Cora’s eyes welled with tears, but she kept her head down.
She knew it would eventually be her duty to marry. She knew by heart the Scriptures that make this obligation clear—be fruitful and multiplyandTherefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Both of those Scriptures come from Genesis, where humanity—and the plan for her own life years before she was ever even a thought—first began.
She did not intend to rebel against the notion of marrying and bearing children; she just wanted to wait a little longer, to allow a chance for true love to find her, rather than resigning herself to a marriage of convenience like so many other young women had to do.
Certainly, they had grown to love their husbands, but Cora did not want togrowto love; she wanted to fall in love and then marry.
She did not tell her father this, though, for he would just once again accuse her of reading too many novels.
Cora silently retreated to the kitchen, hoping that the distance would allow her father’s anger to settle. She began preparing a simple dinner of cornbread and beans, feeling guilty that not only had she directly disobeyed him, but she allowed him to come home from a long day of work without a hot meal waiting for him.
Cora and her father ate their dinner in silence. She could tell her father was still angry with her, but the warmth provided by the meal seemed to be ebbing his fury. She also recognized that he loved her in his own way and wanted what was best for her. A father who did not love his daughter did not spend the day seized by worry, nor did he put so much thought into securing a safe future for his daughter.
He may not have loved her in all the ways that she needed—that’s why God had Pastor Burns fill that role in her life—but he was the father God had given her, and it was her duty to appreciate him, obey him, and trust him. Perhaps if she had trusted him, she would not have wasted her time today.
She had thought she was doing something good, but in retrospect, her father was right. Her actions today were not only selfish and arrogant, but they were also all for nothing.
After they finished their meal, Cora cleaned up their dinner dishes, kissed her father on the cheek, and headed to bed. Before sinking under the covers, Cora kneeled beside her bed, clasped her hands together, and laid her heart open before the Lord in a silent prayer:
Father God, please forgive me for my disobedience today. Your Word says that to honor and obey our parents is an act of righteousness. Today, I let pride rule over righteousness. Please bring healing to the damage I caused today in my relationship with Pa.
Cora opened her eyes and stared out of the open window just above her bed. From where she was kneeling, she could only see the tops of the tree branches and a few stars scattered in the sky. She thought about Roy, who was at this moment under those stars, journeying in the dark on his way back home to Wheats Ridge. This image compelled her to bow her head once more and add to her prayer.
And Lord, please place a hedge of protection around Roy as he travels home tonight. Keep him safe both physically and spiritually. Pastor Burns said that he believed his son was good, and I know that You in Your infinite wisdom can also see the good hidden away in Roy’s heart. Open his heart to hear Your voice and to know Your love once again.In the most holy name of Jesus I pray, Amen.
Having finished her prayer, she climbed under the covers, finding refuge in the safety of her earthly father’s house and the palm of Heavenly father’s hand. But even though the prayer brought her comfort, her sleep was nevertheless disrupted throughout the night of thoughts of a forced marriage to a man of her father’s choosing, and what that would mean for her future and her dream of finding a true love match.
Chapter Eight
Roy’s plan to travel back to Wheats Ridge was foiled by the horse. Iggy wasn’t normally accustomed to traveling a round trip total of twenty miles in one day, on top of their normal chores, so Roy shouldn’t have been surprised to find he had thrown a shoe.
“Well, this is just great, now, isn’t it?” Roy grouched, and Iggy, as if in agreement, whinnied in response.
“Well, there’s no way you’re going to make that trip back tonight, Igs,” Roy said, standing in the middle of one of Lakewood’s backroads and gingerly running his hand along Iggy’s snout. He stood there in the middle of the road considering his options, as there was not being much traffic at this time of the evening, so he could safely linger there. It was too dark to try to fix the shoe tonight, so he would simply have to wait it out until the sun rose.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the key Cora had given him to his father’s house. He was left with no choice but to house Iggy for the night in his father’s barn until he could get the shoe fixed in the morning.
Which would also mean spending the night in that house for the first time in five years.Cora would certainly be pleased at this turn of events, Roy thought bitterly.
Roy sighed and guided Iggy and the wagon at a slow pace half a mile down the road to his father’s house.
“If there is a God, He sure does have a sense of humor, right Igs?” Roy grumbled, smirking slightly to himself at the irony of the entire situation.
His palms were growing increasingly sweatier as he got nearer to his father’s house, and he and Iggy both stopped in their tracks when it finally came into view.
Even in the dark, the old familiar house could easily be seen from up the road. The two-story, white wooden structure illuminated the dark as if it were a lighthouse on a hill. He looked up at the two rectangular windows on the second floor—the one on the right once belonged to his room. He could only imagine what was behind that screen now.
He walked further up the path toward the house, past the tall oak tree in the front yard that once held a swing that his father had fashioned for him, attaching rope to the tallest branch and a slab of wood for the seat. All that remained now were the two ropes dangling from the tree.
When he was about fifteen, after he had outgrown the appeal of the swing, he detached the wood from the rope and took it out back for a miniature bonfire. He didn’t have any nefarious intent—like many teenage boys, he enjoyed watching things burn just for the thrill of it, and the swing hadn’t been used in a couple of years, anyway.
But Roy wasn’t just any ordinary teenage boy. He was the pastor’s son, and he was meant to be held to a higher standard than the other kids. He couldn’t be making a habit of reckless, spontaneous bonfires. He had to scrub the floorboards of the entire church as punishment for that one. Roy leaned down and rubbed one of his knees, as if the memory brought back the ache that job had inflicted on him.
Now standing in the yard, watching the ropes hang limply from their branches, he wondered why his father never took them down, as they were useless without the board that made it a swing. This question made him wonder what else he might find inside the house that hadn’t changed.
Roy led Iggy to the barn, ensured he had water to last him through the night, and promised to return to fix that shoe first thing in the morning so he could head back to Wheats Ridge. He had earned enough trust from his boss, Mr. Whitaker, that he was confident he wouldn’t mind, and tomorrow he could explain the situation. He was the only one who regularly rode Iggy, anyway. It was an unspoken agreement among all the hands that Iggy was ‘his’ horse.
Roy slowly walked up the three cement steps leading to the front door and stopped when he sawRJBcarved into the top step. He stooped down and traced his fingers over the engraving of his initials. His father hadn’t appreciated him vandalizing—that was the word he had used—the front stoop, but twelve-year-old Roy was adamant about leaving his mark in any way he could.
