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Sighing, Helen rubbed Kevin’s back and then stepped out of the shelter of his arms so that he could take off his winter coat and hat and come in past the entry.
“Do you want some tea?” she asked, going to her electric teakettle.
“No.” Kevin’s voice was firm, but gentle. “I don’t want any more tea, Helen. I would take a cup of coffee though.”
She looked at him, and their gazes locked. With that same gentle, cockeyed grin on his handsome face, Kevin closed the space between them, and his hand took hers. “Decaf.”
Ah, the charm of Kevin Murphy. Before Helen could fight it back, her own grin slipped onto her mouth. “Decaf?”
“My compromise. For now.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Helen relented. “All right, then.”
He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles and then released her as she turned back to the counter. Within five minutes they both had their warm mugs—his full of decaf coffee, and hers of peach tea—and Helen followed him to the couch.
“Why did you go to the cemetery today?” Helen adjusted her seat so that she faced him.
“I needed perspective. I don’t know why I find it best there—maybe that’s morbid. But I do.” Kevin leaned to place his mug on the coffee table and then turned toward her. “Ty doesn’t want the business.”
Helen’s heart sank, though she wasn’t shocked. Honestly, she’d wondered how long Tyler would continue commuting to work for his dad. It wasn’t a great setup for a man with a family.
Even so, she’d never brought up her concerns. Kevin had worked so hard to make Murphy Builds the thriving enterprise it was. And he’d dreamed of leaving it to their boys someday.
Leaning close, Helen slid her palm against the rough plane of his jaw. “I’m sorry, hon.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I should have seen it. Poor kid had to sit there and tell me he needed to be done, and that couldn’t have been easy. But . . .”
“But it means letting it go.”
Lips pressed tight, he nodded.
Helen curved her hand around his head, her fingers burrowing into his thick hair, and she drew his head toward hers.
For several quiet moments he stayed stiff and still, and then he drew her back against him. She could feel the shuddering of his breath as he exhaled. “I just needed to lay down all the whys again.”
The perennial human battle, it seemed. Helen had more of her own than she could count. Sometimes faith was really hard.
But if they remembered how God had been faithful in the past, it might make this test easier.
Chapter Nine
(in which flowers have meaning)
Twosolidweeks.
Helen exhaled the relief that marker brought. Kevin had been out of the hospital, through the first few days of rehab, and home now for a full two weeks. That marked just over three weeks since the event that had turned their world upside down.
With Chopin playing softly in the background, she laid out the separated stem varieties that had been stored in buckets of water in her workroom. Fir boughs for structure, arborvitae stems for soft texture, red dogwood stems for variety and a shot of color, and white hypericum for contrast berries. As she arranged the piles of stems on her worktable so that making her bundles would be as simple as walking down the line, Helen hummed the notes ofNocturne in C-Sharp Minor.
“How can I help?” Kenzie walked through the French double doors that separated the main house from this sunroom addition Kevin had built for Helen’s work space. Had that been thirteen years ago? She still felt spoiled by it.
With a grateful smile, Helen looked up at her daughter-in-love, now of ten years. Goodness those years had made such a difference in Kenzie. When she’d first stepped into the Murphys’ home, newly married to Jackson but a stranger to everyone else in the family, Helen had been uncertain.
Why had Jackson married a woman no one had ever heard of before, she’d wondered. And Kenzie had been so reserved. So very muchunlikeJackson, the wild prankster who loved a boisterous laugh more than anything else. But at that time, Helen already had one estranged son and daughter-in-law. She certainly did not want to risk that again. So she’d put on a bright face and welcomed Kenzie into their family, no questions asked.
Oh-ho-ho! If she’d known the real backstory on Jackson and Kenzie, she might well have behaved differently. Praise God shehadn’tknown. And praise God He’d worked in both Jackson’s and Kenzie’s lives in a powerful way—using sweet little Bobbie Joy in the process.
My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways . . .The verse from Jeremiah whispered through Helen’s mind as she collected the stems for her first bundle. This was a season to remember God’s faithfulness.
