If I Gained the World (The Second Chances Collection Book #4) , livre ebook

© 2003 by Linda Nichols
Published by Bethany House Publishers
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Ebook edition created 2011
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ISBN 978-1-4412-6008-6
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Cover design by Ann Gjeldum
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To Jesus
the Lover of My Soul
Prologue
2003
It was raining when Daniel arrived in Seattle. The bus drove through the slick streets and groaned into the station. Its doors sighed open. He sat waiting until the aisles cleared. No sense standing up as everyone filed out. No sense inviting comment. “You’re somebody,” they would say, frowning and trying to place him. He’d learned to hate those narrowed eyes, the clearing of recognition that followed. He kept his face down now so no one could examine it. When the last of the other passengers had filed out, he stood and got off the bus.
He took his rucksack from the luggage compartment, went inside the depot, and asked which city bus would take him to the address on the creased, wet envelope he clutched in his hand. The Seattle transit bus came along in a half hour or so, and he rode it up the hill, got off when the driver told him to, and tried to remember the directions the man had given him. He aimed himself the right way and started walking. The rain was pelting down. He walked faster.
A woman came out of a grocery store and merged onto the sidewalk ahead of him. He imagined it was Lenore. He entertained himself with the idea. It was possible, wasn’t it? The woman was slim, just like Lenore. She carried an umbrella, so he couldn’t see if her hair matched the thick brown rope in his memory. She didn’t face him, so he couldn’t look for the green-and-gold eyes, the cleft in her chin, the sharp, thin face he remembered. He trudged along behind her, far enough back so that he wouldn’t frighten her were she to notice him, close enough to keep her in sight.
The rain poured down incessantly. The woman quickened her step, and so did Daniel. He wished he had brought a jacket, but he had none. He was tired of carrying the heavy rucksack, and for a minute he wondered why he had brought it. Why did he need it? He wasn’t staying long. Just a brief in and out. What he had come to do wouldn’t take long, but the thought of his mission made him more tired than the heavy load he was carrying.
He followed the woman all the way up the hill, turned left behind her onto Chestnut Street, and by the time he saw the huge old house with the sweeping yard, the graceful porch, saw that the house number on the red mailbox was the same as the one on the crumpled envelope, he knew it really must be Lenore who had led him here.
He stood slack-jawed with amazement. It seemed like a sign, an omen, though he wasn’t sure how to interpret it. He opened his mouth to call out to her, but something stopped him. He couldn’t. Not just yet. He waited, turning slightly away from her as she opened the gate of the picket fence and stepped through. She closed it behind her and walked toward the house, then swung open the front door it was unlocked, of course and went inside. The whole house was lit up, every bulb on, and he felt a smile creep onto his face. She’d always been like that. Wasteful of the good things.
After a minute he saw her appear again in front of the window, just a dark slight shape passing by. He stood there for a long time watching the light spill out into the gathering dusk before he had the courage to open the gate and step inside. Then he stood a little longer, camouflaged behind a huge tree in the yard, watching her pass back and forth. She was setting the table. The rain began pelting down in one of its earnest downpours. She didn’t reappear. He was cold to the bone and began to shiver, but still he couldn’t bring himself to go to the door.
He went around to the back of the house instead, knowing he might be arrested as a peeping tom, and wouldn’t that be a fine reunion? He brushed the thought away, found a spot behind an evergreen shrub that sheltered him from view. The light spilled out from the window here, too, making an arc before him. He was careful to stand back from its borders. She was not five feet away from him, and she seemed so close that were it not for the glass between them, he thought he could have reached out and touched her. He peered intently, looking for traces of the woman he’d known the angular cheeks, the haunted, hungry eyes.
He saw none of these. This woman had a soft, calm face, and the part of her he could see above the sink looked strong and substantial. Her hair was still thick, hanging down past her shoulders, and while he watched, she stopped her work, twirled the ends together in a makeshift braid, and tossed it behind her. He watched the firm movements of her arms, sure and competent, as she did whatever it was she was doing, working on something below his line of vision. She lifted it up, and he saw what it was. It was a pie. Daniel shook his head in disbelief. A pie? When had Lenore learned to make a pie? She could barely make coffee when he’d seen her last.
He frowned, suddenly seeing the obvious. This was not the same Lenore. This was someone new. This was someone different, and it was that one silly thing seeing that she had made a pie that made his hubris clear to him. He had a sudden realization of the years that had passed. Years. Long years, and Lenore had lived them, just as he had. Her years had been full of people he didn’t know, experiences he hadn’t shared. What had he thought? That she would be where he had left her? Still waiting? That time had somehow rendered her as frozen and unchanged as she’d remained in his mind? What right did he have to come here now, even for this brief errand? Who did he think he was to appear like this? Apologetic. Shredded life in hand.
He looked up again. She was gone, and unaccountably he felt a sense of loss, but then she was back, leaning over the sink, and he saw her face again. He relaxed. She looked happy. Contented. Her cheeks were fuller than they’d been years before and flushed a little, maybe from the heat of the kitchen. She still had the dimple in her chin. Her lips were moving, and he wondered if she was singing or talking to herself. She always used to sing while she worked, he recalled, though the memory was a vague and misty recollection of those years. That life he’d shared with her seemed long ago and far away. He saw himself in the reflection of the window, a tall dark shape against the darker lines of the thick evergreen tree. And it was odd, but he didn’t recognize himself any more than he recognized her. He felt the same sensation of looking hard and trying to see something familiar.
She turned and spoke to someone. Smiled. Who was it? Daniel wondered, feeling a flash of jealousy toward whoever had come into the room and lit her face. He tried to imagine himself walking into that room, that it was he who had made her face brighten. A chill wind blew sharply, rustling what was left of the leaves on the trees and tinkling the wind chimes.
A dog barked. The back door of the house next door opened. A man came out, opened the garbage can, and deposited a sack of trash, and that small event made Daniel realize it was time for him to make a decision. He must do one thing or the other. Creep away into the shadows, go back to the bus station, call from there and arrange a meeting. Or go to the door and knock. She disappeared again, and the loss jolted him to a decision. He had to at least hear her voice before he left, to put sound with picture in this last scene. It seemed wrong, somehow, to not remove that thick insulation of silence that had padded the years between them.
He slowly walked back around the house to the front porch. He stood there before the dark red door. He heard his own ragged breath, the steady pelt of the rain, the faint tinkling of the wind chimes, the leaves rustling in the wind. Her umbrella was by his feet, half open, leaning tipsy against a huge pot of pansies. A child’s pull toy lay on its side beside a green watering can. A few leaves scuttled across the porch and lodged against it. He stared down at his shoes and breathed hard, as if preparing himself for some great feat of physical endurance or courage. Then quickly, before he could change his mind, Daniel raised his hand and knocked.
One
1988
Everyone wondered why he had chosen her. Lenore thought about that as she peeled the potatoes, a sloppy job she usually rushed through, taking off half the potato along with the skin. She hated peeling potatoes, but Scott had asked for French fries, and Daniel said he would make them from scratch if Lenore would peel the potatoes. She would rather peel an onion than a potato any day of the week. The misery was sharper, but it was over more quickly.
Their own friends didn’t wonde