Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama Of Those Left Behind (38 page)

“Well, I don’t know why I forgot her name for so long, because I was so struck by it at first. Besides sounding a little like iron and steel, I remember thinking that Irene sounded more like a name of someone many years older than your wife. She was about forty, right?”

Rayford nodded.

“Anyway, I took the morning off, and I arrived at this home where the ladies were meeting that week. They all looked so normal and were wonderful to me. I noticed your wife right off. She was just radiant—friendly and smiling and talking with everyone. She welcomed me and asked about me. And then during the Bible study, prayer, and discussion, I was just impressed by her. What more can I say?”

A lot
, Rayford hoped. But he didn’t want to interview the woman. What had so impressed her? He was glad when Chloe jumped in.

“I’m glad to hear that, Mrs. White, because I was never more impressed with my mother than after I had left home. I had always thought her a little too religious, too strict, too rigid. Only when we were apart did I realize how much I loved her because of how much she cared for me.”

“Well,” Amanda said, “it was her own story that moved me, but more than that, it was her carriage, her countenance. I don’t know if you knew this, but she had not been a Christian long either. Her story was the same as mine. She said her family had been going to church sort of perfunctorily for years. But when she found New Hope Village Church, she found Christ.

“There was a peace, a gentleness, a kindness, a serenity about her that I had never seen in anyone else. She had confidence, but she was humble. She was outgoing, yet not pushy or self-promoting. I loved her immediately. She grew emotional when she talked about her family, and she said that her husband and her daughter were at the top of her prayer list. She loved you both so deeply. She said her greatest fear was that she would reach you too late and that you would not go to heaven with her and her son. I don’t remember his name.”

“Rayford, Junior,” Chloe said. “She would have called him Raymie.”

“After the meeting I sought her out and told her that my family was the opposite. They were all worried that they would go to heaven without me. She told me how to receive Christ. I told her I wasn’t ready, and she warned me not to put it off and said she would pray for me. That night my family disappeared from their beds. Almost everyone was gone from our new church, including all the Bible study ladies. Eventually I tracked down Bruce and asked if he knew Irene Steele.”

Rayford and Chloe had returned home chagrined and a little ashamed of themselves. “That was nice,” Rayford said. “I’m glad we took the time for that.”

“I just wish I hadn’t been such a creep,” Chloe said. “For hardly having known her, that woman had a lot of insight into Mom.”

For nearly a year after that, Rayford saw Amanda White only on Sundays and at an occasional midweek meeting of the larger core study group. She was always cordial and friendly, but what impressed him most was her servant’s attitude. She continually prayed for people, and she was busy in the church all the time. She studied, she grew, she learned, she talked to people about their standing with God.

As Rayford watched her from afar, she became more and more attractive to him. One Sunday he told Chloe, “You know, we never reciprocated on Amanda White’s dinner invitation.”

“You want to have her over?” Chloe asked.

“I want to ask her out.”

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me.”

“Dad! You mean like on a date?”

“A double date. With you and Buck.”

Chloe had laughed, then apologized. “It’s not funny. I’m just surprised.”

“Don’t make a big deal of it,” he said. “I just might ask her.”

“Don’t
you
make a big deal of it,” Chloe said.

Buck was not surprised when Chloe told him her Dad wanted them to double-date with Amanda White. “I wondered when he’d get around to it.”

“To dating?”

“To dating Amanda White.”

“You noticed something there? You never said anything.”

“I didn’t want to risk your mentioning it and planting an idea in his head that wasn’t his own.”

“That rarely happens.”

“Anyway, I think they’ll be good for each other,” Buck said. “He needs companionship his own age, and if something comes of it, so much the better.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s not going to want to be alone if we decide to get more serious.”

“Seems to me we’ve already decided.” Chloe slipped her hand into Buck’s.

“I just don’t know what to do about timing and geography, with everything breaking the way it has.”

Buck was hoping for some hint from Chloe that she would be willing to follow him anywhere, that she was either ready for marriage or that she needed more time. Time was getting away from them, but still Buck hesitated.

“I’m ready when he is,” Chloe told Rayford. “But I’m not going to say a word.”

“Why not?” Rayford said. “Men need a few signals.”

“He’s getting all the signals he needs.”

“So you’ve held his hand by now?”

“Dad!”

“Bet you’ve even kissed him.”

“No comment.”

“That’s a yes if I ever heard one.”

“Like I said, he’s getting all the signals he needs.”

In fact, Buck would never forget the first time he had kissed Chloe. It had been the night he left for New York by car, about a year before. Carpathia had bought up the [_Weekly _]as well as any of the competition worth working for, and Buck seemed to have less choice than ever over his own career. He could try bootlegging copy over the Internet, but he still needed to make a living. And Bruce, who was at the church less and less all the tune due to his ministry all over the world, had encouraged him to stay with [_Global Weekly, _]even after the name was changed to
Global Community Weekly
. “I wish we could change the last word one more time,” Buck said. “
To Weakly
.”

Buck had resigned himself to doing the best he could for the kingdom of God, just as Chloe’s father had done. But he still hid his identity as a believer. Whatever freedom and perceived objectivity he had would soon be gone if that truth was known to Carpathia.

That last night in Chicago, he and Chloe were in his apartment packing the last of his personal things. His plan was to leave by nine o’clock that night and drive all the way to New York City in one marathon stretch. As they worked, they talked about how much they would hate being apart, how much they would miss each other, how often they would phone and email each other.

“I wish you could come with me,” Buck said at one point.

“Yeah, that would be appropriate,” she said.

“Someday,” he said.

“Someday what?”

But he would not bite. He carried a box to the car and came back in, passing her as she taped another. Tears ran down her face.

“What’s this?” he said, stopping to wipe her face with his fingers. “Don’t get [_me _]started now.”

“You’ll never miss me as much as I’ll miss you,” she said, trying to continue to work with him hovering, a hand on her face.

“Stop it,” he whispered. “Come here.”

She set down the tape and stood to face him. He embraced her and pulled her close. Her hands were at her sides, and her cheek was on his chest. They had held each other before, and they had walked hand in hand, sometimes arm in arm. They had expressed their deep feelings for each other without mentioning love. And they had agreed not to cry and not to say anything rash in the moment of parting.

“We’ll see each other often,” he said. “You’ll rendezvous with your dad when he comes through New York. And I’ll have reasons to come here.”

“What reason? The Chicago office is closing.”

“This reason,” he said, holding her tighter. And she began to sob.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is going to be so hard.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t. Buck, you can’t say you care for me as much as I care for you.”

Buck had already planned his first kiss. He had hoped to find a reason to simply brush her lips with his at the end of an evening, say good night, and slip away. He didn’t want to have to deal with her reaction, or deal with kissing her again just then. It was going to be meaningful and special, but quick and simple, something they could build on later.

But now he wanted her to know how he felt. He was angry at himself for being so good at writing but so incompetent at telling her to her face how much she meant to him.

He stepped back and took her face in his hands. She resisted at first and tried to hide her face in his chest again, but he insisted she look at him. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again,” he said.

“But, Buck, it’s true—”

He lowered his head until his eyes were inches from hers. “Did you hear me?” he said. “Don’t say it again. Don’t imply it, don’t even think it. There’s no possible way you could care for me more than I care for you. You are my whole life. I
love
you, Chloe. Don’t you know that?”

He felt her nearly recoil at that first declaration of his love. Her tears rolled over his hands, and she began to say, “How would I—?” But he lowered his mouth to hers, cutting off her words. And it was no quick touch of the lips. She raised her hands between his arms, wrapped them around his neck, and held him tight as they kissed.

She pulled away briefly and whispered, “Did you only say that because you’re leaving and—” But he covered her mouth again with his.

A moment later he touched her nose with the tip of his own and said, “Don’t doubt my love for you ever again. Promise.”

“But, Buck—”

“Promise.”

“I promise. And I love you, too, Buck.”

Rayford was not sure just when his respect and admiration for Amanda White had developed into love. He had grown fond of her, liked her, loved being with her. They had become comfortable enough with each other to touch each other when they spoke, to hold hands, to embrace. But when he found himself missing her after only a day away and needing to call her when he was gone more than a few days, he knew something was developing.

She actually started kissing Rayford before he kissed her. Twice when he returned to Chicago after several days away, Amanda greeted him with a hug and a peck on the cheek. He had liked it, but had also been embarrassed. But the third time he returned from such a trip, she merely embraced him and did not attempt to kiss him.

His timing had been perfect. He had decided that if she tried to kiss him on the cheek this time, he would turn and take it on the lips. He had brought her a gift from Paris, an expensive necklace. When she did not try to kiss him, he just held her embrace longer and said, “Come here a minute.”

As passengers and crew passed them in the corridor, Rayford had Amanda sit next to him in the waiting area. It was awkward with an armrest between them. Both were bundled up, Amanda in a fur coat and Rayford with his uniform coat over his arm. He pulled the jewelry box from the sack in his flight bag. “This is for you.”

Amanda, knowing where he had been, made a big deal over the bag, the name of the store, and the box. Finally, she opened it and appeared to stop breathing. It was a magnificent piece, gold with diamonds. “Rayford!” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything,” he said. And he took her in his arms, the package in her hands nearly crushed between them, and kissed her.

“I still don’t know what to say,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, and he kissed her again.

Now, two weeks before his move to New Babylon, Rayford had been on the phone with Buck more often than Chloe had. While she was warming up the car, he sneaked in one last call.

“Everything set?” he asked Buck.

“Everything. I’ll be there.”

“Good.”

In the car he asked Chloe, “What’s the status on your apartment?”

“They promised it’ll be ready,” she said. “But I’m getting a little skittish because they keep stalling me on the paperwork.”

“You’re going to be all right here with me in New Babylon and Buck in New York?”

“It’s not my first choice, but I have no interest living anywhere near Carpathia, and certainly not in Iraq.”

“What’s Buck saying?”

“I haven’t been able to reach him today. He must be on assignment somewhere. I know he wanted to see Fitzhugh in D.C. soon.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s where he is.”

Chloe stopped at Amanda’s clothing store in Des Plaines and waited in the car as Rayford hurried in to say good-bye.

“Is he here?” he asked her secretary.

“He is, and she is,” the secretary said. “She’s in her office, and he’s in that one.” She pointed to a smaller office next to Amanda’s.

“As soon as I’m in there, would you run out to the car and tell my daughter she has a call she can take in there?”

“Sure.”

Rayford knocked and entered Amanda’s office. “I hope you’re not expecting me to be cheery, Ray,” she said. “I’ve been trying to work up a smile all day, and it’s not working.”

“Let me see what I can do to make you smile,” he said, pulling her from her chair and kissing her.

“You know Buck’s here,” she said.

“Yeah. It’ll be a nice surprise for Chloe.”

“Are you going to come and surprise me like that sometime?”

“Maybe I’ll surprise you right now,” he said. “How do you like your new job?”

“I hate it. I’d leave in a New York minute if the right guy came along.”

“The right guy just came along,” Rayford said, slipping a small box from his side pocket and pressing it into Amanda’s back.

She pulled away. “What is that?”

“What? This? I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

Buck had heard Rayford outside the door and knew Chloe wouldn’t be far behind. He turned the light off and felt his way back to the chair behind the desk. In a few minutes he heard Chloe. “In here?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” the secretary said. “Line one.”

The door opened slowly, and Chloe turned on the light. She jumped when she saw Buck behind the desk, then squealed and ran to him. As soon as he stood, she leaped into his arms and he held her, twirling her around.

“Shhh,” he said. “This is a business!”