The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,14
wants to share.
I have to force myself to answer. “What is it, honey?”
On the table, the keys to Stacy’s beach house sit beside my half-eaten grapefruit. I close my fist around the floaty, dragging it down to my lap. As he talks, I find myself squeezing tightly.
“I stayed up late last night,” he says, “and did some serious soul-searching. This is such a big step, the job in Virginia. I have to be honest. I don’t know what to do. It would be such a change . . . but maybe a change is exactly what I need. I’m feeling stifled.”
“In ministry, you mean?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “In life.”
“I see.”
“Now, don’t get angry.”
“Why would I be angry? You haven’t said anything we didn’t talk about last night.”
“You sound angry.”
“Do I?” I pause, trying to listen to the sound of my words, their echo in the room. “Well, I’m not trying to. Listen, we don’t have to get into this right now. Let’s take our time, okay? When we’re in Florida, away from Lutherville and the church and everything else, you can clear your mind and we can really figure this out. You don’t have to say yes or no right this second.”
“I know that,” he says, a defensive note in his voice.
“It’s just . . . I don’t think you need to do anything rash.”
“Beth, I’ve made a decision.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? That’s it?”
“It sounded like a statement, not a question.”
He pushes away from the table, splashes the last of his coffee into the sink. Lingering there, gazing through the window toward the shed, he lets out a sigh. I almost tell him about last night, how I interrupted his prayer vigil and caught him napping. Instead, I unclench my fist and put the beach house keys back on the table.
“Listen, Rick.”
“I’m not going,” he says.
I hear the words and weight lifts. As much as our life here can sometimes grate on me, I’m not ready to leave it, not yet. Maybe not ever. My house. My neighbors. My little niche in the world. I didn’t know how much I loved it until the prospect of leaving arose. Breaking the news to Kathie will be hard. The pressure of her hand on mine, telling me to keep an open mind, saying it would be like old times. But it wouldn’t. You can’t go back.
At the same time, there’s a flutter of doubt. Is this really me? Afraid to leave my familiar surroundings. Willing to live with a situation I can’t stand out of fear. He’s making the decision without me, though, so I don’t need to interrogate my feelings too deeply. It’s on Rick’s shoulders. Let it stay there.
“All right, then,” I say. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right choice.”
He turns and gives me the same inscrutable frown from last night. “No, Beth. I don’t know about the job yet. That’s up in the air. What I mean is, I’m not going to Florida.”
“What?”
“Take the boys if you want. Or go yourself if you want. Maybe you should. You could ask Stacy to go with you.”
“I don’t understand. You don’t want to go to Florida? Fine. We’ll go somewhere else. I don’t care. But we need to go, Rick. We need this time.”
“Not me,” he says.
“It’s your vacation!”
“Last night something happened. God laid something on my heart. I don’t know exactly what he was telling me, or what to do about it. But I know where I need to be if I want to hear him.”
“Where is that?”
“Out there,” he says, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder.
“In the backyard?”
“In the shed.”
“You’re going to the shed so God can talk to you? Will you be back in time for lunch?”
He shakes his head slowly, smiling at my mockery. “Don’t, Beth. What I’m saying is, instead of some vacation, I’m going to spend that time with him.”
“The whole month of October.”
“If that’s how long it takes, then yes.”
“You’re going to live in the shed?” Acid floods into my veins. “Are you even listening to yourself? What are you going to do for food, huh? What if you need to go to the bathroom?”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t leave the shed ever. It’s not about legalism.”
Legalism, in this context, means having to follow rules invented by someone other than yourself. There’s no doubt in my mind this isn’t about that kind of legalism. Rick is definitely going to make up his own rules and not be bothered by anyone else’s.