A Blessed Life

“I’m a youth minister these days. I’ve forgotten all of those rules.”

“So I’m supposing you’ll be recommending me to real counselors now?” She’d done it—used a sentence as a question. Great, now she was talking like him.

He shook his head. “So you’re having a bit of a pity party after a really rough year and a half. Who could blame you? I’m not saying never to seek professional help, but you probably could wait for a while. Treat yourself really well and wait to see if the blues subside. If not, then seek further help.”

“Is that your professional advice, Mr. Westin?” She stood to indicate she was ready to leave.

“Absolutely, Mrs. Jacobs.” He followed her to the door. “Now let’s discuss that little matter of payment.”

Serena looked over her shoulder at him and chuckled. “I gave at the office—I mean, in the offering plate.”

“Oh, well then. See you Sunday.”

Andrew closed the door on his most nerve-racking day since starting his fellowship at Hickory Ridge Community Church six months earlier. Had she noticed that he’d swallowed hard every time she pushed her shiny, dark hair behind her ears, letting the sun dance on its auburn highlights? He’d thought she was beautiful, having only seen her from across the church. But up close, she was amazing.

At least he’d known enough the past few Sundays to be glad it was Reverend Bob’s job to deliver the sermon and not his. Otherwise, he was sure Paul’s admonishment to the church at Corinth would have been full of warnings about long, wavy hair and full lips.

Now that he’d had a good look at her, the image in his head this Sunday would be more vivid. He would see eyes that were a combination of delicacies—shaped like almonds and the hue of dark chocolate. He would know that her face was a little too square, her nose too straight, to earn her the title of classic beauty, but that somehow made her more appealing. He couldn’t allow himself to think about the way she looked in her prim white blouse and that skirt/shorts thing, even now, without breaking a sweat.

It would surely require a prayer for forgiveness, but he’d been thankful when he’d learned she was divorced. It should have made him want to step back from her, but it didn’t.

Pushing those dangerous thoughts away, Andrew pulled the monthly youth calendar up on his computer screen. Immediately, he felt tired. In theory, it was great to keep the youth too occupied in the summer to get into trouble, but all of those activities required chaperoning. The finger for that job pointed right back at him.

Trips to the Detroit Zoo and Michigan’s Adventure Park in Muskegon, plus pizza night—that would be enough without tonight’s youth lock-in. That was all he needed—spending twelve hours in a house full of adolescents. Eating too much junk food. Getting no sleep. Even with reliable fellow chaperones Robert and Diana Lidstrom and Charlene Lowe, it would be a harrowing night.

He walked to the window and stared out across the field to the older farmhouse that served as both his home and the temporary Family Life Center. The deacons had been fortunate that the prior owner had been ready to retire to Florida when they’d searched for property on which to build a new center.

Architects were already planning the shiny, modern structure that would stand there after the house was razed, but as he looked at the existing building—majestic in its own utilitarian way—he wished they’d just leave it alone. It had such character. Such history. The house spoke to a time when Milford had been a farming area instead of a bedroom community for Detroit.

Twirling the blind control, Andrew darkened the room and returned to his desk, wondering why the old house was so important to him. No one had promised him a permanent job in Milford. He was still only in the “hope” phase. But if he could prove himself indispensable to the deacons here, maybe he could finally convince the naysayers in his life that he was at least a little worthwhile.

And maybe he could convince himself.

Another image of that willowy brunette became a castaway in his thoughts, making him more uncomfortable than he cared to admit. Even if this wasn’t a true doctor-patient situation where he needed to avoid personal involvement. Obviously, it had been too long since he’d had a real date, if he was allowing their conversation to take on this much significance. He had to get out more. But a feeling deep in his gut made him wonder if he’d still be having these same unsettling feelings even if he’d had a month’s worth of interesting dates.

The phone rang and saved him from the uncertain implications of his thoughts. He didn’t need or want the complications of an involvement now. Especially not with a troubled woman. She had as many problems as he did.

“Hickory Ridge Church, this is Andrew Westin. May I help you?”

“Andrew, this is Charlene.” She spoke in that heavy New Jersey accent that made her identification unnecessary. “Got bad news. My mom’s having emergency gall bladder surgery. I hate to bail out on you, but…”

“Of course, Char, you have to be with your mom. Don’t worry a bit about us. I’ll find someone else to fill in. Let your mother know we’ll be praying for her.”

He lowered the phone to the receiver, feeling a new weight on his shoulders. Did he know anyone who was crazy enough—or naive enough, to agree to chaperone a youth all-nighter with less than eight hours’ notice? A few faces flickered in his mind and disappeared, but one unlikely image showed up and refused to fade.

Chapter Two

Still digesting that unsettling meeting with Andrew Westin, Serena pulled her Ford Taurus station wagon to the curb. Their conversation wasn’t going down easily. She needed more time to ponder it, but, as always, other needs came first.

“Hi Mommy,” Tessa chimed, stepping cautiously down the front steps of their next-door neighbor’s home with Mrs. Nelson at her heels. “We made chocolate chip cookies.”

As if that wasn’t obvious from the ingredients pasted to the front of her formerly pink T-shirt. “I bet that was a lot of fun. Thank you, Mrs. Nelson. For everything.”

The feisty retiree rolled her lips inward to stifle a laugh. Despite the added laundry challenge, Serena was grateful her neighbor with an overbooked social calendar had been available to sit. Her appointment, and the resulting panicked search for child care, had reminded her how important it was to find a regular sitter.

“Can we go to the park, Mommy? Please?”

That pleading head tilt was the one that often worked on Serena. She was being played like a song, and she didn’t mind the melody. A glance at her watch told her there was enough time to play awhile and have lunch before Tessa’s nap.

“Okay, but let’s change your shirt first.”

Only fifteen minutes after their arrival at Central Park and its special playground, River Bend Playscape, Serena wondered why she’d even changed Tessa’s clothes. She looked as if she’d lost a fight with a dust storm, but that impish grin showed she was an excellent loser. She sat wide-legged in the sandbox, having traded the cleaner play of digging with the permanent bulldozer contraption for the joy of sinking her bare feet in the sand.

Serena felt as happy as her daughter looked, here in this moment of no sickness, no visible pain. If she were honest with herself, she’d have to admit that she’d felt lighter ever since leaving Andrew’s office—even if she was having a difficult time figuring out what to do with that weightlessness. His words had shown her a flash of light at the end of the dark tunnel that was her life.

“‘Nobody gets out of here free.”’ She repeated his words under her breath and grinned. If he’d said that to her two years ago, she would have laughed out loud at his bleak predictions. How had he come to know so much? He looked to be only a few years older than she was.

But somehow, talking to him had made her feel less alone in her misery. Did the comfort come from realizing everyone had pain, or from knowing that Andrew cared about hers? Answering that question would force her to analyze several of today’s wayward thoughts, so she drew no conclusion.

Even if she were ready to consider a relationship again—which she wasn’t—Andrew wouldn’t have been her choice. He was a youth minister. In her wildest imaginings for the future, she’d never once pictured herself as a minister’s wife. Those women wore buns in their hair and played church organs.

“What’s so funny, Mommy?”

Serena looked at her sand sculpture of a daughter, embarrassed to have been caught in her musings. “I remembered a funny joke, honey.”

Tessa raised a quizzical eyebrow in an expression destined in her teen years to be perfected into a smirk. “Can I play on the slides?”

Swallowing the knot of anxiety in her throat, Serena reminded herself that the doctors wanted Tessa to remain active. They promised Tessa would set her own limits, based on the pain, and Serena hoped they were right. “Which one do you want to try first?”

She need not have worried. Tessa was timid enough for the both of them. Serena took her position at the bottom of the play structure, watching her child amble instead of run across the polyvinyl-coated bridge toward the curly tube slide.

Serena caught her at the bottom. “Here, jump to the ground.”

Tessa shook her head and lifted her arms. Serena’s throat felt dry, and her eyes burned. But she would not cry. She couldn’t allow that. She lifted her frail child, wondering if that fearless toddler, the one who had once scaled monkey bars and jumped off front porch steps instead of walking down, still existed. She had to be hidden in there somewhere. The same way Tessa’s puffy cheeks and swollen belly—side effects of her steroid medications—merely covered the healthy child beneath.

Serena shook away her sadness over their losses. Mourning didn’t do a bit of good. Besides, there was so much to be thankful for. Tessa’s skin no longer carried that ghostly pallor of anemia, meaning the medication was doing something. And the new medicine had helped so many other children. Hopefully it would have the same success with Tessa’s condition.

When her child crawled up in her lap as she sat on the bench, Serena knew it was time to go home. Exhaustion often hit hard, making daily naps necessary. She fastened Tessa into her car seat and drove home for what was always the hardest part of the day. “Quiet time” left Serena with too many minutes alone with her thoughts. Like usual, she’d spend most of it feeling sorry for herself.

She barely had time to tuck Tessa into bed and kiss her the pre-ordered three times, before the phone rang. A freelance career wasn’t always what it was marketed to be. What sounded like freedom often turned into career captivity when your home was your office. Sometimes she wished she could turn off the phone and hide until she was ready to do business again, but she couldn’t afford to lose any clients, especially now that she was a single parent. Her freelance income paid the rent.

“Serena Jacobs. May I help you?” It was a funny way to answer her home phone, but lately, her calls were more often business than personal.

“Hi, Serena. It’s Andrew Westin.”

She swallowed hard. What if he’d reconsidered his advice this morning and wanted to suggest that she seek counseling as soon as possible? “Hello, Andrew…” Not sure what to say, she hoped he would fill in the gap.

“It was good meeting you today.”

“Nice meeting you, too,” she mumbled, her nervousness growing exponentially.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about your situation, being down in the dumps.”

She took a deep breath. Here it comes. Maybe he was going to suggest something even worse, like she wasn’t stable enough to care for Tessa. When he hesitated longer than she could handle, she prompted, “Yes?”

“One way to get out of depression is to get involved in helping someone else.”

She smiled into the receiver, feeling silly over her worries. “And just who did you have in mind?”

“Me.” Andrew paused. “And about thirty of my closest friends.”

Trying hard not to be flattered, she waded through his words, searching for some deeper meaning. Was this his roundabout way of asking her out? If it were, what would she answer?

“Are you still there? I just asked if you’d ever worked with kids.”

Serena brushed her hand back through her wind-tangled hair and blushed, glad he couldn’t see her. Obviously, she was letting her imagination get the best of her.

“I taught toddler Sunday School for about a year after I graduated.” Why did she feel like she was being hooked here like a bad act in a variety show—only she was being dragged out onto the stage, not off.

“Perfect.” He made a sound into the receiver as if he’d snapped his fingers. “Then, I have just the job for you—chaperone for tonight’s teen lock-in.”

“Oh, I don’t really—”

“Please, before you say no, hear me out.”

She had no business even thinking about volunteering for something like this. Her focus needed to always be on Tessa. Still, it would be rude not to at least give the youth minister a chance to explain. “Go ahead.”

His words came out in a rush, blending excitement and desperation. “Well, you see, there’s this lock-in tonight. It will be about thirty kids, from seventh to twelfth grades. They play board games, have organized activities, listen to clean music, watch approved videos and eat junk food.”

She carried the phone into her bedroom, past the bed and dresser that were pressed so closely together she could barely open the drawers. When she reached her messy desk by the window, she sat and pushed through the pile of works in progress.

“Yes, I know what a lock-in is. We had them all the time in our youth group.”

“Well, the special thing about this particular lock-in is that it’s my first one as youth minister. I thought I had the whole thing under control, with four chaperones—myself included—lined up. Only, Char had a family emergency, and I haven’t been able to find a replacement.”

“How many people have you asked before me?”

“About a dozen.”

She smiled into the receiver. “Glad to hear I was your first choice. What did the first twelve say?”

“They pretty much wished me the best in finding someone who was…available.”

“Then, I’ll have to do the same, I think.”

“Are you saying you’re not available?”

She could feel the tightrope swaying beneath her toes. Could she decline carefully without lying? “I never said that. But I do have one small complication—a four-year-old one. I’m new here. I don’t have any regular baby-sitters for Tessa, even if I could get someone on such short notice.”

“I wonder what would have happened if Simon, Peter and Andrew had been too busy casting nets on the Sea of Galilee to follow Jesus so he could make them ‘fishers of men.”’

“That’s not quite fair.”

“I’m just kidding. If you’re willing to chaperone, you’re more than welcome to bring Tessa. She’ll be the hit of the party. And later we can put her to bed in my room.”

“I still don’t think—”

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Hey, if you’re looking for baby-sitters, this is the place to be.”

An overnight party, filled to the walls with potential baby-sitters—what could be the harm in that? She shook her head and stared out the lace-curtained window, glancing down at the street lined with old elms and maples.

She wasn’t really considering this, was she? It would take no more than one hand to enumerate the things she knew about teenagers, and at least four of those things she’d learned while living through that misery herself.

“I just don’t think it would be the best idea—”

“Do you think I’d be calling you—a new attendee, not even a church member yet—if I weren’t desperate? I have all these kids coming and not enough adults to chaperone. If you say no, I guess I’d better cancel the whole thing.” He sighed. “Please, Serena. You’re my last resort.”

“Since you put it that way…”

“Thanks, Serena. You’re a lifesaver.”

As she hung up the phone, she couldn’t help wondering if she was also a daredevil. Being in close proximity to Andrew Westin was probably not in her best interest. But for some reason, she couldn’t resist.

Andrew opened the front door to the temporary Family Life Center and led Serena and Tessa into a huge, nearly empty room. Funny, he almost wished the space had a matched living room group and heavy draperies instead of mini-blinds on the windows and folding chairs stacked against the wall. “This is our main gathering place. We meet here on Sunday mornings for singing and prayer before Sunday School and again for youth group on Sunday nights.”

“Doesn’t anybody use it during the week?” Serena looked about, seeming less than overwhelmed by the old house’s decor.

“Sure. Tuesday morning Bible study. The monthly men’s breakfast. The Christian women’s group. The church quilters. It’s almost always in use.”

“Didn’t you say you live here?”

He nodded over his shoulder as he strode toward the kitchen. “I only use part of it. Hey, Tessa. Want to see the rest of the house?”

He looked back to see the child timidly investigating each room. The resemblance between the dark-haired pixie and her mother was amazing. She would be beautiful when she grew up. Although she’d been opening and closing the dining room blinds, when he spoke, Tessa accepted his hand and went with him to the kitchen.

“Mommy, there’s a refrigerator…and a stove.”

Serena watched the two of them—already buddies—feeling more relaxed than she had in weeks. Maybe volunteering was a good idea, after all.

“You’re right. Do you think there might be dishes in those cabinets?”

“Let’s see—” Tessa jerked the first door open. “Just pans.” The disappointment in her voice made both adults grin.

Andrew scooped Tessa up in his arms as if he’d done it every night of her life, whirling her about the room and stopping before each upper cabinet door so she could look inside. “They’re probably not as pretty as your mom’s dishes, but they work okay for me.”

“For you?” Tessa stopped opening doors long enough to look down at him. “Is this your house?”

He nodded. “Want to see my room?”

“Where is it?” She was already squirming to get out of his arms and investigate.

He pointed to the closed door off the kitchen. “There.” He fished a key out of his pocket and laid it in Tessa’s hand. She’d reached the lock, worked it and turned the knob before the grown-ups caught up with her.

Through the open doorway, Serena saw a smallish, blue-carpeted bedroom that had been converted to an apartment of sorts. On one wall was a roughly constructed wooden loft bed with a plaid recliner and end table beneath it. Both faced a little TV balanced on milk crates.

On the opposite wall was a set of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, built with the same primitive materials as the loft. The shelves were loaded, most of them stuffed two books deep. No more than three feet from the loft was a card table and chairs—a makeshift dinette.

Serena could feel Andrew’s eyes on her as she took in the details, but he didn’t try to interrupt her. His scrutiny made her neck feel warm.

“It’s not a mansion, but it meets my needs.”

She smiled, feeling the flush creep higher. “It looks great.” The simple awareness of him made her so uncomfortable that she scanned the room again for a distraction. Her gaze caught a Harley-Davidson poster behind the door that seemed so out of character for the stereotypical youth minister she’d created in her mind. She got the feeling there was more to Andrew Westin than she’d originally guessed.

She glanced back to find him leaning against the door, his arms crossed in a casual pose. “It’s really nice, but why don’t you use the rest of the house?” she asked. As far as she could tell, the little bathroom, the kitchen and his multipurpose room formed his apartment in only one-quarter of the square footage.

He shrugged. “There’s something about having my own space. You know what I mean?”

How odd that she did understand what he was saying. A few months ago she wouldn’t have had a clue. Now it was clear. Personal space was about being in control—taking control—when the world all around was going crazy. She would have said that to him, or at least tried to relate the connection that she felt, if not for the crash that came from the other side of the house.

“Duty calls.” He ushered them out of his room and turned the key before gesturing toward the locked door. “It never hurts to keep this room locked. It prevents the bed from mysteriously ending up short-sheeted and keeps my underwear from getting hung on the church flagpole. I wasn’t born yesterday. Thirty-three years ago, to be exact.” He headed toward the door. “We’d better greet the inmates.”

Serena followed behind him, pulling a suddenly shy Tessa. Curious about his comment, Serena spoke to his retreating back. “Do you know that stuff from personal experience?”

He looked back at her over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. She’d have to ask him about that later. She was pretty sure it would be a good story.

“All right, who banged the door?” he asked the crowd rushing through the entry.

A chorus of “not me” rang out, loud enough to rattle the shingles.

“Everyone, this is Serena and her daughter, Tessa.” He indicated the baker’s dozen of teens already filling the living room. “Serena, Tessa, this is everyone.”

A couple followed the kids through the door, their smiles as round as their middle-age waistlines. Assuming them to be the other two chaperones, Serena nodded to them, liking them on sight. She reached down to brush back her daughter’s hair—Tessa had attached herself to her leg.

“And Serena and Tessa, I’d like you to meet Robert and Diana Lidstrom, the coolest soon-to-be grandparents east of Lake Michigan.” Andrew gripped Robert’s hand and planted a kiss on Diana’s cheek in a single fluid motion. “I wouldn’t have considered tonight’s adventure without them.”

Diana winked at Serena. “We wouldn’t have volunteered for just anybody, either. I think it was Kentucky’s loss and Michigan’s gain that Andrew ended up here.”

Serena turned to him. “You’re from Kentucky? You don’t have the accent.”

He shrugged. “It’s Louisville. And I’ve worked hard to mask that accent.” He said “accent” with an exaggerated Southern drawl.

Seeming not to notice the other adults around him, Robert dropped to a crouch to be eye-to-eye with Tessa. “Hi, Tessa. Is this your first slumber party?”

Her shy nod led him to list the night’s fun activities. Tessa released her grip on her mother’s leg bit by bit, finally accepting Robert’s outstretched hand and his offer to go find the potato chips.

Diana gestured toward their retreating backs. “It will be just like that when she grows up. Some boy’s going to lead her away from you.”

Serena shivered at the thought of that eventuality, reminding herself this was the normal course of things. She couldn’t protect her daughter forever. “Don’t remind me.”

Diana patted her shoulder with a mother’s sympathy. “Oh, that’s months away from being a problem. How did Andrew twist your arm into being here tonight?”

“He bribed me with my choice of baby-sitters.”

Diana winked knowingly. “I hope he didn’t play on your sympathies and beg or anything.”

Andrew whisked through the room, his arms loaded with pizza boxes. He returned from the kitchen a few minutes later with a slice in hand. “Guilty as charged. A desperate man, you know. Did what I had to in order to get what I needed.”

Although he had spoken about her being a last-minute chaperone, the brief look he cast toward her made Serena wonder if there was something more to Andrew Westin’s interest in her, more than his need for a volunteer. She could have sworn the ball of nerves rumbling inside her was from anticipation. And she knew better than to allow herself to feel that way.