For Better or Worse

Kelly Coyle gazed around the room at the collection of family members who’d come to celebrate her day. Her mother, though in her midsixties and battling arthritis, still dyed her hair a dark brown, wore makeup to perfection, clothes that would look trendy on a thirty-year-old, and acted every bit as spry as Kelly ever could. Her father, with his salt-and-pepper hair and the most amazing, strike-you-down, blue eyes she’d ever seen, sat on the carpet beside her mother’s chair. Kelly’s young niece, Ellie, had both of them immersed in a dog and cat puzzle the second grader had brought with her.

Kelly’s sister-in-law’s laughter sounded from the kitchen. Kelly knew her brother, Cam, was in there with her. There was no telling what shenanigans the two of them planned to pull for Kelly’s thirty-eighth birthday.

Kelly’s gaze turned to her three daughters. Somehow they had ended up sitting on the couch in stair-step order. Zoey, seventeen, her firstborn, sat with her legs crossed, elbow planted into the armrest and her chin plopped into the palm of her hand. Her appearance had undergone a marked transformation in the last three years—darker hair, darker makeup, darker clothes. Since Tim died, everything about Zoey had darkened.

Tall, thin, athletic, always-trying-to-please, fifteen-year-old Brittany sat in the middle of the couch. The middle child. Brittany second-guessed herself regarding every decision she made. She proved quick to follow others, and there were times Kelly grew more concerned about her follow-the-leader mentality than Zoey’s rebellious attitude.

Candy sat cross-legged beside Brittany. Even though she was eleven and going into middle school in a few short weeks, Candy could not sit still. She was energetic, busy, and always into everyone else’s business. She had to be the center of everything and everyone knew it. But her heart glowed as genuine as her body was active, and many a day God had used her youngest to give Kelly the motivation to keep going after Tim’s death.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

Kelly looked up at the man who’d whispered in her ear. Harold Smith, her knight in shining armor. In reality, he was more like the heating guy carrying the wrench, but he’d still saved the day. And after that he’d continued to bless her life. So many people struggle to find a godly love once, and yet God had blessed her twice. She smiled up at his expectant gaze. “I was thinking about how good God has been to me. What a blessing my family is.”

“I agree.” Harold leaned closer, gently pressing his lips against hers. It was cliché, something she could hear her high schoolers say or write in their short stories for her junior/senior language arts class, but the truth was that electricity still shot through her veins when that man’s lips touched hers.

Harold stood to his full height, and Kelly caught a glimpse of Zoey’s contemptuous expression. Kelly released a slow sigh. Tim had been gone for three years, and Kelly hadn’t started dating Harold until almost a year ago. She’d dated no one else, but Kelly knew Zoey’s bitterness wasn’t directed at Harold. The teen had never gotten past Tim’s car accident.

She’d never made peace with God. Kelly picked up her glass from the end table and took a slow drink. Every day Kelly prayed Zoey would embrace God’s peace.

Candy jumped off the couch, breaking Kelly’s reverie. She walked to Kelly and put one arm around her shoulder then twirled a lock of her own hair around the thumb and index finger of her free hand. “Do you feel like an old lady now, Mommy?”

Kelly gulped her soft drink in an attempt not to spew it all over the floor. She wiped her mouth with a napkin as laughter burst from her gut. A chorus of guffaws sounded from the family. “Thirty-eight isn’t that old.”

Candy’s cheeks flushed as the preteen furrowed her brows in embarrassment. It was apparent she didn’t understand the response of the adults. Candy stammered, “But Sara’s mom is only thirty-four, and Tabitha’s mom is twenty-nine.” She scrunched her nose. “I guess Tabitha’s mom is the youngest mom in my class. But thirty-eight is the oldest. I don’t know anybody else’s mom who is that old.”

Kelly wrapped her arms around her youngest child. “But I look good, right?”

“Huh?” Candy scrunched her nose.

Kelly released a laugh as she kissed the top of Candy’s head. “You always make my day.”

Harold grabbed Candy’s hand, his lips tightly pinched in an obvious effort not to laugh. “Come on, you little flatterer, help me get your mom’s cake.”

Candy’s face lit up. “All right.” She pulled away from Kelly’s embrace. “What’s a flatterer, Harold? Why did everyone laugh at me? They’re always laughing at me, and I don’t know what I do that is so funny.”

Kelly watched as the twosome made their way into the kitchen. Candy and Brittany had taken to Harold in only a matter of weeks. Zoey was a different story, but then she wasn’t even fond of Kelly anymore. Harold looked back and winked, making her heart race. Three years ago, she would have never dreamed she would feel this way about another man.

When her husband and father of her three daughters died in a car accident, Kelly thought she’d never know happiness again. As time passed, God began to heal her pain and she was able to enjoy life—her family, her friends, her church, her students. Contentment was the appropriate word to describe what she felt before she met Harold. At peace with herself and her situation.

Then her heater quit working.

The memory brought a smile to her lips. Her brother, Cam, had taken care of all their repair needs after Tim died. Electrical problems. Plumbing issues. Whatever needed fixed, Cam did it. But last November, Cam, his wife, Sadie, and their daughter, Ellie, had taken a short trip to visit her parents in Washington. When Kelly’s heater gurgled its last, Kelly believed she and the girls would tough it out until Cam returned. Until the temperature in the house plunged to fifty degrees. Kelly had no choice but to call the heating guy.

Harold Smith was the first to answer the phone. When the tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed man walked through her door, Kelly’s heart went to pitter-pattering, her knees turned to jelly, and giggles she hadn’t heard since junior high spewed from her lips. The man didn’t even have to cast a line; she was already hooked.

Cam nudged her shoulder, breaking her reverie. “How’s it feel to be so old, grandma?”

Kelly glanced at her seventeen-year-old, Zoey, and her fifteen-year-old, Brittany. “I think I’ve got a few years before anyone will be calling me that.”

Zoey rolled her eyes and peered out the front window. Brittany shifted in her chair, crossing her leg. “Really, Uncle Cam, I don’t even have a boyfriend. Don’t even want a boyfriend. They’re all too short for me anyway.”

“There’s gotta be some six-footers at the high school.” Cam continued to tease her. “I bet Zoey could hook you up with one of her friends.”

“Yuk. Zoey’s friends are weird.”

Malice slipped from Zoey’s lips. “At least I have friends. I’m not some six-foot freak of nature that boys have to wear stilts to even come close to looking at eye-to-eye. I’m not—”

“That is enough.” Frustration welled inside of Kelly. “We are not going to start—”

“Okay now.” Kelly’s mom clapped her hands then stood and grabbed Brittany’s hand. “Why don’t you show me that new soccer medal since your grandpa and I didn’t get to go to your last tournament.”

Kelly noted the pooling of tears in her middle daughter’s eyes as she led her grandmother to the bedroom. Focusing her attention back on her oldest daughter, Kelly pinched her lips together. Zoey’s body was tense and rigid. She stared at Kelly, as if to dare her mother to say something to her.
I don’t even recognize this child, Lord. I expect some squabbling between the girls, but this hatred that Zoey seems to feel—I don’t know what to do with her
.

“Time for cake,” Harold hollered as he and Candy burst through the kitchen door.

“Grandma.” Kelly heard Brittany’s voice from the hall. “Come on. Cake.”

Candy’s eyes gleamed with excitement as the twosome walked toward Kelly with the pastry that seemed to be covered with entirely too much fire for a woman who still felt like she was in her midtwenties. “You’ll love this cake, Mom.” Candy’s face flushed as she covered her mouth with her hand, as if trying to hold back a secret.

Kelly peered into Harold’s mischievous gaze. There was no telling what he’d had the baker put on her cake—a tombstone, a cemetery. It had to be something pretty silly for Candy to get so tickled.

He lowered the cake in front of her. Kelly gasped. It was not what she expected at all. She drank in the bright red cursive icing that read, “W
ILL
You M
ARRY
M
E
?”

Harold watched as Kelly’s deep blue eyes widened in surprise. She lifted one hand to her lips. He almost chuckled out loud at the outlandish sparkling mess of flowers or something that covered her hot pink fingernails. He’d always thought nail stuff was silly, and here he was … in love with a woman who was the queen of the gaudy stuff.

Harold nodded at Cam. Kelly’s brother stood and took the cake from Harold’s grasp. Harold lifted the half-carat marquise diamond ring from the icing and wiped off the band. Kneeling on one knee, he took Kelly’s left hand in his. The light from the living room window seemed to cast a glow around her shoulder-length brown hair, making her look prettier than any angel he’d ever seen in pictures. This woman was entirely too girly, way too smart, too beautiful, too perfect for an old, get-your-hands-dirty, blue-collar guy like him. But the love that radiated from her tear-filled gaze nearly took his breath away, and he couldn’t help but practically yell out a praise to the heavens. He swallowed and whispered, “I love you, Kelly.”

She nodded her head ever so slightly. “I love you, too.”

Her admission calmed his nerves, and Harold took a deep breath. Never in his forty years of existence did he think he’d be doing this. He was a hermit at heart, a huge fan of Oscar the Grouch on
Sesame Street
. Harold always connected with the green muppet’s penchant to be a recluse, to do as he wanted, make a mess if he wanted, and to be left alone unless he wanted to make an appearance.