“Me, neither.” The second woman laughed. “I wouldn’t risk missing dinner for it.”
Wendell had watched them leave. She wouldn’t risk missing dinner? What was that supposed to mean? He’d felt a sense of outrage then and he felt it now. They needed more parents who cared about the fate of the teens at Hamilton. More people willing to risk everything to see the kids grow up law-abiding, productive, successful citizens.
Now, first thing this morning, Wendell tiptoed to the kitchen and opened his briefcase. Inside was a sign-up sheet. Four parents had written their names on the piece of paper. Four out of all the parents who had attended. These four had agreed to bring snacks to the meetings. Snacks and dinners. Chick-fil-A was still providing a meal once a week, but the other meetings typically took place without food.
Wendell looked at the names of the volunteers. Bless those parents, Lord. Bless the ones who care and bring more like them. We need all the help we can get. Wendell studied the list once more and then shut his briefcase and headed for the shower.
This was his usual morning routine. He would get ready while his kids slept, and then around six-thirty, Jordy would get up and wake the other three. Leah scrambled eggs for her siblings and made sure they wore clothes that at least matched. Jordy would feed Luvie.
Then an hour later, Jordy would drive everyone to school and they’d be one day closer to Christmas break. Most days, Wendell enjoyed the quiet of the morning. He tried to enjoy it today. In the shower he hummed “Amazing Grace,” and while he got dressed, he prayed. For his kids and his home, for the students at Hamilton High and for protection of the Raise the Bar program.
Normally he was so happy by the time he headed off to school, it almost didn’t matter what the day brought. Wendell would be ready to face it. But today was different. The bad feeling had been there since he opened his eyes, and it was worse as he walked to his small office at the front of the house and took a seat in the chair near the window.
Wendell tried to spend at least half an hour here every morning. This time was for him and God. The first appointment of the day. Get this one right, and the rest of the day would fall in place. Wendell grabbed his Bible from the small end table next to him.
He stared out the window and watched the sunrise begin to break across the horizon. Nothing like the mornings, Lord. He breathed in deep. There was something about seeing darkness flee, watching it dissolve in the power of the sunshine. It reminded him of one of his favorite Bible verses. Lamentations 3:22–23. Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
The words were true. They had always been true.
Wendell let the weight of the Bible settle on his lap. Maybe the concerned feeling was simply his heart, missing Joanna and the way life used to be. When everything was simpler. Wendell turned his eyes to his desk and the photo that had sat there for five years. A photo that would stay as long as Wendell was given another day.
The picture was taken many summers ago, when their youngest, Darrell, was only six years old. Wendell smiled at the image. He could still hear the kids laughing as the photographer tried to get them situated around the bench in her studio.
“I need the oldest kids in the back.” The woman had been beside herself. “Please, could you all stop tickling each other? This is serious business.”
Serious business? A family photo? Wendell chuckled in the morning glow just now hitting his window. The kids had all been laughing, talking about something Jordy had said or a song Leah had been singing. Alexandria had been just eight that summer, and the four kids got along like few siblings ever had.
Wendell credited Joanna with that. His wife had always wanted to be a mother. His eyes settled on Joanna, the first woman he had ever loved. “Dear God, I know she’s happy in heaven. But could You please tell her . . . how very much we miss her down here?”
The pit in Wendell’s stomach grew. Much the way it had felt the day of Joanna’s accident. Wendell turned to the window again and lifted his eyes to the pink streaks making their way across the morning sky. And suddenly, like it did every now and then, the past came to life and Wendell was a middle-school boy, first day of seventh grade.
And Joanna was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.
She was from California, more talkative than most of the girls. Her eyes were wide, her hair pulled into a ponytail and gathered in a bright pink bow. Wendell thought she looked like a model, and when the teacher assigned him a seat in English class far away from Joanna, Wendell did something he had never done before.
He disobeyed the teacher.
There had been an open chair right behind the new girl, so Wendell took that. And when the teacher called roll and looked for Wendell in the seat across the room, Wendell simply raised his hand. “I’m over here.” He smiled at the man. “I’m sitting over here.”
The teacher didn’t really know how to respond. He looked down at the seating chart and up at Wendell. Finally he gave a shake of his head. “Okay. You’re sitting there.”
As the teacher moved on to the next students, Joanna turned and giggled in his direction. “You’re funny.”
Wendell smiled and felt his breath catch in his throat. “You’re pretty.”
He didn’t kiss her until their wedding day, but after that middle-school English class, they were never apart again. Wendell blinked and took a long breath. The morning sky was lighter now, a few streaks of pale blue and orange giving way to a clear autumn sky.
He looked at the photo once more. He could still hear Joanna’s voice when they’d reviewed the proofs from that shoot. Some of the pictures were perfect, in the most professional way possible. The kids all looking at the camera, everyone’s clothes neat, their smiles on point.
Those weren’t the photographs Joanna wanted.
No, she wanted the one that sat framed on his desk. The picture where the photographer had caught them all mid-laugh. Jordy was looking at Leah, and Alexandria was trying not to let go of Darrell. Wendell’s arm was around Joanna’s shoulders and her head was tipped back.
Laughing the hardest of them all.
Wendell let his eyes settle on her, on the way he would always see her. The way he would remember her.
Three weeks later Joanna was coming home from the grocery store. A trip she’d made a thousand times. Same car. Same street. Same groceries packed in bags in the back of their family van. Only this time a reckless teen rounded the corner on the wrong side of the two-lane highway.
The police said Joanna never knew what hit her. “Life to life.” That’s what Wendell had said about his beloved at her memorial a week later. Joanna Quinn had gone from life to life.
Jordy had said it another way. “My mom had three miscarriages between having us kids. She always talked about her babies in heaven. Three babies there. Four babies here.” He had paused to dry his eyes. “She spent all these years here with us. It only makes sense that God would let her spend the rest of her time with her other babies. The ones in heaven.”
Wendell let the memory fade. He swiped his finger beneath one eye and then the other. He had this morning time with God in part because of Joanna. Because years ago she had once told him: Mornings were the best time to hear God. The best time to talk to Him.
Yes, he and the kids missed her. They still talked about her and laughed at things she used to say. But they weren’t without hope. One day they would all be together again, as a family.