“And was it always…like this?”
“No. but it was always beautiful. My house faced the harbor, and my room was right at the top, with a window that peeked over the trees and housetops. The harbor was usually the first thing I saw each morning.”
Sally turned towards Katherine, a spark of interest in her face. “And when you left?”
Katherine gave a wry smile. “My window looked out on a grimy brick wall.”
“Oh.” Sally’s voice came out in a whisper.
Katherine took a deep breath and said, “Well, I’m rested up now. Want to find a place to eat our picnic?”
Sally nodded and they walked on, but Katherine sensed a new bond of understanding between them.
* * * *
Katherine pulled a light blanket out of her knapsack and flung it out under the outspread arms of a large tree. They settled down onto the bumpy ground and started to unpack the basket. Sally suddenly giggled.
Katherine shot an amused glance her way. “What’s so funny?”
“Didn’t you just hear my stomach rumble? It was so loud! I didn’t realize I was that hungry.”
“We’d better finish getting this food out, then.” Katherine chuckled. “Mind if I pray?”
Sally nodded and grinned. “I don’t think I’ll starve before you’re through…if you’re quick about it.”
Katherine quickly thanked God for their food, and for Sally, adding a silent prayer for her friend, and for wisdom to know how to help.
They ate and chatted, and Katherine enjoyed her friend’s new measure of openness. Finally, she felt confident enough to ask the question that had been burning in her all afternoon. Knowing a casual tone would be neither convincing nor honest, Katherine looked her friend straight in the eyes and just let the question flow out. “What did you think about church this morning?”
She sensed a wall go up as Sally’s face clouded.
“I don’t know…I didn’t really understand much.” She looked at Katherine and then took a breath. “Some of it sounded familiar, like how you and Auntie H. always talk. I suppose…”
Sally's voice trailed off and she looked down at the blanket. She picked crumbs up off the blanket, her face still clouded and a faraway look in her eyes. Suddenly looking up, she met Katherine’s gaze with an intensity Katherine had never seen before.
“Doesn’t it ever scare you?”
“What do you mean?” Katherine kept her voice even and calm, while inwardly pleading for wisdom.
“I mean, God. Doesn’t God ever scare you? If He’s perfect like the minister said…”
“Ah.” Katherine nodded, considering. “Yes, the idea of a perfectly good God who judges sin can be a terrifying thought. But His forgiveness changes that. God is good, but He is also loving, and the Bible says that His perfect love casts out all fear.”
Sally looked down again and mumbled. “But there are some things beyond forgiveness.”
Katherine’s heart swelled with sympathy for her friend. Reaching over, she put her hand on Sally’s shoulder and said softly. “Nothing is beyond His forgiveness.”
“But you don’t know…” Sally lifted red-rimmed eyes to Katherine’s, filled with tears ready to overflow.
Katherine kept her gaze steady. “Do you want to tell me?” A long silence passed between them. Finally, Sally nodded.
“Can we walk?” she asked. “I think it would be easier if… if I didn’t have to look at you while I said it.”
Katherine nodded and began packing things back into the basket. When they had gathered everything, Katherine hunched the knapsack onto her back and reached for the hamper.
“I’ll take that this time,” Sally said, grasping the handle.
The two walked along the path to where one branch of it wound off along the top of the cliffs overlooking the harbor. Katherine led them down the winding path and they walked in silence for a while. As Katherine kept pace with her friend, her heart raced, a churning mass of concern, sympathy, awareness of her own inadequacy, and yes, even a faint sense of hope.
Finally, as they turned down a more secluded part of the trail, Sally spoke up.
“It was my brother.” Her voice was full of sorrow, but with an edge of hardness to it. “He and I were always close, especially when Mum died. I was only eight, and he eleven. Well, Dad remarried, and although we missed Mum terribly, we promised him that we would try to love the new woman. We couldn’t call her Mum, though, and she didn’t want that either. We called her Mother. It was stiff and cold and distant—which in the end, fitted her perfectly.
“We did like her at first, but then the baby came, and all her love and attention went to her own child. Then there was another, and another. Eventually there was quite a large family of her own children, and she took to sending the two of us away to anyone who would take us, to get us ‘out from under foot’ as she called it. She pretended it was meant to be a treat for us, but to my brother and me, it was plain as plain she wanted rid of us so she could have just her own family together.
"We lived far from Gran, and Mother wouldn’t let us visit much. I think Gran would have tried to take us in for good, if she’d known how things really were. But for all our hurt, we were afraid to tell anyone how bad things had gotten.”
They stepped to one side to let a jogger pass, then Sally continued.
“Finally, my brother couldn’t stand it anymore. He said he would run away and join the Guards or the Navy. But they wouldn’t take him. Something about his heart. He left anyway, and Mother wouldn’t let him see me anymore. She made sure there was always one of her children with me when I went anywhere so I couldn’t sneak away to meet him.
“One night, I did sneak away. I found where he’d said he was living—a horrible place, dark and cold, and it stank. He told me there was a way out. He said he was going to London, and begged me to come with him. I wanted to, but I was afraid. By then, the woman we called Mother had become so angry at us, I often had to wear long sleeves, even in summer, to hide the bruises.”
Katherine’s stomach tightened. How much Sally had suffered!
