Henry Gowen had been the unwelcome child of a penniless sharecropper. Grinding poverty had worn away whatever soft edges his father may once have had, until 'hard' became the byword for his entire, dire, existence: hardscrabble, hard bitten, hard drinking, hardhearted. When Henry was born, of a woman his father had long since ceased to care for or about, he opened his mouth to draw breath for his first cry of distress; and his father felt only resentment at the thought that this was a mouth he was expected to feed. He ignored the boy, when he wasn't beating him for reasons never made clear to the helpless young victim of his whisky soaked rages.
But Henry was a smart boy. Not for him the dirt, and dearth, and desolation. The first time his bare, calloused feet found themselves inside a pair of secondhand boots, he began the arduous process of pulling himself up by their straps. Body and soul, Henry was dedicated to the goal of lifting himself from the grimness of his unlovely, and unloved, childhood. By the time he made it to a position of power in Coal Valley, by dint of hard work and shrewd observation, rubbing the right elbows and lavishing lip service, glad handing, back slapping, back biting, and back stabbing, he was – as he dearly loved to think of himself – A Self Made Man. True, as mayor of a minuscule mining hamlet on the Canadian frontier, he was no more than a big fish in a very small pond…but he had plans. Henry always had plans.
The man Henry Gowen had become reflected the bitterness of his upbringing. He wasted no time on making friends, no money on charitable causes, no effort on easing the burdens of his neighbors, and no opportunity to better his circumstances or line his pockets. What associates he did have were of the sort that never watched each other's backs, but only their own. Henry had not yet had all his soft edges worn away; but a life spent constantly chafing and rasping his fellowmen had left very little of him that anyone was inclined to embrace. People who had the misfortune to cross him soon came to the conclusion that the man was utterly heartless. He wasn't – not yet – but Henry's heart had become as closed as a clenched fist. Love had played no part nor served any purpose in his life that he was aware of. No one had offered their heart to Henry, ever; no one had ever cared to enquire after the condition of his. It was useful in that it kept him alive; but never had he learned the value of an open heart to giving him…Life.
And then, a miracle was granted to Henry Gowen. He got careless one day, and was caught with his hand in the community till.
What followed was a brutal mercy. Gowen the mayor had fallen, had fallen, and his collapse into ignominy was mourned by no one. While clawing his way out of his past, he'd had his share of fist fights, hard knocks, and grueling labor; but none of these, not even the bloody beatings he'd endured as a boy, compared to the pain of this public humiliation. At least he'd been spared some of it; first, lying unconscious in an infirmary as he recovered from the effects of a crash while fleeing town in his roadster, and later when he was locked in the penitentiary, where no one was likely to visit him, giving him time to reflect on his crimes, and offering him the blessed solitude to bear his shame unseen.
But, like the apostle Peter, Henry did receive a visitor while in jail.
Abigail Stanton would have been the last person he expected to see. After losing her family in the horror of the mine collapse a few years earlier, she had been a source of strength and hope to all the other newly-made widows of Coal Valley. A born leader, and a God-fearing woman, she had commanded the respect and earned the trust of the townspeople, and her unfailing kindness and offer of friendship to anyone in need was amply rewarded by the love they gave her in return. She was the force for good in the grieving little town that, thanks in large part to her example, had been renamed Hope Valley, and many hard lives had been made bearable by the warmth, wisdom, common sense, rolled up sleeves and extended hand of this brave and selfless woman.
It was no wonder, then, that conflict had erupted between she and Henry almost from the beginning of their acquaintance. Henry was jealous of the power she held over the hearts and minds of the townspeople. Even after the death of her husband and son – a tragedy that occurred thanks to Henry's negligence and greed, a fact which he not only smoothly denied but regretted not at all – he had continued to coerce her, threaten her, humiliate her, all in the pursuit of his own selfish ends, and she had stood firmly on her principles and fought him at every turn.
But nevertheless, here she was, this woman who had replaced him as mayor of Hope Valley. She'd left her home and friends, her thriving business and civic responsibilities, the rich and goodly life that – in spite of him – she had rebuilt from the ashes and grief of her past, to travel a vast distance and stand up in court, telling a skeptical world that Henry Gowen – liar, thief, and living embodiment of all that she despised and condemned – even now deserved grace, and the chance to rewrite the wasted story of his life.
To say that Henry was bewildered by Abigail's decision to be a champion on his behalf would be an understatement. She told him – and she seemed to mean it – that she saw good in him. That left him even more confused. Once, in his arrogance, he would have sneered, and wondered why she would waste her time helping him; what could possibly be in it for her? Now he could only wonder why he, of all broken beings, was deserving of the help she was giving to him – in good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, and poured into his lap. Time in prison had given him abundant opportunity to render some order out of the chaos in his soul; a soul that had suffered more than one dark night, and brought him face to face with the flawed man his own choices had created. He'd been shaken by what he had seen. Sometimes his self-condemnation would curse him with a writhing wakefulness that left him weeping and groping heavenward in an embryonic attempt to seek his redemption from above. But Henry could not yet find the words, or the humility, to approach the true Source of help and comfort.
Another, earthly source of help and comfort was where he had to begin that journey. It was a chastened, humbled Henry who left that prison, still broken, still bleeding, but healing. There would be missteps and backslides, of course, for just like Rome, a new life and a new character cannot be built in a day. But the second miracle he received was that he was willing to try.
xxxxxxx
There is a word in Hebrew – teshuvah – that is literally translated as "repentance," but more accurately refers to a return to an original state of being. Henry did not know any of this, but he embodied this hopeful principle when he embraced repentance and a return to where he started, to begin again.
So he went back to Hope Valley, even knowing he'd have to endure the snubs and slights and side eyes of the citizens he'd defrauded, few of whom were as ready as Abigail had been to forgive him his trespasses. He was neither welcomed nor befriended, but this dusty place was the closest thing to home he knew. Why this lonely settlement in the wilderness that froze him out and kept him at arm's length still felt like the only home he had, he didn't examine too closely.
But even a blind man cannot live without light. It was with good reason that ancient man worshiped the sun as the source of all life and goodness. In his loneliness, in an unconscious tropism, Henry would find himself turning his head to the same direction at imagined sounds, strolling through town without plan or purpose, only to look up from his sad reverie and realize that he had, once again, ended up in the same spot. Like a human sunflower, Henry was pivoting and spinning internally, forever trying to turn his soul toward the greatest source of warmth and light he could find. And where his soul yearned, his body seemed to follow.
That was how, one afternoon, he found himself once again outside Abigail's café, by chance the only customer. He stepped inside, looked around, and chose a seat in the back. Abigail was bustling about in the kitchen, stirring, kneading, and creating the delicious aromas that wafted from her windows and silently invited everyone with a nose to take the hint and follow it. She hadn't seen him yet, and he took this moment to watch her; her slender figure and lithe movements; the almost comic seriousness with which she touched a finger to her tongue, testing the spices in her soup to be sure they were just right; the graceful rise and fall of her wrists as she dusted flour onto a breadboard, as if she were conducting an orchestra of musical kitchen utensils.
Henry sat staring for a moment, in a perfect state of awe.
Suddenly he became conscious of his calloused hands, a painful reminder that he was no longer a well-to-do mover and shaker, a man with power, He Who Must Be Obeyed. He had found work as a menial laborer at a sawmill – more truthfully, they'd made a place for him on the payroll, out of pity – and the meager pay he received didn't allow him many luxuries, like a meal at a restaurant. But here he was. He slid the offending hands out of sight under the tablecloth, gripping his knees and feeling the rough tweed of the only suit he now owned. He was trying, oh he was trying, Heaven knew; but…did Heaven really care? Maybe Abigail could explain that to him someday. Henry was beginning to understand that there were a great many things he wanted to learn from this woman. He drew a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he saw Abigail moving toward him, her long skirts gently rustling around her willowy frame, a basket of hot rolls in her hands, a light of welcome in her eyes.
"Henry," she said. "I'm so glad to see you."
She smiled her warm, sympathetic smile, tenderness and understanding in her glance. Henry took a roll with quiet thanks, broke it open, looked up into her sweet face…and felt his heart unclench.