“It is.” His voice was more serious than usual. “I walked a mile on the rooftop track after my workout. I love Manhattan in May.”
“You walked on the roof?” Laura knew that wasn’t part of his routine. “Don’t you usually finish up with a swim?”
“Not tonight.” He sighed and the sound rattled with uncertainty. “I needed to think. Figured I could do that better outside.”
He needed to think? There it was again, the slight hint of concern, the suggestion that somehow six weeks before their wedding everything wasn’t as wonderful as it should be. She worked to keep her tone light. “What’d you think about?”
The silence on the other end lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like so many long minutes. “I don’t know … home, maybe. North Carolina.” He sounded confused, like he couldn’t accurately define his feelings if he tried. “The Kotton Kids campaign is still stumping me.” Another sigh. “I think I’ll take Friday off and fly to Raleigh. Spend time with my dad. Maybe I’ll find the slogan on the beach.”
Laura fought the panic welling inside her. “Do you want … me to go with you? Maybe the wedding’s getting to you.”
“It’s not that.” His tone was tired, strained. “I think I need to do this alone, Laura. I miss my dad a lot. Maybe it’s just starting this new chapter in life and losing a sense of what I left behind.” He hesitated. “Does that make sense?”
“Um … sure.” The panic grew, but she refused to acknowledge it. She wanted to know everything, every last detail of his thought process. But she didn’t want to be pushy or overbearing. The details would come. She kept her tone light. “If you need to go home … you should go.”
For the first time in the conversation, Brad seemed to understand how he must’ve sounded. “Baby,” a weak groan came from him. “Don’t think for a minute this is about you. It isn’t.”
“I don’t think that.” She tried to utter an awkward laugh, but the sound died on her lips. “I mean,” she allowed the sweetness in her voice to fall away. “What am I supposed to think? It’s six weeks before our wedding and you’re lost in thought at work and at the gym, looking for a chance to go back to North Carolina. Then you say something about not wanting to lose the past.” A sound more cry than laugh came from her. “Come on, Brad. How do you expect me to feel?”
This time his tone was marked with frustration. “You have to trust me. I love you, baby. I can’t wait to marry you.” He brought his voice back down a notch. “This … whatever this is … isn’t about you. I promise. I’ll be gone for the weekend, and I’ll work things out.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
God … give me the words. Why do I feel like everything’s falling apart?
In response, sure as God’s love, one of the verses from earlier that night came to her. The last line from what they’d read together.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Laura breathed in the truth and waited while it worked its way through her heart and soul. She tightened her hold on her cell phone and shifted her gaze to the dark side of the night sky.
Be merciful
, she told herself. “Listen. I’m not sure I understand, but … you have my blessing on this, Brad. Go to North Carolina.” She felt the beginning of peace spread through her. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Thank you.” The relief in Brad’s voice was immediate. “I’ll figure things out, and when I get back, we’ll talk. It’s just something I have to work through.”
“Okay. I trust you.” The panic still wanted to consume her, but she denied it. Mercy would win out tonight, because that’s what God was asking of her. If Brad needed time away, time with his parents back in North Carolina, then she would understand and support his decision.
“You’re alright?” His tone was tentative.
“I’m fine.” The words were easy. Her feelings could follow. “Let’s get some sleep.”
The call ended with promises to talk the next day. Brad would buy a plane ticket and fly into Raleigh Friday morning. As Laura hung up, she could barely believe what had just happened. Brad was having doubts. Not about her, maybe. But doubts all the same. Nothing else could explain his deep thoughts and pensive mood. Nothing else would have sent him packing for North Carolina. She wondered how she might’ve responded if the girls hadn’t met for their Bible study that night. But they had met, and now Laura had chosen to love, to show him mercy by trusting Brad and refusing to stand in his way. The Bible was right. It didn’t feel great, but this was true mercy, true love.
A love that was possible in God’s strength alone.
B
RAD HADN’T LIED TO
L
AURA, NOT
at all. He reminded himself of this fact often over the next couple days, and again as he caught a ride to LaGuardia for the 7:55 nonstop to Raleigh. He wasn’t going to call Emma or look her up. Never mind the photo he’d found in his desk, this trip wasn’t about her. He’d told Laura the truth. The trip was about himself, about going home and looking for closure. It was about having an honest conversation with his father, and hopefully gaining from that talk a sense of how to walk away from the past for good.
His dad was picking him up, and Brad suspected the two-hour drive to Wilmington would give them a good start on the conversation. At least they would have time to catch up before Brad got to the heart of the matter. No one knew the terrible details about Brad and Emma’s final summer together. Brad was very close to his parents, but he had never found the time or courage to tell them the truth about what happened. Now that was about to change. He was close to his mom, but he needed the sort of advice only his father could give.
The American Eagle commuter plane rumbled through a patch of turbulence. Brad looked out the window. Small planes didn’t bother him, even though at six-foot-one he couldn’t quite find a comfortable position for his legs. He didn’t have a seat-mate. If he kept his eyes on the window, he could pretend he was asleep and avoid all conversation with anyone — even the flight attendant.
Already he could feel the strain of the city melting away. How long had it been since he’d seen his parents? Since he’d walked along the beach with Wilmington’s own Carl Cutler? He closed his eyes and pictured his dad, his eccentricities and endless love. Even with everything that weighed on Brad’s mind, a smile tugged at his mouth. In all the world there was no one just like old Carl. No one in Wilmington more prepared for whatever life might bring.
The man was a decorated retired sergeant in the army, a strong leader who had served in Germany at the beginning of Vietnam. He still ran his life with the discipline of a military mastermind. For one thing, he was crazy about lists. When Brad was growing up, he and his older sister and their parents would often take one of their infamous road trips. Old Carl had a list for road trips, a list that detailed every item that absolutely must be taken when they left, even for a few nights.
Brad felt his smile fill his face. There were the usual things, of course. A flashlight, first-aid kit, extra water, and jumper cables. But the list was nearly two pages long and also included must-have items like bolt cutters, safety goggles, WD – 40, 3x5 cards, a hard hat, an ironing board, and a hammer. Not only that, but the entire list was alphabetized.
“That’s my trip list,” his dad would say, each word slow and deliberate. His southern drawl made him sound like the Looney Tunes’ Foghorn Leghorn. “I like to be prepared.”
No one was more prepared than Carl Cutler.
In addition, his dad kept lists in a file cabinet, and smaller lists in his wallet. Some were erroneous notes to himself about which grocery stores were having sales on which food items — most of them having expired years earlier. Also in his wallet were small pieces of paper with lists of what his kids did and didn’t like to eat. Last time they were together, Brad had gone through the contents, teasing his dad that no guy had a wallet so thick. Tucked amidst receipts and outdated coupons was a single piece of paper that said, “Brad: Doesn’t like onions, mayonnaise. Likes Mountain Dew, Sunkist, G. Ale.” There was a similar list for his older sister and his mother.
“Really, Dad?” Brad had asked when he found the strange, small list. “How often do you look at this?”
His father didn’t mind his family teasing him. He smiled as he took the list and tucked it safely back in his wallet. “Often enough.”
Over the years, it was Brad’s mother who stayed up late talking to him, easily expressing her love and pride, her concern and interest in his life. If Brad analyzed his parents, he was more like his mom. But from the place where he sat now, this far removed from his life in North Carolina, he had learned more about love from his father.
For one thing, love was harder for his dad. Carl was a man’s man, tough to the core. He didn’t easily pick up the phone to tell Brad he loved him. But he did pick up the phone. “Any travel on the horizon?” he’d ask in his unhurried way.
Brad would tell his father about his brief upcoming business trips to Chicago or Detroit or Denver, wherever his ad campaigns took him. A few days later in the mail would be a package from his father — a map from the automobile club, complete with sections his dad had highlighted. Certain restaurants and points of interest. The better hotels. Often he highlighted a specific line in a tourist attraction entry, something like “half off Navy Pier’s Ferris wheel on the first Friday of the month.”
As if Brad would have time to take in an amusement park in Chicago.
Either way, the maps were one way his father could demonstrate the love he didn’t often speak of. Another way was his propensity to purchase whatever item Brad was currently promoting. If Brad worked on the ad campaign of a product, his dad bought the item. Every single time. On one of his last visits a year ago, Brad walked into the house and saw a case of Way Cool Lunch Snacks on the kitchen counter.
“Dad?” Brad looked from the box to his father. “When did you start eating packaged lunch snacks?”
His dad would chuckle and brush off the comment. “Don’t eat ’em. Just want to support your advertising.”
Brad tried to explain the reality to his father. “One purchase isn’t going to make a difference, Dad. Really. Don’t buy the stuff I’m working on unless you’ll use it.” He lifted a package of jellied fruit snacks from the box. “You don’t care about this stuff.”
His father’s smile was content and unwavering. As if to say he might not care about Way Cool Lunch Snacks, but he did care about his son.
Lately his dad was into metal detecting along the beach. That and entering sweepstakes. Sometimes, if the contest allowed, he’d enter the same sweepstakes a dozen times, driving to different post offices to drop off his entry in an attempt to somehow increase his odds. The night before last year’s
American Idol
finale, his dad called to inform Brad that he’d won an
Idol
Party Package. “Don’t know much about the
Idol
show.” His dad sounded nonplussed. “But it’s another win.”
For all his eccentricities, his father was kind and warm to everyone who passed through the Cutler home. That was especially true for Emma. His dad even had a silly nickname for her — Emma Jelly Bean. “Because that girl has all the sweetness and color of a bucket of jelly beans.” He would wink at Emma. “Emma Jelly Bean. Better than a string bean.”
So it had stuck. Emma Jelly Bean.
The flight smoothed out and remained uneventful. Brad stared out the window and let himself go back — even just a little. He and Emma had been playmates in grade school. She didn’t have a dad and her mom worked two jobs, so she was home by herself often. By the time they were in sixth grade, Emma phoned him nearly every afternoon.
“Why does that girl keep calling?” his mother finally asked. She wasn’t upset, just curious. “Doesn’t she know boys are supposed to call first?”
“There’s no one at her house after school.” Brad wasn’t interested in girls at that point. He was a seventh-grade boy, looking out for a friend. He shrugged as he grabbed an apple. “She calls me because she wants to hear the sound of another person.”
His answer must’ve touched his mother. He could tell because tears formed in her eyes and she softened her tone. “That’s sad.”
“I know. I mean she’s safe and everything,” Brad took a bite of the apple, “but I figure I can talk for a few minutes.”
His mother was on the phone to Emma’s mom later that night. “She can come home with Brad and stay here until you get off work,” she offered. “That way they can do their studies together.”
Emma’s mother was thrilled with the arrangement. She delivered papers before sun-up and worked at the local pharmacy, sometimes until seven o’clock during the week. The deal was good for Brad and Emma too. They studied together and did Brad’s chores together, and on warm spring days when they were finished, they would ride their bikes to Wrightsville Beach and watch the sailboats come and go from the marina.
Brad could easily picture her as she looked back then — long dark hair and exotic eyes, the full lips and skinny legs that she didn’t grow into until they were in high school. Of course they fell in love. There’d never been any question about whether they’d wind up together, right? By the time they realized how they really felt about each other, the decision was already made. They’d been in love as long as they could remember.
The hurt spread through his chest, a physical pain over all they’d lost that awful summer. The two of them didn’t stand a chance after what happened, but that didn’t excuse him from how he handled the ending. There had been no explanation, really. No long good-bye, and most of all, no apology. Just a sudden and certain realization that they could no longer stay together.
The pain between them was that great.
Brad stopped the memories cold. He closed his eyes and thought about the wedding. He pictured Laura walking down the aisle, the innocent, trusting love in her eyes. Was he really willing to jeopardize even a little of the adoration she felt for him? And what about her parents? He appreciated the expense and trouble Rita and Randy James were going to so that the big day would be an event no one would forget. But he didn’t need an elegant ballroom overlooking Ellis Island and lower Manhattan, or acres of perfectly manicured grass or the flowers that would line the pathways to and from the ceremony site to the Liberty House.