Thirteen
Oh, Cole, look at this. Isn’t it gorgeous?” Daria knelt on the floor of the gift shop in front of a tiny ceramic village. The window of each little house and store in the display glowed from within, casting yellow patches of light on the sparkling “snow” that surrounded the village. The shop was draped in greenery and lights, smelled of cinnamon and apple cider, and the effect was magical.
But the magic for Cole Hunter was simply in being with this woman. Every morning during the past weeks, as their friendship had deepened and romance had blossomed between them, he awakened feeling as though his life had been returned to him. Daria had brought something back into existence that he hadn’t dared to hope for. With a full heart, he put his hands on her shoulders and bent to look at the tiny cottage she was cooing over.
“It’s very pretty, Daria.”
She looked up at him and then gave the display one last longing glance. “Oh, why does everything have to be so expensive?” she moaned.
He drew his lips into a pout, imitating her. “Poor baby.” But then he pulled her up beside him and placed a hand tenderly on her cheek. “Well, save your pennies.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what I like about you, Dr. Hunter. You’re so sympathetic.”
“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I was almost positive that I was told we were shopping for Natalie Camfield today.”
“Hey, a girl can look, can’t she?” She smiled.
She moved on to the next aisle and he followed, her obedient puppy. Their little shopping trip had turned into more of an ordeal than he’d bargained for. When she’d asked him to go with her to Wichita to pick out Natalie’s gift, he’d pictured a quick run to Toys “R” Us, maybe a nice lunch together, and back to Bristol by three. It was two o’clock now, and not only had they not found the elusive “perfect” gift for Natalie, neither had they had lunch. And they had yet to set foot in the toy store.
His stomach motivating him now, he spotted a shelf overflowing with stuffed animals. “What about these?” he asked her, steering her to the display. “She really likes teddy bears.”
Daria inspected the stuffed animals, but he could tell she was only being polite. Soon they were on to the next store and, by the time she finally found a little dollhouse for Natalie, he was beyond famished. Fortunately one didn’t have to wait long for a table at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.
They sat across from each other in a cozy booth at the Olive Garden. She sipped her coffee and picked at her salad. He wolfed down his salad and half a basket of breadsticks before he said, “What’s taking them so long to bring my lasagna?”
Daria laughed at him. “I guess I should have warned you that shopping with me is not a lunch-at-noon kind of event.”
“So I’ve discovered,” he mumbled over a hot bite of bread.
Finally, the empty spot in his belly satisfied, he leaned back in his chair, watching her. She looked especially beautiful today, her face flushed with excitement and the effects of the biting autumn air. He didn’t deserve to be so blessed. Immediately a shadow fell over his thoughts, reminding him that he had promised himself that today he would tell Daria the rest of the story about Bridgette. He’d waited too long already.
As though she’d read his thoughts, she looked up. “What are you looking so serious about, Cole. Is everything all right?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just sitting here thinking how beautiful you are.” That part, at least, was true. “But—”
“Oh, Cole,” she interrupted, blushing at his compliment. “You’re so sweet. Thank you.” Her pleased smile faded. “I’m sorry. I interrupted you. What were you going to say?”
“Just that there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”
She leaned forward and put her elbows on the table, her eyes intent on him. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“No, not here,” he said, looking around the restaurant.
A troubled look crossed her face, and he felt terrible for having caused it. “It’s nothing to worry about, Daria,” he told her. “I just don’t want to talk here.”
Now curiosity sparked in her eyes, and she looked eager, as though she assumed that what he had to tell her was a surprise for her. He was completely blowing this.
Their server appeared at the table with his food just then. He didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to be interrupted by a waiter.
Later, when they got out to the parking lot, a fine sleet was coming down. At the first stop sign on Rock Road, he realized that the roads were quickly becoming slick. It was already beginning to get dark, and Cole maneuvered the car carefully through traffic, worrying about what condition the interstate would be in by the time they got there. The highway wasn’t quite as bad as he’d feared, but they drove in silence, Daria clutching the dashboard and nervously watching traffic for him.
When they arrived back in Bristol, she had either forgotten that he’d wanted to talk to her or had decided that this was not a good time to try to have a conversation. Either way, he felt he’d been given a reprieve. Once again he pushed the nagging thoughts to the back of his mind. At least he’d tried to talk with her. Maybe his timing hadn’t been the best anyway. Why spoil a day of Christmas shopping with something that was ancient history. Yes, Daria needed to know everything about him, but it didn’t have to be today.
Daria sifted through the stack of mail strewn across the tiny table in the dining area. She heaved some catalogs and fliers toward the trash can in the kitchen. Preoccupied and smiling to herself, she tried to sort the bills and other mail that needed to be dealt with further.
Oh, she thought, I’ve got to remember to call Mom and see if she can baby-sit tomorrow night. She and Cole had tickets to the symphony, and Jennifer had backed out at the last minute. Her coworker and favorite baby-sitter had started dating the star of the basketball team, and the Bearcats had made it to the playoffs of a big tournament. Daria could hardly blame Jennifer for canceling. Love should win out over a baby-sitting job any day.
Her smile grew as she thought of Cole. Their friendship had blossomed into something so deep and so precious that it almost scared her.
She pushed the mail aside and let out a sigh of satisfaction as she picked up the phone to call her mother.
“Mom? Hi, it’s me.”
She could hear the familiar whir of her mom’s old electric mixer in the background. “Hi, honey. What’s up?”
“I hate to ask on such short notice, but would you be able to keep Natalie tomorrow night? Cole got tickets to the symphony, and Jennifer backed out on me because of the tournament.”
The mixer died, and Daria could hear Margo licking batter from her fingers. “Hang on, let me ask your dad if he has any plans.”
She went back to sorting the last bit of mail while waiting for her mom. A small white envelope caught her attention. The address had obviously been typed on an ancient manual typewriter, but there was no return address. It was postmarked Kansas City, Missouri.
Daria slipped her thumb under the flap just as her mother came back on the line.
“Dad says he can’t think of anything he’d rather do than keep his favorite little girl. Why don’t you just bring her things and she can stay the night.”
“Great,” Daria said, distracted now by the letter. “Thanks a million, Mom. I’ll call you later about the time.”
She hung up and pulled a thin sheet of onionskin paper from the envelope. As she unfolded it, her eyes hurried to the wobbly signature at the bottom of the neatly typed page: Evangeline Magrit, the missionary who had first worked with the Timoné in Colombia. Daria hadn’t heard from the elderly woman—hadn’t even known for sure if she was still living—since her sympathy card had arrived shortly after Nathan’s memorial service.
She pushed her chair away from the table and skimmed the letter once. Then, pacing the length of the apartment, she read it again slowly.
Dear Daria,
I’ve thought of you so often in these last months. My heart has gone out to you in your sorrow. I read in the Gospel Outreach newsletter that your little one arrived safely, and I was quite grateful to hear it. I suppose she is close to walking by now. They grow so quickly. Which brings me to the reason I am compelled to write to you.
Though my physical heart will not allow it, my spiritual heart is still in Colombia with my beloved Timoné. You and your husband were an answer to a lifetime of prayer on my part and on the part of dear Anazu and his little family of believers. I’ve struggled, as I’m sure you must have as well, to understand why our Lord allowed such a tragedy as befell Nathan. And yet I am so grateful that you were spared. You have been heavily on my mind in these last weeks because I know that you, too, felt the strong call of the Lord to live and minister among my dear people.
I pray the Lord has not revoked his calling on your life, and I know that your daughter must be old enough now that she would adapt well to the changes of life in Colombia.
I write to encourage you, and to tell you that I am praying that you might return to your ministry as quickly as you are able. I have been in contact with the mission board and, while they are as eager as I am to have you back in Timoné, they “don’t make a practice of soliciting” missionaries, as Dr. Bennett so succinctly put it in his correspondence with me. I, however, have no such policy, so I am boldly soliciting you, trusting that you are seeking the Lord as to his perfect will.
I would cherish hearing from you, and I shall keep you ever in my prayers.
Please know that the board assures me there are still funds available for your support, and I would consider it a blessing to finance your return trip personally.
In his service,
Evangeline Magrit
Daria slumped into the chair and let the letter fall to the floor. She felt herself being wrenched back in time. As though it were yesterday, she remembered the sultry heat of an August night almost a decade ago, sitting with Nate outside his cabin at the youth camp where they had spent the summer as counselors. She had been a sophomore in college, still unsure what she wanted to do with her life. Nate was about to graduate from college and enter medical school.
The elderly missionary woman from Gospel Outreach had spoken at the rally that last night of camp. Evangeline Magrit was old and ill, and she believed that God was telling her that her time with the Timoné people of South America had come to an end. Though she spoke with passion, the teenage audience had been inattentive and boisterous, and Daria and Nate had spent most of the evening intercepting spit wads and confiscating firecrackers. And yet, somehow, the woman’s message pierced through the commotion straight to Nate’s heart.
Afterward Daria and Nate sat in the dark on the steps outside his cabin. Nate sat with his elbows on his knees, his head down, his thoughts seeming a million miles away.
“Hey, you. What are you so deep in thought about?” she asked, putting a hand on his knee.
He ran his hands through his hair, not looking at her. “I’m just thinking about what that missionary woman said tonight. It really hit home with me.”
A twinge of foreboding rose in her. “What do you mean?”
He turned to look at her, his gaze capturing hers. “I think maybe God is calling me to the mission field.”
“Well, sure, Nate. The medical field is a mission field—”
“No, I’m serious, Daria. I think maybe I’m supposed to go to Colombia.”
“South America?” She was incredulous. “You mean go there to live? Like a full-time missionary?”
“Yes. I can’t explain it except that I’ve never felt God’s presence so strongly. It’s almost as if he spoke out loud.”
Daria felt threatened. Was he talking about breaking up? Leaving her for some tribe in South America? This was not the dream they’d shared for their future, the dream they’d been talking about since they realized they were in love.
But then Nate told her, with awe in his voice, “I think God wants us to take Mrs. Magrit’s place, Daria.”
Us. Of course. The call was for her as well. God had simply chosen to send his message through Nate. By the time she closed her eyes in her own cabin that night, she had begun to embrace the idea that she and Nathan were to take Evangeline Magrit’s place among a people who had rejected the gospel message for more than forty years. And as the days passed, her enthusiasm had grown in proportion to Nate’s. Through the four long years that Daria worked as a teacher’s aide and waitressed evenings to help him finish medical school, they kept their eyes steadily on their call.
Mrs. Magrit had told them about Anazu and his growing faith. The challenge of winning the rest of Anazu’s village to Christ seemed to energize Nate. Though Daria had sometimes secretly wished that he could be happy with a ministry closer to home, his enthusiasm had not flagged through all the years of medical school. And by the time they finally stepped on Colombian soil for the first time, Daria had grown to believe with her husband that they would be the ones to lead Timoné to the truth. God had blessed their obedience, and when they were in Colombia, Daria felt that she was where she belonged.
Yet since Nathan’s death, she had not given a thought to returning. She stared down at the letter lying on the floor at her feet, and a mantle of guilt settled over her.
She supposed that subconsciously she had used Natalie as an excuse. And surely a tiny baby was a valid reason not to go to the mission field. And I am a widow, she thought defensively. But immediately she remembered that Mrs. Magrit had gone to Colombia as a newly widowed young woman. Her mind scrambled to come up with a better reason. Conviction nipped at her.
She realized that she had not only abandoned her calling to go to Timoné, but she had also abandoned any responsibility whatsoever for the people God had given her to care for. She had not written to the board of Gospel Outreach to find out whether they had been able to place another missionary there. She hadn’t even sent them the tape recordings Nate had made while they were in Colombia. For months, she had scarcely uttered a prayer on behalf of the people of Timoné. The children, little Tommi and Jirelle and the others, were a distant memory, like much-loved characters in a book she had read long ago.
Her life had been taken up with the mundane duties of a single, working mother—and, yes, with the exciting discovery that she was falling in love with Colson Hunter.
But surely, after all she’d been through, she had a right to some happiness. She’d sacrificed a husband to the mission field. Her baby was without a father because of the mission field. Surely she had paid her dues and done her duty where missions were concerned. Besides, Gospel Outreach had sent her home.
The heat of anger rising to her face, Daria picked the letter up off the floor and slapped it onto the table, trembling. She read the letter a third time and calmed down a bit as she realized that Evan-geline Magrit had in no way meant to cause Daria to feel guilty. It was merely the passionate plea of a woman who had a heart for bringing the lost to Christ, who couldn’t imagine anyone not desiring to return to their calling as quickly as possible. No doubt Mrs. Magrit’s physical limitations to do what her heart ached to do must have frustrated her grievously.
Why did the gentle words of this saint gnaw at her so? Trouble her to the core of her being? Deep down she knew there could be only one reason. And she did not want to think about it. She wanted to throw the letter away and pretend she had never received it. She wanted to enjoy her baby, to sit beside a handsome man at the symphony tomorrow night and hold his hand and fall hopelessly in love with him.
She fell to her knees as though stricken. “O God,” she whispered. “Surely you don’t expect me to go back! To take Natalie to Colombia, away from Mom and Dad, away from Nate’s parents. She’s their only consolation.”
She stopped herself. She knew she was making excuses. A verse from the Psalms played through her mind, and Daria caught her breath as the words seared her conscience: But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being.
“O God, I believe you called me to Timoné before, but, Lord, I don’t feel that calling now. Before, I-I went because I was Nathan’s wife, and because he was going to Colombia, I knew that’s where you wanted me, too. Give me wisdom, Lord. I don’t want to be out of your will. But you…can’t be telling me that I’m to go back there. You can’t. Please, please, God. Don’t ask that of me. I don’t think I can do that. Please, God.”
She was sobbing now, confused and tangled up in a rope of guilt, not knowing if it was deserved or self-inflicted. She remained on her knees for long minutes, silent before God, yet not really wanting an answer, terrified of what it might be.
Finally Natalie’s persistent cries brought her from her knees. She went into the nursery where Natalie was waking from an overlong nap. She picked her daughter up and took her to the rocking chair beside the crib.
Still drowsy and perhaps sensing her mother’s melancholy, the little girl lay her head against Daria’s breast. They rocked back and forth, the only sound in the room the soft slurp, slurp of Natalie’s thumb in her mouth.
Daria sought to put Evangeline Magrit’s letter from her troubled mind. For now she drew comfort from the warm, compliant body of Nathan’s child heavy against her own.
That night, Daria’s dreams carried her down the Rio Guaviare, deep into the Colombian rain forest. She saw Anazu and his family, griefstricken because Nate had left them. They stood at the door of the hut she and Nate had shared—the hut that she had given them, that they might have a place to worship. Anazu and Paita and Casmé cried and wailed, holding on to each other for comfort. But Daria ran toward them. “No!” She shouted to them in perfect Timoné, “Stop crying. Nathan is all right. Look he’s right here. See, here he comes.” They followed her eyes across the stream where Nate came jogging down the trail from which he’d disappeared.
But in her dream Daria never knew whether Anazu and his family saw Nate or not. She was too busy running toward him herself, her arms outstretched, her heart light as air.
She awakened to the sound of her own soft laughter and a feeling of happiness and well-being. The vision was so vivid that for a minute she thought it was real. Then she came fully awake and knew that it had only been a dream.
She wept as though she had lost Nate all over again.