Sisterchicks on the Loose (27 page)

Penny laughed. “Agreed.” She gave Monique’s hand a squeeze. “Thanks.”

“You take care.” Monique left, and we savored our complimentary dinner. Of course, we had to order coffee and the
most decadent chocolate dessert the restaurant offered. It was a seven-layered chocolate cake with thick fudge frosting between each of the thin layers.

We joked about needing to call for a bellman to roll us onto one of the luggage carts to haul us to our room. Strolling slowly, we passed a gift shop in the lobby. I suggested we stop to look for souvenirs. Penny and Elina wanted to go to the room, so I shopped by myself. Aside from the evening alone in the guest room at Marketta’s, this was the only time I remembered being by myself. I enjoyed taking my time and looking at everything.

A display of china teacups and saucers caught my eye. They reminded me of the beautiful china and crystal Anni had used to serve us at her home for our presauna dinner.

The glaze on the cups was so smooth I found that I didn’t want to put the cup down once my hands wrapped around it. The teacups came in a variety of colors and patterns. A small sign on the glass shelf stated a local artist had designed them.

I decided that every woman on my list would get a china cup and saucer. Picking ones for Kaylee and Joanie was easy. I knew Bonnie liked roses, as did my mom. I bought one set with red roses and one with yellow. The cream-colored set with the sweet blue forget-me-nots came with a matching teapot. I held the cup and thought about getting it for myself.

I don’t really need this 
…

I decided life was too precious to pass up such a rare item, and at 20 percent off, I would be crazy to walk away without the cup and the teapot.

Crazy like a daisy
, I told myself. Then a smile played across my lips. In front of me was a teacup with tiny daisies in a chain
along the rim. I knew I had to get that one for Penny.

The clerk was attentive and helpful, assuring me that she could pack each cup securely so I would have no problem getting them home without the slightest chip. Since I had only one bag, I could check that single piece of luggage and carry on all the china in a box.

Double-checking my souvenir list, I noticed one name left. Gloria. Returning to the china shelf, I looked carefully at each remaining teacup. One on the top shelf stood out. It was a complex cup in a deep shade of purple with intricate gold trim around the edges. The cup was distinct. Special. This cup refused to be ignored—and was priced at almost three times the other cups and saucers.

With a sense of settled contentment, I picked up the pricey, fragile cup and saucer and smiled. This was the gift I wanted to take home to Gloria.

My assortment of china was so well packed that I didn’t want to unwrap it to show Elina and Penny once I returned to our hotel room. They said they would take my word for how beautiful the china was and stop by the gift shop in the morning to see the rest of the assortment.

However, we were up so early the shop wasn’t open yet. A cab arrived to take the three of us to the station so we could catch a 7:02 train into Liverpool.

The moment I stepped outside to the waiting taxi, I knew the day was going to be glorious. The ground was covered with a light coat of frost that had come special delivery yesterday afternoon on the rainy sleet express. Puffs of whitened mist floated over the adjoining meadow like the Lady of Shalott set adrift in a whitewashed boat floating down to Camelot.
Overhead, the March sky stretched its pale blue wings and fluttered over our corner of the world, blessing us with crisp, light breezes.

I stopped to stare at a dew-laced spider’s web in the potted shrub by the hotel’s entrance. Every thread appeared to be spun of silver. Every drop of moisture hung like a diamond—no, like a star. Like single stars compressed and sprinkled as one sprinkles glitter when preparing for a celebration.

I drew in a deep draught of chilled air and watched my exhaled breath turn into a cloud. My breath ruffled the glittery stars strung on the spider’s silver thread ever so slightly.

Did You breathe, and it was so?

With such clarity of thought came the sense of my heavenly Father’s presence. I felt as if He stood right beside me in that moment, bending over, His magnificent hands clasped behind His back as He examined the tiniest bit of His creation with shared delight.

We are all at Your mercy, aren’t we, Lord? Every living creature. We could all be gone in a blink. Yet, in Your love, You gently breathe on us and we live another day
.

For the first time on this trip, and maybe in my life, I caught a glimmer of what it meant to be at God’s mercy. He speaks, and it is so. He breathes, and we live another day.

“What a gorgeous morning!” Penny held open the taxi’s door and waited for me to climb in.

I headed for the cab and then stopped. Digging for my camera, I went back to the potted shrub, leaned close, and snapped a picture of the spider’s web.

“Okay, you know what?” Penny said. “I’m not even going to ask what you were taking a picture of back there. But I will ask a favor.”

“Sure.”

“Will you save enough film for a few shots at Penny Lane?”

“No problem. I have three more rolls of film. I haven’t taken as many pictures on this trip as I thought I would.”

“So, of course, it makes sense that you would use up that extra film by taking pictures of random hotel shrubbery,” Penny said brightly.

Elina chuckled.

For some reason, I thought of Tuija from the department store in Finland. I thought of how she had explained that her name meant “a green bush that is planted in front of a house for beauty.”

Feeling cocky, I arched my left eyebrow slightly as I slid past Penny and climbed into the cab. “That wasn’t random hotel shrubbery. That was a very special
tuija
.”

“Ah!” Elina’s eyes lit up.
“Tuija!
”

I smiled and looked out the window, reveling in the sunlit beauty of this fresh new day.

On our short train ride to Liverpool, we were packed in with dozens of Brits on their way to work. I loved listening to the accents and observing mannerisms and what people were wearing. Kaylee wanted me to bring home some unique clothing for her, and I was certain I could find something in Liverpool.

We hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, so our first objective, when we arrived, was to find a nearby restaurant and, as Penny said, “get some protein and caffeine in us, but not necessarily in that order.”

Elina was more interested in finding a way to check our luggage so we wouldn’t have to carry it all over the city. She found a baggage check station inside the terminal and encouraged us to slim down our shoulder bags to the bare essentials before we took off for the day.

I loved feeling light. I loved the sunshine that came at us outside the train station in iridescent slants across the crowded streets. I loved Liverpool, and the truth was, we barely had been introduced.

We found a small café a few blocks from the station. All three of us moved as one toward the open table in the sunshine by the window. We peeled off our coats and hung them over the chair backs.

“Coffee or tea?” Elina asked us.

“Tea for me,” I said.

“Tea for two,” Penny replied.

Elina turned to the waitress, who was approaching us with menus. “Tea for three, please. With milk and sugar.”

We ordered the full English breakfast. It came with a fat sausage Elina called a “banger,” scrambled eggs, baked beans, fried tomato slices, and a stack of white toast served with each slice filed upright in a metal rack. Our table could barely hold all the pots of jam along with our large plates and tea paraphernalia.

The strong tea was delicious. I decided I needed to buy lots that day so I would have authentic British loose tea when I christened my new china teapot.

Our breakfast plates were being cleared when Elina announced a little secret she had kept from us all morning. “I finished them.”

“Finished what?” Penny said. “Your eggs?”

“No, your mother’s letters.”

“You did? Where are they?”

“Here.” Elina reached for a dozen folded-up pieces of paper. I noticed the first few pages were written out on hotel stationery from Monique’s resort.

“When did you do this?” Penny asked.

“Last night. I couldn’t sleep. I’m surprised I didn’t wake either of you. I turned the lamp to the lowest setting at the desk and thought I’d translate one or two. Before I knew it, I’d finished all of them.”

“Any big secrets?” Penny said cautiously.

Elina shook her head. “No.”

“Nothing about my father selling government information to the enemy?”

“No, I think my mother and the rest of the family liked to think there was something more to Hank, so they made up the part about his selling government secrets. It must have made it easier for Grandma to let her daughter go if she could believe the worst about Hank.”

“Right,” Penny said. “As if it wasn’t bad enough that she got pregnant and ran off with him.”

“And never returned,” Elina added.

Penny glanced at the stack of papers in her hand. They seemed glued to her tight fists. Aside from hugging her aunt Marketta, these translated letters were the biggest chunk of connection to her mother that Penny had held in more than twenty years.

I knew in that moment the power of words, the gift of the written word, and how the importance of those words only increases after the person who wrote them is gone.

I felt a distinct pinch in my heart. Once again, I missed my Bible.

P
enny?” I asked softly
, as she clutched her mother’s letters. “Would you like to read them now? I don’t mean read them aloud. Just read them to yourself. We don’t mind waiting.”

Penny reached for her reading glasses. “Sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

Penny put on her glasses and pulled her chair back so that she was drenched in sunbeams. Her eyes raced down the page.

Elina ordered another pot of tea.

I quietly pulled out my camera and snapped a picture of Penny blazing her way through a Milky Way of words. Her mother’s words. A treasure she once thought unattainable.

I saw Penny’s tears before she spoke. “Listen to this:

Penny looked up, her lower lip quivering.

No words were needed between the three of us. Penny kept reading to herself as Elina and I sipped our tea.

“These poems,” Penny said without looking up.

Elina nodded.

I obviously was the one who sat outside the circle of understanding.

Penny looked at me. “You have to hear this one, Sharon. My mom liked Christina Rossetti’s poetry. She quoted a poem in this letter to Marketta when I was only two years old. My dad was dead. There she was, alone. Listen to this:

Penny sat, so immersed in the light that it seemed to glow like embers at the ends of her thick, brown hair.

“There is so much I didn’t understand,” she said softly. “So much I would do differently, if I had my childhood to live over. Despite all her obstacles, my mother made a good life for the two of us. She overcame more than I ever realized.”

“Did you read the part about your winning the debate contest at your school?” Elina asked.

“Yes. That was in this one. I was a freshman in high school when my mom wrote this to Aunt Marketta in a Christmas card. Are you ready for this? Her opening line is, ‘Penny has surprised me again.’ ”

I laughed. “Small wonder.”

Penny grinned and continued, “ ‘
Penny came home with an award from school for her debate team. Her presentation was on returning sacred lands to Native Americans, and she won first place for the district
.’ ”

Penny looked up. “I remember that speech. Guess I was naturally persuasive even way back when.”

“Read the next part,” Elina said.

“ ‘Sometimes I look at Penny, and I think she is a collection of all that was best in Hank mixed with our mother’s deep strength. She has my independent spirit, so we’re having difficulty agreeing on anything. We have many arguments, but I love her fiercely, and I pray for her every day. In my heart, I secretly adore her.’ ”