Twin Blessings and Toward Home: Twin Blessings / Toward Home

He got up from his makeshift drawing board and wandered to the living room.

He tried to analyze the peculiar restlessness that had gripped him since Sunday. He was sure it wasn’t Karen. When she left he had felt relief more than anything. But she was a reminder to him of what he had once had. A girlfriend. Someone who cared that he was spending his entire holiday on a project when he really should be sitting at the beach with his nieces.

She was also a reminder of his one-time freedom and the chance to make choices for himself. No responsibilities other than his own.

Since the girls had come into his life, he felt a keen pressure to provide for them, to make sure that they had food and clothes and that their schoolwork was done. To supervise them and to seek out their best interests.

He thought of Sandra again and begrudgingly realized that with her the girls were enthusiastic and did their work. He wondered what they were doing right now.

A quick glance at his watch showed him that precisely sixty seconds had passed. He dropped into his recliner and, pushing the papers he had been reading aside, he reached for his Bible. Yesterday was the last time he had read it, and in his current frame of mind, he needed the comfort he knew he would find there.

Leafing through the pages, he found the Psalm he had often read to the girls when they first came. Psalm sixty-eight. “Sing to God, sing praise to His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds—His name is the Lord—and rejoice before Him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, He leads forth the prisoners with singing.”

Logan smiled as he read the familiar words. When the girls came to his home, they were lonely, grieving and afraid. They knew him, but just in passing, and now they were living with him.

Bethany and Brittany had been comforted by the words and comforted by the faith they were slowly discovering each day.

A faith he tried to nurture wherever possible. He had found a Christian school they could attend. He took them to church, got them involved in the youth group. Each day he tried, in his own inadequate way, to show them God’s love.

So how did someone like Sandra fit into their lives? She didn’t go to church, though she professed a faith in God. How wise was it to let her teach girls who were still struggling in their own faith?

Logan’s second thoughts made him close the Bible and get up. It didn’t matter what time he had told the girls he was going to pick them up, he was leaving now.

The streets of Elkwater were quiet as he made his way to Sandra’s place. From a distance he heard the insistent boom of a stereo. Probably some teenagers whooping it up on the campground, he figured. He felt sorry for the campers. At least he didn’t have to contend with that, because they owned their own cabin.

The lights were on in Sandra’s house, and he realized that the music he had thought was coming from the campground was coming from Sandra’s stereo.

He knocked on the door, knowing it was futile over the noise. So he let himself in.

When he had dropped the girls off, Sandra had been sitting outside reading, so he hadn’t gone in. He stepped into the house, curiously glancing around at the array of mismatched furniture, the books piled on every available table. It was neat, sort of, yet with a lived-in and comfortable feeling. The lighting in this part of the house was warm, created by the jeweled glow of two stained glass lamps—a tall standing lamp hovering behind a well-worn chair and a table lamp across the room. Sandra’s creations, he presumed.

“Hello,” he called, staying in the entrance. The music was coming from a room off the living room. He waited, then Bethany popped her head around the corner.

“Oh, hi, Uncle Logan,” she called.

“Don’t sound so excited to see me,” he returned with a grin.

The music was turned down, and Sandra appeared behind Bethany, glancing at her watch.

“I know. I’m early,” he said. “I just thought I’d see what the girls were up to.”

“Checking on me?” Sandra asked with a petulant tilt of her eyebrows.

“Nope, just bored.”

Sandra angled her head toward the room they had come out of. “Come in, then, and see what they’ve been doing.”

Logan forced a smile, wondering again why she was so cool in his presence. Wondering why he didn’t like it.

He followed Sandra into a brightly lit room, watching as she walked to the stereo and turned it down more.

“Sorry about that. The girls brought some CDs. I told them they could play them while we worked.” She shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. “It’s Christian music, in case you were wondering.”

Logan felt the defensiveness in her attitude. He was at a loss as to what caused it. “That’s fine,” he said quietly.

The girls were bent over a table, pretending not to watch Logan and Sandra. Logan walked to them, glancing over their shoulders. All he saw was an array of pieces of glass, some edged with what looked like thin strips of copper. “So what is this?”

Brittany looked at Sandra. “I’ll make lemonade and you tell Uncle Logan what we’re doing. You know it better anyway.” She turned to her sister. “C’mon, Bethy, lets go.”

The two girls fled. Logan shrugged in Sandra’s direction, hoping she understood what the girls were up to. “I guess it’s up to you,” he said with a forced smile.

Sandra blew out her breath and walked to his side, keeping her distance, as if reluctant to come too close. “They’re making a sun catcher. Here’s the pattern.” She pointed out a stylized black-and-white sketch of an iris in an oval frame. “They have to trace the pattern pieces on the glass and then cut them with this cutter.” She held up a small, pencil-shaped object. “After grinding the edges they have to foil each piece. Then dab kester on it to get rid of the finish. After that they solder it together.”

Logan nodded, pretending to understand.

Sandra glanced his way, and their gazes meshed. She curled one corner of her mouth, showing the first semblance of a smile since Sunday. “You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?”

“I got foiled by the foil.”

She held his gaze, and her smile grew. “I see.”

So once again she explained the process, showing him how the individual pieces of glass were wrapped in foil that was sticky on one side. “You have to make sure you go all around and that you give enough foil on each side of the glass,” she explained, showing him.

Logan stepped a little closer, ostensibly to see what she was showing him. But as he did, he caught the faint scent of her perfume—light, fresh and lingering. It caught him unexpectedly. Made him pause and breathe a little more deeply.

“Once all the pieces are wrapped, you have to lay it out in the same shape as the pattern,” she continued, oblivious to the reaction she had elicited in him. “This is when you need the kester, a type of acid, to get rid of the finish on the foil so that the solder can stick to it. I don’t have the soldering iron plugged in because we’re not ready yet.” She reached across the table, picked up a small project she had been working on and set it in front of Logan without looking at him.

He glanced at her hands, stained and marked with small white scars. From handling glass, he presumed. Hands that carefully handled the piece she held.

“This is what it should look like when it’s done. The solder should lie in a nice, neat bead on both sides of the work. It gives the same effect as lead but without the weight.”

“Can I?” Logan reached out for the sun catcher she was holding, and with a shrug Sandra handed it to him. Their fingers brushed each other, sending a peculiar riffle up his arm at the contact.

He forced his attention to what he held, astonished at how small some of the pieces of glass were, how intricately she had cut them and put them all together. When he held it up to the light, it was as if it came to life.

“This is amazing. I’m guessing you did the lamps in the living room, as well.”

She nodded, stepping back from him, taking that beguiling scent with her.

“Do you do other work besides this?”

“I’ve done some windows. But I use lead for them. A slightly different process.”

“For homes?”

“No. Churches.”

Logan couldn’t resist. “Oh. For those hypocrites,” he teased.