Really? You’re not going to ask for prayer after what you learned this week?
A little girl at the far end of her row asked for prayer for her “boo-boo.” Chuckles bounced around the room. A few other people spoke up, adding their needs to the growing list.
The pastor urged his flock to continue to come forward with their requests.
Liddy noticed that her hands had turned cold, clammy. They say that people fear public speaking more than death. Picturing people in the audience naked never worked either, because, let’s be real, some things a girl just didn’t want to imagine. The truth, though, was that she was the one who always felt naked when speaking to a group. Unclothed, vulnerable, and a little too round at certain corners. Worse, she feared that if she were to open her mouth and let her news tumble out, raw, uncontained emotion would follow.
So what?
She swallowed back a painful ball of unshed tears. Her heart began to race so much that she feared the man next to her could hear it beating against her ears. She hadn’t signed up for this, but then again, if she stayed quiet, Liddy would go to an empty home with nothing more than the unknown to comfort her. So she raised her hand, and when the pastor nodded for her to speak, she found herself saying, “I just found out that I have a brain tumor.”
* * *
Beau tightened both hands into fists. He couldn’t believe it. How old was she? Twenty-three? Twenty-four? A puff of wind might have knocked him over if the blister of heat throttling his insides hadn’t made him so angry. Another young woman hit with a dangerous illness. God—please! He wished he could shout, but what good would that do?
Instead, he bided his time, and after all the prayers were said and most of the congregation had filed out—some stopping to give the young woman a squeeze of encouragement—he turned to her.
He had a million questions, but didn’t want to overwhelm her, so he simply stuck out his hand. “I’m Beau.”
She smiled shyly. “Liddy Buckle.”
“Tell me more about what you’re facing.”
Her eyes darkened. Had he scared her? Or was that fear? His fist clenched again. What was he thinking, of course it was fear. He reached out and touched her elbow. “Here,” he said, motioning to a seat, “can we sit for a minute?”
They sat close to each other. She looked him right in the eyes. “What do you want to know?”
“For starters, who is your doctor?”
“Grayson.”
“Great. He’s good, solid.”
“You know him?”
“We’ve met. My company handles marketing for a number of doctors and hospitals in the area.”
“Oh, so you know which ones are good—and which ones need a good dose of PR.”
She’d caught him off guard with her joke and he found himself smiling at her. “Something like that.”
“I’m new to the area, and from what I can tell I hit the jackpot when I found Dr. Grayson. I’ve been feeling strange for months and …”
He both did and did not want to hear what she had to say about her illness. For years he’d dealt with diagnoses and treatments, but for the past few months he’d had a reprieve. To be honest, he’d hoped it would be for far longer. Why, then, couldn’t he pull himself away from her?
She continued. “The good news is that the doctors believe it’s benign.”
He nodded, relieved.
“The bad news is I’m told it must be removed or it will continue to give me problems, like seizures. Brain surgery wasn’t exactly on my bucket list, but …”
“So that’s how you knew you had a problem.”
She nodded. “Focal seizures at first, then another that was more, uh, adventurous.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stood up abruptly then, brushing a stray hair from her cheek. “Anyway, thanks for your concern. I appreciate it.”
“Liddy, let me give you this.” He pulled a card from his wallet. “It’s got my cell phone number on it.”
Her brows dipped and she opened her mouth to speak, but shut it quickly.
“My wife, Anne, passed away a few months ago.”
She gasped. “Oh, I’m … so sorry.”
He swallowed. “Thank you. She and I had many decisions to make regarding her treatment, and I know it’s tough. If you ever want to run anything past me, call me.” He pressed the card into her hand. “Please.”
Out in the parking lot, he watched her drive away in a rattling old Jeep. As he opened his car door, he heard his name called. Marty, an elder from the church, walked briskly toward him.
“Hey, Marty,” Beau said. “Did I forget something?”
“No, nothing like that. I was just noticing you talking to the young woman … with the tumor.”
“Liddy.”
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“Not really. I’ve seen her here before, but we just met tonight.”
Marty nodded, his mouth grim. “Well, some of us are concerned, Beau.”
He felt one of his eyebrows raise on its own volition. Some of us? “How so?”
“You know, it’s natural to want to make new friends after going through a traumatic time, but maybe you should think about easing yourself into things. In fact, I was going to ask you if you’d join our men’s softball team.”
Beau held his car door open. “Wait … you think I shouldn’t talk to her, to help her in some way if I can?”
“No, no, of course that’s not what I’m saying.” He folded his hands in front of him and let out a gust of a sigh, like he regretted being forced to say what had really caused him to chase after Beau. “You two were sitting very closely. Our concern is that you might become too attached to this young woman …”
“Liddy.”
“To Liddy.” He paused. “You’ve already been through so much.”
Beau eyed the longtime church elder whose white knuckles told him this conversation was as comfortable as having a cavity filled. He let the door fall closed with a click. Didn’t Marty understand that he had something to offer Liddy that might help her in the days to come? Beau hesitated, then spoke quietly. “I don’t enjoy the idea of remembering, you know.”
Marty reached out and placed a palm on Beau’s shoulder. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
Marty’s frown showed him that he was trying.
Beau looked up into the dark sky. “I will never understand why Anne died young, why she … had to go through what she did, and why I had to witness it.” He swung his gaze back to Marty. “But I remember it all, and when I sat in there next to Liddy hearing her story, all I could think of was that, maybe, my experiences could somehow help her. Is that wrong of me?”
“No, no. Of course not.”
“Do you understand what I’m trying to say then?”
Marty nodded. “I think so. You want to be someone she can talk to. But Beau, maybe you’re the one who needs a friend right now.”
He looked directly at Marty. “I’m grateful if anything good can come out of something so … so wretched.”
On his ride home, Beau replayed the night in his head. Except for a warning to “be careful,” Marty seemed to have accepted his position, and Beau had let it go at that. He had people around him who cared, he reasoned. Not everyone could say that. That sort of protective care was the simple reason Marty had approached him in the first place. Frankly, if he ever thought a friend needed a good talking to, Beau would likely do the same.
But would he really? Beau tightened his grip around the steering wheel as he sorted through a mental disheveled load of experiences from the past. He wished those thoughts could be banished from his head forever, but they never would be truly gone, would they? His nerve endings swelled, a mixture of frustration and anger melding together to urge him not to accept the status quo when it came to the issues in life where he just might be able to help someone else. One evening church service had made that mighty clear.
As Beau turned the corner tow
ard home he could not get Liddy, and her problem, out of his mind.
Chapter 6
“What kind of pick-up line is that? ‘Hey, baby, who’s your doctor?’” Meg laughed at the absurdity, but the tension in her face was unmistakable.
“I know, right? But he was cute.”
“Cute, huh?”
Liddy sighed. “All right, darn handsome. You happy?” And he smelled heavenly, though she kept that tidbit from Meg. For now, anyway.
“Liddy, this whole thing sucks.”
“I know.”
“I spent the last flight Googling benign brain tumors, and did you know Mark Ruffalo had one? And look, he survived just fine. He’s been nominated for an Oscar.”
“More than one, I think. And yes, I had heard that. Sheryl Crow, too.”
Meg shook her head. “I wish I didn’t have to fly out to New York tomorrow, or I’d go to the hospital with you for all those stupid tests.”
“Seriously, you just got back from your whirlwind up north—what am I saying? Don’t give it another thought. Please. My mother wanted to accompany me too, but I convinced her not to take the day off because I have my e-books loaded up and all I plan to do in between needle pricks is read.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Can’t wait.”
“Liddy …”
“Really,” she said, with friendly force this time. “I’ll be fine.”
The next morning, Liddy set out to the university hospital in a large city about an hour away for a day of pre-op prep. “You have a cyst in your brain,” her neurologist had said. “And inside of that cyst, a pinky-sized, active tumor, which we believe to be benign.”
Believe to be benign.
The tiny tumor, she’d been told, was resting next to a motor strip in her brain, and the hospital in the small beach town she lived in—up and coming as the local tourism board touted it to be—did not have the kind of equipment that would (nearly) guarantee no slip-ups.
“Without more precise equipment, the surgery itself …”
“Yes, doctor?” she had asked at her consultation.
“Liddy. The surgery could cause paralysis. I’m recommending we transfer your file to a hospital that can better handle this delicate surgery.”
Which is why she now found herself in this bustling hospital. She moved from room to room, giving blood for her own use should she need it, taking this test here and that test there, and “relaxing” as best she could in between. And for a while, the tale she delved into on her e-reader about an aging minister and his artist wife living in the south kept her spirits elevated with its whimsy.
But whimsy could only go so far. She hadn’t eaten much all day, had no appetite at all. If she ever wanted to lose weight, she would get a job in a hospital. Food lost all its attraction when it shared space with vinyl tile and antiseptic. Today, however, was not the day to skip out on nutrition. She knew this, intellectually. Yet she couldn’t seem to force even one bite.
Liddy had just entered the office of her fourth appointment of the day when she came upon the very real possibility of ending up face first on the corporate-patterned carpeting. The smell hit her first. The room tilted one way, then the other. It wasn’t a seizure; it couldn’t be—she had taken her meds that morning.
“Excuse me. Can I help?” A woman with white hair and translucent skin crooked her arm through Liddy’s and led her to a chair. An elderly woman. “There. Now, how about I get you some water?”
Liddy glanced up, afraid that if she were to do so too quickly, she would become further disoriented. “I-I’m not sure if I can have any right now.”
“Shall I ask the nurse for you?”
Liddy nodded.
The woman returned with a paper cup of water, the flimsy kind Liddy’s mother always kept stacked next to the mouthwash. She downed it quickly. “Thank you.”
“Liddy Buckle?” a woman in scrubs called her name from an open doorway.
Already?
“Shall I have them fetch you a wheelchair?”
Liddy forced herself to look up at the elderly woman with white set curls hovering above her and realized she was wearing pink. A pink lady. She swallowed. There was no way a woman older than her grandmother—God rest her gentle soul—would be pushing her in a wheelchair. Though the offer had been sweet.
“No, thank you.” Liddy pulled herself to standing. “I’ll be all right. You’ve been kind. Thank you again.”
“My pleasure. You take care of yourself.”
Liddy took a seat in the cold room, laid her arm across the narrow drawing table, and waited for another needle to pierce her skin.
The phlebotomist tightened a latex band below Liddy’s elbow. She poked her glove-covered finger around the area. “Hmm. Having trouble finding a good site.”
She made the stick anyway, but it didn’t work.
Liddy looked away and blew out a breath.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?”
If we must.
The technician muttered to herself. Something about needing a good vein … she tried the stick again. And again. Both times failing. Then she heaved an exasperated sigh.
Since this ordeal had started, Liddy had chosen not to allow herself to fall over the edge of despair. This time, though, as multiple attempts were made to plumb her veins for blood—how many times had a similar procedure occurred today in this very arm?—she more than teetered on that edge. And when the procedure failed for the umpteenth time?
Liddy lost it. She pulled her arm away. “I’m done.”
The phlebotomist sat up straight. “Not yet.”
Liddy slid out of the chair. With one hand she untied the band strangling her other arm and tossed the latex into the trash. “I’ve had it. Not one more prick.”
“But … but we need this last one. Just one more try.”
Liddy turned her back. “Not happening.”
By the time she reached the hall, the tears she had rejected since her first step into this black hole of an experience fell without any regard for her pride. When she arrived back at her Jeep, her cheeks and neck were drenched. She slammed the door shut, inhaled to calm herself, and when that didn’t work she began to slap the heck out of her steering wheel.
A groan so deep and mighty emerged from her. She barely recognized her own voice.
She didn’t know what to do next. Part of her wanted to forget about the surgery and the aftermath. When she was prayed for by church members the other day, some asked for healing, as in maybe she wouldn’t have to go through with this after all. Liddy had never thought of that, really. She figured they would likely ask that the tumor not kill her—that kind of prayer she actually encouraged—and that she would go on to run a marathon or something. But heal her? Was that even a thing?
The idea of taking a leave of absence from her job and flying to Hawaii for a month to wait it out was suddenly very appealing.
Liddy fished around inside her purse for the ticket to give to the parking attendant and pulled out Beau’s business card instead. She rubbed her thumb over the embossing of his name. Beau Quinn. Would it be too stupid to call him right now? She set the card down, found a tissue in her glove box, and blew her nose. He would not have given her his card if he hadn’t meant it, right?
She cleared her throat, then dialed his number. He picked up on the second ring.
“Beau? You might not remember me but this is Liddy … from church.”
“Of course I remember you.” He paused. “How are you today?”
She wagged her head, though there was nobody with her to see it. “Been better.”
“Understood. You’re in a tough place.”
“Can I ask you something?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Ask away.”
Her heart rate had picked up at the sound of his voice. It had this softness to it that thrummed against her heart. She took a breath. “I’ve been confused ever since the other night at church.”
“You me
an, about the things I said to you?”
She smiled. “No, you were great. It’s just that a few people prayed that I’d be healed and there’s a part of me that wonders if going through with the surgery is somehow ignoring those prayers.”
“I see. You mean, does it show a lack of faith?”
She thought about that. She hadn’t known it, but yes, that was exactly what she wondered.
“Not at all. Anne and I had this discussion many times when well-meaning people tried to keep her from moving forward with her treatments.”
“May I ask … what did you do?”
“Well …” She heard him sigh into the phone. “We prayed a lot. And we listened carefully to her doctors, even getting second opinions when necessary. I won’t lie—it was hard. I often wished we could book a trip to anywhere rather than have to deal with all of that.”
Hawaii would be beautiful this time of year …
He continued, “In the end you have to go with the path you are given. Who’s to say God doesn’t work through doctors? I certainly believe he does. I saw it many times with Anne.”
“Thanks. It’s just … difficult right now.”
“No doubt. I’m sure it’s overwhelming.”
She drew in some more much-needed oxygen. “Thanks for the talk. I just had a rough time today. Too many needles, you know?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Thank you so much, Beau.”
He didn’t answer right away, and then, “Does that help at all?”
“You have no idea.”
He chuckled, and she liked the sound of it. “Oh, I’m not so sure. Call me anytime, Liddy. I mean that.”
She hung up knowing that he certainly did.
* * *
A week after the surgery, when she was home recovering, her mom and a couple of aunties taking turns doting over her like a princess, Liddy noted that she had not heard from Beau. Not like she expected him to show up on her doorstep or anything. But she wondered.
After another week had passed, and sprouts of hair had begun to dust the area that had been shaved for surgery, Liddy’s mother drove her across town to Shear Dreams one evening after the salon had closed.
Walking on Sea Glass Page 5