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“We are.” Clara gave her the directions on how to get to the greenhouse and told her the type of tomatoes and peppers she usually got. She texted them to her so that Jubilee wouldn’t forget, and then she knelt down, and they worked in silence for a while.
“Am I being too nosy if I ask why you landed in Strawberry Sands? I mean, it’s not exactly the type of place people flock to. And I could be wrong, but you didn’t grow up here.”
“No. I didn’t. I spent one summer here. My aunt raised me after my mom left. I was just a baby.”
“Your dad?”
“I saw him a couple of times growing up. Haven’t talked to him for years. I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him on the street.”
“Does your aunt live here now?” Clara asked, wrinkling her nose like she was trying to think of who of all the ladies in town might be her aunt.
“No. She passed away a few years ago. It was hard because that was really all the home I ever knew.”
“That’s sad.” Clara gave a humorous laugh. “That makes my decision as to whether or not I should go to the Cities a little clearer. After all, I still have a home, a mom who loves me and who wants me to stay here. A place where I feel anchored. Plus, a whole pile of siblings that I know I can depend on for anything. Do you have siblings?”
“No. It was just me.” Her dad might have had more children. But she’d never met any of them, and while she probably wouldn’t mind meeting them, she couldn’t imagine that she would feel any kind of connection to them since she didn’t feel any kind of connection to her dad.
“I’m a little jealous of that. I wish I had your kind of grounding, you know?”
“Yeah. It’s so much a part of what I think about myself. The idea that I have a family who loves me and supports me no matter what.”
Jubilee didn’t really want to talk about that anymore. She didn’t really pity herself. And her life was just her life. It wasn’t until she got older that she thought about what it might be like if she had a real family. People that she could depend on. She had wanted that for her girls. But...that hadn’t worked out. That might have been part of the reason she moved in with her mother-in-law. Just hoping that everything would work out. That her husband would apologize, that they would make up, get back together, and be a family for her girls.
She didn’t even care about being in love or whatever with her husband. She just wanted to have a family.
Sometimes it seemed like the harder a person worked for something, the more elusive it became. Maybe that was because she was trying to have a family in place of God, rather than allowing Him to be her anchor in the world.
Maybe He kept moving what she wanted, making it impossible to attain, so that she eventually turned to Him.
It was an idea that she tucked away to think about later. After all, it could be true. God wanted her to look to Him for her anchor, for her base, for her security. Not to family and friends.
Although He did provide family and friends for that purpose for a lot of people. He just hadn’t done it for her.
She didn’t want to resent that. She wanted to think that He did it to be an extra blessing to her. To make her have an even deeper and more vibrant relationship with Him, since she didn’t have the typical family relationships that most people did.
“So, you can tell me if I’m being too nosy, but Matt doesn’t typically do anything with anyone. With girls anyway. And you said you’re going riding with him tonight. That makes me curious. Do you and Matt know each other somehow?”
Clara’s voice seemed studiously uninterested, casual, but it made Jubilee want to smile because she was obviously very curious.
“I’m not sure. I knew him the summer I was here. Actually, I didn’tknow himknow him. I don’t even know if we ever talked. I think I would remember it if we had. I just admired him, because I remember him being handsome and nice. I remember seeing him ride along the shore of Lake Michigan and just thinking how neat it would be to be with him. You know, teenage crush. It’s almost like a celebrity crush where there was never any chance of us being together. I was younger, first of all, and not the kind of girl who would catch Matt’s eye.”
“I don’t know about that. Matt usually was pretty solid. He didn’t get carried away by a pretty face or girls in bikinis. He was always rather strong and silent. You know that kind. Which makes it so odd that he...” Clara looked around a bit as though just remembering that Eva had been renting a room from her mom. “Eva really chased him. Shamelessly almost. I don’t think Matt really liked her, and that made Mom complacent, I think. That and the fact that he was always so dependably good.”
That was interesting to hear.
“Mom thinks she’s back because she wants to get Matt back. Or get Matt to begin with, since she never really had him. Not that I really know what happened that summer. I just know Matt never acted like someone who was head over heels for someone. The next thing we knew, he had a child.”
“I can’t believe that he didn’t offer to marry her.” That seemed like something that he’d do, if he was as dependable as he seemed.
“I think he was going to. I don’t think he really wanted to, but that’s what he felt he should do? If that makes sense. But he did something that made Eva mad. She wouldn’t talk to him, and Matt didn’t really try to work things out. Again, I think it was mostly because he didn’t really care. She picked up with some other dude, and I’m not even sure he knew that she was pregnant. It was that fast. She wasn’t showing. Next thing we knew, she was married and moving to Chicago. There were a few other men in there, but Matt insisted on visitation rights, and that’s how they worked things out that he got Nora during the summer and a couple of weeks here and there during the school year.”
Clara shrugged her shoulders. “He probably wouldn’t appreciate me saying all of that, but it’s common knowledge in our family. Now that Eva is back, people are probably going to be talking about it.”
“Maybe he’ll fall for her this time.”
“I don’t think so. She’s not his type.”
“She must’ve been a little bit his type.” They had a child together anyway.
