Slade blinked rapidly several times as though he hadn’t realized the implication of his actions for Mindy. “I just don’t want her hurt anymore. Last month we went to the mall for some new clothes and a couple of children laughed at Mindy when she walked by. She acted as if she didn’t hear them, but there were tears in her eyes. I don’t want that to happen to her at school. She’ll hate going.”
“God only gives us what we can handle.”
Slade shoved to his feet, a scowl creeping into his features. “Mindy has handled enough for an eight-year-old.”
“She has said something about going to church with me some Sunday. I would love for her to come. She said she used to go with you and your wife, but not since the accident.” Tory rose, feeling at a disadvantage with Slade hovering over her. She moved back a few paces into the warmth of the sunshine.
“Things have been so hectic and—” He paused, inhaled a deep breath and continued. “No, that’s not quite true. I feel God has let my family down. He took away Mindy’s mother. He took away who my daughter was. She’s had to start over, relearning the simplest things. What kind of God puts a child through that? Why couldn’t it have been me?”
The anguish that marked his words settled heavily over her. She needed to soothe his pain away. “We don’t always know why God does what He does, but He has reasons we don’t always see at first. What Mindy is going through now will shape the type of person she becomes. That may be a good thing in the long run.”
“So suffering makes a person better?”
“Sometimes. It can open a person up to other possibilities, more life-affirming ones.” Tory thought of her own change in the direction her life had been heading. Right now she could still be working for that large manufacturing firm in Dallas, never knowing the power of God’s healing through animals, never having seen the joy on the children’s faces when they rode a horse.
Slade turned his back on Tory and stared at his daughter retreating from the horde of geese demanding more bread, her giggles attesting to her happiness. “I’m sorry, I don’t buy that.”
“Time has a way of changing a person’s perspective.”
“Not all the time in the world would ever change how I feel about this.”
“But fighting what has already happened won’t make it go away.”
He spun toward her, a frown descending. “I should go with the flow?”
“Accept the changes and make the best of them.”
“No!”
The anger in his voice, the slashing scowl, caused Tory to tense and step away from him. Every nerve ending sharpened to full alertness.
His gaze drilled into her for a long moment, myriad emotions flickering deep within. Suddenly his frown collapsed, any anger he had evaporating. He plunged his fingers through his hair once, twice. “I’m sorry. I get so frustrated when I think of all that Mindy has gone through and still has to go through. All I want to do is make things better for her.” He rubbed his hands down his face. “It should have been me, not Mindy. Don’t you see that? She had nothing to do with the accident. She was an innocent bystander who happened to be sitting in the back seat of the car.”
The defeated look in his eyes impaled Tory’s heart, reminding her of how much pain had already been suffered by this man and his daughter. She moved toward him, wanting to comfort him. “Were you driving the car?”
His fingers delved into the black thickness of his hair over and over as though he wasn’t sure what to do with his hand. “Yes.”
That one word, full of guilt, hung in the air between them. Anguish etched deep lines into his face. Her heart twisted in a huge knot that seemed to lodge in her throat.
“A young man late for an appointment ran a red light. I didn’t see…” His husky whisper trailed off into the silence.
“So you blame yourself for the accident. You didn’t run the red light. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But if only I had seen the car in time, I could have done something. By the time I slammed on the brakes and swerved, it was too late.” He stared off into the distance as though he were reliving the nightmare all over again, his eyes dull with the memories.
“Sometimes things happen that we have no control over.” Control was always the issue, Tory thought, fighting her own sudden tightness about her chest. She struggled for a breath of air. Up until lately she had done so well keeping her own demons at bay. Why now, when she had a new life, must she be reminded of her own past pain?
“I know life can throw us a curve at any moment.”
Tory swallowed the lump in her throat and asked, “How will you blaming yourself help Mindy?”
He stabbed her with narrowed eyes. “Don’t talk to me about blame until you’ve walked in my shoes.”
Tory dropped her gaze from his unrelenting one, looking beyond his shoulder toward the pond. She took a moment to gather her frayed composure before saying, “True, I haven’t walked in your shoes, but I’ve done my share of blaming myself when I really had no control over the situation. I’ve discovered it does no good and doesn’t change a thing for the better.”
“I need to check on Mindy. I don’t want those geese to attack her.”
“I think we would have heard—” Tory didn’t finish her statement because Slade had left, striding toward his daughter, his arms stiff at his sides, his hands opening and closing.
Tory’s muscles released the tension gripping them, and she sank down onto the blanket. Shivering, she drew her legs up and hugged them to her chest while she watched Slade place his hand on Mindy’s shoulder and listen to his daughter and Laurie talk about the geese, their voices drifting to Tory. Mindy pointed to one of the adult geese herding the rest of them toward the pond. A baby, trying to scurry to catch up with the group heading back to the water, brought a huge grin to the little girl’s face, emphasizing the power animals had over people.
“Hey, is anyone hungry?” Tory called out to the trio by the water.
“Yes,” both girls answered.
Slade took Mindy’s hand and led the group to the blanket under the tree. “Are you kidding? We’ve worked up quite an appetite watching those geese gobble up all that bread.”
“Oh, Dad-dy—you’re—al-ways—hun-gry.”
“And I know what a good cook Tory is. I’ve been saving room for this picnic lunch since she asked us. I could eat a bear.”
Mindy put her hand over her mouth and giggled.
“Well, I’m fresh out of bears today, but I have fried chicken. Will that be all right?” Tory asked the group.
The girls nodded while Slade licked his lips, his eyes dancing with merriment.
“Bring it on,” he said while settling on the blanket across from Tory.
Mindy sat next to Tory with Laurie on her other side. The picnic basket was in the middle of the circle, every eye on it as Tory slowly opened the lid, releasing tantalizing aromas. She made a production out of delving into the basket and slowly bringing the contents out for everyone’s view. Next to the chicken she placed a plate of chocolate-chip cookies, Slade’s contribution to the lunch, a bowl of coleslaw and a container of sliced strawberries, pineapple and bananas.
After saying a brief prayer to bless the food, Tory said, “I prefer not to have to take any of this back with us so dig in.”
“If we can’t finish this off, I volunteer to take the leftovers home with Mindy and me.” Slade raised his hand as though he were in school and he was waiting for the teacher to pick him.
“You’ve got yourself