The memory still made Alicia sick. She pictured Wendell and his four kids, how they’d looked that day at the pool, all of them laughing and playing. She could never put them in danger. Even if it meant being single and alone forever.
How could I believe I might marry a man like Wendell Quinn? That he and his beautiful kids might someday be my own? I could never be good enough for them.
She opened her eyes and after a minute, she climbed out of bed. Her heart would always ache for Wendell. She missed him with every breath. During the day she didn’t give herself time to think about him, to miss him. But in the morning—after seeing him in her dreams—she allowed herself the pain of remembering just a little. Enough to keep the good times alive.
Deep breath, Alicia. Deep breath.
A few minutes of stretching would clear her head, get her ready for another day of teaching. She bent at the waist and hugged her knees to her chest. The tension that had built up in the past twenty-four hours eased from her legs and spine.
After Jack’s ominous message, Alicia had known just one way to be certain nothing would happen to Wendell and his kids. She broke things off with Wendell the next day, and requested a change of schools. It was one thing to stop dating Wendell. But to walk by his office every day would be too much.
Wendell had been hurt, of course. They both had been. But he’d respected her wishes. Anything to help her find relief from the panic attacks. A few weeks into the fall semester, Alicia was moved fifteen miles away to Jackson High School.
At first her old boyfriend left messages for her every day and her anxiety grew. Panic attacks happened every day, because this time Wendell wasn’t there to help her. The calls lasted all fall semester. The threats were always the same: She’d better not date. No sneaking around with another guy. He would kill anyone who got in the way.
Alicia saved the messages—in case they were ever needed in a trial. But she only rarely considered using them to press charges against Jack. What could the legal system do? Again she thought about filing a restraining order, but then what? They wouldn’t arrest a millionaire do-gooder for a couple of threatening phone calls. He would find his way free of any charges and then he would kill her.
Just like he promised.
So she let the messages build up in her answering machine. Then around Christmastime the calls abruptly stopped. His silence didn’t make sense until last spring, when Alicia saw an article on Facebook about Jack. He had married the daughter of a bank president.
WEALTHY INDY PHILANTHROPIST MARRIES, the headline read.
“She’s the love of my life,” Jack was quoted as saying. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
Alicia read the article six times through before she could feel anything. And then she was overcome by a tsunami of emotions: disbelief and shock and even anger. How dare Jack Renton destroy her life and her relationship with Wendell and then just move on?
As if he’d never known her.
But the strongest emotion that day, and every day since, was relief. Yes, Alicia was alone. She still spent two days a month analyzing her bills and trying to figure out how to pay off as much of her debt as possible. But no longer did she look over her shoulder on her way into work. She didn’t check her rearview mirror to see if Jack was following her home. She wasn’t afraid to walk out to her car every morning.
Jack Renton was finally and fully out of her life.
She thought about contacting Wendell and letting him know things had changed. She wasn’t worried anymore about Jack hurting them. But she always stopped herself. Wendell had single-handedly turned things around at Hamilton High. She knew because her teacher friends talked on Facebook about the changes at the school.
Wendell had followed his faith and his heart, and she had been too fearful to stand beside him. Too worried she’d lose her job. Too scared Jack might do something to harm Wendell and his family.
She couldn’t interrupt Wendell’s life now. He deserved someone stronger. And so Alicia carried on alone, teaching and paying her bills and spending her evenings by herself. Only in her dreams did her rebellious heart journey back to Wendell Quinn.
A sigh worked its way up from her soul and filled her quiet bedroom.
Alicia finished stretching and looked at the clock on her bedside table. She was getting up earlier these days, allowing time for a part of her routine she’d never had before. A time of talking to God and sorting through her life.
The years she had yet to live.
She walked to the mirror over her dresser. There were faint lines at the corners of her eyes now. Alicia turned her face one way and then the other. She was still pretty. But her eyes looked a hundred years old.
The price of her anxiety disorder. The cost of living a life in fear of the next panic attack.
Alicia walked to the chair in the corner of the room. The temperature outside was only in the forties. Too cold to open the window. She sat down and stared at the old oak tree that stood between her house and her neighbor’s. It was glorious today, with leaves the most brilliant reds and oranges.
She reached for her Bible on the small table near her bed. Her fingers moved over the leather binding and her name, engraved in the lower right corner.
A new Bible was the single extra purchase she had allowed herself since breaking up with Wendell. If belief in God had motivated Wendell to risk everything, then she wanted a faith like that. One that didn’t run.
And so with fresh hope she began to read. She’d started with Matthew—the first book in the New Testament—and she hadn’t stopped since. Her lonely nights were less so because of Jesus. She didn’t fully understand Him, especially after she’d let her beliefs grow cold over the last few years. Her soul had paid the price.
But maybe . . . if she turned to Him now, He would keep her company on mornings like this.
Alicia stared out the window again. Lord, do You see me? Do You want me to reach out to Wendell? Is that why You fill my head with visions of the man every time I lay my head on my pillow?
Outside, a few red and orange leaves fluttered to the ground. Autumn was giving way to winter. Now if only she could find a way to change the seasons in her own life, to find the courage to move ahead. Try something new. Maybe even contact Wendell.
Alicia spent the next hour reading Matthew and when she came to the end of chapter eleven, verses 28 through 30, she paused. Alicia read the words several times over and let them permeate her mind. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Learn from me.
She barely whispered her thoughts. “What do You want me to learn, Father?” She read the scripture again. “You want me to set aside my weariness and burdens and come to You. . . . I get that. But are the dreams about Wendell meant to teach me something? Are they from You?”
My daughter, two are better than one, because they have a good return on their labor. Remember that. And know that I am with you always, wherever you go.
Alicia felt chills run down her arms and legs. Two are better than one? Was that God speaking to her? The words came from the message at church last week. They were in Ecclesiastes, Chapter Four.
Two or three times before Alicia had sensed this sort of a heavenly response, something deep that resonated in her being. Like a voice that could be felt and not heard.
But she had never experienced it this clearly.
The response stayed with her as she got ready and drove to Jackson High School. Today’s commute was like any other. No sign that something had gone terribly wrong during the night.
Not until she walked through the front doors did Alicia learn something devastating had happened. Along the hallway students were huddled together. Some of them seemed to be praying. Others were crying, weeping even.