~Leslie~
They said goodbye to Holly that Saturday.
It was a subdued event because Holly wanted nothing grander, longing to keep her personal business, even as it pertained to her exciting future, private.
Just like her, actually.
They’d loaded up the two suitcases she was taking into Jordan and Brooke’s SUV, with the rest of the family cramming in as well as they could.
“A few more moments together,” Leslie said, patting Holly’s side as they tried to share a seat.
“Leslie, that’s my butt you’re patting,” she whispered.
Yeah, they were really crammed in there.
“Travis, we should have taken a separate car,” Avery said as she and Brooke were squeezed in tight as well. Four across where there should only be three, but there hadn’t been another way for them to all be together.
“Then we’d have all fought over who got to be the one to take Holly to the airport,” he said. “There just wasn’t enough time.”
There hadn’t been enough time. Leslie had gone shopping with Holly more than once in the past week, taking every opportunity she could to hear more details about the work ahead while Holly found clothes that were more modest than her already conservative wardrobe, settling on choices that would respect the culture that was going to become her own. They’d talked just about the work and about Dubai, which Leslie had been thankful for as it kept Holly from asking much of anything about how the work with the youth and with Blake was going.
It wasn’t going. Leslie hadn’t been back to the building since that night that she’d told Blake she hated him. She’d done her deliveries on her own with much difficulty, but she could manage.
Of course, there was a wedding in a week, and that would probably be a disaster.
Holly hadn’t pushed for details, but Leslie knew that she knew somehow.
“Stop pushing me,” she groaned as Holly’s butt kept squishing her closer to the door. “I’m feeling all claustrophobic.”
“You think you feel claustrophobic,” Brooke said on the other end. “Poor Avery is pinned in by my belly and my huge butt both.”
Sure enough, Avery was pressed tightly to the door.
“Oh, it’s just fine,” she said. “Pregnancy tends to widen more than just the uterus, you know. I see it with my patients all the time.”
“You’re a vet, though,” Brooke said.
“Yes,” Avery grinned. “Large animals. Cows and the like. They get pregnant, you know.”
“Are you saying that I’m as big as a cow?” Brooke asked.
“Oh, I’m not saying that,” Avery laughed. “But there are some similarities between you and a –”
“I’m going to miss you guys,” Holly sighed, thankfully cutting that sentiment off before it could be fully expressed.
A hushed silence had fallen over the car with her words, and Leslie had leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder, blinking away tears.
The goodbyes didn’t get any easier when they got to the airport, where Travis went with Holly to get her boarding passes and drop off her luggage. The rest of them watched as he reached into his pocket for his wallet, paying the cost for the bags, even as Holly protested, then pulling her to his side to hug her and to whisper something in her ear, away from the others. They all watched as Holly put her arms around him and leaned her head on his shoulder, visibly crying.
“Oh, man,” Brooke managed, fumbling in her purse for tissues. “I knew none of us were going to the get through this without tears, but darn that Travis, starting it like he just did.”
It didn’t mean forever. Holly wasn’t going away forever.
Except… well, maybe she was.
Leslie could hardly think about it. She would just have to get through this goodbye and deal with all the emotions later. Would it have been better to know about it months ago? Or would that just have prolonged the misery, kind of like these long goodbyes that were happening now that Holly was back to them, standing right at the brink of security where they could go no further, hugging each one of them in turn. Jordan, smiling at her and kissing her on the forehead, as she managed wavering words about her niece. Brooke, a pregnant, sobbing mess, making Holly cry just as hard. Avery with her arms around both of them, telling Holly to call at least once a week, more if she had the time. Travis, hugging her again and inconspicuously slipping a wad of cash into her purse as he did so.
Now it was just Leslie who Holly shrugged at, the tears falling down her face.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Leslie said, holding her own tears back. “This wasn’t my idea.”
Holly managed to smile. “I know that.”
“Come here,” Leslie sighed, hugging her sister close, just as she’d done thousands of times before over the years. They’d had no mother all those years, but they’d had each other. And that had been enough.
“I’ll come visit you,” Leslie promised, a few tears escaping her eyes. “In the summer. I’ll bet Dubai is beautiful in the summer.”
“That’s what I’ve heard,” Holly nodded. “Although it gets up to about 113 degrees.”
Good grief.
“But you’ll come visit?” she asked hopefully.
“Of course,” Leslie promised. “Make sure your apartment has an air conditioner, will you?”
“Hey! Holly!”
The voice was coming from the entrance, and it was loud enough that a good portion of the people in line at security looked up to see where it was coming from.
But Leslie didn’t have to turn around. She knew that voice.
Blake Young. Of course he would crash this tender family moment for who knows what reason –
“Blake,” Holly said, surprise in her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting myself all out of breath,” he said as he jogged the rest of the distance to them, holding an envelope out in his hand. It was covered in glitter and bedazzled jewels.
What in the world?
He looked around and smiled at the whole family, nodding at Leslie last. “Hey, guys.”
“Hey,” Jordan said. Then, looking at the envelope with a curious expression on his face, “What’s that?”
“This,” Blake said, holding it up so that they could all see Holly’s name scrawled across the front in a girlish print, “is why I’m here. The junior high girls got this to me this morning. They had some slumber party last night and put it together for you. Didn’t know that you were flying out in…” He glanced at his watch. “Now.” He grinned at her. “Told them I would fly over there myself to deliver it if need be. But praise God that I caught you in time because I don’t have the money for a ticket to the Middle East since I… well, since I bought that building.” His eyes drifted over to Leslie briefly.
That building. Yes. This kept coming up again and again.
But Holly wasn’t paying attention. Her hands were already on the envelope.
“Oh, Blake, I’m glad you did that,” she said, as he passed it over to her. “Notes from the girls. Good reading material for the flight, huh?”
“The best,” he said. “They’re going to miss you. But that’s probably true of everyone.” He glanced around at the family. “Hey, can I pray for you before you head out?”
Holly nodded, reaching for his hand, then reaching for Travis with the other hand. Everyone else joined up, holding hands, leaving Leslie with no other hand to hold than Blake’s empty one.
Great. But she could do this. It was just praying, which Blake did quietly, thanking God for what He was doing in Holly’s life, praying for the travel she had ahead of her, asking God to help her in the days to come, and affirming that God would be with the family as well, giving them comfort as they said goodbye.
“Amen,” he murmured a moment later, his hand still holding Leslie’s, which he squeezed as he glanced over at her understandingly. “I’ve got some errands I need to run while I’m here in the city, and I should probably leave all of you to say your final goodbyes.”
“You’re good,” Holly said. “I think we were… we were all done with those, weren’t we?”
No. Leslie wasn’t. She wouldn’t be.
“Take care,” Travis said. “Text me once you get over there.”
“It’ll cost a lot,” Holly said. “It’s –”
“I’m the one getting the bill,” Travis said.
“Until I switch to a new plan in Dubai,” she finished.
He reluctantly nodded. “Sure.”
“I’ll let you know I’m there,” she said, looking around at all of them one final time, swallowing past the tears that were gathering in her eyes all over again.
Then, her gaze settled on Leslie.
“I’ll see you next summer, okay?”
And with that, she turned away from them all and left without another word.
The car ride back from the airport had been quiet, with sniffles from Brooke and stoicism from Travis, as Jordan drove and Avery sat in the backseat between the sisters, patting their hands in a motherly gesture.
Once they got home, it wasn’t much better as they all began to disperse to their own places to go on with their own lives.
Brooke caught Leslie before she could leave.
“Let’s do lunch tomorrow, after church,” she said, embracing her. “Let’s start making it a thing with you and me, okay?”
“Sounds good,” Leslie answered.
“We can’t,” Jordan spoke up. “We’re doing lunch with Blake.” He looked at Leslie. “Or we still can, if Leslie will just come along.”
Before Leslie could protest, Brooke spoke up.
“That’ll work,” she said. “See you then.”
Lunch with the devil. Awesome.
Sure enough, the next day after church she was forced to suffer through lunch with Blake, which was supremely annoying, but what was even worse was how Brooke and Jordan were eating up his stories from seminary and the youth work he’d done, laughing like these stories were actually funny.
Because they weren’t funny. Not at all.
But Blake kept on telling them, likely to try and distract them all from the sadness that remained, knowing that Holly was gone.
“And the church let me live in the parsonage,” Blake was saying as Leslie picked at her salad, holding in all the disparaging words she wanted to say, mainly about how she wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get a job at any church because of who he was and how awful he was and how horrible and –
“Oh, that’s nice,” Brooke said, smiling. “A lot of space for a young guy in seminary, right?”
“Not so much,” Blake answered. “No, this parsonage was the old parsonage, not the newer one they’d built thirty years ago for whatever senior pastor they brought in. I was in the one hundred year old parsonage.”
“I love old houses,” Jordan said appreciatively. “I’m working on a project over on the west side of town right now, renovating older homes. Homes about that old.”
“Can homes that old be renovated?” Blake asked incredulously.
“Sure can,” Jordan said, smiling. “Long as the place has good bones.”
“He’s ripping out all the piping and the plumbing and the electrical work and –” Brooke stopped and looked at her husband. “Didn’t you mention that some of the homes needed new foundations poured?”
“Probably,” Jordan conceded, all out laughing now. “It’s a complete demo more often than not. But the bones of these houses –”
“Still good,” Brooke finished, grinning at him. “Old soul at heart, I guess.”
“What about the parsonage you lived in?” Jordan asked Blake. “Good bones?”
“I guess,” Blake shrugged. “Pier and beam, which meant it got below freezing inside every day in the winter. Or maybe that’s because the heating system was totally shot and the church was too cheap to replace it. And the plumbing was ancient. I think the bathroom was an add-on, because it connected to the kitchen.”
“Awesome,” Jordan breathed. “And by that, I mean… well, they should have done some improvements.”
“Well, pest control would have been enough,” Blake said, his eyes twinkling.
Leslie felt her heart seize at that look in his eyes. How often had she seen that exact same look so many times?
She’d been harboring so much resentment in her heart since the night that had ended so badly at the youth center. (Since long before then, honestly.) It was easier to resent him than it was to feel something at the memories that came back as she listened to and watched him. How can you know someone as well as they had known one another and not feel something, good or bad, or even a mixture of both?
She pushed the memory aside, trying to make her face as blank as possible.
“Pest control?” Brooke asked, her interest obvious as she leaned across the table. “Did you have mice?”
“Oh, not mice,” Blake said. “I had possums.”
The whole table was silent for a long minute. Even Leslie looked up from her salad to stare at Blake.
“Seriously?” Jordan asked. “Possums?”
“Wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t woken up to one sitting on my chest,” Blake said, casually taking a bite as though this was something he said every day.
“Wow,” Brooke breathed, glancing over at Jordan. “If that happened at our house, you would be building us something else, Jordan, because I would be burning that place to the ground.”
“I’ll bet that possum was more scared of Blake than Blake was of it,” Jordan laughed.
“I don’t know,” Blake said. “He did scream pretty loud once his eyes met mine. But then again, I was screeching, too, so who knows who was louder?”
Though Leslie tried to fight it, this brought a small smile to her lips.
Blake saw it and almost turned closer towards her. Luckily, though, Jordan’s phone buzzed, turning all their attention again.
“It’s Travis,” Jordan said, glancing at it. “Holly called him ten minutes ago. She made it there.”
Blake glanced at his watch. “Late at night for her.”
“You know the time difference?” Leslie asked, not clear on it herself quite yet. It was all so sudden, and she’d barely wrapped her mind around it.
“Yeah,” he said. “All the youth are making it a goal to pray for her every day, and it helps if we know what time it is where she is.”
Brooke smiled at this. “Jordan’s doing the same,” she said. “Put a clock up in his office at home, set to Dubai time, to help him remember.”
“She’s my sister as much as she is yours now,” Jordan said. Then he nodded over at Leslie. “Which makes you my sister, too, Leslie. And should entitle me to some free cupcakes now and then.”
“I’m running a business, not a charity,” Leslie said, making a mental note to get the man some cupcakes. He was praying for Holly, after all.
So was Blake. Maybe she should be nicer to him.
“That’s a lot of siblings,” Blake smiled. “I don’t have any.”
“I’ve got the two sisters now, by marriage, and Travis, if I can count my boss as family,” Jordan said.
“You can,” Brooke smiled.
“And my three brothers at home.” He paused. “Well, two. And Ben.”
Ben Sanders.
The name hung over the table with a hush. They’d never forget Ben, any of them.
Even Blake.
“I remember Ben,” he said.
Leslie could remember him as well, along with the way Blake had been there for her back when he’d died, talking her through her grief up at the church on that night so long ago.
Her mind was on that, but Blake’s mind was somewhere else, his eyes focused on Jordan.
“I should have told you a long time ago,” Blake said, his tone heavy and serious, “how sorry I was about Ben. About what I did.”
Jordan swallowed, watching the other man for a long minute.
“Sorry?” he asked softly. “Why would you be sorry? What did you do?”
“I made fun of him,” Blake said, and Leslie could hear the regret in his words. Her mind went back to his first Sunday at the church, how he’d sat at the back of the Sunday school room, staring at his hands as their youth minister, Matt, had talked about Ben’s passing, how they’d prayed for Ben’s brothers, and how they’d all mourned as kids in a small town who’d all grown up together did.
I made fun of him. How long had Blake been carrying that around? Hadn’t he told Leslie all about forgiveness?
“You made fun of him?” Jordan asked.
“I was a stupid kid,” Blake said softly. “An unredeemed stupid kid. And my home life was a mess. I don’t mention any of that to excuse myself, because it was inexcusable. But I can see why I did it, why I mistakenly thought I could feel better about myself if I made someone else feel bad about themselves.”
Jordan watched him, even as Brooke put her arm through his, squeezing the hand that Jordan had laid on the table in her own.
“I made fun of him like a lot of kids did,” Blake continued on. “Surely you knew that. About what school was like for Ben.”
Jordan nodded. “Well, a lot of that he brought on himself.”
Blake considered this for a moment. “But still.”
“I know,” Jordan said. “Still not a justification.”
“And I was guilty,” Blake said, real regret in his voice. “And I should’ve apologized to him. But I can’t do that. So instead, Jordan, I want to apologize to you. I’m sorry for what I did, for the kind of kid I was. And I’m so sorry if that played any part in what Ben did.”
Leslie found herself unable to look away as the two men studied each other silently. She could remember them both as teenagers, just as they’d been when Ben had taken his life, acquaintances but not friends, both of their lives changed by the circumstances.
And then, an alarming thought hit her.
Blake had only started coming to church once Ben had killed himself. Had that – the suicide and Blake’s feelings of guilt – been the catalyst to drive him to Christ?
Why had she never cared enough to ask, back when she’d fallen in love with him as a teenager? She’d thought she knew everything about him. What else had she missed? The words about his home life, about all that he’d never mentioned to her stayed in her thoughts…
She wanted to ask him about it, but she kept her words to herself, watching as Jordan swallowed and squeezed Brooke’s hand.
“I appreciate the apology,” he said softly. “But what Ben did wasn’t because of you. It wasn’t because of anyone. Ben did what he did because Ben was sick. He was depressed and… bipolar.” He swallowed again. “We didn’t know it at the time. And we’ll never be able to get a diagnosis now. But I know that’s what it was and that what he did that day in that field…”
Brooke squeezed his hand again.
“Well,” he said, his voice a little stronger even as he said it, “it wasn’t about what other people had done to him. It was about what he was fighting within himself. And that’s something no one has to apologize for.”
Blake let out a slow breath at this.
“Don’t carry it around anymore,” Jordan said, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. And God worked through it all, in the end, to help us know Him better. Or at least He did for me.”
“Me, too, Jordan,” Blake said, and Leslie was amazed to hear his voice crack just slightly at the admission. “I came to Christ because of Ben. All the guilt that I felt… led me straight to faith.”
And now, Brooke was wiping at the tears in her eyes, which she would likely blame on the pregnancy if anyone would point them out. Good and well for her, but what was Leslie’s excuse as she blinked back her own tears?
Jordan was smiling. “Well, then. Praise God for taking what the world intended for evil and using it for good.”
“Amen,” Blake said.
And Leslie found herself watching him again, wondering at this.
After lunch, he pulled her away from Jordan and Brooke and walked her over to her car.
“Hey, I wanted to talk to you about the other day, at the Bible study.”
He was nervous about it, whatever it was that he wanted to say, but Leslie was the one who felt uneasy. All that he’d said since about praying for Holly, about how he mourned Ben Sanders, about how he’d walked her through that pain back then while feeling his own pain.
Maybe she should be apologizing to him for how she’d said she hated him. She didn’t really hate him… did she?
“I was wrong,” he said. “Bringing up the past.” He ran his hands through his hair nervously. “After the Bible study. I was just trying to lighten the mood, and that was the absolute wrong way to do it.”
He hadn’t been the only one who was wrong.
“It was… it was me,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
And at this, she could see the corners of his lips twitch, as though he’d been expecting this, as if he’d apologized to get her to do the same.
Was he like that? Was he a liar? A manipulator? She’d thought so after they’d broken up and she’d found out the truth about him, but with the way he’d just been talking, she’d wondered if she’d gotten it wrong.
It was like a constant war between not trusting him and feeling something towards him. She could feel herself frowning, thinking back to all the reasons she couldn’t trust him now…
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “But I do. And I do. Apologize, that is. And I’m going to beg you to come back and help with the youth. I need another adult there, just for propriety sake.”
She could imagine that he did, especially if the crowds continued to grow like they had.
But still. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice –
He’d been so vulnerable, though, just then at lunch. And she’d felt convicted.
She could only answer for her own actions, and she found a new resolve deep within her heart to do what was right.
“I… I can help,” she said. Not just because it was the right thing to do but because she’d be doing it for Holly, who loved the teenagers
“And I can still help with your deliveries, with the weddings,” he said.
“I can do that on my own,” she said, willing to do what she was going to do for Holly, but needing him –
“Please, Leslie,” he said. “I want to.”
Well, she could use the help. Leslie looked at the hand he held out, wondering if she was making the right choice.
“Truce?” Blake said hopefully, waiting and watching.
Fool me once… no, she couldn’t keep on thinking like that.
She took a breath and looked him in the eye, even as she nodded and put her hand in his.
“Okay, Blake.”