Deep in the Heart (33 page)

Gently, reverently, Keith held the Bible, fighting not to let his hands shake for the trust it represented. He slid the zipper around it and let it fall open. For all the wear on its outside, its inside was remarkably intact.

Maggie watched him as he flipped it first from one page to another. “One thing that really stuck with me was that I remember Mrs. Malowinski telling me that faith isn’t just believing He’s there. Real faith is trusting Him to guide your every step to your greater good. He wants that for you, you know? Your greater good.”

The protests crowded through him about his own life, but he chose to use hers as an argument. “But how can you believe that? How can you trust a God Who took away your parents?”

Her gaze fell. “This life isn’t perfect, and there are things that happen, bad things, set into motion by people who make really bad choices. God does not alter the physical laws of this world. If velocity says a car traveling at this speed hits another at that speed, there are consequences to that impact. God allows the laws here to work so that we can live our lives. Otherwise, if the law of gravity worked sometimes and not others, we couldn’t even walk out of our house because we might float off the planet.”

She paused and then shook her head. “But there’s more to it than that. God can take anything,
anything
and use it to teach us, to strengthen us, to guide us—if we let Him.” Her gaze found Keith’s. “Sometimes it’s the things that are the hardest that teach us the most.”

“
But if He loved us…”

“
He wouldn’t let bad things happen.”

There was nothing to do but nod.

Maggie’s gaze went over to the children. “What if Peter needed an appendectomy. Emergency situation. You have to make the decision. Do you sign the paper to allow them to operate on him?”

Confusion slid through Keith. “Well, yeah.”

“
But it’s major surgery. It’s going to be painful for him.”

“
But he’ll die if I don’t.”

Slowly Maggie let that sink in. “That’s what God knows. That without our learning to trust His love in the good times and in the bad, to trust that He knows best what will ultimately give us life, we will die because we’ll never have His life in us, and His life is what will live forever. If we don’t have that, we die.”

Keith wanted to argue, but he didn’t have the words.

“
I know, it’s a lot to absorb in one day,” Maggie said with compassion, “but the good news is, He doesn’t require you to know it all. Just take this step. This one right here. That’s all. He knows where you’re going, and if you trust that, He will show you the next step and the next and the next.”

“
Like the doors,” he said as his mind processed what she was telling him.

“
Huh?”

“
You know, the doors the preacher was talking about the other day. How God opens one door, and when you walk through that door, He will open the next.”

“
Yeah, like that.”

Still, he clung to the arguments. “But how do you do that? How do you remember?”

“
Well, how do you remember to feed each horse every day. You’ve got to have like what? Ten of them?”

“
Twelve.”

“
But that’s got to be hard to remember to feed them every, single day.”

Keith shrugged. “No, not really, you just get used to doing it. Once you do, it’s not hard to remember.”

Maggie nodded, and although it took a moment for the depth of that to sink in, Keith finally caught what she was saying.

“
It’s not one big declaration, and it’s done,” Maggie said. “It’s remembering in the little moments in your life—to trust Him, to trust what He’s guiding you to do, to listen, and to know with everything in you that He will lead you exactly where He meant for you to go. Like praying and living with Him, that’s not me trying to prove I deserve for Him to live in my life, it’s a sign that He is. Simple as that.”

“
But it sounds so hard. So… I don’t know. Big.”

“
It is big, but He doesn’t require big. He asks you to take one step.”

“
Walk through one door.”

Maggie nodded. “Trust me, He’s more than capable of opening those doors in front of you.”

“
Are they all easy?”

Her eyebrows shot for the sky. “Walking through those doors?”

He nodded.

“
On your own they are some of the hardest things in the world to do. In fact, the world will most likely think you are crazy for doing them. Look at Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Any normal person would’ve balked at going into the places where she went—the home of the destitute and dying doesn’t sound like a fun place to spend your life. Yet she did it because that’s where God put her.”

Concern seeped into him. “I couldn’t do that.”

“
You don’t have to. All you have to do is what He gives you to do. That’s what’s so cool about God—He doesn’t think you have to be someone else before He’ll love you. It’s not a contest. He loves you right now. Right here. Just like you are, like the waterpots today.”

“
But don’t people go off into missions and stuff?”

“
They can, but they don’t have to. Mrs. Malowinski lived in Del Rio her whole life, but she was right where God put her, doing His work. Sometimes it’s the little things, those things that the world doesn’t see and will probably never know about that mean the most to those whose lives they touch.” She shook her hair out of her face. “I, for one, am grateful she answered His call. Her taking just that step probably saved my life. I sure wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for her.”

Keith gazed at Maggie, his heart falling through the peace and serenity there. “Thank God for Mrs. Malowinski.”

Monday night Keith was sitting on the couch with the Bible open in his hands when the phone rang. He reached for it without really paying attention. “Hello?” His gaze continued to absorb the words on the page.

“
Well, it’s about time. Where have you been?”

Instantly Keith sat up and closed the Bible. “Dallas.”

“
Yes, Dallas. Did you forget about me?”

“
I… no. Why?”

“
It’s Monday night. You always call me on Monday night. It’s like these days we don’t talk unless I call you.”

Guilt crawled over the peace he’d had for 24 hours. “Sorry, Dallas. I’ve been…”

“
Busy. I know. Did Ferrell call you yet?”

“
Uh, no.” He hated that admission.

“
Well, Dad talked to him today, and he’s decided to give you another chance.” She didn’t sound particularly happy about that. “They’ll call you to confirm, of course, but he’s got you scheduled for Thursday at 3:00. I’m telling you, Keith, guys like Ferrell don’t ever give guys like you a second chance. Trust me, Dad had to pull all the strings there were, so do not mess this one up.”

Nothing in Keith liked any of this. “Fine. I’ll do my best.”

“
No, Keith. Not your best. You get that job… whatever it takes.”

Anger stamped through him with Army boots. “Anything else?”

“
Yeah. Have you found a house yet?”

“
I... Well, no. Well, kind of.” He felt like he was on the inspection line, and he was failing miserably. “I mean I found a couple you might want to check out on line.” His thoughts spun away from him even as he tried to catch them. “Here. Let me get to my computer.”

And for the next hour they played house shopping via phone lines and modems. By the time they were going through their fifth virtual tour, Keith was exhausted. He didn’t care about tile and granite and landscaping. He just wanted to get back to the black book lying on the coffee table in the living room. It represented the only sanity left in his life.

“
Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Dallas cooed when she was sufficiently convinced he had actually been looking for a house. “I found an Aston Martin Concept car I’m going to do some checking into. It is the coolest thing you’ve ever seen.”

Confusion went through him. “Don’t you still have your Jag?”

“
Well, yeah, but I can’t show up at Hayden & Elliott in a Jag—everyone will think I’m poor.” She laughed as if the thought was ridiculous. “I mean come on, by that point I’ll be Mrs. Keith Ayer. I have to make a statement, you know?” She sounded so excited about being Mrs. Keith Ayer, unfortunately she didn’t sound nearly as excited about being married to Keith. “I’m going to make an offer of a million. We’ll see where we go from there.”

“
A… million?” Keith choked on the word.

“
It will probably have to be custom made. They aren’t mass-producing them yet, so that’s even sweeter.”

“
Dal…”

“
Oh, hang on.” She left as Keith’s mind spun through the car and the house and the move and the wedding. “Keith? Listen, Chris Ann just showed up. We’re going shopping for my trousseau. Let me know when you’ve seen the houses we looked at in person. Maybe we can go together when I get home.”

The calendar on the pegboard stared back at him. May 13. Dallas’s graduation. Less than three weeks away. He was no longer breathing.

“
Gotta go. I love you,” she said.

He mumbled something incoherent, said good-bye, and hung up. It was only 9:30, but overwhelm tramped through him and without going back to the living room, he turned for his bedroom. Maybe if he was really lucky, he would go to sleep, and this whole nightmare would be just that when he woke up again.

Maggie wondered how he was doing with the Bible. She hadn’t seen him since Sunday, and although her sensible side said she was crazy, a little voice in the recesses of her heart kept saying, “Call him.”

On Tuesday night, she waited until the kids were down and the house was quiet before she snuck down to the kitchen. Quietly, carefully she grabbed the phone and slid into a chair. Wishing the buttons wouldn’t beep so loudly, she dialed the number. As it rang, her glance chanced across the clock. It was eleven-fifteen. He was in bed. She shouldn’t be calling him.

“
Hello?” He didn’t sound asleep exactly, more distracted.

“
Hey, there,” she said softly. “Did I wake you?”

“
Maggie?” There was a hint of hope in that name.

“
Yeah, it’s me. You can’t get rid of me, huh?”

“
That’s a problem?”

“
I don’t know. Is it?”

He inhaled and then exhaled as if he was pulling life in and releasing every bad thing trapped in him. “It isn’t to me.”

They had talked for over an hour about him being up well past dark sitting here in his living room with the little lamp over the recliner on as he read the Bible. He had so many questions, so many things he’d read that he wanted some guidance on. She answered the ones she could. The ones she couldn’t, they talked over until he was satisfied in what they had come up with to explain it.

It was so easy to talk with her. So natural and relaxed. He had the feeling that he could ask her anything, and she wouldn’t jump all over him for being an idiot. As the clock started back up toward one o’clock, he knew he had to let her go, but he had one more question that was dogging his every step.

“
Okay, one more question and then I’d better let you get some sleep,” he said.

“
Okay.”

He took a breath because the question seemed so pivotal to everything. “If someone gave you a million dollars, what would you do with it?”

She didn’t say anything for a long, long moment. “Well, I’d take some of it and put it toward scholarships for foster kids. That’s the only way I got to go because someone else had thought to make a scholarship available. And then…”

Keith waited as his heart filled with her first answer. It wasn’t a car. It wasn’t a fancy house with granite countertops. It was helping someone else out. He liked that.

“
Well...” She didn’t continue right away. “I’ve never really told anybody this…”

Something told him they were now swimming in the depths of her being, just like the night they had spent on his couch. He waited, wondering what came next.

“
I want to be a foster mom someday. I want to give back what I was given—a chance, a life, a shot at normal. I want to give that to as many other kids as I can.” Her voice faded out on the soft dreams. “So I’d use whatever was left to do that.”

Nothing in him had a hard time picturing her—a gaggle of kids in a rainbow of colors around her. There was no doubt in him that her presence with them would be a turning point in their lives. It sure had been in his. “Well, I hope someday you get that chance,” he said, wishing only that he could join her dream instead of being stuck in his own.

“
Mr. Ayer,” Tanner said on Wednesday as Keith worked to fix the gate leading to the track. Ike was busy with Dragnet, and the gate was all-but nonfunctional. Just to open it you had to drag the whole thing, and it was getting so bad that dragging it didn’t even work anymore.

“
Yeah.” Keith lifted the gate from its hinges, swung it to the side and leaned it against the opposite fence. The support pole it had been attached to leaned awkwardly to the side, pulling the rest of the fence with it. He went back and examined it, pulling it one way and then the other. Whoever had poured the foundational concrete obviously didn’t know what they were doing. It was cracked and chipping and so unstable that the pole had no choice but to fall. “What’s up?”