“Well, what do you think?” Michelle stood in front of Bess with two dresses that could not be more different. One was a sheath dress with a square neckline that also had a thigh-length jacket with cap sleeves. The satin material was an iridescent gold that shimmered with the light. The second was an a-line dress with a crinoline underskirt. The bodice had a scoop neck and quarter-length sleeves. The dress was a contrast with its black skirt and white top.
“They’re both beautiful,” Bess told her. “Are you sure you want me to take them apart?”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Michelle assured her. “You don’t know how many times I’ve worn these things.”
“Okay then,” Bess agreed, taking the dresses out of Michelle’s hands and laying them aside. “I should get your measurements.”
She finished with the task just as Agnes came into the kitchen. She exclaimed over the dresses and then offered to make some herbal tea. As the women sat around the table drinking it, Michelle turned to Bess and asked her again where she had learned to sew.
Bess swallowed back the emotions the memories caused. “She was the first person to really care about me,” she managed.
“One of those lifetime friends,” Michelle said. “My best friend and I have been exchanging birthday and Christmas cards since the third grade. She always makes me smile.”
“Unfortunately,” Bess told the table top, “she hasn’t been around for a very long time.”
“I’m sorry. That must hurt.”
Bess shrugged. “Like anyone else, I learned a long time ago that life is one, long series of hurt. Making the best of bad situations is the only thing that gets you through most of the time.”
Agnes sighed. “I don’t know. I find that leaning on Jesus is what gets me through.”
“Amen to that,” Michelle agreed. “You know Michael has a really great sermon about how this life is all about our becoming our best selves in light of our heavenly home. And a big part of that sermon concentrates on how walking with Jesus each and every day, about the little things and the big things, is so important to keeping ourselves close to God and His purpose for us.”
Bess felt her spine stiffen. In her experience, Jesus, like her absent parents, had never been around when she needed Him most. Looking at Agnes and Michelle, she wondered if these women had ever had to fight off the unwanted advances of a foster brother or been beaten within an inch of their lives by a man who claimed to be their protector. She forced a smile to her lips. “I enjoy your husband’s sermons,” she said.
Luckily, this seemed to satisfy Michelle, who launched into the story of how she met Michael and what their married life in service had been like. Before long, more than an hour had passed, and it was time for Michelle to leave for a meeting at the church.
Agnes walked Michelle to the door while Bess began ripping out seams, eager to get started. Agnes came back into the kitchen whistling a tune lightly and sat down at the table to watch Bess work. For several minutes, the only sound in the room was the threads Bess carefully pulled from the fabric.
Then, Agnes sighed out a long breath. “So, what do you want to know about Jesus?” she asked, striking straight into the heart of the matter.
Bess paused in her task, keeping her eyes cast down. “I don’t think I said there was anything I needed to know.”
Agnes sighed again, but she didn’t say anything else, so that Bess was finally forced to look at her to alleviate her own discomfort. It struck Bess then that Daniel had his mother’s eyes, and they were staring at her across that table with as much love as her husband had offered that day outside the base when he’d said his last goodbye.
“You’ve got scars, Bess,” Agnes said, “scars so deep, I reckon only God Himself knows the truth of them.”
Bess grimaced. “Judd calls them secrets. I call them best-left-buried.”
Agnes grabbed Bess’ hand and squeezed it. “Nothing buried ever heals, my darling. When you’re ready, you start unearthing those scars, reveal them to the healing light.” She raised her other hand when Bess opened her mouth to protest. “Now, I’m not saying you have to say a word to me or to Judd. I’m advising you to open up to the heavenly Father. You’d be surprised how much better you’ll feel.”
Bess bit her lip. The baby kicked, as if the little peanut also had an opinion on the matter. She laid her free hand on her belly and asked Agnes. “You really believe somebody is up there listening?”
Agnes nodded out the window, where the afternoon sun blazed across the sand dunes between the fields. A road runner, swift and sure-footed, zig-zagged across the drive and ducked into a canopy of flowering cacti at the side of the road. “How can I look out on all that vibrant color and movement and light and not believe that a Master Creator is responsible for it all?”
Bess pulled away from Agnes’ grasp and stood up with an effort. She stepped to the window and kept her eyes focused on the horizon, rubbing the small of her back with one hand. “If you’d lived my life, you’d know that Master Creator has a wicked sense of humor. If He’s up there, He has a funny way of showing that He cares at all.”
“Don’t you know that He came down to earth and lived just like you and me, that He died on the Cross for your sins and mine, even though He never committed a sin Himself? Hasn’t anyone ever told you about Christ’s grand love for you, Bess?”
Bess whirled around to face her mother-in-law, even though she knew her eyes were spitting fire at the anger she felt swelling in her chest. “Where was He and His love when my friend was murdered?” she asked. “Or any of the other thousand times when I got knocked around by this so-called life I’m living? Thanks for the well-meaning lecture, Agnes, but I think I can live without the love of God. Much more of it is going to finish me off.”
Before Agnes could say anything more, Bess waved her hand dismissively in the air and hurried to her bedroom, shutting the door firmly and sitting down hard on the bed. She sat straight-backed and tense for several minutes, barely breathing, sure Agnes would follow her. But, when no one came, she finally relaxed. She lay her head down on the pillow, surprised to feel tears running along her cheek and into her ear. Eventually, she slept.
When she ventured back into the kitchen two hours later, all ready to apologize for her rude exit, she was surprised to see a beautiful, black-haired woman sitting at the table, her hand laying possessively on Judd’s arm. It took Bess a moment to recognize the woman from the drugstore. Agnes had said her name was Lillian, and that she had an interest in Judd. Bess paused in the doorway, unnoticed, as she took in the scene in front of her.
“It must have been so awkward having her show up like that,” Lillian was saying as she leaned ever closer to Judd’s straight form in the chair next to hers. “I mean, your brother hadn’t even written to say he had married, right?”
Judd shrugged. “Why do you think I called in a favor with my buddy in the Houston PD to check out the marriage license?”
“Surely he could run a background check for you as well? You don’t have any idea what kind of person she could be.”
“You could ask her,” Bess heard herself saying before she could bite her tongue. She stepped into the kitchen as startled eyes glanced in her direction.
“Mother said you were taking a nap,” Judd said, laying a hand over Lillian’s.
Bess bit back a grin. Poor man, she thought. She had taunted him just that morning about not having a wife, and here he was presenting an excellent candidate as if to tell Bess, I told you so. “I was. Do you want me to go back to bed so you can continue to talk about me behind my back?”
Lillian made a strangled noise at the back of her throat and looked at Judd as if to say he had allowed a maniac under his roof. Judd pushed back from the table, effectively breaking Lillian’s hold on his arm, and rose to his full, formidable height.
“Why don’t we talk about you right to your face, Bess? Why not have a seat and give us a few details about yourself besides the obvious? Then, we wouldn’t have to speculate on your background or character.”
Bess felt her face going red as her hands balled into fists. Even the baby protested with a double-punch to her kidneys. She just managed not to flinch from the shot of pain that caused before stalking over to the counter to pour herself a glass of lemonade from the refrigerator. She didn’t say a word as she fetched a glass, opened the old but serviceable Frigidaire, and poured the freshly-squeezed liquid from the milk-glass pitcher. She turned so that her back was against the counter as she took a slow sip, her eyes slashing between Judd with his jutted chin and Lillian with her smile like a Cheshire cat.
“Now that your brother is dead,” she finally said, “I am the only one in the whole, wide world who gives a darn about what happens to me, which is okay because I can take care of myself. I think that’s all you really need to know.”
“What’s so terrible that you can’t just say it?” Lillian demanded, standing up beside Judd and positioning herself just under his shoulder.
Bess took another sip before trusting herself to answer, hating that the hand that held the glass of lemonade shook. “Not so much terrible as private.”
To his credit, Judd was beginning to look a touch uncomfortable. He stepped to the side as if he had just then noticed Lillian’s proximity to his person and shoved his hands in his pockets. “By all means, keep your private life private,” he muttered, then turned on his heel and stalked off toward the living room, leaving a stunned Lillian in the kitchen.
She frowned at Bess, marring her perfect features. “You think you’re going to hook him with this little game you’re playing,” she hissed, “but Judd’s much smarter than that.”
Bess sat the glass down on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “I suppose so, or else you’d have married him a long time ago.”
Lillian’s mouth dropped. She took two steps toward Bess, thought better of it, and pivoted on her heel to follow Judd into the living room. The screen door creaked then, and Bess turned to see Agnes coming into the kitchen with a basket full of eggs.
“Be warned,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper as if the flare up of a few hours before had never happened, “I just spotted Lillian’s car in the driveway.”
Bess nodded in the opposite direction. “They’re in the living room no doubt discussing what a rude creature I am.”
Agnes frowned. “I don’t know why she’s here. She stopped dropping by unannounced ages ago, and I can’t imagine Judd inviting her.”
Bess wasn’t about to admit to her teasing of Judd about his bachelorhood earlier that morning. “Maybe she’s determined to save you two from me. She seems to think I harbor evil designs on you and Judd, mostly Judd.”
Agnes began washing the eggs in the sink, laying them on an old flour-sack-turned-tea-towel to dry. “I suppose she’d be suspicious of any pretty, young thing that came to visit us here. I wouldn’t take it too personally, dear.”
“Of course not,” Bess agreed, even though she knew it was a lie.
She was relieved when Judd came in a moment later to explain he was taking Lillian to supper in town. Shortly after, she feigned a headache and returned to her bed, feeling every bit the coward and hoping for the strength to face Judd and Agnes the next day, especially since both of them were asking her, each in their own way, to face her true self, the one beneath the layers of bravado and emotional calluses that were the armor she used to survive the cold, lonely world.
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