Page 179 of Share with Me

Chapter Fifty-Five

Ivan lockedthe front door and stepped into the living room. Matt and Willow had both left after dropping him off. They had offered to stay a while longer, but he had told them not to worry. He wanted to show them he could move on, but really, he wasn’t sure how.

Everywhere he turned, memories of Grandma Yun swept through his mind in droves like a slideshow from the past. There was his baseball in a shadow box by the wall from when he was twelve years old. Grandma had saved it for him. Someday he’d give it to his children, she had said.

Here was the braided rag rug that Grandma had made years ago. There was her old Bible still sitting on that scratched old oak table next to the run-down rocker she had always sat in. He could see Grandma rocking and telling him to read his Bible everyday.

Now the rocker was still. Cold and still.

Ivan made a beeline for the Bible on the side table. He opened the Bible to Grandma’s last bookmark. It fell on Isaiah 30:19.

For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.

“Weep no more.” Ivan barely voiced it.

His chest hurt badly.

He sank into the sorry couch, Grandma Yun’s Bible still in his hands. Tears fell onto the old pages, and he couldn’t wipe them off fast enough.

Hate to ruin Grandma’s Bible.

No words came out of his mouth, only guttural sounds. There was an agony so deep within his chest that Ivan felt like he was going to implode. The pain was too much to bear, and he couldn’t get it out.

Lord, I’ve failed.

All his careful planning to work hard and pay off the house so Grandma Yun could live in a house that she finally owned. All his dreams of fixing up the house so that Grandma could have a nice, lovely home to read her Bible in. Maybe great-grandchildren to sit on her lap and listen to her stories of Grandpa Otto.

All that was gone.

Could never happen.

Yeah, I know Grandma is in heaven with Grandpa, and they don’t care about this house anymore.

But it was his hope, his prayers, his wishes.

Unanswered.

Ivan wiped bitter tears on his cheap oxford shirt he had bought off the bargain rack at Matt’s thrift shop.

Poor! I’m always poor!

Why, Lord?

Just like that the words came to him: Rich in Christ.

Yeah, but I’m going to lose this house. You knew that, Lord! Why didn’t You stop it?

Ivan sat there for a while. Then slowly, his chest still constricting, he eased off the torn couch and placed the Bible carefully back on the table where it had always belonged. But when he lifted his hands off the Bible, he felt a sharp pain inside his left wrist under the brace. That tendon again.

This too, Lord! Can things get any worse?

The funeral this morning was a blur. Truly, they should not have parted ways after the graveside ceremony because they could have kept each other company. But he didn’t want her to see him grieve. Besides, he had broken up with her and keeping her company could be misconstrued as an apology. He didn’t want to apologize. He wanted her to see him strong.

And he wanted her to see him back in form.

A facade?

Ivan knew he wasn’t as strong as he wanted to portray to Brinley. How could he when he couldn’t even pay off Grandma’s debts? If he’d been a concert violinist, he could have, but that career had been cut off before it ever began when Grandpa Otto had died, and Ivan had to come home to take care of Grandma. All his hopes of launching the rest of his life off of his Juilliard degree had been dashed.

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