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He didn’t think so. In fact, he was almost sure he wouldn’t, because he was pretty sure that Eva wouldn’t have stayed with him. She wasn’t the kind of person who kept her word.
“I was going to ask your sister Clara if she wanted to do a booth with her artwork. I’ve been putting it off because I know she’s busy with her job, but she’s right there. Do you want to come with me?” Jubilee tilted her head and looked up at him.
He grinned. After what she’d said to them, maybe she didn’t realize the way it had affected him, but he felt like he’d follow her anywhere. Wanted to, in fact.
“Sure. Do you need me to help try to convince her?”
“I don’t want her to do it if she doesn’t want to, but I’ve saved a really good spot for her, and I know she’s torn between whether she wants to keep her job and move to The Cities or whether she wants to stay here in Strawberry Sands. I thought having a booth at the strawberry festival might help her make up her mind.”
He hadn’t realized all that about his sister. He knew she liked to draw, and he would’ve considered her the artist of the family, but he didn’t realize that she was quite as serious about it as what Jubilee was saying.
He appreciated that about Jubilee, that she paid attention to people and noticed them. He supposed he had a tendency to just focus on what he was doing and put himself at the center of his world.
Jubilee seemed to make a conscious effort to put others at the center of hers.
What a great example.
“Of course,” he said as they turned and started walking toward Clara. His hand fell off the small of her back, which he hated, but as it fell, it brushed her hand which was by her side.
She didn’t jerk it away, and, maybe he was being a little bold, but he allowed their hands to brush again, and then he deliberately entwined his fingers with hers.
They walked the first step just like that, before she lifted her head and looked at him.
“Is this okay?” he asked. Maybe he should have asked before he did it, but he suspected after what she said that she might be okay with it.
“It scares me.” That was all she said, but the words went down hard on him.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
“Not of you. Just of...doing this again.” She lifted her brows, as though asking if he understood what she was saying.
He supposed he kind of did. Maybe that was why it took him so long to feel serious about anyone since Eva. He hadn’t even been serious about Eva, but the repercussions had been so unexpected, and so life-changing, that he hadn’t wanted to make that mistake again.
“I think I might understand. I... I’m not afraid. This feels right to me. But, I’ve had a lot more time since my last... I wouldn’t even call it a relationship. But, since my life changed, and I realized that being with someone doesn’t just affect me.”
She nodded. “I have two girls to think about.” Her lips flattened. “And you have Nora.”
Her eyes scanned the crowd, as though she were looking for their children.
“You think they’ll have a problem with this?” he asked, squeezing her hand to let her know that was what he was talking about.
“I don’t think so. They adore you. I just... I don’t want to fail again.”
“It wasn’t you that failed the first time. It was your lying cheating good for nothing husband who can’t keep his vows. That’s where the failure was. Not you.” It made him angry to hear her talk like all the things that happened were somehow her fault. He didn’t know what kind of wife or mother she had been when she’d been married to Cody, but it didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. Cody should have kept his vows no matter what kind of wife or mother she was. There was no excuse for cheating. None.
Her hand tightened in his. “Thank you for saying that. Sometimes I just feel so... Worthless.”
He hated hearing that. But before he could say anything she said, “I know I’m not. I know my worth is in Christ. That, because I’m a child of God, because he loves me, that’s where my worth is found. Not in self-love, or in what my husband says or does about me. But, when someone constantly tells you that you’re no good, that he would be better off without you, that everything was your fault, that you would never amount to anything without him, it’s hard to remember, to believe, that God loves me anyway. Because, Cody pledged to love me. To cherish me. To spend his life being true to me. I just feel like somehow I did something wrong in order to keep him from doing that.”
“Some people just don't know how to keep their promises. Some people say words never intending to keep them. Sometimes all people can see is themselves and what they want, and they use whatever words are necessary to try to manipulate people into doing what they want them to do, and they don’t use their words to tell the truth.”
They were in the middle of a party, and he hated that because he wanted to pull her to him, and then he decided, why not? They were still a good ten feet away from Clara who was deep in conversation with Sunday, one of his other sisters, when he pulled Jubilee to a stop, and tugged until she faced him.
He didn’t want to let go of her hand, but he brought his other hand up and put it on her shoulder.
“It made me feel better to hear you say that your worth is in Christ. I think so often we think our worth is in what other people think of us. Or what they say about us. Or how they feel about us. And we spend our lives trying to make other people happy. Somehow thinking that will somehow make God happy too. But that’s not what God is interested in. We can’t control the happiness of other people. And God doesn’t want us to try. Not that we can’t do things to make them smile, to give them encouragement or a little joy in their soul, but God wants us to live for Him. And when we’re living for Him, that joy and encouragement and those smiles we share will be a natural part of who we are. Regardless, it’s not about what other people think of us. In fact, the Bible says that there are going to be people who aren’t going to like us because we love Jesus. We have to get the idea out of our heads that we can please everyone. It’s just not possible.”
“I know.” She hung her head. “I know it. It’s just... Having people upset with me makes me feel so terrible. Like I’m bad. A bad person.”
