Song of the Brokenhearted (4 page)

Ava missed her daughter's phone call during Thursday morning Bible study. She stood in the foyer of church, adjusting the autumn leaves that decorated the welcome desk, and listened to the voice mail.

“Mom, I'm coming home this weekend. Friday afternoon flight—will text you the details. Can't wait to see you guys and watch the game together. Love you!”

Ava caught how her daughter's voice sounded different—a few tones higher than normal. It surfaced the memory of a summer Sienna had called from camp the year before seventh grade.

“Mom, I'm sick and need to come home,” she'd said. Sienna had claimed stomachaches despite how her friends begged her to stay. This was her third year of college, not summer camp, and though Dane had given her a credit card to fly home whenever she wanted, she'd never actually used it.

Ava tapped a text off to Dane with the news, and despite her concern, she couldn't wait to see her girl.

“Ready?” Kayanne came around the corner from the ladies room, picking up her Bible and study book. “By the way, you told me to remind you before lunch we need to ask a florist or garden person what's wrong with your tree. Oh, and I brought a list of what we're doing for Private Grant's family. The funeral is on Monday.”

Ava looked up with the phone in her hands. “Uh . . . hmm.”

“Hey, you told me to remind you. I have the text message.”

“No, not that . . .” Ava thought about her plans for the next few days. She opened the calendar on her phone, hoping to rearrange her schedule so she'd get plenty of time with her daughter.

“You're canceling on lunch? Why?” Kayanne popped her hands onto her hips. Her purse slipped off her shoulder and down to her elbow.

They'd been friends since the first years of marriage, raised children together, and shared shoulders when Sienna left for college and William joined the air force. Their roles had diverged five years earlier when Kayanne's husband left her for another woman. Yet their friendship had strengthened since that time, even though their lives no longer looked like carbon copies of each other's.

Ava slipped the phone into her bag and wagged a finger at her friend. “Hold the indignation, it's usually you canceling on me.”

Kayanne smiled. “You got me there.”

“I need to drop off gift baskets to those families, but Sienna left a message that she's coming home tomorrow.”

“Wonderful. What's the occasion?”

“No idea. It has me wondering, but of course I can't wait to see her.”

“Just Sienna? Or Preston too?”

“Apparently Sienna only.”

Kayanne frowned. “That's weird.”

Ava loved Kayanne's bluntness, which was exactly why many of the polite churchwomen disliked her.

“She wants to see Jason play football. Her voice sounded off to me.”

“Interesting. And her perfect fiancé isn't coming with her?” Kayanne squinted her blue eyes in thought.

“Don't be sarcastic. I couldn't dream up a better guy for Sienna. He grounds her where she needs grounding but supports her in everything. And I adore him.”

Kayanne rolled her eyes. “He comes from a great family, he'll take care of her financially, and he's a good Christian boy.”

“As if I care about the family part,” Ava said, though sometimes she noticed she felt a sense of pride that her daughter was marrying into a well-connected tribe. “This would have been solved if she and William had married like we planned when they were babies. Everything would be perfect.”

Kayanne sighed. “My son has less patience than I do, plus they think of each other like siblings.”

“True,” Ava said with a laugh.

They walked side by side out of the church. The other women had already left and the large parking lot was nearly empty.

“I'm starving and you dump me. Now you'll miss my newest dating drama. I hope you can handle the suspense.”

“I do so love your dating stories.”

“Yes, tragedies that they are.”

“It won't always be this way, sweetie.” Ava slid her arm around Kayanne's shoulders. “It might be time to bite the bullet. You ready for online dating yet?”

Kayanne snorted, then broke into a laugh.

“What's so funny?” Ava said, smiling as they walked across the parking lot.

Kayanne laughed harder. It took a moment for her to talk.

“In all the years you've known me, would you have ever imagined you'd suggest such a thing to me?”

Ava laughed with her. “I was against it, truth be told. But all those commercials with online success stories are changing my opinion.”

“You're either a marketing person's dream or you know I'm getting desperate.”

Ava clicked her keychain and heard the engine of her Mercedes fire to life. Kayanne was parked beside her in a sun-faded Corolla.

Kayanne set her Bible and study book on the roof of her car as she unlocked the door. “Life takes us on very strange journeys, that's for sure.
Life is weird, then you die
. That should be a bumper sticker.”

“For the hopeless. I'd like something with a bit more cheer.”

“You're right. How about,
God is taking us on a wild ride. Hang on
.”

“It doesn't have quite the same rhythm to it, but that's better.”

“And it's true. But how do we hang on? That's always my problem.”

“Mine as well.”

As Ava waved and drove off, she kept hearing Kayanne's bumper sticker as if God was pressing the message home.
God is taking us on a wild ride. Hang on
.

She brushed away the thoughts. Her life was in a good place. She wasn't looking for any wild rides, divine or otherwise.

“Dad, you aren't paying attention,” Jason said as he watched a sci-fi show, one of the space spinoffs that he and Dane usually watched together. They often discussed the plot and elements of the show, but it sounded like a foreign language to Ava, with all their photon blasters, warp speeds, and light years.

Ava, Jason, and Dane lounged around the living room. Ava held her electronic tablet with her list for Sienna's weekend at home. She'd make her daughter's favorite pumpkin soup and order bread from the brick-oven bakery in town. To appease the guys, Ava would pop a beef stew in the Crock-Pot. They'd go to Jason's football game on Friday night, work on the wedding plans, attend church, and maybe have a movie night at home or see if there was something going on in town. Perhaps they could squeeze in a little retail therapy as well.

“I'm watching, buddy,” Dane said in a voice that only proved his distraction. Dane leaned intently toward his laptop screen with his glasses low on his long, straight nose.

“Did you see what just happened?”

“The galactic treaty was broken again. Awful.”

Jason frowned and let out a distinct groan of annoyance.

“You probably should go to sleep after this,” Ava said, typing in a note to call the housekeeper in the morning.

“What time will Sis get here?” Jason asked without raising his eyes from the television.

“Her flight arrives at two thirty.”

“Cool,” Jason said, jumping up from the couch as his program appeared to be ending. “I'm going to bed. I want to read anyway.”

“Read? As in a book? What about aliens and distant planets?” Ava said.

“My book is about aliens and distant planets,” Jason said, bending down to kiss Ava on the cheek.

“Of course it is. At least it's reading.”

Dane didn't move his eyes from his laptop. “Good night, buddy. We'll catch up on our shows over the weekend.”

“That's what you said last week,” Jason muttered with a scowl tossed Dane's way.

“You can watch it with Sienna this weekend,” Ava reminded him. That seemed to cheer him up as he disappeared around the corner, his heavy footsteps tromping up the stairs.

“Our son is not happy with you,” Ava typed into a chat program. She heard the sound of her message popping up on Dane's screen and smiled as he looked up in surprise.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes bouncing back to his laptop.

“I keep telling you—you're here, but not here. We all notice it.”

Dane nodded with his thick eyebrows scrunched over his eyes.

Jason's growing bitterness at Dane's consuming work schedule was beginning to worry her. Dane had always worked long hours, but in the last months he'd become less available to everyone. Dane continued to promise it would get better, it was the recession, that he was training someone, an essential proposal or meeting or something was going to change it, and that it was all temporary.

Ava missed her husband as well. They usually talked about everything. But Dane talked little about work now, and he wasn't there to hear what was happening in her life either. Their usually bi-monthly dates had taken a hiatus since the previous winter.

“Is everything all right? At work? With you? Our finances?” She hadn't told him she'd found the late bills. When she looked the next day, the bills were gone. Maybe he'd paid them? She'd tried casually bringing up their finances a few times, but Dane always cut her off.

“Good enough. Manageable. Nothing to worry about,” he said, glancing at her, then back to his laptop screen. She stared at him, but he didn't look up.

“You aren't worried about Sienna's surprise visit?”

“She wants to see us. What's to worry about?”

Dane always brushed her concerns away as being a mom-thing. He'd once said she seemed to seek problems to be concerned about when it came to the kids.

Sometimes Ava longed for a sister or a mother—or at least for Aunt Jenny to still be alive. What would they say about her life? Ava had wondered that many times over the years. Aunt Jenny would undoubtedly be proud of her. But Ava's mother had died when she was a child, and her memories were like images smudged with rain.

An e-mail popped into the in-box, distracting her from her thoughts. A note from Corrine Bledshoe caught her eye with the subject line: "With Concern"

Dear Ava,

I have wanted to talk to you about Broken Hearts. This is a difficult subject for me to broach, so I hope it comes across accurately via e-mail. Your schedule has been too demanding for a face-to-face, so e-mail seems right to begin this conversation. I hope I am not mistaken.

Ava rolled her eyes. She could guess where this was going and she opened her mouth to comment, but the intensity in Dane's stiff shoulders and his tight lips kept her silent. She returned to reading the e-mail:

I was reviewing our work in the past year. Last month, we helped organize a fund-raiser for Professor Timothy Torini. Professor Torini is well known for his very liberal opinions and outspoken pro-choice views.

Just a month earlier, we sent meals to that family with the son who was an antiwar protester and got paralyzed in a demonstration in DC.

Mixed in between those, we've been offering supportive services to the families of our lost soldiers and that one who came home after losing both his legs.

There was also that woman who had been married five times, though I can't remember what we did for her.

Do you see how our support of all of these varied people might offer a confused view of what we believe and what our church is about? What kind of message are we sending to the community? Should we support any kind of sin as if we accept it?

I'm wondering what Pastor Randy would think of this? I know we need to reach beyond the borders of our church, but should our funds be used to promote sinful, anti-Christian behavior?

I know that you were instrumental in starting Broken Hearts, but I think this might be a good time to reevaluate the mission statement and direction. I want God's blessings on all we do. Do you as well?

Ava hit Reply before finishing the e-mail.

We aren't sending a message to the community other than if anyone is in a desperate state, we will be there to help you. Jesus didn't condemn, so why should we? The gospel is about grace. And you are just a mean, spiteful woman! And by the way, Broken Hearts is not supported through church funds, so don't give veiled threats—Pastor Randy supports everything we do anyway . . .