Lukas Grant – Chapter 1.4 – A Plan Takes Shape

Finding out the secret Elaine had been keeping shook me to the core. My heart grieved for her and what she had gone through. Though I wasn’t around during that time, somehow I felt guilty for not being there for her when she most needed me. On Sunday after church, I talked to the minister at Riverview Community Church, Roger Logan, about my feelings of guilt and what I could do to help Elaine. He said it was touching, but quite normal to feel the way I felt because I loved Elaine so much. He suggested I should tell her what I knew so that she could finally talk about it and start to work through her own guilt and grief. My vow was to make it up to her no matter what the cost. All I wanted to do was to make Elaine happy.After work on Monday, I went over to see Elaine and tell her all that I knew. She was disturbed at first that Sherman had told me. Then she said, well, it was common knowledge, you would have found out eventually. Then she kissed me and hugged me and we talked about how she thought about her daughter every day. Elaine said she had two big regrets in her life, dumping me and giving away her baby. She said she should have told me in the beginning but she didn’t and it just got harder to every day. I told her I loved her and would always love her and be there for her and that there was nothing that would ever make me feel any different. I don’t deserve that kind of love, she said, but I will take it, she said through her tears. I love you too Lukas, I always have and I always will. That conversation was the first release of guilt that she had allowed herself in almost 4 years.  

I went to the bank the next day and got a loan to give Elaine the home she really deserved. After what happened to my father, the thought of a bank loan made me sick to my stomach. To make my plan come together required it however, so I swallowed my pride. I told her I wanted to build a special place for us to get married and I didn’t want her to see it until that day so I made her promise not to drive by the property until our wedding day.  I bought the materials I could on the wholesale market and the best I could find from the junk yard. Then I called Norman, Lucky, Sherman and George Dean to come over and help. I figured the five of us could get a lot done over the next few weeks or months on our time off. It wasn’t all work of course, I often grilled out after we finished for the day. We and joked and talked until everyone went home.  

 First off, I had to move the old house to the back of the lot to make room for the new house. I could live there until Elaine and I were married and we moved into the main house. The old house can be a guest house or a play house for the kids in the future. Secondly I built a bridge, a pond and added some much need trees and landscaping. This had not been my original plan, but circumstances change and I wanted only the best for Elaine and our future children. After the old house was re-built, we started on the new house.

Don’t think I was neglecting Elaine during this time. We spent as much time together as we could, in fact I proposed to her at the gazebo one night during a Saturday night dance. Everyone could tell she was happy. She had changed a lot over the last few months since we first talked about her baby and she had opened up and released her guilt. The night I proposed, she said this was all like a fairy tale and that she was a princess and I was her knight in shining armor!