Thirty-Six
Daria checked the biscuits in the oven one last time and went to the refrigerator to get ice for the glasses. Nicole was in one corner of the kitchen, playing contentedly with a set of wooden building blocks. Across the room, Natalie sat in a toddler-sized chair, using the kitchen window seat as a makeshift drawing board. Daria smiled as her elder daughter labored over a colorful drawing, her little tongue echoing each tracing of the crayon. She was becoming quite an artist.
“Natalie, go out and tell Daddy it’s time for supper.”
“Not now, Mommy. I hafta finish coloring the horsey’s tail.”
“Natalie, you don’t talk to Mommy that way,” Daria said firmly. “You can finish your picture after supper. But right now I need you to go get Daddy. And please hurry. The soup is getting cold.”
Natalie harrumphed and threw her crayon down, but she scooted her chair away from the window seat and headed toward the mud room.
A few seconds later, Daria heard her gasp from the back porch, “Mommy! Ooh, come look! Hurry!”
Daria recognized the fresh childlike wonder they so often heard in this little girl’s voice. She dried her hands on an already damp dish-towel and started for the porch. But before she reached the door she heard Cole’s voice.
“Hey, punkin! What’s all the yelling about?”
“Look, Daddy! Look at dat sky!”
“I know. I saw it. Isn’t it pretty?”
Daria smiled to herself. The awe in Cole’s voice was equally childlike. She leaned to look out the kitchen window and saw that the sunset was indeed stunning. Iridescent strokes of purple and orange were burnished against a velvety blue-grey sky. She went to the doorway and stood in the shadows, watching her husband and daughter. Such love there was between them.
Cole knelt beside the little girl and pointed to the western horizon. “God painted the sky just for you, Nattie,” he told her, planting a kiss on the curve of her cheek.
Without a word, Natalie broke from Cole’s embrace, zipped by Daria, and tore through the kitchen to the front door. Cole stepped into the mud room looking to Daria for an explanation.
“You’ve got me,” she shrugged.
They heard the front door open, and Natalie’s silvery voice floated in from the east porch. “He didn’t paint dis side yet!” she shouted.
Cole looked at Daria and at the same instant they burst out laughing. He held his arms open to her and she walked into them, achingly aware that in this simple everyday moment of shared laughter they had turned a corner somehow.
The past weeks had not been easy, and yet she treasured each day. Like thorns on a rosebush, the pain of all they’d been through was still sharp and real. She ached for Nate, and she missed the easy way things had been between her and Cole before. In an unguarded moment, she would find herself crying and not know for sure which thing she was grieving. Sometimes, when she thought about all that had happened, it seemed impossible that it had actually happened to them. Yet, like the imperceptible unfolding of the rosebud above the thorns, she was taken by surprise to find so much joy mixed in with the sorrow.
Sometimes she found herself arranging each little moment in her mental scrapbook. Like tiny bits of colored glass in a kaleidoscope, each piece sparkled with its own beauty, but together—reflected again and again—the memories were beautiful beyond words. She turned the pages and enumerated some of the recent moments: Nikki learning to sound out a new word; one single branch on the Bradford pear tree Cole had planted in front of the farmhouse wearing leaves of the most brilliant scarlet and bronze; an overheard exchange between Natalie and Nicole that reminded her of the wonderful bond that sisters share; sitting on the front porch steps with Cole on a day so cool that they were glad to be sipping hot tea from mugs. Even the mugs were special—chunky blue pottery that Kirk and Dorothy Janek had brought back for them from a long-awaited trip to England. All the little details of life seemed so wonderfully significant now, each one to be savored and treasured. She pondered whether it was possible that grief somehow sharpened the senses. Or was it only that she’d begun to realize that life was truly so short, so precious, that one dared not waste a single moment? And yet she was more inclined than ever to spend a day doing almost nothing, simply enjoying the quiet of the house, playing silly games with the girls. Whatever it was, she considered it a gift and was delighted that in the midst of heartache so deep it was a physical pain, she was finding a deeper joy and contentment in life than she’d ever known.
And at night, in the darkness of their room—with their daughters asleep in the room below theirs—she and Cole held each other with a fresh tenderness after they made love. It was a tenderness that testified not only to their deep love for each other, but of the naked, aching realization of that love’s vulnerability—and of the piercing sacrifice that had allowed it fruition. Yet somehow that knowledge caused them not to look to the past, but toward a future ripe with the completion of redemption. Theirs had been a tangle of circumstances so knotted and gnarled it had seemed too impossible to ever right itself. And yet, through Nate’s love and wisdom—and his terrible sacrifice—God had redeemed their lives.
Natalie had received a simple letter from Colombia that Daria knew was meant to ease her own mind as much as it was meant to express Nate’s love for his daughter. Still in Cole’s embrace, she looked over his shoulder to the kitchen desk where the letter was tucked in a basket. She didn’t need to open the thin, crisp airmail envelope to remember what it said. The words were etched on her heart, as she knew they would someday be etched upon her daughter’s:
Dearest Natalie,
I am back with my Timoné people now, and I am happy to be here. I know I am where God wants me to be. Someday your mommy can tell you about these people and this village where your life began.
I hope you will always know how much I love you and how precious you are to me. I pray for you every day, as I know your mommy and daddy there in Kansas do, too. God has blessed you with a wonderful home in which to grow up, Natalie. I hope you will never forget how greatly God has blessed you. You are a special girl with so many people who love you, and I know God has great things in store for you. I will write again soon, but for now, remember that I love you with all my heart.
Keeping you in my prayers,
Your Daddy Nate
Daria sighed in Cole’s arms and reached up to caress his face. Life on this earth was so hard sometimes. But if they had learned nothing else, they had learned that after the darkest night, after the most impossible trial, joy comes in the morning. Always.