By Saturday morning Nanci and Amber had evolved a routine for the morning. As always, Nanci’s Grand Canyon-tuned internal clock woke her early, and after getting the coffee going she turned to her normal morning devotions. Some of the time they ran longer than others, but almost always by the time she was done Amber had arisen and had gotten ready for their morning exercises. Afterward, they traded off on making breakfast and being the first to use the shower.

Nanci was still amazed that Amber would get up so early and be so chipper when she did; back when she had been that age it would have been unthinkable for her.

It was still early when the two of them settled down around the breakfast table, though a look out the windows showed it would be a nice day. There was no rush to finish up this morning since it wasn’t a school day, so they took the opportunity to have a second cup of coffee and just talk. “That was really fun last night,” Amber remarked. “That Gerald seems to be a good guy, and Leah is really cute.”

“She seems to be a good kid, all right,” Nanci agreed. “And Gerald is pretty nice, too.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be thinking about, um, getting together with him, would you?” Amber replied in a tone of voice that indicated something, well, a little more intimate than that.

Nanci couldn’t tell if Amber was teasing or not. “You never know,” she replied obliquely. “I’d have to say not at this time, but I’m not totally ruling it out, either. I’d have to get to know him a lot better before I’d consider doing something like that.”

“It almost seemed like the two of you were getting to know each other like you were on a date or something.”

“We were getting to know each other. That’s what friends have to do, you know. But to call it a date, well, that would be pushing it a little. I’m really not all that interested in getting involved in a relationship, Amber. I have way too much to do, and I’ve been busy working on those goals the last few years. Getting involved with a guy is not high on my priority list, at least not right now.”

“Nanci, how long has it been since you’ve been on a date? I mean, not counting last night?”

“I don’t know,” Nanci replied thoughtfully. “Oh, I had a couple of study dates back when I was going to Black Mesa College, but they were mostly for working on a project for class. The guy was all right but not that all right, if you know what I mean.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I don’t know. Four or five years, I guess.”

“Are you sure you’re real?” That was definitely a tease, Nanci thought. “Weren’t there a lot of guys running around?”

“It’s not that simple,” Nanci replied seriously. “I’ve now spent years studying and working toward becoming a minister, and even trying to make up my mind whether to do it in the first place. That was far more important to me, and to be honest I didn’t want to have a guy divert me from my studies. I spent a lot of time hanging around with guys before I became a Christian, Amber, and it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t until I literally escaped from that life that I realized every guy I’d spent time with had been very destructive to me. Between that and wanting to become a minister made me very sure that I wanted to take a lot of time with a guy before I got seriously involved with him. There just hasn’t been the time in the last few years. But I’m open to the idea if God opens the door to it. It’s up to Him and not me.”

“That’s a little more complicated than I thought.”

“Yes it is, and you don’t know the half of it. I don’t feel a huge need to have a man in my life, Amber. To a degree it’s expected that a Methodist minister ought to be married, but it is not a requirement, and there are obstacles that you might not expect. Some of them might cause me to have to make a choice between my husband’s career and mine in the church, especially when I get assigned to somewhere else. I don’t want to get in that position without being very sure of myself. I don’t expect to be here forever, and I’ll probably be offered the opportunity to move on in a few years.”

“I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it a lot. Now, as far as Gerald is concerned, he seems to be a decent guy, and right at the moment he doesn’t seem to have a career that would tie him to one spot, although that could change. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter, because he’s still technically married, so I couldn’t do anything even if I wanted to. While he seems to be a nice guy, one sort-of date doesn’t make me head over heels about wanting to do something. In a year or so I might think differently, but if we continue to be friends we ought to know a lot more about each other in a year, too. Believe me, Amber, it’s not anything I want to rush into.”

“Well, you have your reasons. So what are we doing today?”

“I have a little project I want to work on, and you’re welcome to come along with me if you like. I want to go out and scrape a little paint at the Conestoga church, and if we can knock down enough paint chips, then put on a primer coat of paint.”

“It doesn’t sound like that much fun, but it’s going to be a nice day and I don’t really want to spend it inside.”

“We’ll just work on it until we get tired of it,” Nanci promised. “It’s not something a pastor would normally do, but I want to lead by setting an example, rather than pushing other people to do it while I stand there watching. I’m hoping that it will send a message that needs some notice by the members.”

“Sure, I’ll go with you,” Amber smiled. “I’d rather be with you because I like being with you. Besides, maybe going out and working on the church with you will send a message from me that needs some notice, too.”

Since they didn’t have any idea of how long they would be at Conestoga, they made some sandwiches for lunch and filled a small cooler with drinks. There was a ladder in the garage of the parsonage, and they tied it to the roof of Nanci’s car after they figured a way to do it. They made a brief stop at the hardware store in town to get paint scrapers, brushes, and paint, and then started up the highway toward Conestoga.

While they were driving, Nanci put some thought into the conversation that she’d had with Amber over the breakfast table. While she felt that she had been right in saying that it was much too soon to think about getting into a serious relationship with Gerald, the door to it was at least opened a crack and could open wider in the future. He did seem to be a nice enough guy, and he was interested in the church though not a mad enthusiast about it, like some of the guys Nanci remembered from Hickory Run Seminary back in Kentucky.

Gerald had clearly been a good single parent to Leah, and that told her a lot. But yes, he was still technically married, and while he seemed intelligent and well-spoken, he didn’t have any education beyond high school – not because he hadn’t wanted to do it, but he hadn’t been able to afford it. He probably couldn’t do anything about it here in Tyler, but that didn’t mean it was impossible in the future.

There was nothing she could do about a relationship now and she was not sure she wanted to. If nothing else, it looked like he might make a good friend, and that counted for a lot in her book. So there was nothing she could do but take her time and see what happened.

As always, it was a long drive out to the Conestoga church, and Nanci took it slowly because of the ladder precariously tied on the roof of the car. She drove up and parked close to the building, then the two of them got out and looked over the work they had in front of them. “It looks like there’s a lot to do,” Amber shook her head. “Especially when you think that all we have to do it with is a couple little paint scrapers.”

“There’s an old saw about a journey of a thousand miles starting with a single step,” Nanci laughed. “You’re right, we think of this place as being a little building, but right now it looks awful big to me too. But we don’t have to do the whole thing today and with any kind of luck we won’t have to do the whole thing at all. After all, I’m just trying to set an example, so I think that maybe we need to start on the front of the church where it will be noticed. I think we ought to start on the left corner and just see how far we can get.”

“Yes, and it’s going to be pretty messy.” Amber shook her head like she was shaking paint chips out of her hair. “I’m sure glad you told me to wear the junkiest of my old clothes. At least I have some pretty junky ones.”

“Believe me, I’ve got on just about the junkiest ones I have, too.”

The two busied themselves taking the ladder off the roof of the car and leaning it up against the front of the building. Soon Nanci was a ways up the ladder, beginning to knock flakes of loose paint off the wooden siding, while Amber was busy doing the same thing below and a little off to one side so she wouldn’t get covered with what Nanci was knocking down.

While Nanci was up on the ladder, she took a careful look off to the west, and in the clear skies she thought she could make out the top of a mountain, maybe Pike’s Peak, right on the horizon. Maybe someday, she thought, she’d have reason to go to Colorado Springs, if she did she might be able to drive to the top of the mountain. There were probably telescopes there, and she wondered if she would be able to see the church from there.

She didn’t waste much time staring off into the distance and soon turned her attention back to the job at hand. Scraping the paint was time consuming and dull, so to help pass the time Nanci soon started singing gospel songs, old favorites she’d learned from her sister-in-law, ones like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Down To the River To Pray, and a special favorite of Nanci’s, Down By the Riverside. Amber soon started joining in with her on the last one, and Nanci was glad when she noticed that Amber had a pretty good singing voice for being untrained.

“These songs are pretty neat,” Amber said after a while. “They don’t sound much like the songs we were singing in church last Sunday.”

“They’re not the sort that gets sung in a Methodist Church very often,” Nanci told her from her perch up near the top of the ladder. “Those tend to be a lot more dreary. Most of these old gospel songs I learned from my sister-in-law Tanisha. She grew up in a black church in St. Louis, and she really knows how to rock those things if she’s in a mood to. Even my brother likes to sing them with her, and he isn’t very churchy.”

“She grew up in a black church? Does that mean she’s black?” Amber seemed amazed at the idea.

“I’ve never met anyone darker than she is,” Nanci replied. “But she’s a real neat person. She and my brother are real, real close, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Amber replied shyly. “You know, I’ve always lived around Tyler, and maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I’ve never met anyone who’s black. I mean, there’s no one around here.”

“They’re people, just like everyone else. There are good ones and there are bad ones. Believe me, I met plenty of the bad ones in Chicago, but there were good ones there, too. Not very many of them where I was, at least toward the end of my time there, but there were a few.”

“Several times you’ve hinted that you had it pretty hard there.”

“I did, Amber. It was very hard, but at the time I thought I didn’t have much choice but to live that way. Look, I know you’re curious about it, but I try not to think about those days very often. They were very bad ones, back before I became a Christian and got my life turned around. Once in a while I’ll get in the mood to talk about them, but this is too nice a day to ruin it talking about those things.”

“OK, if you don’t want to talk about it, I can understand. How about if you teach me another one of those songs?”

“All right, how about this one? It’s called He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands.”

They sang that for a while, then Amazing Grace, and then some others. Although the work was messy and tiresome, it made for a pleasant morning.

Eventually they called a halt and decided to have some lunch. They got the coolers from the car, and just sat down in the thin grass to relax and eat their sandwiches. They could look back at the work they’d done this morning, and it was clear that they had made some progress on the project. “I think we’d better finish up some of the spots we missed,” Nanci said. “Then give it a good going over with the broom before we get some paint on. That ought to be enough for today.”

“It looks like we got a lot done, but there’s so much more to do.”

“A little at a time will get us there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the next time we come out here there’ll be some others here to help us. I would have asked Gerald to come help us, but he has enough on his hands right now.”

“Yeah, it sounds like it. Maybe we ought to offer to go out and help him sometime.”

“We could do that, at least after school is out,” Nanci replied. “He would probably appreciate the help and the company. It has to be tough to be a guy and raise a little girl like Leah all on his own.”

Amber was silent for a while, obviously thinking about something before she replied, “Nanci, have you heard anything more from the sheriff about Mom? We didn’t get the chance to talk about it last night with Gerald there.”

“I stopped off and talked with him yesterday for a couple minutes,” she reported. “But there was nothing new.”

“I was afraid you were going to say something like that. I figured that if you’d heard something you would have told me whether Gerald had been there or not.”

“They say that no news is good news.”

“No news is mostly no news,” Amber replied, sounding a little cynical. “Nanci, would it sound wrong for me to say that I don’t know what I want to happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean,” she sighed. “You know how I was living before you took me in. I don’t want to have to go back to living like that, and I’m afraid that if she comes back I’d have to do it. On the other hand, she is my mom, and I’m worried about her.”

“I don’t know,” Nanci replied. It had been a question she had thought about in the past, and Amber going back to her old life was not something she wanted to see happen. At best, it was a hard way to live, but she wasn’t sure what she could do about it. “If she does come back, maybe we can work something out.”

“Are you sure you really want to do that?” Amber asked seriously. “Look, I’ve been talking to Keith at lunch every day this week. It’s the only chance we get to talk, and his folks don’t want him coming into town because they’re afraid that he’ll come to see me, and, uh, we’ll start doing something we shouldn’t do, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” Nanci smiled. She knew exactly what the girl was talking about, since she’d done it herself, more than she wanted to admit to her right now.

“Well, yeah,” Amber replied. “They don’t have to worry about that, since I can see what happened to Mom from doing the same thing, and I sure don’t want to live my life like she did. But that’s not what I was trying to say. Keith tells me that both his dad and his mom have been talking to some of the others out in Conestoga, and maybe some of the church members in Tyler, too. Nanci, don’t get me wrong. I like living with you and I think I’m learning a lot, but I don’t want to get you in trouble with the church since I know how important it is to you.”

“I don’t know that it’s going to cause that much trouble,” Nanci replied hopefully.

“I hope you’re right,” Amber replied softly. “But I’ve seen how people talk about my mother, and it hasn’t been very nice. What’s more I know they talk about me like that. People out here gossip, Nanci. It’s like they haven’t got anything better to do, and most of their gossip is to tear other people down. What I’m saying is that I don’t want to drag you down. Look, while I’d like to stay with you, I don’t have to do it. We talked a little about the group home down in Carondelet. I don’t want to go there, since I hear that it’s not a very nice place. But if I did go down there at least it would be better than what I had when I was living with Mom. I’m willing to do it to keep you out of trouble.”

“Like I said, I don’t think it’s going to be that much trouble,” Nanci said, perhaps a little bravely. She was aware that there had been some talk about Amber living with her, and that a lot of it was coming from the Westbrooks. Perhaps Amber had been making too big a deal about it, but then, at least some of her information was coming from Keith, so it was hard to say how much substance there really was.

But Amber was right in one thing: if it got too far, it could cause her difficulties in the church, especially Conestoga, but potentially in Tyler as well. That was something that Nanci really wanted to avoid, although there were other things to consider as well.

“I hope you’re right,” Amber replied. “But like I said, I know how people have talked about my mother, and it hurts. What’s worse, they’re probably right in a lot of the stuff that’s been said about her, and I know a lot of it carries over onto me.”

“It’s not something we have to make a decision about today,” Nanci replied hopefully. “I’ve been telling people that I wasn’t going to make up my mind about anything until at least after school is out, since it’s not good to yank you out of school this close to the end of the year. Maybe something will happen by then.”

“But what if it doesn’t? What if there’s no word about my mother?”

“Then there’s no word,” Nanci shrugged. “Look, Amber. I don’t know if you realize it, but I like having you around. I think you’re a good person, and I want to help bring that out and help other people find out just how good a kid you are. I enjoy the companionship of having you around. In only a few days you’ve brought a lot of light into my life, Amber.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I don’t know if you understand it, but I’m used to having people around me most of the time. When I was working for Canyon Tours, there was no getting away from other people. When I was at Black Mesa, I was living with my brother and sister-in-law, and they have two little kids, so there was no getting away from people there, either. Then, when I was at Hickory Run, I had a room of my own, but I spent a lot of time with other people, especially my suitemate Sarah, who became my best friend. We always got along, but we were careful to leave each other time to study and do our devotions. I don’t know if that makes me what you would call a people person or what, but I’m not used to living on my own, without any other people around, let alone no friends or family. I know I wasn’t on my own here for long, but it was awful lonely at times.”

“I hadn’t quite realized it was like that.”

“It was,” Nanci went on. “And then you came along. Amber, you give me someone to organize my life, to give me companionship I really needed. You’re a lot of help and you carry your share of the load. I like teaching you things, and I’m learning things from you, things I really need to understand.”

“Me? What have I got to teach you?”

“You have quite a bit to teach me. Amber, have you ever thought about how much of the way you used to live was like the way the pioneers out here lived a hundred years and more ago? I mean, no electricity, no running water, no indoor toilets, maybe not much food? I used to think I lived pretty primitively when I was in the Grand Canyon, but it was luxury by comparison. What’s more, you lived like that competently and took what came, whatever happened. Maybe that’s something I’m learning from you. The point, Amber, is that if it works out that you can stay with me for a while, maybe until you’re out of high school, I think I would welcome it, at least if it doesn’t cause too much trouble in the church.”

“I’d like to do it if I could,” Amber said. “I’d like it a lot better than having to go back and live with Mom the way we used to live, or having to go to the group home. But like I said, I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

“Well, I’m willing to put up with some trouble in the church if I have to. People are always going to gripe about something or they wouldn’t be people. At this point, I think the only thing we can do is to just ride it out for a while and see what happens. Maybe in that time I can change a few minds.”

“It would be nice if you could, but as long as Keith’s folks are causing trouble things could just get worse.”

Nanci thought about it. Maybe it was time to nip this in the bud, and she thought she knew how to do it – but did she want to do it while she was still so new here? Amber seemed to be worth it to her, and she couldn’t think of any other way.

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