Savage Love (22 page)

     “
Daffyd James Sayvage, that is quite enough!” Samantha said using her teacher voice again.

     “This…
woman
is trying to kill me!” Daffyd yelled.

     “Stop yelling
, Daffyd, we’re right here, and no,
this
woman is trying to save your life. The other one you allowed to come in and take over was the one trying to kill you, and she almost succeeded. Stop behaving like a spoiled rock star, Mr. Savage, and start behaving like a human being,” Samantha said calmly as the others came quietly into the room.

     “Oh great, now she’s gonna tell everyone who I am and ruin everything…” he cried.

     “For your information she has known all along who you
are.
Do you honestly think she would still be here if it mattered to her at all? Of course not, she’d be selling her story to all the tabloids and be sitting pretty,
not
standing here letting some petulant child try to bully her,” countered Samantha.

     “Samantha you don’t understand, I have
cancer
and am
hurting
! I need something to take away the pain,” he tried a new tactic.

     “I understand perfectly. You sang for years, making money off of your songs that glorified drug use, and now you are getting firsthand experience of what that is like. This isn’t the cancer
, Daffyd, it’s the drugs…you’re going through withdrawals,” she tried to explain when he interrupted her.

    “Oh, and you
’re all ecstatic to be able to watch me suffer through this…what…divine retribution, is that why you are here?” he said sarcastically.

     “Is that what you really think of us Daffyd? You need to grow up! We are all here because we
love
you. If you can’t see that…well, then I am done. Kate stays or I go.” Samantha looked over her shoulder to where the others were standing and said, “Do you feel like making a trip to the airport, Leal?”

      “Ok…” said Daffyd quietly. “She stays.”

      “No more bullying, of Kate or anyone else. You all will not let him ride rough shod over you. Trisha and Leal, you are no longer employees here, so he can’t fire you. You will pray for this man and you will be yourselves. Bryce, no more walking on eggshells, and Seanna…you just do what you always do,” she finished with her steam running out. “Now we are going to go and finish our
cold
meal, and, Kate, you come and eat with us. Daffyd will be fine for a few minutes alone. It might do him some good.”

     “Samantha
, wait…” said Daffyd. She turned back and stood in front of the bed waiting with her hands on her hips. Daffyd was looking up at her face.

     “Did you just say that you loved me?” he asked quietly.

     “Oh, for goodness sake, Daffyd, of course I love you, why else do you think I would stay here and put up with your foolishness. Grow up!” and with that she stormed out the door while he sat there smiling.

Chapter 22

Peace on Earth

     Things began to look up at
The Mountain Home. It was two days before Christmas and Daffyd was eating well, walking around a bit and was completely finished with all withdrawal symptoms. They had all discussed his treatment options, all six of them, and decided that Daffyd was not going to have anymore treatments for a while. He hadn’t yet surrendered his heart, or asked Jesus to be his Lord, but with all the prayers and Bible reading, he believed that God could heal him. The rest of them agreed that it was a good beginning. In fact Kate had gone home to spend the holidays with her family, now that Daffyd had become more stable. She told them she could come any time to help out. Samantha had taken the role of the head of the house and had told Daffyd that Trisha and Leal were back on the payroll.

     Bryce, Seanna and Leal had gone out for a Christmas tree, Trisha was in the kitchen doing what she did best, and was preparing all sorts of holiday treats. She even made some old fashioned Christmas cut out sugar cookies and was letting them cool for everyone to decorate together. Samantha was with D
affyd in his room wrapping a few things that he had ordered months ago over the internet.

     “I feel so bad, I don’t have anything to give out,” said Samantha.

     “I just feel blessed that I have someone to give gifts to,” said Daffyd. “If you all hadn’t come back to rescue me, I would be all alone with that crazy woman, or dead.”

     “I don’t understand how you allowed her to take over the way she did,” she said.

     “At first, I guess I really didn’t care. When you wrote me that last letter…well…I guess I just lost all hope. My life had been so much different since meeting you… and I guess I just couldn’t face going back to the way it was before,” he explained. “Then once she upped the dosage of all those drugs, I was too out of it to notice. I remember her asking me a lot of questions about Bryce, how old he was and if he would inherit everything. Now I can see she was scheming from the beginning. I think she had plans to live here nice and comfy until I died and then somehow snag Bryce and ‘win the lottery.’”

     “I
am
sorry Daffyd for the way I handled all of this, you know…between us. I guess we both fell back to our old standbys, me and my mask and you and your anger at God. We both just let our hearts harden again and were behaving selfishly.”

     “You’re right. Why do you think we are so slow to learn? I’m surprised that God continues to have any patience with us. Sometimes I feel like I’ve just screwed up too much for him to ever want me back,” he confided.

     “I guess we are no different than all the people in the Bible. They certainly weren’t perfect. David, the ‘man after God’s own heart’ had an affair with a married woman, and then had her husband killed. Abraham and Isaac both lied about their wives, saying they weren’t married just to protect their own hides. Peter denied Christ three times
after
Jesus even warned him. I could keep going, but the point is that forgiveness is just His nature. He
is
Love. He doesn’t just have it, or use it,” said Samantha.

     “Sometimes it just seems so overwhelming. I feel like I can almost hear Him, and then…I don’t know…I guess I get scared,” he said.

     “What are you afraid of?” she asked.

     “I don’t know…rejection, maybe. Maybe that I will expect too much and be let down…” he said quietly.

     “I wish I had some easy answer for you, really I do. But we all have to come to the place where we need Him more than anything else, when nothing else will satisfy. I guess that’s where my problem was. I expected Richard to fill a spot that only a relationship with God could. Then when I discovered my feelings for you, I put those first. We need to love God more than anything and anyone, and that isn’t always easy,” said Samantha.

     “Don’t give up on me, Samantha. I may be taking a long time to figure this all out, but I want it to be real.”

     “I won’t give up on you, but seriously, you don’t have to ‘figure’ anything out Daffyd. You just have to believe. I don’t understand it all. I just know He loves me, and that’s enough for me,” she explained.

     “I guess that’s where I am having trouble, getting around my head and letting my heart take over,” said Daffyd.

     “Well…you’ve been able to let your heart lead with me, haven’t you?” she said with a smile.

     “I just couldn’t help myself!” he smiled back.

     “You’ll get to that place with God, too Daffyd. You will see who He really is, and you won’t be able to control it. You’ll fall madly in love with Him,” she promised.

     “You know, I’ve been thinking about my parents a lot lately. I guess I’m feeling guilty for shutting them out all these years. They
are great people; they raised me in a home filled with love and acceptance. What I saw as controlling was really an attempt to protect me from all the junk that I ended up going through. I’ve been thinking of calling them and trying to repair all the damage I’ve done.”

     “Will you tell them that you’ve been sick?” she asked.

     “Before, I thought that I didn’t want to worry them, but now I think I was afraid that somehow their knowing would make it more real. That sounds so incredibly stupid, but it’s true. So…yeah, I think it’s time to come clean about it all. I wish I would have done it sooner and maybe they would have been able to come for Christmas. Now it’s too late, they always put on a big dinner at their house and invite people who don’t have families around. Every year they invite Bryce and me, but I have consistently turned them down. Bryce of coarse stays with me so I won’t be alone, which also sounds very selfish. I’m starting to make myself sick thinking of the way I have treated the people who love me…” he said sadly.

     “Then don’t think about it! Let’s finish up this wrapping and go see what that wonderful smell is coming from the kitchen. Then later, if you want, I’ll sit with you while you call your mom and dad.”

     Not much later Leal and Bryce were dragging a huge tree into the house. Leal had already made a make shift tree stand big enough to hold it. The boys set it up right in front of the big windows and it went up as high as the bedroom balcony. It was no sooner up and well watered when they realized that the few decorations that Daffyd owned wouldn’t begin to cover the tree. Samantha
camped Daffyd out on the couch, close to the fireplace and covered him with blankets, then went to pop popcorn to string. Bryce and Seanna went looking for scissors, glue and paper, and Trisha and Leal started hanging the lights. Fortunately Daffyd had strung some lights outside the house a few years back and had enough to cover the tree from top to bottom with pure white lights. They all moved to the kitchen table and decorated the cookies, made paper chains and strung popcorn.

     “Um, Daffyd, I think that the frosting is supposed to go on your cookie, not in your mouth,” said Seanna seriously with her eyebrows
raised.

     “You frost what you want to, and I’ll frost what I want to, little girl,” said Daffyd as he piped more red frosting into his mouth.

     “If we run out of frosting, we’ll have to cut out your tongue and hang it on the tree for a decoration,” warned Bryce.

     “Ok,
ok! I am putting the frosting on this fat red Santa…see?” he said holding up the finished cookie.

     “That’s better,” said Seanna in a perfect imitation of her Mom’s teacher’s voice.

     “Don’t you think you should take a break and get a little nap in before dinner?” asked Trisha.

     “If you will promise to wait and decorate the tree after I wake up.”

     “Deal,” said Trisha.

     Bryce walked with his uncle up the stairs, just to make sure he didn’t need some help on the way. Trisha and Samantha cleaned up the cookie mess, most of it Daffyd’s
, while Seanna and Leal continued to string popcorn. Samantha felt full. A week ago her heart was empty and hard and now she didn’t think she had room for another drop of happiness.
Well maybe a little more…if Daffyd was cancer free and if he could once and for all surrender himself to God. I could handle that!

     “What are you smiling about?” asked Trisha.

     “I am just happy,” said Samantha, “to be back here and for Daffyd to be doing so much better. I’m so glad you two came back. I feel like we are all a family and I’m so grateful that God has given me a second chance at that.”

     “I have to admit, this is going to be the best Christmas that we’ve had in years. I only wish that Daffyd’s parents could be here. He is so stubborn about that. You’d think he would want to spend as much time as he can with them,” said Trisha.

     “Actually, we were just talking about that this morning. He plans on calling them today, but said that it would be too late for them to change their plans and come,” Samantha said.

     “Mom, Trisha, come here for a minute,” said Seanna. “I heard what you said about Daffyd’s parents and I thought you should know…they will be here for Christmas.”

     “What?” Trisha and Samantha both exclaimed.

     “Well, Bryce invited them. He sent them a letter asking them to come for Christmas before he left school. His plan was to surprise Daffyd and force him to reconcile with his grandparents. Then when everything happened, he kind of spaced it off. They called him yesterday and…well…they’ll be here tomorrow, you know for Christmas Eve…” she trailed off.

     “How in the world are we going to explain everything to them!?” asked Samantha as she slumped into the nearest chair.

     “
We
don’t have to,” said Leal.

     “You’re right
, Hun. We’ll leave that to Daffyd,” agreed Trisha.