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  PRAISE FOR

  STEPPING INTO SUNLIGHT

  “With emotional and spiritual honesty, Stepping Into Sunlight chronicles the rebirth of faith and courage in a young woman traumatized by the unthinkable. Sharon Hinck’s authentic and endearing heroine is so convincing that I found myself praying for her! I laughed. I cried. I asked God a lot of questions. Hinck’s concise yet poetic language ushered me into a worshipful place.”

  —Patti Hill, author of The Queen of Sleepy Eye

  “Told with humor and lump-in-the-throat insight, Stepping Into Sunlight is a compelling story of learning to live again after trauma. This was my first Sharon Hinck novel, but it gathered her a permanent spot on my favorite authors list.”

  —Deborah Raney, author of A Vow to Cherish and THE CLAYBURN NOVELS series

  “For everyone who has ever been afraid of what life may hold (and who hasn’t?), Sharon’s novel is a beacon of hope and healing. Kudos!”

  —Roxanne Henke, author of After Anne and Learning to Fly

  “With a deft hand Hinck ushers the reader into the frustrating, inward world of the victim, challenging us to gauge the level of our compassion for those who walk a journey we can’t adequately imagine and daring us to wonder if we, too, could flatten our fears and replace them with modest, indiscriminate kindness.”

  —Susan Meissner, author of Blue Heart Blessed

  “A beautifully woven story of one woman’s desperation, determination . . . and hope. A cast of oddball, but thoroughly charming, characters make this book a delightful read from start to finish. Highly recommended.”

  —Kathyrn Cushman, author of A Promise to Remember and Waiting for Daybreak

  Books by

  Sharon Hinck

  The Secret Life of Becky Miller

  Renovating Becky Miller

  Symphony of Secrets

  SHARON HINCK

  Stepping

  into

  Sunlight

  Stepping Into Sunlight

  Copyright © 2008

  Sharon Hinck

  Cover design by Jennifer Parker

  Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  Printed in the United States of America

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hinck, Sharon.

  Stepping into sunlight / Sharon Hinck.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-7642-0283-4 (pbk.)

  1. Conduct of life—Fiction. 2. Kindness—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.I53S74 2008

  813'.6—dc22

  2008028096

  * * *

  To Flossie Marxen,

  who has cared for so many of the hidden wounded

  “The King will reply,

  ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did

  for one of the least of these brothers of mine,

  you did for me.’ ”

  Matthew 25:40 NIV

  SHARON HINCK writes “stories for the hero in all of us,” comtemporary novels praised for their strong spiritual themes, emotional resonance, and unique blend of genres. She was named 2007 Writer of the Year at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference and has been a Christy Award finalist and an ACFW Book of the Year finalist. When she’s not wrestling with words, she enjoys speaking at churches and conferences. Sharon earned a M.A. at Regent University, located in the Tidewater area of Virginia, the setting for Stepping Into Sunlight. A wife and mom of four, she now makes her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Visit her website at www.sharonhinck.com and check out the special Penny’s Project blog at http://pennysproject.blogspot.com.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Acknowledgments

  chapter

  1

  TERROR IN THE SUPERMARKET. It sounded like a ridiculous headline from one of the tabloids on the rack near the checkout lane. Yet the only name for the pounding in my chest was that melodramatic word. Terror.

  Gaudy detergent boxes leaned out from the shelves. Beneath fluorescent lights, the corridor stretched into eternity—as if the bakery counter were shrinking into the distance while the grocery store shelves rose up into towering cliffs that threatened to crash down on my head. I gripped my half-full shopping cart for support as its wheels squeaked and wobbled. Three cautious steps edged me closer to my goal. Blood pulsed a quickening tide across my eardrums. Don’t panic. You can do this.

  Last week I’d managed a quick run for milk, eggs, and bread. This week I had set a more ambitious goal. But the surreal menace hit me with even more force today. Breathing hard, I scanned my surroundings. A woman at the end of the aisle gave me a curious glance.

  I hunched deeper into my zip-front sweatshirt and turned my back on her. What did she see? I was just another thirty-something woman dressed for the gym. If she detected the haggard lines of my face, maybe she’d write that off as the exhausted look of a normal mom.

  And I was normal. I had to be. This errand would prove I was ready to cope with everyday life again.

  Farther down the aisle, a loud crack cut through the piped-in Muzak. I jumped and lifted a hand to my temple. A vein pulsed against the skin with enough pressure to burst. A pudgy boy leaned down to retrieve his yo-yo.

  You’re being ridiculous. Scared by a dropped yo-yo? What’s next? Fear of Hula-Hoops?

  I pushed my shopping cart past the boy and his mother and forced my feet to keep a steady pace. Six more steps. Five. Four. My target stretched in front of me. The bakery counter.

  Now all I had to do was order the cake.

  “Can I help you?” The counter woman’s voice creaked with age. I stared at the bear claws on the bottom shelf of the display case.

  Come on, Penny. Tell her. You need a small cake. Chocolate.

  “Ma’am? Can I help you?” Now she sounded concerned.

  Why was this so hard? This store didn’t look at all like—No! Don’t go there.

  My fingertips tingled, and waves of nausea rose up to catch in my throat. Pastries and muffins filled my vision, but the space around them turned gray. Gray with little red sprinkles. Or maybe that was the decoration on the sugar cookies.

/>   I bent forward to draw a deep breath, fighting off the sensation of falling. Who really needed a cake anyway? Too many carbs. This had been a bad idea. I released my grip on the shopping cart and ran.

  Back up the aisle.

  Past the mother who pulled her son close as I brushed by.

  Past a mountain of paper towel rolls.

  Past the pyramid of tangerines. My stomach lurched at their scent.

  The automatic doors opened outward too slowly. I pressed my shoulder against one side and forced it to let me escape. A short sprint brought me to my car. The passenger side was closest, so I dove in that side, pulled the door closed behind me, and hit the lock. Curled up half on the floor and half on the seat, my body shuddered.

  Block it out.

  I squeezed my fists to my forehead.

  Get over it.

  But I was getting worse, not better.

  September sun baked the air inside the car with another reminder that I was in a strange place. Back home in Wisconsin, the leaves were turning orange and the temperature had a bite. Today’s heat made Chesapeake, Virginia, feel as foreign as Bangkok.

  Someone tapped on the glass of my wagon’s door. “Honey chile, you need help?”

  I scrambled to pull myself up onto the passenger seat. A broad dark face peered through the window. The woman probably thought I was hot-wiring the car. Was that a shower cap on her head? One pink roller poked from beneath the cap, clinging to a lock near her temple.

  I grabbed my sunglasses from the floor and held them up. “Just looking for these,” I called through the glass.

  She pursed her lips and braced a heavy arm against the car’s roof. Her flowered muumuu filled my line of sight. “You ran outta there like lard on a hot skillet.”

  While my northern ears struggled to translate, she leaned down and studied my face. “Sure you’re okay?”

  I nodded vigorously enough to make my neck hurt. “I was shopping but changed my mind.”

  She looked puzzled but then flashed a broad white smile. “Well, chile, them prices can set me to runnin’, too.” Her eyes scanned me as if she were an experienced grandmother checking for injuries. Finally, she patted the roof of the car and waddled away.

  I scooted over behind the wheel. Hysterical giggles freed from my throat. Running from high prices?

  My smile died. If only my problems were that simple.

  For a crazy moment I wanted to roll down the window and call the woman back. Cry on her ample shoulder. Tell her everything. “My husband left for three months at sea. I don’t know anyone here. And a few days before he left—” Even in my imaginary conversation I couldn’t finish that sentence, couldn’t make myself explain why the simple act of buying groceries had become impossible.

  Instead, I started the engine and aimed for home, pressing my hand against the ribs where my heart fluttered, as if I could soothe my circulation back into sanity. At the next stoplight, I fumbled in the glove compartment and pulled out a dog-eared business card. Victim Support Services. The policewoman who’d given it to me had been matter-of-fact when she’d told me I’d need help in the days to come. Shock had cocooned me in a blessed numbness for several days. Dazed and grateful to be alive, I counted on my faith, family, and inner strength to shelter me from delayed reactions. Even when the nightmares began, I tried to hide them from Tom. When that was impossible, I reassured him they were a brief aberration. I’d bounce back.

  Or so I’d thought. Lately my confidence was as slouchy and battered as my old canvas purse on the passenger seat.

  I tapped the card on the steering wheel. A left turn would take me to the Norfolk address.

  As if in argument, the car stereo blinked the time at me. Bryan would be getting off the school bus soon. I needed to get home and be there to greet him. He was counting on me. Besides, I had good reason to distrust the benefits of counseling.

  When the light turned green, I tossed the card into my purse and pulled ahead.

  The heat brought prickles to my skin, but I didn’t open the window. The air-conditioner made little impact on the superheated interior, so I pretended I was enjoying a sauna at the YMCA. Too bad I didn’t have a towel.

  It took full concentration to navigate the unfamiliar streets. Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake—the cities ran together like an irregular puddle. In our Chesapeake neighborhood, modest brick ramblers lined up behind chain-link fences. Some tidy yards offered bursts of color from planters or a birdbath. Others were strewn with cigarette butts and crushed cans.

  A mulberry tree, overripe fruit staining the neighbors’ sidewalk, helped me identify our house in the middle of the block. Almost there.

  As I emerged from the car, the pit bull next door yanked his chain and began a token round of barking. When the heat discouraged him, he lowered himself into the dirt that he’d clawed bare of grass. I knew exactly how he felt.

  “Afta-noon.”

  My breath choked, and my hand flew to my neck. Laura-Beth Foley, owner of both the mulberry tree and the pit bull, sat on a paint-chipped chair in the shade cast by her house. She blotted her forehead with a tumbler that dripped condensation past the freckles on her cheeks.

  Tantalizingly close, my house called to me. My nerve endings screamed for escape, but politeness glued me to the concrete. “Hello.”

  She smiled. The slight gap in her front teeth didn’t mar the friendliness of her grin. She was probably only a few years older than I, but her bleached blond hair made her look even older. “Finally got the twins down for a nap. Hotter ’en blue blazes, and it makes ’em fretful.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I hunched inside my long-sleeved hoodie. I probably looked ridiculous in this land of tank tops, but the soft cotton comforted me.

  Laura-Beth had delivered a lopsided banana bread when we moved in several weeks ago. She’d told us about her girl in fifth grade, a boy in third, and twins who were two. I couldn’t remember all their double names. Jim-Bob, Billie-Jo, Mary-Lou? It was as if southerners couldn’t contain their personality in a single name.

  “Come on over and have some iced tea.” Laura-Beth lifted a magazine from her lap and fanned her face.

  I looked at my front door. The lock gleamed—even through the shadows cast by the awning. “Oh. I . . . I can’t. Maybe another time.”

  She shrugged. “All right. But I hope you don’t mind a piece of advice. Try some chamomile tea for your nerves. You’re gonna get an ulcer if you stay wound this tight.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.” I racewalked to my door and hurried inside, bolting it behind me.

  Dropping my purse on the small table near the front door, I slumped onto the couch. Each second passed slowly while my heart searched for a normal rhythm.

  Across from me in the blank television screen, a shadowed reflection revealed a stranger’s face. A new Penny Sullivan. The old Penny used to live in the Midwest with her husband and son: Tom the youth pastor and Bryan the seven-year-old motormouth. That Penny hosted backyard barbeques for the youth group and volunteered in Bryan’s classroom every Friday. That Penny enjoyed people and saw promise and potential in every face she looked into. That Penny would never avoid a friendly neighbor—or be told she needed to do something about her nerves. I squinted at my likeness in the television glass. The face was still heart-shaped with full lips. The hair was still long and auburn. But the eyes had changed. Flat, dull, frozen in a moment of shock, like a bad photograph.

  I glared into the screen. “You are not giving up. Bryan deserves more than a can of alphabet soup for supper. We need groceries.”

  I pushed myself from the safety of the couch and marched to the kitchen for the phone book. Plenty of grocery stores delivered these days. If Penny couldn’t go to the chocolate cake, the chocolate cake would come to Penny. For the second time that day, my lips flickered in a brief smile.

  A quick call led to the promise of a grocery drop-off in time for supper—complete with chocolate cake and chamomile tea. Even better, I le
arned that Tidewater Groceries could take my weekly order via e-mail. I wouldn’t have to drive to the store or even talk to anyone on the phone. Problem solved.

  See, Penny. You can do this. You can keep it together.

  Buoyed by my success, I walked down to the corner to meet Bryan’s school bus. Someone had to make my son’s life as secure and normal as possible while Tom was at sea. I would give Bryan back the mom he used to have. I decided not to look too closely at the fact that it took every ounce of my determination to accomplish the simple act of leaving the house to meet his bus—the kind of thing I used to do without a second thought.

  The bus pulled up, the yellow doors folded open, and Bryan plunged down the stairs. The sun put copper glints in his brown mop of hair, and grape juice stains surrounded his lips. For a moment I remembered how it felt to be myself and grinned.

  “Hey, Mom. Guess what?” Bryan handed me his backpack and marched past leaving me to follow as his pack mule. “We’re doing a really cool play. It’s for Thanksgiving, and I get to be a Pilgrim ’cause they came on a boat. Didja know it’s close to here? And we get to have corn and squash and stuff. Mom, what’s squash? And we get to invite our moms and dads.”

  “Sounds fun.” But worry twisted under my skin. I tried to picture myself walking into the school gym full of kids and parents. Rows of tables decorated with crepe paper. All the strangers. The noise. The chaos. My chest tightened. What was my problem lately? I’d always loved Bryan’s school events. Why did I feel dread instead of anticipation?

  “Will Daddy be home by then? I get to sing a special song all by myself.” He ran up the steps to our door and puffed his chest out.

  “He’s hoping he’ll be home by Thanksgiving. We don’t know yet. But I’ll tell him all about it when I e-mail him tonight.”

  He twisted the door handle and kicked the door with more force than necessary to swing it open. “I want him to be home.”