“Get away from me.” The tenderness in her voice was gone and she spat the words through gritted teeth.
John’s eyes flew open, his face awash with shock and unrequited desire. “What . . . what’re you doing?”
“I don’t need your charity, John.”
His expression was frozen in astonishment. “My . . . what do you mean?”
Fresh tears filled her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks as she pushed him again. “You can’t love me out of . . . of . . .” She searched for the right words, her angry heart racing in her chest. “Out of some kind of obligation to my dead father.”
Abby watched as a handful of emotions flashed in John’s eyes. Shock gave way to understanding, then shifted to intense, burning rage. “That is not what I’m doing!” His face grew red and the muscles in his jaw flexed.
A wind of regret blew across the plains of Abby’s barren heart. Why was he lying to her? He explained it perfectly a moment ago: he’d promised Abby’s father that he’d love her, and this—whatever this was that had happened between them—was merely some dutiful way for John to make good on his word.
Strangely, his expression grew even more troubled, and Abby tried to make sense of it. Was that hurt in his eyes? Pain? How could it be? She was the one who’d been tricked into thinking he actually wanted her again . . . actually felt about her the way he had before they’d grown apart.
New tears built up in his eyes, and twice he started to open his mouth as if to speak, then once more he clenched his teeth together. The intense anger in his eyes was too much, and Abby looked away. As she did, he put his hands on her shoulders and jerked her close against him again, kissing her with a passion that was as much rage as it was desire. She kissed him back, her body acting with a will of its own.
“Stop!” She was crying harder than before, disgusted with herself for her inability to tear away from him. How can I enjoy his kiss even now?
In response to her own silent question she yanked her head back and snarled at him, “Get away from me!”
His hands fell to his sides and he took a step backward. His eyes were dry now, his words hard, lacking any of the emotion of the past ten minutes. “It’s no use, is it, Abby?”
She shook her head. “Not if it’s going to be like that . . . just a way for you to keep your promise to my dad.” She fanned her fingers over her heart as another wave of tears spilled from her eyes. “You don’t want me, John. You’re in love with Charlene. I know that. Don’t stand here and try to convince yourself you feel something for me when we both know you don’t.”
John sighed and his head dropped in frustration. He looked up and gazed at the ceiling. “I give up, Abby.” His eyes found hers again. “I’m sorry about your dad.” He paused, the anger and even the indifference replaced by a sad resignation. “I loved him, too. And about tonight . . .” He shook his head. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Abby.”
His last words were like a slap in the face. Don’t apologize, John. Tell me you meant that kiss . . . every moment of it. Tell me I’m wrong, that it wasn’t because of your promise to Dad. She wiped her hand across her cheeks and hugged herself tight. I know you felt something with me, John. We both felt something! Tell me that . . .
But he said nothing, and Abby exhaled as the fight left her. She didn’t want to argue with John; she just wanted her dad back. “It’s been a long day for both of us . . .” She was suddenly sorry she’d lost her temper with him. Even if he had kissed her for all the wrong reasons, somehow she knew he was trying to comfort her, trying to show her that despite their differences he still cared. The fact made her want to reach out and at least hug him, but there seemed no way to bridge the distance between them. She took a step toward the stairs. “Good night, John.”
He stood there, not moving, watching her as something raw and vulnerable flashed in his eyes. Whatever he was feeling, he shared none of it with her. “Good night, Abby.”
She forced herself up the steps to the guest room, peeled off her clothes, and slipped into a T-shirt she kept under the pillow. Then she tried desperately to remember every happy moment she’d ever shared with her father.
But it was no use.
As she drifted off to sleep there was only one troubling thought that reigned in her head . . .
How good it had felt to kiss John Reynolds again.
It was the morning of the funeral service and for John, the single feeling that prevailed in the days since Joe Chapman’s death was not grief at the man’s passing or the chasm of loss he felt at having missed the chance to know him better. Rather, it was the memory of Abby in his arms, wracked with tears, clinging to him, fitting next to him, beside him, the way she hadn’t been in years.
The memory of their kiss.
No matter what Abby thought, his kiss hadn’t been out of obligation. His feelings had been stronger than anything he’d ever felt for anyone else. Even Charlene. But obviously Abby hadn’t felt the same way. As always, she’d found a reason to fight with him.
Since then John had wrestled so strongly with thoughts of Abby that the morning of the funeral service he was running on only two hours’ sleep. He had been up most of the night wondering what the feelings meant. Had Abby’s father prayed some miraculous prayer, uttered some powerful words of healing? Was it possible that John Chapman’s death might spark new life in their dying marriage?
It didn’t seem like it.
After all, she hadn’t said more than five words to him since then and at night she still headed off for the guest room without so much as a good-night. But still . . . the possibility was there, wasn’t it? Or maybe Abby was right. Maybe the kiss was out of some deep obligation to her father, something to make up for the fact that he’d made the man a promise he couldn’t possibly keep.
Love her forever? When they were weeks away from being divorced?
John released a quiet, frustrated sigh and glanced around the church. There weren’t many people, only a fraction of those who remembered the goodness of Joe Chapman. Abby’s friends from school—mostly parents of the kids’ friends. Matt Conley and his mother, Jo; Abby’s sister, Beth; and a handful of nurses from Wingate. John’s mother was too ill with Alzheimer’s to leave her nursing home, otherwise she would have been there. Abby’s father had been her friend, too.
In his glory days, Joe had been every bit the well-known football coach John was. Hundreds of people would have recognized him as he went about his day, greeted him in the markets, and counted themselves lucky to be among his friends. Yet here, at the end of his journey, Joe Chapman was only remembered by a handful, a remnant of the fan club that had once been his.
Is this all it amounts to, God? Live your life year in, year out, affecting the lives of hundreds of kids only to go out all alone?
This world is not your home, son . . .
The verse came to him as easily as air, and John knew it was true. But still . . . John wrestled with his feelings, not sure exactly how he felt about heaven. It sounded good, certainly. Talking about Joe Chapman being at rest, at peace, having a body that was healthy and would never wear out . . . assuring each other that he was in the presence of God and his wife and John’s own father and a dozen others who’d gone on before him.
But still, he was gone. And right now that seemed like second best.
A preacher took the podium and unfolded a sheet of paper. “I didn’t know a lot about Joe Chapman,” he began. “So I acted on the suggestion of his daughter Abby and contacted the Christian church where Joe was a member for nearly thirty years.” He paused and let his eyes fall over the small gathering of people. John liked the way the man talked, slow and friendly, as if he’d known them all for years.
“You might be surprised with what I found.” The pastor shrugged his shoulders and smiled in a sad way. “I’m not sure he’d like me telling you, but I think it’s okay just this once. So you might know what an amazing man Joe Chapman really was.”
Peering down at his notes, he
began. “Joe Chapman was a teacher, a football coach. He did not make a great deal of money. But every fall from the first year he taught until he retired, he purchased a complete Thanksgiving dinner and had the church deliver it to one of his players. A boy and his family who would otherwise have gone without.”
John cringed inwardly. What had he ever done for others? In that moment he could think of nothing . . . Beside him, Abby cast a curious glance down the row at her sister. Abby’s father had never talked about the dinners, never mentioned them at all. Obviously even Abby hadn’t known about them. John focused his attention back on the pastor.
“Until Parkinson’s disease got the better of him, Joe spent the early hours one Saturday each and every month raking leaves or planting flowers or doing whatever he could to keep the church grounds clean. Joe’s pastor tells me even his family didn’t know about those acts of service. Why? Because Joe didn’t want anyone but his Lord knowing about it.”
John felt his insides melting. We wasted a lifetime talking about first downs and passing plays and missed out on the real victories. Why didn’t I take the time to get to know him better, Lord?
There was no response as the pastor looked down at his notes and shook his head once. “Here’s the kicker, though. When Joe’s wife died in the tornado of 1984, eight other people died, too. Among them was a man with no insurance, no worldly means but to work by the sweat of his brow. He left behind a wife and four kids destined to spend the rest of their days on welfare.
“Joe found out about the lady at his own wife’s funeral and the next day he called a banker friend of his in Michigan . . .”
A banker friend? John sat up straighter in the pew. That had to be his father. What other banker friend did he have in Michigan?
“Turns out the banker friend was the one who led Joe Chapman to the Lord years earlier, and now Joe wanted to give him another chance to invest in eternity. The widowed woman and her kids needed a place to live, he told his friend. And Joe combined half the money from his wife’s insurance with a donation from his banker friend and together they asked the church to buy that family a house. Maybe you don’t know it, but money donated to a church for a specific cause is not tax deductible. In other words, the only reason Joe and his friend asked the church to be the middle man was because they wanted their act to be totally anonymous.”
John heard Abby’s breath catch in her throat. Neither of them knew anything about the woman or her orphaned children or the house that their fathers had provided. A house built with a kind of love John had all but forgotten about. The goodness of their act was too much for John to bear and his eyes grew wet. No wonder he’d made such a mess of his life. When had he ever given that way, selflessly, at the expense of his own personal ease?
The pastor was finishing his message. “Until the day he died, Joe Chapman helped that woman, arranging his pension so that a hundred dollars went through the church into her bank account every month, year in, year out.” He paused. “Anything else I could say about Joe Chapman—details of his coaching career or how he is survived by two daughters or that he had hundreds of students who loved him—all of it seems like an afterthought compared to the way he loved his Lord.”
John felt hollow, as though he had failed to furnish a room in his heart reserved for Joe and his father. God, why didn’t I know before?
“I do want to read one more letter. Abby found it in a drawer by his bed when he died. It’s an essay written by one of his students.” The pastor looked at the paper in his hands and hesitated. “‘Mr. Chapman is my favorite teacher because he never forgets what it is to be a kid. He doesn’t bark at us like some teachers, and yet everyone in class listens to him and respects him. A lot of us want to be just like him when we grow up. Mr. Chapman tells us corny jokes, and in his classroom it’s okay if we make a mistake. Other teachers say they care about their students but Mr. Chapman really does. If someone’s sad or lonely, he asks them about it and makes sure that when they leave his classroom they’re feeling better. I’m a richer person for my time in his class and no matter how long I live, I’ll never forget him.’”
John felt like falling on his face, crying out that it wasn’t fair, that God should have taken someone like him instead and let someone as good and generous as Abby’s father live to be a hundred.
The pastor cleared his throat. “Now, just in case you’re thinking that Joe was somehow robbed, that after a lifetime of giving he wasn’t given a fair shake by God Almighty, let me tell you this. Some people store up treasures on earth . . . houses, cars, illicit relationships . . . and every day they wake, they move one day further from their treasure, one day closer to death.” He smiled broadly. “Ah, but then there are people like Joe, people who wake every day one step closer to their treasure. One day closer to leaving this lobby and entering the main ballroom. Closer finally to being home in the place that was created for them. So don’t grieve for Joe, people. Believe that, as C. S. Lewis once said, for Joe life here on earth was only the title and cover page. And now he has begun the greatest story of all, one that no one on earth has ever read in which every chapter is better than the last. Believe that, if given the chance, he would have agreed with D. L. Moody, who said in his dying days, ‘In a little while you will read in the newspaper that I am dead. Do not believe a word of it, for I will be more alive than ever before.’”
John felt like the wind had been completely sucked out of him. The pastor’s words, the picture he’d painted of heaven, was like none John had ever heard. It felt as though his entire perspective had shifted in a single sermon, and suddenly John grieved for the hundreds and thousands of sermons he’d missed over the years.
Jo Harter sat near the middle of the church hanging on every word the preacher said. For weeks, months really, she’d been feeling a calling, something stronger than anything earthly, stronger than her desire to fish or shop. Even stronger than her hope that someday she’d find new love with Denny.
It was the very thing Matt told her to watch for. A holy longing, he called it.
“It’ll happen one day, Mom, wait and see. You’ll wake up and have a feeling of want so big and bad nothing in the world’ll be able to fill it. Nothing but Jesus.”
Well, here she was at this funeral feeling a want every bit as big and bad as Matt had described it. Throughout the service she fidgeted in her seat this way and that until Matt leaned over and whispered at her. “You all right?”
“Fine.” She reached out and patted her son’s knee, grateful he’d chosen to sit by her instead of Nicole just this once. “I’ll tell you later.” She didn’t want to talk about it yet. Not when every word the pastor uttered seemed handwritten for her alone.
At the end of the service the pastor did something Jo had never seen done at a funeral. He told them he had an invitation for them. At first Jo thought it was an invitation to the potluck at the Reynoldses’ house after the service, but then the pastor asked them to close their eyes.
Okay, God, my eyes are closed. What’s happening here, anyway?
Come, daughter. Come to Me.
Jo opened her eyes and sat straight up in the pew. She poked Matt in the ribs and whispered, “Who said that?”
He looked at her like she maybe needed a little more sleep and put his finger to his lips. “Shhh. No one said anything.”
Fine. Now I’m hearing things. Jo closed her eyes again and listened hard to the pastor’s invitation.
“Many of you may already have the assurance that Joe did, assurance that your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, assurance that you are saved from your sins because of what Jesus did for you on the cross. Assurance of heaven. But I believe there may be some of you out there who have never made the decision to trust Jesus Christ for life. You have a hole in your heart only Jesus can fill and you want to know your future is safe with Him. If that’s you this morning, could you please raise your hand? I’ll make sure I talk with you after the service, give you a Bible, and help
you get started on the right path.”
He hesitated, and Jo could feel the longing grow with each passing second. There was a hole in her heart all right. No doubt about it.
“Anyone?”
It made no sense to wait. If walking with Jesus had filled the holes for Matt and Denny, then just maybe they would fill this one for her. It was time she stepped down from her high horse and did something about it. Without another moment’s hesitation, her hand shot into the air.
I do want You, Jesus. I do. Show me the way, God . . .
Beside her, Matt reached over and squeezed her knee, and as the prayer ended, she hugged her only son. It was then that she noticed something she hadn’t before.
For the first time since the funeral started, Matt had tears in his eyes.
Nineteen
BETWEEN THE SCENE AT HER FATHER’S DEATHBED, and the way John had kissed her later that night, Abby had moments when she wondered if maybe, just maybe, John was having second thoughts about their divorce. Could a man fake the trembling she’d felt when John had his arm around her, promising her dying father that he would love her forever? Could he manufacture tears of regret for the hours and days he might have spent with the man who had been his own father’s best friend?
Could he really have kissed her that way out of some obligation?
Abby didn’t think so, but for all the emotion that surrounded them that week, time passed like always and nothing changed between her and John. The proof came just one week after the funeral, when Nicole burst into Abby’s office, her face stricken.
“Why’s Charlene Denton hanging out with Dad at practice?” She was angry and her mouth hung open while she waited for Abby’s response.
Before Abby could come up with something witty and believable, she let loose the first thing that came to mind. “Why don’t you ask Dad?”
The reaction on Nicole’s face made Abby sure she had said the wrong thing. Nicole’s eyes grew wide, and a flicker of raw fear flashed across her face, like heat lightning in a summer sky. “What’s that supposed to mean?”