Chapter Two

2005

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

—Mark 11:24

August 1, 2005

The closing shift at the bank is generally quiet, with only the drive-through open for the last hour of the workday, and it was a familiar routine. Just before closing, at 5:45 p.m., my husband pulls up unexpectedly on his motorcycle asking if he can come inside the bank. It’s a bit of a break from protocol, but I am the manager and don’t see the harm, so I meet him around the front and let him inside. He’s grinning and hands me a big, beautifully wrapped box.

“Open it,” he says with a huge smile and devilish playfulness.

The motorcycle was an impulsive birthday gift for him a week prior. It was used and cost only $700. It was something he had wanted for a long time. With three kids, a mortgage, and little savings, even at that price it was an indulgent purchase. And now, here he was, surprising me, riding up on that bike like a schoolboy picking up his girl for a stolen night away.

Inside the box was a new dress, and strappy, very sexy, high heels. No occasion. Not my birthday, no anniversary, nothing to celebrate other than each other.

He encourages me to change from my bank manager work clothes into the sexy outfit that he picked out for me. He’s ensured the kids were taken care of and made a dinner reservation for the two of us.

Mark is a romantic, but in a more subtle way normally. This felt so special. So unexpected. Clearly this husband of mine was on a mission to have a romantic, special evening.

“Why tonight? What did you buy?” I ask, half-jokingly.

“No reason,” he says. “I can’t explain it, except to say all day I felt compelled to make tonight special, just for us. I ignored it, several times—tried to disregard it and focus on work—and then I thought, why not?”

“Compelled?”

Grinning ear to ear with a Cheshire cat look of satisfaction, he confirms, “Exactly. Compelled. A nagging that we had to take this time for us. We need to be together tonight.”

The next morning, I take the day off to take our daughter, Lilly, shopping for school clothes, which has the potential to be stressful due to her independent nature. She has a head full of her own ideas and fashion sense, but it is also fun and part of a tradition that began for me with my Aunt Dot, who had taken my sisters a