Julie Lessman is a debut author who has already garnered writing acclaim, including ten Romance Writers of America awards. She resides in Missouri with her husband and their golden retriever, and has two grown children and a daughter-in-law. Her first book in the Daughters of Boston series, A Passion Most Pure, was released January 2008, to be followed by the second in September 2008, A Passion Redeemed, and the third in May 2009, A Passion Denied (working title).

You can visit Julie at her Web site.

Product Details

List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Revell (January 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0800732111
ISBN-13: 978-0800732110

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Chapter One

Boston, Massachusetts, Late Summer, 1916

Sisters are overrated, she decided. Not all of them, of course, only the beautiful ones who never let you forget it. Faith O’Connor stood on tiptoe behind the side porch, squinting through her mother’s prized lilac bush. The sound of summer locusts vibrated in her ears as she gasped, inches from where her sister, Charity, stood in the arms of––

“Collin, someone might hear us,” Charity whispered.

“Not if we don’t talk.” Collin’s index finger stroked the cleft of her sister’s chin.

Faith’s body went numb. The locusts crescendoed to a frenzy in her brain. She wanted to sink into the fresh-mown lawn, but her feet rooted to the ground as firmly as the bush that hid her from view.

Three years had done nothing to diminish his effect on her. He was grinning, studying her sister through heavy lids, obviously relaxed as he leaned against the wall of their wraparound porch. His serge morning coat was draped casually over the railing. The rolled sleeves of his starched, white shirt displayed muscled arms snug around Charity’s waist. Faith knew all too well his clear, gray eyes held a maddening twinkle, and she heard the low rumble of his laughter when he pulled her sister close.

“Collin, nooooo …” Charity’s voice seemed to ripple with pleasure as her finger traced a suspender cinched to his striped trousers.

“Charity, yes,” he whispered, closing his eyes as he bent to kiss her.

Faith stopped breathing while his lips wandered the nape of her sister’s neck.

Charity attempted a token struggle before appearing to melt against his broad chest. She closed her eyes and lifted her mouth to his, her head dropping back with the ease of oiled hinges.

Faith rolled her eyes.

Without warning, Collin straightened. A strand from his slicked-back hair tumbled across his forehead while he held her sister at arm’s length. His expression was stern, but there was mischief in his eyes. “You know, Charity, your ploy doesn’t work.” His brows lifted in playful reprimand, making him appear far older than his twenty-one years. He adjusted the wide, pleated collar of her pink gabardine blouse. “You are a beautiful girl, Charity O’Connor. And I’m quite sure your doe-eyed teasing is most effective with the schoolboys that buzz around.” His fingers gently tugged at a strand of her honey-colored hair before tucking it behind her ear. “But not with me.” He lifted her chin to look up at him. The corners of his lips twitched. “I suggest you save your protest for them and this for me …”

His dimples deepened when his lips eased into that dangerous smile that always made Faith go weak in the knees. In one fluid turn, he backed her sister against the wall, hands firm on her shoulders as his mouth took hers. Then, in a flutter of Faith’s heart, he released her.

On cue, Charity produced a perfect pout, stamping her foot so hard it caused her black hobble skirt to flair at her ankles. Collin laughed out loud. He kissed her on the nose, grabbed his coat and started down the steps.

“Collin McGuire, you are so arrogant!” Charity whispered, her voice hissing as if through clenched teeth.

“And you, Charity O’Connor, are so vain––a perfect match, wouldn’t you say?” He headed for the gate, whistling. Charity stormed inside and slammed the door. Collin chuckled and strolled toward the sidewalk.

Faith crept to the lilac hedge at the front of the house and peeked through its foliage. A stray ball from a rowdy game of kickball rolled into the street. Collin darted after it just as a black Model T puttered by, blaring its horn. He jumped from its path, palming the ball with one hand. In a blink of an eye, he was swarmed by little boys, their laughter pealing through the air as Collin wrestled with one after another.

All at once he turned and loped to a massive oak where tiny, towheaded Theodore Schmidt sat propped against the gnarled tree, crutches by his side. Raucous cheers pierced the air when Collin tossed his coat on the ground and bent to carefully hoist Theo astride his broad shoulders. The little boy squealed with delight. A grin split Collin’s handsome face. He gripped Theo’s frail legs against his chest and sauntered toward home plate. Scrubbing his palms on Theo’s faded, brown knickers, Collin dug his heels in the dirt and positioned himself. The pitcher grinned and rolled the ball. The air was thick with silence. Even the locusts seemed to hush as the ball wheeled in slow motion. Faith held her breath.

Collin’s first kick sailed the ball five houses away. Champion and child went flying, the back tail of Theo’s white shirt flapping in the breeze as Collin rounded the bases. They crossed home plate to a roar of cheers and whistles and all colors of beanies fluttering in the air like confetti. Theo’s scrawny arms flapped about, his tiny face as flushed as Collin’s when the two finally huffed to a stop.

Faith exhaled. Everybody’s hero, then and now.

Collin set the child back against the tree. He squatted to speak to him briefly before tousling his hair. Rising, he snatched his coat from the ground and slung it over his shoulder. The boys groaned and begged for more, but Collin only waved and continued down the street, finally disappearing from view.

Faith pressed a shaky palm to her stomach. She closed her eyes and leaned against the

porch trellis. A perfectly wonderful Saturday gone to the dogs! All she had wanted when she slipped out the back door was to escape to her favorite hideaway in the park. To write poetry and prayers to her heart’s content in the warm, September sun. But no! Once again, her sister had managed to strike, foiling her plans for a blissful afternoon of writing and reverie. Her eyes popped open and she kicked at a hickory nut, sending it pinging off her mother’s copper watering can.

It was bad enough Charity attracted the attention of every male within a ten-mile radius. Did she also have to be the younger sister? It was nothing short of humiliating! Faith plunked her hands on her hips and looked up. “Really, Lord, she’s sixteen to my eighteen and fends off men like a mare swishing flies. Was that really necessary?” She waved her hand, palm up, toward the infamous porch. “And now this? Now him?”

Faith jerked her blanket from the ground and slapped it over her shoulder. Retrieving her journal and prayer book, she thrashed through the bushes. She glanced at the side porch, leering at the very spot he held her sister only moments before. The impact hit and tears pricked her eyes. She swatted at something caught in her hair. A twig with a heart-shaped leaf plummeted to the ground, in perfect synchronization with her mood.

Her sister had it all––beauty, beaus and now the affections of Collin McGuire. Where was the justice? In Faith’s world of daydreams, he had been hers first, smitten on the very day Margaret Mary O’Leary had shoved her against the schoolyard fence. Helplessly she had hung, the crippled runt of the fifth-grade class, pinned by bulbous arms for the crime of refusing to turn over her mother’s fresh-baked pumpkin bread.

“Drop her, Margaret Mary,” the young Collin had said with authority.

The pudgy hands released their grip. “Cripple!” Margaret Mary’s hateful slur had hissed in Faith’s ears as she plopped to the ground, the steel braces on her thin legs clanking as she fell. The girl’s sneer dissolved into a smile when she gazed up at Collin, her ample cheeks puffing into small, pink balloons. “Sorry!” she said in a shy voice. With a duck of her head, she wobbled off, leaving Faith in a heap. Bits of bread, now dusted with dirt, clumped through Faith’s fingers as she stared up in awe. It had been the first time she ever laid eyes on him. Never again would her little-girl heart beat the same. He was tall and languid with an easy smile—Robin Hood, defending the weak.

“D’she hurt you?” he had asked, extending his arm.

The gentleness in his eyes stilled her. Shaking her head, she opened her hand to reveal a mangled piece of bread. Without thinking, she tried to blow off the dirt, misting it with saliva. “I don’t suppose you want some?”

The grin would be branded in her brain forever.

“That’s okay, Little Bit,” he said with a sparkle in his eye, “I’ll just help myself to some of Margaret Mary’s.”

Her mind jolted back to the present. Faith blinked at the lonely porch and sniffed. Jutting her chin in the air, she flipped a russet strand of hair from her eyes. “I refuse to entertain notions of Collin McGuire,” she vowed. Her lips pressed into a tight line. It’s just a crying shame Mother hadn’t found them first!

As if shocked at her thought, the sun crept behind a billow of clouds, washing her in cool shadows. She crossed her arms and glowered at the sky. “Yes, I know, I’m supposed to be taking every thought captive. But it’s not all that easy, you know.”

A curl from her half-hearted chignon fluttered into her face. She reached to yank the comb from her hair, shaking her head until the wild mane tumbled down her back. Hiking her brown gingham skirt to her knees, she ignored the curious stares of children and raced down Donovan Street.

She was almost oblivious to the faint limp in her stride, the only mark of her childhood bout with polio. Some of the children still laughed at the halting way she walked and ran, but Faith didn’t care. If anything, it only made her chin lift higher and her smile brighter. That slight hitch in her gait––that precious, wonderful gimp––was daily proof she had escaped paralysis or worse. She needed no reminding that countless children had perished in the Massachusetts polio epidemic of 1907, her own twin sister among them. She shuddered at the memory while her pace slowed. God had heard the prayers of her parents––or at least half. She alone had survived. And more than survived––she’d never need braces again.

Masking her somber mood with a smile, she waved and called to neighbors, flitting by the perfectly groomed three-decker homes that so typified the Southie neighborhood of Boston. She hurried beneath a canopy of trees where mothers chatted and toddlers played peek-a-boo around their petticoats. A tiny terrier yipped and danced in circles, coaxing a grin to her lips, while little girls played hopscotch on cobblestone streets dappled with sunlight.

In the tranquil scene, Faith saw no hint of impending troubles, no telltale evidence of “The Great War” raging in a far-off land across the sea. But the qualms of concern were there all the same. Insidious, filtering into their lives like a patchy gloom descending at will––in hushed conversations over back fences or in distracted stares and wrinkled brows. The question was always the same: Would America go to war? One by one, the neutrality of European countries toppled like dominoes. Romania, who had entered the war with the Allies, was quickly overrun by German forces. Now, within mere days, Italy had declared war on Germany as well, sucked into the vortex of hate. Would America be next to enter World War I? Faith shivered at the thought and then gasped when she nearly collided with a freckled boy darting out of Hammond’s confectionary.

“Sorry, miss,” he muttered, clutching a box of Cracker Jacks against plaid knickers.

“No, it’s my fault.” She rumpled his hair. He smiled shyly, breaking through her somber mood. Flashing a gap-toothed grin, he flew off to join his friends. Faith laughed and rounded the corner, sprinting into O’Reilly Park. She breathed in the clean, crisp air thick with the scent of honeysuckle. Exhaling, she felt the tension drift from her body.

Oh, how she loved this neighborhood! This was home, her haven, her own little place of belonging. She loved everything about it, from the dirty-faced urchins lost in their games of stickball, to the revelry of neighborhood pubs whose music floated on the night breeze into the wee hours of the morning. This was the soul of Irish Boston, this south end of the city, a glorious piece of St. Patrick’s Isle in the very heart of America. And to Faith, not unlike a large Irish family––brash, bustling and brimming with life.

Out of breath, she choked to a stop at a wall of overgrown forsythia bushes that sheltered her from view. Emptying her arms, she snapped the blanket in the air and positioned it perfectly, smoothing the wrinkles before tossing her journal and prayer book to the edge. She kicked off her shoes and flopped belly down, popping a pencil between her teeth. Thoughts of Collin McGuire suddenly blinked in her brain like a dozen fireflies on a summer night. Her teeth sank into the soft wood of the pencil. She tasted lead and spit.

No! I don’t want to think of him. Not anymore. And especially not with her. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the fluttering pages of her prayer book, conspicuous as it lay open at the edge of the blanket. Her chest heaved a sigh. “I’ve gone and done it again, haven’t I?” She glanced up, her lips quirking into a shaky smile. “People always seem so taken with my green eyes, but I don’t suppose ‘green with envy’ is too appealing, is it? I’ll get this right, I promise. In the meantime, please forgive me?” She breathed in deeply, taking air like a parched person gulping cool water. Her final prayer drifted out on a quiet sigh. “And yes, Lord, please bless my sister.”

She reached for her journal and flipped it open, staring hard at a page she’d penned months ago. Her vision suddenly blurred and she blinked, a tear plunking on the paper. Collin. She traced his name with her finger. It swam before her in a pool of ink.

Dreams. Silly, adolescent dreams, that’s all they were. She had no patience for dreamers. Not anymore. After years of pining over something she could never have, she chose to embrace the cold comfort of reality instead. No more daydreams of his smile, no more journal entries with his name, no more prayers for the impossible. She would not allow it.

She flipped the page over and closed her eyes, but it only produced a flood of memories. Memories of a gangly high school freshman, notebook in hand and heat in her cheeks, trembling on the threshold of the St. Mary’s Gazette. She could still see him looking up from the table, pencil in hand and another wedged behind his ear. He had stared, assessing her over a stack of books.

“Uh, Mm … Mrs. Mallory said … well, I … I m-mean she said that I was to be on the p-paper so I—”

Recognition dawned. His eyes softened and crinkled at the corners just a smitch before that slow smile eased across his lips. “Little Bit! So, you’re the young Emily Dickinson Mrs. Mallory’s been going on about. Well, I am impressed—we’ve never had a freshman on the staff before. Mrs. Mallory told me to take you under my wing.” He pushed pencil and paper across the table and grinned. “Better take notes.”

And, oh … she had! In the year they’d been friends, she’d taken note of that perilous smile whenever he was teasing or the fire in his eyes when somebody missed a deadline. She adored that obstinate strand of dark hair that tumbled over his forehead when he argued a point. And she loved the way his voice turned thick at the mere mention of his father. His love for his father had been fierce. He’d often spoken of the day they would finally work side by side in his father’s tiny printing business. McGuire & Son––just the sound of the words had caused Collin to tear up.

The death of his father a week before graduation had been a shock. Collin never showed up to claim his diploma. Someone said he’d found a job at the steel mill on the east side of town. Occasionally rumors would surface. About how much he’d changed. How wild he’d become. The endless string of hearts he always managed to break. Almost as if his passion and kindness had calcified. Hard and cold, like the steel he forged by day.

Faith dropped back on the blanket, her body still. She squeezed her eyes shut. Despite the warmth of the sun, her day was completely and utterly overcast. How dare her sister be so familiar with the likes of Collin McGuire? How dare he be so forward with her, in broad daylight, and right under their mother’s nose? Faith was disgusted, angry and embarrassed, all at the same time. And never more jealous in all her life.

***

With coat slung over his shoulder and a stride in his step, Collin whistled his way to the corner of Baker and Brae. Slowing, he turned onto his street, keenly aware his whistling had faded. The bounce in his gait slowed to sludge as he neared the ramshackle flat he shared with his mother. At the base of the steps, he glanced up, his stomach muscles tensing as they usually did when he came home.

Home. The very word had become an obscenity. This house hadn’t been a home since his father’s last breath over three years ago. She’d made certain of that. Collin sighed, mounting the steep, cracked steps littered with flowering weeds. Sidestepping scattered pieces from a child’s erector set, his eyes flitted to his mother’s window. The crooked, yellowed shade was still down. Good. Maybe he could slip in and out.

He turned the knob quietly and eased himself into the front room, holding his breath as he closed the door. The click of the lock reverberated in his ears.

“It’s a real shame you don’t bother to dress that nicely for the good Lord.”

Collin spun around, his heart pounding. He forced a smile to his lips. “Mother! I thought you might be in bed with one of your headaches. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” Katherine McGuire stood in the doorway of her bedroom with arms folded across her chest, a faded blue dressing gown wrapped tightly around her regal frame. Her lips pressed into a thin line, as if a smile would violate the cool anger emanating from her steel-gray eyes.

When his mother did smile at him, an uncommon thing in itself, it was easy to see why his father had fallen hopelessly in love with her. At forty-one, she was still a striking woman. Rich, dark hair with a hint of gray only served to heighten the impact of the penetrating eyes now focused on him. Before she had married his father, she had been a belle of society. The air of refinement bred in her was evident as she stood straight and tall. She lifted her chin to assess him through disapproving eyes.

“She’s too good for the likes of you, you know.”

He stared back at her, a tic jerking in his cheek. Every muscle and sinew were poised to strike. He clamped his jaw, biting back the bitter retort that weighted his tongue. No, he would not allow her to win. Ever. He tossed his coat on the hook by the door and turned, a stiff smile on his face. “She doesn’t care, Mother. She’s in love.”

“Her father will. It’s not likely he’ll want a pauper courting his daughter.”

Collin shook his head and laughed, the sound of it hollow. He avoided her eyes as he headed to his room at the back of the flat. “I won’t be a pauper forever,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ve got plans.”

“So did your father. And you saw where they took him.”

Collin stopped, his back rigid and his eyes stinging with pent-up fury. He clenched and unclenched his fists. How had a man as good and kind as his father allowed her to control him? His mouth hardened. It didn’t matter. She would never control him. Not in his emotions, nor in his life. He exhaled slowly, continuing down the shadowy hall. “Have a good day, Mother,” he said. And closing his bedroom door behind him, he shut her out with a quiet click of the lock.

***

“But, Mother, it’s not fair! Why can’t Faith do it?” Charity demanded, wielding a stalk of celery in one hand and a paring knife in the other.

Marcy O’Connor didn’t have to look up from the cake she was frosting to know she had a fight on her hands. Usually she enjoyed this time of day, when the coolness of evening settled in and her children huddled in the warmth of the kitchen near the wood-burning stove. Tonight, five-year-old Katie sat Indian-style, force-feeding her bear from an imaginary teacup while her brother, Steven, a mature eight years old, practiced writing vocabulary words on a slate. On the rug in front of the fire sprawled twelve-year-old Elizabeth, a faraway look in her eyes as she lost herself in a favorite book. Marcy set the finished cake aside and reached for the warm milk and yeast. She poured it into a bowl of flour and began rolling up the sleeves of her blouse.

“I don’t understand why Faith can’t do it. She doesn’t have anything else to do.” Charity turned back to the sink to assault the celery with the knife.

“But, Mother, you know I’m reading to Mrs. Gerson Saturday evening or I’d be happy to stay with the children.” Faith’s tone sounded cautious as she appeared to devote full attention to chopping carrots for the stew. In unison, both girls looked up at their mother.

Marcy couldn’t remember when she had felt so tired. Her eyes burned with fatigue as she kneaded the dough for the bread she was preparing. With the back of her hand, she pushed at a wisp of hair, a stray from the chignon twisted at the nape of her neck, feeling every bit of her forty years. She eyed her daughters with a tenuous smile, her mind flitting to a time when she’d been as young. A girl with golden hair and summer-blue eyes who’d won the heart of Patrick Brendan O’Connor and become his “Irish rose.” Marcy sighed. Well, tonight, the “rose” was pale, wilted, and definitely not up to a thorny confrontation between her two daughters.

She paused, her hands crusted with dough. “Tell me, Charity, why is it so important you’re free on this Saturday night, in particular?” Marcy didn’t miss the slight blush that crept into Charity’s cheeks, nor the look on Faith’s face as she stopped to watch her sister’s response, cutlery poised mid-air.

“Well, there’s a dance social at St. Agatha’s. I was hoping to go, that’s all.”

Marcy resumed kneading the dough with considerably more vigor than before. “And with whom will you be going, may I ask?”

“Well … there’s a group of us, you see …”

“Mmmm. Would a certain Collin McGuire be among them?” Marcy’s fingers were flying.

Charity’s blush was full hue, blotching her face with a lovely shade of rose. “Well, yes … I think so … perhaps … of course, I’m not definitely sure …”

A thin cloud of flour escaped into the air as Marcy slapped the dough from her hands. “Charity, we’ve been over this before. Neither your father nor I are comfortable with you seeing that McGuire boy. He’s too old.”

“But he’s only three years older than Faith,” Charity pleaded.

“Yes, and that’s too old for you. And too old for your sister when it comes to the likes of him. Absolutely not. Your father will never allow it.”

“But why, Mother? Mrs. McGuire is a good woman—”

“Yes, she’s a good woman, who, I’m afraid, has let her son get the best of her. Ever since his father died, that boy has been nothing but trouble. He’s fast, Charity, out for himself and willing to hurt anyone in the bargain. You can’t possibly see or understand that now because you’re only sixteen. But mark my words, your father and I are saving you a lot of heartbreak.”

Marcy dabbed her forehead with the side of her sleeve while Faith scooped up carrots and plopped them into the boiling cauldron of stew. The kitchen was heating up, both from the fire of the stove and Charity’s seething glare.

“It’s because of Faith, isn’t it?” Charity demanded, slamming her fist on the table.

“Charity Katherine O’Connor!” Marcy whirled around, her tone scathing.

“It’s true! You don’t want me entertaining beaus because poor, little Faith sits home like a bump on a log and couldn’t get a suitor if she advertised in The Boston Herald!”

Faith’s mouth gaped open and color seeped from her face. Her knuckles clenched white on the carrot she stabbed in the air. “I could have more beaus, too, if I flirted like one of the cheap girls at Brannigan’s!”

“Faith Mary O’Connor!” Marcy’s tone suggested sacrilege, her fingers twitching in the dough. The kitchen was deathly quiet except for the rolling boil of the stew. Katie began to whine, and Elizabeth bundled her in her arms, calming her with a gentle shush.

Charity leaned forward. Her lips curled in contempt. “You couldn’t get beaus if you lined ‘em up and paid ‘em!”

“At least I wouldn’t pay them with favors on the side porch …”

Marcy flinched as if slapped. “What?” she breathed. She turned toward Faith whose hand flew to her mouth in a gasp at the shock of her own words. Charity’s face was as white as the flour on Marcy’s hands. “With whom?” Marcy whispered.

“Collin McGuire,” Faith said, her voice barely audible.

It might as well have been an explosion. Marcy gasped. “Is this true, Charity? Look at me! Is this true?”

Charity’s watery gaze met her mother’s and she nodded, tears trickling her cheeks.

Marcy barely moved a muscle. “Faith, take the children upstairs.”

Faith was silent as she picked Katie up to carry her from the room. Elizabeth followed with Steven behind. Charity was sobbing. Without a word, Marcy walked to the sink to wash the dough from her hands, then returned to her daughter’s side, wrapping her arms around her. At her touch, Charity crumpled into her embrace like a wounded child. Marcy stroked her hair, waiting for the sobs to subside. When they did, she lifted Charity’s quivering chin and looked in the eyes of the daughter-child who so wanted to be a woman.

“Charity, I love you. But that love charges me with responsibility for your well-being and happiness. I know you can’t understand this now, nor do you want to, but you must trust us. Collin McGuire is not the boy for you. He’s trouble, Charity. Behind that rakish smile and Irish charm is a young man whose only thought is for himself. I’ve seen you smile and flirt with a number of young lads, and I suppose with most young men, that’s innocent enough. But not with him. It’s stoking a fire that could seriously burn you. Now tell me what happened on the porch.”

Charity sniffed, wiped her nose with her sleeve and straightened her shoulders. “He … he wants me to go to the social and he … Mother, it was only a kiss!”

“Yes, and I’m only your mother. Charity, I love you very much, but you’ll not be going to the social this Saturday nor anywhere else for the next month. You will come straight home after school each day and complete your studies. And you will have the chore of doing the supper dishes for four weeks.” Marcy’s tone softened. “But only because I love you.”

Charity’s eyes glinted as she spun on her heel and headed for the door. “I could certainly do with a little less love, Mother,” she hissed.

Marcy couldn’t help but smile to herself. She had been sixteen once.

***

The door flew open and a blast of cool air surged in. Faith braced herself. Charity stood, wild-eyed, hands fisted at her sides. “I hate you!” she screamed. She slammed the door hard and leaned against it, her chest heaving from the effort. “I will never forgive you for what you did. You are a wicked, evil person, and I hope you die an old maid!” She lunged and knocked Faith flat on the bed, yanking a fistful of hair.

“Ow!” Faith hollered, pain unleashing her fury. She kneed Charity in the stomach and

rolled her over, pinning her to the bed. “Stop it, Charity––I mean it! I never meant to tell Mother anything, and you know it. But you were so mean and hateful, it just popped out.” Her breath came in ragged gasps. “Look, I don’t want to fight with you.”

Charity scowled. “Fine way to prove it. I still don’t know if I’m going to forgive you. You’ve gone and ruined everything with Collin. It’s going to be twice as difficult to see him now.” She tugged her arms free and pushed her away.

In slow motion, Faith sat on the bed, incredulous her sister would even entertain the thought of defying their mother. “But you’re not supposed to. Not now, not ever––that’s the whole point Mother’s been making. Don’t you understand that?”

“Yes, I understand that,” Charity mimicked. “My head knows it, but I’m afraid my heart’s having a bit of a problem.” She stood up from the bed and smiled. “But you don’t quite get it either, do you, Faith? I love him. It’s as simple as that. Mother may forbid me from seeing him, but she can’t forbid me from loving him.” Charity posed in the mirror, then hugged herself and whirled around, her golden hair spinning about her like a fallen halo.

Faith’s jaw dropped. “You can’t love him! You’re sixteen, and he’s twenty-one. You don’t even know him!”

“Oh, yes, I do,” she breathed, “and he’s wonderful!” She gave Faith a sly smile. “You know the studying I’ve been doing at the library? Well, I’ve been studying all right––my favorite subject in the whole world.”

Faith’s facial muscles slacked into shock, prompting a peal of laughter from her sister. Charity plopped on the bed and grabbed her hand. “Oh, Faith, he’s amazing! He’s funny and bright, and all I know is I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

“You didn’t look so happy on the porch this afternoon.” Faith snatched her hand away.

A flicker of annoyance flashed on Charity’s face and then disappeared into a sheepish grin. “Yes, I know, he can be maddening at times. It’s part of his charm, I suppose. But I can handle him.” Charity stood and reached for the hairbrush. She began stroking her hair in a trancelike motion.

“You didn’t appear to be the one doing the handling …”

The brushing stopped. Slowly Charity turned, all smiles diminished. “I know what I’m doing, and I’ll thank you to stay out of it. I love him. That’s all there is to it.” Charity tossed the brush on the bed and turned to leave, but not before bestowing one final smile. “I trust you, Faith. We’re sisters. And sisters love each other, right?”

Faith gritted her teeth. The Bible she read to Mrs. Gerson every Saturday night claimed “love never fails.” She certainly hoped not.

Kay Marshall Strom is the author of thirtyone published books. Her writing credits also include numerous magazine articles, short stories, curriculum, stories for children, two prizewinning screenplays, and booklets for writers. In addition to her writing, Kay is a soughtafter speaker at seminars, retreats, and special events throughout the U.S. and around the world. Kay and her husband have together spoken in more than twenty countries. They make their home in Santa Barbara, California.

Visit her at her website.

Product Details

List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Authentic (January 2, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1934068276
ISBN-13: 978-1934068274

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:

THIS IS IT, WE’RE HERE. Climb the slope on the right shoulder. Hide in the beams as best as you can. Whatever you do, stay under the bridge. If you come out, the cameras will spot you and all this will be pointless.”

The highway overpass loomed ahead. My father continued, “The car can’t be hidden under the bridge too long or they’ll figure out where you went. You’re gonna have to jump out while we’re moving.”

It was time.

“Sometime, someplace, I know we’ll see each other again. Use your freedom well. Now!”

That single word launched me out the door. As it swung shut behind me, Dad screamed at Jen, “Go!” I stumbled into a run watching her bail-out. The Geo Aphid sped off.

* * *

Jen had sprawled on the street. I helped my kid-sister to her feet. She’d hurt herself, but the bleeding amounted to pink smears on the palms of her hands.

“C’mon, let’s hide.”

“Dave!” She whimpered my name, but followed.

We clambered over the rough, fist-sized stones that covered the slope. At the top, the slope met the girders that supported the road above us. I pulled off my t-shirt and cleared the I-beams of spider webs and bird droppings. We slumped on opposite girders, facing each other.

Jen’s wide eyes glinted shell-shocked madness. “We’ll save them! Whoever comes for us, if they’ll help us, we could get them out!”

“We don’t even know where they’ll be taken,” I grumbled.

“I’ll hack that off the Web!” She reached for anything to pull herself from calamity’s quicksand.

I was in no mood to do this. “You don’t have a com-vision, Sis.”

Tears welled-up in her eyes again. I didn’t want to start an argument, and I definitely didn’t want to shatter the kid’s hopes. “I want our family back too, Sis, but Rehabs are usually guarded.”

We’d do well just to avoid the peacekeepers who had to be looking for us. Who could Dad trust to help us? How would they get us out from under the bridge without anyone seeing? Where could they hide us from searching peacekeeping units? How would we even get food? The hum of a motor grew near and we both shrank back against cold steel. A car passed beneath.

I tried to turn the conversation to something else. “I hope Mom and Jeff are okay.”

Jen buried her face in her hands, her shoulders rocking with sobs.

Real smooth. Nice going, fool. “I’m sorry Sis. Like Dad said, we gotta have faith—” I kicked myself.

When her tears ran out, Jen scowled and whispered, “If we’re His children, why’s He doing this to us?”

I left her in silence. Like I could answer that. How could He even allow a world where belief in the Bible made one a terrorist? Ripping apart our family would teach, what? What kind of lesson was this? I finally thought about how parents treat children. “I think it’s like when we’re kids. Mom or Dad punished us, and made us try things we didn’t want to. Having fun or being happy all the time isn’t the most important thing. I guess God’s like that, too. Dad said we’re being taught something, remember?”

“Yeah. How to miss your mom, and worry if you’ll ever see her again,” she pouted.

Little sisters out there, I speak for big brothers everywhere when I ask, please don’t stick us with hard questions that you’ve already answered. Very annoying.

I dug my pack of Winterfresh Extra out of my jeans’ pocket and let the conversation die. We moped into a sullen silence, our hopes shredded by our thoughts.

Spattering raindrops came and went. So did tears. Minutes piled into hours. Tracking time became impossible. That made me think of my e-wallet with the broken watch function. I powered it up and clicked past the com-vision white and yellow homepages. I selected the picture frame feature. Jen and I passed it back and forth, watching our party vids. Jen’s driver’s license and Jeff’s twenty-first birthday last month. My high-school graduation party two years ago. Jeff and I moving into our first apartment . . . Bad idea. I pocketed the e-wallet. Our thoughts spiraled into deep gloom, leaving Jen to weep her way out, and again we sat in silence.

My gum had lost its Extra-long-time flavor for what must have been hours before I realized the building I’d been staring at was a church. The bridge cut off its steepled roof. The One State allowed only one kind of church. Dad told me about people who called themselves Christians, but believed the Bible to be myth, and equal to the Koran, Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita. With no truth to argue over, 500 years of church splits healed overnight. They called themselves the One Church. No points for creativity, but I guess it represented their unity.

Dad said when he’d once asked a One Churcher how he knew that love was any better than hate. The man had said the answer’s in our heart. Dad then asked what was wrong with the hearts of criminals. There, next to the bridge, out in the open, people were being taught to find love in a broken heart. Here, forced to hide under the bridge, were children of the Heart Surgeon.

If I leaned down I could see a sliver of eastern sky. I began watching for dawn’s brush to paint the clouds. Pigeons roosting under the bridge started their morning cooing. Cool dampness raised goose bumps on the backs of my arms. Finally, my shivering grew worse than my t-shirt’s filth. I shook it out and put it back on.

Then the end came.

Over the top of her reading glasses, Eugenie Pierce eyed the teenage girl sprawled across two chairs at the long table in the Sweetgum Public Library’s reading area. Late afternoon sunlight spilled through the tall windows and fell like a spotlight on the youthful offender. The city council could make noises about forcing Eugenie to retire in six months’ time, but that didn’t mean she would neglect her library in the interim. Not that it was her library personally. It belonged to the good citizens of Sweetgum, Tennessee. But the library had been in her care for almost forty years, and no teenager since the Nixon administration had put his or her feet anywhere but on the floor, where they belonged.

Eugenie moved a step closer to the girl and continued to stare. Usually her narrowed gaze moved mountains—or at least wayward adolescent limbs. But this child was not so easily motivated. Another two steps, sensible pumps tapping against the tile floor, and now Eugenie stood within three feet of the girl.

“Ahem.” She resorted to clearing her throat. Still the girl did not respond. Eugenie moved closer. She tapped the table in front of the girl and cleared her throat again.

“What?” The girl looked up, rolled her eyes, and slumped even lower. She had those white wires hanging from her ears, which meant she wasn’t reading but listening to that awful rap music. The girl finally pulled one of the buds from her ear. “I said, ‘What?’ ”

“Please take your feet off the chair,” Eugenie replied, snipping each word. She lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose and looked pointedly at the girl’s cheap plastic flip-flops and black-lacquered toenails. True, none of the furniture in the Sweetgum Public Library was anywhere near new, but every stick of it was in pristine condition.

“I’m not hurting anything.” The girl spoke too loudly because of the remaining bud wedged in her right ear.

“Shh. You’re disturbing the other patrons.” Granted, the only other people in the library at the moment were Mr. and Mrs. Hornbuckle, who couldn’t hear a train wreck between them, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered. A library was a holy place, like church, and you wouldn’t find people sitting in a house of worship with their feet on the pews and headphones jammed in their ears. At least not in Sweetgum.

The girl looked around, saw the Hornbuckles, and laughed. “You’d have to shoot off a cannon to disturb them.” Eugenie sighed. She wasn’t up for this. Maybe Homer Flint and his cronies were right. Maybe it truly was time for her to retire. She’d had the same conversation with four decades’ worth of teenagers. Her track record, of course, spoke for itself. She’d steered any number of wayward youth onto the straight and narrow, although lately not as many as she used to.

“Library patrons do not put their feet in the chairs. And please turn down the volume on your CD player. Others may not share your taste in music.”

The girl bristled. “It’s an iPod.”

“A what?”

“An iPod. Not a CD player.” The scorn in her voice shouldn’t have bothered Eugenie. But she was tired of people who treated her as if she was an ignorant civil servant instead of a well-educated woman with a master’s degree in library science.

And then she saw the book lying on the table in front of the girl.

Knitting for Beginners.

Eugenie eyed the girl again. “Do you knit?” she asked in a slightly kinder tone. Eugenie was a firm believer in productive activities, and if this girl was a knitter, perhaps she wasn’t such a lost cause after all.

“Huh?” Finally, the girl removed the remaining bud from her other ear. “What’d you say?”

“Are you a knitter?” Eugenie gestured toward the book on the table.

The girl stiffened, her mouth tightening as if she’d bitten into a lemon. “Why do you care?”

“Well, if you knit,” Eugenie said patiently, “you might be interested in a group that meets the third Friday of every month at the Christian church. The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society. All knitters are welcome.” Although she silently wondered just how welcome the other women would make this grungy girl feel. The ties that bound the group were tenuous at best, yet Eugenie managed to hold them together by sheer dint of will.

The girl shoved the book away. “I was just looking at it.” The angry defensiveness of the girl’s reply caught Eugenie off guard.

“I merely intended to—” But she stopped herself before she could utter the fateful word. Help. I merely intended to help. The unfinished sentence lay between them, unspoken but entirely present. The girl’s blue eyes narrowed in her round face. She shoved a hank of dirty blond hair off her forehead with one hand. “I don’t need your help.”

And then Eugenie heard the telltale rustle of paper from underneath the table.

“What’s that?”

More rustling. The girl’s face turned red. “Nothing.”

Eugenie reached out and took the knitting book. With practiced efficiency, she flipped through the pages. She saw immediately where the little heathen had defaced Knitting for Beginners.

“You’ve ruined it.” Disgusted by the jagged edges where the pages had been ripped from the binding, Eugenie snapped the book closed. “You’ll pay to replace it.”

But despite the iPod—Eugenie had heard they were quite expensive—the girl didn’t look like she had enough money to buy a decent pair of shoes, much less replace a hardback book.

“I didn’t do it. It was already like that.” The girl spoke too loudly, not because of her headphones but because she was lying.

Eugenie extended one hand. “The pages, please.” The girl stared back, mutinous, before finally giving in.

“Here.” She pulled the wad of glossy paper from beneath the table and thrust it at Eugenie, who took the pages, glancing down to see what the girl had torn from the book. A pattern for a scarf. Why hadn’t she simply checked out the book if she wanted the pattern?

“I’ll look up the price and let you know what this will cost. There are processing fees in addition to the cost of the book.”

“It doesn’t matter.” The girl slumped farther still in the chair. “I don’t have any money.”

“What’s your name?” Eugenie asked. “I’ll need your parents’ names as well.” She knew the girl heard her question because her cheeks went pale beneath the smear of blush that failed to cover the thicket of freckles.

“I don’t have any parents.”

Again, Eugenie could tell she was lying. “Then who is responsible for you? A relative?”

The girl turned her head away. A library was also similar to a church in that it often provided shelter for lost souls. Temporary shelter for the most part, but Eugenie had found that everyone from latchkey children to battered wives and lonely senior citizens might wander into her library on any given day.

“If you can’t give me the name of the adult who’s responsible for you, I’ll have to call Theda Farley over at Family Services.”

The girl’s head whipped back around to Eugenie. “Don’t you dare.” She scrambled out of the chair. Eugenie might be old enough to retire, but she was still spry. With a quick snag, she caught the girl’s arm.

“Hey! You can’t touch me!”

“Young lady, in my library, I can do as I see fit.”

“This is child abuse!”

“You’ve ruined one of my books. You don’t have the money to pay for it, and you won’t tell me who you are. Perhaps I should call the police.”

The girl’s kohl-smeared eyes widened. “All right. All right. I’ll tell you my name. Just no cops.”

Eugenie held in a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t have called the police anyway, not for so minor an infraction, but the girl didn’t have to know that.

“So what is your name?” Eugenie demanded, releasing the girl’s arm.

“Hannah.”

“Hannah what?”

“Hannah Simmons.”

The name rang a bell. “You’re Tracy Simmons’s daughter?” She knew Tracy. Wild. Promiscuous. She’d had her first child, this child, at sixteen. That was the thing about a small town like Sweetgum. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, unless of course you knew how to be very, very discreet. Tracy Simmons had been the antithesis of discreet.

“Tracy’s my mom. So what?”

Well, that explained the tattoos the child had drawn up and down her arms with ballpoint pen, the too-tight tank top, and the cheap flip-flops. She was definitely her mother’s daughter.

And then Eugenie remembered something else. A hazy picture of Tracy Simmons when she was eight years old, sitting on the floor between the stacks in the juvenile section of the library, her dirty blond head buried in a book. Her mother would drop her off at the library for hours at a time, at least until Tracy had entered junior high school, developed a figure, and been left elsewhere to fend off the attention of adolescent boys. Within a couple years, she’d become one of those girls who rode around the town square on a Saturday night in the back of a pickup, a bottle in a plain brown bag in one hand and a cigarette in the other. By then it had been a long time since she’d darkened the door of the library. Tracy was one of the few who had escaped Eugenie’s influence. The memory startled Eugenie, and it changed her mind about how to handle Hannah’s debt.

“If you can’t pay for the book, you’ll have to work off the cost.”

“What?” Hannah had chewed off most of her metallic pink lipstick, leaving only a rough stain around the edges of her mouth.

“You’ll have to do some work for me here at the library to pay for the book.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You can’t make me work. I’m thirteen. What about child labor laws?”

Eugenie smiled. “Well, you’re welcome to call the police if you think I’m violating the law.”

Hannah’s shoulders slumped. “You’re evil.”

Now Eugenie could laugh. “No, Hannah. I’m not evil.”

She paused for effect. “I’m a librarian.”

“So what do I have to do?” Hannah demanded, one hand on a bony hip that jutted out. “Shelve books, sweep, stuff like that?”

“For today, yes.”

Hannah scowled. “I have to work for more than a day?”

“We’ll start with an hour a day on weekdays and a halfday on Saturday.”

“You’re kidding. For how long?”

“For as long as it takes.”

The girl grumbled, but she didn’t protest further. Eugenie thought she looked secretly relieved. Something to do after school. A way to get out of the house on Saturday. Both were probably a blessing to Tracy Simmons’s daughter.

“And one other thing.” Eugenie looked down at the torn pages in her hand. “You have to participate in the Knit Lit Society.”

“I don’t want to be in your nitwit society.”

“And I don’t think you have a choice.”

“They won’t want me.”

“Of course they will,” Eugenie answered, but she spoke with more confidence than she felt. “They’ll help you learn to knit as well as broaden your mind through reading.” Eugenie’s words were met with silence.

“What do you like to read?”

Again silence.

“What were your favorites when you were younger?” she persisted. “Little Women? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz?” She couldn’t remember this Hannah coming to the library before, now that she thought about it.

“I never read any of those.”

“A Little Princess? Pollyanna?” Eugenie asked with rising incredulity.

Hannah shook her head. “I tried that one about the girl on the mountain. You know, the one where her mother died and she went to live with her grandfather.”

Eugenie was afraid she could see the appeal Heidi might have held for Hannah. “Well then, I think I know what the Knit Lit Society will be reading next.” She turned toward the information desk and motioned Hannah to follow. “Come on. We’ll start with some dusting. After I close up, we can walk over to Munden’s Five-and-Dime to buy some yarn and needles.”

“I told you I don’t have any money.”

“You can work the needles and yarn off as well. Besides, the Knit Lit Society meets tomorrow evening, so you’ll need them.”

“My mom won’t let me come down here on a Friday night.”

Eugenie doubted that Tracy Simmons cared about Hannah’s whereabouts on a Friday night. Or any other night for that matter. The last Eugenie had heard, Tracy worked as a cocktail waitress at a seedy bar on the outskirts of Sweetgum.

“You leave that to me,” was all she said in response to the girl’s protest. She stepped behind the circulation desk and reached into a cubby for a dust cloth. “Here.” She held it out to Hannah. “Start in the fiction section over there with the A’s. And when you see Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, pull it out. That will be our first book.”

Hannah’s eyes widened. “I can’t read that by tomorrow night.”

“Of course not. That will be next month’s selection.

Tomorrow you’ll just meet the other members of the society. And learn to knit.”

Hannah looked skeptical. “Whatever.” But in spite of her resistance, she took the dust cloth.

“Don’t forget the lower shelves,” Eugenie admonished as she walked away.

Half an hour later, Eugenie looked around to find Hannah Simmons sitting on the floor between the stacks of the Sweetgum Public Library, her head buried in a copy of Little Women, a forgotten dust cloth on the floor beside her. Eugenie watched the girl from behind the information desk and allowed herself a small, satisfied smile.

Now all she had to do was convince the Sweetgum Knit Lit Society to welcome their newest member.

Chris Plekenpol graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1999. He served in the Army for 7 years as an Airborne Ranger qualified officer. He deployed from South Korea to Iraq in 2004 as a tank company team commander responsible for one hundred men and 85 million dollars worth of equipment. The toughest part of his job was losing six men under his command. Chris is a dynamic public speaker and now attends Dallas Theological Seminary.

Product Details

List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 244 pages
Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (March 5, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1419662392
ISBN-13: 978-1419662393

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Chapter One

Fourth of July
July 4, 2005

“Men, happy Fourth of July. You can take it off when you are done with your shift,” I quipped.

“Thanks sir.”

“Now get out there and don’t forget, it is better to let a bad guy get away than to kill a civilian. Try not to start a fireworks show out there.” I smiled.

“Roger.”

Unfortunately, the fireworks display did come. LT Klemcke was commanding his tank in Charlie sector enjoying the dusk and the escape of the daily heat. Out of nowhere, LT Klemcke heard a loud crack and it felt like someone was pulling on his helmet. He looked to his loader for an explanation and the look on SPC Coddington’s face was one of surprise. They then found a piece of shrapnel on their tank and realized what had happened. An RPG had just struck their tank.

Immediately, LT Klemcke ordered the driver to move out and SGT Cardenas to scan to the south to the location where he thought the RPG came from. As he did so, SGT Cardenas spotted a man with an RPG running from behind a taxi to behind a wall.

“I got a guy with an RPG.” SGT Cardenas alerted his tank commander.

“Fire.” Came the response of LT Klemcke.

“COAX, On the way.” SGT Cardenas replied as he laid down machine gun fire trying to hit the RPG man.

“He is behind the wall.” SGT Cardenas said, “Switching to Heat.”

“Fire.” LT Klemcke replied.

With a massive blast the wall fell down. Not only that but the round skipped off the wall and hit a transformer that was behind the wall causing the transformer to explode. Sparks and fire shot into the air. LT Klemcke moved his tank into the area to further investigate.

Nothing. No bad guys. Another one had slipped away.

I decided to move out there to see if we could find any clues or if the people had any idea as to where this RPG shooter had come from. Moving to the scene I found the fallen wall, and the transformer spilling fire on the asphalt. People had started to gather in the alley.

I dismounted my tank and met SFC Gondek on the ground. He and a squad of infantry evacuated some casualties caused by the blast, nothing too serious. He and I went and interviewed those in the streets. Mohammed, my interpreter, spoke for me. But before we could ask questions, they demanded to know why we had blown up their transformer.

“Why you shoot for no reason?” a man asked in broken English. At this, I wanted to grab the guy and shake him, and ask him ‘do you really think we shoot for no reason?’ However, I maintained composure.

“There was a man with an RPG,” using hand gestures to depict the situation. “One of my tanks was shot at. Did you see anyone with an RPG in your area?”

There was a pause as if the guy was thinking about his response. Then through Mohammed, he said, “We don’t know.”

“You don’t know? How can you not know?”

“Was there anyone here that you did not know with an RPG?”

“We don’t know.”

Mohammed, got frustrated for me. His voice rose as he told them in Arabic. “Yes or No. There is no ‘I don’t know.’”

“I don’t know.”

“Mohammed turned to me, “Same s___, suhr, they say they don’t know anything.”

I could not understand it. There was something they were not telling me. I wasn’t going to beat a confession out of them. The American Justice system in Iraq would prevail, even if it was to the prolonged violence for these people. Why did these people not want to end the violence? Not want to turn in those who would bring destruction on their own people due to cross fires? I couldn’t understand it. Freedom from war was only a breath away. I couldn’t understand it. What in the world was keeping them from wanting to experience freedom?

I gave them a speech through Mohammed expressing my desire and my heartfelt prayer that they would experience freedom. I told them that we needed to work together and grip hands so that together we could defeat the insurgency and bring peace to this land. They smiled and agreed at the words, but I wondered what was going on in their hearts.

I turned to head back to my tank. Behind me a woman shrieked and a man came running at me as fast as he could. He held out a little girl not older than 10. She was bleeding and her breathing was labored. SFC Gondek took the girl in his arms and raced back to the Bradley. I radioed ahead.

“This is Apache 6, he have a dying little girl and we need to get her medical attention now. We are bypassing the clinic and taking her straight to the hospital. Tell battalion to let them know we are coming! This girl was hit by shrapnel from the firefight with the insurgent.”

“Roger that.”

As I rode back, I mulled all these things over in my mind. These people were in between a rock and a hard place. Many people would call the US for help and we responded to where a bomb was planted and blew it up. Unfortunately terrorists would often respond to that with a gangster style drive by shooting leaving the informant dead. Or we would arrest a terrorist, but due to insufficient evidence we would have to return him in three months to the population and he would seek his revenge. So although the Iraqi people wanted to be free, the cost of personal safety became too great. They had families to think about. And when a little girl would get hit by shrapnel in a firefight, there was one more reason not to trust the Americans. They had their lives to think about. And for them, better to live in fear than risk it all.

I began to understand and then I thought of my own life. Many times I find myself in the midst of the same quandary. I want to do what is right. I want to exhibit freedom in Christ. Yet, there are times where I find myself lingering on in my sinful nature. Can I give up safety and what I know for the risk of what God wants and desires for my life? Sin, although not God-honoring, can be comforting. For me, my secret sins provide me a release to escape life for a moment.

My sinful nature hates the light, so when I step into a confrontation of the Holy Spirit in my times alone with God there is a cleansing and a renewing of faith. There is a sense of clarity on life and everything is in order. However, I know that I become even weaker if I think I can grow stronger by willpower, or if I think I can handle my sinfulness by myself.

Jesus points this out in Luke 11:24-2-6, “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.”

My heart, when confronted with sin can repent and receive full cleansing. Yet, for me there is always an extreme battle as darkness tries to overwhelm the light. The enemy uses whatever he can to intimidate, to create doubt, to instill a sense of powerlessness in our lives. And there have been times where I have believed the lies and found myself worse off than when I began trying to get closer to God. The end result was losing the battle and falling further away from the Lord.

I don’t know if you have ever been there. I don’t know if you can relate to that, but I don’t think I am too different from you. I find that there really isn’t a super spiritual answer other than rely on others to hold me accountable so that I don’t find myself in the self-destructive habits of sin.

Ecclesiastes says, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12)”

The insurgents in Iraq threaten civilians and make them feel as if they have talked to everyone in the entire town, and if they even mention their name even to their neighbor, they will be killed. My prayer is that these Iraqi civilians would become a united front against the insurgency, because a cord of three strands is not easily broken.

In the same way, my prayer is that we as Christians would overcome fear that we are the only ones dealing with whatever sin that we are struggling with and unite. That we would look to our fellow believers in Christ and take a stand and lift each other up and defend each other from the grip of the enemy.

Are you in the depths of sin, chok-slammed by the enemy, feeling as though he has the upper hand and will not let you go? Are you afraid to tell anyone for fear that you may be hurt, or looked down upon, or face the consequence of your sin? Are you willing to step out of the darkness of fear and into the mercy of God?

Darkness rose from somewhere within her. Blackness, like a great, choking wave. Immersing her, drowning her, until she couldn’t breathe under the weight of it. It flooded her mind, spilled down her back, and submerged her limbs in icy heaviness. She fought against it…and failed. Deeper. Darker. Until her world was nothing but a black river, crashing in currents of pain.

Help me… The words squeezed from her, unspoken yet real. They became a silent cry, like mist above the water, shimmering, then gone. Did anyone hear? Did anyone know? Was there someone listening out there beyond the darkness? Help me. Don’t leave me alone. Please…

Time wavered. Stillness breathed. In. Out.

Then a voice dipped into the blackness. A single word, spoken from a world beyond her own. It came like a slender ribbon of light, rippling over the waves. “Maddie…”

I’m here.

“Maddie.”

One word. And in it, hope.

I am not alone.

The water receded. A little.

“Wake up. I’ve come to take you home.” The blackness shivered, broke, then settled into a familiar gray. Her breath came again, steady and comforting.

“Can you hear me, Maddie?” The voice caressed her, embraced her in its gentle warmth.

I hear you. The answer formed in her mind but refused to be spoken. Stay with me.

“Come to me. Remember.”

I can’t. Silence. Dreaded, awful silence.
Please… Don’t leave me… You promised…

The dreariness of the hospital room pressed into Paul’s consciousness more heavily than the Monterey fog pressed outside the window. Damp. Gray. Cold and unwelcoming. A moment, a lifetime, before he had laughed and loved, hoped and dreamed. But all that had tunneled into this one image—a flickering fluorescent light, the reek of antiseptic, and the woman he loved in the bed before him. His vision blurred.

“Maddie…”

The word fell and was lost in the buzz of the light, in the steady beep of the EKG machine. For so long he had sat here, with doctors and nurses going in and out, taking her blood pressure, scribbling on charts. He’d almost lost track of them all, as the day faded to twilight. As shifts changed. As visiting hours dwindled. But no one would ask him to leave. Not tonight. Because Maddie was doing much worse than anyone let on.

It was going to be a long night. And there was no way he was going to leave her.

So he sat here, watching the liquid drip incessantly through clear tubes, watching Maddie’s chest rising, falling. And the fog blotting out all hint of the California sky. So long, yet nothing changed.

Outside the room a gurney squeaked, an intercom rumbled, footsteps hurried past and faded. Outside, the world went on. But here, in this tiny room, life teetered on the edge of darkness.

How had it come to this? To a hospital bed, a frayed chair, and an ocean of silence between them? All the years. All his love. All the memories of a lifetime past. All captured in this one woman, pale, shriveled, so different from the vital, lively girl who shared his heart. She lay there with her eyes closed, her breath ragged, her lashes dark against sunken cheeks. A single lock of hair, damp and dull, curled over her forehead. Tubes lined her cheeks, her arms, trailed over her chest. Rising. Falling. Breath rasping from lips once red, now the color of ash.

Why did it have to be like this?

“Maddie.”

Did he speak aloud? No one heard. Did she? Could she?

Paul leaned forward. He reached toward her. If he could just take her hand, pull her back from the dark place where she’d gone. But he couldn’t touch her. Not yet. She was too fragile, her life hanging by too thin a cord. “Wake up. I’ve come to take you home.”

But Maddie didn’t stir.

“Can you hear me, Maddie?”

Was that a sigh? Did her finger twitch? A shiver ran through him.

“Come to me.” It’s time. Come out of the darkness. Remember. He waited. A second. An eternity. Almost. Almost he had reached her. A pen clicked. Shoes squeaked.

Paul straightened.

A nurse in hospital blue hurried to the far side of the bed. “Blood pressure check.”

Paul stood and moved away from the chair. “Not again.”

The nurse pursed her lips and didn’t answer. She just checked the levels of clear liquid dripping in the tubes, tapped the band around Maddie’s arm, then glared in his direction.

Paul sighed.

The nurse stabbed her pen at him. Her forehead bunched. Paul jumped to the side. “Oh. Oops.” He had been standing in front of the EKG machine.

“Blood pressure’s good.” With brisk efficiency, the nurse reversed her pen and wrote something on her clipboard. Then she turned and paused. For a brief instant, her hand brushed Maddie’s. Her voice softened, as if she knew, understood, how hard this night would be.

“Hang in there. Won’t be long now.”

The words twisted through Paul’s mind.

She clicked her pen again, shook her head, and rushed from the room.

Paul stared at the place where the nurse’s fingers had touched Maddie’s hand, so white against sheets that were whiter still. And her skin so thin that it seemed translucent. Delicate, frail. Yet, the freckle just below her left thumb was still there, reminding him that some things don’t change. Some things are forever.

Warmth flowed through Paul. Perhaps, just once, he could kiss that freckle again. He’d done that, for the first time, years ago. Her hands were strong then, young and tan. But the freckle was still the same. He smiled. The kiss had been a joke, really. A prank done in passing. Yet he remembered it still. A simple gesture that changed everything. At least
it had for him.

“Do you remember?” He spoke, knowing she couldn’t hear him, knowing she was still too far away to understand.

“It rained that morning, before the sun came out.”

Only the steady beep of the EKG answered him.

His voice lowered. “Come, Maddie, remember with me. Remember the day I fell in love.”

Palo Alto, 1973

Paul smashed his racquet against the small blue ball. The ball thwacked into the front wall and zoomed toward the back corner. Maddie raced left, her racquet extended. She slowed, pulled back, and swung.

Paul squatted, ready.

Air swooshed through the strings as Maddie’s racquet missed the ball by a good three inches.

Paul relaxed.

Maddie’s shoulder slammed against the wall. The ball dribbled into the corner.

“You all right?” He wiped his brow with his wristband. “That last chem exam gotten to you or something?”

“What do you know about exams?”

He grinned. “Not much anymore, thankfully. It’s been a couple
years.”

Maddie grimaced. “Well, maybe if I had some fancy research job in a big pharmaceutical company I could joke about exams too.” Paul bounced the ball with his left hand. “I’m telling you, money’s in research these days.”

She rolled her eyes. “Blah blah. I think I’ll stick to being a doctor…someday.”

Paul chuckled. “I’ll mix ’em, you fix ’em.”

It was an old joke. And not a very good one. “Just serve, would you?”

“You sure you’re ready?” He bounced the ball again.

“No.”

“Here goes.” He slammed his racquet into the ball. It hit the front wall and whizzed toward her. She swung. And missed. Again.

“Your game.” Maddie twirled her racquet, then let it dangle from her wrist. “What’s that? Four games now?” She scowled.

Five. Paul shrugged. “Who’s counting?”

She put her hands on her hips. “You are. And don’t pretend you’re not.”

Paul grinned, then sauntered over and picked up the racquetball. He popped it onto his racquet, making it dance there with small, precise bounces. “You wanna go again?” He tossed her the ball.

She let it drop. “I already owe you a pizza, a movie, popcorn, and a Coke. At this rate, I’m going to go broke.”

“Normally, I’d say it’s just bad luck. But…”

Maddie glared at him. “Go ahead, say it.”

“Well, you gotta admit your game’s off today.” His voice turned to a whisper. “Really off. Can’t blame that on a summer class.”

“Thanks.”

“So, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. It’s like the ball just vanishes before I hit it.”

Paul reached over and tousled her hair. He loved doing that. Her loose, short curls stood straight up when he did it just right. “Didn’t I tell you? That’s a new trick of mine.”

Maddie chuckled and punched him in the shoulder. “Come on, let’s quit while I’m behind.”

“Way behind.”

“Stop rubbing it in.”

Paul slung his arm around her shoulder and turned her toward the glass wall behind them. A blonde in red hot pants crossed on the other side of the glass. The blonde was so different from Maddie. Where the girl was tall and slender, Maddie was, well, medium. Five and a half feet tall, not slim, not stocky. Somewhere in between. Athletic and built for racquetball. Usually, anyway. Just not today.

He paused. “She’s new.”

“You mean you haven’t asked her out yet? Looks like I’m not the only one whose game is off today.”

Paul scooped the racquetball off the floor with his racquet. “The day is still young, my friend.”

Maddie shook her head. “What happened with the girl behind the soda counter?”

Paul opened the court’s door for Maddie and stood back as she slipped out in front of him. “I think she found me too suave and debonair.”

“Oh, yes, you’re very swave.” She purposefully mispronounced the word.

“All she did was giggle and talk about the Bee Gees. It was like she was fourteen.” He pulled out a towel from his gym bag and wiped the back of his neck.

“She’s nineteen. And everyone knows she’s a huge Bee Gees fan.”

“Well, you could have saved me a bundle on