When Betsy got back home, her mother was out of the house. She’d left a note on the kitchen counter.

Gone to eat at Linda’s. Stew in fridge to warm up for you. Love, Mom.

Betsy stood staring down at the scrawled note and had to fight against tears.

She managed to control herself, and she kept busy for the next hour. She wiped down the counters and mopped the floors and took the garbage out.

If only she could fill her mind with other things, the ball of grief inside her wouldn’t unleash.

Her mother kept a fairly clean house so soon there weren’t any other chores left to do. It was almost seven in the evening, and the world felt bleak and lonely and empty.

And John had broken up with her, leaving absolutely no hope for a future together.

She was sitting on the couch in the living room doing nothing when her mother came home.

Her mother put her purse and keys on the entryway table. “Honey, before I forget, Linda asked if you wanted to help out with the bridal shower she’s throwing for Marcy.”

A bridal shower.

That was something that happened to other women, along with marriage and children and family and life lived with someone else.

It wasn’t something that ever happened to her.

Betsy couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

Her mother paused as she stepped into the living room. “Betsy?”

Betsy just stared, frozen like a piece of ice, that ball of grief trembling, pulsing inside her.

“Honey, what happened? What’s wrong?”

Even after she opened her mouth, no words came out to explain.

Her mother’s face changed. “Did something happen with John?”

“Please don’t tell me I told you so,” Betsy managed to rasp as the ball of grief finally exploded. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

She’d tried to be smart. She’d tried to be careful. She’d tried to protect her heart.

But she’d trusted John. She hadn’t thought she needed to protect her heart from him.

“Oh, honey.” Her mother came over and sat down next to her on the couch, pulling her into a hug. “I’m so, so sorry. I know exactly how it feels.”

***

Betsy spent the next day crying and praying and cocooned in the house. That was only to be expected, so she wasn’t too frustrated or disappointed in herself. She’d had a real emotional blow, and she would need some time to recover.

But the next day she expected to feel a little better. Just a little—but enough to give her some hope.

She didn’t feel any better, though. If anything, she felt worse. She had to start going through the rest of her life. She couldn’t stay holed up in her mother’s house, cut off from the rest of the world.

And she was going to have to start doing it without John.

It would be easier for her if she could just be angry with him, but the truth was she understood exactly what had happened.

He’d been trying something different. He’d been trying to let go of the rigid control he’d always kept on himself and the world. And then he’d gotten scared when he’d realized how much faith it took to live that way.

He wasn’t a cruel man who had taken advantage of her feelings. He wasn’t a selfish man who did what he felt like doing with a woman and then dropped her as soon as he got bored.

John was a good man. But he was flawed like everyone else. And he didn’t know how to change.

She’d hoped for a few days that he would, that they could change together, but that was obviously not going to happen.

She could understand. She would keep praying for him.

She hoped he was all right.

But what she wasn’t going to hope for was for him to change his mind. After the way he’d looked when she’d seen him last, she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

With this in mind, she steeled herself to get going with the rest of her life.

The first thing she had to do was call Chuck.

There was a sick feeling in her gut as she found his number on her phone and pressed send. This was it. After this conversation, her whole life would change.

It was going to change, whether she wanted it to or not.

“Hey, Betsy,” Chuck said, picking up the call. “How’s everything going there?”

“Fine.”

Chuck hesitated. “Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.”

“I just said fine.”

“I’m good at picking up undertones.”

She swallowed, his familiar intelligence and good humor making her throat ache with emotion. “Well, the truth is, I’ve… I’ve done some thinking and made some decisions.”

“Shit,” he breathed. “You’re about to resign, aren’t you?”

“I’m really sorry. But I think I have to.”

“Has something better come along? I hope.”

“Not really. I just… I can’t do this job anymore. I hate to bail on you like this, but—”

“No, no. Don’t apologize. Most people don’t do the job you were doing for long. It’s really hard on our… our soul. I completely understand.”

“Thank you. I mean it. I wish there were some way I could still work for you, but I just can’t stay part of the team, so I guess I need to resign.”

“Wait, you think you might want to still work for us? Because, if so, I’m sure we could find you something at the headquarters in Charlotte. We’d hate to lose you.”

Betsy blinked, a little flutter of pleasure in her chest, despite the cloud of grief that still surrounded her. “Really? There might be some way for me to work from there?”

“Sure! If you were interested, we could figure out something. We were going to add a couple of administrative positions there in the next year anyway, so we could probably craft a position that would work for you—focused on communication. You’d have to do some supervision and management, though—mostly volunteers and interns. I don’t know if you’d be interested in that.”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all. That sounds wonderful. I didn’t even dream something like that would work out.”

“Of course. We want to take care of our people, and that often means moving them around. There might be some traveling with the new position, but it wouldn’t be more than a few times a year.”

“That would be great. Perfect. Thank you so much.”

“Sure. I’ll talk to Curtis about it and we’ll work it out.” He paused for a moment. “Have you told John?”

She had to take a breath before she answered, “I’m going to talk to him today.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll wait until tomorrow before I call him to talk about it.”

“Thanks.”

“How’s he doing?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Shit,” he breathed again. “Okay. I guess these things happen.”

Betsy didn’t know how he’d figured out what happened between her and John from nothing more than this cryptic conversation, but he obviously had a pretty good idea.

“I’ll be in touch soon about the new position,” he added.

“Okay. Thanks again.”

She hung up, sad and sick and feeling just a little better that she’d started making some needed decisions, necessary changes.

A job in the headquarters in Charlotte would be perfect. She could still contribute in valuable ways to a cause she believed in, but she wouldn’t have to be a member of John’s team anymore.

She had to talk to him today. She couldn’t delay it any longer.

He would be leaving Balm in Gilead this afternoon to spend two weeks with his brother. And Chuck was going to call him.

If she didn’t tell him her decision today, Chuck would tell him tomorrow.

***

An hour later, she was getting out of her car in the parking lot when a voice caught her attention.

It was saying her name.

She looked around and saw Mark hurrying down the front walk from the building.

She stopped and waved at him. He’d obviously come to pick up John, as they’d planned from the beginning.

When Mark was close enough for them to speak, he said, “Thank God you’re here. What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“John looks like he’s a walking corpse, but he won’t tell me anything. Please tell me what’s going on.” Mark’s face was anxious, and it hurt Betsy’s chest.

She kept control of her emotion, however, as she replied, “Oh. I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him for two days.”

“What? I thought you two were—” Mark broke off his words, his face twisting with recognition. “Shit,” he said, almost exactly like Chuck had earlier. “Shit, you two broke up?”

“We were never really together.”

He gave her an impatient look.

“Really,” she said. “I mean, he’d never made a conscious decision about it, and now he has.”

“So this is his fault?”

She cleared her throat. “It’s nobody’s fault. He has his reasons.”

“I can just imagine how stupid his reasons are.” He shook his head with a long sigh. Then turned his eyes back to her face again. “How are you? Are you doing okay?”

The question was such a small gesture of real kindness that Betsy’s eyes burned with tears. That instinctive kindness clearly ran in the family. “I’m okay. I’m not going to say I’m not sad about it, but he’s just not ready for it. I don’t know if he’ll ever really be. And I just can’t wait around.”

“Of course you can’t. He’s an idiot.” Despite the words, Mark obviously wasn’t annoyed by his brother. His face reflected real worry. “I know how he feels about you.”

She gave a little shrug. “That’s not always enough. If you don’t mind, I need to talk to him in private for a minute. Can I go on up?”

“Sure. I was just bringing the car around to the front to load his stuff up. I’ll wait for… a half hour?”

“Not that long. Just give me fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes. That was as long as it would take. Then it would be done.

She had to do this. She had to. Even if it tore her apart.

She stiffened her spine and resolved her will and made her way into the building and then up to the top floor.

The door to John’s room was halfway opened, so she tapped on it and took a step in.

The room was picked up, his luggage all packed. He was just coming out of the bathroom. “If you’ll just grab the package on the bed, I can get the rest of my st—” He broke off with a visible start when he saw it was her and not Mark, whom he’d obviously been expecting.

He looked pale beneath his tan, and there were deep shadows under his eyes. He’d looked so happy and rested earlier this week, and now he looked worse than he’d been when they’d first arrived here.

She gave him a little smile. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He didn’t smile at all. He just gazed at her soberly.

“I just stopped by for a minute,” she said.

A faint relief reflected on his face, and she realized he’d been afraid she’d come to beg for him to take her back.

Despite everything, that hurt, the knowledge that he thought she had that little sense, that little pride.

She brushed the stray thought away and continued, “I just needed to talk to you, and I wanted to do it face to face.”

His brow lowered. “About what?”

“About the team.” Surely he would know they needed to have a discussion about her job. Surely he didn’t think she’d keep working for him, after everything that had happened. “About my job.”

“What about it?”

“I talked to Chuck this morning. He’s going to try to get me some sort of position in Charlotte.”

“What? What? Why?”

Her eyes widened. “I can’t keep working with you, John. You must know that.”

He opened his mouth, but the flare of emotion she’d caught in his eyes pulled itself back into tight control. He gave a stiff little nod. “Okay.”

“Okay? I know this is awkward and… and hard, but it’s the only decision I can make. I’ve been rethinking things anyway, and I think it’s the right decision for me now in every way. I’ll miss… I’ll miss the team. And I’ve appreciated working with you more than you can know.”

“Same here.” The words were almost gruff, but she knew that he meant them.

This was as good as they were going to do with a farewell. She needed to get out of here while she could.

When she was alone, she could cry a little and then hopefully start to recover.

“Okay. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you in person. Chuck said he’d call you tomorrow.”

“Good. If that’s what you want, then I’m glad it will work out.”

She could tell he was forcing the words out, and she couldn’t stand much more of this. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to help him let go, let down his guard.

But he wasn’t going to let her do that. Not again.

She sighed and turned toward the door. “Goodbye, John. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

She took a step toward the door and then another. Then she paused when she noticed a wrapped package on the bed.

It was exactly the size of the oil painting she’d given him.

He’d kept it. He’d wrapped it in brown paper to protect it. He was taking it with him.

The world blurred around her for a moment as her knees went weak. Then she blew out a breath and continued her walk to the door.

She’d stepped over the threshold when she turned her head to look at him one more time. He was standing with slumped shoulders and downcast eyes. He looked so incredibly lonely that her heart went out with him.

She said, “I hope you’ll remember how it felt on the boat the other day. That’s what joy is really about.”

He lifted his eyes but didn’t speak, didn’t move.

She closed the door behind her as she left.

***

In the lobby, she noticed Cecily and Zeke standing just outside the door to the office. Something was strange in the air between them as they turned toward her presence, and she wondered if they’d been arguing.

Cecily wasn’t the type who really argued. She just blissfully went through life, doing as she thought best and expecting the rest of the world to fall in line. And Zeke didn’t seem to talk enough to argue for real.

But they worked together. She imagined they must have occasional disagreements.

The thought was a pleasant distraction from the flood of tears that was coiled inside her, and she waved as Cecily smiled at her.

Betsy would have preferred to get out of the building quickly, but she stopped when Cecily walked over to her.

“How are you doing?” Cecily asked, her voice low so Zeke couldn’t hear it across the room.

“I’m fine.” Betsy forced a smile.

“John was doing so well until a couple days ago. I’m really sorry things didn’t work out between you two.”

Damn it. It felt absolutely terrible—for everyone in the world to know about her broken heart. “Thanks.”

“Relationships don’t always work out when they’re started here. For a number of reasons. But I really thought you two would. You two were perfectly matched.”

Betsy cleared her throat. “Thanks.”

It surprised her—a lot—that she actually agreed with Cecily’s assessment. She and John were good together. Really good. They brought out the best in each other.

She no longer thought that John was an amazing catch and wouldn’t give her a passing glance. He didn’t dump her because she wasn’t good enough for him.

He thought he wasn’t good enough for her.

It was a strange and revealing recognition, and it washed over Betsy with its power.

She had changed.

She really had.

And she wasn’t going to change back.

“Sorry,” Cecily said with a wry smile. “I’m sure this is the last thing you want to hear. You probably just want to get out of here. I just wanted to say something. I hope you’ll keep in touch, whenever you’re visiting your mom.”

“I will. Thank you.”

When she walked out of the building, she saw Mark in his car on the front drive. She waved to him and managed to smile.

He waved back and got out to go in and help his brother bring his stuff down.

This was an ending.

You didn’t always know when that was happening in life, but sometimes you did. Sometimes you knew when things were drawing to a close, when everything would change from that moment on.

And this was one of those times.

***

A week later, Betsy was propped up on the pillows on the bed in her mother’s guest room with her laptop on her thighs.

She’d done errands with her mother that morning and then had lunch with Dennis.

She’d made it clear she wasn’t ready for romance at the moment—or any time soon, as far as her heart was concerned—but she genuinely liked the man and wanted to at least be friendly with him.

He seemed to understand and hadn’t been pushy or obnoxious about it.

It was nice to know there were men like that in the world. A lot of them. Good, kind-hearted men who wanted the best for her.

John was one of them, although he wouldn’t let himself be any more than that to her.

He was in Willow Park now, visiting with his brother.

She really hoped he was all right. She hoped he wouldn’t forget what he’d learned over the past two weeks about enjoying life, enjoying God, letting himself be more than just a series of duties.

She prayed for him briefly before she went back to searching for possible apartments to rent in Charlotte.

Chuck had been as good as his word, and they’d crafted a position with her in mind, one that would take in a lot of responsibilities that they’d needed someone to cover anyway.

Things were working out the way they were supposed to. It might not be what Betsy had really wanted, but life didn’t often offer that. What it did offer was good. She loved her work, and she was going to love her new job.

She was even a little bit excited about having a new start.

If she didn’t miss John so much, she might even be happy about it.

She lowered her laptop with a frown when she heard her mother’s voice was outside.

“Betsy! Betsy! Get out here! Quick!”

Something must be wrong. Her mother never shouted like that.

Betsy scrambled off the bed, leaving her laptop open on the covers, and ran down the hall, into the living room, and then out to the front lawn, where her mother’s voice had come from.

Her mom looked okay. She was standing on the front step, staring at something on the street.

Once she’d assured herself of her mother’s health and safety, Betsy turned to look too.

She froze.

For a moment, she was sure that she was dreaming, imagining. Because things like this simply didn’t happen in real life.

But the sun was hot on her skin, and her mother was breathing heavily beside her.

Betsy’s bare feet burned on the pavement.

And John Davenport was on the street in front of the house, sitting astride a gray horse.

He was holding on to the reins, and his expression was like nothing she’d ever seen before. Almost naked with a mingling of emotions—tenderness, self-consciousness, anxiety, hesitation, regret, amusement.

Betsy’s mouth dropped open. “What… What…”

“Don’t be silly, honey,” her mother said, giving Betsy a gentle shove toward the street. “He’s obviously here for you. He’s finally made his decision.”

There could be no other explanation. Absolutely no other way to make sense of this.

John’s horse stepped a few times nervously.

Betsy stumbled toward him.

Then John looked down at her. “You can go ahead and laugh if you want to,” he said.

Betsy didn’t laugh.

She burst into tears, right there in her mother’s front yard.