Chapter 11

I was able to talk to Tyrone on Tuesday. Tyrone Jackman had been one of the elders of the church until he retired in November, and I'd seen him with his wife and heard the story of how they'd met. I was off that day, and had arranged to meet him at the Subway on Lomas across from the post office. I was still learning my way around Albuquerque, and had to ask where that was. It turned out it was easy to get to.

I was just headed out the door when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my jacket pocket, and it was Max's number. I flipped the phone open as I set my helmet down and dug my keys out of my pants pocket. "Hey, how are you doing?"

"That was going to be my question."

"I'll tell you what – you answer mine and I'll answer yours."

She laughed over the phone. "I'm doing well. I've reached a decision – on where I stand regarding you – and I'm ready to tell you if you've come to the same place."

"I wish I could tell you to go ahead, Max. I really do." I locked my door, put my keys back in my pocket, and picked up my helmet. "But I'm still trying to figure it out. I'm closer than I was, but I'm not there yet."

"I wish..."

"I'm sorry, Max. I know you don't want to wait. I know the waiting must be killing you. It's been a week. But I just can't say anything yet." I was at my bike now, and hung the helmet from the handlebars. Max didn't say anything, and I wondered if we'd lost the connection. "Are you there?"

"I'm here, Derek." Her voice sounded ragged.

"Are you okay?"

"Honestly? No, I'm not okay. I..." I thought I heard a sob. "Derek, please, don't ask. I can't talk about it. It's just ... I know where I am, and you're right, the wait is killing me."

"Do you want me to come over?"

She took a long time to answer, so long that I was opening my mouth to speak when the answer came. "I want you to, but I'd better say no. Right now seeing you would be too hard."

I was afraid of the question that I didn't dare ask anyway – had she decided she did love me, and was in agony waiting for me to make up my mind, or had she decided she didn't love me, and was in agony wondering how to tell me? One way or the other, once I'd figured myself out, I'd find out what was going on with Max.

"Okay, then," I said. "I'm getting closer to a decision all the time. I'll let you know just as soon as I can."

"Okay, Derek. I'll be praying for you." And she hung up.

I closed the phone, and put it back in my jacket pocket. I put on my helmet, straddled my bike, and rode off.

Tyrone was already in the Subway when I got there. I was so used to seeing him in a sharp suit and tie that I hardly recognized him. He was big and gray, with fingers twisted from arthritis, and he was wearing a pair of slacks and a sweater buttoned over his stomach. There was a well-worn cloth jacket on the bench beside him. He'd already ordered, and once I'd set my helmet down and shrugged out of my jacket he waved me off to get my own food.

When I came back, I sat down to unwrap my sandwich. While I was unfolding paper, Tyrone asked, "What did you need to see me about?" His accent was southern too, but having listened to Max so much over the past couple of months I thought it was a different sort of southern.

"It's not an elder thing, as I said over the phone. It's personal, and I've already talked to a couple of other people about it. As someone said to me recently, delaying won't help, so I'll just dive right in. I'm trying to figure out whether I love someone."

Tyrone leaned back with a grin on his face. "Shoot, Derek, that's an easy one – at least for a man who's been preaching for all these years."

"Maybe so, but I haven't ever preached."

"That's true." He leaned forward again. "How much do you know about me and Pat?"

"Just that you met her when you were supply preaching for a church in Alabama."

"That's true. You know Cecelia Carpenter, right?"

"Right."

"Well, back then she was Cecelia Johnston, a skinny little thing but always distinctive. I'd known her since she was 15. I'd been preaching at that church, off and on, for three years. Now Cecelia was 18, and I'd made up my mind to propose to her. And from things she'd said I think she'd made up her mind I was going to do it, and to say yes. It was the very day I'd decided to ask her that I met Pat – Patricia Wheat as she was then. I didn't propose to Cecelia that day. It was a little while, a couple of months I think, before I was back in that church, and on that occasion I did propose – to Pat."

He took a drink of his soda, looking out the window at the traffic going by on Lomas. We were near the mountains, and you could see the slope of the road down toward the river. "You know why I never proposed to Cecelia, and did propose to Pat?"

I shook my head.

"It was because I just liked Cecelia – a whole lot, enough that we'd have had a successful marriage – but I love Pat. And you know how I knew I loved Pat?" He didn't wait for me that time. "It was because the minute I met her, I knew that her happiness was more important to me than anything else on this earth. I'd have married Cecelia, but it would have been because I cared for her and thought she'd make me a good wife. I married Pat because all I could think about was her."

I'd been eating while he talked, and now I put the sandwich down. "You're the third person I've talked to about this, and though they've put it in different words, they've all said pretty much the same thing."

"That's no surprise," Tyrone said. "If someone knows what love is, he might not say it in the same words as everyone else, but it's going to come out to the same thing. Love isn't 20 things, or 10, or even two. It's one thing. And though every person is different, if there's genuine love there, it's the same."

I grinned at him. "So I don't need to keep asking people?"

"I would say not. If you've got an understanding of what we've all told you, then you've got an understanding of the thing. The problem then is whether you do love this woman, and either way, what you're going to do."

"Yeah." I thought then that I knew whether I loved Max. I did have an understanding of what Tyrone – and Darvin and Alison – had said, and they had all agreed, in different words. "I hope you don't think I'm rude, Tyrone, but I'm going to wrap this up and go and think."

"And pray, Derek – make sure you pray."

I did that. I prayed when I was shoulder deep in a jet engine. I prayed when I was on my way to work and on my way home from work. I prayed while I cooked my meals, while I took short walks around the area, while I shopped. I prayed when I woke up and prayed when I went to bed. I prayed on my way to church the next Sunday – for I'd gotten a Sunday off.

When I got there I took off my helmet and pulled my Bible out of the saddle bag, and walked toward the doors. The church was an old business building of some sort, and didn't look like a church, but I liked it. It was white, with an angled roof and the name of the church in big black letters on the front wall. I went inside, taking a bulletin from one of the greeters. I'd found a usual seat in the back row, in the right hand section of pews. There was a center section and one on the left as well, and a little area in the rear that looked like an afterthought.

I sat down and began looking over the bulletin, but had hardly gotten started when someone sat down rather heavily beside me. I looked up – and it was Max. She looked like she might have lost a little weight, and her face was sad, but she was smiling too. "Hey, Derek, I see we both managed to be here at the same time."

"This is only the second time we've been here together. I don't even know if you've made it any of the times I haven't."

"Actually, no. I came here with you that one time, and I've been jumping around the few times since that I've had a Sunday off."

"It's good to see you," I said, changing the subject to the one that was uppermost in my mind just then.

"It's good to see you too." Her voice was definitely sad. I wondered if she'd expected to see me. Certainly I hadn't expected she would be there.

I half turned in the pew to face her. "Look, Max, I know it's been tough for you these past two weeks. It shows." I touched her cheek with a finger, where she was paler and thinner than she had been. "But I think I'm near an answer. If you can wait just a little bit longer..."

She caught my hand in hers, and for a moment I thought she was going to kiss it, but then she lowered it to the pew between us, still holding on. "I'll wait as long as I need to, Derek. I'll wait another hour, another day, another week, another month – I'll wait the rest of my life if that's how long it takes."

"I can't keep you hanging that long."

"I will wait for the rest of my life, if that's what it takes. That's my commitment, Derek. Just accept it."

"Okay, Max – I accept it."

She nodded, and the piano began to play, so I got straight in the pew again. She held onto my hand still, while we sang and while we prayed. We did separate long enough to greet those around us, but as soon as we were back in the pew she caught hold of my hand again. She didn't cling to it fiercely or desperately; it was as though she simply needed that contact after two weeks away from me. And I found that I needed it too.

We listened to the sermon in silence. I glanced over at her once, and saw her focused on the preacher with great intensity. She was still holding onto my hand, turning pages in her Bible with her left hand, while I used my right. She was holding onto me gently, but it was clear that she wasn't going to let go.

At the end of the service, I turned to her and said, very quietly, "I need to talk to you, Max."

She nodded, not looking at me. "Meet me ... do you know where Harry's Eats is?"

"Yes."

"Meet me there." And she finally let go of my hand and was gone.

When I pulled into the parking lot I saw Max's car parked next to the street, and she was just going through the door. I'd gone east on Menaul and then north on Tramway, to where the restaurant sat on the northwest corner of the intersection with Montgomery. I'd turned onto Montgomery and then immediately into the lot, spurred on by the sight of her. I parked, and took off my helmet while I was walking toward the door. I hurried in, and found I needn't have – Max was waiting for me there. The hostess took us to a table by the window on the Tramway side of the restaurant, took our drink orders, and went away.

Max looked at me, and I saw that her eyes were ready to spill over. "Derek, I told you I'd wait forever, if that's what it took. And I was telling the truth. But being so close to you is killing me. So please, don't drag it out."

"I won't. I've decided." I took her hands in mine. "I love you, Max."

"I was so afraid it would come out the other way." Her voice had a quiver in it, but her tears hadn't fallen.

"I didn't know how it would come out. I had to find out what love is, Max. But now I know, and now that I know there's no question about it. I've loved you for a while now, but I just didn't realize it."

"Oh, Derek, if only I'd known!" And now her tears did fall. She bent her head, and I felt the hot drops on my hands. Hands put our drinks on the table, and that was all I ever knew of that – the waitress had done her job with immaculate discretion.

"I didn't know, Max. There was no way I could tell you. I wasn't sure until today, when it all became clear. That cross on the wall behind the pulpit told me what love is, and I realized that in my own way that's what I have for you. I love you. That's all. It took me long enough, but I've figured it out."

She looked up at me, and though her cheeks were wet she was smiling. "Oh, beloved, you don't know how long I've wanted to hear that – and to tell you that I love you."