Page 11 of Through the Dark Night
“Hello?” Emma’s voice, familiar and beloved, came over the phone as her face came into view.
“Did I catch you while you were eating?” Shannon said immediately, not wanting to bother her.
“No. We’re done.” She grinned and then flipped the phone around. “Thisis my coworker, Brian.”
“Hi, Brian,” Shannon said. She felt a little queasy. She wasn’t sure she was ready for her daughter to have a serious boyfriend.
“Hi, Ms. McKay.” Brian grinned, showcasing a dimple at the corner of his mouth. He was handsome and looked successful and serious, and yet he had a twinkle of humor in his eye. A perfect man for Emma, and Shannon’s heart squeezed.
“So, Mom, you made it okay?” Emma said, getting off her chair and walking through her apartment.
“I can talk to you later. I don’t want to interrupt you and Brian.”
“It’s not a big deal. I’m actually at his place, and he’s going to clean up since I cooked. I’ve got a few minutes.”
There was her daughter, living her life, eating supper at a man’s apartment. Wow. She’d thought four years of college would have gotten her ready for the idea that her daughter was going to have a life completely separate from her, but it was still taking a little bit to get used to.
“He seems like a really nice guy. I could see the twinkle in his eye, and I’m guessing he has a pretty good sense of humor.”
“He does, and he’s so smart, too,” Emma said, her voice lowering, as though she didn’t want Brian to hear what she was saying. “He’s a Christian as well. I met him at church, and then we realized we work together. Mom, he’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Just don’t take it too fast,” Shannon said, even though her daughter hadn’t asked for her input.
“I know, Mom. He feels the same way. We’re just eating. We’re gonna chat a little, maybe watch a movie, but I’m going home.”
“Good to know.”
“What about you? Did you make it to Raspberry Ridge?”
“I did.”
“Looks like you’re sitting in the kitchen. Did you rent a cottage or something?”
“Not exactly.” She took a breath. She wasn’t trying to hide anything from her children. She didn’t want them to hide anything from her. And Emma had always been an open book. Even now, she didn’t have to tell her mother what she was doing tonight, but she had, because she knew it would ease her mind. “I bought an inn. This is the kitchen.”
“You bought an inn?”
“Yes. It needs a little bit of fixing up, but… I’m feeling really excited about it.”
“Okay,” Emma said, and she seemed thoughtful. “Mom, you seem kind of sad.”
Emma could always read between the lines and see more than she should have been able to.
“I suppose that’s natural after a person’s gone through what I’ve gone through,” she said, and her voice was gentle.
She didn’t want to bad-mouth her husband, but a person didn’t have the last almost thirty years of their life blow up in their face and get over it easily.
“But you do seem kind of…maybe not excited, but hopeful. I am worried about you though. An inn?”
“It’s going to be a grand adventure. I haven’t gotten to have very many of those. I mean, of course we’ve gone on vacations, but it’s always been me doing whatever your dad wanted to do. And now… I guess I get to live—” She stopped abruptly. She didn’t want to live for herself. That seemed selfish and shallow. “Not for myself, because I envision this to be a place where people can come and heal, or be happy, or make memories as a family together. You know how much of a blessing our vacations were and how we always wanted to go back to every place we were at, just because we loved it so much and had such great memories there. We cherish our vacation pictures.”
“You’re right. I was just thinking about that time we went to New England, and Dad got lost, and there was no phone service and we didn’t have any maps in the car, and I’m pretty sure we drove in a big honking circle up one mountain and down another and then up that mountain and back down another and… I think we spent the entire day lost.” She laughed. “But we found the best overlooks. We couldn’t even find them again because we couldn’t figure out where we were to begin with. But I think that was one of my favorite vacations, and it was totally unplanned.”
“I was scared to death we were going to run out of gas, and we hadn’t passed a gas station the entire day because I think you’re right, we kept going in a circle and there were no gas stations in that circle.”
“I never even knew you were worried. We were just having the time of our lives. The windows were rolled down, we had our hands out there, we passed very few other cars, and if I recall correctly, some of the roads were even dirt.”
“Yeah. Looking back, it’s a lot of fun, but I was scared to death.” She laughed. “But you’re right, the views were amazing. We saw so many things that we would never have seen if we had had a map or phone service or if we hadn’t taken a wrong turn somewhere.”
