30. Clarity

Chapter 30

Clarity

H arper clutched her pillow to her chest as she stared at the morning light glistening through the window curtains. Oakleigh’s aesthetic design choices flowed through every corner of the ranch house, and it was only a matter of time until shades of white accentuated every room.

By that time, Harper would be gone.

She gulped hard.

Her vulnerable emotional release the day before made her cringe with embarrassment. She had experienced difficult situations before and endured. Harper couldn’t comprehend what had caused her sturdy walls to crumble into dust. Perhaps it was the brutal hangover that left her body feeling fragile, and her emotions running high.

And —

They had been so kind.

She felt tears once again sting her eyes.

“Don’t you dare,” she threatened, choking down the lump of emotion lodging in her throat .

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sharp, gritty sound of a metal shovel scraping across the ice. Desperate for any distraction from the oppressive silence of her bedroom, she went to the closet and grabbed her snow pants off the hanger.

Tying her hair into a low bun, she pulled the gray beanie cap over her ears and zipped up her jacket.

In the hallway, next to her door, was a piping hot travel mug. Picking it up, she noticed a bright yellow sticky note with her name scrawled in Maeve’s handwriting. She took a long sip, tasting the bitterness of the earthy, black coffee.

It was a welcomed comfort.

She took the stairs, finding the living room quiet except for the crackling, popping wood in the warm fireplace. Finding her boots in the entryway, she slipped them over her feet and stooped down to tie them up. When she stood, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the large mirror.

Harper looked ragged.

Retrieving a pair of aviator sunglasses off the hook, she pulled them over her puffy, red eyes.

It would have to do.

She took another long drink from her mug as she steeled her nerves for whatever inevitable conversation was awaiting her outside.

Feelings, no doubt.

Harper rolled her eyes.

Opening the front door, she was met with a blast of frigid mountain air that stole her breath away. Forcing each step onto the porch, she was surprised to feel the welcomed warmth of the sun kiss her skin.

“Careful there, Harp,” Maeve called out, clanging the shovel into the snow. “It’s icy today.”

“And why don’t you mind your own —” Harper caught herself, clearing her throat as she remembered her sister’s steadfast presence in her moment of despair. “Thank you for the reminder.”

Maeve was wearing a flannel shirt, with her jeans tucked into her snow boots. Her wild brown hair was kept tame by her gray beanie cap, and her aviator sunglasses gave her a look of authority.

“I recognize those glasses,” Maeve quipped, propping her gloved hands on the handle of the shovel.

“I found them on the hook,” Harper confessed as though she had been caught.

“Keep them,” Maeve shrugged. “I keep an extra pair these days after —” she cut her words short. “Well, after I lost my last ones.”

It hadn’t gone unnoticed that her sister had high walls of her own.

“Aren’t you cold?” Harper asked, observing Maeve’s lack of layers.

“I’m working up a sweat today,” she groaned, lifting another large shovel of snow and slinging it off the driveway.

“Really, Maeve,” Harper shook her head in disapproval. “Where is your hired help? ”

“Colton and Wade are helping Crew prepare for the competition,” Maeve informed. “And — sometimes I just enjoy doing this kind of work.”

Harper cautiously made her way across the long, icy driveway. “You’re doing all this yourself?”

Maeve nodded, digging the shovel again into the hardening snow and flipping it over her shoulder into the pile.

“All right, you don’t have to beg,” Harper conceded. “I’ll help you.”

Maeve tilted her head to the side.

“Thank’s Harp — I think?”

The old nickname still didn’t feel good, but she wasn’t going to correct her anymore. Going to the barn, Harper set down her coffee in the snow and grabbed a shovel off the wall. Returning to Maeve’s side, she plunged the shovel into the snow, feeling every muscle flex.

The job was even more difficult than it looked.

“It’s a good thing I offered to help,” she heaved, already gasping for breath. “You could've never done this on your own.”

“You’re probably right,” Maeve smirked. “All these years of shoveling snow, I didn’t know what I was missing.”

The sarcasm in her tone didn’t get past Harper.

She released the shovel from her grasp and let it topple to the ground. “Fine, Maeve,” she snapped. “Have it your way.” Dusting her hands off, she took a clumsy step back toward the porch .

“Harper, stop,” Maeve called out after her. “I’m sorry.”

She turned on her heels to face her sister.

“I’m trying to be civil,” Harper exclaimed, her voice rising. “I’m doing my best, Maeve.”

Maeve dug the shovel deep in the snow, leaving it behind as she took a couple of steps toward her.

“We joke a lot around here,” Maeve explained, throwing her gloved hands into the air. “We’re not there yet, and I should have realized that.”

Yet.

The hopeful word caught Harper off guard.

She could never imagine them ever being so light-hearted and casual, but her younger sister seemed to exude hope regardless of the dour circumstances.

“How’d you do it, Maeve?” Harper begged for an answer, too weary now to restrain her nagging curiosity. “How did you ever heal?”

“I — well,” Maeve stammered. Looking down at her boots partially buried in the slushy wet snow, she seemed caught off guard by the question. Glancing at Harper, she adjusted her aviator sunglasses. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some coffee.”

Maeve trudged past her to the porch, leaving her shovel behind, jutting from the thick snow. She took her mug off the railing, and went up the stairs to the porch swing .

Grabbing her own mug from the snow, Harper felt foolish and exposed once again. She retreated up the steps, intending to disappear back into the house and into the quiet solitude of her bedroom.

Twisting the door handle, she heard Maeve call out her name.

“Harper.”

She rolled her eyes.

“The boots — I know.” Balancing on one foot, she attempted to pull them off her feet. “You don’t have to remind me every time.”

“Have a seat,” Maeve calmly replied.

There was a firmness in the request that made Harper pause. Her usual response would have been brash and cutting, but curiosity drove her to agreeability.

Making her way to the porch swing, she took a seat beside her sister. Only then did she notice the beautiful view of the pastures surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Harper quietly took a sip of her coffee, enduring the uncomfortable wedge of silence that lingered between them.

Maeve finally spoke up.

“I had Ruth,”

“How nice for you,” Harper bit back. She stood to her feet and pulled off her gloves, preparing to resume her hasty escape into the house. “ — I had nobody .”

Maeve reached out and grasped her hand, stopping her before she could storm away.

“I’m sorry I left you behind, Harper.”

The heartfelt apology somehow made Harper feel worse .

“You did well for yourself, Maeve,” she deflected with a casual shrug. If she were honest, she had always hoped that the narrative of Maeve being an impoverished farmer’s wife had been true.

“Please sit back down,” Maeve requested.

Reluctantly, she conceded.

Thumbing the handle of the travel mug, Harper allowed herself to speak her mind. “I did everything I was supposed to do — everything to make him happy.” She ran her tongue across her white veneers as she considered. “I studied, went to the right college, found the right man,” Harper rattled off the lengthy list.

She let a calloused laugh burst free.

“Look at me now,” she declared, taking another long drink from her mug. “Divorced, friendless, and my daughters despise me.”

Harper kicked her boot against the porch.

“Totally worth it.”

She leaned back and folded her arms tightly to her chest.

“Dad was right,” Harper admitted, the words stinging as she said them. “I could never be you.”

“Harper, he was not right,” Maeve fired back. “And what he did to you—”

“You made it, Maeve,” Harper interjected, cutting her sister’s words short. She wasn’t ready yet, and maybe never would be. “That’s all that matters. ”

“They made you feel like you weren’t enough,” Maeve went on, gingerly unbandaging the old wounds and exposing them to the light. “I saw what they were doing to you, and I never spoke up.”

“I was a screw up, Maeve,” Harper admitted. She considered the terrible disaster she had made of her life. The thought of how she and Shep had messed things up so severely made her disgusted with herself. “You were made for ministry.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Maeve confided. “I was cracking under the pressure, and the whole time I didn’t realize,” her voice shook uncharacteristically as she crossed her arms tightly to her chest. “That I was working for what I never had to earn.”

Harper’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

“I was lost, Harp,” Maeve whispered.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Harper scoffed, shaking her head. “You were perfect.”

“We were given a list, and taught to check boxes,” Maeve reminded. “And I did everything that I was supposed to do, until —”

She took another deep breath before she continued.

“I was sitting there alone on the side of the highway, hopeless and afraid.”

“And what?” Harper rushed out.

“And — I was all out of boxes,” Maeve answered, scuffing her boot across the icy porch. “I had nothing to offer, and I believed it when they said I deserved it the least. ”

For a glimpse, it was as though Maeve was reliving the painful memory of standing before the harsh judgment of those incapable of showing an ounce of mercy.

“Go on,” Harper said, noticing Maeve’s eyes were glossing over with tears.

“The Lord met me there, Harp,” she said. “And he accepted me as I was, every broken piece.”

Running her fingers across her brow, Harper’s mind spun with every page of theology she had ever read, all she had written in her best-selling books about God’s love, and every women’s conference she had headlined on the topic of grace.

Deep down, she had always believed that the smooth words were designed to make her audience feel good about themselves. Although convinced nothing could sway her from the view that he was an unforgiving tyrant, ready to punish her for lack of loyalty to his demands —

The authenticity of Maeve’s relationship with the Lord was chiseling away at Harper’s cynicism.

She felt her volume rising with frustration.

“But Dad always said —”

“He was wrong, Harper,” Maeve firmly stated, calmly taking her hand. “He was a weak man, and he was wrong.”

Hearing the words out loud brought Harper a healing breath.

Her father had taken up space in her thoughts for so long. She had fought against her harsh memories but still found his venom embedded in her self-worth. No one had dared to refute his legacy, and yet —

There was Maeve.

“Aren’t you tired, Harp?” Maeve asked, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

Harper felt rebellious tears overflow from her eyes down her cheeks. She wanted to pull her hand away, and hide in the darkest corner, but even still she felt the truth would find her.

Harper was exhausted.

Feeling Maeve’s arm around her, she laid her head on her little sister’s shoulder. Rocking quietly on the porch swing, Harper released the lifetime of anger that had shaped her. Yearning for the same peace that Maeve and Oakleigh had found, she spoke to the Lord for the first time since she was practically a child.

She let the simplicity of it all wash over her, finally allowing herself to accept what she could never seem to earn. Even after all her decades in ministry, it wasn’t until that moment that Harper finally understood the meaning of grace.