The Seat Beside Me (34 page)

Tina spent the next half hour choosing five novels from different genres. It felt like Christmas. Perhaps it was, for in a way, today was the day Christ had been born in her again—thanks to Mr. Carpelli.

She went to pay at the counter. Behind the clerk was a sign:
Help wanted
. Tina’s heart squeezed until her toes tingled.

Do it
.

Without thinking a second thought she heard herself say, “I’d like to apply for the job, please.”

The clerk smiled. “Your timing’s perfect. The manager is in. Would you like to fill out an application and speak to her today?”

The clerk was right. The timing
was
perfect.

How will I recognize her?

As she exited the airplane, Sonja realized the inadequacy of her preparation for this trip. She had a mental image of what Eden Moore
should
look like, but nothing concrete. They had not exchanged physical characteristics, nor arranged a clue like
I’ll be the one wearing a red carnation
.

The opening to the gate area loomed ahead. Sonja slung her winter coat over her cast and adjusted her carry-on on her other shoulder. She hadn’t brought much. All the clothes she’d so carefully chosen for the convention in sunny Phoenix were gone. Roscoe’s widow would have to deal with Sonja as is.

The jet way ended. The terminal opened up, and Sonja was assailed by the noise. She scanned the faces of the people waiting. No one’s eyes locked to hers; no one offered a questioning glance. Then she saw a woman holding a bouquet of carnations with a card attached that had
Sonja
written on it. Eden Moore was even prettier than Sonja had imagined.

“Sonja?”

Before she could complete her nod, the woman engulfed her with a hug. “I am so happy to meet you. How was your flight? Was it hard being on a plane again? Is that all your luggage?”

Sonja laughed at the onslaught. “Fine, yes, and yes.”

Mrs. Moore hesitated a moment, matching the answers with the questions. “Sorry. I get excited and talk way too much.” She remembered the flowers. “These are for you.”

Sonja held them to her face, inhaling. “You’re very sweet.”

“Just wanted you to feel welcome. And let me take that.” Eden put a hand on Sonja’s carry-on.

“You don’t have to—”

“Shush now.”

Sonja shushed and realized by Eden’s aura of command that it was probably best to let the older woman have her way. She relinquished the carry-on and they started walking, with Eden linking an arm through hers, a move Sonja found a bit disconcerting, but one she didn’t brush away.

Suddenly, Sonja saw a Welcome to Phoenix sign and drew back.

Eden noticed. “What’s wrong?”

“This is the airport I would have come into for the convention, the trip I was on when we crashed. Seeing the sign …”

Eden patted her arm. “I thought of that when I was coming to pick you up. How it might be hard for you. It was a little hard for me too, remembering my Roscoe should have flown in here.”

Sonja was horrified. She stopped and faced Mrs. Moore. “I’m so sorry. How selfish of me to think of myself, when
you
lost a husband. You probably think I’m the most insensitive, self-absorbed—”

“Nonsense.” Eden started them walking again. Sonja was amazed at the strength in her forward movement; she had no choice but to go along. “If we can’t be honest with each other, then you might as well get on that plane and go home. Honesty or nothing. That’s my condition. Do you agree with it?”

Sonja felt the woman’s eyes as they walked. She risked a glance. “I agree.”

“Good. Then let’s get on home.”

Eden Moore’s Oldsmobile was huge, old, and clean. A boat on wheels. Eden handled it with the offhanded ease of a professional driver; she was adept at talking while she drove, one hand always in motion.

“Now tell me about your experience. It must have been horrendous. Frightening. How are you doing? What can I do to help?”

Sonja had expected Eden’s first questions to be about her husband. “Shouldn’t I be the one comforting you, Mrs. Moore?”

“Call me Eden, and though that’s very nice of you, dear, I’m doing fine in the comfort department. I know I’ll be all right.”

Sonja shook her head, incredulous. “Your husband said you were a strong woman, but—”

She laughed. “He said that about me? Fiddle-dee. He was the strong one. Though truth be told, we grew strong together. I always feel blessed to see how God uses our struggles in such positive ways.”

Sonja expelled a breath loudly.
She calls losing a son
and
a husband “struggles”?

Eden glanced at her. “Uh-oh. The sigh that spoke a thousand words. What’s the problem?”

Sonja hadn’t meant to express her feelings. “It was nothing …”

“It was not nothing. Honesty, remember?”

Sonja looked at the Phoenix landscape zooming by her window, bits of cacti and desert intermixed with lush lawns and palm trees. This woman was not going to let her get away with anything. Sonja wasn’t used to being honest; in fact, she’d molded her life around her ability to be
dis
honest.

“I was just amazed at your choice of words,” she said. “You mentioned your struggles. I know about your boy, and now your husband. Those aren’t struggles, those are catastrophes, life-jarring disasters, tragedies worthy of Shakespeare.”

Eden considered a moment, fingering a silver and turquoise earring. “I agree. And if I let myself concentrate on the loss, I would lose everything. That’s the trouble with grief. It’s cannibalistic. It makes you focus on yourself until you end up gnawing off your own foot trying to make the hunger pangs go away.”

“But don’t you need to focus on yourself in order to get through it?”

“Oh, I have, Sonja. And I do. I’m not a selfless person. But when Eddy died, and now my Roscoe. If I concentrate on
my
loss, then I miss the joy of thinking about
their
gain.”

“Gain? They’re dead!” Sonja didn’t mean to shout. “Sorry.”

“Shout if you must. Just a minute, I can’t do this while I’m driving.” She pulled into a gas station and parked. She rolled down the windows, letting in the dry air, shut the car off, undid her seat belt, and faced Sonja. “There. That’s better. Roscoe used to tease me, saying if I didn’t get to fully use my hands while I talked, I’d explode. The same goes for my need to see the person I’m talking to. Now where were we?”

“Your loss and their gain?”

She slapped her thigh. “Exactly. Of course I miss them. Of course I wish they were here. And some days I cry a river of tears. And I even went through being mightily mad about it. I gave God a good talking to those first few days.”

“You yelled at God? Can you do that?”

Eden laughed. “Can? You bet.
Should
we do that? I don’t think God minds. He wants all parts of us, and that includes the not-so-nice parts, even the downright nasty parts.”

The few times Sonja had thought about God, she likened Him to a stern headmaster with a ruler, ready to whap the palm of anyone who displeased Him. A person would never ever consider yelling at a headmaster.

“You look shocked.”

Sonja hadn’t meant for her doubt to show. “I have a different view of God.”

Eden nodded. “You want Him to be proud of you, right?”

“I guess.”

“Like you want your parents to be proud of you.”

Now
that
hit close to home. Too close. “So … you yelled at God. That still doesn’t explain the win and lose part.”

“It’s the beginning of it. At first I only thought of me and my
loss and the years we
wouldn’t
have together. Then I thought of the pain they both went through.” She put a hand to her chest and pressed. “That’s still a tough one.” She let out a breath as if releasing the image. “But then I remembered the promise.”

“What promise?”

“God’s promise that if we believe in His Son, we’ll go to heaven when we die and be with Him—and each other.” She closed her eyes, tilted her face upward, and smiled. “ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ ”

Sonja was totally confused. “No more death? What are you talking about?”

Eden opened her eyes. “Someday. When Jesus comes again.”

“Comes again? You lost me.”

Eden studied Sonja a moment, yet her look was not one of judgment but of assessment. Finally she nodded. “Tell me about yourself, Sonja. What’s your background?”

Although Sonja didn’t want to talk about her parents, at least it was a subject she knew. “I’m the only daughter and second child of Mr. and Mrs. Sheffield D. Grafton II. And it’s not an easy job.” She laughed. “I have no clue why I just said that.”

“Because we were talking about making God proud. Unfortunately, a person’s relationship with an earthly father often gets in the way of a relationship with the heavenly One.”

“I never thought of that.”

“Is it true?”

A headmaster with a ruler
. Sonja was shocked by the comparison. “I think it is.”

“Is your father demanding?”

Sonja had to laugh. “You could say that.”

“Is he proud of you?”

“You
couldn’t
say that.”

Eden patted her arm. “I’m sorry.”

Sonja was relieved that Eden didn’t argue with her or ask for proof. In the few times in her life when she had confided in a friend about her parental problems, she had grown weary of their flip reaction of, “Oh, I’m sure you’re wrong. They’re probably plenty proud of you.” How did they know? Now to have Eden accept Sonja’s perception as real … it was a relief.

“God wants to be proud of you, and you should work toward that. But unlike flesh-and-blood fathers, He is very forgiving.”

“That’s
totally
unlike my father,” Sonja said. “If I told him the truth about what just happened to me with my job—” She stopped herself and laughed. “You’re a bad influence, Eden. I know you for a half hour and spill my guts?”

“Fiddle-dee. Spill away. That’s what I’m here for. So what’s this truth you don’t dare tell your father?”

Go ahead. You might as well
. “I was fired.”

“Why?”

“Because of deceit and underhandedness and doing anything to get ahead.”

Eden did a slow blink, as if looking inward at a memory. “Roscoe … we went through that. Doing anything …”

Sonja remembered. “He told me about it, how he gained success but ignored you and Eddy. He told me how Eddy’s death changed all that, how
you
changed all that.”

“Me?”

Her face was pathetic with hope.
Didn’t she know?
“He said you were an inspiration to him, that you’d tried to get him to see the truth for a long time but never succeeded. It took the death of Eddy to get through to him, to get his attention.”

“Make him surrender.”

Sonja moved an inch toward the window. “I don’t like that word.”

Eden smiled as if she knew a secret. “But it’s such a glorious word—if said in the right context.”

“And that is?”

Eden put her seat belt back on. “I’ve got something to show you.”

They pulled in front of an older strip mall at a busy intersection. A gas station occupied the second corner, a liquor store the third, and the fenced playground of an elementary school finished the cross. The strip contained a barbershop, a coin laundry, a pawnshop, and an office whose sign proclaimed, The Talent Track. Eden parked in front of the office and got out.

“This is the place. The evidence of our surrender.”

This was the Moore’s business?
When Roscoe had told her that he and Eden had given up a life of wealth and had chosen a simpler life, she imagined a nice office in an office park, not … this.

Before Sonja could let it sink in, a teenager came outside. He waved a slip of paper. “Mrs. Moore! I just got a call from Tinnon’s Printers. They’re giving me a job. At first they were going to give me a delivery job, but when they realized it was you who sent me, and they saw my artwork that you sent … they gave me a real job in the printing department. They’re going to show me how to design stuff.”

Eden hugged the boy, then put a hand against his cheek and absorbed his eyes with a look. “I told you you could do it, Jose. I told you.” She flicked the end of his nose. “But you know the rules. You go to work every day you’re scheduled—on time. You listen to your bosses and no talking back. And don’t you dare act like you know everything because you never will. You show them respect, and they’ll do the same to you. Understand?”

“Understand.” The boy eyed Sonja for the first time. His expression changed from one of joy to distrust. “Who’s she?”

Eden drew Sonja close. “This is Sonja Grafton. She sat next to our dear Roscoe on the plane. She’s one of the survivors, thank the Lord.”

The boy’s eyes grew sad. “I miss him.”

Eden put a hand under his chin. “Indeed. But because we knew him we’re going to go on and work all the harder, aren’t we?”

The boy nodded, but the act was devoid of enthusiasm. He said his good-byes and left. They went inside. The room was furnished with mismatched desks and chairs and a couch in the corner. The walls were painted in bright colors and plastered with inspirational posters. A ballerina on pointe: Get the point. Follow your dream. A student hard at work at a desk with wads of crumpled paper surrounding him: God finds persistence irresistible.

A teenage girl who was huddled at a computer popped up when she saw Eden. “Can I see you, Mrs. Moore?”

“Certainly, Maria.” Eden looked around. The girl was the only one there. “You minding the store for me?”

“Bobby had to go get copy paper. He’ll be right back.”

Eden nodded. “That’s nice of you to stay, but don’t you have a seventh period class?”

“Mr. Bates let me out early because I said I was coming here to talk to you.”

“Nice try, young lady,” Eden said, taking a seat behind a desk, “but next time stay in school until regular dismissal. You know I’m here for you anytime, and school comes first.”