Huib and Margreet entered the washroom talking. They fell silent abruptly when they saw Lisa standing there so distraught. A thought shot through them both: where was Sjaak? Hadn't he gone after her?

Margreet put her arm around Lisa. "Oh Lisa, are you still so upset about my mother's snide remark?"

Lisa looked at her with wide-open eyes for a moment and then bowed her head again, "No, no, that's not what it is. I was at first, upset about that, but Sjaak had gone with me and stayed with me until I calmed down. But then something happened, in my head, like a flash, it overwhelmed me so much that I became restless again. Sjaak actually wanted to stay with me, didn't want to leave me alone while I was in such a state, but I asked him to go to the kitchen. After all, it's almost coffee time?"

"Yes, it is..." Margreet said. She looked briefly at Huib, saw that he winked at her. That felt to her like a confirmation of her suspicion, that Lisa had felt something of that soul-connection between her and Sjaak. If that was the issue, she could understand well that it had been overwhelming.

"Can you explain what you mean by that flash?" she asked gently.

Lisa looked at her again, and then looked at Huib in despair. He sensed that as a man he was too much for a moment, and said airily, "I'm going to head to the kitchen too, I'll see you there in a minute." And he slipped out of the washroom.

Lisa straightened up and turned to Margreet. "There was a flash, Margreet...a flash of words...soft at first, and when I tried to get it out of my mind, it came again, brighter, fiercer, clearer..."

"What words do you mean?"

"Don't laugh, Margreet, it's so weird, I seem to be disturbed. That flash, and those words... 'A man like Sjaak...' and then twice. And now that I say it..."

She interrupted herself, dumbfounded, "Surely that's just not possible, I feel it again now, even more clearly. This is really madness! It must be because he was so sweet to me."

Lisa shared what she had experienced with Sjaak, how she had experienced it. She told, how she, after Margreet's parents had gone to the living room, how she herself had laid her head back against him.

"I felt how he held me a little tighter than before, but it didn't bother me, it didn't scare me. And oh yes, even before I heard your parents come in, I felt Sjaaks heart racing like that, very strange, but I didn't really think about it at all. And when he comforted me that second time, those flashes and those words came. And I didn't dare share that with him, I just couldn't do it, I was completely confused! Margreet, what should I do?"

Margreet was grateful Lisa trusted her, was even more grateful that Lisa's own soul had sensed who Sjaak was to her.

She smiled: "Keep breathing, keep living, just keep going. You've just stepped into the roller coaster of divorce, and how things will continue with Sjaak, with Sjaak and you, I don't know. Time will tell, like they say... I think your soul will know or learn. Just try to keep your focus on yourself and your own circumstances, and if Sjaak answers that connection between your souls..."

"He already knows, he's felt it too, really, his heart beating so much faster and harder, I've felt it. And you know, I saw it in his eyes, when he looked at me before I asked him to go to the kitchen in advance. What I saw in his eyes, I've only seen in Huibs when he looks at you. Such love, so deep... I saw it in Sjaak... would he be in love, in love with me?"

The intense astonishment in her voice was the result of the fact that she actually could not imagine it at all. Deep down, she couldn't imagine that there would be anyone at all who could truly love her, the way Huib loved Margreet....

"Too good to be true, Lisa? Too good to be true that someone could love you like that?" asked Margreet.

Lisa chuckled, "Can you read my mind?"

"I don’t think so, but I heard such great surprise in your voice when you asked that, whether he would be in love, in love with YOU??? You know, with big capital letters and a big row of question marks?"

Lisa now shot full into laughter, "Let's leave it at that, as far as I'm going to be able to...shall we have coffee?"

"Let's do that, we've richly deserved it!"

.

That evening, in the familiar surroundings of their bedroom, Margreet told Huib about her conversation with Lisa with a big smile on her face. Together they were happy for her, and for Sjaak. And deep down they knew it was perfect, perfect within all the imperfection of Lisa's broken life.

To chapter 78. Huib discovers he's going to be a father

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