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Chapter 29


© Copyright 2008 by Elizabeth Delayne


Rod did not complain when they walked back into the gym and Joanna was snatched from his steady hand. Avoiding most of the crowd, he stood in the dimming shadows and watched her mingle. She’d bloomed in the last few weeks where she’d withered, handling the people and the situation with a confidence that was reminiscent of the Jo Berkley he had once known. She seemed so at ease here, in this weird setting of past and present, even when he knew her heart was troubled.

“Have you talked to her?”

Rod jumped as the familiar voice tackled him from behind. He turned and met Steve’s concerned eyes with his own.

He shook his head, “I haven’t had a chance.”

“Everything’s going to be alright.”

“It has to be. I don’t want anything to come between us,” he could feel the hairs rising on his neck, remembering how he had humiliated her, understanding now where the link between them had turned, spoiled, leaving them feeling more enemies than friends.

The past had been coated, their mutual affection for each other hidden under a cloud of hurt, tampering with their emotions and their memories over the last ten years.

“I think she has forgiven me, but I want to make sure she’s forgiven the person I was that night,” Rod shook his head, anguish in his eyes. “I just—I can’t ...”

“It was only words Rod, and Jo’s stood the test of harder material. Her parent’s were full of it. Even I knew that.”

Rod drew in a deep breath in an attempt to push everything back where it had been moments before.

“Where’s that wife of yours? Were you planning on hiding her all night?”

Steve laughed, shaking his head, “She left me for a bit so we could talk.”

“She’s a good woman.”

“The best.”

Rod slapped Steve on the back, “and she married the best.”

* * *


As Melissa Graton, senior class secretary and head cheerleader their senior year, made her way to the microphone, Rod once again sought out Joanna and caught her hand within his. She looked up at him and met his tender smile with her own grateful one.

The song ended, leaving the gym in an odd silence as the dancing slowly came to a halt. Slowly the talking stopped as they turned to see Melissa waiting. The paper in her hands shook once, belying the emotion behind her relaxed posture. Her eyes scanned the crowd, finding and locking with Joanna’s in sympathy and warmth before she began her prepared speech.

“I guess you all have heard about Bethany Parker—later Johnson, that graduated from our class as Homecoming Queen and one of the most treasured of our classmates. Five years ago, Bethany was killed in a car accident along with her child. A son.” Joanna felt Rod’s fingers tighten around her hand. She fought at the tears, lost.

“Bethany Parker was a wonderful person, the best listener I knew. In her husbands own words, ‘she gave out hugs like candy, smiles like pennies and laughter like the stars in the sky.’ Bethany even touched me, helped me see past my own popularity to make the friends that I still have in some of you. Many of you remember the change she made. She loved our class, the people gathered here tonight, as much as she loved our school and gladly paraded her school spirit. She is not the only person we have lost from our class, nor can I argue that she is the most missed, yet she was a beautiful person we all remember and loved.”

Melissa stopped for a few tense moments to control the strain in her own voice. “There’s a memorial table set up to Bethany and the other nineteen members of our 287 member class that have passed away in our ten years of separation,” she took a deep breath, looking down at her notes, and then met the eyes of the crowd again, calm. “Now, it gives me the pleasure of announcing our Royal Dance. I don’t think that there would have been anything more fitting then for us to present this honor, to these two people, whom Bethany loved. Rod Kirkland, Homecoming King and Class President, will dance with Joanna Berkley our own Vice President and Bethany’s best friend.”

Joanna looked up, startled, into Rod’s shining eyes. She did not notice the crowd around them step back to give them room. He reached out a hand, clasped the other.

“Will you dance with me, Joanna?”

Joanna smiled, a single tear sliding down her cheek as she laughed softly, knowing the whole room was watching. Feeling a little of the old pride rear at having her emotions put on display, she pushed it back and moved into the slow turn with him, “Do I really have much of a choice?”

He took her in his arms, his hands at her waist, holding her hand, “No,” he told her with a small chuckle. They moved smoothly, the soft music a distant melody to the emotions between them. The crowd stood by and watched as they danced, “I’ve got you right where I want you.”

“Yeah? Well, ditto.” Joanna leaned slightly against him, forgetting about the people around them, missing the money pass to Robert Clemmons from another, less cheerful classmate, but Rod saw and winked at his friend.

Joanna felt tears as people swirled around them, ignored both. She was in the future now, holding onto the man she loved with all her heart. The present was blossoming beautifully.

The past ... the years of high school that she had treasured and hated, were disappearing out the windows of her heart ... windows that Rod had helped her open.

Their song ended too soon, but Rod kept her close and danced with her a little while longer. She closed her eyes, leaned into him, and soared. When they finally stepped off the dance floor, and grabbed some punch, people had begun to trickle out.

“Are you ready to jet?” Rod asked softly as he slipped his arm around her.

Joanna looked up at him and shook her head. “I have to help with clean up.”

“No you don’t.”

“Rod—”

“Melissa said she had everything covered. You’ve pulled more than your weight with this, let Melissa do something. She’s having a blast.”

Joanna let her eyes find her friend in the crowd, watched as she was hugged by a classmate, her laughter spilling across the gym. Remembering the once distant girl, Joanna smiled, indeed seeing the change Bethany’s presence had brought.

“Yeah, I guess she is. She was always into this sort of thing.”

“And she knows that I want to get you out of here,” he added, taking her hand.

With Rod leading the way, they said simple goodbyes to people that had been a part of their lives a decade ago. A few, like Steve and Melissa, had lasting places in their hearts, in the future. This night of looking back had changed little ... except, Joanna thought, that the hole of Bethany’s death, had finally begun to really heal, allowed her to deal with the memories.



“Where are we going?” Joanna asked after Rod turned out of the high school parking lot, heading in a different direction than her house.

Rod mumbled something, his face masked in the car’s dim light. It was after eleven thirty, but she was far from tired, so she did not complain. Resting her head back against the car’s head rest, she closed her eyes and listened to the radio.

Sometime later, Joanna heard the click of a seat belt unbuckling, realized it was her own as she felt the strap loosen then slither across her body.

“Joanna?” Rod whispered, not far from her right ear, “come back to me.”

His hand rubbed her cheek gently. The car was no longer moving. She felt the breeze on her cheek, heard the lapping of water, crickets orchestrating in the back ground.

“Rod?” she asked as she opened her eyes.

She saw his smile, felt it pierce into the confusion. Removing his hand from her cheek, he guided her out of the car. She stopped, lost her breath, her balance. His hand steadied her.

They were at the lake—where they had gone for their senior picnic. It was the same as that night—except there was no music, no colored paper lanterns floating on the lake or lining the dock. People weren’t milling around to where it was almost crowded. No tables overloaded with food and empty wrappers. No one was dancing. She was alone with Rod in the one place she feared, the one place she hated.

It was quiet, dark. The emotions gurgled from within. She could not help the helpless sound that rose from her throat when she spoke.

“Rod?”

“It’s okay,” he soothed, shutting the car door and leading her down to the dock. Her palms were suddenly damp and her hand trembled in his, but he forced himself to continue as he prayed for God’s strength. He never would have believed that this fear, this hurt, lay between them.

The dock moaned underneath their steps, the lake sparkled in the moonlight. As they reached the end of the dock, Rod turned to her, leaning against the railing. “I just wanted to talk to you, Joanna,” he began, his eyes, easy to read, expressing both his love and regret. “We need to get this behind us.”

Joanna dropped her eyes, but nodded. She knew he was right, fought the need to run—anything to keep from facing the humiliation of that night.

“I called Steve earlier this week,” Rod told her, “You said that Matt knew I had hurt you very deeply and that he was afraid I would do it again. I couldn’t get your words out of my mind. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember anytime I’d hurt you so much ... enough to make you this afraid of me.”

Joanna looked up then and met his eyes, her own begging him, spearing him with her uncertainty, “I’m not afraid of you.”

“But you’re afraid of this ... of dealing with it, afraid of dealing with me. Of who I was and who I told you that you were.”

She could not deny his words. She reached out for the deck’s rail, needing it’s ridged support and looked out at the glistening lake. He had led her—goaded her into admitting her true, deep feelings for him, of admiration, or girlish love and trust. Then he’d mocked her, shamed her, destroyed her.

Rod turned to view her profile. He could see she was struggling, could almost feel the waves as they rolled over her. “Steve told me the whole story ... about a time I had forgotten and been too drunk to remember. I’d been drinking. I’d forgotten that. I forgot all about that.”

“It was right after your grandfather died.”

“Several weeks, but that’s not a reason, Joanna,” Rod reminded her, hearing the sympathy in her voice and not wanting it. “I had no excuse for treating you like I did.”

He sighed, still watching her. “We were here and though chaperoned, someone got in some kind of alcohol. I got loaded and then came after you. I danced with you, embarrassed you into opening yourself up to me,” pain filled his voice, “and then when you backed away from me, I yelled at you. I told you that you were nothing and no one, anywhere, would ever love you. I grabbed you by the arm, wanting to hurt you, hurting you emotionally and physically, then pushed you off the dock.”

She jerked, her fingers stiff around the dock’s rail, remembering the sudden burst of humiliation, the pain. Still feeling the cold water as it surrounded her, shocking the tears away.

“In the back of my mind I suppose I was jealous of you—that much I can remember. You held my grandfather’s heart in your hand, but he was my grandfather. I thought myself better than you—better than everyone. I know where the words came from,” he told her, finally reaching out to touch her. He had no idea how much she needed that touch. She needed to know things had not changed between them.

“The day before my grandfather died, you were at the hospital with him and I came up and listened outside the door. He told you he loved you and that he was proud of you. The last of his energy, the last of his time spent of his life he was ministering to you.”

“He fell asleep after you left and only woke up once more. I never got a chance to talk to him again. I had pushed the feelings aside for weeks, not wanting to deal with them, not really understanding that they were there. I needed someone to hurt with. I came to your game and helped you, prayed with you, telling myself over and over again it was what he would have wanted.”

“But as the weeks past, it was harder to deal with. I remember avoiding you. We fought more. Everything we said to each other escalated. At the party, under the alcohol, everything rolled over. I wanted to humiliate you—I wanted a those few precious moments to come back with my grandfather so I could spend them with him. It was foolish. I wanted my grandfather back, but I acted in a way that would have shamed him. More than shamed him.”

A small tear slid down Joanna’s cheek as Rod reached out and drew her against him. She began to cry, her heart pouring out all the sobs and hurt she had felt that night. Why it came back now, she did not know. Surely she had forgiven him ... pushed the memory back.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” she whispered, working the words around the pain and the past, “I was so relieved that you were talking to me again ... and then you and ... and it hurt. It hurt so bad.”

“Joanna,” Rod searched for the right words, forcing himself to remain strong because she needed him, “I treated you hatefully then, and I promise those feelings of jealously have long since gone. Will you forgive me? Reckless as I was?”

Joanna pushed away and met his shimmering eyes with her own, felt a weight lift from her heart that she hadn’t known she carried, hadn’t understood that it lay between them.

“Rod, I have forgiven you. That day at the park when I said we should put everything behind us, I was speaking of this too. I wasn’t sure if you remembered.”

He reached up, wiped the tears from her cheeks gently away with his thumb, “I was such a fool.”

“A young fool,” Joanna reminded him, feeling a peace settling around her. The dock suddenly lost its frightening grip and turned into a beautiful setting before her eyes, “and though no one can go back and change what they have done in the past, they can restore themselves for the future. Thank you.”

Rod reached out and took her hands in his. Looking up into the star-speckled sky, he prayed, “Father, I thank You for leading and helping us restore our future. Only through you can pure restoration take place. I give you our lives, Father, to open and close doors in our future. Be a light unto our path. Lead and we’ll obey.”

“Amen.” Joanna echoed after him. She met his eyes and smiled. “I have to admit, Rod, I felt pretty good when Steve told me how you’d suffered the next morning.”

“I’m sure you did. He said that you two talked about it ... that you worked through it together. I didn’t remember anything about it, besides waking with a hangover and my parent’s ready to kill me. Some parts have come back, like an image, but it’s—”

“I know,” Joanna’s eyes twinkled, the weight of the night dissolved. “I’ve always known, I suppose. Matt was the one I called to come pick me up. I was shaking so bad and Matt has never handled female things like that well and in his defense, it really ripped him up. It was Mr. Razor who told me to call him. Mr. Razor who kept Matt away from you.”

“Good old Mr. Razor. Helped me get out of the party without getting caught. Steve said he knew something was wrong. Took me home to my parents and let them deal with me instead of the school. As I said, I do remember that.”

“Let you off easy.”

“Hah. You don’t know my parents then.”

Laughing, Joanna started to turn again and look out at the lake. Rod reached out and turned her to face him, “I meant what I said.”

“Rod, I know you’re sorry—”

“No,” Rod stopped her, “I meant in the prayer that I wanted God to lead us. I love you. I want to marry you Joanna. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Joanna nodded, her face expressionless. “I guess I knew that too ... in my heart,” she smiled, meekly, “and in my dreams I’ve hoped. I love you, too, Rod Kirkland and yeah, I want a future with you.”

Rod groaned and reached out to draw her close. He kissed her, only the crickets and Heavenly presences around to watch. When he pushed back, he let his gaze memorize her one more time and then released her. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small jewelry box. Joanna met his gaze only briefly before he opened it. She gasped with delight, as she saw the ring, her reaction pleasing Rod. The small diamond was nestled deep within the gold, sparkling wildly in the moonlight.

“Will you marry me, Joanna Lynn Berkley, join our lives together in service for God?”

Joanna looked up and met his eyes. For perhaps the first time in her life, she was not ashamed of the tears that spilled out of her eyes. “Yes, I will ... I will.”

Rod slipped the ring out of the box and gently took her hand. Joanna watched him slide the ring on her finger, his gentle touch sending a buzz of electricity through her. Standing on tip-toe, she kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck so she could hold him close.



Later, as they stood on the dock, Joanna leaned against him as they looked out at the lake. An odd thought crossed her mind. “How long have you been planning to ask me on tonight?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“We’ve only been together a couple of weeks.”

“Two months,” Rod reminded her, “and we’ve known each other for a long time. It’s these past months that we’ve been in love.”

Joanna smiled, cherishing the sound of hearing the word love from him. “Did you have the ring with you all night?”

“Mmm-hmmm. I had thought about asking you during the Royal dance ... but I wanted to make sure you felt comfortable enough to say no.”

“Rod Kirkland,” Joanna pushed away from him, her eyes sparkling. She felt light, giddy, “haven’t you figured out by now that I don’t have any problems picking fights with you? I thought we did a good job at that.”

Rod laughed and once again reached for her.

“Rod—” she stopped the kiss, suddenly remembering, “Did you bring the receipt with you?”

“What receipt?”

“The one for my truck?”

“Mmm. I’ve got it somewhere,” he muttered, stopping the thought with a kiss—and she forgot all about it all over again.


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