When she reached Gerrit’s house, she stopped short. Mr. Whiskers meowed from her left shoulder, where he was draped like a towel.
“Would you look at that.” But of course he couldn’t look, facing backward and all. “They came.”
The two extra cars in the driveway were proof enough that Gerrit’s kids had shown up for the highly anticipated weekend. Gerrit had been a wreck all week. He hadn’t actually said so, but she’d gotten the impression he wasn’t sure if they’d come.
It was strange seeing so many lights on in the house. Even the back deck was lit up, though the sun was just setting. She slipped into the barn without a sound, wishing she could attend the party on Monday. Boy, would she love to see that. Nothing could take your mind off your own family drama like witnessing someone else’s.
The barn was peaceful and still, as always, and yet something different hummed in the air.
“Do you feel that, Mister?” She sat in the deck chair Gerrit had set up for her and put the fat cat on her lap. “There’s life around here for once.”
She ran her hand over the cat’s soft back. Gerrit had never told her why his kids didn’t come around. Why he was so nervous about seeing them again. Or why things were so strained between him and Hannie, for that matter. But it made her happy that his family was all together.
She shifted in the plastic chair, the words Mark had said the other day at Community Hope ringing in her mind. She’d never forget the look on his face when she’d asked if what they were doing was going to make a difference in anyone’s life.
He’d been so sure. Like he knew exactly what he meant when he answered yes. She used to have that kind of confidence about everything in her life. Now, though, she found herself second-guessing things she never thought she’d question. Like her parents. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Give up on what? And when was the proper time?
She remembered the words clearly because she’d looked them up on her phone after talking to Mark and reread the verse a bunch of times. She was pretty sure she understood the first part: keep doing good things even if you get tired of it. But the second part? She wasn’t a farmer. She had no fields. No harvest.
Gerrit was a farmer, though. Or at least he used to be. Maybe he would understand it. Maybe she could ask him.
The cardboard box nearest her chair caught her eye. It was small, not much bigger than a shoebox. The word Pictures was scrawled across the side.
She stood and set Mr. Whiskers on the chair. “You ever wonder what Gerrit was like when he was younger?”
If he did, the cat gave no indication.
A single piece of tape had secured the top of the box once upon a time, but it had long ago lost its stickiness. The flaps gave easily when she pulled on them. She hesitated. He’d asked her not to move the boxes around anymore. He never said anything about looking inside them.
A messy pile of photos lay in the box like they’d been dumped there unceremoniously. Some in frames, some loose. She picked one off the top and shifted so the light would shine on it.
It was a black-and-white picture. Two young boys, maybe five and six years old, in cute little suits with bow ties. Hair slicked down. The taller one had his arm around the shorter one’s shoulders and peered at the camera with a serious expression, as if he’d already seen more of the world than she had. The younger boy . . . was that Gerrit?
She flipped the photo over. On the back, an unsteady hand had written a note in tiny disheveled letters. Easter, 1961. She set the picture down and was reaching for another one when the sound of the house door opening and closing made her look up. Someone was coming outside. She stepped away from the box and took her place back in the deck chair, sliding Mr. Whiskers onto her lap.
Footsteps approached the barn. Gerrit appeared in the doorway.
“You’re here.” His voice was guarded.
She nodded, trying to imagine him as the little boy she’d seen in the picture. “So are your kids.”
He glanced at the driveway over his shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Are you having fun? Can I meet them?”
She couldn’t begin to imagine what they were like. Stoic and awkward, like Gerrit? Gentle and kind, like Hannie? Something else entirely?
Gerrit rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you have Morgan’s phone number?”
She blinked. What on earth? “No.”
“Hannie thinks we should push the party back to four on Monday. Instead of three.”
“Oh.” She raised one shoulder. “I know where he lives, but . . .”
He looked over his shoulder again. “Could you give him the message?”
He was acting weird.
She sighed. “I can try. So, anyway, I wanted to ask you about—”
“I think you better go.”
Her question fell to the ground like a fly swatted out of the air. He gave her a hard look, and she cringed.
“Oh.” She stood. “Okay.”
A bony finger poked at her heart. She wanted to hear all about his kids. Wanted to ask him what he thought of that verse about a harvest. But he remained in the doorway, tense and distracted, as she set Mr. Whiskers back on her shoulder and turned off the light. He stood aside so she could pass. Dusk had fallen.
Outside, she wrinkled her brow at a dark figure passing by the mailbox.
“I’m sorry, I thought—”
Gerrit waved her away. “Go on now.”
She turned away, stunned. Sheesh. What a jerk. From the beginning, she’d believed he wasn’t the grizzly bear he appeared to be on the outside. She’d believed he was misunderstood. But maybe she was the one who had misunderstood.
“Let us not become
