certainly have taken to the culture.”
Tabitha grinned. “I fell in love with the South. It’s got its flaws, but I was blessed to fall in with the folks that I did when I moved out from Colorado.” She offered a velvet-backed chair to Savannah beside a table where a tray held a bowl of dip surrounded by crackers. “To drink?”
“Sprite?”
“You’ve got it. Be right back.”
Savannah surveyed the room while she waited for Tabitha to return. The decor was straight from Southern Living, and felt like a great big hug from a well-loved aunt. The Southerner in her missed the bright colors and high ceilings and little touches that were hallmarks of the Southern style. She loved her mountain lodge-like home, too, but this place resonated with her roots. It was another remnant of her former self that brought her a grain of comfort.
Tabitha returned, and Savannah accepted the drink she poured for her. “So you’ve been in this house all this time?”
“Oh, no, we moved here about seven years ago. I was in Savannah before that, believe it or not.”
Savannah noticed Tabitha wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. “And ‘we’ would be…”
“Oh, the ministry I run, The Refuge.”
Savannah narrowed her eyes and shook a finger at her, though a smile tugged at her mouth. “You didn’t tell me you’d come back to the fold –
Tabitha chuckled, her nose wrinkled in the endearing way that had attracted half the boys in college. “I got the impression that it wouldn’t go over well. And I knew if you came out it would be good for you. I didn’t want anything to change your mind.”
“You duped me.”
“I’d like to think I saved you from your own misconceptions.”
“Ooh, think you know me so well after all this time?”
“Oh, honey,” Tabitha said, her words edged with laughter. “Twenty years isn’t so long in some ways. And besides, you and I were always like two peas, and I know myself well enough to know that I would have changed my plans, were our roles reversed.” She helped herself to some dip and indicated that Savannah should do the same. “Now, I should warn you that in about ten minutes we’ll be seeing some more people. Everyone’s at the group therapy session at the moment, but after that most everybody will be coming through here on their way to the kitchen.”
“Group therapy? What exactly is The Refuge?”
“It’s a place for people who have been deeply wounded by the church, or by anyone, really, in the name of Christianity. I started it with a friend about ten years ago. We’ve had pastors, church and ministry volunteers and staff, missionaries – even people who grew up with spiritually abusive parents who fed them a poisoned view of God. Folks stay here and get counseling, some fellowship, and support as they find their way back to God. The church has a tendency to shoot its wounded – we try to help them heal in the aftermath.”
Savannah found it hard to look Tabitha in the eyes, knowing that she had been guilty of ‘shooting’ Tabitha when she’d begun to question their faith. Instead, she studied the elaborate pattern on the wallpaper. “That’s a really beautiful thing to do, Tabitha.”
“Thank you.”
“How long do folks stay when they come? Is it like Betty Ford, a 28-day program?”
Tabitha chuckled. “No. It’s more of a drop-in setup. They stay for as long as they feel necessary, and some people come and go, using us as a supplemental program to the therapy they’re already doing in their own hometown. Right now we’ve got about ten folks staying with us; two more are coming next week, and three are planning to go home.” She smiled at Savannah. “And now, of course, there’s you, too. But don’t worry,” she added hastily, “I wasn’t expecting you to participate in the program or anything. Though you are welcome to if you want. I’ll give you a schedule so you know what’s going on when. But now you know why I thought it might be helpful for you to be here – besides the fact that I’ve been in your shoes.”
Savannah sighed and forced herself to meet Tabitha’s gaze. “I am sorry, friend. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
Tabitha shook her head. “It’s all forgiven, truly. And don’t think you were the one that drove me away; I didn’t tell you everything that was going on, and you couldn’t have known what I was really going through. That was my own fault. I had no reason not to trust you with the details, but I was young and stupid and hurting and knew a lot of it was my own fault, so it was hard to admit everything, even to my closest friend. So, forgive
Savannah ached for all the years they’d lost because of pride and hastily-drawn misconceptions. “What was it that you didn’t think you could tell me? If you’re willing to tell me now, that is. It’s alright if you’d rather not.”
Tabitha settled deeper into her seat. “No, I don’t mind. Remember Professor Hurst? We had him junior year. He was handsome in a Redford kind of way.”
Savannah thought for a moment. “Oh – Old Testament, right? Yes, I do remember him.”
“Well, we had an affair.”
Savannah nearly dropped her glass. “What!” Tabitha chuckled. “I just… I can’t even…”
“I know, I know. But remember how I started working for the Biblical Studies department senior year? I ended up doing a lot of work for him – research and transcribing and the like. And we were alone together in the department offices quite a lot, because I worked at night and he often stayed late. He was so friendly, and a bit of a flirt, and you remember what I was like back then.”
Savannah did indeed. Lithe and beautiful, with serious smarts, but a penchant for free-spirited fun. Savannah often warned her that men would misinterpret her actions as being flirtatious and welcoming in a sexual way, even though she was just vivacious and friendly. She had been a bit of a rule-breaker, too, which only added to the problem. “Let me guess – he thought you were coming on to him.”
“Yes. Though he certainly encouraged it and responded with his own flirting; it definitely wasn’t one-sided. Anyway, I developed a huge crush on him, and then, because I was heady with hormones and his attention, I fell in love with him.”
Tabitha took another cracker and gestured with it as she spoke. “So I worked with him for the whole first semester, and then after I came back from Christmas break he told me he’d missed me and couldn’t wait until I’d returned. I read into that all sorts of emotion and affection that probably weren’t even there, which I’m sure was his goal, and I admitted that I’d missed him, too, and that I really enjoyed working with him – though I made sure ‘really enjoyed’ was properly annotated with lots of nonverbal communication that made clear exactly how I felt. After that, things became much more serious. He told me he wanted to marry me, but that we couldn’t say anything to anyone because I was still a student and it might look bad. We planned to start publicly dating after graduation and get married at Christmas. But then one night after spring break…”
“Oh no.”
Tabitha nodded. “Yes. And I got pregnant. He freaked out and dumped me, claiming I was a Jezebel, that I’d charmed him-it was all my fault, you know?”
Savannah was heartbroken. “Tabitha, why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Because I was afraid everyone would side with him. You remember how much trouble I got in at that school – no one in administration would have believed me against him. I was afraid they wouldn’t graduate me because I’d broken the covenant yet again, and way more seriously.”
Savannah was grieved to know it was true. Tabitha was the kind of Christian woman that the school hadn’t known what to do with. She hadn’t fit the traditional mold, and had challenged every attempt to stuff her into it. She had adhered just barely to the dress code, had both blatantly and secretively bucked the covenant each student signed upon matriculation to the school by drinking (two shots of Bailey’s over ice on her 21st birthday), breaking curfew (though she was hardly the only one) and dancing (on the Quad, at noon, with her Sony Walkman plugged into her ears, the day she found out she’d made straight A’s for the first time), and often asked the kinds of squabble-inducing questions that professors hated. But she did none of it to try to provoke anyone. She did it because she hated legalism and saw no reason why a liberated woman of the 80's should be constrained by the traditions of the 50's.
Savannah had agreed, but it wasn’t her nature to buck the system. It was one of the few ways in which their
