Song of the Brokenhearted (26 page)

Ava stripped back the bedspreads right away. Even in the five-star hotels where they usually stayed, she was meticulous about the bedspread habit. She'd seen one too many news investigation programs were they took a black light to the bedspreads, floors, and walls.

Next Ava checked the sheets, which passed her inspection, though who knew what frightful things were hidden from the human eye. At this moment, she cared less than usual. They had a room, that's what mattered. Her exhaustion and relief that they weren't stranded somewhere in the car or sleeping in it once again outweighed her germ phobia, which normally would've been heightened with the baby in tow. She laid Emma down in the middle of the sheets.

Emma wiggled around, putting her feet in the air and rolling over to one side. Then she tried rolling to her stomach, grunting and struggling with one arm stuck beneath her.

“You can do it,” Ava said, kneeling next to the bed. She laughed at the determination, and finally gave Emma a little nudge to help her over.

“You did it!”

Emma's focused expressions transformed into a huge smile and a giggle that filled Ava's heart with a joy she hadn't felt in years. She'd forgotten the maternal delight of tiny accomplishments like this and wondered why it was suddenly so strong for this little one.

After feeding Emma and rocking her to sleep with her back muscles burning, she placed Emma back on the bed, ever so carefully. The baby opened her eyes a moment, then she settled back to sleep. Ava felt like doing a cheer as she lined the pillows along the edge of the bed.

“We're getting the hang of this,” she whispered with a yawn.

Ava fell back upon the bed with her arms outstretched across the width of it. She closed her eyes and could visualize the road stretched in front of her. Her nerves longed for a luxurious bath with bubbles, a glass of Pinot, and the thick down comforter of her favorite hotel. Instead they had a dank motel with suspicious carpeting, crooked curtains, and a neon light flickering outside.

“We'll be back home tomorrow night,” Ava muttered to herself and to Emma, who made a soft sigh in her sleep.

Ava wondered what tomorrow would hold. The goal was clear. Find Bethany. Could that be accomplished without seeing too much of her family? Should she take time to visit her brother while she was in town?

She drifted in and out of sleep as she went over different scenarios. Then she heard it. Not noise from the other rooms or big rigs on the highway or a clock ticking obnoxiously keeping her awake. No, this was much more detrimental to her chances of getting a good night's sleep.

Ava smiled wearily as Emma giggled beside her.

Despite her exhaustion, it wasn't that late, so Ava called Dane again. The call went directly into voice mail. He was obviously out of a service area. Loneliness swept over her, as if she were much too small to be alone in this dank motel room with a little baby to care for. She longed for Dane and the strength he always offered her.

She called Kayanne.

“My phone is going to die pretty soon, and I can't find my charger. I'd forgotten how frazzled I get with a baby. And I can't reach Dane either, so if you have a chance, will you call and tell him that I'm all right and what's going on?”

“Of course, but go get a new phone charger,” Kayanne said.

“I'll look for a store, but there's not much out here.”

“Everyone has a cell phone. And by the way, I really hate praying aloud,” Kayanne said with a grumble that made Ava laugh.

“That was random. And using
hate
and
prayer
in the same sentence might be sacrilegious, so be careful. But I'll admit, I don't like it either.”

“You don't? But you pray out loud at Bible study every week.”

“Doesn't mean I like it. It's my responsibility.”

“I think Corrine enjoys it. I think she practices her prayer during the week before Bible study so that she'll sound pious. Don't you notice how she volunteers every week?”

“You are so bad,” Ava said, sitting in a chair near the bed. She'd had the same thought herself, especially since she'd seen Corrine with a small cheat sheet in hand.

“Why don't you like praying aloud?”

“I have to organize my words and thoughts for the benefit of others. When I pray at home, to myself, it's more like me dumping everything on God.”

“Yeah, sometimes it's more like pummeling God with prayer.”

“I think He can take it.”

The baby stirred. “Why are we discussing this?”

“So you know how much I love you.”

Ava was about to say how random that was as well, when Kayanne launched into a prayer over the phone.

“Father God, I pray much better in my head, but I need you to be with my friend Ava while she's in some seedy motel in the middle of nowhere with a baby that isn't hers and while she goes to see people who have never been very good to her. Let her feel your peace and go before her in everything she faces in the days ahead and even tonight in that dark, scary motel room. Keep her safe. Be with her.”

Ava found herself looking around the room as if some specter might rise from the closet or under the bed.

“Amen.”

“That was actually quite wonderful—thank you. Want me to pray for you? Your man issues?”

“That sounded lovely—my man issues. And don't you already pray for me to find the love of my life?”

“I do, but maybe not as often as I should.”

“Then by all means, please do so now. And aloud so I can hear it.”

Ava prayed for Kayanne, her life, her dating, and her future. She disliked praying aloud because of the need for cohesiveness, whereas within her head, it could be a jumbled outpouring that she knew God could unweave. Yet the peace that settled over her during Kayanne's prayer and now her own made it worth it.

“Where two or more are gathered in Your name, Lord, there you said you will be also . . .” And Ava could feel God with them in the midst of their uncomfortable, aloud prayers.

Emma slept soundly after a final bottle. Ava muttered the Lord's prayer several times, and she too collapsed into the warm arms of sleep.

She woke in the deep of the night with Emma stirring restlessly beside her. She'd want a bottle soon.

After piling pillows around her little form, Ava forced herself from bed. As she plugged in the portable teapot she'd brought along and poured in some bottled water, Ava realized she'd been dreaming, or perhaps she had been reminiscing about her aunt and their days in the San Francisco Bay Area.

They'd been talking about God in the dream or the memory. The question was whether God was orchestrating every detail that occurred in their lives. Or was He more distant, caring for the bigger things, reaching out when people prayed? Prayer did something divine; Ava had no doubt about that. She didn't fully understand it, why God said to pray, why or how it all worked. But that part didn't worry her—after all, she could watch the stars in the sky or see a jet fly overhead and be okay with knowing nothing about how it all worked. And the Bible had countless stories of God doing something because His people prayed.

As a child, Ava wanted to think of God as with her always. Sometimes her heart filled to overflowing with the sense of God . . . His greatness, His majesty, the wonder of someone she couldn't fully grasp or comprehend.

And God loved her. She knew this as she knew nothing else. Throughout the pain, especially in the pain, God was there. She had crumbled beneath the willow trees along the Black Rock River and found God there. Even when she thought He was distant, so far away that she almost stopped believing in His existence, if she sought Him again, He never failed to be found.

“How do I find Him?” Ava had asked her aunt in a tone that didn't veil her resentment. She was in her late teens by that time and had moved to California. Aunt Jenny was her cool aunt, not someone bound by church rules. She wore designer clothes, ate sushi, and went to the opera. Business trips had taken her around the world where she disappeared with her neatly packed suitcases and briefcase in hand.

“Seek Him,” Aunt Jenny said, and it reminded Ava of her younger days beneath the willow trees.

Seek and you will find Me
.

Ava ignored the words in her head. “How do I seek Him?”

“Look for Him as you would something very valuable.”

Where your treasure is, there is also your heart
.

“Like a treasure? God is a treasure?”

“Yes,” Aunt Jenny said with a smile.

“But He isn't a treasure to be found. I hate words like that. They're such pat little Christian answers.”

“But they're true sometimes. What would be better in this life to find than God?”

She'd felt so bitter about all of this. About anything that hinted of church, Christianity, faith, or religion.

“I know why you are so hurt.” Ava was surprised by the tears in her aunt's eyes. She looked away. “I was raised in the same church,” Aunt Jenny said.

Ava studied her then. She'd forgotten that. Aunt Jenny had already moved to California by the time Ava was old enough to know her. She never visited the church when she came to town, never stayed out at Grannie's farm either.

“My dad wasn't the pastor when you went, right?”

“No. Your dad is a few years older than I, but we were in the same youth group together.”

“What was it like back then?”

“Strict. We were happy kids, but there was a rule for everything, and it seemed anything wrong we did—which was most everything—was sure to damn us to hell. It kept us in line, sort of.”

“My daddy is a hypocrite.”

“No, your daddy is human.” Ava bit her lip at that. “He's also your daddy. But more than that, he isn't God.”

“Well, I know that, obviously. God wouldn't get arrested, kicked out of church, shame the entire family, and end up in prison.”

“Well, Jesus did some similar things, but He wasn't guilty.”

Ava laughed at that, though there was an element that definitely wasn't funny at all.

“You have to always remember that although we think of God as a Father, He isn't at all like our earthly fathers, thankfully.”

“Then what is He like?” she'd asked.

“He's like God.”