Silent Pledge

by Hannah Alexander

  He found the lighted doorbell and rang it, then held his breath, listening to hear her footsteps, or Tedi’s, rush to answer the door. Was she looking forward to some time together as much as he was? He couldn’t help himself. He’d thought about her all the way down. They’d been bittersweet thoughts, but for now all he wanted was to see her again. He felt like a man who’d taken a hike without water, and she was a refreshing spring. Traveling from place to place was no fun, and Herald was even worse, but he had to admit to himself that being separated from her these past few months was the worst part of all. What he tried not to think about was the possibility that his whole future would be without her.

  No one answered the door. He frowned and rang the bell again, listening until he heard the deep musical chimes inside the front hallway. Yes, the doorbell was working.

  He shivered in his long-sleeved chamois shirt. Should have put his coat on, but he didn’t think he’d be out here long, and he hadn’t expected the weather to be this cold. He knocked on the door, just in case.

  No one came.

  He reached up to test the latch and see if the house was locked when the sound of a motor and the beam of headlights reached him from down the street. He stepped across the wide brick porch to see if it might be Mercy, but to his disappointment it wasn’t her car. Instead, he saw a champagne-colored Saturn.

  He watched the car slow in front of Mercy’s driveway, and once more his hopes rose. He turned and took the steps down to the sidewalk and then felt a quick thrill of joy when he saw the car stop and Tedi wave at him from the front passenger seat. She thrust the door open and jumped out.

  “Lukas!” She leaned back into the car. “Look, Grandma, it’s Lukas!”

  A rush of disappointment overwhelmed him for a few seconds. Grandma, not Mom. Ivy must have bought a new car.

  But there wasn’t time to wallow in disappointment as Tedi came flying toward him, book bag over her shoulder, long dark hair held back in a clip. And glasses.

  Glasses?

  She hurled herself into his arms and grabbed him around the waist, and the book bag fell off her shoulder and slammed into his side as he reached out and engulfed her in a tight hug.

  Tedi. Mercy’s daughter. The sweetest, smartest eleven-year-old in the world.

  “Lukas, why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Her voice was muffled by his shirt, but he managed to decipher that they must not have received his message. So the porch light wasn’t for him. Okay. Tedi sure knew how to welcome a guy.

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” he said. “I tried calling.”

  She continued to hang on. “Did you miss us?”

  “I sure did.”

  “I’ve missed you so much, and I know Mom has, too. Everybody has! Why don’t you just come back and work with Mom until they get the E.R. built, and then we can see you every day and you can help me with my homework like you used to.”

  “Lukas!” Ivy came rushing up behind her granddaughter. She, too, grabbed him in a bear hug that threatened to knock him sideways. Her grip was firm and tight, and she laughed as she stepped back and looked up at him. “What a wonderful surprise! I wish we’d known you were coming. You could have come over to my house to wait for Mercy.”

  “Where is she?” he asked. “Is everything okay at the clinic? I knew she was busy.”

  “She’ll be along soon. You know how she likes to mother her patients, and…well, I guess I can tell you….” Ivy lowered her voice and glanced around the house into the darkness, as if someone might be listening. “Delphi Bell needed a place to stay, so she’s going to be at my house for a few days. Mercy just wanted to make a last-minute check and see that she was okay for the night.”

  Lukas nodded. “Oh, yes, she told me a little about that on the phone this week.”

  Another smile crossed Ivy’s face. “So you two are keeping in touch. I’d hoped you would.”

  “Yes, we’re keeping in touch.”

  “Not as much as Mom wants, though,” Tedi said.

  Lukas felt a familiar warmth. “Ivy, you look good.” There were no more shadows beneath her eyes, and her face had filled out. He had met her for the first time last spring, when she’d brought her dying mother into the emergency room and insisted on resuscitation measures—her mother was in the last stages of cancer. He had learned at that point how bullheaded the Richmond women could be.

  Ivy looked down at her eager-faced granddaughter, and her smile widened. “Why don’t you get the front door unlocked, and we’ll go in.”

  “Okay.” Tedi reached for her book bag and pulled a set of keys out of the front pocket. “Sorry nobody was here when you arrived, Lukas. I had a play tonight, and Grandma picked me up.” She unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  Lukas stood back and allowed Ivy to enter first. When he followed, he felt a sweet rush of memories greet him with scents of cinnamon and apples and eucalyptus. He felt so comfortable in Mercy’s home. He’d spent a lot of time here.

  Tedi stepped over and hugged Lukas’s arm and grinned up at him. “Mom’s going to be so happy to see you, Lukas. Did you know Clarence lost another twenty pounds? And Darlene hasn’t had an asthma attack since you left. And Grandma Ivy’s still dating Dr. Heagerty, but she gets mad when I call it dating. She says they’re just friends, but I know better.”

  “Hey, watch it, kid!” Ivy protested. “That’s all conjecture.”

  Tedi giggled and ignored Ivy. “She talks to him on the phone almost every day, and when she sees him she gets all smiley, like Mom does when she sees you.” Tedi continued to talk as she led the way into the living room. “Come on in and sit down.” She plopped down on the love seat adjacent to the sofa, and Ivy sat across from her, gesturing for Lukas to take a place beside Tedi. He did so gladly.

  Ivy gestured toward the green scrubs Lukas wore. “Just get off work?”

  “Yeah, I drove straight down. I had my own clothes in the locker, but when I went to put them on…well…someone had played a practical joke on me.” He paused and shook his head. “Another one. I didn’t feel like wearing cutoffs down here.” And he hadn’t wanted to take time to go home. Besides, home was here. As far as he was concerned, Herald, Missouri, was a practical joke. “I have everything I need at my house. I just haven’t been there yet.”

  Ivy nodded. “You must have been in a hurry to get here.” A teasing tone filled her voice.

  “Of course he was, Grandma,” Tedi said, sitting back in the love set and bouncing her legs happily. “He misses Mom.” She grinned. “How do you like my glasses, Lukas? Do I look smarter?”

  She was so much like Mercy, he couldn’t help returning her grin. “You sure do, but you were already the smartest girl around.”

  “I got ’em two weeks ago. Mom let me pick them out myself. I love ’em because now the kids at school don’t expect me to slide when we play baseball. I usually just sit on the sidelines looking intelligent.” She raised her chin in the air and struck a haughty pose but ruined the effect with a mischievous grin.

  Ivy beamed at Tedi, then turned again to Lukas. “How are things going in Herald?” She gestured toward the scrubs. “Aside from the practical jokes—and what kind of a person would make cutoffs out of your slacks?”

  Lukas spread his hands. “I’m still trying to guess. The natives aren’t too friendly. I thought all small towns were the same, but they’re not. The only thing Herald has that Knolls doesn’t is an E.R.”

  “But we will soon,” Tedi announced. “Mom says sooner than anyone expected, and I’m glad, because Mom gets calls and has to go out a lot. Sometimes she even takes me to the clinic with her, although she usually just drops me off at Grandma’s.”

  Lukas gave Tedi a questioning glance. What about Theodore? Why didn’t she stay with him part of the time? Surely his working hours weren’t the same as Mercy’s.

  Tedi leaned against Lukas and looked up at him through thick dark lashes. “Why don’t you come back?” she repeated.
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  Once more, Lukas felt that longing to be firmly ensconced in Mercy’s life—and in Tedi’s. He looked down into the child’s sweet open face and wondered if, indeed, he might not be a good stepdad. Did he possess the maturity? He and Tedi had grown close last summer and fall.

  So many questions yet to be answered. They could overwhelm him, and all he wanted to do right now was bask in Tedi’s shining smile and see Mercy walk through the door. He felt as if he could do this every day for the rest of his life and never tire of spending time with them.

  But how many times would he also see Theodore walking in? He would always be a part of their lives, and Tedi was the connection that would keep him there. This was Theodore Zimmerman’s family, not Lukas Bower’s.

  Mercy fought the fatigue that seemed to press her into the car seat with the force of a jet during takeoff. Sleep deprivation did that to people.

  Delphi was now safely tucked away at Mom’s after a quick getaway from a side door of the hospital, under cover of January darkness. Mercy had been especially careful to make sure Abner would not see them even if he was watching from the parking lot—she’d used Darlene’s car.

  She turned onto the street where she lived and forced herself to breathe deeply, relax, enjoy the luxury of watching for the lighted windows of her own home, where Tedi may already have popped some popcorn and mixed the lemonade. They could share memories of their day before they went to bed. At least she’d been able to catch the play before rushing off to tend to Delphi. Theo, true to his word, had been there, too.

  Mercy frowned, and the weight on her mind grew heavier as she recalled Alice’s words today…“What a wonderful example of reconciliation!”

  The words had continued to haunt her all day. Apparently, Alice wasn’t the only one who felt God’s will was for Mercy, Tedi and Theo to become a family again. Lauren had implied that, though reconciliation would take a lot of inner strength, it would be a good thing. And Joseph, their pastor—inexperienced bachelor that he was—also radiated the same message. But none of them had ever experienced the pain of divorce. True, they knew their Bibles a lot better than Mercy did….

  Still, she wasn’t going to base a life-changing, heartrending decision on the whim of three people, especially people who couldn’t even identify with the struggles of her life. There were others she could ask…and maybe she should…though she didn’t even want to think what her reaction would be if they told her to reconcile with Theo. And what, exactly, did reconciliation mean? What would Mom say? What would Lukas say?

  She caught sight of the lights in the front window of her house, and she smiled, already imagining the buttery fragrance of the popcorn and the blare of the television mingling with Tedi’s laughter and chatter. Home. Mom might still be there, making sure Mercy returned so Tedi wouldn’t be left alone, but she would leave quickly. She always did.

  But the overflow from the porch light outlined two cars in the driveway, one behind the other. Had Mom brought Tedi home? The car in front had a familiar boxy shape….

  An old Jeep. She caught her breath. “Lukas!”

  Suddenly all the cares of the day dissipated. She braked and pulled into the drive beside the Jeep, pushed the garage-door opener and eased into the overstuffed garage, barely noticing that the fluorescent overhead light was flickering again, or that more leaves littered the concrete floor of the garage than covered the yard outside.

  Lukas was here!

  She grabbed her bag and lunged out of the door and up the garage entrance steps and shoved open the door. “Hello! Anybody home?” She tried to control the speed of her footsteps as she rushed across the kitchen floor, through the dining room and into the living room. There, she stopped with a sudden jolt.

  Lukas was looking in her direction expectantly, and as soon as she appeared he stood up, his arms dropping to his sides. His face lit as if an angel had just appeared in front of him. He took a hesitant step toward her, then stopped.

  Mercy dropped her medical bag onto a straight-backed chair and rushed across the room to greet him, unable to contain the laughter that spilled from deep inside. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. He returned the hug with satisfying strength.

  Over his shoulder, she saw Mom and Tedi watching. She didn’t care. She reached up and grabbed Lukas on both sides of his head and smacked him a nice, noisy kiss right on the lips. She felt a glow of satisfaction when he kissed her back and drew her closer. Tedi came rushing over to hug Lukas and Mercy both at the same time.

  “Lukas, why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Mercy asked, disengaging herself from the group hug and turning to the kitchen, where she’d left the back door standing wide open in her rush to reach him.

  Tedi followed her. “He did, Mom. We just didn’t get the message. He drove all the way down tonight just to see you, and then he has to go back tomorrow because he’s supposed to work tomorrow night. I wish he didn’t have to go back at all. Did you know they cut up his clothes up there? Those people aren’t very nice.”

  Mercy grinned at her daughter’s garrulous excitement and wrapped an arm around her as they walked back into the living room. She sank onto the sofa beside Lukas, took his arm and squeezed it. “You know I told you about Delphi’s disappearance the other day? Well, the police found her hiding in an unheated motor home at the edge of town, where she’d broken in. Unfortunately, word spread. Although our new managing editor for the Knolls Review did agree to my request not to print the news. We want to try to keep Delphi away from Abner until we can get her out of town somewhere safe.”

  Lukas sat forward and turned to her with an expression of concern in his earnest blue eyes. “Abner knows she’s been found?”

  She thought about the telephone call at the office today and remembered his grimy, threatening voice, but right now she didn’t want to worry Lukas about it, and she would not frighten Tedi. And Mom would call the National Guard if she knew. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Theo tells me he’s heard about her ‘capture’ several times down at the shop. You know how fast word spreads in Knolls.”

  Ivy glanced at her watch and stood. “And speaking of which, I need to get back home and make sure our guest is doing okay. Darlene is out at a meeting tonight—that lady is a gem. She has the sweetest heart and the most gentle disposition, but I can never keep her home long enough for us to spend much time together. Now that she isn’t worried about Clarence, she’s got her finger in every charitable organization in the city. But that leaves Clarence home alone with Delphi right now, and there’s no telling what kind of horror stories he’ll tell her about me.” She hugged Tedi, winked at Lukas, and waved a hand in Mercy’s general direction as she left.

  Tedi planted herself between Lukas and Mercy, and that was when Mercy realized there would be no early bedtime tonight.

  Clarence saw the young woman huddled in the corner of Ivy’s family room, her left arm crossed over her chest as if to protect herself from a blow. Stringy brown hair hung to her shoulders, and apprehension lurked in her eyes as if it had been born there. A black bruise marked the skin all around her right eye and cheekbone. Her right arm was hugged tightly against her body with a sling, and under that it looked as though she had half a cast on.

  She turned her head enough to look at him as he stepped from the indoor apartment entrance. He was glad when her face didn’t register shock or revulsion at his size before she looked away again.

  “Hi,” he said, stepping farther into the room.

  She nodded but didn’t look at him again. She didn’t look at anything.

  “You okay?”

  No answer, not even a nod this time, but he didn’t take her reaction personally. From what Ivy’d told him, this slightly chunky young woman in her twenties was hurting from the inside out. He could relate—even though he’d never been beaten senseless by a husband.

  He walked farther into the room and sank down as easily as possible on the love seat about eight feet from where she sa
t. He didn’t want to scare her off.

  He sat there and waited, sending glances at the blank television screen. Should he turn it on? Somehow he didn’t think that was what this girl needed, but it sure was quiet in here. And he couldn’t just sit here and stare at her all night.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, figuring that was a good place to start.

  Her gaze darted back toward him, startled. She shifted in her seat, cleared her throat, blinked. “Delphina Bell.” Her voice came out as a harsh whisper. She cleared her throat again but didn’t say more.

  Now he knew how Lukas and Mercy must’ve felt when they first came to see him, when he’d tried to kick them out of his room.

  “Delphina? That’s kind of an old-fashioned name. Where’d that come from? Named after your grandmother or something?”

  She nodded. “Mama’s mom. They call me Delphi.”

  “There, that wasn’t so bad. Knew you could talk. I’m Clarence Knight. My sis and I live in that apartment.” He jerked his head toward the entrance door and shifted his weight on the love seat. “Actually, I’m the only one who sleeps there. Darlene has a bedroom in the main house. Ivy took us in, too.” He probably sounded like a jabbering fool, but trying to start a conversation with somebody who’d barely talk was hard. He gestured toward the sling. “Broken arm?”

  She looked down at her arm, then shook her head. “Dislocated.”

  He grunted and nodded. He’d heard Mercy telling Ivy about the husband, and he wanted to reassure Delphi. “Don’t you worry, that jerk’s not gonna find you here. And if he does, Ivy’s mean enough to fight him off. Why, she spouts fire so much she’s got singed nose hairs.”

  Delphi shot him a startled look. Then her face puckered slightly. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

  Uh-oh. What had he said?

  Chapter Twenty

  A few minutes before schooltime Friday morning Mercy backed out of the garage and pressed the remote button that closed the overhead door. “Tedi, we need to talk.”