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Chapter 22
“Do you think I shouldremove my gram permanently?” Alex hadn’t even been thinking in that direction. He figured he’d just take her until the facility could take her again. Until they got the strike or whatever it was worked out. But... She could pack up and move to Strawberry Sands.
Before, when he put her in the assisted care facility, he’d done it because he didn’t want her home for hours on end without him. But with him working in Strawberry Sands and with Clara being there... Of course, she hadn’t said for sure that she was staying, but she did encourage him with the thought that maybe she wasn’t completely thinking about quitting. They hadn’t pursued that line of conversation, and maybe it was a deliberate thing on his part, since he didn’t want to hear that she couldn’t.
Maybe he should have. Because he was curious now.
“I think that’s up to you. And her too. Maybe she won’t want to leave.”
“If I know my grandma, even a little, she will be thrilled at the opportunity to live in Strawberry Sands. And I would be willing to bet she would love living in the old schoolhouse. She used to be a teacher.”
“She was?”
“A long time ago, before she was married, she taught school in a one-room schoolhouse. I probably wouldn’t know it, but she talked fondly about that time in her life. I think if she had been born in a different time period, she probably would have been a teacher all her life, but when she got married, she quit.”
“I hope she loves what she did with the rest of her life.”
“She did. I don’t really think she regretted it, she just looked back on it with fondness. She loved being a wife and a mother. And from what I understand, she was a good one.”
“I love that. People who have a path in life, and they walk that path determined to enjoy every second of it. It seems like a waste of life to be miserable, you know?”
Boy, did he ever. “If there’s anything that you taught me, that’s probably it. Although, that was such an understatement. I learned a lot from you. But being content where I’m at is probably one of the biggest.”
“I suppose it’s easier to be content where you’re at when you’re sure that God has you exactly where you are. And is using you for His purpose. After all, if you’re sure about that, then where you are and what you’re doing is the exact right thing, so why would you be unhappy about it?”
“If you take that out even further, the things other people do won’t bother you, because you have your eyes fixed on Jesus.”
“Exactly. But I think that’s where we stumble as humans. Because we want to be offended. We want to get upset. We want to have our rights and our way. In our society, we’re taught that we can’t allow people to take advantage of us. That there’s something wrong with us if we allow people to take advantage.”
“Classic blame the victim, but it’s an acceptable teaching all through society.”
“I don’t want to be considered a victim of them. I’m not. Being a victim insinuates that you can’t help where you are. You can’t be a victim if you’ve chosen to allow someone else to do things that take away from your supposed rights.”
He nodded. “You know, I’ve always enjoyed discussing things like this with you.”
“We haven’t done it very often,” she said, laughing a little, like she found what he had intended as a compliment to be amusing instead.
“No. I guess we always did keep things work related. That’s just...the way I do it, I guess.”
“Well, that’s the thing I admire about you. You are always very professional. I never wondered if there was something going on between you and anyone else that you were working with, because while you were kind, you worked with some women who flocked after you, thinking that you thought more of them than what you did. There is always a very solid line between work and personal. And you don’t allow anyone to cross it.”
“You have.” He heard the deeper note in his voice, and he figured that was just his emotions coming out. Because it was true. What she said was accurate, because he’d always been very careful to be professional and moral. He didn’t want there to be any office gossip about him and anyone else. And he certainly didn’t want anything along those lines to be true. Except with Clara.
“It took seven years,” she said. Her tone was light, but he felt like there was a deeper message to what she said.
“Maybe that’s because I didn’t think that you liked me. At all.”
“Why else would I have stayed with you for seven years?”
Was that true?
“Was I so terrible to work with for that long?”
She shook her head no but didn’t comment.
“I’m confused.”
“About what?” she asked, as though they hadn’t just been talking about personal versus business, and she made a comment that made him feel like maybe she had feelings for him. Was she really not going to explain it?
