Forgivin' Ain't Forgettin'

by Mata Elliott

Genres: Contemporary Christian; Religious & Inspirational; African American Romance

Synopsis

Cassidy Beckett reveals to her husband that as a college student she was forced to abandon her infant son by her then-boyfriend. Not only does Trevor support Cassidy after her confession, but he does some detective work on his own to help her find closure and the son she's never forgotten.

Release date: December 2, 2008

Publisher: Walk Worthy Press

Print pages: 433

Sample

acknowledgments

This book exists because of You, Heavenly Father. Without You, I could not have written one word. Thank You for choosing me to be a pen for You and for pulling me out of my comfort zone. Thank You for loving me when I did not love myself and did not love You. You are my Everything.

David Elliott, my husband and friend, thank you for giving me the opportunity to write full-time. You accepted the vision when I had only one page, so these few words here hardly measure the appreciation I feel.

To Lamont, my son, you have taught me a lot. Thank you for accepting me into your life and for being patient while I learned to be a mother.

To my father and mother, Wyman and Lillian Taylor. Although you are gone from this life, I can still feel your hugs and hear your many, many words of encouragement. Thank you for your daily example of what it meant to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul. I always smile when I think of you.

Aunt Eunice Tucker, you’ve lovingly supported every major event in my life. I’m so glad you’re here for this one, too. Cousins Maria Watson, Michelle Harris, Stephanie Watson, and Alex Morgan, a special thank-you for cheering me on. And to all my family, Watsons and Taylors, I could not have come this far without you.

To my mother-in-law, Mary Elliott, thank you for praying for me. To my sister-in-law, Mary Franklin, thank you for answering every question I had about anything. To each member of the Elliott family, I love you.

Elder and Mrs. Harold B. Hayes, Sr., thank you for taking on another daughter and always making me feel at home in your presence. I am blessed to have you.

To Pamela Williams, my sister, you’ve proved you don’t have to share blood to be family. Thank you for being in my life for the last twenty years, for believing early on my book was good enough to be published, for listening to me talk about my characters as if they were real people, and for always telling it like it is.

Donna Booker, our mothers met when you were a toddler and I was still in the womb. I believe they knew then we were destined to be tied at the heart. Thank you for your many cards and gifts of encouragement, which always arrived on the days I needed them most.

My godmother, Vanessa Liggett, you have the biggest heart and most loving spirit of anyone I know. Thank you for never tiring of praying for me. Thank you for the music.

Nancy Stevenson, the first time I told you I was writing a book, you took me seriously and have from then on. Without wavering, you walked with me through the good days and the rough ones, too. Thank you.

Linda Poole, before I owned a computer, you allowed me to sit at yours (for hours) and write the first chapter of my book. Not many people would have done that, which goes to show just how beautiful you are. Thank you for all the Web site help, too.

God has blessed me with a camp of spiritual mothers: Dorothy Howard, Janet Wilder, Celeste Walton, Velma Spain, and Jacqueline Williams. Your daughter loves you.

Dexter and Tiffany Godfrey, I am honored to have you in my life. Thank you for standing on God’s promises with me, and for opening your home when I came that way.

Mayola James, Carolyn Boston, Cheryl Threadgill, Robin Williams, Brenda Chamberlain, Charity Jones, and “my sista” Casey Hayes, whenever I ran into you, you had something positive to say about my writing and that meant so much.

There were those who poured words of motivation into my life early on: Mrs. Baxter, my fourth grade teacher, who assigned me the job of writing the class Christmas play. Former youth minister, Rev. Edward Cross, Jr., who made a “big” deal out of all my “little” essays. And the late James Jefferson, the first writer I knew.

Mrs. Jean Love Robinson, I’m so thankful God sent such a wonderful writer and person my way. Watching you, I’ve learned how to hold my head up higher and to make the most of every day. What a light you are.

Mrs. Katherine Reed, I am grateful for your prayers through every stage of my life. And thank you for calling me on the morning I left for my first overnight writers’ conference. I will always remember.

Prayer warriors: Mother Evelyn Simpson, Mother Vernice Copeland, Dr. and Mrs. David Stevens, Pastor Roxanna Puriefoy, Ms. Doris Miller, and Minister Gail King. It’s been a comfort knowing you are going before God on my behalf.

Denise Thompson, Marion Taylor, Carla Cardwell, and Yolonda Marshall, you’ve been my girlfriends since before I was ten. How blessed I am! Crystal Miller, Hilarey Johnson, and Adria Carter, how blessed I am to have new friends like you!

To my Walk Worthy Writer’s Group: Leslie, Claudia, Olivia, MaRita, Aubrey, Kristin, Rodney, Colette, Pamela, and Gloria, meeting you face-to-face was one of the greatest events in my life. Thank you for reading my first one hundred pages and sharing your insight.

To my first church families, High Street Church of God and West Oak Lane Church of God. It is in these places I received a firm foundation. Thank you for all the love and prayers.

To my current shepherd, Pastor Alyn E. Waller. I continue to grow spiritually because of your love for the Word of God. Thank you for your commitment to Jesus Christ and your unconditional love for your flock.

Denise Gause of Denise’s Delicacies, you patiently explained the ins and outs of running a bakery. You also make the best butter pound cake I have ever tasted!

Lisa Crayton, you are a gift to the writing/publishing industry. Thank you for pulling me aside and speaking those words of life into my life. They continue to resonate through my heart.

To Diana Urban, thank you for helping me navigate through the editor and agent appointments at the ACFW conferences. Although I was tired, you wouldn’t let me cancel.

To the authors I met along the way who deposited a strong word of support: Carmen Leal, Dr. MaryAnn Diorio, Linda Windsor, Kimberley Brooks, Kendra Norman-Bellamy, Marilynn Griffith, Andrea Boeshaar, Louise Gouge, Kathleen Y’Barbo, Sharon Ewell Foster, Carrie Turansky, and Yolonda Tonette Sanders. I appreciate your willingness to help another writer make the journey.

To author and speaker Yolanda White Powell, you are a dynamic voice for God. I have learned so much from you.

To my publisher and mentor, Denise Stinson, under your guidance I’ve discovered what it means to be a writer for God and that nothing, not even writing for Him, is more important than Him. You are an inspiring woman of faith, and I thank you for the privilege of writing for Walk Worthy Press.

To my editor, Frances Jalet-Miller, thank you for the attention you dedicated to every aspect of my story. You made the editing process a pleasure. My sincere appreciation is extended to the entire Walk Worthy Press and Time Warner family for taking this novel to the next level.

Before I sign off, Anthony, wherever you are, thank you. You said this day would happen way back when we were in the sixth grade.

And to anyone I may have forgotten to list, truly you are not forgotten, but I am simply imperfect.

Finally, to everyone who reads this book, I am humbled that you selected it. God bless you.


prologue

She’d been taken.

He’d been left behind.

The man seated on the first pew gazed at the closest window. Strong, frequent gusts of fresh air blew into the room, yet he felt like a prisoner in the mouth of a skin-scorching oven. He dipped his fingers into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and retrieved a pack of antacids. With a slow fire rolling through his belly and the toast and orange juice he’d forced down this morning threatening to reappear, he placed a tablet on his tongue.

Perspiration dribbled from his sideburns and collected under the stiff collar of his shirt. He drew his hand along his throat, down to his tie, and pulled on the knot. It seemed like hours, but he’d only been in the stone church about thirty minutes, gathered with hundreds of others to say farewell. As sunshine illuminated the enormous stained-glass window at the front of the sanctuary and colorful rays of light crisscrossed above the pulpit, he closed his eyes and wrestled against the tears he refused to let drop, agonizingthat nothing would ever be the same. It was the beginning of a whole new way. And like a man unjustly sentenced for a crime he did not commit, he could not believe life had dealt him this hand.

He recalled the hour his world toppled with the ease of a preschooler’s blocks. The long hand had slipped to 12. The short hand hovered on 2. The clock on the hospital wall ticked death as a bedside monitor howled and a throng of scrubs-dressed people circled the bruised and broken body of his other half. The doctors and nurses did everything medically possible while he looked on from the other side of the door—hoping, praying, begging God for a miracle.

That was six long days ago. Restful sleep had eluded him since, the bags under his eyes as dark as his suit.

The heartburn that had caused such discomfort minutes prior began to ebb, his skin cooling now. Hopeful the music might numb the pain of a broken heart, he stared through the semidarkened lenses of the sunglasses he hadn’t bothered to remove and settled his sight on the choir. The director raised her hands, and the robed singers stood. But as the musicians began to play the introductory notes of a known-to-please spiritual, the man’s focus relocated to the place it had lingered so many moments already this morning. He studied the shiny pearl-tinted casket centered before the altar rails and surrounded by hundreds of bright full blooms.

It was difficult to tear his eyes away from the casket, but he brought his heavy gaze back to the choir. As the singers harmonized with the force and the grace of angels, a tiny hand slid along the inside of his wrist and up to the lines of his palm. He managed a slight smile at the four-year-old sitting beside him on the padded bench, then lifted her to his lap and hugged her to his chest. Two small legs dangled between the V of his large ones. Two forlorn eyes searched his before asking, “Daddy, why did Mommy leave us?”

He clasped her hands between his, the same gentle way one would shelter a fallen baby sparrow separated from the security of the nest. He whispered around the lump of tears in his throat, “Everything will be all right,” although he was skeptical that it was the truth.

A perfume that had been with him in the limousine continued to cloud around his head. The scent belonged to the woman leaning against his shoulder—his children’s godmother. Unrestrained sobs shook her shoulders, and he squeezed her hand. She pulled their joined hands into her lap, and the tears her handkerchief missed trickled between his fingers and over his wedding band. By now, the choir had reached the pinnacle of its song, rocking in the enraptured fashion expected. Many of the mourners were on their feet, clapping, bouncing. Those electing to remain seated displayed their joy with waving hands or handkerchiefs, toe tapping, and shouts of praise that coasted like wing-stretched doves to the high ceiling. But the musical gospel failed to console him. Close to weeping, he drew a breath for composure, dug his heels into the carpet, and blinked back all stinging tears before they could run rivers down his face.

He had to be strong for his girls.

He glanced at his older child, an arm’s length away on the same pew, her small hands folded so tightly they must have ached. The paternal longing to hold her as he was holding his little one knocked at his heart, yet he left her as she was, nestled in the curve of her aunt’s arm. The time when he had possessed the power to hug and kiss this daughter’s problems away was only a murky memory. She had withdrawn from him since her mother’s passing. Perhaps she wished it had been he who died. He had wished it. He would have gladly taken his sweetheart’s place so his children could have her back.

But God had not allowed it to be. And so it seemed he had not only lost his wife. He’d also lost his firstborn.

Three twenty-something women sat together near the rear of the crowded church. The one in the middle extended her polished nail and swept a piece of lint from her dress, the hem of the red garment inching toward her thighs as she crossed one slim leg over the other. She unzipped a small handbag, withdrew a compact, and popped it open.

“Can’t you go anywhere without that thing?” a disapproving voice said.

Ignoring the female sitting on her right, the woman in the red dress and red heels continued to idolize her reflection.

“Do you really think it’s appropriate to do that now?” The whispered question shot from the left this time.

The woman rolled her eyes. Any sensible female knew a funeral was one of the top ten places for meeting a man, making it essential to look her best. She extracted a tube of lipstick from her handbag and applied an additional coat, sharpening the color. “I look so good,” she cooed, bouncing her shoulders to a beat in her head.

“I know exactly what your butt is up to,” the petite lady on the right snapped, and several people in the vicinity sent reprimanding glances. She quieted to a whisper. “Anyone who knows you can see straight through your brain.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the reason you’re here.”

“I’m here for the same reason as everyone else.” She tried to sound sad. “I’m in mourning.” Batting her eyelashes, she returned the glamour accessories to her purse.

“You never even liked her,” she hissed.

The slender female on the left eased her back away from the pew and turned her head. “Why don’t you both save this drama for later? The pastor is speaking.”

The female in the middle squinted at the woman who had just subtly told them to shut up. She was sick of her holiness ways and modest wardrobe. Today her girlfriend’s black skirt was too long, the white collar of her blouse too high, and, as usual, the only makeup she had on was a tame shade of lipstick. “I’ll be the first to admit that me and what’s her name up there in the coffin were never close, but I do feel terrible about what happened to her,” the woman in red said as she toyed with a lock of her long curls. “However, she’s dead, not me. So why let the opportunity to delight in all these hard chocolate male bodies just slip by?” She stuck out her tongue and jiggled it. “Taste the chocolate.”

In a voice tense with rebuke, the woman on the left whispered into her ear, “Show a little respect. This is a church, not a club.”

Her chin jutted out. “I know where I am. And maybe I’ll start coming more often.” She nodded amen in response to the last statement the pastor had made, although she had no idea what it was.

“You don’t fool me, girl.” The woman on the right cooled herself with a straw fan. “Now that the man of your habitual delusions is single, you think you have a chance. You’ve always wanted him.”

The woman in red snatched the fan and fluttered it near her exposed cleavage. “Yes, at one time I was minimally attracted to him.”

“But you have no interest in him now?”

She stared ahead, waving the fan with increased momentum. “No interest at all.”

She was no stranger to visions, but certainly, a funeral was an odd time for a vision of a wedding. Startled by the arresting image, the gray-haired church mother jerked, sending the purple leather-bound Bible open on her lap to the floor. Bending to retrieve the divine book, she glanced across the aisle at the new widower. He was holding the hand of the beautiful woman next to him. They appeared to be dealing with their loss together. The church mother meditated some more on the vision, then leaned forward and helped herself to another look at the widower and the pretty-faced woman. A faint smile of enchantment and approval played on the church mother’s lips as she pondered how God would bring the marriage in her vision to pass.

chapter one

Ear-piercing screams filled the air. Cassidy Beckett tucked the towel around the baby and hugged him closer. She kissed his wrinkled forehead and rocked back and forth.

“What’s the matter with it?” Minister’s voice crackled with hostility.

“I don’t know.” Cassidy gulped, and more of her tears fell onto the bundle in her arms. Earlier, she had cleaned him up the best she knew how, then rubbed lotion on his tender skin. Now Cassidy pressed her cheek against the baby and sniffed, holding his soft scent inside her nostrils until her lungs gave way. “I don’t know how to calm him,” she cried, her voice shaking with each word.

“Well, you better hurry up and figure something out.” Contempt blazed in Minister’s eyes as he stared at the baby.

Cassidy’s cell phone hummed a series of notes, and she forced herself to stop thinking about Minister and the baby. Focusing on the present, she answered the phone. The caller had the wrong number, and after a polite exchange, Cassidy ended the call as the cab she occupied merged with the stream of traffic aiming for the next off-ramp. She was at least ten minutes from her destination, and so she had time to check her messages, and she logged in the code. One message waited in her voice mail box. Cassidy gritted her teeth and sighed from a place inside that was tired of dealing with Sister Maranda Whittle. She quickly scribbled Maranda’s number on a small notepad, then called the number, ready to take on Maranda for the last time.

“Praise the Lord!” Maranda answered after the second ring.

“Hello, Sister Whittle. This is Cassidy Beck—”

“Oh, yes, Cassidy,” Maranda cut in. Maranda smiled a full beam whenever she spoke to Cassidy at church, so Cassidy imagined Maranda was fully charged now. “I’m so glad you called. Have you given any more thought to our previous conversation?”

Cassidy’s stomach burned. “No . . . not much.”

“The Sparrow Ministry could use a young woman like you. Why don’t you come to our next meeting?”

No can do. Cassidy could not make the next meeting, the reason enfolded in personal conflict, which she would never unfold with Maranda or anyone else. So why couldn’t she just be blunt and answer Maranda with a no? Like the other times they’d spoken on this topic, her tongue hardened, and she could not lift it to speak one word that would let Maranda know without question she wasn’t interested in joining the Sparrow Ministry. Maranda stated the time and place for the next Sparrow Ministry staff meeting, probably assuming Cassidy was writing the information down. As if she sensed Cassidy’s desire to hang up, Maranda rushed through an oration on the ins and outs of the Sparrow Ministry that she had shared with Cassidy once before. “You be blessed,” Maranda tooted at the end of the call.

“You, too,” said Cassidy.

“Here we are,” the cabdriver said. Cassidy suddenly realized the driver had parked in front of her house. He came around, opened her door, raised his cap, and scratched his bald, dark-colored scalp. He put his cap back on tight, and only the woolly gray sideburns were visible again. Cassidy stretched her legs through the doorway and vacated the burned-popcorn-smelling car she’d spent sixty minutes of her life in. As the hem of a denim skirt dropped below her calves, she smiled up at the three-story semidetached dwelling standing before her. The bulbs in the pine boxes that bordered the second-level windows had bloomed while she was away, and a breeze encouraged the tiny flowers to wave and bow at her as if they were welcoming home royalty.

After a sigh of optimism, Cassidy said, “It’s good to be back.” She harbored no doubts, questions, or regrets. Leaving San Diego, returning to her children, remained a wise decision.

The driver, who’d introduced himself as Benny at the airport, spoke with certainty. “I’m sure you missed your little girl.”

Cassidy frowned, and Benny pointed toward the walkway leading to the brick house. A toy Corvette with an African American Barbie doll lounging in the passenger seat was parked in the dirt beneath a manicured shrub. Cassidy rubbed a hand over her microbraids from the start of her hairline to the bun at the back of her head. “One of the neighborhood girls must have left it there,” she said. No children lived at this address, just she and her great-aunt, Odessa. Several years prior, upon completion of graduate school, Cassidy had planned on moving out of Odessa’s house and renting an apartment. But Odessa had suggested that Cassidy continue living here and they would share the household bills.

Cassidy grinned as she thought of how surprised Odessa was going to be. Cassidy hadn’t told her she was returning today.

Benny lifted a large suitcase from the trunk and started toward the house.

“No,” Cassidy objected right away, “I can handle that.” Benny shrugged and placed the luggage at the edge of the walkway, and she handed him the fare with a generous tip.

Rounding his vehicle to the driver’s side, Benny shouted, “Enjoy the rest of the day . . . and the summer.”

Cassidy planned to enjoy every remaining slice of summer vacation. Breathing in the delicate fragrance of her aunt’s small garden, she flung aside the memory of Larenz Flemings, the man she’d dated at this time last year. Cassidy already vowed that this summer would be better, brighter, and by all means date-free, with the exception of Oliver Toby. Cassidy and Oliver Toby had a date every Wednesday afternoon.

A group of elementary-age girls drove by on bicycles, and Cassidy smiled, ACES stamped on her thoughts. The tutorial center, stationed in Charity Community Church, had been her idea. She had named it the Academic and Cultural Enrichment School. And while ACES had been left in capable hands, Cassidy was eager to return. The students weren’t just students. They were her children, those she loved and those who loved her.

The wind chimes hanging in the far corner of the porch tinkled as Cassidy looked over at her car, parked on the street. The previously owned Accord, hers for the last eight years, had been grounded, in need of significant repairs. Cassidy sauntered closer to the car and removed a brochure clamped beneath the windshield wiper. She skimmed the advertisement, an announcement detailing the grand opening of another neighborhood pizzeria. There was no room for pizza in Cassidy’s diet, so she crumpled the paper into a ball and stuffed the wad into her pocket. She continued to study the car and decided it must have rained a lot while she’d been out of town, because except for the bird droppings splattered on the windshield, her car was immaculate, the front bumper “burnished to a luminous shine,” she remarked to a squirrel scampering up a telephone pole.

Burnish.

It was Cassidy’s word for the week. She collected words the way some people collected stamps or dolls or coins.

“Cassie gal, is that you?” Emma Purdue, Cassidy’s longtime next-door neighbor, wobbled out onto her porch. Cassidy smiled in the direction of Emma’s loud voice as Emma limped down the steps and along the walkway with the assistance of a cane.

“Yes, Ms. Emma, it’s me.” Cassidy advanced upon the only person in the world who called her Cassie. Emma Purdue, slightly deaf in both ears and adamant about not needing the support of hearing aids, had yet to discover that Cassidy’s real name was Cassidy. With folks like Emma, once something got stuck in their head, it seemed to stay that way, and no matter how zealously the rest of the world poked, prodded, or protested, it didn’t change a thing. Cassidy had long ago accepted that to Emma Purdue she would probably remain “Cassie” forever.

Cassidy embraced Emma, the odor of fried chicken and collards billowing from the stout senior’s flowered housedress. The soul-food smell almost drowned out the thick and commonplace smell of the pomade Emma used on her short gray Afro.

“Whatcha doing back?” Emma asked, a hand on her hip, a hand resting on her cane. “Gal, ya not sick, is ya?”

Emma, with her Deep South upbringing and no more than eight years of school, often reverted to the way she spoke when she was a “gal” back home. Cassidy shook her head no to Emma’s question, appreciating the motherly concern threading through Emma’s voice.

“Did you eat enough while ya was at that teachas’ convention?” With the back of her hand, Emma wiped the mid-June heat from her forehead. “I know the way ya can go without two, three meals straight sometimes.” Her lips in a firm pucker, her eyelids close together, Emma bobbed her head down, up, down, up as she inspected Cassidy. “Gal, it don’t look like ya put on a single pound.”

“I ate three meals a day, Ms. Emma.” Cassidy added what she knew the older woman would relish hearing: “Of course, none of the meals were as good as yours.”

“I sho know that’s right.”

A mighty laugh burst from Emma, and Cassidy laughed, too, secretly, at Emma. The over-eighty-year-old didn’t believe anyone could fry, bake, or even boil better than she could, and the truth was, up and down treelined Pomona Street, Emma was said to be one of the three best cooks on the block. The Vietnam veteran who resided in the corner house and Cassidy’s aunt Odessa were said to be the other two.

“Well, I’m glad yer back,” Emma said. “Shevelle and the baby is still here. Shevelle’s been hoping she could get together with ya ’fore she goes home next week.”

Cassidy was all for hanging out with Shevelle, but she prayed Shevelle left the baby at home. Last time Cassidy and Shevelle went out, Shevelle brought the baby along and insisted Cassidy hold her. It annoyed Cassidy when people with babies assumed everyone wanted to hold their little angels.

Cassidy reached for her suitcase, and the gold link bracelet she rarely took off slid to the end of her arm.

“Hold it.” Emma’s voice was uncompromising as she pounded her wooden stick on the sidewalk, the rubber tip stealing the strident sound she seemed to be after. “Robbie, come take this here suitcase,” she hollered across the two-way urban street.

Their neighbor, a boy of nine, out for an excursion on his scooter, stopped the royal-blue contraption a few inches short of Cassidy’s white canvas sneakers. “Hi, Cassidy,” he said cheerily.

“That’s Miss Cassie to you, boy.” Emma nudged his ankle with her cane.

Cassidy put her arm around Robbie’s shoulder and sent a smile down to the child. An ache within Cassidy’s soul intensified mercilessly, but she kept her jaw rigid, unwilling to let the agony show on her face. “Robbie,” she said, “you keep right on calling me Cassidy.”

“It ain’t respectful.” Emma aimed a sharp gaze at the youngster, further conveying that in her presence there would be no addressing adults without the preface of Mr. or Miss.

Cassidy gave Robbie a squeeze and patted his braided-to-the-scalp hair. “Your scooter looks new.”

“It is. My dad gave it to me last weekend . . . when I stayed at his house.”

“It’s very nice. I like your knee and elbow guards, too. Where’s your helmet?”

Robbie’s stare widened. “I should go put it on.”

“Good idea. I’ve got the luggage.” Cassidy watched the boy ride home, her heart still aching. She turned back to Emma. Emma’s expression was a sandwich of disbelief and disagreement.

“Ya should’ve let that chile help. It’s never too soon for a boy to learn the ways of a man.” She propped her cane on her hip and stacked her arms across a hefty bosom. “And like I’ve told ya time and time again, young lady, acceptin’ a man’s strength is not a sign of weakness.”

Out of reverence, Cassidy kept her eyes from rolling, but she had to speak up. “I’ve got the Lord, and He’s all the strength I’ll ever need.”

Emma laughed. “The Lord is the center of my world, too, baby. But the broad shoulders of an earthly man sho feels mighty good.”

Not in the mood for one of her neighbor’s love-and-marriage and how-good-a-man-can-make-you-feel talks, Cassidy hugged Emma good-bye, then grabbed her suitcase from the sidewalk and hurried to the house. Before she could drag her key from her purse, the Charity Community Church van pulled up to the curb and the driver blew the horn. Cassidy waved at Deacon Willie Linden and the three silver-haired female passengers on their way to the Knitting Circle, a club that met at the church on Friday evenings.

“Well, mercy,” Odessa Vale exclaimed, pushing open the screen door. It squeaked and slammed behind her. “Baby girl, what are you doing here?”

Cassidy wrapped her aunt in a hug that pinned them close for several moments. She was forced to give the abridged version of why she’d come home early because Deacon Linden had blown the horn a second time, and now he was on his way up the walkway to escort Odessa to the van.

“We’ll talk more when I get home.” Odessa gave Deacon Linden, barely able to bend his arthritic knees, her bag of knitting supplies so she could hold on to his elbow and the rai. . .