She ate a bite of fish without tasting it. Poked at a potato.Declined dessert. In the distance she finally heard what her heart craved.
Candace looked to the windows. “God be praised, if ’tis them.”
Abandoning the table, Selah went into the hall to the riverfront door.Lord, please ... let it be good news.
But no sign of Watseka did she see. Only harried, weary men damp with rain and in need of supper, scattering in different directions. Xander came through the door with a simple shake of his sodden head. She swallowed her questions as he shrugged off his coat and crossed into their new rooms.
“Have a supper tray brought, aye?”
“I’ll ready it myself,” she answered.
Returning to the dining room, she met three pairs of inquiring eyes. “He’s said little yet, but there appears to be nothing new. He’ll take supper in private.”
They nodded in understanding, their relief at his return as palpable as their dismay at his coming home empty-handed. Selah filled a plate with the foods he usually enjoyed but doubted he had any appetite for them. At least he was home. Safe and sound.
While he ate if for no other reason than to have strength for the days ahead, she took up a book and tried to read, but the words on the page escaped her.
At last he put down his fork. “There’s to be no more searching.”
Her heart seemed to stop. “Is Watseka—” She could not say the hated word. Everything in her rebelled.
His voice was quiet and measured. “If I’d heeded the Scripture of this morn during our devotions, I’d have saved us another futile afternoon.”
Her thoughts reached back to the early dawn hour that had marked their Bible reading.
“You ken how timely Psalms is. How it oft speaks to our circumstances.”
She sighed, her mind still muddled. “I was but half awake, having passed a near sleepless night. I recall it not.”
Pushing his half-finished supper aside, he reached for his Bible, which lay open to this morning’s reading. “‘Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.’”
She took in the words, trying to reconcile them with their predicament.Rest. Wait patiently. Fret not.She was failing at all.
His shadow-rimmed eyes bore a hole into her. “You ken we are to do no more.”
“Nothing?”
His gaze returned to the Psalms. He seemed strangely at peace. “We simply wait. Pray.”
“But ...” The whispered protest died on her lips.
“The outcome of all that concerns us is more to be trusted in His hands than ours.”
This she couldn’t deny. But to simply do ... nothing? While Watseka was suffering?
Could she trust God in this?
Could she trust her husband?
The Sabbath broke golden and cool, the walk to church pleasant. Still, Selah could not grasp Xander’s sudden peace about matters. Rather than settle her, it chafed. Fatigue turnedher testy. She felt as nettled as in days of old when she’d been caught in the cobwebs of misunderstanding him. Of misjudging him.
Walking alongside her, Candace regarded her anxiously as if sensing her internal struggle. They made a subdued party as they passed through the open doors of the chapel.
This morn, all eyes seemed to be on them as a couple. News of their marrying was spreading slowly over the Tidewater. Xander reached for her gloved hand, his comforting touch somehow intensifying her misery. Memories of Father and the last Sabbaths they’d spent with him inside these walls only lent to her sagging spirits. Not even Shay with his steady if concerned smile made a dent in her melancholy.
Where was her faith? Her trust? Such seemed crowded out by confusion and hurt.
A hush descended. The order of service began with the Psalm reading. She nearly missed the itinerant pastor’s sonorous words with her ruminating, and then the faintest glimmer of light illuminated her clouded mind.
