That crumbled look of doubt was still stuck to Suzanna’s face.
They went back and forth for nearly an hour. Ida told of the challenges she and William had faced and how they’d struggled to overcome them. After she told of how they’d both cried when Tommy left town with his wife and baby, she gave a wistful smile.
“If we’d given up on trying to work things out, just think of all the happiness we’d have missed out on.”
That night when Suzanna climbed into bed, she said a prayer. She thanked God for bringing her here and for giving her a second chance to make her life count. It was a prayer of gratitude and she’d not planned to ask for anything more, but at the tail end of her prayer, she said, “And, Lord, if you’re not already tired of helping me out, please show me a way to make Gregg love me again.”
Suzanna
Saying Goodbye to the Past
THAT NIGHT SUZANNA FOUND SLEEP hard to come by. She kept thinking through the advice Ida had given her, wondering if indeed there was a chance Gregg would be forgiving. It was a lot to ask. She’d told him almost as many lies as she’d told Ida, and to make matters worse she’d let him walk away thinking her answer meant she didn’t love him. She wanted to believe he’d be as forgiving as Ida, but she couldn’t help thinking how Ida had less to forgive. She’d known all along Suzanna was not her missing granddaughter.
On Friday morning, when they gathered at the breakfast table, Suzanna poured herself a cup of coffee, then sat there stirring it for a full minute.
Ida looked across with a raised eyebrow. “The cream in that coffee will turn to butter if you keep stirring it.”
“Oh, right.” Suzanna absently set the spoon aside. “I guess I was thinking of other things.”
“What things?” Annie asked.
Aware of how Annie felt about Gregg, Suzanna did not want her to know what happened. “Nothing you need to know about. Finish your breakfast, or you’ll be late for school.”
“How come you don’t got to hurry?” With her face crinkled into a smug grin, she added, “Won’t you be late for working?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, smarty pants,” Suzanna said, laughing, “but I’m taking some time off to help Grandma until she’s feeling better.”
“I’m feeling just fine,” Ida said.
Annie looked at Suzanna. “Grandma said—”
“I heard what Grandma said.” Before Suzanna could add anything more, the doorbell rang, and Annie hurried off to join Lori for the walk to school.
That afternoon, Suzanna sat at the desk in her room and began composing a letter to Gregg. On the first page she told him that she’d made a lot of mistakes in her life and not answering yes when he asked her to marry him was one of the biggest. She continued on to say she no longer needed time to think; she knew she loved him fully and completely. On the second page she wrote about missing him and hoping he’d give her another chance. She signed her name, then read the letter back and ripped it into shreds. It was like an empty promise, without truth or emotion, and it said nothing of the lies she’d told.
The second letter told about Bobby and explained how she’d felt obligated to give him another chance, but that too was discarded. Both the third and fourth letters with their scratched-out words and tearstained smudges were also crumpled and thrown into the waste basket. In time, she began to doubt that mere words could convey the anguish and regret she felt.
Pushing back from the desk, she went to the window and stood watching as a lone sparrow hopped across the lawn. The bird was a brownish hue, barely visible in the dry grass as he moved about hidden from the watchful eyes of the hawk or owl. Hadn’t she done much the same thing? The only difference was that her disguise was a string of lies.
She watched as the sparrow plucked something from the ground, ate it, then took flight and landed in the high branches of an oak. After a few moments, he chirped; not a song, just a trio of notes. He did it twice again then fell silent and remained so.
She too had remained silent. Had she explained that Annie was, and had to be, her primary concern, maybe Gregg would have listened and understood. Instead they’d parted ways with nothing but a wordless anger between them.
Turning away from the window, Suzanna returned to the desk and began to write. She poured out all the things she’d hidden for so long, filling the pages with line after line that recounted her deceptions and told of the shame she felt. She explained the confusion in her heart the night he’d asked her to marry him and of her discovery that Bobby was a married man. On the ninth page she wrote that she’d loved Gregg then and loved him still, and if he would have her and Annie she would spend forever proving her love. When there was nothing left to say, she signed her name and folded the letter into an envelope.
She sat the envelope on her desk and left it there. The mailman had already come and gone. It was too late to do anything today. She would have to wait until tomorrow to mail the letter.
Saturday and Sunday came and went, but the letter remained on her desk. Twice she picked it up, held it in her hand wondering about the wisdom of her words, and both times she’d walked off leaving the letter behind. Somehow a string of words scrawled across a piece of paper seemed terribly inadequate; there was no back and forth, no exchange of thoughts or chance to correct a misconception. How would she ever know if
