Perfect Fit - Brenda Jackson [123]
Sage tipped her head back and smiled at her mother. Only a strong woman, a very strong woman, could admit as well as accept something like that. “You’re something else, you know that?”
Delores chuckled. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Right now I feel that you’re something else, too. It seems you’ve successfully moved beyond Erol just like you said you had.”
Sage nodded. “Yes, I have but decided that I’m not ready to get that involved with anyone again right now.”
Delores chuckled. “Well, it looks to me like you already have.”
Sage lifted a brow. “What do you mean?”
“It means that I can’t help noticing the number of times you’ve looked at those flowers that Mr. Blackwell sent, and the expression on your face when you look at them.”
Sage briefly closed her eyes. In addition to being all-forgiving, her mother was also all-observing. “Well, yes, I happen to think they are beautiful.”
“And what about the man who sent them?”
A visual of Gabe flashed into Sage’s mind. She couldn’t help but smile. “I happen to think that he’s beautiful, too.”
“But?”
Sage inhaled deeply. “But I’m not ready to fall in love again.”
Delores nodded. She couldn’t help wondering when Sage would realize that she had already taken the fall.
Later that evening Sage glanced around the room that had always been hers while growing up. Because her parents had been hard-working people, they had always provided her with nice things. She could certainly stand in the middle of her room and say that she had been truly blessed to have Charles and Delores Dunbar for parents.
She thought about the conversation she’d had with her mother earlier at the hospital, and again thought of how strong and courageous she was, as well as forgiving. Sage knew she had to find it in her heart and be just as forgiving. As her mother said, God loves us in spite of our wrongdoings, regardless of the countless mistakes we make. He also holds us accountable to find it in our hearts to forgive someone who has hurt us; and in turn, that person has to be the one accountable for his own transgressions.
Turning, she walked out of the bedroom to look for her father. She found him in the kitchen, standing at the window, quietly looking out at the backyard.
He evidently heard her approach, and without turning around he said, “I was just looking at that big oak tree and remembering the time I built you a tree house up there, although by the time your mother added those silly-looking lacy curtains and painted the walls pink, it became an elevated doll house.”
He chuckled. “She wasn’t too happy that I had built it in that tree and not on the ground. She just knew one day you would fall and break your arm or something. But I knew better. I knew just what sturdy stuff you were made of…. After all, you were a Dunbar.”
He slowly turned around. “But that tree house, or that doll house if you want to call it that, became our special place. I remember climbing up there with you and reading Bible stories to you. And the one you liked the best was the story of how little David, with God’s help, slew the big and mighty Goliath. David became your hero.”
He inhaled deeply and looked down as if studying the tiles on the floor. “In recent months David has become my hero, too, because when faced with his wrongdoings, he asked God’s forgiveness. And when forgiven, he went on to be one of the greatest kings that ever lived. God showed him just how much he meant to him, in spite of the wrong he’d done, by having one of David’s heirs deliver his son into the world. That was a prime example of God’s mercy and forgiveness, and for David that was an awesome blessing.”
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