Chapter 1

We sit facing one another in four plastic lawn chairs in my parents’ front yard.  Even my favorite scent of freshly-cut grass does little ease the fear that my father will yell and cause a scene, his arms flailing as they do, his ice blue eyes blazing fire. He wipes the sweat from his sunburnt brow, evidence of the labor he’d already put in on his backyard construction project. The shade of the north-facing front yard is nearly unbearable in the afternoon heat of early August and the hot breeze does not cool us. There is privacy from neither the passing cars on the street nor our neighbor who waters his array of colorful potted plants on his front porch.  

Mom’s face is pinched with her worry, her posture unsettled. I think that I might reach for Nathan’s hand to offer him my support, but think better of it. Displays of affection, even between two people in love, is discouraged by my upbringing.

Nathan speaks with a hope and a confidence unlike my own. “Mr. and Mrs. Kaufman, I love Liz more than anything.” He glances at me and feel the warmth of his smile. “I know I speak for us both when I say that I never thought we’d become so serious so quickly.”

A couple of boys race their bicycles down the street, laughing jovially, and for the momentary distraction, I am thankful. Dad’s chest begins to heave. He is already angry, though he says nothing.

Nathan continues, “Now that Liz is moving away—too far for us to even see one another on weekends—we want to come up with an alternative.”

A wasp buzzes around Mom’s face. She shifts to the front of her seat and shoos it away with a gesture that radiates her displeasure. “Distance is good.”

Nathan meets her eyes. There is a change in his manner, and in that moment, I know now that he knows what I know: this meeting is not a good idea. He presses on anyway. “There is no easy way to say this, but Liz and I would like to ask both of your permission to get married before she leaves for Wisconsin in three weeks.”

Silence trails Nathan’s words. I feel Mom’s tension without even looking at her, and Dad, whose temperament has never been easy, stands, his sudden force knocking the plastic lawn chair to the ground behind him. Mom scrambles to pick it back up.

“How dare you do this to me!” he yells, his eyes now flashing that familiar blaze.

Our neighbor is now frozen with mouth agape, watering can hovering over a pot of scarlet geraniums. My fears are realized.

Dad towers overs me, his face only inches from mine. The whiskey on his breath turns the scent of the grass rancid in my nostrils. He yells again. This time, his arms begin to flail. “You know I am in the middle of building my garage. I don’t have time for a wedding right now!” Nathan reaches an arm across to cover me the way Mom’s used to when I road passenger in the car and she had to make a sudden stop.

I take Nathan’s hand and squeeze, realizing that he doesn’t know that my father has never raised a hand to us. His fits of rage only ever ended with his words. Even our neighbor knows this, or at least I think he does. I glance again in his direction and am relieved when he is no longer there. “Nathan’s parents have a beautiful yard.” I say. “We don’t want a big wedding, just a few immediate family members will do. The construction won’t be an issue.”

Nathan tugs gently on my hand, seeming to implore me to let the issue go. Clearly, my parents don’t want us to marry. But I can’t leave yet. I have to stick it out. If I succumb to Dad’s rage, it’ll only give him what he wants—what Mom wants too.

“Do you know how many people love you, Elizabeth? You are selfish to even think of crossing your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins off your list!”

“A wedding is about two people. It doesn’t have to be about other people. I’m sure Liz’s family—and mine—will understand,” Nathan offers.

“If you two are in such an all-fired-up hurry to get married, then Liz should just stay home. To hell with school.”

Mom tugs at Dad’s shirt, halting his pace. He glares at her but finally sits. She studies Nathan first, her eyes unblinking, her jaw set. Then she studies me. She makes me feel ashamed, and I wonder if I should be. I’d always thought the world would rejoice with me when I finally fell in love, but loving Nathan had changed me, and I know it is the change that must alarm Mom the most. Finally, she folds her hands neatly on her lap. “No.”

My breathing becomes labored at her words. Maybe the next thing she’ll say is that Nathan and I can no longer be together. I’ll have to obey because God has given her authority over me, but she doesn’t say this, though she must have known that a reason must be given. “Nathan, you are very wrong about marriage being about two people. In the Bible, weddings are week-long celebrations. A family’s presence and approval is crucial to a Godly marriage.” She gives Dad a sidelong glance. He doesn’t seem to notice, only stares past us, his resignation to the conversation at hand painfully obvious. “If Glenn and I had known your relationship with Elizabeth would progress so quickly, we would have never allowed for her to date you. She has so much life ahead of her before she gets married. Her passion for God cannot be replaced by her passion for you. God’s calling on her life can easily be destroyed by a relationship like this.”

I follow Dad’s directionless gaze. I wish I had his authority—the authority to change Mom’s mind, but I don’t. I am only a young woman and I am only their child. If I had his authority, I wouldn’t run away from confrontation. I wouldn’t squander what God had given me.

“I would never try to get in the way of Liz’s path,” Nathan murmurs, and as he says it, he tugs on my hand again. “Let’s go, Liz.”

We stack our chairs, scooting them next to the house, and when Nathan and I walk away, I slip my arm around his waist without a care as to if it makes Mom uncomfortable. A tear slips down my cheek. I feel stuck, like following God is a trap and a cross that I must bear, and the resentment toward my own faith begins to grow. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Why are they so against us?”

“I’m sorry,” I say again, my voice now breaking.

We turn back at the sound of Mom’s voice. Dad is already gone, running away as he always does, until he is summoned once again to be the spiritual leader, if only he weren’t such a coward. “If you really do love her,” she calls to Nathan, “then you would let her go.”

#

I met Nathan Sage the previous July on my first day of training as a cashier at the local Borders bookstore. Noticing his height first, I thought it a nice compliment to mine, his broad shoulders, his olive coloring, and cropped dark hair, a nice contrast to my fair complexion and highlighted blonde hair. His smile was easy, his handshake firm. I liked him immediately.

He told me he was a bookseller in the poetry section near to the registers and that I may call on him for assistance any time. When he gestured to the shelves behind him, the aroma of his musk cologne wafted from his body and I knew instantly that I could never tire of his scent. He paid me special attention that I was quick to explain away. He helped me if he saw a line of customers forming to check out, bagging their book selections while being careful to include a complimentary cream-colored Borders book mark. On the third day, after the line of customers had dwindled, he stayed to chat for longer than he had before. He depressed a button on the register’s printer and expelled a good six inches of receipt paper and began doodling with a royal blue Bic pen, his strokes long and fluid.

“I like to draw too,” he said, nodding to my vinyl name badge holder extending from my Borders logo ribbon necklace. I had sketched a picture of a man playing the guitar and slid it on the opposite side of my name in the pouch. As he said this, I admired the casual way he leaned his hip against the laminated wood counter, and the way his plain maroon t-shirt and relaxed-fit stonewashed jeans accentuates his already-pleasing features.

I didn’t answer him right away, but instead was taken aback that he has noticed anything about me at all.

“You must be married or something,” he remarked.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you are unimpressed by my attention.”

His tone held a hint of self-mockery and it put me at ease, so I smiled in a way that exuded a cleverness that I didn’t normally possess “Oh. I’m a little young to be married.”

“Oh yeah? How old are you?”

“Much younger than you, I’m sure.”

A shift manager passed us by with a boxful of colorful Travelflex book lights and glanced at Nathan. “You done shelving your books?”

“Yep.”

“How about your seller recommendations?”

“Yep.”

She looked down at the box in hand and then back to Nathan. “Here then.” She heaved the box onto the counter. “Put these away next, would you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He took the box and began to unpack it, clipping a few book lights onto the displays surrounding the registers. “I bet you’re around twenty-three?”

“Nope.”

“Younger then?”

“Definitely younger.”

He then took the box of lights to the other side of the counter to the big book light display adjacent to it. He proceeded to clip them onto the display stand, bending the flexible necks every which way in order to demonstrate their versatility in every reading situation. “Well, I know you have to be at least eighteen to work here, but you can’t be that young.”

I didn’t answer, only smiled.

“You’re eighteen?” It was more of an accusation than a question. “Now I feel old. Where’d you go to school?”

“You can’t laugh.”

“What kind of response is that?”

I took some lights out of the box and began to clip them on the backside of the display as well. “I’ll be stereotyped once you know.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I was homeschooled.”

He glanced at me from the other side of the display. “Whoa, really? Like creepy-religious and socially-awkward kind of homeschooled?”

I laughed. “Is there any other kind?”

“Dunno. You’re the first I’ve met.”

“And?”

His eyes twinkled. “So far you’re okay.”

“So how old are you then?”

“Twenty-five next month—more than two dozen years, some would say a quarter of a century old.”

“I can see your flair for melodramatics is intact.”

“Anyway, about drawing,” he said. “I do impressionism mostly. I’ve got a couple of paintings hung in the café of our store. Looks like your meal break is at seven when I get off.” He grabbed the last book light—a vibrant purple one—and clipped it on one of the few remaining places to display it. “I like talking to you.” He glanced over his shoulder and dropped his voice to a whisper and winks. “But I’m afraid I’ll get in trouble if I stick around here too long. Care to meet me in the café at seven?”

#

At seven, we helped ourselves to the coffee at the café counter and moseyed into the dining area. He carried a white paperback book. Just inside its entrance, Nathan turned and gestured toward the wall that was now behind us. “These are my paintings.”

A large impressionistic painting on a canvas hung on the terracotta-colored wall, portraying the upper body of an armless woman wearing a crimson-colored dress. The tag posted next to it on the wall read, Venus of Kasey. To the right of the painting hung two smaller paintings, both entitled, Gilgamesh. In one, Gilgamesh tromped through tall grass, in the other, he fought a lion. I stood there gazing at the paintings, their proportions inexact, neither realistic nor cartoonish. The colors popped with reds, yellows, and greens, drawing me in with their vibrant qualities. I’d seen very little art like his. Good paintings, as I knew them, should resemble photographs.

He watched me for several moments. “What do you think?”

I shook my head, not realizing I was at a loss for words. “They’re great.”

He watched me for several more moments “That one,” he pointed to the large painting, “is about a friend and her outlook on beauty. The other two are about Gilgamesh going to fight Fierce Habuba. Are you familiar?”

“A little bit. I read some of the epic in high school.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in a wry smile. “Which wasn’t that long ago.”

I chuckled. “Right, it wasn’t that long ago.” I turned to the condiment table with the creamer and the sugars and offered Nathan the carafe of half-and-half. When he took it, I set to work tearing open a few raw sugar packets and poured them into my coffee.

“You know, you’d make a beautiful painting.”

I tensed, not entirely sure if he meant it the way he’d said it. “I can’t paint.”

“I meant that I could paint you.” He poured some half-and-half into his coffee as if what he said was no big deal.

I turned to look at him, but regretted it at once when I felt the color rise in my cheeks. “Uh,” I stammered. “I’m sure you’ve got better options.”

He motioned toward a small unoccupied table in the center of the café. The café was usually busy this time of night. In the far corner, several tables were moved together to accommodate a group of eight or so silver-haired ladies. They knobby fingers each worked a set of knitting needles and yarn with time-honored skill as they chatted loudly amongst themselves. There was a study group of college students who were bantering back and forth about how to do a Power Point presentation. I realized how unfortunate it must be for them to be in school in July when most students at their school must be working and playing at the lake.

When we sat, Nathan set his book on the table and I was finally able to clearly see the title. “Henry Bergeson, Creative Evolution. What’s it about?” A change of subject—anything—would be better than art.

He took a sip of his coffee. “It’s about the duration of the mind. Why? Do you like philosophy?”

“I don’t know much about it to say either way.”

I sat back in my chair and picked at the edge of the cardboard coffee sleeve, not knowing what to say next. I knew how to talk about art, but not his type of art. I knew how to talk about philosophy, but only my Christian philosophy.

“So, Liz, you know that I like art and philosophy, but what are you interested in?”

I didn’t expect him to focus on me. I was content to simply listen to him talk about himself. He was not like the men I knew. The men I knew would parade their salvation stories and their Christian theologies like a resume for courtship, yet Nathan Sage sat across the café table, waiting for me to fill him in about me, and suddenly, I become acutely aware of my attraction to him.

Nathan’s life was a mystery to me, so I thought cautiously about how to answer his question. What am I interested in? My life functioned differently from most people, especially those who didn’t identify themselves as evangelical Christians, but figuring that genuine friendship required my honesty, I took the plunge.  “God. Music. And the joining of the two.”

“Really? You do church music, like hymns and stuff?

“Not exactly.” I looked past him out the café window. The sun dipped low in the western sky, casting long shadows from the cars in the parking lot and its bordering trees. Everything the light touched glowed a brilliant orange. I’d never had to explain to someone what contemporary worship music was. I’d never thought twice about being expressive in worship, raising my hands, and singing with eyes closed, but my attraction to Nathan caused me to censor myself. “I play contemporary worship music, you know, the kinds with guitars, drums, bass, and keyboard. My church even has a set of congas. I’ve been leading my youth group’s worship band for the last year, but I’ve done church music since I was a little kid.”

“You mean like those commercials for the W.O.W. worship CDs, the ones where people are singing with their hands in the air and tears are streaming down their faces?”

I looked down at my hands. When he said it, it sounded like silliness, like it is more put on than real. “I suppose that’s a fair assumption, though for me, it means more than it might seem.”

“Oh, I’m sure it does. It sounds very real to you.”

I shook my head. “Boy, if that isn’t patronizing, I don’t know what is.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I actually had a few friends in college who went to churches like that. I’ve never known anyone to be a part of the music though.” With that, he leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest and studied me. “So you’re a creepy-religious, socially-awkward, worship-leading homeschooler?”

“I feel self-conscious now.”

“Sorry, but you are just so fascinating. We can talk about something else though, if you’d like. Am I making you uncomfortable?”

I shrugged. “Too much talk of me and you’ll be bored, I figure.”

He laughed. “Trust me, I’ve never once been bored while talking to you.”

I looked down at my coffee, trying to hide my embarrassment. Why was he making me feel this way? I noticed the knitting ladies packing up their needles and yarn into their embroidered canvas totes and wondered how close it’s getting to the end of my meal break. I wanted to stay and leave simultaneously, but ideas for a smooth getaway escaped me. “So, tell me about you. Is this churchy stuff pretty foreign to you?”

“Oh, no.” He waved his hands around as if he couldn’t help but talk with them. “I grew up Episcopal, was an acolyte for a while there.”

“An acolyte?”

“Yep. An acolyte lights candles and does some of the ceremonial stuff in services.”

I brightened, realizing that we may indeed have a common ground. “So you’re a Christian too?”

“Yeah…” he said slowly, frowning.

I hadn’t meant to sound as eager as I did. “I mean, of course you’re Episcopal.” I smiled, hoping to put him at ease. “I guess what I mean is that lots of people believe in God, go to church and stuff, but that doesn’t mean they’ve made a decision for Christ.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

I let out a nervous laugh, knowing I’d gotten myself into a precarious conversation. “Never mind.”

“No, what do you mean?”

“Decision for Christ, like prayed the Sinner’s Prayer.”

“The what?”

“The Sinner’s Prayer, you know, the prayer you pray when you make a decision to truly follow God.

Nathan finished his coffee and set his paper cup aside. “Yeah, I’ve prayed something like that before.”

“Really?”

“Sure I have. Sort of like a deal with God, right?”

“Well, not exact—”

“Like, because you got me out of this or that, God, I promise to be faithful to you forever?”

“No, it’s different than a deal. I don’t believe God makes deals.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Then by all means, enlighten me.”

“The moment people become Christians is the moment they pray and ask God to forgive them and give them life, to save them, and vow to follow after him.”

Nathan looked at me for a long moment, noticeably puzzled. “Okay. But I’m curious how that’s different than striking a deal with God.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but couldn’t think of a response. “I suppose it’s no different.”

Nathan reached over to touch my hand. “Hey, so we view things differently. There’s nothing wrong with that. The point is not how we believe, but that we simply believe, right?”

I smiled and let it wane, still well aware of his hand on mine. He didn’t fit my definition of a Christian. He no doubt loved the idea of God, but I wondered if loving an idea was enough. The café was nearly empty now. The tables were all in need of a good wiping and the chairs in need of straightening. I withdrew my hand to check my watch. “My break is over in a few minutes. I’d better go clock in.”

“Thanks for spending your break with me. I enjoyed myself.”

“We’ll have to do this again sometime.” I stood to leave, and as I do, I felt him watch me go, my stomach doing a flip. I closed my eyes briefly, exhaled, and kept walking.

                                                    #

I had no illusions that Nathan Sage would actually write. Even though I’d never dated, I wasn’t born yesterday. His asking for my information was the polite thing to do. Nothing more. Besides, no one ever wrote letters anymore, especially not hand-written ones. How prosaic.

I had never gotten in the habit of checking the mail. Usually, if anything was for me, Mom put it on my bed for me to find whenever I might return home. I don’t know why I decided to check the mailbox at 11:30 on a Saturday night after a closing shift at Borders. Wishful thinking, I supposed. Just being in the place where I met him made me think about him constantly. His name was still on a locker in the break room, not to mention that before he left, he recommended me for his bookseller position. It was a bit of a pay raise and I was given his poetry section to shelve and make displays for. I often wondered who his favorite poets were as I shelved the books. He told me once that he likes the beat poets, and I knew after a bit of time on the internet that Jack Kerouac introduced the beat generation. Scanning the shelves, I found Kerouac’s, Scattered Poems, and flipped through its pages. The poems confused me. Do you like these poems, Nathan? I wondered. I saw a Maya Angelou book, a bestseller, obvious from the amount of copies on the shelf, and read a couple of her poems. They seemed too nice and too easy. I decided that she was not Nathan’s favorite and set the book back in its place.

 After parking my pickup in the driveway, I walked out to the mailbox. The moon was full and the neighborhood shone a silvery blue. Nights of early fall were not often still, but this one was, and the crickets’ songs were still lively before the frost. When I opened the black metal box, I saw the outline of his letter amongst the bills and junk mail. Mom must’ve forgotten to check the mail that day, which is a relief. She didn’t need to know about the letter.

Taking only the letter, I left the other mail, and hurried inside. Careful to wake nobody, I stealthily made my way to my room and closed the door and switched on my bedside lamp. It cast a soft yellow glow throughout the room. I set the letter on my bookshelf headboard and stared at it as I changed into my pajamas. The Bruce Springsteen stamp offered a little personality to the plain business-sized security envelope. I tore it open as I slipped into bed. He’d written his letter on a single sheet of ruled notebook paper. It was full of scribbled out words and misspellings.

Dear Liz,

Leaving Rapid was like the look of a stranger. Life is full of change, I guess. Like the job? At Borders I mean? I have been thinking of you in my nowhere paradise. Out here I can lose myself in my thoughts. Learning art is beautiful—like you, of course. I still wish to paint you. I wonder if I would do you justice though.

I was told yesterday “If you want to make God laugh then make a plan.” So I won’t. Though, if I were to, I would like to make some plans with you—however brief. Thank you for our conversations. I will be home the 6^th of September for the weekend of my sister’s wedding. I am wondering if we might spend a little time together?

If I’m too old to hang with then just say so, though I would like to see you again. If you want, send me a letter of your thoughts.

Be well.

Stay beautiful.

Nathan

I switched off my lamp and lay there in the darkness, taking a few moments to process his letter, my pulse nearly audible in the stillness of the night. I switched the light back on and traced the lines of his letters with my finger. It is like he drew his words rather than wrote them.

Later that night, I as I laid awake for what seems like hours, just like before, I switched on the light and read the letter again.