Page 147 of Hometown Girl

Her mother squeezed Beth’s hands and walked off with Molly, leaving Beth in the doorway. She greeted familiar faces—Birdie, Callie, Ben, even Dina had made the drive—while Bishop strummed hymns on his guitar until everyone was seated. There weren’t enough seats, but nobody seemed to mind standing.

Everyone wanted to say goodbye to the little girl who had gone too soon.

Beth walked to the front of the church and took a seat next to Drew. He reached over and took her hand as Pastor Harker stepped onto the platform and met their eyes. He gave them a warm smile and then opened his Bible.

Pastor Harker read from Ecclesiastes, familiar words about a time for everything under heaven. When he finished, he asked Drew to join him on the stage.

Drew’s throat was dry.

He must not have been thinking when he’d agreed to this.

“It has to be you, Drew,” Birdie had said. “You knew her best.”

And he knew she was right—but as he stood behind the small pulpit, feeling too clumsy and too big, he looked out over the crowd of now-familiar faces looking back at him.

“Just talk to me,” Beth had said.

As if that had ever come easily to him.

His eyes found her, sitting in the front row looking stunningly beautiful, hair pulled away from her face, bright eyes startling life into his bones.

She gave him a warm smile.

“The day Jess went missing was the worst day of my life,” Drew began.

The crowd stilled.

“A lot of people thought I had answers. Some even thought I had something to do with what happened to her. I spent a lot of years wondering if they were right. Got pretty mad at myself when I couldn’t give everyone what they wanted.”

His eyes fell. “I had a lot of nightmares, and after a while, I started to hate all of my memories of Fairwind Farm.

“But today, I realized something. I realized I had more than nightmares of this place. I also had the memories of a girl who had the loudest, funniest laugh. A girl who loved to hunt for frogs and bait hooks for fishing out back in the creek. And if you tried to do it for her, she’d slap your hand away.” He laughed at the memory. “I can still hear her singing in the barn—completely off-key—just because she loved the song so much.”

He pulled his gaze from the podium to the audience. “Yeah, something terrible happened that day. And I was a witness to it. But I was also a witness to something pretty amazing too. Jessica Pendergast’s life.”

He took a moment to hear her voice in the shadow of his mind, then looked at Beth. “Man, I wish you’d all known her. She would’ve cracked you guys up.”

Tentative laughter trickled through the room.

“Jess was what you’d call spunky. If you told her she couldn’t do something, it only made her want to do it more.” Another glance at Beth. “I suppose you two had that in common.”

Beth smiled.

“I came here looking for something—I don’t even think I knew what it was,” Drew said. “But I didn’t expect to find what I did. While I’m now able to turn the page on one chapter of my life, a new one has already begun. And I owe that to the people in this room.”

He drew in a deep breath. A breath that washed new life over him, giving him permission to put his shame to rest alongside Jess Pendergast.

“I just want to thank you all.” He turned to Beth. “Especially you. For accepting me into this family.” His voice caught in his throat. This was more talking than he’d done all year. “Just, thanks.”

Drew walked off the platform and into the reverent silence of the room, certain that he’d never be able to properly convey to the world, or to Beth, the way her love had saved him. Now, on the other side of his pain, he could see that he’d been a walking shadow of a man.

But never again would he be haunted by the darkness he’d carried for so many years. Instead, he’d stepped out of the shadows to live in the light.

They stood in the family cemetery behind the small chapel as Pastor Harker prayed one final prayer and Jess’s small white casket was lowered into the ground. The people of Willow Grove had donated money for a new headstone for the little girl, one that included both the day of her birth and the day of her death along with the following words:

The earth laughs in flowers.

Beth brought a rose to her face and inhaled its glorious aroma. While she’d once believed a love of flowers made a girl weak, she now saw them for what they really were—a beautiful gift bestowed on all creation by a kind, loving Creator. The kind of gift that didn’t need to be earned, the kind given to anyone who stood with arms stretched up to heaven in surrender.

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