Fern pulled the French doors shut behind her and walked into the kitchen, wishing desperately to hear the rest of the conversation. Elliott was Ambrose's dad. Rumors were, he and Ambrose's mother were splitting up, that Lily Young was leaving town. Fern wondered if that meant Ambrose would leave too.
Fern knew she shouldn't do it, but she did. She sneaked into the pantry and positioned herself on a sack of flour. Sitting in the pantry was almost as good as sitting in her father's office. Whoever had framed up the house must have scrimped on the wall that divided the back of the pantry from the little room her father used for his office, because if Fern wedged herself into the corner, not only could she hear perfectly, she could even see into the room where the sheet rock didn't quite reach the corner. Her mother was at the grocery store. She was safe to listen without getting caught, and if her mother suddenly came home, she could swoop up the full trash and pretend like she was just doing her chores.
“. . . she's never been happy. She's tried, I think. But these last few years . . . she's just been hiding out.” Elliott Young was talking. “I love her so much. I thought if I just kept loving her, she would love me back. I thought I had enough love for both of us. For all three of us.”
“Is she determined to leave?” Fern's father asked softly.
“Yes. She wants to take Ambrose with her. I haven't said anything. But that's the hardest part. I love that boy. If she takes him, Pastor, I don't think I will survive. I don't think I'm strong enough.” Elliott Young wept openly and Fern felt sympathetic tears well in her own eyes. “I know he's not mine. Not biologically. But he's my son, Pastor. He's my son!”
“Does Ambrose know?”
“Not everything. But he's fourteen, not five. He knows enough.”
“Does Lily know you want the boy to stay, even if she leaves?”
“He is legally my son. I adopted him. I gave him my name. I have rights like any father would. I don't think she would fight it if Ambrose wanted to stay, but I haven't said anything to Brosey. I guess I keep hoping Lily will change her mind.”
“Talk to your son. Tell him what is happening. Just the facts–no blame, no condemnation, just the fact that his mother is leaving. Tell him you love him. Tell him that he is your son and that nothing will change that. Don't for one minute let him believe that he doesn't have a choice because of blood. Let him know he can go with his mother if that is his wish, but that you love him and want him to stay with you if that is what he wants.”
Elliott was quiet for several long minutes, Joshua Taylor too, and Fern wondered if that was all that was going to be said. Then Joshua Taylor asked softly, “Is that all that's bothering you, Elliott? Is there something else you want to talk about?”
“I keep thinking that if I just looked different, if I looked more like him, none of this would be happening. I know I'm not the best looking guy in the world. I know I'm a little on the homely side. But I exercise and I keep myself trim and I dress nice and wear cologne . . .” Elliott Young sounded embarrassed, and his voice drifted off.
“Looked more like who?” Joshua Taylor asked gently.
“Ambrose's father. The man Lily can't seem to get out of her system. He wasn't nice to her, Pastor. He was selfish and mean. He pushed her away when he found out she was pregnant. He told her he wanted nothing to do with her. But he was handsome. I've seen pictures. Looks just like Brosey.” Elliott's voice broke when he said his son's name.
“I've often thought that beauty can be a deterrent to love,” Fern's father mused.
“Why?”
“Because sometimes we fall in love with a face and not what's behind it. My mother used to pour the grease off the meat when she cooked, and she stored it in a tin in the cupboard. For a while, she used a tin that had once held those long, praline-covered cookies with hazelnut crème inside. The expensive ones? More than once I got that tin down thinking I'd found my mom's secret stash, only to take off the lid and see smelly mounds of grease.”
Elliott laughed, getting the point. “The container didn't matter much at that point, huh?”
“That's right. It made me want cookies, but that container was major false advertising. I think sometimes a beautiful face is false advertising too, and too many of us don't take the time to look beneath the lid. Funny, this reminds me of a sermon I gave a few weeks back. Did you hear it?”
“I'm sorry, Pastor. I work nights at the bakery, you know. Sometimes Sunday morning I'm just too tired,” Elliott said, his guilt over missing church evident, even through the pantry wall.
“It's okay, Elliott.” Joshua laughed. “I'm not taking roll. I just wanted to know if you'd heard it so I wouldn't bore you silly.” Fern heard her father turning pages. She smiled a little. He always brought everything back to the scriptures.
“In Isaiah 53:2 it says, “For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.”
“I remember that verse,” Elliott said softly. “It always struck me that Jesus wasn't handsome. Why wouldn't God make his outside match his inside?”
“For the same reason He was born in a lowly manger, born to an oppressed people. If He had been beautiful or powerful, people would have followed him for that alone–they would have been drawn to him for all the wrong reasons.”
“That makes sense,” Elliott said.
Fern found herself nodding in agreement, sitting there on a sack of flour in the corner of the pantry. It made sense to her too. She wondered how she had missed this particular sermon. It must have come when she sneaked her romance novel in between the pages of the hymnal a few weeks ago. She felt a twinge of remorse. Her father was so wise. Maybe she should pay more attention.
“There's nothing wrong with your face, Elliott,” Joshua said gently. “There's nothing wrong with you. You are a good man with a beautiful heart. And God looks on the heart, doesn't he?”