Page 72 of If This is Love

Chloe stood behind the phone. “I’m going to prompt you with questions so you don’t feel like you’re on the spot, but I’m only going to jump in with those when it seems like you need relief or like you can’t figure out what you’re going to say next, okay? I’ll cut it so it all flows.”

I nodded. “Okay. I’m ready when you are.” Best to just get it over with after all.

She held up her hand and counted down from three with her fingers, then she pointed at me. “Okay, Ruth, go ahead and tell us your name, where you’re from, and what brought you here to work with Destination Destiny.”

I smiled, giving a small wave that was only long enough for me to see the shake of my own hand. “Hey there, my name is Ruth Washburn, and I’m from Lafayette, Louisiana. I was previously working with a women’s shelter there for most of my adult life, and I chose to join the team here at Destination Destiny because… because…” My gaze drifted away from Chloe, Skye, and the halo light to my neighbor’s house across the street, and I saw the little decorative sign affixed to their front door, painted with a pretty, purple cross and a Bible verse.

Love is patient. Love is kind.

“Because even though I don’t know what it’s like to have gone through what the women we’re serving have gone through, I know what it’s like to feel trapped somewhere that’s harmful.” I looked away from the sign and back toward the phone, staring at the halo light on purpose so I could focus.

“I know what it’s like to love and trust people who I didn’t realize didn’t have my best interests at heart and even used that love and trust to keep hurting me. And it wasn’t an abusive relationship. In fact, I had a wonderful marriage to a wonderful man for four years. His name was Michael, and he tragically passed away in a car accident about seven years ago, and that…” I swallowed, hyper-focused on the halo light and the phantom shadow it was making in my vision.

“That’s honestly when I started realizing the other people in my life were harmful. And it didn’t even start as me realizing they were harming me. They were harming my best friend, and that’s all I could really see. They had me so… tricked… or trained… or justused tohow they were treating me that I didn’t even know they were harming me.” I shrugged. “I just thought that’s the way the world was.”

* * *

Lafayette, Louisiana

Six monthsafter the day my world shattered with a single phone call, Abraham had moved into my master bedroom, and I’d packed up all Michael’s and my things and stowed them in the spare bedroom closet.

I had gotten cold. I had gottenbitter. I resented God, but somehow I knew better than to hint at any kind of unpleasant feelings toward my father-in-law or any of the elders who were constantly in his ear. The ones who had pulled him into their inner circle and anointed him as one of their own in Michael’s wake. He was put on staff and given a salary. The elders created a brand new position called the “Pastoral Care Minister”, and it paid more than six figures a year. A position and a reward he had earned for his courage for not letting the death of his only son drown him. For learning to see that terrible tragedy as a means to compare himself toOur Heavenly Fatherand whenHelostHisson. For not letting it knock his entire world off its axis. For not rage-crying in the shower every morning.No. He wasstrong. And he deserved his new role in the church.

And both God and the elders must’ve just known how weak I was because all I got was moved to my own guest bedroom. Away from the bed that I shared with the other half of my heart and soul and still had hints of his scent buried deep in its fabric and filling.

It had been a week since I last smelled it. And that was probably the last time I’d ever get a whiff of the sweet scent of my home that I’d lost forever.

Things were getting ugly and desperate. I was thinking I would have to make a choice soon or I wouldn’t be able to make any choices at all. I would either have to break free from this place, or this place was going to break me to fit tidily into the role I was left with after losing my husband.

In addition to the only thing that had ever made my life worth living, I’d also lost about ten pounds. My hair was thinning a bit at my temples. New fine lines and wrinkles that had no place on a twenty-four-year-old young woman’s face flanked my eyes and mouth. I looked old. I felt old. I felt like my wonderful, loving home had morphed into a cold, hard, unfeeling prison. And I wasn’t even living. I was just waking up to complete my tasks and passing the time and then going back to sleep and trying to find Michael in my dreams.

I was at church one Sunday, sitting quietly on an aisle seat toward the back with the other single women. I could no longer sit close to the front because I no longer had the man that gave me the right to sit there in the first place. They didn’t want single adults sitting with the opposite sex unless they were family, so I couldn’t sit with Astrid. Up front, they were singing some song I used to love because Michael used to play it on his guitar, which was now sitting in its case in our guest room closet. And I just couldn’t sit there anymore listening to it, so I got up and slipped out.

Our church was the largest one in the area with about five hundred members. It wasn’t in Lafayette proper due to zoning or something that had to do with taxes.

“We give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but we don’t want to give him too much,” Pastor John was always saying from the pulpit with a smug ashellchuckle.“We need that money more than they do because we’re doing the Lord’s work.”

Because of this, the church was not only massive, but also ornate as a palace. Everything had gold-painted trim. Everything was gold or purple and fit for royalty. Fine furniture. State-of-the-art sound systems and fancy stage lighting in the large sanctuary. Many long hallways with gold-painted chair rail molding and luxurious garnet red carpet that led to umpteen private prayer rooms. I slipped out of one of the side doors into the hallway, pulling out my phone to text Astrid.

Meet me in prayer room 12.

I slipped into the room and sat on the tufted leather chesterfield sofa, twisting my hands together and rolling my head in a circle. When the doorknob turned a minute or two later, I leaped off the sofa like a startled cat.

Astrid stepped inside and shut the door behind him, taking one look at me and visibly drooping. His shoulders sank, and his expression fell into a defeated frown. “Sis, we gotta do something. I love you, but you look like death warmed over.” His brows drew together. “And I don’t just mean your sad hairline.”

I paced across the room, a week’s worth of rage reaching a steady, rolling boil inside my chest. “He’s been living in my bedroom for a week.”

“He WHAT?” Astrid whisper-hissed, darting across the room to frame my face with his tender palms. “Ruth, I have never so much as swatted a fly in my life, but if that evil man is making yousleep with him—”

“No…”I waved my hand to the side and then hugged my arms around his waist, holding him as tightly as I could and resting my temple against his smooth chin. “It’s nothing like all that. He just decided he should be in the master bedroom. He told me to move me and Michael’s things to the guest room, so that’s where I live now. I live in my own guest room. I have to ‘retire to my room’by 8:30 every night so he can use the common areas for his own Bible study and evening prayer time. He has the elders over multiple days a week now, and all I do is prepare for that and clean up after it.” I huffed and shook my head against him. “This isn’tliving, Astrid. I think I’m gonna hurt myself if this goes on like this for much longer.”

“You,” he said, gripping my face harder and forcing it up to the level of his, “willnot.” He lowered his forehead to mine, and I just wanted to rage cry like I did three hours ago before I had to cook Abraham his breakfast. “We need to leave. I don’t want to leave without you, and I really need you to open your eyes, Ruth. We can’t stay here.”

“I don’t have any money,” I hissed. “What am I going to do out there without—”

“What in the name of the good Lord is going on in here?” Pastor John’s booming voice shattered the tense quiet of the small room.

My face flushed cold, and I closed my eyes.

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