~Blake~
I don’t know how she’s managed to do it, but Leslie has rendered my father speechless.
Maybe it’s talk of the engagement, which is still so new that I can hardly believe that she’s really going to marry me. Maybe it’s all that she’s telling him about the wedding, about the plans that she’s already making. Maybe it’s about the cupcakes that she’s been making him taste, each and every flavor laid out in a line across the kitchen table, as she tells him all about her business and her big plans.
Or maybe it’s because she hasn’t given him a lot of time to say much of anything.
Whatever it is, Dad is staring at her as though she’s some strange apparition that has appeared out of nowhere and landed right in his kitchen.
“Tim, what do you think of that one?” she asks now, pointing to the red velvet he’s halfway through.
“Uhh,” he says, looking down at it then back at her. “It’s good.”
“That isn’t a very glowing description,” she says, sighing. “Patty, is he always so short on words?”
My mother smiles at her gleefully, just like she does every time the two of them get together. When I came back to town a year ago, I made a few visits here out of a conviction that it was the right thing to do. I’d determined that I would be who God was calling me to be, to love my parents and to honor them, despite the past. I was a grown man now who didn’t have to take abuse, of course, but I could show mercy and grace, even to those who didn’t deserve it. I myself hadn’t deserved it either, all those years ago.
Tim was skeptical and hurtful, like always. But my mother’s heart had been changed. She’s saved now, a member of our church, and Leslie’s newest BFF. That last one is how I know all the details about how my mother shares constantly with my father through word and action and living a life so pure and blameless before him that she is steadily winning him to Christ, one moment at a time.
My father isn’t quite sure what to do with the change in his wife. Her complete 180, along with Leslie’s presence in our lives, has him befuddled a good majority of the time, so much so that his harsh words have been reduced to nothing.
Well, not entirely.
“Well, maybe I would say more if you’d stop talking,” he says to Leslie. “Good grief, woman. You talk constantly.”
She smiles at this. “He speaks!” she says triumphantly. “But stop talking about me and start talking about the cupcakes. Give it to me.”
Tim frowns and looks down at the cupcake. “Well, it’s sweet. Maybe a little too sweet. And really red.”
“Descriptive,” Leslie nods. “Patty, he says that red velvet is red.”
“Tim, that’s practically inspired,” my mother giggles.
And no one is more surprised than me when he smiles.
Smiles.
“It’s more of a rouge,” he says. “Is that a word?”
“Rouge,” Leslie exclaims. “Blake, did you hear that?”
But I’m too busy watching my family, marveling over what God is doing here, even now.
“Tim, you’re going to write all the descriptions for my cupcakes once Blake and I close on that new building out on the highway,” she says, slapping him on the back harder than is absolutely necessary. She knows all about the past, about who he really is, and while she says that grace can change a man, I think she has a hard time forgiving the wrongs done to me. So she gets her hits in when she can. Maybe not so Christlike, but well…
Dad takes it like a man, though, even as he winces at the sting of her hand.
“Woman,” he mutters. “Why are you hitting me like –”
“Tim, what do you think about my business idea?” she asks, as though she actually cares what he thinks.
“Cupcake shop,” he says. “Why build a cupcake shop in this loser town –”
“I love this town,” she says, cutting him off. “And besides, I’m going to make a fortune with that building right next to the new high school. Enough to fly us out to see my sister regularly once Blake and I are married.”
Dubai. I’m looking forward to it.
“The Middle East,” Dad says, narrowing his eyes. “Too hot there –”
“We live in Texas,” Leslie says, cutting him off again by handing him another cupcake. “It’s just as hot here.”
He can’t argue with this. Or he doesn’t, at least, choosing instead to pop the newest cupcake into his mouth.
“Mmmm,” he manages, really smiling now. “This is the best one yet.”
“Of course it is,” Leslie says, raising an eyebrow at me.
It’s one of the whiskey cupcakes.
“What is that?” he asks, licking his fingers.
“White chocolate,” she says, “with a hint of strawberry. Sweet and gentle, like a kiss.”
I remember the non-whiskey version. Just like I remember her kitchen, leaning across the cupcakes, kissing her for the first time.
“I want more of this one,” Dad says.
“Well, then, you’ll have to come to the shop and ask for it,” she says.
“What’s it called?”
“The shop?” she asks.
“No, that’s First Love,” he says. “You might have mentioned that a million times already.”
She smiles at this, but her eyes are on me. “What do you think we should call it, Blake?”
And I can only think of all the days ahead and all the memories we have left to make…
“How about Forever?”
Leslie grins.
“I think that’s just about perfect.”