“Poppy?” Sarah’s gentle hand touched her arm, urging her to sit beside her at the wooden table. “What weighs on you? You know you can tell me anything.”
The floodgates opened, and words poured out of Poppy. “It’s Jacob…He’s never here, and when he is, it’s like he’s miles away. I feel so alone, Sarah. I feel abandoned.”
Sarah listened without interruption, her presence a steady rock amidst the whirlpool of Poppy’s emotions. When the last sob had left her sister’s lips, she spoke softly, “Poppy, love isn’t always lightning and thunder. Sometimes it’s the quiet growth after a long winter. It blooms with time and patience.”
Poppy nodded. “When we first found out that I was expecting, everything changed for a little while, but now he’s back to not remembering I’m here.”
As the sisters’ conversation waned, a gentle knock at the door interrupted their communion. Hannah Scott stood there, her own face etched with lines of empathy and understanding.
“May I come in?” she asked. Within moments, the pastor’s wife was seated at the table, her hands enveloping Poppy’s.
“Poppy, I’ve seen the strain between you and Jacob,” Hannah began, her eyes reflecting the setting sun’s fading light. “Jed and I, we’ve weathered our own storms. There were days I thought the love we had was lost in the wilderness of our struggles.”
“How did you find your way back?” Poppy asked, her voice barely above a whisper, seeking the secret map Hannah had used to navigate her marital trials.
“It takes time,” Hannah replied, “and faith—not just in each other, but in the journey you’ve undertaken together. Love is a commitment that endures beyond affection. It’s a choice to walk side by side.”
*****
Poppy wandered to the edge of the wheat field. The Clover Creek schoolhouse, where she had taught, stood in the distance, its windows reflecting the late afternoon sun—a beacon of routine and escape from her private turmoil.
As she stood there, she made a decision that would change the course of her life no matter how it went. She would move back in with Sarah and see how long it took Jacob to realize she was gone.
The wind picked up, sending a chill through her bones and teasing her flaming red hair into wild disarray. She wrapped her arms around herself, not just for warmth, but in an attempt to hold together the fragments of her resolve. Could she leave? Did she have the courage to leave a man who didn’t love her and never had? Or would she crumble as soon as someone from town looked at her?
“Perhaps…” Poppy murmured. Her heart ached at the thought of abandoning the promise she had made before God and their small community. Leaving Jacob would mean turning her back on the vows she had taken so seriously, yet his absence was like a drought upon her soul, draining her of joy.
As the sun dipped lower, casting long shadows across the land, Poppy’s inner tempest quieted. A moment of clarity emerged, as clear and sharp as the horizon line that severed earth from heaven. She remembered their shared laughter, the way he had looked at her when they first met, full of a different kind of longing.
As hard as it was to leave him, she knew she had to do it. She needed to leave for herself. Because being unloved and unwanted wasn’t something she enjoyed.
With a newfound determination, Poppy turned back toward the house they shared. She would pack her things and go spend some time with her sister and her family. Sarah had let her know she was always welcome, and she was ready to find out if her sister meant it or if she was just saying it to be kind.
