admit it. And I liked it when he’d wander in and say something positive about the scene we were doing or bring me a cup of coffee or ask me for some guidance with his building project. And I think he liked that we’d invite him to join us for supper during our extended rehearsals. The kids would banter with him and give him a hard time about the progress of his wardrobe, and every so often, when I’d glance in his direction, I’d catch his eyes on me. Speculative, sort of. Double axel without the lutz. It was a comfortable kind of flip.
We’d almost gone back to the way things had been before the toy museum and our relationship-defining talk. We still did things with Shayla like driving up to Hochblauen to watch hang gliders and going to the stork refuge in Holzen. That particular outing had been a bit traumatic, as we’d arrived just at feeding time and no one had warned us that the graceful, orange-legged birds immortalized by nursery rhymes ate live chicks for lunch! The stork-keeper had tossed a bucketful of chicks over the fence, and the storks had descended on them like murderous science-fiction monsters. Shayla had screamed and I had gagged and Scott had pretty much manhandled us both back to the car.
But Shayla wasn’t always at the center of our outings. There were times when Scott could tell that I was teetering on the brink of being overwhelmed. On those occasions, he’d arrange for Bev to watch Shay and whisk me away to a rigorously just-friends dinner at a cozy art café like the Mezzo in nearby Müllheim. We’d sit at the table in the dimly lit interior, trying to keep our eyes from lingering on whatever nude paintings were hanging on the walls that week, and we’d talk about the weather, the sin nature of man, Shayla’s progress in German, the sovereignty of God, my latest mini meltdowns—they were getting rarer—and relational evangelism. You know—typical missionary fare. Except for the part where I wondered what was wrong with me for keeping him at arm’s length and the part where he looked at me like he thought I should be wondering what was wrong with me too.
Much as Shayla and I enjoyed his company, however, I’d tried to make Scott less of an automatic addition to our activities—just so his number one fan wouldn’t think he was becoming a fixture of our little family. But as she had pointed out after we’d driven to Switzerland together on her fifth birthday so she could see the real Heidi mountain, “It’s not as much fun without Scott!” And she was right, of course. It really wasn’t. But we’d made the most of her special day anyway, visiting the small museum in Maienfeld and taking dozens of Heidi pictures of her as she frolicked, beaming, in a cow pasture in front of snowcapped peaks jutting into the sky. We’d decided on our way home that Scott would have loved our day in the Alps.
Meanwhile, opening night kept hurtling.
It was after a particularly taxing rehearsal that I received a call from Trey.
“You ready for this?” he asked without preamble.
“Depends on what ‘this’ is.”
“Um . . . I just got a letter from Shay’s mom—her birth mom. She sent it through Dana, addressed to you and me.”
My breath caught and I felt the world tilt a little on its axis. I had visions of Shayla being taken away from me, being returned to the woman who had abandoned her so soon after her birth. “She wants her back?”
“No! Shell, no! And even if she did, she has no legal rights. You know that.”
I felt a rush of relief. “What does she want?”
“Well, it appears she just heard about Dad’s death and, out of the kindness of her heart and all, wanted to write us a sympathy letter.”
“Really. What does she say?”
“Want me to read it?”
“Trey! Of course!”
“Okay. Here goes.” There was a rustling of paper, then, “Ready?”
“No. But go ahead.”
“‘Dear Trey and Shelby, I was saddened to hear about your father’s heart attack through a friend.’”
“Stop reading with a Southern accent, Trey. She lived in Michigan.”
“Oh—right. I just picture trailer trash and the Southern accent comes out.”
“You don’t know she’s trailer trash. Read.”
“All right. Here goes. ‘I know that you had no contact with Jim in the years after he moved out. I want you to know he often talked about you. Mostly with regret. He knew