Authors: Brenda Minton
“Don't give me that,” Alexandra snapped, tossing her long poufy blond hair. Up close, Morgan could tell that she'd had plastic surgery and wore impossibly long fake nails, as well as a ton of cosmetics. “Your sister tells me that you've been in town for months without letting anyone know.”
“Can't imagine why,” Simone muttered.
“And you never used to be this skinny,” Alexandra went on. “If anything, you were a bit on the chunky side.”
“I was a bit on the chunky side at fifteen,” Phillip announced proudly, making Morgan chuckle.
“You were, weren't you? Then you suddenly shot up six inches and got thin.”
Simone sent Phillip a grateful glance. At the same time, Simone's stepfather shifted away from the corner by the door where he stood and affably stated, “I was always on the chunky side myself. Have to work out continuously to stay in shape.” He patted his firm middle with an overly tanned hand, but upon receiving a venomous glare from his wife, Leander immediately subsided back into his corner.
“I want to know what is going on with you, Lyla Simone, and I want to know it now.”
“If you must know,” Simone divulged softly, “I've been ill.”
Alexandra's next question had everyone in the room gasping. “Was it sexually transmitted?”
Simone's face bloomed bloodred, and Morgan immediately reached for her hand, exclaiming, “Of course not!”
At the same time, Carissa said, “No!”
Simone gathered her dignity and informed her mother, “I had cancer.”
Realizing that she'd embarrassed herself, Alexandra dug in her voluminous handbag and came up with a tissue, with which she carefully dabbed her eyes and nose, though the hanky remained suspiciously dry.
“Oh, my poor child. Just like your father.”
Over the next ten minutes, Alexandra dragged one disconcerting fact after another out of Simone, and nothing anyone else said could prevent it. What Simone refused to say, Alexandra deduced until she and everyone else in the room had the whole ugly picture laid bare before them.
“And now you've returned to us,” Alexandra gushed, working her dry hanky, “battered and broken, half a woman.”
Morgan had borne all he could stand. He came up off the corner of the desk and pulled Simone to her feet, wrapping his arms around her. “That is enough! How dare you say such things?”
Alexandra leaped up, her stiletto heels clicking on the concrete floor. “And what business is it of yours? I'm not at all clear on who you are and what you're doing here.”
He wasn't clear on that himself, but he wasn't about to tell her.
“This is my son Morgan,” Hubner said with a wave of his hand. “I'm afraid we didn't make proper introductions earlier.”
“Morgan's my friend,” Simone said huskily, and he knew immediately that she was trying to protect him, that she didn't want her mother to know that he was a professor at the Bible college or her faculty adviser. If he'd had the sense God gave bean sprouts, he'd let go of her, but somehow he couldn't do it. Instead he glared at Alexandra Hedgespeth, who melted before his very eyes.
“Another Chatam,” she purred. “Well, I did
something
right with you girls.”
Carissa dropped her head into her hands, groaning. At the same time, Simone rolled her eyes and looked away, practically turning her face into Morgan's chest. Hub, God bless him, rocked forward in his chair, pushed back from his desk and calmly climbed to his feet, putting an end to the fiasco.
“Well, I thank you all for coming. Mr. and Mrs. Hedgespeth, Phillip will see you out.”
“My pleasure,” Phillip said, bouncing up to his full height in a single exuberant motion.
Alexandra lifted her chin mutinously, and in that one gesture, Morgan saw a bit of Simone in her, but just in that one tiny mannerism, which he would happily tell Simone as soon as he got her alone. Fortunately for everyone involved, Leander Hedgespeth showed some backbone and came forward to grasp his wife by the arm and tug her toward the door. She jerked as if he'd stabbed her, but after only a moment's silent communication between the two, she softened her stance and finally did something halfway motherly. She came forward to pretend to hug Simone and kiss the air next to her cheek. Simone pulled far enough away from Morgan to accept this phony show of affection.
“I trust I'll see you again soon,” Alexandra said.
“Goodbye, Mother” was Simone's noncommittal answer.
Alexandra then turned to Carissa, trilling her a little wave. “Give the children my best.”
“Of course,” Carissa told her drily.
As soon as the door closed at her back, Simone addressed her sister. “Please tell me you didn't give her my cell phone number.”
Carissa shook her head. “She doesn't even have
my
cell phone number.”
Simone closed her eyes in gratitude. “Thank you.”
Carissa chuckled. “Don't mention it. I figure if I give her your number, you'll give her mine.”
“In a heartbeat,” Simone threatened drolly, and they shared a smile. Then Simone shook her head. “Poor Mother. How many does this make?”
“Marriages?” Carissa asked. “Not sure. She's off the radar for long stretches. This one's not such a bad guy, but he's a lot younger than he looks, and I fear it's not going to last. I understand he wants to be a father.”
Simone's face fell. She stared at the door wistfully. “Poor man. And poor Mother. She has no idea how to be happy.”
“We've invited her to church,” Carissa said, rising to wander closer to her sister, “but she thinks I've nose-dived right off the deep end into religious zealotry.”
“Maybe the two of us together can make some inroads,” Simone suggested, a pleased smile on her face.
“We'll certainly be praying along those lines,” Hub interjected.
“Thank you,” Carissa told him. “Now I'd better go rescue my husband. If I know Alexandra, and I do, she's holding him hostage with a litany of complaints starting in my infancy.” She looked at Morgan then, adding, “And he's every bit as protective as the professor.” She grinned at Simone, saying, “You've just got to like these Chatam men, don't you?” With that she swept from the room.
“
Like
is a mild word for what I feel,” Simone said softly, turning to face Morgan. Her eyes were huge and warm and brimming with an emotion that took his breath away. It was all he could do not to pull her to him then and there and declare that he'd move mountains to make her his. Fortunately, his father saved him.
“Simone,” he said, “before you go, I ought to tell you that Asher asked me to speak with your friend Rina yesterday.”
She immediately switched her attention to Hubner. “Oh?”
“She seems quite settled on the decision to give up her child for adoption. I thought you'd want to know.”
Simone bit her lip, and Morgan could see that she was struggling for composure. How difficult it must have been for her to know that another young woman could give up a child when she would give anything for the chance to have one. Finally, she spoke.
“Perhaps it's best.”
“We can but hope and trust God in the matter,” Hub said, and Simone nodded.
Searching for a way to change the subject and lighten the mood, Morgan turned Simone for the door, saying, “Come on. I'm taking you to dinner. In case you didn't know, you're apparently too thin.”
She chuckled as he led her away from his father's desk. “So I hear.”
“Actually,” he told her, “I think you look spectacular and that your mother would kill to be able to wear that dress.”
Simone laughed outright at that. He walked her through the door then looked back at his dad, who smiled and saluted in approval. Morgan made a fist and tapped it over his heart. The last glimpse he had of his dad before he pulled the door closed was of Hubner sitting down again and folding his hands in prayer.
* * *
After that Saturday, Simone could not have been more in love with Morgan Chatam if he'd come complete with white charger and a suit of armor.
“Do not ever again,” he told her at dinner in the same little French bistro where they'd dined alone the first time, “let me hear you say anything remotely equating yourself with your mother.”
“But, Morgan,” she argued, “running away was selfish and cruel to the people who loved me, my father, especially. It was exactly the sort of thing my mother did to him. I've accepted and confessed that.”
“And there's the difference,” he pointed out. “That was then. This is now. You've accepted responsibility for past mistakes and you've accomplished laudable things all on your own. Plus, you're helping others. Besides, your beauty is completely genuine. I don't blame anyone for wanting to look their best, but some people take it too far. It becomes an obsession with them. What's more, I suspect she knows that you don't even have to try to be beautiful.”
Simone couldn't help blushing over such a pretty compliment as that. Neither could she help thinking that Brooks was right about Morgan's feelings for her and that God must intend for the two of them to be together. It all just made a wonderful, glorious sense, which was why Monday's news came as such a crushing blow.
She didn't get the job.
The shattering announcement came as a form letter to her student mailbox.
“Thank you for applying,” she read, “blah, blah, blah...a more qualified candidate, blah, blah, blah...”
Simone couldn't believe it. She'd been so sure that she'd discerned God's will for her and Morgan. When she handed the letter to Morgan after class that morning, he'd first joked about it.
“What's this? Is your mother demanding redress for your years of absence?”
“It isn't funny,” Simone choked out, waiting for him to read the thing.
He'd grown somber after the first sentence. Finally, he wadded up the paper and slammed it into the trash can beside his desk. “Stupid of me not to see that coming.”
“I guess I should've applied for more than the one position,” she ventured woodenly.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “There haven't been any more openings.”
That hit her like a sledgehammer. “Oh.”
“Doesn't mean there won't be,” he said, looking up, but she could tell he was as disturbed by this turn of events as she was.
“Of course,” she said, but he didn't believe it, and neither did she.
He'd been right all along. They weren't meant to be together. Sometimes a person just had to face facts.
“I guess I'd better go,” she said, disappointed but unsurprised when he didn't try to stop her.
She felt as if she were wading through chest-deep water as she walked away and left him sitting there on the end of his desk, slumped and frowning. At least he seemed as dejected as she felt, but that didn't change anything.
No, it only made the disappointment that much harder to bear.
Chapter Fourteen
“M
y dear, I don't know what is bothering you, but I think it would do you good to go to prayer meeting,” Hypatia said after knocking on Simone's bedroom door Wednesday evening. “Besides, Rina says that she will go if you do.”
Simone smiled wanly and put on as brave a face as she could muster. She had floated in a miasma of disbelief these past two days. “What makes you think something is wrong with me?”
“You've retreated behind your bedroom door again, for one thing,” Hypatia answered. “For another, you look like you've lost your best friend.”
That was so apt that Simone had to work hard at not bursting into tears. “You know how it is when you talk yourself into believing something silly and then realize that you were dreaming all along.”
“All I know,” Hypatia told her kindly, “is that it can't hurt to go among your fellow Christians and join them in some earnest prayer. It might even take your mind off things.”
That, Simone admitted privately, would be most welcome, and bringing Rina along couldn't hurt, either. She had tried to talk to the girl about keeping her baby, but Rina had insisted that she and the lawyer had everything under control. Simone really didn't know what was best in Rina's situation, anyway, and she couldn't be unbiased about it. They would both benefit from prayer.
“I'll get changed,” Simone said. “Then I'll walk over to the carriage house and get Rina.”
Hypatia patted her hand. “Very good.”
Simone wasted no time trading her slouchy sweats for leggings, a wool skirt, a roomy cable-knit sweater and flats. A long wool scarf looped about her throat was enough to ward off even a mid-November chill in Texas. So armed, she went out to fetch Rina from the carriage house.
The girl had grown immensely in the two weeks since she'd come to Chatam House. Her belly literally filled out the maternity top that she wore with stretch pants, leaving no doubt as to her condition. Simone realized that Rina could not even see her feet as she negotiated the stairs. She was in a much better frame of mind, however, which was why Simone was so puzzled by her decision to give up her child.
“The misses say I can take a class for the college entrance exam,” she reported excitedly, “and that there are grants and loans available, but I don't know. Do you really think I can do it? I wasn't a very good student before.”
“There's nothing wrong with your brain, Rina,” Simone told her. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”
“Miss Hypatia says I should pray about it, but I feel so funny doing that. Does it work?”
Simone licked her lips. “It does, yes, when you're seeking God's will and not just your own.”
“I'm not sure I understand that.”
“Perhaps you'll find some answers tonight,” Simone told her, thinking that she was the last person to be giving advice on seeking God's will rather than her own. It was seeking her own desires that had led her to believe that she and Morgan were meant to be together.
They walked back to the main house and got into the town car with Hypatia, Magnolia, Odelia and Kent, who drove their party to the church on the downtown square. The venerable old church sprawled over an entire city block, but it was the chapel in the back of the campus, rather than the soaring Spanish-style sanctuary, where Kent let them out. The two worship centers stood back-to-back. Though of significantly later construction, the chapel had much more of a Spanish-mission flavor to it, complete with adobe walls and archways. Built in the shape of a cross, it allowed groups to gather in four distinct areas around a central altar.
The instant she passed through the narthex, Simone's gaze found Morgan. He stood with his father near the center of the chapel, speaking quietly, his hands in the pockets of his khakis. As if drawn by a lodestone, his gaze met hers, and he started forward, but she quickly turned away, directing Rina to follow along behind Hypatia. She just didn't think she could calmly converse with him as if their world had not blown apart. For that very reason, she'd skipped his class that day. She had to have some distance to get a hold of her emotions. If he came to her now, she feared what he would say, and she would undoubtedly weep, and the whole situation would become a public spectacle, which was the last thing he needed. Apparently, he realized the wisdom of that, too, for when she took a seat in a row of chairs behind Hypatia and her sisters, she chanced a glance in his direction and saw that he was sitting, with his head bowed, between his father and his sister.
The meeting began with some singing. Simone did her best to participate, but her throat kept closing up. At one point, Rina leaned over and whispered, “Are you and the prof on the outs?”
Simone smiled and shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Oh, okay. You just seem so sad, and I can't help wondering why you're not together. Seems like you two ought to be together. You love him, don't you? He's sure got it for you.”
“Rina, please don't speak of that here,” Simone whispered urgently, hoping they couldn't be heard over the music.
“Why not? You're not ashamed, are you?”
“Of course not. We have nothing to be ashamed of. But it's...complicated.”
“Is it 'cause you can't have kids?”
Simone glanced around them self-consciously. “Rina, please! Not now.”
“Sorry,” the girl muttered. “I just want to help.”
“I know,” Simone told her, sliding an arm around the girl's shoulders. “I appreciate that. I do.” She mustered up a smile and tried to hide the heaviness of her heart.
Thankfully, the music ended and along with it, the opportunity for any sort of conversation. They took their seats, and the pastor read from the Bible before calling their attention to the printed list they'd received on the way inside. They prayed corporately for those on the list, all ill, grieving or in need of some sort of assistance. Then, section by section, the alcoves were closed off with curtains and the resulting four smaller groups were led by a facilitator in requesting individual prayer.
When it came Rina's turn to speak, she said, “I want this little girl to come out healthy and get a good life.”
“It's a girl?” Simone exclaimed, clasping Rina's hand. “I didn't know.”
“Just found out today,” Rina told her.
“That's lovely.” She realized then that everyone was looking at her. Did she have a prayer request? Tears filled her eyes, but she couldn't say it. She dared not, for Morgan's sake. Besides, how could she ask for the stars when God had already given her the moon? He'd spared her life, reunited her with her family, brought her to the Chatams, seen to it that she got a good education.... How could she be so ungrateful as to ask for more? Mutely, she shook her head, and the facilitator moved on.
After thirty or forty minutes, prayers came to an end, the curtains were drawn back, a final song was sung and they were dismissed with a blessing. Simone was glad she'd come. She felt a little more at peace, a little more centeredâuntil she looked up and found Brooks looming over her.
“What is going on?” he asked in a no-nonsense voice.
Simone blinked at him, slowly rising to her feet. She could feel Rina hanging on every word that passed between them. “I'm not sure what you mean.”
“Don't give me that. Morgan looks like someone shot his dog, and you don't look any happier.”
Furrowing her brow, Simone tried to think of a politic way out of this, something that wouldn't embarrass Morgan. Finally, she stated the simple truth.
“I didn't get the job.”
Brooks lifted both brows and blew out a disappointed sigh. “And you've taken that as some great sign, I suppose.”
“How am I supposed to take it?”
“I don't know. Did you even pray about it?”
She tossed a gaze around the room. “Of course not.”
“I mean in private.”
She didn't know how to answer that, how to explain herself without everyone within earshot figuring out what they were talking about, and she imagined that everyone was listening in. Rina and Hypatia certainly were, and neither made any bones about it.
Brooks threw up his hands. “Simone, sometimes you just have to ask for what you want. Prayer isn't about motivating God to act or informing Him of your needs, but sometimes He just wants you to sit down, think it through and
ask
for what you want.”
“That's right, dear,” Hypatia volunteered. “There's no harm in asking for what you want. If it's not good for you, God can and will say no, but at least you'll have opened a dialogue on the matter, and eventually, if you're willing to invest the time and listen, you'll come to understand His mind concerning it.”
She'd never thought of it that way. “I see.” She tilted her head. “I guess, in a way, I've just been expecting Him to read my mind.”
Hypatia chuckled. “He can certainly do that, but what you've been trying to do is read
His
mind.”
Now Simone had to smile. “How right you are.”
* * *
Just watching Brooks stand and talk to Simone was almost more than Morgan could bear. He'd been tormented by thoughts of them together before, but now just the idea that Brooks could publicly carry on a conversation with her without anyone thinking twice about it made Morgan want to smack things. Perhaps it was ridiculousâthey'd been out to dinner together, after allâyet, somehow, after she'd been turned down for the job at BCBC, Morgan no longer felt comfortable approaching her in public, and he wouldn't go to her in private. That reeked too much of sneaking around.
He didn't know what to do, and it was eating him alive. He hadn't felt this torn up about Brigitte. If he was honest about it, once she and Brooks had gotten together, even Morgan had known it was right, though he'd been too stupid to admit it. After she'd died, grieving with Brooks had felt entirely appropriate, and Morgan hadn't had any problem taking a backseat then. Brooks had been devastated and a tower of strength at the same time. He'd warranted every show of support that had come his way, and Morgan had begrudged him none of it, but he resented every word that the man said to Simone standing in the church that evening. Something had to be done about this situation, and it was up to him to do it.
He'd prayed and prayed about this thing between him and Simone, and now he made a decision. Looking to his dad, he announced it.
“I'm going to make an appointment with the provost tomorrow.”
Hub glanced in Simone's direction and asked, “Don't you think you should discuss it with her?”
“No. She'll try to talk me out of it, and I might be stupid enough to let her.”
“You should pray about it together, Morgan,” Hub advised.
“You're absolutely right,” Morgan agreed, determination filling him.
He was tired of hiding behind well-meaning regulations and edicts, practically skulking around when he'd done nothing of which he should be ashamed. Well, maybe he'd crossed the line a time or two, but he'd honestly tried to do the right thing. He'd practically turned himself inside out trying not to fall in love, and he still didn't know how it was all going to work out, but it was time to act. This could turn out to be the greatest disaster of his life, but he was through pretending he didn't at least want to
try
for a life with that woman.
“Might as well start right now,” he said, sliding past his sister and out into the aisle. He covered the distance across to Simone's section and up to where she was preparing to leave with Rina and the aunties in long, space-eating strides. Shouldering Brooks out of the way, he grabbed Simone's hand, saying, “Come with me.”
She looked startled, almost frightened. He nodded to his aunts.
“Give us a minute or two, will you? We'll be right over here.”
He led Simone just a few paces away to an empty row of chairs and sat her down next to him, then took her hands in his.
“Pray with me.”
“Morgan.”
“Here and now. If praying in public is going to condemn us, Simone, then so be it.”
She glanced around, but then she bowed her head. He did the same, feeling his hair brush hers. A quiet intimacy enveloped them, shutting out the rest of the space and the milling crowd slowly exiting the building.
“Lord,” he said, “Simone and I want to be together. It's complicated, but underneath it all, it's really just this simple. I want her, and she wants me. I don't know how to work it all out, but You do. Won't You do that for us? If it can be within Your will for our lives, we want to spend them together.”
“Please,” Simone added softly, squeezing his hands, and that one small word warmed Morgan as nothing else could.
“In Jesus's Name, amen,” he closed.
Afterward, they both smiled, and he kissed her on the forehead. “There. I feel better.”
“Me, too.”
“See you Friday in class.”
“Yes.”
“And Sunday in church.”
“Yes.”
“And next week.”
She chuckled. “Yes. I won't skip again.”
“Then it's not as gloomy as all that, is it?” They could still see each other and not date. It wasn't as if they'd actually dated to begin with, unless that one dinner after she'd met with her mother counted, and personally he chalked that up to therapy for both of them.
“No. It's not as gloomy as all that.”
He got up and let her out into the aisle. Rina had been watching them carefully, but he didn't mind. Let the whole world watch. He wouldn't deny what he was feeling, what was happening between them. What was the point?
She left with his aunties, Rina and Kent, casting him a shy wave farewell as they went out. He gave her a broad grin in return, Brooks standing at his elbow.