Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [131]
Is that what you want from me, God? To sacrifice everyone I love until I have only You in my life?
That, of course, presumed she could have God in her life. But when people abandoned her through death and desertion, who was left but God? If He did care, of course.
She rubbed her eyes with her right hand, then rested her palm over them against the brilliance of the day. From an oak in the yard of the parsonage, a cardinal whistled and chattered, and another answered from across the square. Children played with shouts of joy and infectious giggles, and her heart wrenched. If He was all she was going to have, she desperately wanted to believe God loved her.
A hand curved around her shoulder, large, strong, gentle. “What’s going through your head, my dear?” Dominick asked.
She couldn’t answer him completely. In no way would she make him feel obligated to stay with her. She lowered her hand and chose a half truth. “I was just remembering something my mother used to say.” Tabitha glanced over her shoulder, where a slab of pale gray granite marked her mother’s grave. Roses tumbled over the stone, half obscuring the words “Honored Daughter, Wife, Midwife, Mother.”
“I always loved flowers,” she continued. “Momma used to tell me they were a reminder that God loves us. I don’t think that’s in the Bible, but it gave me comfort after Father died. I planted that first rosebush. I used to walk past here and look at it and tell myself that God loved me in spite of my father leaving us. In spite of it being my fault because I wanted to read an herbal rather than collect eggs for him. When Raleigh left, I didn’t have anywhere to plant flowers. I had my garden at home, but it had always been there and didn’t seem to have the same impact. Then, when Momma died so soon afterward, I planted that second bush. It blooms even better than the first, but I forgot that it was to remind me I was loved by God. I felt like He’d left me like everyone else.”
“And now?” Dominick settled on the wall beside her. “Do you believe that God has abandoned you?”
She plucked at a loose thread on her dress. “I’ve certainly abandoned Him. But if I’m wrong, then what is left once you leave?”
“If we can’t prove anything against”—Dominick glanced around at the empty square and graveyard—“him, I’m going nowhere for a long time.”
“And that makes you unhappy.” She observed the tightness at the corners of his eyes and the downward slant to his lips. “What happened with Kendall?”
“I was on my way to get the key.” Dominick sighed. “If I don’t get it to him within the hour, Kendall will send me inland to his plantation.”
“And if that happens, you will remain a redemptioner for another four years and I will still be unable to see you.”
“But locked up here, I can’t spy on Wil—anyone. I am so frustrated at night, I can barely sleep.”
“If God is with us, then shouldn’t we be able to pray about it?”
“Yes, but—” He bowed his head. His hair cascaded forward in a river of shining brown, red, and gold. “You might have abandoned God, but I betrayed Him.”
Tabitha brushed his hair back behind his ear so she could see his face. “How do you betray God?”
“Seven years ago . . .” He swung his legs over the wall so he faced the graveyard, his back to the town. “It all started seven years ago at university.”
“Riotous living like what we hear of most students?” She spread out her skirt so she could take his hand in hers out of sight of any passersby. “Surely if God forgave the prodigal son—”
“I was worse than a prodigal.” Though low, his voice held an intensity that thrummed through him. “I was showing so much promise at university, I knew I’d never convince my father I shouldn’t be a vicar. So I began to write letters to newspapers, to periodicals, to print shops.” He drew one foot up to rest on the wall and looped his hands around his knee. “I used my family position to glean information, then exposed every scandal involving a man of the church, from bishops