Happily Ever After (25 page)

You had the tingly thing for him, didn’t ya?” Liza leaned over the brass footboard of Mona’s bed, her ebony hair dripping
down over the photograph Mona held.

“What?” Mona strove to inject surprise into her voice.

“Joe. You love him.” Mona gaped, but Liza returned a stern look. “Don’t argue with me. I noticed your red eyeliner this morning,
and you’ve been bumping around in a daze all day.” She took Mona’s hand. “Do you know why he left?”

Mona shook her head.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Liza said softly.

She thanked the Lord that her brain hadn’t completely turned to cooked oatmeal. What had she been thinking—to crack open her
heart and let Joe peek inside?She’d even told him about her father. How mortifying.

She glued her eyes to the picture and bit her trembling lip. Yes, she’d had the tingly thing for him. And now she felt numb
to her toes.

Liza reached down and fingered the photo. “This you?”

“Yep. I was about six. That’s my pop, holding the fishing pole.”

As Liza scrutinized the picture, Mona leaned forward on her knees and examined it upside down. “Ugh! Look at my clothes!”

“C’mon, it was the seventies. Tank tops and bellbottoms were all the rage. I like your hair—that’s the Meg Ryan look, right?”

Liza’s voice was gentle. “You were, to him.”

A familiar rawness filled Mona’s throat. She grabbed her pillow and clutched it to her chest, ready to bury her face in it
should any tears resurface.

“Joe reminded you of him, didn’t he?” Liza handed Mona the picture and held her gaze.

Mona tucked the picture into the drawer of her nightstand. She didn’t answer.

The bed creaked as Liza settled on it. “You can’t bring your father back. I know you want to. But you have to stop blaming
yourself. It was an accident, and I know he’d forgive you.”

Mona’s eyes misted at Liza’s targeted words. “Yeah, I know.”

Liza ducked her head, searching for Mona’s eyes.

Mona looked away.

“Mona,” Liza said firmly, “you have to let it go. You have to stop trying to make everything perfect. Only when you realize
you can’t erase your mistakes will God be able to heal you. You have to trust Him to repair your life.”

Mona blinked back tears. “I don’t deserve His help.”She winced at the despair in her voice.

Liza’s silence betrayed empathy. Finally, she reached out and fingered a strand of Mona’s blonde hair. “The Footstep of Heaven.
You know what I think of when I say that? I think of sitting at Jesus’ feet. I feel Him wrapping His arms around me, and I
hear Him telling me it’s okay, that I don’t have to be perfect, that He loves me just the way I am. Even when I make huge
mistakes.”

“You don’t make huge mistakes, Liza.” The bitter words spurted out.

Liza dropped her hand. “Is that what you think?”

Mona wiped an escaping tear and nodded.

“I’ve got news for you, Mona Reynolds. I’ve made huge mistakes with my life. Girlfriend, you’re talking to a woman who quit
school in the tenth grade.”

Mona blinked in shock.

“I didn’t go to college, and I can’t read an entire book like you can. It’s only by the grace of God that I hooked up with
you. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be waiting tables at the Big Sub. You showed me that if I had a dream, I should stick
to it, just like you did.” Liza’s eyes sparkled. “You idiot, have you forgotten how I met you? A double order of Italian subs
down the back of your sweatshirt?” She grimaced so crazily Mona had to stifle a chuckle. “But you forgave me. You taught me
how to be a friend and to receive forgiveness.”

Mona cocked a finger at her. “I did get a free meal.”

“Well, this is true, but at the least, it cost you your favorite outfit.”

Mona shrugged; then her smile faded.

“Let it go, Mona. God’s already forgiven you. You need to forgive yourself and let God love you. Be His child, and embrace
His grace. You can’t create your own heaven on earth. That’s His job. If you try to do it yourself, you’ll never experience
the love of God fulfilling your wildest dreams.”

Liza’s eyes flashed, like light hitting an opal, and Mona heard in her words something eternal and priceless.

Mona had opened a door to her heart, let Joe enter her private world, and now the empty space inside ached as if he’d ripped
out a part of herself and taken it with him. Her heart throbbed every time she caught sight of her mended ceiling or blooming
poplar sapling. When she drank her coffee on the porch, she remembered the feel of his strong hands around hers when he helped
her hold the jack. When she wandered into Liza’s pottery shed, she thought of that first day when he’d suggested there were
treasures to be found at the Footstep. Late at night, Mona longed to hear him return from his loud midnight runs with Rip.
And when the waves scraped the shore, all she could think of was being cocooned happily in his arms.

She had been such a fool to fall for a rootless drifter.

If she wanted to heal, she had to expunge him from her life. She knew it, but it still required all her grit to ascend the
stairs to his tiny apartment with a mop and broom.

She was about to defrost an already immaculate fridge when she found a journal wedged behind, as if Joe had set it on top,
then accidentally knocked it off. It was a small, thick notebook with tattered corners, each page indented by the weight of
the pencil, and perhaps the thoughts impressed upon it. Mona rubbed the cover with her palm. Joe kept a journal. That fact
only added to his baffling personality. She would have never guessed that rumpled, rustic Joe, with a soft spot for homeless
strays and a competitive streak, would find solace scribbling his feelings down on paper. A lump formed in her throat.

Maybe Joe’s secrets were in this book, everything he couldn’t tell her. Everything she longed to know about him. Answers,
perhaps, to why he’d abandoned something good and maybe even lasting in the middle of the night like a bandit. She trembled,
remembering Joe’s crooked smile, the twinkle in his jeweled blue eyes, the fresh smell of soap and flannel that trailed him.
Tears pricked her eyes. Maybe Joe’s little book even held solutions.

Mona turned the journal over in her hands, biting her lip. Then she slid down to the floor, propped her back against the refrigerator,
and invaded the privacy of Mr. Joe Michaels.

Joe’s story peeled away the hours. Mona read until the setting sun painted long shadows across the uncarpeted floor. She discovered
between the pages a man who had been around the world but always longed to come home. He’d managed to see Red Square, Winchester
Abbey, and the Berlin Wall, but woven among his words she detected a desire to kill the wanderlust. He had a family—that news
startled her. A brother named Gabriel.

Then on the last page she discovered her name, neatly penciled in a week after his arrival.

Mona turned the page, but the last page remained blank. She ran a finger down the empty space and wondered why he had stopped
writing.

Joe sat in the cool grass, watching the breeze ripple over a sapphire Lake Calhoun, fingering a stick in his hand and wishing
he had Rip to toss it to. He missed Mona. He more than missed her—he ached to see her. The pain was so blinding that at moments
he actually thought he had a gaping wound in the middle of his chest. It didn’t help that her image and the hurt written on
her beautiful face when he announced he was leaving haunted him like a specter.

After his abrupt flight, he’d found a hotel room in Minneapolis. And when he collapsed on the bed, staring at the white ceiling
and listening to the hum of the air conditioner, his wounded heart began to throb.

He’d left the best part of himself in northern Minnesota.

Drawing up his knees, he buried his face in his folded arms. Why had he ever thought freedom was more precious than the smell
of Mona’s fresh-perked coffee, the sound of her laughter, or the prospect of waking up to her smile every day for the rest
of his life? Maybe if he could find the guts to crawl back to her and beg her forgiveness, he might recover from this terrible
lesion in his heart. He’d even assume the role of handyman forever if only he might repair everything his cowardice had destroyed.

Right, she would surely open her arms to him after he’d abandoned her with repairs the size of Texas. She was probably singing
his praises right now as she tried to hot-wire her rattletrap car for a quick trip to the hardware store.

She’d trusted him, and he’d repaid her with lies. He felt ill with shame. She deserved better. She deserved someone who wasn’t
afraid to love, regardless of the cost. Not someone who lit out on a run at the first hint of trouble. Yes, he’d had plenty
of reasons to weave together a facade, and even better ones to escape before that facade blew up in his face like a cluster
bomb. He’d categorized and rationalized those reasons in his mind during the five hours it took to race south on I-35. By
the time he hit Highway 694 and the loop around the Twin Cities, he’d known he’d become a pretty good liar, even to himself.

He’d left because he was a coward when it came to issues of the heart.

Joe stared at the lake. Sailboats flagged in red, white, yellow, and sky blue skated over the pristine surface, and a squadron
of ducks dodged them and scolded their impudence. The aromas of fresh popcorn, corn dogs, and french fries saturated the air,
mixed with the heady perfume of blooming lilacs.

Mona’s lilac tree was probably in full violet bloom right now. The thought was so vivid Joe lifted his hand to bat it away.

A gaggle of girls walked by. One peeked at him, her eyes shining. He tugged his baseball cap lower on his head and turned
the stick in his hand, avoiding her gaze.He wanted to hide, and Lake Calhoun seemed just the place for it. Roller bladers
whizzed by, their headsets pumping out rhythm. A Frisbee landed yards from him, and a teenager scooped it up and flung it
back to his partner.

His broken heart ached.

Spearing the stick into the dirt, Joe dug the note from his pocket. Ruby, the persistent. He opened the note and read it again.
She’d written an address—whose, it wasn’t hard to guess—and a verse. He’d looked Isaiah 41: 9-10 up so many times over the
past two days he had it memorized: “I have called you back from the ends of the earth so you can serve Me. For I have chosen
you and will not throw you away. Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen
you. I will help you. I will uphold you with My victorious right hand.”