to the worship service.”
“Junior high guys, huh?” Alissa said, making a face. “Maybe I’ll check with Genevieve and see if I can go with her.”
“Sounds good,” Brad rose to leave. “Oh, hey, next week when Shelly’s home let’s all get together and do something, okay?”
“Sure. Like what?”
“Doesn’t matter. You nice girls can fix dinner for us or something.” Brad stood by the back door, leaning against the door jam and looking an awful lot like a junior high boy himself.
“Guess again,” Alissa said. “My days of fixing dinner to impress a man ended quite some time ago.”
“You don’t have to impress us,” Brad said. “You can just feed us, and we’ll be happy.”
Alissa picked up a pillow from the love seat and tossed it at Brad. He ducked, and it bounced off the window. “I’ll ask Shelly when she gets back. I think she’s home Monday.”
By the time Shelly did arrive on Monday, Alissa had a lot of news for her. “I went to church yesterday,” she told Shelly. They were both in the kitchen putting together a salad for dinner. “With Genevieve and the girls. The church was a little different from what I’m used to, but I liked it. So much is happening inside of me. I don’t know what triggered it, but I’m doing better than I have in years.”
“That’s terrific,” Shelly said. When she had walked in the door half an hour earlier, she had told Alissa she had big news but wanted to wait until they sat down to eat.
“And you’ll never guess what I’ve been reading,” Alissa said. “Your old hymnal.”
“Really?”
“So much stuff is in there that I’ve never learned about Christianity.”
“You
mean like the Apostle’s Creed?” Shelly asked.
“What’s that?”
“You know, ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord.’ You don’t know this?”
Alissa shook her head. “That is so amazing. You can just rattle off what you believe like that. How did I miss all these basics?”
“You obviously didn’t go to confirmation class when you grew up.”
“I want to learn this now. I want to know what I believe. I want it to be so much more than an emotional high from Sunday to Sunday.”
“That’s funny,” Shelly said, carrying the salad dressing bottles over to the table. “I’ve been drilled in the basics my whole life. What I want is more emotion. More pizzazz in my faith.”
“Sounds like we’re a good match,” Alissa said, following her with bowls, forks, and napkins.
“Well, whatever happened to you while I was gone is great. You seem really refreshed. I’m happy for you.”
They sat down and scooped up the salad. “You want to pray for us?” Shelly asked.
“Okay,” Alissa said. Praying aloud had never been her favorite activity. As a matter of fact, she could only remember praying aloud a few times in her life. With calm determination, she closed her eyes and reverently formed her words of thankfulness to her heavenly Father. She thanked him for this new home, her new friends, for all he had provided. Then she especially thanked God for allowing her to move in with Shelly. She closed with “Amen” and looked up with a feeling of victory. She had prayed aloud, and it hadn’t been awkward at all.
Shelly, however, didn’t have the same look of satisfaction on her face. She actually looked as if she were in pain.
“Are you okay?” Alissa asked.
Shelly quietly nodded.
“Didn’t you have some big news to tell me?” Alissa prodded as she scooped the salad from the bowl.
Shelly took a deep breath. “The airline has transferred me to Seattle.”