Page 64 of A Twist of Faith
Reese wanted to beat sense into her head. “Is playing the victim working for you, Dee? Thinking nobody else can hurt like you?” He shook his head. “That kind of thinking keeps you in the sad state you’re in. You’re trapped, Dee. With or without elevators, you’re trapped on the inside.”
“I know that. I feel it every day of my life,” she nearly screamed it at him. “How on earth am I supposed to just let it go?”
“I understand what it’s like to be so angry you think you’re going to burn from the inside out. Furious enough to tear a person apart with my bare hands.” He fisted the porch railing, pouring his reserved anger into it. “It’s not about being hurt, because bad things happen to everybody. It’s about what you do with the hurt and what you allow the hurt to do to you.” He stepped forward and took a hold of her shoulders. “You want to know how well I understand.”
Her gaze shot wide, stunned silent. Good. She needed to shut up and listen for a while.
“My wife of ten years had a two-year affair with my brother-in-law. Right under my nose.” He held up his fingers to prove his point. “Two years.”
Dee’s quiet gasp fueled his argument.
“Bad enough for you? Well, let me see if I can make it worse. Not only that, she became pregnant with my brother-in-law’s son.”
Dee’s mouth dropped open. “Brandon?”
“That’s right. My sweet boy isn’t my biological son at all.” Reese spit the sour words out, fire burning deep within him like an angry cat fighting to claw its way out. “It gets even better. You ready for more?”
“Reese, I’m sorry. I—”
“When Brandon was two months old, she ran off to find my sorry excuse for a brother-in-law. After six months of trying to work through her betrayal, after I’d brought her back into our family to make things work, she upped and left us to meet Rainey’s husband. I had the whole countryside out looking for her. Tom was the poor man who found her.”
“The car crash …”
“Yep, she got out of it all, didn’t she? Took a good man with her.” Reese drew in a deep breath and shoved the anger back into its hiding place. The hurt never left completely, but he could calm the flame to a simmer. “I hated her for a long time, but all the hatred ate me up inside. I became a person I didn’t want to be. A person God didn’t want me to be. An angry, hateful person.”
Dee’s expression softened to wonder. “So you forgave her? Just like that?”
“No. It took a year and a half of praying and crying out to God before my heart started changing. It’s not something you can do by yourself because it goes against every human emotion we have.” He took her hand and smoothed his fingers over her knuckles. “Only God can help heal a wound like yours, darlin’.”
Dee looked up toward his mama’s house. Her shoulders straightened and chin tilted upward as if she was getting ready for battle. “I’ll go and talk to her, but I don’t know how I can ever forgive her.”
With those chilling words, Dee stepped from the porch and trudged up the path. Reese gave her a good head start, hoping the cool air might drive some of the rage away. She carried so much hurt, he could practically see it tying her spirit in knots. Reese offered a quick prayer up to heaven and then followed along, keeping a slight distance.
Her pace slowed. She finally stopped midhill and turned to him, round gaze crying out for a rescue he couldn’t give … no matter how much he wanted to. Her pain had brewed years longer than his and braided into the person she’d become, into her very definition of truth and life. The thought of suddenly releasing it had to be terrifying.
Yet, underneath it all slept a confident and compassionate woman. He’d caught glimpses in her interactions with him and his family, but the hidden woman remained shoved into a safe box away from sight. Maybe waiting too? For the right kind of healing?
“How could you forgive her?” The edge in her voice had disappeared. “She betrayed you in the worse possible way. How could you?”
It would sound too simple. Too easy. But he didn’t know another answer. “Jesus.”
She lowered her gaze to his chest and spoke with words barely audible. “You preach a different Jesus than my father.” Her watery gaze met his, confused. “And I’m really not sure who to believe.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he stuck his hands in his pocket like an idiot and shrugged. She searched his face, intent on an answer he didn’t quite know how to express. How did he tell her that her daddy was wrong?
With a heavy sigh, she started walking again, but he stayed close, watching the play of emotions across her face and praying for a revelation, for both of them.
Just before they reached his mama’s porch, Reese leaned over to her and took her hand. “Maybe it’s time you figured out what kind of Jesus is the real Jesus. Not mine or your daddy’s or anybody else’s. You like research, right?”
She offered a slow nod.
“Then do some research on your own to find your answer.”
She blinked away her tears and took in a deep breath. “Maybe so, Reese.”
Reese followed her into the house and prayed the Finder of lost things would bring Dee home.
Chapter 13
