“Please come back when you feel like you can talk to me again,” Madison said. “I would hate to think that the choices I made would remove you from a group you need so much.”
Valerie slipped her purse over her shoulder and rushed out of the classroom.
The drive to the Dixon home took no time. She didn’t even have to leave the suburb. But even as she made her way up the walk, she didn’t know exactly why she’d come here. She rang the doorbell and waited several moments, but no one answered.
Not wanting to leave, she wandered around the house to the back gate. Wondering if her old code worked, she typed in the four digits of her birth day and month on the keypad. It almost surprised her when the gate swung soundlessly open. She entered Auntie Rose’s haven, following the stone path that wound through the garden. She ran her fingertips over flowers, felt leaves of bushes, breathed in the pungent smell of freshly watered earth and fertilizer. When she came up to the side of the greenhouse, she saw Rosaline’s shadow through the sheer walls.
“Hi, Auntie,” she called.
“Valerie!” The shadow turned in her direction. “Come on in, child.”
She found her by the orchids. A straw hat hung from a ribbon tied around her neck, and mud splashed her gardening apron. Rarely did she see a hair out of place on Rosaline’s head, but today sweat matted the graying hair at her temples, and wisps stuck up everywhere. “I have been out here for hours today,” she said, setting down her clippers. “I thought I’d repot one plant and ended up repotting a dozen.” She slipped her gloves off and grinned. “So? How are you?”
“I didn’t mean to bother you,” Valerie said. “I just didn’t know who else to talk to about this.”
The smile faded from Rosaline’s face and a take-charge look replaced it. “Come on, Valerie. Let’s get inside. I have some freshly made iced tea. We can have some of that and sit a spell.”
Valerie sat in a little metal chair near the glass doors leading to Rosaline’s sitting room. Rosaline poured both of them tall glasses of sweetened iced tea and settled back in her chair. She took a long drink from the glass, set it on the little side table, then slapped her knee. “I feel like I should have an alarm set whenever I enter the greenhouse. It’s like time stops for me in there. Half the day is gone.” She stared at Valerie, her gaze direct and unmoving. “Talk to me.”
Valerie told her about the letter, her conversation with Brad, and her conversation with Madison. She concluded with, “I can’t believe she married him.”
Rosaline nodded. “I imagine you cannot. It’s hard for someone without your past to believe it. It helps us who know them now not to have known them in the past. That’s the thing, isn’t it? If you grow up with someone who acts a certain way, you don’t really trust the changes in them if something radical happens in their lives. You have a hard time letting go of what used to be. Meet someone later, and you can hear a testimony and be impressed with the changes.”
Valerie took a deep breath. “What I hear from them is that I have to forgive Tyrone.”
Rosaline pressed her lips together and stared at Valerie. Finally, she said, “They aren’t saying that. They’re saying what they know the Bible says. But I know that neither of them will judge you if forgiving him is not something you can do right now. You have to process it. You have to work it out in your heart, with God, and in your own time. So, for them to lovingly tell you the truth is not going against you in any way, it’s loving you the way they ought. If either one of them had reacted with righteous indignation on your behalf and encouraged you to continue to harbor hate and fury in your heart, then they would have been doing you a disservice.” She leaned forward and took Valerie’s hand. “Listen to me, daughter of my heart. You do this on your time. You don’t owe anyone any explanations for that.”
Strangely, she felt no tears in her eyes. She felt calm, sure. “Yes, ma’am,” she whispered.
Brad sat on the stepoutside the apartment office. They’d cut the power to run some wire, hit a snag, and now on a late June evening in Atlanta, Georgia, the 85-degree evening with a slight breeze provided a welcome relief to the suffocating heat inside. As soon as he had the energy, he’d head to his parents’ house and spend the night.
He watched Valerie’s car pull into the parking lot. Briefly, he thought about how sweaty and dusty his clothes were and how he wished he’d grabbed a shower before coming outside. He didn’t even have time to run in and change his shirt.
As she walked toward him, he started to stand, but she waved him down. “Sit. I can see how exhausted you are. What have you guys been doing?”
“Digging.” He scooted over and she sat next to him on the step. “Then digging some more. Oh, and crawling around in the ditch we dug. That was fun.”
“How do you do this after working all day?”
He drained the water bottle he held in his hands and crushed it before putting the lid back on. “It’s how I work in the office all day, knowing I can get off work and come do this work. Gets me through the day.”
She leaned her shoulder against him and lightly bumped him. “I guess some men go work out in the gym, and others….”
“…dig ditches and crawl in the dirt.”
He watched a line of ants that led to a dead grasshopper. They sat in silence for several minutes before she asked, “Are you upset with me?”
Surprised, he turned to look at her. The solemn look on her face, the pinched lines around her mouth, everything pointed to the seriousness of her question. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Because I asked you to leave.”
He turned his body, shifting so he could face her completely. She did the same thing. Reaching for her hands, he said, “I cannot put myself in your shoes. I cannot understand the things that still affect you. All I can do is love you through the hard times that rear up as a result.”
She cleared her throat and stared at their hands. “But you were trying to help me, and I was just getting more and more upset.”
“It was upsetting for you. You thought I’d jump to your defense. Instead, I told you the truth as I know it. I get how that’s going to feel like I betrayed you, even if I didn’t.”
“Do you feel like I disrespected you?”
