Bridge to a Distant Star - Carolyn Williford [25]
Jennifer looked puzzled, opened her mouth to respond, but Maureen immediately turned on her heel. After grabbing her purse, she was out the door before Jennifer could get out more than, “Maureen? Can’t you—?” Jennifer turned to the group of women and shrugged her shoulders.
Not until Maureen had turned the keys in the ignition and pulled out of her parking place did she let the dam break. She allowed the pent-up tears to flow, and her heart pounded even harder, though she wouldn’t have thought that possible. Her hands were shaking so badly that she gripped the steering wheel as hard as she could, hoping that would make the involuntary movements stop. Instead, when she lifted one hand off the wheel to test it, the entire hand shook as if she were elderly and frail.
She quickly donned sunglasses to hide her tears and turned the air conditioning on high to drown out the accentuated hiccups that accompanied her staggered breathing. Though traffic had thinned considerably, the drive home felt interminable, mostly because she was alone with her thoughts. There was nothing you could do, she told herself. You work there; it wasn’t appropriate to interrupt. But the more she attempted to reassure herself, the faster the tears came.
Once inside the relative safety of her kitchen, Maureen leaned against the door—appreciating the solidness of it—that she could symbolically shut out the world. She finally calmed her breathing and tears simply because she was emotionally and physically spent. Immediately searching for the new bag of coffee in the pantry, she went through the mindless motions of making a pot. Then, gratefully plopping into the soft cushioned chair at the kitchen bar, she clutched a mug in her hands, breathing in its rich aroma before sipping. The soothing quiet of the house was a rare gift, and Maureen knew she needed to make the most of it while she could. Too soon she’d need to go pick up Aubrey. And Colleen.
Mechanically, she reached for her Bible and the devotional book she’d been dutifully reading, turning to the selected passage for the day, 2 Peter 1:19–21:
“And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
Maureen’s thoughts immediately flew to the display of stars she stared at each night as sleep eluded her. The scene had become almost a painted picture in her mind’s eye—the stars framed by the casing around her window. She recalled the brightest stars and the dim ones, those she could only catch glimpses of in her peripheral vision.
“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
She skimmed through the offered commentary. The notes about the inspiration of Scripture, how both God and man were actively involved in the process. Knowing the phrase morning star was not the central thrust of the passage, Maureen still kept coming back to it, couldn’t let go of the nagging feeling that there was something more here. Something waiting to be uncovered. Until finally, she gave in to her curiosity and headed for their home office.
Sitting before the computer, she mused, “Okay … Google … what shall I type in? Think I’ll try ‘information about stars.’ That’s a start.”
She skimmed through the list, chose “Basic Facts about Star Gazing,” and clicked.
She read about an anomaly called averted vision. According to the website, the term explained why some particularly distant stars vanished in your direct gaze. That’s it. She read out loud: “‘The star seems to disappear when you look straight at it, but if you avert your vision—when you look to one side or the other—then you’re able to see the star again. The anomaly happens because the faint light of the star reaches