Tomorrow's Sun (27 page)

“The war?” There were several to choose from.

“The War Between the States. We have a letter.” Dorothy flipped several more pages. “There’s no envelope or last names, but the story passed down with it is that Big Jim was Jim Thornton, who was the town blacksmith in the 1850s. Here.”

Emily’s hand rose to her mouth. She locked eyes with Jake. They’d seen that scrolling, expressive script before.

Emily read the letter silently and looked up, waiting for Jake to finish. “Her name was Hannah.”

Dorothy nodded. “Her mother, Elizabeth, died when Hannah was a girl. She’s buried in the cemetery at the English Settlement Church.”

“Where is that?”

“On A and J,” Jake answered. “About three miles from us. The church would have been built about the same time as the house, right?”

Another album page turned in Dorothy’s veiny hand. “Building began on the chapel in 1846, but they ran out of money before they could finish the interior, so the first service wasn’t held there until New Year’s Day of 1849.”

“What else do you know about Hannah? Did she ever marry?”

“We don’t know. We have the record of her father’s second marriage. He married a widow from Burlington. They must have had a son together because the Ostermanns did purchase the house from someone named Shaw. Hannah may have stayed in Missouri, or if, like the letter said, she married when she came back, it would be hard to trace her. Maybe, if someone were curious enough to search all the local cemeteries, that person would find some answers.”

Jake looked at her over the top of Dorothy’s head. Anticipation sparked in his eyes. “What are you doing on Sunday afternoon?”

“Visiting cemeteries apparently. But first I need to catch up on some letters.”

Dorothy glanced from Jake to Emily, closed the album, and slid two thin booklets and a red-bound hardcover book in front of her. “I’m keeping you two from dancing.” She patted Emily’s hand. “Will you come and visit me soon?”

“I’d love that.”

“I’m old-fashioned enough to be in the phone book. I’ll get you caught up on everything we know about your house, and you can fill me in on what you’ve learned from the ghosts.” She stood and waved with her fingertips. “See you soon.”

Restraining a laugh, Emily didn’t dare look at Jake until Dorothy was out of earshot.

“You have to bring her over to the house. I bet she can see them.”

“Right. I’ll bring her over so she can introduce me to my own ghosts.” She watched the lines deepen on each side of his mouth. “They are mine, right? If I own the house, I own the ghosts.”

“Absolutely. It’s in the fine print of every bill of sale: ‘The Seller hereby grants, bargains, sells, assigns, transfers, conveys, and sets over unto the Purchaser all ghosts, ghouls, goblins, spooks, specters, apparitions, and ethereal beings real or imaginary residing in or on the Property.’”

Emily swiped at laugh tears dampening her lashes. “I can’t wait to write the listing. ‘For Sale. Historic three-bedroom—’”

“Shoulda been four-bedroom.”

“‘
Three
-bedroom, two-bath home complete with fireplace, back porch, trapdoors, secret room, and quiet, well-mannered poltergeist.’”

“It won’t be on the market more than a week.” His smile waned and he reached for his hat. “Let’s not talk about that now.” He held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”

She slid her palm onto his. Warm, large, calloused, his hand closed around hers. She looked up at unruly sun-lightened hair peeking from under the black cowboy hat and tried to remember why she was supposed to say no. The band played the first few notes of “We Like to Party” as he pulled her to her feet and led her to the back row of dancers. As her feet began stomping in place in time to his, she remembered one of the reasons she should have declined. “I thought you hated dancing.”

His forehead furrowed. Boots tapped, hands clapped, and a grin split his face. “Where’d you ever get an idea like that?”

L
exi stared at the words of the worship chorus on the screen above the platform. She usually loved this part of a Sunday service the best, but this morning the praise lyrics wouldn’t take shape in her mouth.

Adam sang the same as he did any other Sunday. Jake’s voice seemed louder than usual.

She should be praising God for saving Pansy. And sticking Ben in jail. It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful for both, but nothing was for sure yet. How long would Ben stay there and what would he do to her when he got out? Would he take it out on her this time or give Adam her punishment like he usually did? And where would Pansy stay when she and Adam had to go back home? Grandma was allergic to cats. She had to take pills whenever she was around them.

Jake said Emily wanted to keep Pansy.

Not a chance.

Pretending she was concentrating on the words on the screen, Lexi watched Jake’s hands lifting, palms up. It wasn’t God he was all joyful about. It was Emily.

So much for Who Needs a Prince? So much for “I’m not really in the market.” She’d seen them Friday night, holding hands on the way to the car. Emily had come with Lexi and her grandma and left with Jake.

Lexi had no doubt God knew her every hope and dream, every wish she’d whispered on the first star of the night since Mom died. For a few hours on Friday she’d thought all her prayers were being answered. Ben was arrested and Jake came to their rescue and took them home, just the way she’d prayed it would happen.

And then he danced with Emily and wrecked everything.

Jake would marry Emily and they’d move into her house—a house with lots of rooms to fill with kids. But the kids would be Jake and Emily’s.

In her daydreams, Jake built a big house and she got to design her own room. They’d go on trips every summer. Boating and hiking and skiing all over the country, maybe even the world.

She’d never told anyone about her prayer. People would laugh. What were the chances a single guy Jake’s age would want to raise two kids who were almost teenagers? But God could do miracles. Even though he hadn’t healed Mom, Lexi still believed God answered prayers. Pansy was alive. That was a miracle.

But sometimes He said no. And it looked like this was one of those times.

When was the last time he raised his hands in worship? Jake couldn’t remember. But they seemed to lift of their own accord this morning as he sang “The Heart of Worship.”

Lord, it’s all about You
.

The song ended. The worship leader prayed. Jake felt his shoulders relax as he sat down. He rested his hands on his knees, still open in surrender. The peace that swelled in him was almost foreign, and with it came a sense of expectation, a tingly feeling he’d experienced daily as an on-fire-for-Jesus fourteen-year-old. Before his father died and he turned Goth and then jock and then simply distracted with life. He’d once labeled the tingles Holy Spirit vibes. In that one close-to-God year, he’d felt the vibes every morning when he opened his eyes and yelled, “Good morning, Lord! Who are we going to save today?”

He must have said those very words the morning of the day he’d met Emily.

Only the dimmest memory remained of sitting in lawn chairs by a roaring fire, talking to two girls about how much Jesus loved them and what He’d done for them. Jake had been big on zeal back then but short on true caring. He’d kept a list of the people he’d prayed “the prayer” with but never followed up on a single one. Never wrote or called or cared how they were doing a week or even a day later.

What about nineteen years later?

“Many of you remember the story of Abby Sunderland, the sixteen-year-old girl who tried to sail solo around the world.” Pastor Karl began his sermon before reaching the podium. “There are many lessons to be learned from her story, but the one I want to focus on today is how she unexpectedly needed someone to rescue her.”

Okay, Lord, You have my attention
. The name, the water, the rescue. Who was it who’d just said last night, “I don’t believe in coincidence”?

Pastor Karl folded his arms across his chest. “When Abby set sail on January 23 in 2010, she had every expectation that she was going to successfully sail around the world. However, she unexpectedly drifted into a massive storm. …”

Unexpectedly drifted. That could explain an entire decade of his life.

“… the sailboat began to take on water. She was experiencing winds—”

Adam’s elbow made contact with Jake’s ribs. “That’s just like us!” he whispered.

Jake nodded. “Listen,” he whispered back as the pastor told about the French fishing vessel that rescued the girl forty hours after a plane spotted her debilitated boat.

“This morning Jesus is going to tell us a parable about a different kind of search-and-rescue mission, and the hope underlying this story is far greater than the world’s most qualified search-and-rescue crews. The hope Jesus fixes our eyes on this morning is the hope of His Father in heaven, who lovingly rescues everyone who belongs to Him. Listen to the parable Jesus teaches His disciples in Matthew 18.”

Jake opened his Bible and found the passage.

“‘What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one?’”

The one
. As if highlighted in neon orange, the words blazed.

“‘If he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.’ God pursues us relentlessly. We need to join Him in relentlessly pursuing the lost.”

The tingles increased like energy droplets trickling into his veins.

Had he missed the cues? Maybe Emily was the one he was supposed to pursue but not in the way he’d thought or hoped. Was it too late for a follow-up call on a girl he’d witnessed to nineteen years ago?

None of the zeal he’d possessed at fourteen had survived his years of Christless living. Maybe that wasn’t all bad. The fanaticism was gone, but his faith had returned one night in a sterile white-walled room. No angel choirs or bright lights, just a quiet certainty that God was present in the midst of Abby’s pain.

What he’d lost sight of was that God was also present in the midst of Ben’s vileness.