Over the next several days, Cassie continued to pray on the matter. By Wednesday, she had reached a decision. She would give it a go. She reasoned that the only way to know if Mary was ready for a change for the better – toward a life that rows with the current – was to go see for herself. If Fran was, wonderful. If she wasn’t — well, Havre de Grace would always be waiting with open arms.

Decision made! Cassie couldn’t wait to share the good news with her sister. It was not a particularly long phone call. Nor did Mary’s reaction match Cassie’s expectations. Something was off, and Cassie could sense it.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “You sound tired. Or down. Or … something.”

“I’m fine. Just – uh, got up from a nap. That’s all. Anyway, that’s great news about you coming. I’ll start clearing out the second bedroom.”

“Fran, is anyone living with you?”

“What do you mean?” Mary knew full well what Cassie meant. “No, there’s no guy in my life, if that’s what you’re asking.” She paused, and then added, “And no gals either. Except you. You’ll be my one and only roommate. It’ll be fun.”

It would take another week or so for Cassie to make final arrangements to temporarily move to Frostburg. She packed just enough clothes for two weeks, figuring she could always use Mary’s washer and dryer. She worked out details with Aunt Ruth, Max Weinstein, and Father Mac.

They all supported her decision and thought it was a sound one. Father Mac commented that it was a well-balanced choice, equally factoring brain and heart, and all predicated on guidance from her soul. All good, she thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Mary’s life was once again spinning out of control. Technically, she had not lied when she said “no” to Cassie’s question as to whether she was in any relationship with any guys. When they spoke on that fateful Wednesday morning, and she was not. But before the bars closed on Sunday night, Loser #3 had entered the picture.

Wishing to delay the inevitable explosion that she knew was waiting, Mary kept Lenny away from her place for the next week, telling him that she had a bad flu bug and didn’t want him to get it. Cassie arrived on July 5^th, and the mood was upbeat. Even mildly loving, by Fran’s standards.

All of that changed when Cassie happened to overhear Mary’s answering machine. There were nineteen short calls from some guy named Len. He was concerned that she wasn’t answering and was wondering whether he should come by and see how she was doing. The voice in the last message said, “I’m on my way.”

Mary was grocery shopping when Lenny knocked on the door. Cassie answered and within two minutes she got the gist of it. So did Lenny. “We’re both being played,” Cassie said. Mary’s timing was impeccable. In she came, two bags of groceries in her arms, and two hostile faces staring from where they sat, side by side, on the sofa.

That night was a tense one. Cassie tried to take the high ground, emulating Mary’s, inviting Lenny to stay for spaghetti. But once he was on his way, all hell broke loose. Cassie felt she had been lied to. Mary resented Cassie telling her how to live her life.

Few who knew the situation could have predicted that Cassie would stomach four weeks of this scene. Within days of her arrival, Lenny was invited to move in. At first, he slept on the couch in the living room, but before long he was in Mary’s bed.

What irked Cassie the most was how little attention Mary gave to her. More than a few times, Cassie found herself sitting in front of a blaring TV, with the two lovebirds making out on the sofa, and Cassie thinking to herself, what the hell am I doing here?

One month to the day after arriving, Cassie found herself once again on Midlothian Road, the Frostburg campus in her rearview mirror. She took the I-40 to I-68 East and headed for home.  Cassie had been crying for about a half-hour when she impulsively decided to pull off at Cumberland.

Following road signs, she made her way to a scenic spot on the Potomac River, right where Maryland meets West Virginia. Sitting on a patch of lush grass that lined the bluff, she instantly felt transported back to Concord Lighthouse. The weeping stopped, not so much due to the serenity of the setting, but because she recalled what Father Mac had said about fear and sadness.

She took these precious few minutes to ground herself. To remember that she was a good soul and that God had plans for her. She had no earthly idea what her assignment was or would be – but she knew it could not be fulfilled with an aching heart. Cassie found herself singing her mom’s favorite song, Alfie, as she walked back to the car and resumed the three-hour drive to Strawberry Lane.

Once back in the coziness of her own bed, Cassie found it difficult to abandon it. Her depression surprised her, given how upbeat her mood had been on the return drive. For days, a pattern of lethargy and melancholy persisted. Her self-diagnosis identified lingering guilt. Rather than bothering Father Mac once more, Cassie would have preferred talking to Aunt Ruth. But she was at yet another medical clinic, this time in Baltimore.

“Maybe I didn’t give it enough time. Give her enough chance to absorb what I was trying to get through her thick skull. You know how stubborn and condescending she can be,” Cassie said.

“I thought we had agreed that each person must walk their own journey, dear child,” Father Mac responded. “We must each climb our own mountain.”

“I know. I know. I understand no one can run Mary’s race for her. Least of all, me.”

“Cassandra dear, it’s all about choices. Life boils down to our choices. You cannot make Mary’s choices for her.”

“I get it. She has to make her own.”

“It’s more than that, my girl. It’s actually robbery if you force your choices onto her.”

“What? Robbery?”

“Have you forgotten why God put any of us here? And that is?” He awaited her response.

“To make choices?”

“Precisely. Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. These are nothing less than parameters, guardrails that tell us what good choices look like. But our Father in Heaven didn’t just give us the Ten Commandments. He also gave us Free Will. Humans are the only creatures that can make moral, ethical, and spiritual decisions.”

“I think you’re saying God wants to see how we choose. Is that it?”

“My child, if we coerce someone to behave as we might choose, are we not robbing them of the opportunity to show God how they might choose?” Her crunched face begged for more clarity. “Ok, imagine you’re a parent who’s been teaching her young boy to think about others first. She wishes to test him. So, she sets down a serving dish with one slice of pie left, and asks ‘Johnny, would you like some pie?’”

“I get it. She watches to see if he’ll offer it to the others or take it for himself.”

“Now, what if, before he can answer his mother, his father shouts, ‘Johnny, don’t be so darned greedy!’ The boy now says, ‘No, someone else can take it.’ Do you see the robbery?”

“Maybe. I think I see a difference between the choice itself, and the opportunity to make a choice. Is that it?”

Father Mac’s face looked pleasured. “Our Lord is waiting to see how your sister will choose, and you come along and force her to act a certain way – perhaps by applying guilt that coerces her to give in to you – are you not robbing her of reaching her own conclusion?”

It took little more than the short bike ride home for Cassie to rid herself of the guilt. She loved her sister but didn’t want to rob her of the chance to impress God with her own decisions. Above the sound of clanking bike chains, Cassie heard an inner voice tell her what she had to do.

The next morning, sitting at her dad’s desk, she pulled a clean sheet of paper from the printer, selected a blue pen, and in her best handwriting wrote a simple one-paragraph letter. She licked the envelope, pressed on a stamp, put it in the mailbox, and lifted the red flag.

Dear Fran,

I’m quite sorry for how things ended. I’ve thought it through, long and hard. Even prayed on it – although I know you don’t believe in such things. Anyway, here’s where I stand at this point. I love you very much. I wish you all the best. I pray that you’ll have good health, much success, and bursting bouquets of happiness. For now, I think it’s best you and I each travel our own paths. Hike our own trails. Just know that if you ever need me, I’ll be here for you. I’ll do whatever I can at any time. You always know where to find me.

With Love,

Beebs