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“Next week?” she asked, her voice squeaking a bit. “You’re going to miss everything in my senior year. You promised to take me to prom!” Then she closed her mouth. Snapped it shut actually, and contrition stole across her face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m making this harder for you, and it’s already a hard decision. You... I think you should go. You’re right. Ford has gone out of his way to make sure that you’re equipped to run whatever business you decide to run. And... The last time we talked, you said you’d made more money already than you ever thought you would in your lifetime.”
“I’ll be able to buy my own farm, and almost certainly pay cash for it, if I do this.”
“And that’s what you want,” Ellen said, and she didn’t sound quite as sad anymore. The microwave beeped, but she didn’t move to get his food out. “How long?” she asked, and he thought that the smile she pasted on her face was one of those smiles that said “I’m trying to pretend to be happy even though I’m really not.”
In a way, that made him happy. He didn’t want her to be joyful that he was leaving. Mostly because of her, he wanted to stay. And he never wanted to see her unhappy. Not for anything, but especially not over stuff that he had done. He did truly feel like this was the best decision, and he had no reason to believe that it wasn’t what God wanted him to do. Sometimes it could be a little nebulous, trying to figure out the difference between what he wanted and what God wanted.
What he wanted often overshadowed what God wanted, but God did give him people to confide in, to consult, and to give him their advice.
Ford was one of those people, but Ellen was too. She had always been wise beyond her years. Mature and capable. He trusted her and valued her friendship.
“At least two years. But it could be longer. I probably won’t be back much, if at all.”
“I imagine the plane ride down there is...a really long one.”
“Yeah. And the work that is there for me to do is pretty hard and involved. I’ll be...busy.” Not too busy to talk to his friend, but definitely busy. Especially if he was able to do what Ford was hoping he would and turn the business around, making it profitable.
You could ask her to marry you and take her down with you.
She turned to get the food at the microwave, and Travis closed his eyes against the temptation that thought elicited. He wanted to. He didn’t know exactly how she felt about him, but when he was facing the idea of being thousands of miles away from her, for years, the idea of taking a risk like that made sense, except it wasn’t fair to her.
She would miss the rest of her senior year. She wouldn’t have a high school diploma. She wouldn’t graduate. She’d miss her prom and all the other things that high school seniors expected to do. She’d have to leave Chewy. She’d have to leave her Highland cows and the businesses that she’d grown, and give it all up for him.
Yeah, it was tempting, because he wanted it. But if he loved her, he had to make the decision that was best for her, and so he pressed his mouth closed as she set the plate of steaming country-fried steak in front of him.
“So what are you doing between now and next week?” she asked after he said a short prayer over the food.
“I was going to spend tomorrow here, and then Ford has a few things for me to do, plus I have to get ready to go. I haven’t seen my brothers in a couple of months.”
“I’m worried about Roger,” Ellen said right away as she set a glass of water down in front of him and then grabbed one for herself out of the tap.
“Yeah, me too. Have you heard anything?”
“Not really. He just... He seems to be really tempted by the things that the wrong crowd does. I guess there are people who struggle with those kinds of temptations. I really don’t, so it’s hard for me to understand why he just doesn’t turn his back on those things and start working toward something that’s good. But I guess we all have our weaknesses.”
“We sure do. And you’re right. Roger always seems to have been drawn to wickedness and sin. But I know other people who have weaknesses. Alcohol addictions, food addictions, porn and electronic addictions, cheating addictions, any of those things can destroy marriage, although not all of them would necessarily be qualified as sin.”
“Well, there were no cigarettes when the Bible was written, so we could hardly be warned about that,” she said with a laugh.
“We don’t know. Maybe there was. But I think any kind of addiction is dangerous. The Bible clearly says that we should have control over our flesh. If we allow addictions to control us, or if we can’t break free of them, then it’s a sin, whether or not the actual action is a sin.”
“I agree. But I don’t think Roger thinks he’s really doing anything wrong. He’s just kind of skating down the edge. There are some drugs that have been legalized, and of course alcohol and tobacco are legal as well.”
“Of course. But if our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, we shouldn’t be putting anything in it that damages it, and that goes beyond alcohol and drugs and cigarettes. After all, potato chips aren’t exactly good for you, and yet we put them in our bodies all the time without thinking about it. That’s socially acceptable.”
“Good point. I hadn’t really thought about that.”
“Most people don’t. We like to have our little things that we like to look at and point our fingers at, you know, the wicked sins that we’d never do. But there are those things we do to our bodies that are almost just as bad. Soda would be another one. There’s nothing good in soda. Are we damaging our body just as much by drinking soda as we are by smoking cigarettes? All that sugar, all those empty calories, all of those things that are bad for our heart and for our insulin levels and our weight, and yet Christians are totally okay with people drinking soda and eating potato chips, it’s just the cigarettes that we have a tendency to say are sins.”
“You always make me think.”
“You make me think as well. Actually, because of you, I’ve delivered puppies.”
She laughed. “I’m so glad you came. Have I thanked you? I guess I was a little bit overwhelmed, but thank you. Thank you so much for dropping everything and running to me when I needed you.”
“Of course,” he said. He wanted to say more. To say that he would always do that, which is how he felt, and he wanted that to be true. But if he was in Brazil, he wasn’t going to be able to drop everything and go running to help her. He couldn’t ask his brother Roger to help.
That was his biggest concern. Up until this point, he’d been able to text Ellen any time, call her, and stop in to see her at least every few months. Now, he was facing years potentially without seeing her at all. It was almost more than he could stand.
