Changing Her Heart Page 4

  She couldn’t figure out what he thought was strange about her story, although she couldn’t really remember talking to him previously about her mother, or about Bryce. Of all the things they’d talked about, family was something that had never entered a conversation, hers or his. She’d even had the impression that he avoided the topic. Thinking about it now made her suddenly curious.

  “I guess I didn’t tell you. My dad died when we were kids. My sister is older than me, and she’s been married for a while. I moved out when I got the job downtown. So now it’s just Bryce and Mom left at the house.”

  “I’m so sorry. Not about your brother. About your dad. That must have been awful.”

  Lacey swallowed hard. She’d almost told him about it at the booth in the mall, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it then. With the church service about to start soon, she didn’t want to talk about it now, either. Yet she knew she had to tell him something, so he wouldn’t accidentally upset her mother by saying the wrong thing, not knowing what had happened.

  She lowered her gaze to the floor. “When he died, he left Mom with three small kids. We had a lot of struggles but we made it, with a lot of help. After Bryce finished high school he worked for a couple of years, then managed to get a student loan for university. He’s been living at home, but Mom sees how hard the commute is, so she told him that for this last year, he should stay in the dorm. It’s going to be best for Bryce, but hard on my mom. When Bryce moves out next week, Mom’s going to be all alone for the first time. She’s devoted her life to us kids.”

  Randy cleared his throat. “So you must be older than, uh, your brother?”

  “Yes. I’m three years older than Bryce, and two years younger than Susan. Are you okay? Your voice sounds funny. Are you coming down with a cold?”

  He cleared his throat again and touched his fingertips to his neck. “No. I think I just have a frog in my throat. I’m fine.”

  Lacey tipped her head to the side. “I probably should have said something sooner, but we never seem to talk about family.”

  His whole body stiffened. “I don’t have much to tell. I didn’t live with my parents all the time. I sometimes lived at my best friend’s parents’ house.” He turned and began to play with some of the settings on the soundboard.

  She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

  Despite his claim that there wasn’t much to tell, Lacey suspected there was. She turned toward the sanctuary, which was starting to fill up. “Are any of them here? Can I meet them?”

  “Unfortunately, my parents don’t go to church, and Bob’s parents don’t go here. They go to the church across from the arena, where I used to go, as well. The associate pastor from there, along with Bob, Adrian, Paul and I, and a small group of other people, started this church. We’ve come a long way from twenty-seven people, don’t you think?”

  “Wow. I’m impressed.”

  “It’s God’s work, not mine, or anyone else’s in the ministry team.”

  The worship team stopped playing and left the stage and Randy switched to a CD, setting it to play softly in the background.

  “Are you going to join your friends? I mean, at my church, the worship team always prays before the service.”

  “Usually I would, but I don’t want to leave you here all alone.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. Go pray with your friends.”

  He turned to go, paused and then left.

  While Randy was gone, Lacey watched as the sanctuary continued to fill up.

  Even though it was her first time here, she felt comfortable. But that shouldn’t have been a surprise. It appeared that Randy hadn’t had a happy childhood, yet he had settled into a niche that was good for him. He’d found good friends, a good church, and he was happy.

  Lacey smiled. Randy was more than just happy; she thoroughly enjoyed his offbeat sense of humor.

  The past few days she found that she could hardly wait for the end of the day so she could see Randy again.

  Her smile dropped. After the party was over, she wouldn’t have any reason to see Randy. Unless, of course, she continued to give him a ride home every day.

  Lacey’s heart began to pound.

  If she had been trying to tell herself that she wasn’t attracted to Randy, she was only deluding herself. She did like him, and she was starting to like him a lot. But she needed to find out more about him, including how he felt about her.

  “I’m back. Did you miss me?”

  She had missed him, but she didn’t want to admit it, so she merely shrugged her shoulders.

  He grinned. “Good. I missed you, too.”

  Lacey quickly sent up a prayer of thanks to God for the answer to one of the questions she hadn’t yet dared to ask.

  Randy flipped a switch, and a screen floated down. He flipped another switch and hit a few buttons on a computer beside the soundboard, and the words to the first worship song appeared.

  Lacey focused her attention on the screen, and pushed all other thoughts out of her mind.

  This was not the time to think about what might happen between herself and Randy. She was at church and she was there to set some time aside to worship God, not think about her personal life.

  But after the party maybe, just maybe, she would have her answers.

  “Surprise!”

  Lacey watched Bryce’s face pale, then turn ten shades of red. All their friends and family laughed, then broke out into applause. Beside him, their mother squealed with delight.

  “We did it,” Lacey whispered to Randy. “Look at him! He’s really surprised.”

  “I think he’s past surprised. He’s gone into shock.”

  Lacey ran forward and gave her brother a big hug, which made everyone in the room cheer and applaud even more.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Bryce admitted as he glanced back and forth at the room full of people.

  Following her example, their niece and nephew, Kaitlyn and Shawn, also ran forward. Kaitlyn leaped into Bryce’s arms.

  “Happy birthday, Uncle Bryce!” Kaitlyn squealed with glee. “We all gots you a surprise!”

  Bryce smiled and gave Kaitlyn a hug. “Yes, I’m sure surprised,” he said, giving her a peck on the cheek.

  Lacey removed Kaitlyn from Bryce’s arms and set her on the floor. “Go see your mom, okay, Kaitlyn?” she whispered, then took Bryce by the hand and pulled him in the direction of his bedroom.

  “What are you doing?” His voice lowered. “Everyone is following us. I didn’t make my bed this morning.”

  Lacey barely suppressed a giggle. “Don’t worry. The next surprise is that I made your bed for you. Just don’t expect it to ever happen again.”

  That said, she shuffled behind him, and gave him a gentle nudge into the room, where Randy had set up the new computer on Bryce’s desk. On the monitor, the multicolored message “Happy Birthday!” rolled across the screen.

  Bryce’s mouth dropped open. “What have you done?”

  “Happy birthday!” everyone chorused behind him.

  As Bryce disappeared from her side to go to the desk, Randy shuffled in to take Bryce’s place beside her.

  Bryce picked up the large card, which Randy had set on top of the keyboard, and opened it. While Bryce read the card and responded to everyone as he read their comments, more people continued to squeeze into the small bedroom to watch.

  The more the room filled up, the closer she and Randy had to move together, until he was pressed into her from her shoulder to her knee.

  She looked up to his face to see if she could judge his response. Almost as if he could sense her movement, he turned his head and looked down at her.

  His voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Hi,” he muttered, and at the same moment as he spoke, his fingers intertwined with hers, and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

  Lacey blushed. She didn’t know what to do, and she didn’t know if they should be holding hands, but she didn’t want to let go.
She also had to accept his action as a signal that something was happening between them, and that he felt the same way she did.

  The room quieted as Bryce lowered the card. “Thank you, everyone. I don’t know what to say.”

  Everyone started talking at the same time, offering their suggestions, mostly about taking turns using the new computer.

  Lacey raised herself on her tiptoes and leaned toward Randy so he could hear her. “Do you want to show him how to work everything?”

  He leaned back down to reply. “It’s just a standard computer. He’ll know what to do. I’ll help him set up his e-mail and configure the settings later, when he’s not the center of attention.”

  “I don’t know. He looks a little flustered.”

  Bryce chose that moment to look directly at Lacey. His lost expression made up her mind. She tightened her grip on Randy’s hand and led him a few steps forward, until they were standing beside the chair where Bryce sat.

  “Bryce, this is Randy. He’s the one who helped me buy the computer.”

  Bryce stood. As he caught a glimpse of their joined hands, he raised his eyebrows. He looked up and shook Randy’s free hand. “That must have been a challenge. Lacey is afraid of computers.”

  “Am not,” Lacey retorted.

  Bryce looked at her, but spoke to Randy. “She is.”

  Randy grinned. “But she’s learning.”

  Lacey released Randy’s hand and stepped back. “I should go help in the kitchen. Everyone is probably starving.” She pressed through the crowd and hurried to the kitchen, where her mother and her sister were busily removing the canapés from the oven and setting them on serving platters.

  “Mom. Susan. It looks like we’re almost ready. Things are going really well.”

  Her mother stopped fussing with the food, and straightened. “He was so surprised! And there are so many more people here than I expected. This is wonderful. But this means there are more people to feed.”

  That so many had been invited was no surprise to Lacey. The rented home was small, the furnishings were worn, but everyone was always welcome, and her mother had a habit of being generous when inviting people for a celebration that involved food.

  There had been many times in their family’s history when God had provided for them when they couldn’t provide for themselves. Now that their family was doing better, her mother did her best to provide for others, despite her humble means.

  Lacey swept one hand through the air, above the table, which was covered with trays of food. “You still have enough for double the amount of people here. I don’t know why you do this.”

  Her mother grinned, and reached into the oven for the second tray. “I can’t let anyone go home hungry.”

  Lacey turned to Susan, who was pressing the candles into the cake. “I was thinking about putting the cake in the middle of the dining room table, but I don’t know if there will be enough room.”

  Susan spoke without raising her head. “I’ve al ready moved the centerpiece. It’s fine.”

  Lacey froze. Susan’s voice had been too quiet, and too controlled. Added to the fact that Susan hadn’t looked at her when she spoke, it gave Lacey a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.

  “Susan, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Susan answered quietly without looking up, which was all the answer Lacey needed. Something was definitely wrong, and it could only be something to do with Eric.

  Lacey struggled to remember if she’d seen Eric in the crowd. She hadn’t.

  Lacey helped carry the food into the dining room. Her mother called everyone to eat, and after one of the men from her church paused for a prayer of thanks, the guests descended on the food like a swarm of locusts.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Lacey noticed that Bryce and Randy filled their plates quickly and quietly, then disappeared back into the bedroom together.

  Since they were obviously occupied, Lacey returned to the kitchen, where she found Susan, sitting at the table with her head bowed, picking more than she was eating.

  Lacey sat beside Susan, speaking quietly and softly. “What’s wrong?”

  Susan pushed at a mushroom cap with her fork. “Same ol’, same ol’,” she grumbled.

  What was wrong didn’t take much imagination. Eric had obviously been drinking again, and done something to hurt Susan. The only unknown was that Lacey didn’t know if this time he’d spent too much money, dipping into the mortgage money to buy drinks for his friends at the bar, if he’d damaged the car, if he’d done something to hurt Susan’s feelings or all of the above. Since it was the weekend, it wasn’t likely that he’d lost another job because of his uncontrollable drinking habits. Unless he’d been out with his supervisor and started a fight with him.

  Lacey didn’t want to ask, so she remained silent. She only wanted to be there for Susan, regardless of what Eric had done.

  Susan started to sniffle, but she didn’t raise her head. “Do you remember Grampa’s old violin?”

  “Yes. Especially when he used to put on that old hat and play those funny songs, just to amuse us. But I also remember times he played those sad, haunting melodies. I’ve never heard anyone play a violin like Grampa.”

  Susan sniffled again. “You know that I’ve got his violin, right?”

  Lacey nodded, her stomach dropping.

  “I had it in the china cabinet, so when the kids are old enough to appreciate it, maybe they might take lessons.”

  “That’s a sweet idea.”

  A big, fat tear rolled down Susan’s cheek. “I don’t know why he did it, but Eric took the violin out of the cabinet this afternoon. I knew he’d been drinking, so I told him to put it back. He just laughed and started fooling around with it, pretending he was playing it. But it slipped out of his hands, bounced off the coffee table and then he accidentally stepped on it.” More tears flowed down Susan’s cheeks; a few dripped onto her plate of untouched food.

  Lacey’s gut clenched. “Can it be fixed?”

  “I don’t know. Even if it can, we don’t have that kind of money right now. Then, when Eric saw how upset I was, he got mad at me. He said I was trying to make him feel guilty. I told him it wasn’t his fault.” Susan sniffled again. “But he didn’t calm down. We had a big fight in front of the children, and I said a few things that I now regret. That’s something I told myself would never happen.”

  Lacey held back telling Susan that regrets or not, whatever she had said was probably right. Lacey also wanted to tell Susan that Eric was never going to change, but that wasn’t quite true. Eric had changed in the past ten years. Every year he became steadily worse.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I can’t take it anymore. I think I’m going to go to counseling.”

  Lacey leaned across the table and rested her hand on Susan’s arm. “That’s good, but you’re not the one who needs counseling. It’s Eric.”

  “He won’t go. He says he doesn’t have a problem. He says he can quit anytime he wants.”

  Lacey bit her tongue. She couldn’t count the number of times Eric had quit drinking, but it was exactly the same number of times he’d fallen off the wagon. And every time it was Susan who landed with a thud. His drinking was ruining Susan’s life and their marriage. It wasn’t good for their two children, either.

  A couple of verses from Proverbs 23 that her mother had quoted when Susan had said she was going to marry Eric once again echoed through Lacey’s head.

  Do not gaze at wine when it is red,

  when it sparkles in the cup,

  when it goes down smoothly!

  In the end it bites like a snake

  and poisons like a viper.

  Indeed, Eric had poisoned his life, and he was poisoning the lives of his family. He didn’t seem to care what his drinking did to anyone; he only continued to drink himself deeper into a hole.

  Most days, Lacey tried her best to pray for him, and every day, she
tried not to hate him.

  She opened her mouth to tell Susan that she had to do something more than just counseling for herself, that no magic solution was going to fall from the sky, but before she could speak the sound of footsteps clicked on the tile floor behind her.

  Bryce’s voice broke the silence. “Lacey, have you seen my MP3 player? Oh. Hi, Susan. Thanks for contributing to the computer. It sure was a surprise.”

  Lacey quickly spun around in the chair to see that Bryce wasn’t alone; Randy was beside him. She looked at both men and tried to signal Bryce with her eyes to leave the room. Bryce took the hint and walked out as if nothing was happening, but instead of leaving, Randy moved closer and leaned toward Lacey’s face.

  “Have you got something in your eye? If you want I can—” Randy’s words came to a sudden stop when his attention wandered to Susan, who did have something in her eye. Both eyes. Tears. Which were streaming down her face.

  He straightened, and his whole body went stiff. “Is something wrong? Do you need help?”

  Susan swiped her arm over her eyes, which only smeared her makeup, making her look worse. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s my husband. I should go. I’m sorry you had to see me like this.”

  Susan stood, but Lacey blocked her path. “Where are you going to go? Is he home? Is he…” She let her words hang. There were times Lacey feared that as the situation continued to escalate, the day might come that Eric might hit Susan. She prayed daily that things would never get to that.

  Susan must have thought the same thing at the same time, because she sank back down into the chair and covered her face with her hands. “You’re right. He’s probably in worse condition than when I left, and I know I’m being a bad wife, but I can’t deal with that right now.”

  Randy stepped closer to Susan. “What’s wrong? Is he sick? Is there anything anyone can do?”

  She shook her head without taking her hands from her face. “No. It’s not like that. He’s not sick. He’s…he’s…” Her voice shook and trailed off as she raised her tear-streaked face. Lacey moved closer to Randy to tell Susan without words that he was with her, and that it was okay to keep talking. Once Susan figured that out, she looked straight at Randy. “My husband is at home, drunk. He was so bad I told him to stay home, not to come to my own brother’s birthday party. That’s so wrong. I don’t know what to do anymore.”