Faith House by Robin Patchen

Author:Robin Patchen [Patchen, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: christian Fiction
ISBN: 9781611163490
Publisher: Pelican Book Group
Published: 2013-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

7

The coffee shop windows were boarded up. The building was dark and deserted. But what caught Sadie’s eye—what she couldn’t look away from—was the For Sale sign in the window.

A moment passed before she could catch her breath. Finally, she turned away and slumped to the bus stop, where she huddled in the glass enclosure. The hiss of the bus’s hydraulic brakes pulled her from her bleak thoughts.

She climbed three steep steps, hobbled halfway down the narrow aisle, and sat, staring at the cloudy skies through the scratched window until she reached the corner a few blocks from Marjorie’s house.

Felt like rain. Or snow, maybe. She hugged her wool coat around her, bent into the oncoming wind, and followed the familiar route to the house where she’d been staying, keeping her eyes trained on the sidewalk.

The coffee shop was for sale, so she was out of a job. Not only that, but she’d been out-of-work since late October. No mortgage lender would loan her money now.

Maybe Marjorie could explain, because it didn’t make any sense to her. Sadie didn’t think she could handle another blow. Hadn’t she been through enough? She blinked back tears. Lord...

But the words wouldn’t come. She’d never been very good at praying, certainly not under the weight of stress. God felt further away than the farthest star. He’d never answered her prayers.

Or maybe it was more accurate to say God had answered her prayers, always with a resounding No. Other people had good things happen to them, but not Sadie. God wasn’t there for her, never had been. She was on her own.

Inside the house, she saw the light glowing from the kitchen and turned toward it. “Marjorie?”

“In here,” the gravelly voice said. The older woman cleared her throat just as Sadie entered the room. Marjorie was sitting at the kitchen table, the newspaper opened in front of her. A cigarette dangled from her mouth, the smoke curling its noxious fumes toward the ceiling.

Sadie pulled out a chair and plopped down. “I just walked by the coffee shop.”

Marjorie pulled in a long draw, blew the smoke out her nose, and set the cigarette in the glass ashtray. “I got a call this morning. Owner decided not to reopen.”

“It’s already for sale.”

Marjorie nodded slowly. “That was fast.”

“Yeah. So...what does that mean? Do they have jobs for us at any of their other locations?”

The older woman scowled and coughed. “Fat chance. We’re unemployed.”

The word settled around her like a vice. Unemployed. In this economy. How would she ever get a mortgage now?

“As long as I’m dolin’ out bad news,” Marjorie said, “I got one more for ya.”

Sadie tensed, her shoulders hitching up to her ears.

“Talked to my daughter today. Exams are s’posed to last through next Friday, but the one she had next week was rescheduled, so she’s coming home this weekend.”

“OK. I can move out of her room and crash on the couch.”

Marjorie shook her head. “Sorry, hon, but I gotta ask you to go. With no money coming in, I can’t feed you, and you got no money to pay.

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