Free The Isaac Project by Sarah Monzon Page A

asked a friend to find her a husband?
    “Why does your friend need you to find her a husband? This isn’t 700 BC.”
    What kind of woman would do that? An image of a socially awkward nerdy type with stringy hair, glasses, and a serious overbite flashed through my mind. Maybe the girl didn’t think she could ever get a guy on her own, so she begged her friend for help out of lonely desperation. I vacillated between shock from the sheer ridiculousness of the plan to pity for the outcast lady in question.
    Lisa regarded me, searching for something. A test maybe? She gave an almost imperceptive nod of her head. I guess I passed. Or maybe not, because she got up from her chair and went into the living room. I hoped I hadn’t offended her with my incredulity.
    The sound of small items being pushed around filled the silence of the dining room as the rest of the occupants around the table stared in the direction Lisa had gone. The noise sounded like someone rummaging through a purse. I guess she found what she was looking for, because she came back to the table and extended a cell phone to me. I took it and peered at the screen. Smiling back at me was a beautiful woman standing beside a large black horse.
    This couldn’t be the woman in search for an arranged marriage. Where I’d been picturing stringy hair and an overbite laid thick, dark-blond hair and straight, pearly white teeth. There wasn’t any bookishness or nerdiness about her. This was a woman who wouldn’t have had a problem turning heads and receiving offers of marriage based on her looks.
    So if she hadn’t asked Lisa to find her a husband because she had problems acquiring male attention on her own, then it must be something else. Did her inner beauty not match her outer beauty? Maybe she had a quick temper and a sharp tongue. Was she painfully shy and socially awkward? There wasn’t any other explanation.
    “Becky is my best friend,” Lisa explained. “She was raised by her grandfather, but he’s dying of leukemia. He said the only thing he wished he could have been able to do before he died was walk her down the aisle and see her happily married to a man who would take care of her.”
    Sam stretched out his arm across the table, and Lisa took his hand for support.
    “Becky was dating this guy, a real jerk. She caught him cheating on her the same day she found out her grandfather was dying. She was really shaken up about the whole thing. More about Poppy, that’s what she calls her grandpa, than about the sleaze-bag boyfriend. Anyway, the next day she read the story of Isaac and Rebekah and got it into her head that if it could work for them, maybe it could work for her, and she could give Poppy his last dying wish.”
    “So you’re looking for a guy who will move to California and marry her?” I tried to soften my voice and remove any trace of skepticism. It was obvious Lisa cared for her friend. It wasn’t her fault her friend was a few sandwiches short of a picnic to think anyone would participate in a plan that outrageous. I looked at the picture on the cell phone once more. Her devotion to her grandfather spoke of a tender heart, but that didn’t mean I’d changed my mind. The whole idea was ludicrous.
    Lisa nodded.
    “Well, I think it’s sweet,” Aunt Margaret said.
    She would. Women always thought ridiculous equaled romantic.
    Uncle David rubbed his chin. “It could work.”
    “What?” I whipped my head in his direction. That man sitting at the head of the table was assuredly not my practical, logical uncle. Everyone at the table had lost their minds.
    “In this day and age, people are always falling in and out of love like it’s some kind of rock to be stumbled over. Love is a choice. Yes, you can feel love for someone. Just look at these two here.”
    Sam and Lisa smiled at each other, and I suppressed my immature urge to make gagging noises at them.
    “Some days the feeling is strong. So strong you think you might burst. Other