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It was now an hour before the end of the business day on Tuesday. Levi decided to be brave and text Maggie.
Levi
How’s work?
She didn’t reply for a good forty minutes.
Maggie
Handover complete. My work at Midtown Village—with its four months of Christmas activities—is now officially over.
Levi
I’m surprised you did that much work. Puts my warehouse job to shame.
Maggie
We are each called differently. All I can say now is that my time here is done.
What did she mean by that? Was Maggie fooling herself? Was she still running away from Atlanta when all arrows were pointing back to Midtown Chapel?
They’d sort it all out this evening.
Maggie was too tired to go out to eat in a restaurant. She wanted to kick back and relax in her pajamas at home. She was very much a homebody.
Levi offered to pick up a Chinese takeout dinner and meet her at her house.
Five o’clock came quickly, and Levi made the call. He left his office in a hurry but was still caught in the Atlanta rush hour, trying to get from his favorite Chinese restaurant to Maggie’s house. A ten-minute drive turned into twenty minutes because of a wreck on his side of the street.
Whenever Levi was caught in traffic, it was time to pray.
As was the Theroux tradition of making quick decisions, Levi decided that Maggie was the one. Still, he had to be careful not to push her one way or another or she might misunderstand.
Yes, he was willing to go through life with her, for better or for worse.
When he had found out that Maggie was moving out of town, Levi didn’t want her to go.
Still, she was set on leaving, as if the train was revving to go—in potentially the wrong direction—and nobody could stop it. She had already rented the U-Haul. Malachi and their parents were expecting her.
They had been in the mission field, so surely they understood the importance of listening to God when He changed their course.
But Maggie.
Stubborn Maggie.
Levi wondered how things might have changed had he realized his feelings sooner. Maggie might still be working at Midtown Chapel.
Levi wasn’t sure what he could do to make Maggie change her mind and stay in Atlanta. It seemed that the trajectory of her career had been set, and there was no turning back now, right?
“Lord, if her plans are fixed, should I go with her?” Levi prayed aloud. “I’m sure I can find a job in Lakeside. If I can’t find any opportunity in the small town, then I’ll look in the surrounding big cities.”
No one else was in the truck, so Levi continued to talk with God aloud. “On the other hand, I could stay here in Atlanta and work at Christmastown.”
He’d earn more income if he worked for Cyrus as his regional warehouse manager. He wondered if Cyrus would agree to let him take alternate Fridays off so that he could make the seven-hour drive to Lakeside, Florida, to see Maggie.
His girlfriend.
It would be a shame for them to part ways merely days after confessing that they had fallen in love with each other.
