Page 52 of With All My Heart, Joy

Isaac deposited Paisley into the backseat and climbed behind the wheel, cranking up the heat as Joy sat down beside him. He sat without moving for three seconds, absorbing the moment.

They felt like a family, the three of them, in the car together.

Which was utterly ridiculous. Joy had no interest in forming a family with him. The saying “that ship has sailed” wasn’t adequate. That ship didn’texist.

His heart tried to resist. Joyhadsat close to him at Fresh Ground. For as long as he lived, he wouldn’t forget the feeling of his leg against hers, knowing by her ragged breathing that he was affecting her. But she’d come to her senses and pulled away as he knew she would.

“You’re not far from here, huh?” He turned onto 4th Street from the park. Her address was 5th.

“Five and a half blocks. I guess I could have walked.”

“It’s not a problem.”

By the time he pulled to the curb in front of a flat-roofed apartment complex, Paisley was passed out behind him. “We wore her out.”

Joy glanced into the backseat. “Does she have…episodes…like that often?”

Isaac considered the past ten years. “Less than she used to, but the closer she gets to her teens, the more stubborn she becomes. Today was one of her stubborn days. We have rules, and she broke them tonight. I’ll be having a talk with her about it tomorrow. But I have learned a great deal of patience with her. And the ability to let things roll off me that would embarrass some others. I hope she didn’t make you uncomfortable tonight.”

Her quiet laugh was a welcome sound. “Not really. I’ve done some pretty weird things in public on camera. I’m immune to the people on the sidelines.”

She was so perfect for him. For Paisley.

He forced the thought from his mind. “I’m sure you have a lot to do. You better go in.” If she sat in the dark this close to him for much longer, he didn’t trust himself not to do or say something he’d regret.

Joy didn’t react to his statement. She made no move to leave his car. “Can I ask you a question?”

Her tone stirred uneasiness in his gut. “Absolutely.”

“If it’s not my business, just say so. But…what happened to Paisley’s mother?”

Would she look at him differently once she knew? “I was never married to her.”

“I know.”

Someone had been talking about him. And only one person who Joy knew had that information.

He sighed heavily. “The man I am today is not the same man I was ten years ago. Before Paisley.”

It was too dark in the car to read her expression when she turned her head to him. “I promise not to judge you if you tell me your story.”

If anyone should hear the full thing, it was Joy. “To explain, I have to go back, start at the beginning. My dad left when I was ten. It tore me up pretty bad. Although my mom remarried a good man two years later, I never accepted him as my dad. My mom was a true Christian, and she tried to raise me right, but in my teens I rebelled. I wanted to do whatever I wanted, and I resented my stepfather for any authority he exerted. I made our house pretty miserable.”

So miserable that he treasured his mother and Trevor’s forgiveness to this day. “I also rejected religion, breaking my mom’s heart. When I started college, I could have roomed at home, but I was eager to be away from my mom’s preaching. I got my own place. While I was a serious student, it didn’t take long for me to start attending parties on the weekend and…living it up.”

He didn’t look at Joy. She was too innocent to comprehend what his life had been like. He had no idea how many hook-ups he’d had freshman year. He never bothered to count.

“When I was twenty, I met Rachel. She was a straight-A student, focused on her studies. I had just switched my major to psychology after the dog bite incident. We were compatible and both came from religious backgrounds that we had tossed to the side. We had a lot in common and began a serious relationship. After graduation, we moved to Ann Arbor. She had been accepted to the University of Michigan Medical School, and I was enrolling in a master’s program.”

He paused to lick his lips, which had become painfully dry. Joy listened to him with rapt attention. He had no choice but to keep going. “We lived together. I was raised to believe cohabitation before marriage was wrong, but the timing to get married wasn’t right. When I did bring it up, she changed the topic. She was fully focused on school. I supported her the whole way through med school and residency. I was twenty-seven by the time she finished. I thought, finally, we can start our real life, get married, have kids. I bought a ring, ready to propose, when one day I found her packing. She said she’d fallen out of love with me and was ready to move on with her life.”

Joy’s sound of disbelief did little to soothe his soul. Retelling this story wasn’t easy. Despite the counseling he’d put himself through, talking about Rachel’s rejection always stirred some pieces of hurt that lingered. He’d doneso muchfor that woman. And she’d thrown it all away. He’d always suspected she’d met someone else while they were still together. Maybe she hadn’t physically cheated. But when social media pictures surfaced of her with a new boyfriend only two weeks later, no one would ever convince him she hadn’t left him for someone else.

“Right after that, while I was reeling from an unexpected and devastating heartbreak, I picked up a new counseling client. I wasn’t working in private mental health at the time, so it was a self-referral program through insurance. The client was a former classmate from Grand Valley State who, unbeknownst to me, had also relocated to Ann Arbor. I had…” He sighed and dropped his head. He’d been an idiotic fool, that’s what. “I had hooked up with her before my relationship with Rachel, during my sophomore year. So we had a history. That was awkward enough. But then her reason for seeking counseling was that she’d found her husband cheating and was going through a divorce.”

The words felt thick in his mouth. No matter how much he claimed the forgiveness God freely offered, he never shed his feeling of shame. As a counselor, he’d known better. Way better.

“We were both in vulnerable places. I knew I shouldn’t counsel her based on our history, but I did anyway. And…” His voice shook.

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