Page 58 of Wishes on Wildflowers
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Someone slippedinto the seat next to Nathan at the back of the courtroom. He glanced over and did a double-take. “Dan?”
Dan Ranta jerked his chin toward the front, where Basil sat alone in front of the judge. Well, alone other than the clan arrayed in the front rows. If it hadn’t been for the sight of Jasmine’s long dark hair between her mother and Alex, Nathan might’ve sat with them, but he couldn’t be sure of his welcome.
“Figures his old man will probably bail him out.” Dan scowled and slumped in his seat. “He’s a golden Santoro, after all.”
“I don’t think that’s why they’re all here. They’re here because they love Basil, even though he blew it.”
“There’s some things that are pretty hard to forgive.”
Nathan quit trying to hear the proceedings at the front of the room. He angled toward the other man. “Yeah?”
“I can’t believe Dixie went out with him. What kind of lies did he feed her? She’s with me.”
The Dixie Nathan had seen that morning at the market looked like she’d fed herself the lies. Maybe fed them to Basil, too, though he was a grown man and had made his own choices.
Nathan chose his words carefully. “I imagine things are a bit tense around your place these days.”
“Oh, man, you have no idea.”
No, but he could guess.
“I came so close to kicking her out, but she’d take my baby. I can’t do that to Henry. He’s just started really smiling. He’s gonna be a cutie.”
“That does make things more complicated.”
Dan growled an expletive under his breath. “Mandy and Buddy are good kids, too. They don’t deserve a mother like her, but I’d have no right to them if we split. I don’t wanna be like their deadbeat dads, you know?”
Lord? What do you want me to say to this hurting man?
“It’s all his fault.” Dan pointed at Basil. “What’s he got that I don’t?”
A thousand thoughts chased through Nathan’s mind, but which of them — if any — should he voice? Dan sat beside him for a reason. No doubt about it.
“There’s no way my old man would be in the room if I had a DUI, I can tell you that. He’d curse me, then he’d kill me, and then he’d disown me. Well, maybe he’d come to laugh when they hauled me off in handcuffs.”
“Is that why you’re here? To see that Basil gets his due?”
“Yeah. That’ll teach him to go picking up attached women.”
Nathan took a deep breath. “You know, I’ve been learning a lot about mercy the last while. My dad would have reacted like yours, I think. If he’d even noticed.”
“Listen, I heard your old man kicked the bucket. Sorry about that.”
“We sure can’t count on our biological fathers, can we?” Nathan poked his chin toward the front. “But God’s a different kind of father, more like Ray Santoro. Someone who just keeps loving his kids, no matter what. Not condoning the mess they’ve made, not rubbing his hands for justice, just… loving.”
Dan shook his head. “Now you’re sounding like my sister and her fiancé. Man, Logan keeps talking to me about God. Not sure what the Big Guy has ever done for me.”
“Created you. Loved you. Offered opportunities for you to have a relationship with Him, so you can find out what being a father is really all about. Loving no matter what, always.”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure God doesn’t want me. I’m not good enough for Him. Now if I’d been born a Santoro, maybe, but a Ranta? Not so much.”
“I felt that way, too. Being a Hamelin hasn’t been so great, either. Trust me, I’ve been where you are, but that stuff doesn’t matter to God. He really just loves us, no matter who we are, where we’ve been, what we’ve done. He doesn’t play favorites.”
“I don’t get it. Makes no sense.”
“I know. It’s kind of hard to wrap our brains around God. He’s not like us. He’s so big. Made the universe and all. Made humanity. All He really wants is for us to turn to Him of our own free will and be sorry for thumbing our noses at Him for so long and doing our own thing. Just saying thank You to Him and accepting His grace. His love.”
