Running Home Read online

Running Home

  By William A Sanderson

  Copyright © 2011 William A. Sanderson

  Copyright Notices

  Copyright (c) 2011, William A. Sanderson, all rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photograph, Sunset at French Village, copyright (c) 2008, Dennis Jarvis, used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. The cover may be copied, distributed, transmitted or modified under the same terms provided that the work is attributed to the copyright holder, Dennis Jarvis, and that any work resulting from the modification, alteration or transformation is license for use under the same or similar license.

  Bible quotations are from the New International Version (NIV ®) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica used under the fair use provisions described by Biblica.

  Dedication

  To my mother Doria, who taught me to read in self-defence when I was four and who always had a box full of romance novels available for me to read when I ran out of books.

  Thanks, Mom.

  This one is for you.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Copyright Notices

  About the Author

  Other Books by Bill Sanderson

  Coming Soon

  Chapter One

  Jerry Ernst had just put supper in front of his daughter Michelle when the doorbell rang. Mightily annoyed, he stomped down the hall to the front door to give whoever was calling at suppertime a piece of his mind. He pulled open the door with an angry movement and stood stock still with his mouth gaping.

  "Âllo, Jerry. May I come in?" said a soft voice with a Lebanese accent.

  A worried looking Miriam Nadif stood in front of him, a vision from his past. He had not thought about her in years, not since they congratulated each other the day before graduation with their only hug and said their wistful goodbyes knowing that they would not see each other again. But here she was, on his doorstep in Hubbards, asking to come in. After a moment, he smiled and said, "Yes. Come in."

  She smiled in relief at Jerry’s invitation then stepped into the front hall and put down her pack. "Thank you. It is very good to see you again."

  Jerry stood back to take a good long look at her. "It's wonderful to see you, too." Then a small distant voice said "Oops," and Jerry was running off to the kitchen.

  Miriam removed her shoes, hung up her jacket on the old fashioned wrought iron hook then followed Jerry down the hall to the kitchen. A little girl with wispy reddish-blonde hair was grabbing a spoon from Jerry's hand. She put the spoon into her bowl and took a small amount of macaroni and cheese, which she ate with a flourish.

  Jerry looked up at Miriam and explained, "My daughter, Michelle," then continued, "Are you hungry? There's probably enough for you as well."

  Miriam nodded and said "Yes, please. I haven't had macaroni and cheese since McMaster."

  Jerry took a bowl and cutlery from the dishwasher and set them in front of Miriam. "Serve yourself, please" Miriam took a small serving and then Jerry took the rest for himself.

  In the relative silence of eating, Jerry took a good look at Miriam. She had grown even more beautiful in the six years since graduation. She was a small woman, barely five feet tall with a slender but well formed figure. The remaining baby fat from her university days had disappeared leaving smooth olive skin over a woman's face. Her luminous dark eyes with the brown that was almost black were as he had remembered them, but there was something much more guarded about her.

  She looked different. After a moment of puzzling about it he realized it was her hair. She wasn’t wearing her customary hijab. He had never seen more than a few wisps of dark hair under the headscarves she always wore at university except for a brief time at her baptism.

  Her hair was glorious. It was black and glistening as a raven's wing and was arranged in a loose braid that fell down the middle of her back. With her piercing eyes, aquiline nose and barely contained energy, she reminded him of a hawk.

  Miriam studied Jerry in return. He was still blonde and tall, but he looked careworn. He had lost weight since his university days which made him look angular and raw-boned. His face had lost its boyish charm but he still had the long straight nose and blue eyes that she remembered. He was more handsome, more ruggedly masculine, than she remembered. Her heart clenched as his face softened to deal with his daughter's needs.

  "My name is Mitchie. What's yours?" piped up Michelle.

  "My name is Miriam," she replied in her accented English.

  "You have pretty hair," said Mitchie.

  "So do you."

  "What brings you here, Miriam?" asked Jerry. "It's not like Hubbards is on the way to anywhere."

  "It's a long story, Jerry. Can we talk about it later?" asked Miriam glancing at Michelle.

  "Okay." Jerry was now very curious.

  "Are you expecting Mrs. Ernst home soon?" asked Miriam.

  "No, but that's a story that will have to wait as well." Jerry gave a sad look as he spoke. It was Miriam's turn to be curious.

  "I see." responded Miriam neutrally. "This is a lovely part of the world. I caught glimpses of the ocean on the bus here from Halifax. I see why you wanted to return."

  Jerry just smiled. Miriam continued, "I would like to know something, though. Why are all of the houses painted in such bright colours?"

  Jerry chuckled. "Every visitor asks the same question. It's so we can tell our houses apart when the fog comes in. Today was beautifully sunny, but when the fog comes in, all the colours get muted. It can get pretty bad here in Hubbards, even though we're a distance from the open ocean."

  "More please, Daddy." Mitchie demanded. Jerry slid some of the macaroni from his plate onto hers. "Need ketchup."

  "What's the magic word?"

  "Pleeeeeze." Jerry squeezed a small amount onto Michelle's plate.

  Miriam watched Jerry with his daughter and keenly felt the loss of her father again. His death in the car accident as he was returning from a meeting with the wholesalers in Beirut transferred guardianship of her and her sisters to his brother. She'd known that her father Tariq was a very forward thinker who valued his daughters and listened to their opinions but it wasn't until she went to live with her Uncle Walid that she realized how special her father was.

  He had owned a grocery in a small hill town in Lebanon fifteen kilometers from the Golan Heights and with many years of almost peace he'd had dreams of creating a small chain of grocery stores such as he had seen in Hamilton, Ontario when he visited his sister. Without any sons or good prospective sons-in-law, he finally accepted that one of his daughters would have to learn how to help with the business.

  So Miriam had been sent to McMaster University in Hamilton to live with her aunt and uncle while studying business. She returned home and helped her father set up a second store in a nearby Nabatieh. For years he had tried to
find a good husband for her that would accept her as she was: bright, confident and Western educated. There were no takers in the Hezbollah controlled areas, maybe in Beirut, maybe in Saida, but not in Manzieh or Nabatieh.

  Uncle Walid was not a businessman. Within six months, the new store in Nabatieh had to be sold for pennies and the old family grocery in Manzieh was failing. Her uncle did not allow his women to interfere in his business so she was forced to stay in her uncle's house doing the bookkeeping while the business failed and he grew resentful of having to support his nieces. If only her father had lived.

  Miriam shook off her morose thoughts and smiled at Michelle. "How old are you, Michelle?"

  Michelle held up four fingers that were liberally coated with cheese sauce. "I'm four. How old are you?"

  "I'm twenty-eight, the same as your father."

  "Oh." said Michelle, returning to her food.

  "How's your aunt and uncle?" asked Jerry.

  "They fared well the last time I heard from them." replied Miriam. She had not contacted them since she arrived in Canada. She trusted that her aunt would be able to keep a secret from anyone but her husband, but if her aunt told her Uncle Mahmoud she was in Canada, he would eventually tell Walid where she was hiding.

  "All done, Daddy." Michelle held up two tiny hands coated in cheese sauce and ketchup. Jerry got a washcloth, wet it in the sink and cleaned her hands and face. Then she climbed down from her chair and went zooming off into the living room. Jerry finished the food on his plate then started to clear the table. Miriam stood up to help as the sound of the Wiggles theme song came blaring from the front of the house. Jerry called down the hall. "Not so loud, Mitchie. Please turn it down." The volume decreased almost immediately.

  Jerry started to empty the clean dishes from the dishwasher. "So, Miriam, why are you here?"

  Miriam looked very small and contained. "Because I'm running away from my Uncle Walid. He wants to marry me to a very bad very violent man because he's tired of supporting me."

  Jerry turned to Miriam looking puzzled. "But why here?"

  "Many reasons. Because you were the best friend I had at McMaster. Because you live in a place far away, in a peaceful country. Because I knew that you wouldn't turn me away or send me back to my uncle. But now I see that you are married and have your own life. Your wife would not want me to stay - I would get in the way." Miriam hugged herself and looked down.

  "There is no wife to get in the way Miriam, she abandoned us when Michelle was a newborn." Jerry looked over at Miriam. "Halifax was too small for her and there was no way she would ever move here to Hubbards with us. But you are right about one thing, I wouldn't turn you away. Please stay, at least for tonight." Jerry looked stoic then smiled. "Would you like some tea or coffee?"

  "Tea would be nice." There was a knock on the side door.

  "Jeremiah, it's Rose, are you home?" Jerry thought it must be something serious for her to use his Christian name like that. Or even knock for that matter.

  Jerry called out. "It's open, Aunt Rose. We're just having tea, do you want some?"

  "Love some.” A large plump woman with greying blonde hair and a squarish face stepped into the kitchen and flipped her duck boots into the boot tray. She had a pleasant expression but her eyes were alight with curiosity.

  Jerry busied himself fishing the teapot from the cupboard and setting the kettle on the stove. "Aunt Rose, I'd like you to meet my good friend Miriam Nadif. Miriam, this is Rose Carson, my mother’s baby sister.” He turned back to Rose. “Miriam was a classmate at McMaster and thought she'd drop by once she got to Halifax. We were in a couple of stats classes together and then she came out to the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship meetings."

  Miriam held out her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

  "It's good to meet you, too. Jerry doesn't get many visitors down this way."

  "It's lovely here."

  "We like it." Rose paused as if she wanted to say something.

  "So are you here for something or just being nosy, Rose?" Jerry sounded neutral.

  "Well, I did want to talk about taking Mitchie to Halifax with us next Thursday when we go shopping. I know you'll have a pile of marking to do by then. But I also got a call from Gert down to the corner store and she said that there was someone asking after you."

  "And Gert told you that it was a lovely young woman and how it was 'about time I divorced that no-good-for-nothing witch I'm saddled with'."

  Miriam looked uncomfortable, but Aunt Rose just ploughed ahead. "Well, dear, you know how Gert is. Never afraid to speak her mind."

  "Just because she's scared off every man who ever got within five feet of her..."

  "Now, don't you start either. She’s just a bit outspoken, that’s all."

  "She's been on me since we were in Grade 5 together. I asked her out once in high school and it was a disaster."

  "She's still fond of you. She knows you're not for her, but she still hopes."

  "Aunt Rose, there's a guest present."

  "I'm sorry, my dear," Rose apologized to Miriam, "We do go on. Actually what I came for was to offer Miriam a room if she's going to stay over."

  "I've got plenty of room." Jerry looked stubborn.

  "And so you do, dear, so you do. But if you think that I'm the only one Gert spoke to you'd be mistaken. I know you don't care about tongues wagging but it's not fair to Miriam if she's going to be here longer than the one night. And I don't know who'd be telling her, but there's a couple of people 'round here who'd love to let Annabelle know."

  Miriam, who knew all about conservative small towns, understood immediately what Rose was getting at and said "That's very generous, I'd love to stay. But I should let you know that I don't know how long I will be here. I'd like to explain why I'm here to both of you. Can we sit?"

  The three of them moved to the kitchen table. Michelle came running in. "Daddy, it's the Captain Feathersword song. Where's my feather?" Jerry went into the living room and found the long purple feather in the cushions of the sofa then restarted the song at the beginning before coming back into the kitchen. While he was out, Rose said "All that devotion and she's not even his own daughter."

  Miriam looked puzzled. "Not his?"

  "I'll let him explain it to you later," Rose said as Jerry rejoined them.

  "Explain what?" asked Jerry.

  "Mitchie and Annabelle."

  "Oh, that." Jerry looked sad again. "So what's your story, Miriam?"

  Miriam took a deep breath. She'd told part of this to the Israeli border guards, but she'd not told anyone else. "I'm running away from my uncle and the man he betrothed me to. After my father died two years ago, all of his possessions went to my Uncle Walid, including the guardianship for me and my sisters. He is a devout and strict Muslim man, much stricter than he needs to be. I had helped my father grow the business but Father could never find me a husband who would let me stay involved with the business, so I had gotten used to the idea that I would never be married.”

  “As you know, Jerry, my mother died when I was fourteen giving birth to my youngest sister Sara, so I took over running the house for my father while I was still going to school. One of his aunts moved in to take care of Sara and Micheline while Elena and I were at school, but, at eighty, Aunt Nadia couldn't look after the whole house. Most of the neighbours in our town thought he was crazy to give his girls a good education, but he knew that the world was changing. Mother was a nurse, one of the few women in town who had a degree and he relied on her knowledge and support with everything in his life. So we were all supposed to get a good education. Elena took over running the house when I went to Mac, then when I came home she went to Beirut to nursing school.” Jerry nodded, remembering Miriam's worries about her sisters while she was at Mac. Rose nodded.

  “After my father died in the car crash two years ago, his brother, Uncle Walid, inherited everything. He made me stay home with the women, although he did let me keep the books. He knows nothing about
business. He made so many mistakes. He lost enough money in the first year that he had to sell the house and the new store and he's put the old store up for sale, too." Her voice got very angry. She took a breath to calm herself and continued.

  "He was not doing well with his trucking company either and he had me and my three sisters to care for. If he had let me manage the grocery business we'd have been well off, but he needed quick money to pay off some personal debts. So he took the cash we needed to keep the store going and our suppliers finally stopped giving us credit. About three months ago he started arranging for all of us to be married off quickly so he wouldn't have to support us. Sara is fourteen and Micheline is just seventeen, both of them got offers almost immediately."

  "A fourteen year old? That's awfully young to be marrying." Rose looked shocked.

  "The Qu'ran allows Muslim men to marry girls as young as nine. The government has tried to stop the practice but Hezbollah supporters feel that if the Qu'ran permits it then the law is wrong. Hezbollah is very strong in that part of Lebanon. I couldn't do anything to stop either marriage, but at least I know the men they married are halfway decent. They aren't too old and they both have jobs. Elena, my next younger sister, had already been promised. She got married six weeks ago, which was four months ahead of the original time. Her Emile was supposed to be finished his residency before they married.”

  "They didn't know what to do with me, though. I was too old and it was suspected that I had been corrupted by my time in Canada. Uncle Mahmoud wouldn't sponsor me to emigrate because he's just as strict as Walid. The only way he could afford to keep me was if I worked, but he doesn't believe that women should work outside the home and most of the Muslim men in Canada who are looking for arranged marriages don’t want a Western educated wife.”

  “Eventually, Walid found someone to take me. Walid probably paid him, although Rafiq owed him a favour or two. Rafiq Mahmoud is a freedom fighter he says, a leader in Hezbollah. I suppose he wanted me because he wanted to prove that his ways are superior and that he would enjoy changing my mind. My aunt did not let me out of her sight after uncle Walid promised me to Rafiq, except when she let Rafiq be alone with me one time.”

  “Rafiq told me that Western ideas were corrupt and that I would never go out of the house unless he was with me. That I would have to be veiled at all times outside the house or when visitors came because I was too beautiful not to tempt other men. That he would enjoy giving me a dozen babies. I tried to argue with him. When he tried to kiss me I hit him. He beat me so badly I couldn't walk for two days and I couldn't sleep for all the bruises. When I showed them to my aunt, she said it served me right for talking back to my future husband. My uncle just ignored the bruises because then he'd have to admit that he'd left me alone with Rafiq and didn’t provide me with any protection.”

  "The breaking point was when my cousins were packing up my things to send to Rafiq's house." Miriam looked directly at Jerry. "They found my Bible."

  "You never told them?" Jerry sounded a bit surprised.

  "My father knew and my sisters suspected, but the local imam orders apostates to be tortured until they recant, or just have them killed, so they never told anyone hoping that I would recant voluntarily, which I will never do. But I wasn't strong enough to be a martyr, so I hid my conversion." Jerry and Rose looked very thoughtful as they listened intently.

  "I heard my aunt and uncle arguing about what to do with me and I knew that if I did not escape that night I would be killed or tortured. Uncle Walid sent for Rafiq so they could decide whether to stone me or make me recant, but he wasn't expected until the next day. They locked me in my room to wait for him so he could decide what to do with me. I had two boxes with my university books and some other things in the back of the closet. Under the books I had hidden all of my jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts and my McMaster leather jacket. I got my passport and the company credit card that Uncle Walid didn't know existed from where I'd hidden them and put them into my wallet. I changed into my Western clothes and covered them up with a long coat. I packed up my backpack and crawled out the window as soon as I couldn't hear anyone moving. It was a very small window, but I am a very small person." Miriam got a fierce look on her face.

  "Then I walked over the hills until dawn and hid in a hollow under some bushes until dark. I left my hijab and overcoat behind. The following night I walked the last four kilometres to the Israeli border and told them that I was a Christian convert fleeing from a planned stoning. They gave me some water and questioned me for a long time before allowing me into the country on a tourist visa. The bruises Rafiq gave me helped to convince them. Even then, if I hadn't mentioned that I intended to go to relatives in Canada, they may not have let me in. I was able to make a series of cash advances on the credit card over the next couple of weeks until it was refused and I cut it up. The Canadian Embassy was very good about arranging for my tourist visa and then I came here. Jerry was my best friend at McMaster. And I thought that Hubbards would be small enough that I could find him easily or find where he’d moved."

  Rose took Miriam's hand and said "You poor dear. Well, at least you got here safe."

  "Yes, but now I don't know what to do." Miriam seemed to collapse inward.

  Jerry spoke up. "You've got friends here. We'll figure something out."

  A loud soprano voice from the living room shouted "Daddy, I'm thirsty. Can I have some milk?"

  Jerry responded "Come into the kitchen and ask nicely."

  Michelle thumped down the hall at full speed and skidded to a stop in front of the table. "May I have a glass of milk, pleeeze?" she said with a thousand watt smile.

  Rose said "I'll get it for you, Mitchie," as she rose from the table.

  Jerry said quietly to Miriam "It must have been awful."

  Miriam started to cry softly. Jerry patted Miriam's shoulder awkwardly. "I've been trying not to think about it too much. But to see you again and to feel like I can tell someone, it's like coming home. I haven't felt at home anywhere since my father died." Mitchie crawled up on the empty chair next to Miriam and started to pat her other shoulder. "It's okay, Mirimun."

  Rose gathered herself and said, "Well we can't solve everything tonight but you're welcome to stay with me as long as you need to. Jerry, you need to put Mitchie to bed. Why don't I get Miriam settled over to my house and we'll be by tomorrow morning before you have to head off to work."

  Miriam looked at Jerry, gave Mitchie a hug then squeezed Jerry's hand. "Thank you." Then she gathered up her pack and followed Rose to the house two doors down.

  Rose put Miriam in a small bedroom on the upper floor that looked out over the back yard and into the tree covered hills. The westering sun was making the tips of the trees glow red in the sunset. The room was furnished with a single bed and had leftover mementos that obviously belonged to a girl. Rose had said that the room used to be her daughter Madeline's room, but she was married now.

  Miriam opened the window. The sounds of birds settling in for the night and the soft hush of the waves on the nearby shore combined with the occasional traffic noise from the highway over the hill. In the distance she could hear rhythmic metallic clanking noises and the sounds of gulls arguing.

  There were leftover clothes in the dresser, which Rose said she was welcome to have, if anything fit. Miriam moved the items in the top two drawers down to the bottom two and put her meagre belongings into the dresser. She still had a couple of thousand American dollars left, but that wasn't going to last long.

  One of the leftovers was a size 14 flannel nightgown with a Pocahontas print. A girl's nightgown, but it fit and Hubbards in June was cool for her. She crawled into bed and fell asleep quickly after saying her prayers.

  After Michelle was asleep, Jerry fixed himself a snack and settled down with a stack of badly written lab notes from the chemistry unit he was teaching. A couple of the students had the discipline to keep good notes, but most of the kids were too aware of the coming s
ummer break to pay much attention. He didn't blame them, summer was the time to have fun with friends and earn money helping out with all of the tourist business. The university crowd were all back, helping with the shoulder season trade, but there would be hordes of people from the Boston states and central Canada coming for vacation in a few weeks.

  He started to work through the pile, the last assignment for the Grade 12 class before Tuesday's exam, in a mechanical fashion. More than half of his mind was on Miriam. He had no idea that she'd thought of him as her best friend. He'd never allowed himself more than brief fantasies, knowing that she was destined to return to Lebanon and he would probably never hear from her again. But here she was, more beautiful than he remembered and in need of help.

  A little voice told him that women who needed help were his downfall, always. Gert flirted with him constantly which he could ignore but she knew that if she put on her damsel in distress look good old Jerry would be there to help out. And there was Annabelle. And here was Miriam from a world away, in real trouble, looking lost and sad. How could he not help?

  It was all he could do this evening to not sit Miriam on his lap and hug her until the world was right again. She would fit perfectly on his lap with her head just resting on his shoulder. He wondered what her lips would feel like then remembered that he was still a married man, technically. This was no way for a Christian man to be thinking. He grabbed another set of lab notes and his red pencil. And then another, but the image of Miriam's luminous dark eyes looking relieved and hopeful kept returning to his mind.

  He eventually got everything marked but it was almost midnight before he finished. He sat on the edge of the bed praying his usual evening devotions. He said a special prayer for Michelle and one for Miriam. He fell into bed exhausted, thinking that it could be a very interesting summer.