Reinventing Rachel by Alison Strobel Page B

someone else—a sexier, more sophisticated Rachel—she was starting to think she’d stepped into some alternate reality. The concept was appealing.
    “Wine?”
    Rachel wrinkled her nose. “I guess.”
    “Not a fan?”
    “Never had it.”
    “Still?” Daphne shook her head. “How have you avoided it for this long?”
    “No one I hang out with drinks.”
    “What have you tried?”
    “Um …”
    Daphne laughed. “Seriously? Okay then. I’ll order for you.” When the waiter returned Daphne ordered her a yellow submarine. “It’s like fruit punch,” she said when it was brought to the table. “But with a kick.”
    Rachel rolled her eyes. “Fruit punch, huh? If you say so.” She took a cautious sip, bracing herself for what she was sure would be disgusting.
    But it wasn’t. Instead, the sweet drink went down easily. She took another sip, then another. Daphne laughed.
    “Wow. That good, eh?”
    “You weren’t kidding.” Rachel fought the urge to down the whole thing in one gulp.
    “Easy there,” Daphne said with a laugh when Rachel had drained half the glass in just a couple minutes. “Who knows how your system will handle it.”
    “Right. You’re right.” Rachel pushed the glass away.
    “So, I have a question,” Daphne said.
    “Shoot.”
    “How are you really?”
    Rachel gave her friend a half-smile. “Honestly, I’m not sure. Half the time I’m numb, the other half my mind is moving so fast and my emotions are in such upheaval that I feel like I’m falling off a cliff.”
    “I noticed when we talked on the phone the other day, and even since you’ve been here, you haven’t mentioned God once. I think that’s a record for you, at least in my presence.”
    Rachel winced. “I could really go overboard with the God talk, couldn’t I?”
    Daphne smiled. “Sometimes.”
    Rachel shrugged and folded her arms on the table. “I’m in as much turmoil over my relationship with God as I am over everything else that’s happened—precisely because everything did happen, you know?” She let her gaze wander back to the window to give herself a moment to quell the rising tears. When she regained control she looked back to Daphne with a shake of her head. “I don’t know who I am without my faith. It’s my foundation. Everything I’ve thought and done and ever said has gone through that filter. And now I don’t know what to do. Do I throw it all away? Do I soldier through and keep clinging to it even though it doesn’t make sense to me anymore?” Rachel shrugged and dropped her eyes to the bread plate in front of her. “I’m at a loss. A total, utter loss.”
    Daphne was silent. Rachel appreciated that she didn’t jump in with a response. When was the last time Rachel had let someone simply sit with their emotions instead of tossing out quips about the Lord’s will and all things working together for good? How many of the people she’d “counseled” over the years had mentally rolled their eyes at her while sitting with heads bowed, presenting to be engaged.
    After a time, Daphne began to speak in the tone and measure of someone choosing their words carefully. “You know, there are more ways to believe and have faith than just the way you were raised with. If you decided you no longer believed in the God you’ve grown up learning about, it doesn’t mean you’re left completely alone and unmoored. Faith can still be a huge part of your life—it can still be a defining characteristic of who you are.”
    Rachel nodded, though unconvinced. “I suppose,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. What about you—have you ever found a religion you believed in?”
    Daphne rested her chin in her hand. “I think there’s something out there, probably. Some kind of force, like karma plus … I don’t know … consciousness, I guess?” She shrugged. “I don’t think too much about how that all affects me. I guess I just try to live by the golden rule. I don’t like the idea