All in One Place (30 page)

“So what am I supposed to do now?” I asked, looking at my dear sister's tender expression.

“For now? Sheriff Diener needs to ask you a few questions, which I promise won't take long. I'm going to finish up my charting.
Then I want you to come home with me. I'm taking the next few days off. Just to be with you.”

Then, while I was still trying to absorb it all, I looked out the half-open door and there stood Jack, his arms folded across
his brown jacket, his head bare, his eyes looking directly at me.

And from the hard set of his features, I was sure he had heard every word of my sorry tale.

“T
hanks for your time, Terra,” Sheriff Diener said, snapping shut his notebook. “I just have to ask Dr. Brown and Leslie a few
questions and we're done here.”

Jack nodded, and when Sheriff Diener left, pushed himself away from the wall and walked toward me. “How are you doing?” he
asked, his voice softened with concern.

I kept my eyes on the vending machine across from me. “I'm okay.” The epitome of bland. What else could I say? I had to gather
up some vestige of privacy. I had just let go of secrets I'd held to myself for years, and this man, whom I barely knew, might
have heard them. “So what's going to happen to Eric?”

“He'll probably get bail.”

I felt a shiver of fear.

“But I'm pretty sure he won't be trying anything.” He waited a beat, then crouched down in front of me. “Are you going to
be okay?”

When he took my hand, his calluses rough on my skin, I tried not to read more into it than plain ordinary comfort. And though
I yearned for more than that, I knew for now I didn't deserve more.

I didn't want to think that I didn't deserve him. Living with Eric had worn away enough of my self-esteem. But the reality
was that I was hardly the virginal girlfriend I was sure good Christian men like him preferred.

“I'm sorry we didn't get to go on our picnic.”

I was too.

And with that, he straightened, then left.

I released the breath I hadn't known I was holding.
Well, I guess that was that.

A
n hour later, Leslie's car crunched up the gravel drive to her home.

This was a home with a complete family. And in spite of their troubles, Dan and Leslie had stuck it out. They were established
members of society with neat and tidy lives. They went to church and paid taxes. They didn't have public brawls on the church
steps with ex-live-ins who had threatened to kill them.

No amount of self-talk could get rid of the feeling that I was a ragged, naked, and unworthy prodigal sister come to beg for
scraps.

“Are you going to tell Dan?” I asked as Leslie parked the car.

“I'm sure he and half of Harland know about Eric already,” she said.

“I meant about the rest.”

Leslie turned off the engine, and as the quiet of the country pressed in on us, she sighed. “He doesn't
need
to know. But I
want
him to know. I want him to understand what you've had to deal with.”

My silence must have said more than I realized because suddenly Leslie grabbed my hands in hers. “None of us deserve what
we have. All of us need God's grace in our lives. All of us. And that includes Dan and me and his family.”

I wished I believed her. But even as she spoke those quiet words of reassurance, I kept seeing Jack's face. Kept wondering
what was going through his mind.

I got out of the car and followed Leslie up the walk to the house. The door opened on our arrival, and Dan stood silhouetted
against the light. Leslie got a hug, a gentle kiss.

Then Dan let go of Leslie, walked forward, and stood in front of me. “Nice to have you here,” he said, holding out his hand
to me.

“Thanks, Dan.” I took his hand, and then, to my surprise, he pulled me close in a rough hug. He held me for a moment, then
stepped away, looking as if his manliness had somehow been compromised. In spite of the turmoil of emotions I had just dealt
with, I had to smile.

Leslie led me upstairs. I showered, changed, and, ignoring the time on the clock, crawled into bed, weary and wrung out. But
no sooner had I pulled the blankets around me than the door opened once again.

“You may as well come in,” I said, turning over.

“You don't mind?” Leslie poked her head through the door, her expression tentative.

“Please. Come.”

When she was settled on the bed, facing me, she reached over and gently stroked a strand of damp hair away from my face. “I'm
so glad you can stay here for a bit.”

“I'm glad too.” The last words came out with a weary sigh. “I think I need to be here.”

Leslie smiled. “You know, as much as I grumbled about how you came here, it was meant to be.”

“Destiny?”

“Well, I was praying for you.”

“So I didn't have any choice?”

“Not as much as you thought you did.”

“And all the stuff that happened?”

“Who knows the mind of God?” Leslie said. Her face grew serious. “I want to tell you that I'm sorry I warned you against Jack.
That wasn't fair. Wasn't my business.”

“You were probably right, though. I haven't been one to stick around.”

“Meaning you might be now?”

I wished I could answer her. “I don't know what I want anymore.”

“You could stay awhile. Figure out what you want to do.”

“I could.”

“I think Jack would want you to.”

“You were right, Leslie. I'm not good enough for him.”

“Do you like him?”

“What is this, a junior high slumber party?”

“Do you?” Leslie repeated her question, her voice quiet. Serious.

“I'd like to.”

Leslie's smile showed me I was off the hook. “That's good.”

“Though I still feel unworthy.”

“I have to think of something I read somewhere. Something about our spirits being restless and finding their rest in God.
I've found a lot of peace in my life since I became a Christian.” Leslie cocked her head to one side. “I think you came here
seeking, consciously or unconsciously. I think you knew your life wasn't working. And I'd like to think that God answered
my prayer by bringing you back.”

“Poor little lost lamb chop,” I said.

“Yeah. Poor lost Terra.” She breathed out my name on a light sigh, then touched my hand. “Can I pray with you?”

I nodded, my previous objections to faith withered by the steady onslaught of words, love, and caring I had received since
coming to Harland.

I had no defense and, I realized, no longer wanted one. My resistance had been an unthinking absorption of my mother's thoughts
and opinions. I had never read or experienced enough to form my own.

But here in Harland, I had experienced God as tangible. As real. And I wanted to bridge that chasm and get to know Him for
myself.

“You need to close your eyes,” Leslie instructed. “Then you won't get distracted.”

When I did, she began.

“Dear Lord, thank You that Terra came here. Thank You for what she showed me. For what she told me. Please, heal her pain,
Lord. Fill the emptiness in her life with Your love. Help her see that she can find rest for her weary soul in You.”

I felt like a distant cousin being presented to the patriarch of a family. Unworthy and unrecognized.

Yet, as she prayed, a gentle peace suffused me, washing away the stress of the evening, softening the pain I had unearthed.
I felt carried. Like the lost lamb Cor had said I was.

Then she said, “In Jesus' name, amen,” and squeezed my hands, and I dared to open my eyes.

“That's it?” I asked.

Leslie smiled. “For now.” She stroked my cheek, then bent over and kissed me lightly on the forehead. “You just rest.”

I smiled at her as my mind grew fuzzy, waited until the door clicked shut behind her, then rolled over onto my side and let
sleep's sticky fingers draw me down.

S
asha sighed, dropped her head onto her paws, and lifted her eyes, as if double-checking to see if maybe, this time, I would
leave the shelter of this poplar tree on the crest of the hill and go wandering as we'd done yesterday.

I liked sitting under this tree. I liked how the leaves rustled when the wind picked up, laying down a gentle foundation of
sound on which to gather my scattered thoughts.

I'd found the tree the day before in my uncharted rambles around the pastures and fields of Dan and Leslie's farm. I had a
perfect view of fields laid out below me with swaths of alternating brown and green. Summer fallow and crops, Dan had told
me. The patterns of dryland farming.

Shadows of the puffy clouds in the endless sky above chased one another silently across the valley, and all around, serene
and quiet, lay the jagged purple edge of mountains. Like a border of lace on a tablecloth.

Sasha sighed a doggy sigh, then closed her eyes, giving up on me. I opened the Bible that Leslie had given me and turned to
one of the psalms she had recommended.

Psalm 130.

“A song of ascents.” Whatever that meant.

I took a deep breath and started reading out loud, my voice muted, lost in the vast space surrounding me. “‘Out of the depths
I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.’” I took a moment to let the
words settle into my soul. To let them speak for me. I wondered if God could pick the sound out of the millions of voices
that cried out to Him every day. Leslie said He could and He did.

“‘If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?’” I liked the sound of that word prefacing the question.
If.
Keeping a record of sins was not a foregone conclusion. Were my own sins lost? Unrecorded? “‘But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.’” I didn't understand that part, but I clung to the forgiveness portion of the psalm. I still felt
I had much to be forgiven for. But since I had come to Harland, I'd also felt the first glimmerings of hope and of reconciliation.
As I worked alongside Leslie through the rhythms of her day as wife and mother, I felt a gentle peace suffuse a life that
had seen little of it in the past few months.

Sasha lifted her head, then jumped to her feet, her tail wagging, looking down the cow trail we had followed to get here.

I wondered if Leslie had followed me, but as I turned around with a happy smile of welcome, my heart forgot its next beat.

Jack strode up the trail toward me, his hands tucked in the pockets of his blue jeans, his eyes on the ground ahead of him.
He looked up as Sasha bounded toward him. As he reached out to pet her, his gaze caught and held mine.

“Hey there,” he said, his rough voice resonating in the thick quiet his presence created. “Leslie said I could find you here.
I hope you don't mind.”

I shook my head, embarrassingly tongue-tied.

“Dad and I brought your car.”

“How is your dad?”

“He's fine. Wondering when you're coming back to listen to some more bad jokes and serve him coffee at the café. He and Father
Sam miss you. Some of the other patrons have been making up new names for the menu items.”

“That'll be interesting.” I was missed.
Imagine that.

“Thought you might also want to know about Eric,” he said, still petting Sasha, who leaned against his leg, soaking up the
extra attention. “Can I…?” He gestured toward the ground beside me. I moved over as he sat down.

“You won't have to show up at the trial if you don't want to,” Jack said. “There were enough witnesses.”

“The wheels of justice seemed to turn quicker for Eric than for me. I had to wait longer for a trial.”

Jack scratched Sasha behind the ears. “Well, there were a few extenuating circumstances with you and Ralph.”

“How so?”

Jack shrugged. “I figured I could get Ralph to drop the charges, so I just told the judge that things were pending yet. And
I was right.”

“I don't know if I thanked you properly for that.”

Jack's gaze caught and held mine. “There's time.” The faint promise in those words kindled a glow of hope.