Page 21 of There I Find Hope

Still, she regretted it. She wished she would have said yes and they could have set a date two months in the future or something. That would have given her enough time to...what? What did she need time to do?

Her mom said time healed all wounds, but it wasn’t even that she needed time to heal. She didn’t think she’d burst into tears in the middle of the dinner or anything. And although her appetite hadn’t exactly come back, she wasn’t feeling sick all the time.

Still, she couldn’t hardly change it, although she pulled her phone out of her purse more times than she could count over the last week, holding it in her hand, with her thumbs poised above the screen, wanting to text him and ask him if he wanted to meet at the diner.

Had it been just a casual invitation? He had told her that she could be the one to ask him, but he hadn’t said how long he would be willing to say yes.

She was afraid she’d lost her chance.

But she supposed he’d taken the chance to ask to begin with. She should take the chance to ask and see if he was still interested. It seemed only fair that both of them were risking something.

“I’m going to go scrub the bathroom that I missed this morning. I can’t believe I forgot it,” her mother said as she shook her head and walked away.

Anytime something like that happened with her mom, she worried that maybe her mom was going senile or getting Alzheimer’s. She didn’t think so, but it was something that was in her head.

And there she was, worrying again. She needed to rest in the knowledge that God was going to do whatever was best. And if that meant her mom got Alzheimer’s, they would have to find a way to deal with it.

Another good thing that came from Blake’s death.

It seemed like the good things were piling up. And the bad things... Maybe they weren’t getting smaller, but they seemed less impossible to overcome.

Today was the day. She decided that as soon as she was finished with the brochure, she was going to go to her apartment. Maybe she would just be able to step into the candy store. Although, that would be almost as painful as her apartment, since Blake’s presence would be everywhere. She put toys behind the counter for him to play with, she ordered a certain kind of candy because he enjoyed it. She made his favorite and displayed it prominently.

She hit print on the brochure and then closed her computer.

Taking the printed brochure from the printer, she folded it. It was smaller than it would be, since the paper was just regular paper, but it was a good representation of what she wanted.

At some point, she would text Noah and let him know that she had the first sample for him when he was ready to view it.

It might be a little awkward talking to him, but she would have to push that aside. Maybe she’d have another chance to apologize. But it didn’t bode well for the relationship if she started out every conversation with an apology. She wanted to be better than that.

Sticking the brochure in her purse, she hollered up the stairs to her mom that she was leaving and walked out.

Maybe she could do this. Her stomach revolted, and her feet felt like she was walking through wet cement.

Her chest felt weighted down and heavy, and she almost turned around three times before she was out of the yard and onto the walk.

She turned toward the lake, lifting her eyes to look at its vast blue expanse and remembering that if God could keep the waters of the lake within the shores, He could certainly help her walk a two-block walk to her candy shop.

She thought about stopping at Kristin’s. She hadn’t talked to her since last week before Noah had shown up. She wanted to find out how Becky and Rita were doing, and she wouldn’t mind stopping at the diner and finding out about Rodney too. Last she heard, he was almost ready to start offering rides with the buggy he had specially made to ride in the sand behind his Percherons.

From what she understood, Chi had indicated that he was going to take a gap year, but he’d applied to college for next year.

They were hoping he would stay close, but Chi had confided that she wanted him to do what God wanted him to do and not take her feelings into consideration. So she’d not said anything to him about wanting him to stay.

It was funny how quickly someone could worm their way into a person’s heart.

And how devastated a person could be when they were no longer with them.

She tried not to have those negative thoughts in her head, but it was hard.

The breeze blew, lifting her hair from her shoulders, as she walked, slower and slower, down the sidewalk.

Somehow her mouth was dry, and her heart hammered, and she wasn’t even sure why. She wasn’t afraid. She just...didn’t want to face the memories. Didn’t want to look at Blake’s things and realize he wasn’t there anymore. See him in her mind playing with them, hear him calling her name, wishing she had just one more time to tell him she loved him, one more night to tuck him in the bed. She hadn’t known that the last night was actually the last night. Maybe she wouldn’t have done anything differently, other than brand the memory in her head, because she didn’t even remember. It had been just another night. Like thousands of nights before and thousands of nights to come. She hadn’t realized it would be the last.

Could she live her life like every day was the last?

If she was going to do that, she would have said yes immediately to Noah. He was the kind of man who would be steady and stable.

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