Page 98 of Shadowing You

Mei Lin started walking again, automatically scanning the area for cameras. She didn’t see any.

Ethan walked beside her. “Do you remember?”

She had a feeling he wouldn’t like her answer. “I was four.”

“Four?” He stopped again. “Your grandmother lost you when you were four—and then blamed you?”

“I was not supposed to wander⁠—”

“Here’s a newsflash—four-year-olds are supposed to be trouble. That’s their job. It was your grandmother’s job to watch you, to protect you, not to blame you or make you feel worthless for behaving like a child.”

“She found a little girl skipping and smiling.” Mei Lin wanted Ethan to understand. “She thought I was playing.”

He kept moving along the sidewalk. When they were past the market, he spoke again, his voice calmer. “Your grandmother must have been terrified. Getting angry with you was a knee-jerk reaction.”

Mei Lin had always thought she’d deserved her grandmother’s anger, but she considered what Ethan said. “Do you think so?”

“Either that or she was a monster.” He glanced down at her. “Was she a monster?”

“She was stern, but…” Mei Lin went back to that day. She’d been a child, but getting lost, and then getting in trouble, made the memory vivid. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But if that’s why you always say that about yourself⁠—”

“What do I say?”

“That you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

Oh. She had said that a few times, hadn’t she?

He took her hand and squeezed. “You’re priceless, so obviously, you can’t be more trouble than you’re worth.”

Her gaze dropped to the ground. “Not really.” Perhaps her grandmother hadn’t been kind to say those words, but that didn’t mean they weren’t true.

He stopped and faced her, as if they had nothing better to do than have a conversation in the middle of town. “Yes, really.”

“You’re…” She couldn’t think of the English word. “When you like something, so you don’t see it clearly.”

“The fact that I love you doesn’t make me biased, Mei Lin. You’re priceless because Jesus says so. And I happen to agree. I would sacrifice all that I am and all that I have for you. Okay?”

Her eyes filled, and she looked away.

A small part of her—maybe not that small—wanted to argue. But Jesus had paid for her with His life. And Ethan was here, in a tiny village in the mountains of China, just because she’d needed him.

“Okay?” He seemed to be waiting for a response.

“If you say so.”

“Me and Jesus.” He tugged her along beside him. “We’re never wrong.”

“Ha.” But the fake laugh came with real tears, which she swiped away. She didn’t understand this man, not even a little.

Ethan took out his phone again. When they turned a corner, it vibrated in his hand. Three short chirps followed. “Service.” He grinned. “Thank goodness.”

Across the street and set back from a row of shuttered storefronts, there was a little playground—a pair of swings on rusted chains, a merry-go-round, and a metal slide.

They headed that way, then slipped through a gap in the chain-link fence. The grass had surrendered to packed dirt and cigarette butts. Ethan led her to a low concrete bench on the edge of the space. She sat, and he settled close enough that their shoulders touched.

He thumbed at the screen, then put the phone on speaker and held it between them.