Page 24 of Over the Verdant Hills
It was interesting that at that moment, through the speakers, she heard a verse from John about love.
Okay, Lord, I hear You. But can I have a little bit of time to process? To get used to the idea? Do I have to make a spur-of-the-moment decision right this second to meet with her? Surely I’ll see her around again.Although maybe Grace was just visiting, and she wouldn’t see her around for another year or more.
And she was with Trevor.
She was still stewing about it, although it helped to have the Bible in her ear. She knew she should be kind and was overreacting. She should just be kind. It was that simple. Sometimes simple was hard, though. And this was one of those times, where she knew what she needed to do—be kind. Just like that. But actually doing it? Totally different story, and not easy at all.
Josiah was already working on the front porch when she walked up to the farmhouse.
Her grandma had said that she was going to sit in the chair and do her devotions, but the last three mornings she’d done that, she’d fallen asleep.
Claire didn’t want to go inside and wake her up. Plus, it was a beautiful day—warm and sunny and promised to be the perfect temperature, with a gentle lake breeze keeping the bugs at bay.
She happened to be scraping right along the corner end of the house, almost directly beside where Josiah was working.
She got into the lift, moved it into position, and picked up the torch.
“Have a nice walk?” Josiah said without stopping his work. He was scraping and taking down the railing of the porch. He was going to replace it with a new, more durable type of composite material that would look natural but would last forever, according to the salesperson anyway. Her grandma wanted to try it.
“I guess,” she said. And then sighed. She didn’t want to talk about this with Josiah, but she wanted to talk about it with someone. And not her grandma either, since she didn’t want to upset her grandma. Plus, she knew her grandma would tell her that she needed to be kind. She’d heard that lecture often enough when she was a kid. She doubted it had changed in all the years she’d known her grandma, and she knew her grandma was right.
“That sounded like a ‘no’ to me,” Josiah said, and there was humor in his tone.
“Don’t women have the prerogative to say the exact opposite of what they mean?”
“It wasn’t quite the exact opposite, but it seems like they take it whether they have it or not,” Josiah returned, and there was still humor in his voice. It was like that was something he had accepted from the female gender. She didn’t necessarily think it was a good thing, but she knew she had a proclivity toward that. And she didn’t consider it lying, even though technically it was. She justconsidered it…not burdening other people with what she was thinking.
“If you want to talk about it, I’m stuck here for a while, so you can if you want to. I have been told I’m a good listener.”
He really was a good listener. Far better than Ted. When she talked to Josiah, he actually heard what she said and remembered it.
He was able to form replies that made sense and have a conversation about it.
Ted had trouble having conversations about anything that didn’t directly involve him.
Claire hoped that she was a little better than her husband in that regard, but it seemed like Josiah only got to talk about her life, although he had opened up about his mother the other day.
She should ask about her, but before she did that, she decided she would go ahead and tell him what was bothering her. Maybe it would be too much for him. That would save her from having to talk to him the rest of the day anyway.
“I met Grace on the beach.”
“Grace Honea?”
“Yeah. That’s probably not her name anymore, but yeah.”
“I remember you and she were best friends in high school.”
“Until she stole my boyfriend from me.”
“He was your boyfriend, was he?” Josiah said immediately, and Claire closed her mouth.
“No. He wasn’t.” She had to admit that hadn’t stopped her from accusing Grace of stealing him. Because Grace knew she liked him. But Trevor had never shown any interest in Claire. He had always had eyes only for Grace, which had made Claire insanely jealous. And even though she wasn’t madly in love with Trevor, she had told her friend that she was, just because of the friend code, where friends didn’t date a guy that their friend was madly in love with.
Except that had only kept Grace and Trevor apart for a little while. And then they hadn’t been able to resist the pull of the two of them together and had gone out together for a while.
Grace had been upset the entire time, though, because Claire wouldn’t talk to her.
Claire had used that as an excuse, but in reality, it was just the idea of being around Grace that made the tragedy seem more real. Putting some distance between them made it go away slightly, and she couldn’t hardly stand being around Grace, so she’d used the fact that Grace had “stolen” Trevor from her to keep them apart.
