Even if she were ready to consider a relationship again—which she wasn’t—Andrew wouldn’t have been her choice. He was a youth minister. In her wildest imaginings for the future, she’d never once pictured herself as a minister’s wife. Those women wore buns in their hair and played church organs.
“What’s so funny, Mommy?”
Serena looked at her sand sculpture of a daughter, embarrassed to have been caught in her musings. “I remembered a funny joke, honey.”
Tessa raised a quizzical eyebrow in an expression destined in her teen years to be perfected into a smirk. “Can I play on the slides?”
Swallowing the knot of anxiety in her throat, Serena reminded herself that the doctors wanted Tessa to remain active. They promised Tessa would set her own limits, based on the pain, and Serena hoped they were right. “Which one do you want to try first?”
She need not have worried. Tessa was timid enough for the both of them. Serena took her position at the bottom of the play structure, watching her child amble instead of run across the polyvinyl-coated bridge toward the curly tube slide.
Serena caught her at the bottom. “Here, jump to the ground.”
Tessa shook her head and lifted her arms. Serena’s throat felt dry, and her eyes burned. But she would not cry. She couldn’t allow that. She lifted her frail child, wondering if that fearless toddler, the one who had once scaled monkey bars and jumped off front porch steps instead of walking down, still existed. She had to be hidden in there somewhere. The same way Tessa’s puffy cheeks and swollen belly—side effects of her steroid medications—merely covered the healthy child beneath.
Serena shook away her sadness over their losses. Mourning didn’t do a bit of good. Besides, there was so much to be thankful for. Tessa’s skin no longer carried that ghostly pallor of anemia, meaning the medication was doing something. And the new medicine had helped so many other children. Hopefully it would have the same success with Tessa’s condition.
When her child crawled up in her lap as she sat on the bench, Serena knew it was time to go home. Exhaustion often hit hard, making daily naps necessary. She fastened Tessa into her car seat and drove home for what was always the hardest part of the day. “Quiet time” left Serena with too many minutes alone with her thoughts. Like usual, she’d spend most of it feeling sorry for herself.
She barely had time to tuck Tessa into bed and kiss her the pre-ordered three times, before the phone rang. A freelance career wasn’t always what it was marketed to be. What sounded like freedom often turned into career captivity when your home was your office. Sometimes she wished she could turn off the phone and hide until she was ready to do business again, but she couldn’t afford to lose any clients, especially now that she was a single parent. Her freelance income paid the rent.
“Serena Jacobs. May I help you?” It was a funny way to answer her home phone, but lately, her calls were more often business than personal.
“Hi, Serena. It’s Andrew Westin.”
She swallowed hard. What if he’d reconsidered his advice this morning and wanted to suggest that she seek counseling as soon as possible? “Hello, Andrew…” Not sure what to say, she hoped he would fill in the gap.
“It was good meeting you today.”
“Nice meeting you, too,” she mumbled, her nervousness growing exponentially.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about your situation, being down in the dumps.”
She took a deep breath. Here it comes. Maybe he was going to suggest something even worse, like she wasn’t stable enough to care for Tessa. When he hesitated longer than she could handle, she prompted, “Yes?”
“One way to get out of depression is to get involved in helping someone else.”
She smiled into the receiver, feeling silly over her worries. “And just who did you have in mind?”
“Me.” Andrew paused. “And about thirty of my closest friends.”
Trying hard not to be flattered, she waded through his words, searching for some deeper meaning. Was this his roundabout way of asking her out? If it were, what would she answer?
“Are you still there? I just asked if you’d ever worked with kids.”
Serena brushed her hand back through her wind-tangled hair and blushed, glad he couldn’t see her. Obviously, she was letting her imagination get the best of her.
“I taught toddler Sunday School for about a year after I graduated.” Why did she feel like she was being hooked here like a bad act in a variety show—only she was being dragged out onto the stage, not off.
“Perfect.” He made a sound into the receiver as if he’d snapped his fingers. “Then, I have just the job for you—chaperone for tonight’s teen lock-in.”
“Oh, I don’t really—”
“Please, before you say no, hear me out.”
She had no business even thinking about volunteering for something like this. Her focus needed to always be on Tessa. Still, it would be rude not to at least give the youth minister a chance to explain. “Go ahead.”
His words came out in a rush, blending excitement and desperation. “Well, you see, there’s this lock-in tonight. It will be about thirty kids, from seventh to twelfth grades. They play board games, have organized activities, listen to clean music, watch approved videos and eat junk food.”
She carried the phone into her bedroom, past the bed and dresser that were pressed so closely together she could barely open the drawers. When she reached her messy desk by the window, she sat and pushed through the pile of works in progress.
“Yes, I know what a lock-in is. We had them all the time in our youth group.”
“Well, the special thing about this particular lock-in is that it’s my first one as youth minister. I thought I had the whole thing under control, with four chaperones—myself included—lined up. Only, Char had a family emergency, and I haven’t been able to find a replacement.”
“How many people have you asked before me?”
“About a dozen.”
She smiled into the receiver. “Glad to hear I was your first choice. What did the first twelve say?”
“They pretty much wished me the best in finding someone who was…available.”
“Then, I’ll have to do the same, I think.”
“Are you saying you’re not available?”
She could feel the tightrope swaying beneath her toes. Could she decline carefully without lying? “I never said that. But I do have one small complication—a four-year-old one. I’m new here. I don’t have any regular baby-sitters for Tessa, even if I could get someone on such short notice.”
“I wonder what would have happened if Simon, Peter and Andrew had been too busy casting nets on the Sea of Galilee to follow Jesus so he could make them ‘fishers of men.”’
“That’s not quite fair.”
“I’m just kidding. If you’re willing to chaperone, you’re more than welcome to bring Tessa. She’ll be the hit of the party. And later we can put her to bed in my room.”
“I still don’t think—”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Hey, if you’re looking for baby-sitters, this is the place to be.”
An overnight party, filled to the walls with potential baby-sitters—what could be the