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CHAPTER 5
Spring was a healingtime of year. A time for growing, for rejoicing, for releasing the darkness and bitterness of whatever winter the soul had experienced.
Of course, today didn’t look much like spring—never mind that the calendar heralded it as the vernal equinox. Avery put down the book she was reading and strolled to the large glass window of her log cabin. What little sunlight she’d seen today had been weak and diluted, and the weather was still cold enough to burn the inside of her nose when she stepped outside. March and April were the snowiest months in Estes Park, or so Laz had said.
With the landscape as sullen and forbidding as it had been on this day, Avery hadn’t found her usual afternoon hike too inviting. Instead, she’d spent the last few hours doing chores around the cabin—housework, cleaning, laundry—and then curled up in cozy flannel clothing.
She peered across the snowy fields, watching the place where the High Peaks sprinted to the sky, their summits brooding within purple fog. From her cabin window, she could see forever.
To eternity.
It was still hard to believe that all of this—the cabin, the land, the incredible view—was, for all intents and purposes, the gift of a man who had hated her.
Whenever she remembered her father, it made her want to crawl into a hole and never come out, like a little kid still scared of the dark. An involuntary shudder darted over her as she pictured him in her mind—his deeply lined face, with iron-gray eyes that matched his hair. Ulysses Miles had been a venerated psychiatrist, a respected name in therapy and counseling circles. His extensive research had provided untold contributions to the field of mental health. In public circles, he was wealthy, distinguished, influential, and charming.
At home he was a monster.
Avery racked her mind, as she had so frequently over the years, for one instance, no matter how trifling, when her father had expressed any form of affection. When he had shown, for just one second, that he cared about someone besides himself.
The mental search always ended the same way: she couldn’t remember a time. Because there hadn’t been one.
The wind was intensifying even as the daylight faded. Avery watched gray clouds scud across the silver sky.
Chance—the god her father worshipped. He was a satirical atheist, a man who delighted in using his glittering intellect to make a mockery of faith. So virulent was his belief that he hadn’t allowed God’s Name to be spoken in his home.
But looking back now, Avery realized that she’d always known her father was dead wrong. She’d always believed in some sort of higher power—a divine Spirit that surrounded her, even in her bleakest moments. When a friend led her to Christ during her high school years, it wasn’t an introduction—it was a homecoming. As if she’d finally put a name to a face she’d always known. And faith had empowered her—shown her just how heinous her father’s conduct really was, shown her what love was supposed to be and how strong and mighty the heart of God was for her.
And created an unbridgeable tear between her and her father.
After her parents split and she and Addisyn were left with him, the darkness that had always filled their home became even denser—even though she hadn’t believed that possible. That’s when she’d made the biggest decision of her life. When she’d trusted the word of El Shaddai and thrown her destiny—and Addisyn’s—into His loving hands.
Avery knew deep in her soul that it had all been worth it. She wouldn’t change a thing about the four years she and Addisyn had lived alone in New York City. All the cheap motels, all the meals of ramen noodles, all the dead-end jobs, all the stress of keeping Addisyn in high school in New York. All the pent-up exhaustion she’d experienced, trying to be an adult at seventeen, living in a place that rubbed her soul backwards with its noise and stench and unrepentant ugliness. It had all been for her sister—so no price had been too great.
No, what Avery regretted came later. When her sister met Brian Felding. When she fell in love with the lure of his glitzy but artificial world.
And then the real regrets began, piling up faster than the clouds boiling over the mountains. First there had been her own uncertainty about how to handle the situation. She’d been so inexperienced, still broken herself and unprepared to deal with such a calamity. More than anything, she’d been terrified. And like a frightened animal caught in a trap, she’d panicked, fighting back with blind ferocity. She’d tried to force Addisyn to stay with her, to make the right choices—and in so doing, she’d burned the bridge between them entirely.
And now, she’d been completely shut out by her sister. The sister who had been her world. The sister for whom she’d lived in hell for four years—the sister for whom she’d do it all again tomorrow—the sister for whom she’d cried and bled and sweated, who now had forgotten her altogether. The day Addisyn left their apartment to move in with Brian had confirmed that. And if there had been any doubt, that had been erased the next day—when Avery tried to call her only to find her number had been disconnected.
That still ached and burned inside her heart. Avery pressed her palm gently against the glass, feeling its cold slickness. Outside, a violent gust of wind slapped the side of the house with chilling fury.
Avery had stayed in New York for over two years after that. Her life had been nothing more than mechanical—just a robotic performance of her daily routines because she had no other option. Even now, her throat tightened when she remembered how unspeakably nightmarish the time had been. There wasn’t a word for the kind of pain that she’d experienced, a pain that tore and gnawed at her heart and soul.
Then the letters from the attorney had come. How the man had traced her, she had no idea. But he had news. Ulysses Miles had passed away from a brain aneurism. He’d named her his sole heir—leaving her the astounding inheritance that she’d later used to purchase her cabin and land.
The thought still made Avery shake her head. Why would her father be that generous in death when he’d been so brutal in life? Finally she’d decided it didn’t matter. It was all a gift, not from her earthly father, but from El Shaddai—the Giver of all blessings.
Even then, she’d hesitated about leaving the city—silly doubts, caused by the even sillier hope that Addisyn would come to her senses and head home. She’d finally decided to leave her new address with a woman who worked at their old apartment complex. If Addisyn ever tried to track her, Maggie would be able to help her.
But apparently Addisyn had never given Avery a second thought.
Another mighty gust of wind, as if it were the weather blowing all these memories in. The log timbers of the house creaked, but they held firm. Avery shuddered slightly and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. It was time to stop. Time to reject this useless circling over old ground. Hadn’t she promised herself she wouldn’t rehash her mistakes with Addisyn? There was no point to it, after all. What was done...was done.
A shaft of sunlight suddenly cracked a cloud, spreading its warmth along the gray earth. Something about the contrast—the eternal hope of the sunshine pouring from the black clouds—created a release in her spirit.
Yes, her life had known dark valleys. But now it was bathed in light. The only important thing to remember was that she’d escaped that pain. She’d followed her spirit west and found a place of peace on the rugged crests of the Rockies. And now, she could never be hurt again by all that she had left behind.
Including her sister.
