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“I have to agree with you.”
They had reached the steps and started up them.
“I had meant to ask you earlier. Should... Should the kids call me dad? I mean, I don’t want to —”
“Yes! I’m so glad you said something. Absolutely. Um...” she stopped in front of the door, and he stopped beside her. Something about her posture made him look down, wondering what it was.
“I don’t have a father’s name on the birth certificate. I... I always assumed they were Chalmers, but...there’s a chance they’re not.”
That was hard. As hard as it was to listen to her today in front of Shanna, when she was talking about the things that she had done with Chalmer for money. He didn’t want to think about it. Not just because of what she had done, but because of how it had to have affected her. She was trying to live right, she couldn’t be proud of those moments, and... He guessed that they were a lot more painful than she let on.
“I’m sorry,” was the only thing he could think of to say.
“I should have told you that before we got married. I... I know you heard me talking to Shanna —”
“I did. And I felt bad for you.”
“Isn’t there anything I could do that would make you turn away from me?” she asked, and she sounded frustrated. Like she had been trying to upset him.
“Am I not reacting the way you want me to?” he asked, and his voice was gentle, although there was a little bit of...fear. Fear that she was trying to push him away. He didn’t know what he would do about that.
“No! You’re not reacting the way I expect you to! I expect you to be horrified, disgusted, appalled. Not...compassionate and forgiving.”
“There’s nothing that I need to forgive you for. As for being compassionate, I think that’s the natural response. You had a hard life. You had to do things you didn’t want to do.”
“That’s just it! At the time, I did want to do those things. At least, I wanted the money from doing those things, and it didn’t seem like a big deal. Like I was just doing business.”
“You had to do things you regret.” He corrected himself.
She nodded. “You’re right. I do regret them. I have a lot of regrets.”
“You know, when God forgives you, He forgives everything. He doesn’t remember. That’s what He wants for you and me. I have to forgive you, and you forgive me. And we’re supposed to do it the way God forgives us. Of anything.” He paused, because his heart really did hurt with a sadness and pain that was totally unfamiliar. “I’m not saying it’s easy.”
“No. And we don’t deserve forgiveness,” she said, almost as though she had finally figured out what was going on. Why he was forgiving, and why she couldn’t do anything that would make him turn his back on her.
“Because there’s nothing that we can do that would make God turn his back on us.”
“Yeah. I just figured it all out.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.” He figured he ought to say that, because it was true. It was painful. “I suppose that’s true for the Lord too. It hurts Him when we sin.”
“That makes me sad. I had never even thought about that before. But the same way that our sin hurts people around us, it hurts God, too.”
“The way a child’s sin hurts their parents. You want the best for your kid, you want them to do right, and when they don’t, it’s hard. Painful. And that’s the way God feels about us and our sin when we sin.”
“I’ve never seen that before, but it’s so clear now.”
They stood there staring at each other, maybe thinking a little, and he finally said, “It’s been a long day. Come on. Let’s go and see our kids.”
“Our kids,” she echoed. Then he smiled. He didn’t know what it was going to take to adopt them, but he wanted to. He wanted them to be a family and he was going to put every single effort that he possibly could into making that happen. Not just because he wanted to, but because that’s what happened when God forgave them. They got adopted into God’s family, and treated like one of God’s own. It almost seemed like that was the example that Ezra had, and it was the one that he was supposed to follow. He was going to do it to the best of his ability.
Chapter 19
“And every time it rains, God puts his rainbow in the sky to remind us that he will never flood the earth with water again.”
Alaska closed the Bible story book she had been reading and stroked with a gentle hand across Eugene’s forehead.
“I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
