Journal of a Lifetime (Journals of Love) (17 page)

The layover in Chicago was an hour. She couldn’t bring herself to call her mother, and even though it was close to midnight, she decided to call Marie from a payphone instead. She used the calling card again and anxiously waited for Marie to pick up.

“Hello?” She heard the caution in Marie’s voice, and was thankful her friend had decided to answer a call this late at night.

“Marie? It’s me. I’m on my way home and just needed to talk.”

“What’s going on, Lin? I didn’t think you were coming home until tomorrow.”

“I know, but something happened and I’m in Chicago waiting for my connecting flight.”

“Are you okay?”

Am I?
“Yeah. It’s just been an emotional couple of days.” The tears that had welled up in her eyes finally began to fall.

Marie heard her sniffles. “Lindsey, what is going on?”

It took Lindsey a minute to get her breathing under control, and her chest suddenly hurt as she admitted the truth aloud. “I fell in love, Marie. I thought he was the man I’d been waiting for . . . but it turns out he is engaged to someone else. His best friend told me and then I left.”

Marie was silent. “You didn’t find out for yourself?”

“Everything his friend told me sounded true. My heart was broken enough, I didn’t need it to break face-to-face with him. But, I’m so disappointed, Marie . . . ” She choked, and took a deep breath to calm herself. “I don’t know what to do now.”

“I don’t ever remember you making a wrong decision. You always have a way of finding the right path even through the storm. You know that God is in control. You just have to go where he leads.” Marie sounded unusually confident. “Remember Proverbs 3:6, ‘In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.’”

Lindsey forcibly exhaled. “I know. It’s just Steve seemed to be the one. I honestly could see my life there with him.”

“Maybe you should talk with him then and make sure that his friend is telling the truth.”

“I don’t really know what the point of that would be, though. Either he’ll lie to me, and I’ll be left making choices based on that lie, or he’ll tell me the truth and I’d be so embarrassed.”

“Even if it is true, maybe he really did feel strongly about you?”

She knew Marie was searching for anything to give her hope. “I’d like to believe that, but I would never want to come in between someone’s relationship. I’d feel horrible if he left his fiancée for me.”

“But you didn’t know. You didn’t purposely try to steal him from her. You didn’t even know there was a ‘her.’”

“I know. It’s just so messed up right now.” Lindsey cradled the necklace. “At this point, I don’t know if I can trust him, and I’d rather walk away with my pride, and what’s left of my heart, intact.”

“I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I’ll give you a call tomorrow in the afternoon. They’re calling for my flight now, so I have to go. But, thank you for talking with me.” Lindsey paused. “I didn’t even get a chance to ask how you were doing?”

“Really good, actually. I’ll tell you all about it when you get here.”

Lindsey realized after the fact that Marie sounded happier than she’d been in weeks.

The flight from Chicago to Detroit was quick but bumpy. A storm was rolling across the lake, and Lindsey watched the lightning from the window of the plane.

The flight was small and most rows had only one or two people in their seats. She had three seats to herself, but she didn’t mind. The last thing she wanted right now was to make small talk with a stranger.

She hadn’t really had time to process the fact that her journey was over now. She pulled out Nana’s journal to look for any other clues or insights into Adele’s trip. After her experience this week, she viewed the journal from a different viewpoint. She could see all of the excitement in her words and realized that as Nana was falling in love, the entries became shorter. It was as if all of her free time had been taken up with Steve senior.

Sadness overwhelmed Lindsey once again. For her Nana to have found a great love, and for the timing to be so wrong, was heartbreaking to Lindsey. She attempted to prevent the walls around her heart from reforming, but it was a futile attempt.

The plane gently settled onto the runway in Detroit. Lindsey should have been relieved to be returning home, but emotionally and physically she felt exhausted.

Her cab ride back to the house was quiet and she was greeted by the sound of her alarm beeping. That meant that sometime during the week, she had lost power. She did a quick check of her freezer to see how bad the melting had been and was relieved to see the ice cream was still in its containers.

She took out a small carton of Chunky Monkey and grabbed a spoon from the drawer. She didn’t turn on any lights, just sat at the kitchen table in the darkness and tried to comfort herself with the chocolate delight. It left her feeling somewhat better, at least enough that she’d be able to get some sleep.

She left her suitcases by the door, something she normally wouldn’t do since her mother’s germ phobia usually had her pouring the entire suitcase contents directly into the washing machine.
It’ll have to wait
, she thought and slowly made her way up the stairs to the bathroom.

She took a long, hot shower in an attempt to erase everything that had occurred. She scrubbed her body until it was red. Her mother would have been proud of the attempt to get rid of the germs, but Lindsey was still left with the raw emotions clinging to her heart.

When she finished the shower, she put on her favorite pair of pink silk pajamas and climbed into bed, and spent the next fifteen minutes conversing with God. She didn’t expect answers for the many questions she had for Him tonight, but she knew that she needed them, desperately.

S
TEVE CHECKED HIS
cell phone every ten minutes until midnight. Don had not returned home and he still hadn’t heard from Lindsey. He waited another ten minutes, and then headed out to the resort. To his disappointment, Joann was working the front desk. At this moment, though he didn’t care. “Hey Joann. Do you know if all the passengers got back on time?”

“Do you mean Lindsey?” she spat out the words.

“Ok, yes.” He didn’t want to waste time arguing with her. “Did Lindsey return with the group?”

“I assume. I wasn’t here when they got back, but no one said anything different.”

“I’m just going to run up and knock on her door. Thanks,” he finished quickly and walked away.

Joann shook her head and returned to her work on the computer.

Steve ran up the stairs two at a time. He gently knocked on Lindsey’s door. He tried again a little harder, but when he didn’t hear anything, he gave up. He thought that she must’ve been worn out from the day and had fallen asleep early.

He checked his phone again to see if she had called. Disappointed, he returned home and set his alarm for six o’clock so he could be up and get to the resort before she had to leave for her flight.

Unfortunately, Steve was greeted by silence once again when he knocked on Lindsey’s door the next morning. It was seven o’clock, and he knew she had requested a nine o’clock shuttle to the airport. He knocked a few more times and then went down to the front desk.

“Hey Ed. Can you help me with something?” he asked the desk clerk.

“What do ya need, Steve?”

“Has Lindsey Waters checked out yet?”

“Let me check.”

Steve’s anxiety increased with each passing second.

“No. Not yet.”

“I think we need to check on her. She was supposed to call me last night and didn’t. She’s not answering her door this morning either.”

“That doesn’t mean something’s happened to her though.”

Steve didn’t know how to convince him. “I know, but please Ed. Help me out by just checking into it?” he begged.

Ed sighed. “I could get into serious trouble if she’s up there and just not wanting to talk with you.”

Steve hadn’t even considered that. He was confident that she’d wanted the same things he did.

“It’ll just take a second,” he pleaded again.

“Ok . . . but you didn’t get this from me,” Ed said and passed him the key.

Steve didn’t waste any time getting up to her room. When he entered, the sight wasn’t what he expected. Her bed had not been slept in and her luggage and toiletries were gone. No one had been here last night. He left quickly and tried not to disturb anything in case the police needed to examine the room. As soon as he closed the door, he called the police on his cell phone and explained what had happened. He didn’t know what else to say except that Lindsey was missing and she hadn’t checked out. He was sure that she wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye, or at least given him a phone call.

Don hadn’t returned home last night either and his attempts to reach him by cell phone had been unsuccessful. In desperation, he tried to call him again and this time was surprised when Don answered.

“Where have you been?” Steve asked him.

“I’m sorry. I got a little distracted last night.”

“What happened?”

“Well, after the tour yesterday, Lindsey and I got a little cozy,” he snickered. “She said she was tired of waiting for you to make a move and on her last night, she wanted to feel like a woman.”

Don heard Steve’s sharp intake of breath.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“You know what I mean, partner. Tie on the doorknob, don’t come a-knocking, feel like a woman.”

Steve couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was finding it hard to breathe. “Well, where is she now?” He wanted to hear it from her if this were the truth.

“I dropped her off at the airport late last night. She thanked me for the good time and was on her way. Hope you don’t mind, buddy?”

“Mind?” Steve shouted into the phone. “How could you? You of all people knew what she meant to me!”

He was still bewildered that Lindsey would have opened herself to Don like that. It didn’t make any sense.
But if it weren’t true
, he thought,
Lindsey would have called him by now. Why hadn’t she called? Was she even a Christian?

Steve hung up before Don could answer and called the police again. “I apparently made a huge mistake,” he admitted. “Lindsey took a flight home last night. I must’ve had her itinerary messed up.”

Steve didn’t know what to do with himself. He ran both hands through his hair and just stood frozen, staring at the floor. Finally all he could do was drop to his knees and clasp his hands together. “Lord, I submit myself to your will. I don’t understand all that is happening around me, so please help me to see through to the truth. I love Don and still think there is good in him. Please open his heart to you again, Lord. I pray that Lindsey is safe and knows that I care about her. I trust you to resolve this confusion for all of us. Please, Lord.”

Steve did know that God often speaks through others, so he went straight to the hospital to seek guidance from the one person who might be able to give him an answer.

He arrived at his grandfather’s hospital room out of breath from running up the stairs. He hadn’t wanted to wait for the elevator.

“Steve. What are you doing here this early?”

“Lindsey’s gone, Grandpa. Don says she spent the night with him, he put her on a plane last night and she left,” he said pacing around the bed.

“Slow down. One thing at a time. When did you last hear from her?”

“It was yesterday morning before she went out to the Ice Fields. I know the tour doesn’t last long and she was supposed to call me when she returned, but she never did.” He took a deep breath. “I thought she’d gotten busy, or maybe took a nap. You know I was here until late with you but when it was after midnight, I went to check on her. There was no answer, so I went back this morning and checked again.”

Grandpa didn’t know how much Lindsey had told him. “Did Lindsey tell you about her grandmother?”

“That she took this trip because her grandma had been here before? Yes, she told me that.”

“Did she tell you anything else?”

“Not a lot. Just about her family and her job. Why? And, how did you know about her grandmother?” Steve stopped to stare at his grandfather.

Steve senior sighed. The time had finally come to tell his grandson about his past. “I knew Adele all those years ago when she visited here,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Lindsey’s grandmother was on my tour during the summer she visited here.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed in response. Steve’s legs felt as if they wouldn’t hold him any longer, so he sat in the chair next to the bed. “Did you tell Lindsey?”

“Yes. The day she was here in the hospital I told her about how I fell in love with her grandmother, how I was the one who gave her the cross she wears around her neck . . . and how it tore D.J. and me apart.”

Steve ran his fingers through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“Sometimes things are better left unsaid, Steve. We all have secrets deep in our hearts and some become more powerful when they’re not shared with others. Adele and I decided to keep our relationship private. That way it was just for the two of us.”