Page 13 of If This is Love

He patted the top of my puff, and one of my eyes started to twitch a little. I turned away from the two men and toward the casserole dishes. “Amen andamen, pastor.”

“Praise God, sister.” Footsteps started padding out of the kitchen. “We’ll see you at the candlelight vigil tonight. The sanctuary is open whenever you and the other ladies are ready to start setting up, but if you need anything at all, just get a hold of sister Jones, and she’ll take care of it post-haste.”

He and Abraham continued their conversation as they returned to the living room, leaving me alone with all the lukewarm casserole.

A sharp puff of air left my lips as I gripped the edge of the counter, bending over at the waist, and then I held my breath to stave off the tidal wave of sobs trying to crest in my throat. I exhaled when tunnel vision started to close in around my eyes, and I anchored my fingers to the counter, my head dropping below my shoulders as I grasped at straws to survive using the only coping mechanism anyone had ever taught me.

Just be grateful. Just rejoice. Just comply with your role.

“Thank you, God,” I whispered automatically, my words coming in short, sharp spurts. “Thank you that I had the chance to love this much. Thank you for love, and thank you for giving me a wonderful husband to love and who loved me. Thank you for the gift he was. Thank you for the life we had, brief as it was. Thank you for getting to love someone like that.”

* * *

I stoodon the gravel of the neighborhood hike-and-bike trail that ran parallel to the Mississippi River and stretched my calves while Jax gazed up at me, his tail wagging in anticipation.

I smiled down at him. “You ready, baby boy?”

He offered a loudWOOFand then jumped, planting his front paws on my chest and nearly knocking me on my butt.

“Jax, no! You can’t jump, baby.” I gave him a quick, full-body rub and then bounced on the balls of my feet. “Come on, you. If you have energy to jump on me, you’ve got energy to run, you wild child.”

And we were off.

The chilly sea breeze whipped my face as we jogged at a quick pace with the river on our right side. The gravel crunched rhythmically under my sneakers, and Jax panted as he kept pace with me.

It was still early, but a few neighbors were up and out already. The trail flanked the entire length of Algiers Point, my new neighborhood, and I glanced down each of the streets as I passed them. Several of my new colleagues lived in the neighborhood, too. Isabel “Skye” Riley, the founder of Destination Destiny and my new boss, had recommended Algiers Point specifically because so many of her friends lived here.

I peered at the few people out, trying to see if any of them looked familiar, but nobody did.

Loneliness panged in my chest, and I focused on my breathing as I turned my head away from the colorful nineteenth-century houses and toward the beautiful view that sprawled in front of me. The trail offered a perfect line of sight straight to the French Quarter on the other side of the glittering river. The dark gray steeple of St. Louis Cathedral jutted into the crisp, blue sky, and the sun was bright enough to distract from the chill in the air, and the blessed endorphins rushed through my body.

I looked at the houses again as we jogged past one street and toward the next one. This was Verret Street, and it functioned as the main street of the neighborhood, with a park, café, and bar located on it. Liza Deneau, a close friend of Skye’s who was donating her skills as a marketing specialist to the non-profit organization, mentioned that she lived on Verret Street and had exuberantly invited me to “come over anytime.”

Maybe Liza was up and out early, too. She had mentioned she and her husband, Connor, had a toddler, so surely at least one of them was up early on Saturday. And maybe they were out on the front lawn. Probably not, but it was still worth detouring down that street for the slim possibility of being able to chat with them in a non-business setting. After all, Jax and I needed to make new friends to go along with our new life here.

There weren’t very many cars bumping along the old streets at this early-for-a-Saturday hour, but when it came to cars, I didn’t mess around.Carswere the reason Michael was gone, soyeah. I paused with Jax on the curb to look both ways even though it had been about ten minutes since the last car rolled past us.

The wide boulevard was completely clear, but I continued to check both directions as Jax and I trotted across. Halfway to the other side, my sneaker clipped the edge of a manhole cover, and my gaze snapped to the street reflexively to step over it. When I looked up again, I sucked in a sharp gasp and skidded to a halt just as my shins collided with Jax’s side.

An old woman was suddenly standing right in our path…out ofnowhere.

She was wearing a long white tunic and wore a tall crown of silver box braids coiled atop her head, and she was pointing right at my face, and the temperature instantly plummeted even lower.

“Ruth Washburn,” the elderly woman graveled.

My rapidly thumping heart seemed to stop dead for a second, and I couldn’t even blink.

“Woman of great faith…” the old woman continued, pausing weightily, “…woman with great pain.”

A chill shot through my body, and I couldn’t force my mouth to form words. Jax was sitting obediently at my feet, and on some level, I knew we were in the middle of the road and needed tomove, but Icouldn’t.

“You set aside your pain to give yourself to the broken, all the while you are still broken.” She raised her finger in the air, and a frigid gust swept off the river. “The broken will help you heal if you have faith in your own heart. It will not lead you astray.”

She slowly lowered her finger to the level of my forehead as though preparing to bless me like the church elders used to. I followed the knobby, weathered finger with my eyes as it slowly got closer, and the woman uttered a foreign word.

“Ikusasa.”

My whole body jolted with a falling sensation, and I blinked, and the woman wasgone.

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