One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(40)
When they’d arrived at the Father of Light Lutheran Church parking lot, nearly twenty minutes later, the numerous horn honks they’d received echoed in one of Emily’s ears and Linda’s non-stop storytelling in her other. On Linda’s fifth attempt to straighten the car in a parking spot, Emily realized that she’d dug nail marks into the leather cover of the Bible. She rubbed the leather, trying to work out the impressions. As she stepped from the car, she realized both her legs had fallen asleep, probably due to the sheer effort it’d taken not to stretch her foot across the cab and stomp down on the gas pedal herself. Linda Briscoe was a crazy driver, indeed. Crazy slow with a fondness for listing right.
And she’d gabbed the entire drive, from the story of juicing oranges to remarking about birds she’d seen in her backyard and the rising costs at her favorite deli and so much minutiae that it seemed as though she needed to voice the words that had been building inside her for so long, waiting for a sympathetic ear to share them all with. As though she’d invited Emily to church not because she was trying to save her soul or make her jump through hoops, but because under all her unbridled zest for life, Linda was lonely.
And while Emily didn’t mind being that sympathetic ear—as long as eventually the conversation turned to Knox’s childhood and his father, and both their favorite foods—it was a relief to enter the church’s courtyard. Not only because they were out of the car with their lives and limbs intact, but because she could simply stand there, smiling, while Linda introduced her around and gushed about Emily and Linda’s children to her friends. Even if Linda kept calling her Knox’s girl. Even if she kept fabricating half-truths about what a big shot chef Emily was. If that’s what the lonely, effervescent Linda needed to tell herself and her friends, then so be it. At this point, Emily was just along for the ride, so to speak.
Once the service got started, Emily relaxed back into the wooden pew next to Linda, the Bible still in her arms. Emily had grown up attending a see-and-be-seen upscale church in Chicago with her parents, and so she’d always equated it with the lies of wealth that masked her family’s dysfunction. The concept of a Heavenly Father reminded her too starkly of her own father who had damaged her beyond repair and the mother who’d warped the idea of forgiveness into a justification for staying married to the monster, keeping both her and her daughter in harm’s way. Redemption, that grand Christian concept, had been a dream Emily had prayed for as a child—her father redeemed, reborn a good man through Emily’s and her mother’s and God’s forgiveness. It’d taken a lot of pain and years for her to realize that the Holy directive to turn the other cheek didn’t mean she had to be a punching bag for the Devil.
She heard the words of the sermon, songs, and prayers differently today. She could hear the hope and the sense of peace in those around her. The sense of trying to be good people and lift themselves out of the darkness in their lives. Like Emily had, and like she was still striving to do. After the final hymn, the pastor directed the congregation to bow their heads. Linda took Emily’s hand in her bony one and they bowed their heads together. For the first time since she’d been sixteen and on the street, Emily prayed. The last time she’d prayed, it’d been for food, and for a warm, dry place to sleep.
It worked then, didn’t it? The cynic inside her wanted to scream no. But that would be a lie. She had found shelter and food, not always right away, but it’d happened. And then, not too many years later, she’d found Briscoe Ranch and the place of peace and love she’d always longed for.
Her prayer today wasn’t so different from that last one. She prayed for Knox to give her the restaurant, for a chance to stay at Briscoe Ranch among her chosen family. Tears crowded her eyes, though she couldn’t quite fathom why she felt so humbled and raw.
In a fog, she shuffled out of the church behind Linda, her eyes on Linda’s black orthopedic wedges. Now and then, she shook hands with and offered plastic smiles to the parishioners she’d been introduced to. Some asked her to give Knox their greeting while others patted her hand and gave her blessings and told her how proud they could tell Linda was to have such a nice young lady in her son’s life.
Emily thought about her own mother. Had she stuck it out with Emily’s father after Emily had left? Was she lonely like Linda, too?
“You’ll come with me back to my house now, right? And we can swap recipes. I’ll fill you in on all Knox’s favorite dishes, and maybe throw in some embarrassing stories you can tease him with,” Linda said with a wink.
“Of course. I’ll stay as long as I can. Maybe you’ll allow me to fix you lunch.”
Linda smiled. “Now there’s a fancy idea. My own personal chef cooking Sunday supper. I’d love that. I’ve got a pot roast going in the crockpot, but maybe you can help dress it up a bit.”
Emily considered offering to drive home, but Linda had seemed excited to be the one behind the wheel, shuttling Emily to church. She climbed into the passenger seat again. “You and Clint were high school sweethearts in Dulcet,” she prompted once they were on the road.
“That we were,” Linda said wistfully. “I miss Dulcet sometimes, especially this time of year. My favorite. The countryside’s so pretty in the fall. Are they doin’ okay, then? All the Briscoes?” A hint of longing tinged Linda’s tone, as though Emily had conjured her grief with the question. She definitely didn’t seem angry about the rift, as Knox or Ty did.