I rolled my eyes. “I assure you I can handle this.” I glared at the air compressor. I was going to rent one tomorrow and find some videos on how to blow out the sprinklers.
He nodded, handing me a cup. “Hot chocolate from Maggie. Word got around that you aren’t ready for winter, and now I gotta help or she won’t feed me.”
I burst into laughter. Maggie withholding a good meal from her grandson was quite hilarious. And my heart was softer towards Seth after his note. I couldn’t imagine losing your wifeandyour child. He seemed so normal, so unbroken. So, not like me.
“Well, alright. I can’t have you starving on my account,” I told him and hefted one of the hay bales before dropping it with a groan.
He picked up two bales as if they were made of feathers and looked at me. “Where do you want these?” he asked.
I chuckled, grabbing the smaller heating elements, and ticked my head towards the barn. We walked over there together, and I wanted to mention something about his note so that he didn’t think I was insensitive for not acknowledging his loss.
“‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,’” I said, and he gave me a small smile.
“Thought you might have tossed it into the fire without reading.”
I gasped. “Do I seem that bad?” I asked as I flipped the latch on the fence that led to the run in front of the barn.
He shrugged. “Not bad. Just…lost.” He set the hay down by the other bales inside the barn, and my heart pounded wildly in my chest.
Lost.He’d called me lost. Was I?
Yes, that was exactly what I was.
My face must have betrayed my hurt, because he peeredat me with wide eyes. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by that. I just meant?—”
I waved him off. “No, it’s fine. I guess I am lost.” Putting a name to how I felt actually made me feel a little better. Who wouldn’t be lost after what I’d been through?
I set the heaters down and started to untangle the extension cords.
“It’s okay to be lost sometimes,” he told me as he picked up one of the other cords and began to unravel it.
“Were you lost after…” I didn’t want to say it. It felt too heavy. To lose a spouse was one thing, but a child? I couldn’t imagine.
He blew air through his lips. “You have no idea. Never was a drinker. I hated the taste of the stuff, but when the doctor told me they were both gone, I went to the nearest bar and drank myself into oblivion. Maggie had to come to get me, and I woke up the next day feeling like I was in hell. I just wanted to numb everything.”
Wow. I hadn’t expected such an open and vulnerable response. Sometimes, I wondered if my father had been numbing some sort of hidden pain with all of his drinking.
I nodded. “I get that.” He had witnessed my firewood breakdown, after all. “Did you turn away from God?” I asked.
He looked at me with pity and shook his head. “No, I leaned into Him. It was the only way I survived. Things got real dark and…” His voice broke. “If I hadn’t opened my Bible and gone back to church right away, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
I tried to control my reaction, but I knew what he was talking about.
“The opposite of me.” I chuckled.
Seth glanced at me then with a serious expression. “I wonder if God put you here as my neighbor so that Maggie and I could help you through this.”
I swallowed hard. I’d wondered that, too, yesterday, but I hadn’t said it.
“Though you’re not doing a good job of letting us,” he added.
I reached out and whipped him lightly with the cord.
He grinned. “Stubborn woman, aren’t ya?”
I put one hand on my hip. “You want me to call Maggie and tell her you aren’t helping?”
He looked genuinely terrified at that. “You trying to starve me?”
