The Blue Bottle Club (35 page)

"Well, it's nice. Real nice. Hardly looks like the same cottage as it did when I—" He stopped mid-sentence and cleared his throat awkwardly.

"I know. I wasn't sure I could live here until I saw how different it—" Ellie, too, ended abruptly. "Cream and sugar?"

"Just black, thanks." He shrugged. "Like always."

She set two steaming mugs on the table and sat as far away from him as possible, which wasn't far enough, given the small dimensions of the table.

Rome toyed with his mug, turning it this way and that until coffee sloshed onto the wooden tabletop. "Sorry."

Ellie handed him a napkin. "It's okay."

"Ellie—"

"Rome—"

They both spoke at once, then lapsed into silence. Rome held out a hand. "You first."

Ellie shook her head. "No, you go ahead. You said you wanted to talk. I'm listening."

Rome chewed his lip and stared at his coffee cup. "For the past five years I've been planning what I would say to you," he began. "All that time on the front, and afterward, in the hospital. My biggest fear was that I might die before I had a chance to see you again."

"Forgive me for interrupting," Ellie said, "but I'd appreciate it if you'd just get on with your explanations. That's why you came back, isn't it?"

He reached a hand out toward her, and even though part of her longed to take it, to feel the tender touch of his fingers again, she kept her own hands folded in her lap.

"You still don't trust me," he said.

"Give me one good reason to trust," she shot back. "Five years ago you just walked away, and I haven't heard a word from you since."

"Didn't Catherine tell you that I was absolved of any suspicion in the fire, in Amelia's death?"

"She told me."

"But that's not enough."

"No, Rome, it's not enough. I trusted you—once, a long time ago. I gave my heart to you. But then you disappeared. What was I supposed to think? What, in heaven's name, was I supposed to
do!
Keep a torch burning, and rush back into your arms the minute you showed your face again?"

"No. I don't expect that."

"Then what do you expect from me, Rome Tucker?"

"I don't expect anything, Ellie. I just hoped you'd be willing to listen, to give me a second chance. I had to come back. I couldn't live the rest of my life regretting the fact that I didn't try."

Second chances. Regrets.
Would she regret it too if she didn't give Rome a chance? Or, more importantly, if she didn't give God a chance to work in this situation?

She sighed and waved a hand. "All right. Go on."

"The day I left, I saw the look on your face when Tish Cameron told you about my past. It was all just rumor and misunderstanding, but I knew I couldn't make you believe that. I had to leave, Ellie. Had to go back and straighten it all out before I could give myself to you as a free man, with nothing hanging over my head.

"Once the authorities had a chance to question me, they immediately took me off their list of suspects. By the time they determined the cause of the fire and declared Amelia's death an accident, Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and I was called up. I went into the army and got shipped overseas. Then I was wounded and hospitalized. But I never stopped thinking about you, Ellie. Never stopped loving you."

"Why didn't you write? Why didn't you at least give me some indication of where you were and what was going on?"

"I wanted to. I did, in fact, write to you. Dozens of letters."

"I never got them."

"I never mailed them. I'm not very good at expressing myself, Ellie. Everything I wrote sounded so hollow. I had to see you face to face. Had to be able to look into your eyes and see for myself whether you would ever be able to trust me again."

He got up from the table, went into the parlor, and returned with a small canvas bag. "Here," he said, pulling out a sheaf of letters and a file folder stuffed with official-looking papers. "These are the letters I wrote—at least the ones I didn't tear up." He handed them to her. "And this is a copy of the final police report, and a copy of my service record. It's all here—the whole history of the past five years of my life."

Ellie shuffled through the stack, and her heart did a series of flips when her fingers touched the sealed envelopes that bore her name.

"I prayed—every single day—that you wouldn't go off to school in Chicago or New York or some big city where you could vanish forever. That you wouldn't leave until I had a chance to see you again. To see you, and tell you I love you."

Ellie sat staring at the letters and papers, avoiding his gaze. She thought about that moment of decision when she had chosen to stay here and help Catherine with the James Home, rather than pursueing her dreams. Was it possible that other factors besides her fear had played a part in that decision? Factors such as Rome's prayers, or her own need to become the woman she was intended to be? Had God kept her here, waiting, for this moment—for Rome Tucker's return?

Yet she hadn't been waiting, not really. She had never even considered the possibility that he might come back. Instead, she had gone on with her life, had taken her second chance, and had, in the process, found a purpose and significance to her life far deeper than anything she had ever dreamed.

She thought about Catherine Starr, how the woman had helped her learn what it meant to listen to the Lord's voice and follow the Lord's direction. She thought about Hazel Dennison, who even in death had given her one of the great gifts of life. These and other forces beyond her imagining had figured into her decision to stay at the James Home. Was it possible that Rome Tucker was one of those hidden reasons—not the primary motive, perhaps, but one of those secret secondary works of God?

At last Ellie felt strong enough and sure enough to respond, and she raised her head and looked him in the eye.

"You have to understand, Rome," she said quietly, "that I am not the same person you knew when you left here. Back then, I was a girl, uncertain of my direction and willing to cling to any shred of hope for a future. In the years you've been gone, I've become a woman, and I've discovered my own relationship with God—a relationship that has become the most important factor in any decision I make. It hasn't been easy, but I'm no longer lonely or isolated or desperate. I have a life and a calling. I have a family. I have love."

She paused, and as the next words came to her, a sense of peace drifted over her soul like a warm blanket, a power of spirit engendered by the truth that filled her heart. "I don't need you, Rome, to make my life complete. But I am willing to consider the possibility that God has sent you back here for a reason. A very wise and loving woman recently told me that living without regret makes dying easy I can't make any commitments right now, but I don't want to go to my grave regretting the possibility that I rejected something God might have wanted for me."

She paused and smiled at him. "A long time ago, when you first asked me to marry you, I said I'd need some time to sort it out. I didn't want to accept your proposal out of desperation, the way a drowning person grabs onto the first bit of debris that floats by. Give me time now, Rome. Time to listen to God. Time to listen to my own heart."

"Take all the time you need," he said in a whisper. "I'm not going any­where."

33

AUTUMN MAGIC

September 22, 1945

E
llie watched from the doorway of her cottage as Rome clipped out the last of the fall flowers from the garden plot. He wasn't as agile as he had been five years ago; he had to bend awkwardly with one knee on the ground and his bad leg stretched out in front of him. But still he hummed and whistled, pausing now and then to stroke Pisgah's silvery fur as she rubbed up against him.

All summer he had stayed, working cheerfully through the sultry days of July and August. He had tended the gardens, coaxing from the stubborn soil enough vegetables to keep them all well fed, had repaired the gutters and downspouts so that the residents no longer got soaked coming in and out of the house. He had even installed an electric attic fan that drew cool air through the big house at night, and he'd put a ceiling fan in the downstairs parlor.

But it wasn't Rome's hard work that softened Ellie's heart toward him, or even his evident love for her. It was the way he related to Burgess Goudge and Frieda Hawthorne—and even Liz Townsend, the newest resident of the James Home, who drove everybody crazy with her incessant chattering and repetition. Always gentle and loving, yet never condescending, Rome lavished each of them with attention and compassion and humor.

Once, when Hazel Dennison was still alive and. the two were discussing Ellie's love life—or lack of it—Hazel had told Ellie that you could judge the measure of a man by the way he treated children and animals and old folks. Well, there weren't any children at the James Home, but there were plenty of old folks. And Rome opened himself to them, drew them in, embraced them, and made each of them feel cherished and important.

According to Catherine, this was the way you made a difference in the world—one life at a time. Ellie had difficulty applying the principle to herself and believing her own presence had any significant impact upon others, but she could see it clearly in Rome Tucker. His return had brought fresh hope and life to the members of the the James Home family—and, if she were going to be completely honest, to Ellie herself.

Out of Christian duty—the obligation of forgiveness, the requirement of the law—Ellie had agreed to give Rome his second chance. But inside, she had determined to keep her heart hardened; she had been hurt too much and had no intention of allowing herself to become vulnerable again. Not to him . . . not to anyone.

The problem was, she had
already
become vulnerable—exposed and indefensible against the irresistible power of love. Love in the form of Hazel Dennison, who had become the mother she had never known. Love in the guise of Burgess Goudge, who adored her like his own granddaughter. Love in the unyielding, indefatigable commitment of Catherine Starr. These were Ellie's people, her family. And she loved them with a fierce and holy devotion.

But Ellie had made a mistake—a potentially costly one. She had assumed that different kinds of love came in through different portals of the heart, so that she could fling wide the windows of her soul to embrace the love of God and the love of her newfound family and still keep a part of herself locked and bolted against Rome Tucker's kind of love. Romantic love.

Now, here she stood, watching him from the safety of her doorway, trying to still the pounding of her heart as the autumn sun touched his hair with gold and raised a glistening sheen on his broad forehead. He had proved himself trustworthy. Everyone at the James Home and at East Asheville Methodist had welcomed him home like the prodigal returning from his wanderings. And only her infernal pride was keeping Ellie from doing the same.

She had never thought of herself as a prideful woman. Her own mother's haughtiness, in fact, was one of the characteristics Ellie had spent a lifetime abhorring. Yet here it was, mocking her, like the menacing image of another face, a stranger's face, reflected back when she looked in the mirror.

Ellie didn't like what she saw, but she forced herself to face the distasteful image that loomed before her. Was she so arrogant, so proud, that she had to hang on to the pain of the past rather than forgiving and finding a new place to begin? Was she so holy, so righteous, that she couldn't put herself in Rome's place and understand the hell he had been through in the past five years?

Suddenly the truth struck her, and she recoiled in horror from it. She had been blaming Rome for her own misery, her own hopelessness, when none of it had been his fault at all. He had merely loved her, sought to build a new life for himself and for her, and circumstances had gotten in the way of the fulfillment of that dream. He was no monster; he was not responsible for his wife's death, nor for the war that had come between them. He was simply a man caught in the grip of circumstance—and an honorable man at that, who had faced up to his past and settled his debts before returning to the woman he loved. And she had refused to trust him.

Oh, she had couched her refusal in noble, even spiritual terms—waiting for God's direction, giving Rome a chance to prove himself. But how much proof of his character did she need? Everyone else accepted him—the church, the residents of the James Home, even Catherine Starr, whose opinion Ellie valued above any other. Ellie herself had been the single holdout. And it wasn't for any godly reason, either, no matter how much she might rationalize it in spiritual terms. It was purely out of pride and fear. Pride kept her from forgiving; fear kept her from taking a chance on love.

What had Catherine said about trust?
Trust is risk taken and survived.
There was no way to
know
what would happen if she took that risk and allowed herself to love Rome Tucker. But she was pretty sure she knew what would happen if she
didn't
risk it. Hazel Dennison had told her:
There are
only two things important in this life—love and forgiveness.
Don't
give your
future to the past, child. Live without regret. . . .

As she watched Rome gather up the weeds to take them to the mulch pile, Ellie felt something give way inside her soul. A rush of fearlessness washed through her veins, and she could almost feel the tenderness welling up within her heart. She reached a hand toward him, as if from this distance she could touch him and draw him in. But his back was turned toward her.

"Rome?" she called in a tentative whisper. No response.

"Rome!" This time her voice was stronger, louder, more certain.

He turned. "Yes?"

"When you're finished there, why don't you come in for a cup of coffee?"

It was a simple request, but—at least for Ellie—one fraught with meaning and laden with promise. Their eyes met, and he stood there gazing at her with an expression of wonder and love.