Page 16 of Beside the Rolling Waves
Should he have given her more time?
He pressed his lips together. He doubted it. People didn’t show up twenty minutes late. Especially Becky. She wasn’t coming. So why was he feeling so guilty that he wasn’t patient?
Maybe he was jumping to conclusions about who she was.
He wasn’t sure, he just knew she was supposed to be there and she wasn’t, and he felt like it was on purpose, a slam againsthim for whatever reason. Whether to get him back, or whether she was just flat-out mad.
He probably deserved it though. After the way he treated her, who was he to be upset with her?
He knew that was the right way to think about it as he walked in front of his vehicle. The locks clicked as he got close to the driver-side door and then got in.
He needed to be humble. If he saw Becky at the hospital, he would not be angry, he would be kind. Because… She deserved his kindness. After the way he treated her anyway, and as a Christian, that was who he wanted to be. No matter how people treated him.
Eight
Becky opened her hand and slapped the side of her pickup.
Of all the days for her pickup to decide to not start, today was the day. This was just great. She had to get feed, her horses were going to starve, and she was supposed to be meeting with Rodney in…she pulled her phone out of her pocket. Five minutes ago. She was supposed to be there five minutes ago.
She’d spent the last twenty minutes trying to get her stupid truck started, and of course, it wouldn’t start today. Of course, today was the coldest day of the year so far, with a low of -21 this morning.
The water in the barn had frozen, and her toilet had ice chunks floating in it before she flushed it.
She’d actually clicked the heat up a few notches, even though she had no idea where she was going to get the money to pay for it.
She stood beside her truck, her eyes closed, her head back, lifting her face to the Lord, silently asking for help.
But God was quiet about what she should do about her truck.
She knew what she needed to do about her horses though. She decided that she would at least do it in the relative warmthof her apartment. It was warmer than it usually was, and she was already shivering, despite her frustration and anger.
If she had a can of ether, she might have been able to get her truck started, but she couldn’t spray the ether and turn it over at the same time, so she still had to take the time to go get someone to help her, and by then, Rodney absolutely would not be waiting around for her.
Not that he didn’t deserve her standing him up, but she wouldn’t have done it. He would have known that she wouldn’t have done it, of course. He probably wondered where she was. In fact, she wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if he came out to check on her. After all, he knew she got angry, but he also knew that she was fair, and honest, and very, very punctual.
She did not smile, although she did remember a few times giving him a long, passionate lecture about how it was important for responsible people to be on time.
She made it into the house, and up the stairs, and sat down in the folding chair that made up her entire kitchen seating arrangements. After pulling her gloves off, she got her phone out. She’d been composing the ad in her head for some time now, and so the words flowed easily from her fingers.
She knew that she could price her horses to sell, and they would be gone in hours. What she had was high quality, and they were well trained and had absolutely no vices.
She could command top dollar for them, but she was willing to take about eighty percent of what they were worth, just to get them sold quickly. She didn’t want to drag this on any longer. The sooner she got rid of them, the sooner she would have to stop buying feed, and…if she got rid of them tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter that she’d run out of feed tonight.
She still had hay, and they’d be okay without grain for once.
By the time she was done and hit post, tears streamed down her face, and she was glad she had chosen to do it in the warmthof her apartment. They would have been frozen if she would have been sitting downstairs in the stable. And how could she sit in the stable with the horses of her heart when she knew she was posting them to sell?
They might not go together either. She hadn’t specified in her post that they needed to. She would split them up if she had to, and they would be fine. No one was going to pay what she was asking for these horses and not take good care of them. But still, she would vet their homes, and in the ad, she required references.
There. That hard thing was done. She’d broken up with Rick, if one could call it that, and now, all she had to do was get a reliable vehicle. Because if she was going to have babies, she was going to have to take them to doctor’s appointments at least, and she needed something that she could get around in.
She would trade her truck in for a little car. One that was big enough to have car seats in the back and a trunk that could haul whatever paraphernalia babies required. She was pretty sure it was a good bit. She’d been around enough babies in her life to know that kids could be rather high maintenance at times.
Her heart ached, but her chest felt lighter. She knew she was doing the right thing. People were always more important than things. Even when she loved those things with all of her heart.
Lord, I know I’m doing the right thing. I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.
Nine
