What Dreams May Fall

CHAPTER 1 The leaves rustled in the trees, a sure sign of autumn. Ruby stood up from the table and stretched. Time to get back to work. She smiled at her employer. “Thanks for the cinnamon rolls.” “Well now.” Connie bustled to the table to clear Ruby’s dishes. “If Grandma Lucy’s still asleep and doesn’t need anything, you’re welcome to sit a spell longer and keep me company. My back’s about wore out, milking all those goats today. Care for a game of cards?” Ruby smiled. She had never worked for a kinder woman. God must have heard her when she asked him for a better job than her position as a floor nurse at County Hospital. It was the first real answer to prayer she’d experienced in the few months she’d been a Christian. She got up from the table after promising a round of rummy later. Connie’s son had recently moved to Costa Rica to become a full-time missionary, and she knew Connie was starved for company. Ruby was hired to take care of Connie’s aunt, but when Grandma Lucy was having a good day, Ruby spent more time keeping Connie company in the kitchen than she did using her nursing degree. She loved her new job. Grandma Lucy had been the one to lead Ruby to Christ when Ruby was stitching up her forehead at County Hospital last summer. It was hard to imagine how different her life would be if Grandma Lucy hadn’t fallen that night. So many things had improved on the one hand. On the other … Ruby’s cell phone chimed to sound off an incoming text. Free tonight? Movies in Wenatchee. I’ll pick you up at five. Girls’ night only. Ruby stared at the message from her best friend. She and Jessi had known each other since kindergarten, walked with each other through every major life event, including Ruby’s graduation from nursing school and her mother’s battle with cancer. Even though Jessi was as staunch an atheist as Ruby had been just a few months ago, she never made Ruby feel bad for converting. Never turned her back on her. If only the same could be said about others … Ruby shook her head. She didn’t need to wallow in self-pity. She shot a quick text back to Jessi. We’ll see. Might have to stay late to help with dinner. There was no way to guess if Grandma Lucy would wake up from her afternoon nap with enough energy to preach at Ruby for three hours straight, mixing heavy doses of prayer into her sermons, or if she’d be so out of it she’d start asking for her dead ex-husband. It was painful for Ruby to see her in that condition. The night they met, Grandma Lucy had appeared so strong. So powerful. That’s what had drawn Ruby toward her in the first place. While getting her forehead stitched up, Grandma Lucy spoke as if she’d known about all of Ruby’s secret longings, the late nights she spent wondering if there was any higher purpose in a universe that appeared so chaotic. Ruby still couldn’t explain how the transformation had happened so quickly. So thoroughly. Grandma Lucy said that was just how the Holy Spirit worked, but what Grandma Lucy didn’t understand was how Ruby had been antagonistic to any idea of religion for so many years. Even her best friend Jessi, who once jokingly purchased an ordination certificate from an online atheist “church,” would have been more likely to turn to Christianity than Ruby. What had this old woman done to her? And if Ruby had the opportunity to do it all over again, knowing what she would lose, realizing what she would have to give up if she gave her life to Christ, would she make the same decision twice?