Page 119 of In a Word, Yes

I touch the place I think she means. “You mean this little dent here?” I sigh. “It’s what you might call an old friend that recently returned. I vaguely remember my parents telling me that when Iwas a toddler I had to have stitches in my forehead. Until recently, I guess my skin was plump enough to disguise it.” Until that nasty collagen-sucking demon struck. “How about that?”

“The scar reappeared? You mean it was there all along?”

“Crazy, right?I’ve been carrying that scar with me most of my life and didn’t even know it.”

Lucy is quiet a moment. Then she says, “We do that, don’t we?”

“We do,” I say. For a long moment, there’s only the sound of the fire crackling. The low echo of a dog barking somewhere.

“I still can’t believe you took a sabbatical,” Lucy says. “I can’t believe you’re really coming home to Oregon.”

I gather Lucy’s hand in mine. “You know, sweetheart, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Someday, when I die—”

“Mom. Stop. Don’t be morose on a day like today. Let’s not—”

“Now listen. Let’s say you guys decide to have a memorial service. And, mind you, it’s neither here nor there tomewhether you do or don’t. But let’s say you do, and then let’s say some folks decide to go up to the front and say a nice thing or two about me. Honey, if all they can talk about is my ministry, I will have utterlyfailed. This ... family, relationships, love ...thisis the stuff I want to be remembered for. That’s why our cowriting project means so much to me. For the gift of time together. For the connection you and I are building while workingonthe book, far more than the book itself.”

There’s a sheen of tears in my daughter’s blue-green eyes. My mother’s eyes. Lucy stands, and I join her. We wrap ourselves in my big old quilt and hug it out.

“I love you, Mama,” she says. “I better go check on the birthday boy.”

After she goes, I run a fingertip over this weird new divot in my forehead.

What a sweet, regenerative God.

Only you. Only you can take the stuff of scars and create something new and beautiful and life-giving.

***

Lucy

Traipsing toward the cabin I share with Chase, I’m mobbed by a great black rug of a dog.

“Moby! You lug!” I drop to my knees to give him a thorough scratch and a hug. “Good morning to you too. Where’s your daddy?”

The man who holds my heart emerges through a stand of pines. “Moby! Give her a break already. It’s my turn.”

Wyatt ambles closer, pinning me with an exaggerated smolder. “Hey, are you a library book?”

“Huh?”

“’Cuz I can’t stop checking you out.”

I try to elbow him good, but it doesn’t make much of a dent in the padding of his Carhartt. “Where’d you just come from?”

“Took him to the pet area.”

Dark scruff nearly conceals Wyatt’s chin dimple. Almost but not quite. I run a finger over it, then meet Wyatt’s kiss.

“Nice beanie, Lieutenant. Looks handmade.” I don’t tell him it’s kind of a shame to hide all that great hair.

“Ha. Be warned. I’ve no doubt that the day you met my mom, she went straight home and started knitting something for you. She can’t be stopped.”

“Today’s the big day,” I say, grinning.

“Mm-hmm. Today’s the big day.”

By 10:00 a.m., the sun is slanting golden through the piney branches, the sky’s impossibly blue, and the five of us have embarked on a short trek along one of the park’s many trails. But this isn’t just some random trail.