Healing Autumn's Heart (Love Inspired)

by Andrews, Renee

  So she didn’t speak.

  “It’s okay. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. We can wait.” He turned her toward him and pressed her head against his chest. “We’ll talk when you’re ready, and I promise, I will try to help. Maybe tomorrow afternoon we could take a little time to sit at the square and you can tell me…”

  “No,” Hannah whispered. Tomorrow afternoon would be too late. She didn’t want to know for certain when she told him. She still wanted—needed—to have a whisper of hope. “I need to tell you now.”

  “Okay,” he said, his hand rubbing against her back as he held her, comforted her.

  Hannah worked up her courage and finally spoke. “After we finished dinner, I got a voice mail message.”

  “From—”

  “From Dr. Patterson’s office. My oncologist. They normally call with the results from my screenings, and usually leave a message saying everything is okay. But when the nurse left the message tonight she didn’t provide the results. She just asked me to come in tomorrow so I could talk to Dr. Patterson.” Hannah actually felt the tension in his arms as he held her, sensed the beating of his heart growing harder, stronger against her ear. “They always leave the results, you know,” she said, then whispered against his shirt, “so I won’t worry.”

  He swallowed thickly, and she felt the pulse of that movement against her forehead. She could sense everything about his emotions right now and what he’d realized too, but she didn’t want to see it in his eyes. Not yet.

  “The only time they do that is when the news isn’t good,” she continued, then paused, waited. “Right?”

  His heart thundered now, and Hannah didn’t know if she could handle it if he walked away, if he said this wasn’t what he had bargained for in this very early stage of their relationship.

  Finally, after what seemed like forever, he cleared his throat. “They may have had some substandard readings and so they want to run the tests again.”

  “But then she’d have said that in the message, wouldn’t she?” Hannah asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, but Hannah shook her head, wiped away another round of tears and leaned back to look into those heartrending blue eyes, which were also barely containing his tears.

  “I’m afraid, Matt. I’m afraid it’s back.”

  He cupped her face in his hands, tenderly kissed her forehead and then pulled her back into his embrace. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “It will. It’s going to be okay.”

  But Hannah wasn’t certain if his words were intended only for her, or also for himself. Matt Graham had left a promising career because of what this disease had done to his family, had lost a wife and hadn’t been able to communicate with his daughter for two years…because of this disease. And now that he and Hannah were growing closer, it looked like he was getting hit with it again. Hannah swallowed hard. She couldn’t do that to him. If her cancer had returned, then she wouldn’t—couldn’t—put him through all of that again.

  God, please, let his words be true. Let everything be okay. Let me be okay.

  Chapter Eleven

  Matt had never had a more difficult time concentrating at work. Being a doctor meant closing everything else out when you were meeting with a patient, putting that patient’s needs above everything else going on in your world. But today, while he moved from patient to patient, he found himself wondering whether Hannah was also sitting in an exam room right now, getting news from her oncologist that could change her life—change their lives—forever. He’d asked her to let him drive her to Birmingham for the appointment, but she hadn’t been willing to let him move his own patients around to allow him to leave town. That was the thing about being in his own practice; if he was gone, there wasn’t another doctor in his office to handle his patients.

  But Matt thought there was more to her request for him to stay in Claremont and for her father and sister to take her to the appointment. Even when they’d left the church building last night and he walked her to her car, he could sense her trying to shut him out.

  He had an hour break for lunch, and he walked to his office and dropped into his chair.

  “Dr. Graham, I’m going out to grab something to eat. Do you want me to pick up something for you?” Evelyn Gabriel, his office assistant, stood at the doorway and looked at him with a sad smile. She was an elderly woman who had been a medical office assistant in her youth and had wanted to come out of retirement when she saw his ad in the Claremont News. Having Evelyn around was like having a grandmother watching over him and his patients each day, and Matt knew she’d detected that he was worried today. She knew he always brought lunch from home, so she was merely checking in on him now.

  “I don’t want anything, but thanks, Evelyn,” he said.

  She frowned. “You are going to eat something, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “But Maura did pack leftovers from last night if I do get hungry.”

  “Something wrong with Autumn?”

  Matt didn’t blame her for being concerned. And he knew better than to think she was being nosy; Evelyn asked because she cared. “Autumn’s doing great.”

  “Maura?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Hannah?”

  He decided to tell her the truth. He needed to talk to someone, and he hadn’t been able to get it off his mind all day. “Hannah got a call from her oncologist last night asking her to come in this morning. She had her cancer screening last week, and evidently this is something to do with that.”

  Evelyn nodded, understanding evident on her face. “I’ll pray for her.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And for you.”

  “Thank you, Evelyn.”

  She nodded, turned and left his office. Between patients, Matt had tried throughout the morning to reach Hannah on her cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail each time. She’d met with the doctor at 9:00, and it was now noon. Surely she knew something by now.

  He fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed again. The phone rang once, twice, three times, and then the line clicked, and Matt heard Hannah sniff.

  “Hannah?” he asked. “Hannah, honey, please talk to me. What did he say?”

  “It’s back,” she whispered.

  Matt had known that was probably what she’d hear, had known the minute she said the doctor had called her to come in that more than likely her cancer had returned. But hearing it confirmed sent a sick feeling flooding through him and forced his eyes shut. Images of Rebecca when she learned she had cancer filled his mind. And new images, images of Hannah, his beautiful, happy Hannah with her eyes filled with tears, the way they had been last night in her classroom, caused tears to slip from Matt’s eyes.

  “I start treatments Monday,” she said, then sucked in a heartrending gasp that tore at Matt’s heart.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, glad that his tone held strength, when inside he was experiencing the worst pain of his life…again. He couldn’t lose Hannah, too. God, don’t let me lose her, please. We’re just getting started.

  He knew Hannah was still on the line. He could hear the muted voices of Bo and Jana in the background, both of them sounding distressed. And he was fairly certain he could hear Jana crying.

  But Hannah didn’t say a thing.

  “Hannah, I’ll be with you, every step of the way. And it’ll be okay.” He wanted to know specifics. Where was the cancer and what stage, but he didn’t want to ask her now. Now wasn’t the time. She needed to cope with receiving the prognosis first, and truthfully, he needed to cope with being in love with another woman with breast cancer. Because even though he hadn’t known her long, and even though he certainly hadn’t admitted it to Hannah yet, he loved her. Truly loved her. And he couldn’t stand the thought of her hurting, of anything happening to her. “I should have gone today.”

  “I asked you not to,” she whispered. “And I wouldn’t have wanted to do that to you, put you throu
gh this again.” Her words trembled through the line. “Matt, I can’t do this to you. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I do know one thing. Rebecca’s death nearly killed you, and I’m not going to make you go through that again.” She sobbed. “I won’t.”

  “Hannah, I want to be with you. I want to help you,” he said. “When you get back into town…” he started, but she interrupted.

  “No, Matt. I can’t. I’m sorry. I care too much for you, care too much for Autumn, to put you through it all again.”

  “Hannah, listen to me, honey,” he said, but the line went dead.

  Hannah asked her father to call Mr. Feazell. She’d finished the display and had just planned to tweak it a bit today and tomorrow morning before First Friday, but there was nothing that had to be done. In all appearances, the display was already an exact replica of the town square, right down to the geese, so she felt okay with calling her work complete. Plus she knew if she went to the toy store, Matt would come, and she couldn’t bear to see him yet.

  Hannah sat in the passenger seat, Jana sat in the back, and their father drove home from Birmingham. They’d both listened to her conversation with Matt, and then her father had called Mr. Feazell like she’d requested and let him know that Hannah wouldn’t be back to the toy store, not today, not tomorrow and not even for First Friday.

  “Yes, Ted,” her father said. “She’s had a rough morning.” A pause. “Uh-huh, that’s right.” Another pause, a grunting sound that said her father was attempting to regain control, and then another, “Yes, but she says the display is good to go, so you’re good.” He passed a car, and Hannah suspected they were speeding, something her father never did. Then again, he probably didn’t have his mind on the speedometer. “Oh, I know that isn’t what you’re worried about,” her father continued. “And yes, I’ll let her know.” He disconnected, waited a moment then said, “He wanted me to tell you he’s praying for you.”

  “You could have told him the details, Daddy. It’s okay. It’s in my lymph nodes, six weeks of radiation. And then we’ll see,” her voice trailed off to a whisper, “then we’ll see how everything went.”

  Her father cleared his throat and Jana sniffed loudly.

  “Jana, honey, please try to stay calm. I sure don’t want baby Dee coming before she’s ready to get here,” their father said.

  “I know,” Jana whispered from the backseat.

  “And sweetie,” he said to Hannah, “everything’s going to be okay. I really believe that.”

  Hannah couldn’t believe her ears. Her father had spent the last decade primarily angry about her mother’s death, about Jana’s cancer and then Hannah’s. And now he had spent his morning hearing that his youngest daughter’s cancer had returned, which was exactly what he’d said he couldn’t bear just last week. “You think it’s going to be—okay?” Her voice broke on the last word, but she couldn’t control the emotion seeping through her tone. “Do you, Daddy? Really?”

  Hannah could count the number of times she’d seen her father cry. The first had been the day her mother died. The second at her funeral. Then twice more, when they received the news that Jana had cancer and then that Hannah did as well. So right now, as a thick tear slid down his cheek, made number five. And every time hurt Hannah to the core. Bo Taylor was a strong man and to see him falling apart, to know that she was the reason for that tear, upset Hannah almost as much as the news she’d received this morning.

  “Yes, I do,” he finally said. “I do believe that everything will be okay this time.”

  “I do, too,” Jana said from the backseat. “Because we’re going to pray, and we’re going to ask everyone else at church to pray, and we’ll do what the doctors say, and everything will be okay.”

  “We prayed for Mama,” Hannah whispered.

  “And it was her time to go,” Jana said softly. “But I don’t believe it’s your time, not yet.”

  Their father wiped at his cheeks. “Neither do I. And we are going to pray. We’re going to pray nonstop, and we’re going to get everyone we know to pray, just like your sister said. God can heal you, Hannah, and I believe that He will.”

  Hannah rubbed her own tears away, leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. And suddenly she felt it, too. That feeling that God was in control and that she simply had to let Him take control. If it was His will, then the treatments would work, and she’d truly be cancer-free. And if it was His will that she join her mother in Heaven, then she’d have to understand.

  Growing up, Hannah had often noticed a verse that her mother had on a refrigerator magnet. Even after her mother passed, her father left the magnet on the fridge. She believed it was still there, and right now, the verse on that magnet pierced Hannah’s thoughts.

  “Our God is in Heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.” Psalm 115:3.

  Hannah closed her eyes, concentrated on that verse, and prayed, “God, if it pleases You, let me be whole again. And if it isn’t meant for me to be cancer-free, help me, dear Lord, to be strong enough to handle it.”

  Jana sniffed again. “Hannah, I know Matt wants to be a part of—” she started, but Hannah stopped her by shaking her head.

  “I can’t do that to him, Jana. I won’t. He lost his wife. Autumn lost her mother. They basically watched her die while they prayed for her to survive. You didn’t see her book from story time last week. Losing her mother affected her so deeply that she stopped talking and felt like her mother’s death was all her fault. Can you imagine if she had to go through that again? I mean, just in case—in case things don’t get better for me—well, I won’t do that to him.”

  “That man loves you,” her father whispered. “I know it, and I think you know it, too. And believe me that there’s nothing worse for a man to do than know the woman he loves is in pain.”

  “If he loves me,” Hannah whispered, and in her heart, she also knew it was true, “then that’s exactly why I can’t put him through this.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I baked cinnamon rolls,” Jana said Friday morning, her happy tone defying the dark circles under her eyes that told Hannah she hadn’t slept much, either. “They’re your favorite. And coffee, two sugars and lots of cream.” She waddled into the living room, where Hannah had kind of slept on the couch all night. “You should have gone to the guest room, you know.”

  “I never officially went to sleep,” Hannah admitted. “Spent the majority of the night watching infomercials and reruns of Criminal Minds.” The infomercials hadn’t done much to take her mind off of her situation, but the crime show had spooked her enough that she actually had a few hours where she was more focused on who the bad guy was than why her cancer had returned.

  “You need to sleep,” Jana said, placing a breakfast tray on the coffee table in front of Hannah.

  “So do you.” Hannah hadn’t eaten dinner last night, and the cinnamon and sugar drifting through the air reminded her of that fact. Her stomach growled loudly.

  Jana managed a smile. “See, eat.”

  Hannah tossed her heavy afghan aside and reached for the tray. “You’re the one that’s about to have a baby. I should be ashamed letting you serve me. It should be the other way around.”

  “Trust me, when she gets here, I’ll let you take care of me all you want,” Jana said, sitting in the recliner and rubbing her large stomach.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well,” Hannah said. “I can tell from your eyes, and I know that it’s my fault.”

  “Nope,” Jana said. “As much as I love this little angel, I’ve got to admit that she isn’t my favorite person at night right now. Seems that’s her favorite time to dance, and most of the time she’s dancing on my bladder. You just wait, you’ll see…” Her voice trailed off, and Hannah found herself having a difficult time swallowing the bite of cinnamon roll.

  Hannah reached for the mug of coffee and took a sip. “It’s okay,” she finally said. “Even if—” have mercy, this was difficult “—even if I
never have children of my own, I’ll still get to spend time with little Dee. Surely I’ll be able to do that.”

  Jana scooted forward in the recliner, reached for Hannah’s cinnamon roll and ripped off a big hunk. “You are going to have children. You are. I just shouldn’t have brought it up right now. It isn’t the time to think about it. We’ve got to get you well first, and then you can get married, have children, have everything you ever wanted. I believe that, Hannah. I really do.”

  Hannah nodded, ate another bite of cinnamon roll. She wanted to believe it, too. “Five days a week for six weeks. That’s how long I’ll do the radiation,” she said, ready to change the subject and finding that she might as well talk about the main thing on her mind. “Dr. Patterson said it’ll probably cause skin irritation, nausea and fatigue, like before. Last time, I had a hard time keeping food down, remember?” she asked, forcing a smile, and then popping another bite of cinnamon roll in her mouth. “So I should enjoy this while I can, right?”

  Jana bobbed her head, but her attempts to blink past her tears failed, and her cheeks were instantly coated with shiny paths.

  Hannah didn’t have the heart to continue, because Jana knew as well as she did that when the six weeks of radiation ended, she’d start chemo, which took all of those potential side effects and added about twenty more. Hannah had the fact sheet for side effects in her purse, but she sure didn’t want to look at it again. She’d figure out which side effects to worry about when she actually had them.

  By Friday afternoon, Jana had succumbed to the need for a nap and Hannah was working her way through a day of Lifetime movies that had her crying almost as much as her current dilemma. She’d turned off her cell phone in an effort to keep Matt from calling her until she could talk without crying. But when a knock sounded at Jana’s door that afternoon, she figured he may have decided for a more direct approach.

  Mitch had gone to work at his insurance office and Jana hadn’t made a sound from her bedroom since she’d gone back for her nap, so Hannah was on her own to handle whoever was on the other side of that door. She eased down on the couch and pulled the afghan over her head.