Friday, February 6, 2015

Kerry's Calling

An except from Kerry's Calling, to be released in March:

          “You’re thinking about leaving? You mean, quitting? But, Chad, why? What’s wrong?”
          “Oh, there are a lot of reasons,” he sighed. “Any one by itself probably wouldn’t be enough, but...”
            He was silent for a long time, while she watched his face. Finally he glanced at her and realized that she was still waiting for an answer.
            “I guess it all started a year ago, when I was home on furlough,” he began. “You know about the girl I was going to marry—Laura. We had a rather whirlwind courtship, and before I came back we got engaged. The plan was for her to apply to Harvest and then I would go home this summer and we would get married. She seemed really happy about it at the time.” His voice trailed off. “Then in February I got an e-mail from her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to leave home and move halfway around the world to a strange country. She wasn’t sure she wanted to live in poverty when she had a proper job making good money in England. She wasn’t sure she loved me enough. And that was that.”
            “I’m sorry, Chad,” Kerry said softly. She knew there was no easy answer that would take away that pain. She could only listen.
            He shrugged. “I told myself all the things that people do in a situation like that. I would get over it. It wasn’t meant to be. It was God’s will. All those things. But right after that I fell ill with malaria. I couldn’t work; I couldn’t do anything but lie around burning up with fever and shivering with chills and wanting to die. I felt so dreadful. And—well, I know this sounds idiotic, but I kept wishing my mum was there to take care of me, but she was so far away and I felt so alone, like the whole world had forgotten about me.”

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