Sarah pressed her hands against her face, her cheeks hot with confusing emotions old and new.
Marilee hadn’t been with Logan. All these years and she’d had it all wrong. How could she have made such a huge mistake? What had Marilee meant by the note then? Petty one upmanship?
She took in a slow, trembling breath, struggling with her confusion and her emotions and as she closed her eyes, she felt the warm slide of tears down her cheek.
Then she felt Logan’s thumb gently wiping them away.
“I’m sorry, Sarah.”
He rested his hand on her shoulder again, his fingers gently stroking her neck, his calluses catching on the hair at the nape.
She leaned toward him, yearning for the comfort she used to find in Logan’s arms.
She’d borne the pain of her sister’s death intertwined with what she saw as her sister and Logan’s disloyalty. She had never had a pure moment of grief for Marilee.
Right now, she wanted Logan to help her through this. She wanted him to hold her. Like he used to. Wanted to feel his arms around her.
Just in time she caught herself.
Logan was merely feeling sorry for her. Simple pity for the loss of a girl they’d both known. Too much time had elapsed between then and now. She and Logan were two different people. She couldn’t go back and neither could he.
With a sigh, she palmed away the rest of the tears, drawing back.
“I’m glad you told me,” she said, turning away from him to dig through her purse. She was pretty sure she had a tissue. When she found it, she blew her nose and wiped away the rest of the tears. “I’m glad that’s cleared up.”
Though Logan said nothing, she was fully aware of him standing behind her.
But she couldn’t deal with him right now. Logan was a part of her past. She had come here to find out what her father wanted and, if her father’s reaction to Logan was anything to go by, she had best keep him and her father separate entities. Best excise Logan right out of her life.
“Glad to have helped.”
The next thing she heard was the sound of his boots walking away from her.
I wasn’t with her.
Did she dare think too much about that?
The words created a peculiar hope she didn’t dare nurture. Did she dare delve into the past again?
She gave her head a literal shake, trying to erase the emotions Logan brought up in her. She was here to clear up her and her father’s relationship. She was finally making progress and she was thankful for that.
Everything else from the past was best left there.
“The team is doing a bit better.” Sarah held her father’s hand. “I promised the boys if we won the next tournament I would take them out for pizza. I thought we could go to that new place in town. The one that Cal Chernowsky started up. You remember Cal? He used to work at the car dealership. I think he sold you that blue car you always hated. You always called it Cal’s Car.”
Sarah gently massaged her father’s veined hand lying lifelessly in her own. The therapist told her it was important to try to stimulate the right side of his body as much as possible and that casual conversation was the best way to maintain a connection with her father. Though the question “Why did you want me to come?” burned to be asked, she banked the urge. These moments gave her something that Marilee usually had with her father…sharing the ordinary moments of her life as her father listened.
“I’m hoping they do well.” She was hoping especially that Billy would do well. She knew Logan would be watching.
The entire time she spoke, her father looked intently at her. She couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not, but she liked to think he was.
She had been spending more time with him lately and, between visits to him and time she spent figuring out new plays for her team and going over stats and videos, visits with the family, her days were full.
She enjoyed coaching more than she thought she would. It was a challenge she felt she was rising to quite well. And knowing that Logan and a few other parents didn’t think she could do it made her even more determined to prove them wrong.
“Sarah…Marilee…” The words came out as more of a sigh, but Sarah understood them to be her and her sister’s names.
“Sarah and Marilee,” she repeated, to show that she understood. Just in time she stopped herself from praising him, like one would a small child. Mentally he was as sharp as ever, the physiotherapist had said. He had warned her and the rest of the family not to patronize Frank and treat him as if his thought processes had been affected.
“I talked to Brent,” she said. “He runs the sound system and makes CDs for people who can’t come to church. He said he would make some up for you. If you want.”
He nodded. “Good…I like…good…”
Sarah squeezed his hand in encouragement. Her uncle Sam had told her that for the past half a year her father had stopped going to church. He hadn’t said anything to his brothers about the reasons. This had confused her as much as her father’s unexpected note had.
In all the years she lived at home, rain or shine, sleet or hail, snowstorm or sickness, Sunday morning at nine-thirty he would call them down from their rooms and off to church they would go. Sometimes Marilee had been whooping it up a bit too much and she would plead illness and stay home. But Sarah, always trying to emulate her father, would go with him. Even those times when she was genuinely ill herself.
Trying too hard, Sarah thought. Always trying too hard.
“Do you want me to read to you, Dad?” Sarah asked as she gently placed his hand back on his lap.
“Please,” he said, followed by a little nod.
Sarah glanced around the room, but today the only book on her father’s bedside stand was the Bible. Her father had Bibles scattered through the house. One in his bedroom, one in his study. This edition was the one he always read from after supper, the one Uncle Sam had picked up and brought to her father a couple of days after his stroke.
Sarah opened it up, the soft crackling of the light paper drawing out memories of her father bent over the book, reading aloud, his voice filled with conviction and authority.
As she leafed through the Bible, she found a monthly devotional put out by their church. The theme for this month, in keeping with the coming Christmas season, was Waiting with Patience.
Not her strongest point these days. It seemed everywhere she turned, her patience was tried. By Billy, by her father’s illness.
By Logan.
She opened the booklet to the reading for the day and turned to Isaiah 40—a reading often used during the time of Advent. She cleared her throat and started reading. “‘Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for.” The passage resonated deep within her, teasing out memories of Christmases past. She had heard these words so often but now, reading them aloud to her father who had called her back home, it was as if she heard them for the first time. As she read on, she let the words wash over her.
“‘…He tends his flock like a shepherd…carries them close to his heart…He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of the world to nothing…He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak…they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.’”