If only Adam didn’t have to make so many, perhaps this one would be easier. “I want to go with her,” he said. “Simply because it would be easier for her, but I also want to go for the right reasons.”
“And what would the right reasons be, son?” Momma asked.
“I don’t know,” Adam said, feeling flustered. “A desire to feel the spirit, to hear the word of the Lord in my life?”
“Do you want either of those things?” Momma asked.
Adam thought for a moment, finding it very easy to say, “You know what, Momma? I do.”
“Great,” she said as if she didn’t care at all if he went to church or not, but Adam knew his mother had been down on her knees morning and night praying for him since the day he had been born. “Then you should go. And even if you’re just going for her, God still might have something to say to you while you’re there.”
Adam had never quite heard the voice of the Lord the way his mother did, but he didn’t want to argue with her either. He never had, and she’d always given him the grace and space to learn for himself.
“All right,” he said. “I think I’ll go with her then.”
“Well, that sounds wonderful,” Momma said. “And if I don’t have a picture of her in the next thirty seconds, I may just buy an airplane ticket and come up there so I can meet her in person.”
Adam laughed. “Momma, don’t do that,” he said. “You’ll be throwing a hip out on the airplane.”
“That happenedone time,” Momma said, and Adam laughed again.
“She’s taken all the pictures on her phone,” he said. “So let me text her and get one. Can you give me ten minutes?” He glanced at the clock. “Might actually be longer, Momma; she just got to her second job.”
“She hastwojobs? Adam Lewis Harmon, why are you letting your girlfriend worktwojobs?”
Adam smiled and said, “Momma, if I could just have you tell Joey to let me take care of her, the world’s problems will be solved.”
“Does she not want you to take care of her?” Momma asked, the incredulity in her voice off the charts, like such a thing was so foreign she couldn’t even comprehend it.
“Momma, we’ve been dating fortwomonths,” he said. “I don’t think she’s quite ready to take every dime I can give her.”
“Oh, well, I guess I can see that,” she said.
“You guess you can?” Adam teased. “The last woman I dated foreight months, mind you, and I offered to pay her cell phone billonce, and you lectured me for twenty minutes about not letting women take advantage of me.”
“Oh, it wasn’t twenty minutes,” Momma said, though it had definitely been twenty minutes—maybe more.
“All right, Momma,” Adam said, chuckling. “I gotta go. I’ll send you a picture real soon.”
“All right,” she said. “I love you, son.”
“Love you too, Momma.”
Adam let her end the call, and he poured himself a cup of coffee before he texted Joey to get a selfie.
I decided I want to come to church with you on Sunday. Is that invitation still open? I know you’re working right now. Just text me when you get a minute.
He took his coffee to the back window that overlooked the yard. Darkness had started to fall already, as it was thesecond week of December, and winter had definitely come to Wyoming. Adam found he didn’t mind it, but he pretended to be put out for Harry’s sake. Joey loved winter, and that had only made him like her more.
His phone chimed, but he’d left it in the kitchen, and it took him an extra minute to feel like checking it. When he did, he found Joey had texted him back.
Yes, I can text you the address. They’re doing a Christmas service on Sunday, so we’ll probably want to get there early if we want to get a seat. It starts at ten.
That would be a long drive for Adam, but he got up early in the morning, and he didn’t anticipate it being a problem. The next text that had come in was the smiling selfie that Joey had taken the day she’d told her family that they were dating.
Adam grinned at the two of them, and he quickly downloaded the picture and sent it to his mother. He’d focused on church in the phone call, but now he typed out the second question that he’d been thinking about.
Do not freak out, he started.And don’t call me again. But how do you know when you’re in love?
