He glanced both directions to cross a lane that wound through the campus tying its buildings together.
And blinked. And looked again. He tried not to stare, but how could he not?
A young woman emerging from an exit fifty yards from him looked strikingly like Meri. The same build. The same hair. The same glasses. This woman wore a straight light blue skirt and stylish short gray jacket, rather than the jeans and cargo pants Meri sported with her long-sleeved tees, and carried a small red leather briefcase. Like Nolan had, she took a moment to get her bearings. She had the look of someone slightly lost, not someone leaving a normal day’s work in a familiar building.
When she tilted her head at that certain angle, to the left with jaw forward, he knew.
It was Meri.
Nolan fished his phone out of his pocket and opened a text message to Jillian.
I HAVE HER.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE HER?
MERI. WALKING TOWARD HER NOW.
WHAT’S SHE DOING IN DENVER?
HOPING TO FIND OUT.
Nolan pivoted away from the direction of his own car and strode toward Meri, who was walking away from him but not with great speed. When he was close enough not to have to shout, he spoke. “Meri.”
She turned, startled. “Is this where you work?”
“I just finished a meeting with a client who works here.” Nolan moved his briefcase to the other hand. “Meri, everyone is looking for you.”
“Why? I’m not lost. I got slightly disoriented finding this place because of construction that GPS apparently didn’t factor in, but I figured it out.”
“Have you been here all day?”
“Not here here. I allowed extra time to find my way,” Meri said, “and I sat in a coffee shop for a long time trying to think through the questions they might ask and how I should answer them.”
Nolan fixed his gaze on her dark, uncertain eyes.
“Meri, this is a well-known regional medical campus. People wait for months to get appointments here. Are you—”
“What?”
“Ill? Are you ill? Did you come to Colorado because you’re ill? Nia thought you were spending the day together.”
Meri tilted her head in that way. “Didn’t Leo tell anyone?”
“Leo?”
“I told him this morning before I left. This came up at the last minute, and I wanted to leave early to make sure I didn’t get caught in traffic, since I didn’t know how bad it might get.”
“Pretty bad. I do the same thing sometimes.”
“He was the only one up. So I asked him to tell Nia I was really sorry, and I would explain everything later, but something came up that was really important and I needed the day off.”
“Leo must not have given Nia the message. She’s been frantic with worry.”
Meri’s shoulders sank. “I never meant to do that to her.”
“Traffic will be a bear in the reverse direction right now,” Nolan said. “Why don’t we go somewhere and have coffee—or an early dinner?”
Meri laughed. “You are always trying to ply me with food and beverage.”
“Is it working?”
“Yes. I admit I haven’t actually eaten any real food today. Too nervous.”
She still hadn’t said what she was doing on the medical campus, but Nolan let that go for the moment. “Is it all right if I let Jillian know you’re okay?”
Meri nodded.
Nolan sent a quick text and said, “I know a place near here. I can drive and then bring you back for your car.”
Twelve minutes later they settled into a booth.
“There won’t be any opera-singing chefs,” Nolan said, “but they make a decent risotto.”
“I wouldn’t expect anyone to match your talents.” Meri opened a menu and pushed her glasses up her nose.
“I used to offer to sing for Jillian in restaurants, but she never much cared for the idea.”
“That might be a bit over the line even for you.”
Nolan feigned offense. “Even for me?”
“What else do you recommend?”
“The vegetarian stuffed mushroom, if you insist on knowing. They use a caramelized onion that pairs nicely with the naturally occurring creaminess of the short-grain rice of the risotto.”
Meri closed the menu. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but it sounds good to me.”
When the waiter came, Nolan placed identical orders.
“Now,” he said, leaning back in the bench, “perhaps we can start at the very beginning of this day. Are you here because you’re ill?”
“No! Nothing like that.”
Nolan breathed out relief. “Glad to have that cleared up.”
“I only found out late last night that there was an opening for an interview today,” Meri said. “I feel so stupid. I wasted so much energy being angry with Nia and stomping around. Then she tried to smooth things over with a day of antiquing. How could I say no? Last night, after I came home from your place, I never even checked my email until nearly midnight, and that changed everything.”
“An interview?”
“They had someone drop out of the schedule at the end of the business day yesterday, so they offered me the spot because they knew I wasn’t too far away and might be able to get there on short notice. Of course I said yes—hoping they’d see my response first thing this morning.”
“An interview for what, Meri?”
She took a deep breath. “Graduate school. I applied to enter a program for a master’s of public administration in nonprofit organization.”
“Wow.” Nolan leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Two days ago—even yesterday—you seemed very eager to get out of Dodge and drop off the grid.”
“I know.” Her eyes, muddy liquid pools now, met his gaze with reluctance. “Ninety-five percent of the fibers of my being still want to do that.”
“But the other five percent are fighting back.”
“Really hard.” Meri picked up her water glass, and the ice cubes clinked in her shaking hand.
“You don’t have to fight alone.”
“So you keep saying.”
“Because I mean it. We all do.”
Meri swallowed water. “People always say to just do the next right thing. That’s not always as easy as it sounds.”
The waiter arrived and set plates in front of them. Nolan waited for Meri to arrange her napkin and utensils and fuss with the contents of the bread basket.
“You only arrived in Canyon Mines a week ago,” Nolan said. “Were you in Denver before that?”
She shook her head.
“Then how did this happen so fast?”
“I’ve been looking at programs like this one. Dreaming mostly. I knew I couldn’t … well, you know. I had to go to med school.”
“I’d love to hear about your dream.”
“Before we eat, will you say that blessing your mother used to say?” Meri said.
“Of course.” He offered her a hand, and she took it. “May you always find nourishment for your body at the table. May sustenance for your spirit rise and fill you with each dawn. And may life always feed you with the light of joy along the way.”
“That’s my dream. I thought about that a lot last night, especially after I read the email. Sustenance for my spirit. The light of joy along the way.”
“Those words have carried me through many dark hours as well as happy ones.” Nolan handed Meri the bread basket.
“Do you believe in calling? Choosing your path because your path chooses you, or because God puts it before you so plainly you can’t walk any other way?”
“Meri Davies, we are wading in pretty deep waters.”
She squeezed the cloudiness from her eyes and looked at him again with the clearest, nonsecretive eyes Nolan had yet seen in her face. “Do you? Please tell me.”
“I do. Absolutely.”
“The work you do is a calling?”
&nbs
p; “A gift and a calling. A redemption of sorts. On my best days, I help people make peace with themselves through the law, and I find great satisfaction in that.”
“I’ve looked at these programs for a long time, but this is the first time I took the next right step,” Meri said. “When it looked like I might actually be able to start in the spring term, I applied online. I worked on my essay in every spare moment for days.”
“And the evenings when you holed up in your room at the Inn right after supper?”
She nodded. “It was a long shot. I knew that. Who knows what the process really was—deadlines, review committees, and all that? And I only submitted an unofficial transcript, which is all I had. There was no time to get an official one from Sewanee. Certainly it showed nothing that suggested a good fit for nonprofit public administration. Double-majoring in two sciences doesn’t leave a lot of time for exploring other people-related subjects.”
“You’re not eating,” Nolan said. “At least try.”
She picked up her fork and slid it under the risotto.
“You were always headed for medical school,” Nolan said.
“Right. And it was just a couple of days ago when I sent it in. It was crazy. I have hardly any money I can really call my own, and I spent a good chunk of it on an application fee for a program I probably won’t get into.”
Nolan raised his eyebrows. “Yet you got a very improbable interview under a most improbable time frame.”
Meri turned her empty palms up. “I don’t know what to say about that.”
“Perhaps that you do understand calling after all, and perhaps that you are right about not belonging in medical school.”
She pinched her nose under her glasses. “That was awkward! During the interview, I had to account for the time since I graduated from college. Obviously I haven’t been working.”
“What did you say?”
“I had five different angles prepared, but I went with the truth. No fluff. I don’t want to go back to med school. I never wanted to be there in the first place.”
“You could be a doctor in the nonprofit world.”
“I suppose so. I want to help children, and my parents would say I could be a pediatrician. A pediatric surgeon. A pediatric oncologist. A pediatric neurologist or something or other. But that’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?” Now that he had Meri talking steadily, Nolan could relax and enjoy his own meal.
“I got lucky. My ancestors were slaves, but through the generations, my family became one where everyone gets an education and a good job. It happens to be in medicine, but does it have to be?” She took a bite of food, closed her eyes, and swayed a bit.
“Meri, are you all right?”
“You were right about the mushroom. This is incredible.”
He chuckled. “Back to your graduate work plans. What do you have in mind?”
“Underprivileged children. True community development that makes their lives better now and changes the future for them.”
“That’s quite a vision, Meri. Impressive.”
“But to be a leader in the field requires graduate work—at least a master’s, probably a PhD.”
“Any parent would be proud of such ambition.”
She shook her head. “Not any parent. Not mine. They’ll say first get an MD and finish a residency. Get board certified. Then if I still want to play around with these other things …”
“I’m sorry, Meri.”
“There is truth in the speech I grew up with—that privilege comes with responsibility. But for me that’s not everything.”
“What else?”
“I also grew up going to church. And I paid attention. To the idea that the suffering of the Lord should mean something in how I use my life for other people. And to what Jesus said about the least of these.”
“Which brings us back to the children,” Nolan said.
Meri nodded. “Let the little children come. Shouldn’t we help them come? Shouldn’t we help them see that they matter to God?”
“I believe we should.”
“I don’t have much time.” Meri twisted her napkin in her lap. “I know that. But after today, at least if I get in I can say I have a plan. That will count for something.”
“So you’ll stay?”
Meri turned her head and gazed across the restaurant. “Ninety-five percent of me still says to go—and not to wait until Tuesday.”
“But five percent.”
She nodded.
“That’s not statistically insignificant.”
She allowed a half smile.
“How much time do you have, Meri?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t been using my phone because I don’t want to read or hear the gazillion messages they’re leaving me. I set up a brand-new email account to use for my application and suspended the one my family uses. But it can’t be long. They’ll know where I am by now, and it’s just a matter of time until they clear their busy schedules and descend.”
“We’re not the easiest place to get to,” Nolan said.
“But not the hardest either. They know where it is. They’ve all been to Canyon Mines before. Once upon a time even my brother liked exploring mine country. The tunnels were his thing.”
“So here’s the plan,” Nolan said. “You have to drive your own car back tonight, obviously. But after that, you don’t have to be alone. Not at the Inn, not on errands. We can make sure that if your family shows up unannounced, someone is there to have your back.”
“You would do that?”
“Of course we would.”
“What’s the catch?”
“I wouldn’t call it a catch. Just your part in helping everyone be prepared.”
Meri waited in silence.
“Turn on your phone. You don’t have to answer it. But listen to messages. Minimize the surprise factor.”
More silence.
Then, “I’ll think about it.”
“Besides,” Nolan said, “Nia’s going to need you to stick close. Something about injuring her knee.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Memphis, September 5, 1878
Must you go out, Sister Constance?” Eliza didn’t like the way the nun looked. Even disguised beneath the bulk of her habit, Sister Constance’s frame was growing thin. When had she last slept through the night?
“There are more calls to make than ever.” As she did every morning, Sister Constance tucked a linen cloth soaked in disinfecting carbolic acid beneath her apron. “And now we have fewer nurses than ever to make them. We give thanks that Sister Frances has recovered from her illness, but she is overwhelmed with the number of orphans and how many have been sick. I cannot ask more of her, and you have seen for yourself the load Sister Ruth bears at Canfield. The Howards have nothing more to offer us either.”
“But Sister Constance, you are exhausted,” Eliza said. “And there is endless correspondence work. Can you not stay in and attend to that and be doing work that is needful but less demanding?”
“Every moment matters, Eliza. Every day we find people who die for no reason other than they lacked basic nursing to be sure they do not become dehydrated or simply starve to death because they are alone when they fall ill.”
“Then let me go,” Eliza said.
“We need you here. How many come to the church every day?”
“I lose count. Hundreds.”
“And who will help them?”
“Mrs. Haskins will come. And Mrs. Bullock is here.”
Sister Constance looked at Eliza with narrowed eyes.
“I beg your forgiveness,” Eliza said. “I know Mrs. Bullock is not at my beck and call, and she is as busy as anyone keeping up with the deluge of work. But Sister, you are about to drop.”
“And you come earlier every morning and stay later every evening, and do every errand I ask of you,” Sister Constance said.
“There is nothing for me at home, and the need is so great here
.”
“No word from Callie? Not even a message?”
Eliza shook her head. “It’s only been two days. If she’s caring for family with fever, sending a message is the last thing she has time for. I understand that.”
“Still, you would like to know.”
Eliza shook a finger at Sister Constance. “Do not change the subject.”
“I will not relent, Eliza. Do not delay me further. The others have already gone with their jars of tea and broth. I have calls all up and down Alabama Street.”
Eliza gave a half sigh. “Of course, Sister. I will open the pantry early.”
Mrs. Bullock came into the hall and handed Sister Constance a worn leather case packed with tea and broth to administer. “There will be more by midmorning.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bullock.” Sister Constance left without another look back.
“I do not know how she can keep going,” Eliza said to the housekeeper. “Only by the grace of God.”
“May she find it in abundance today.”
“We all know she’s exhausted,” Mrs. Bullock said. “But she won’t stop. It’s a wonder she accomplishes half of what she does in the condition she’s in.”
“The accounts, the supplies, the correspondence—it’s too much.”
“What choice does she have? Her heart is breaking with sorrow.”
“Here comes Mrs. Haskins.” Mrs. Bullock pointed through a window at a stout figure coming up the front walk.
“What would I do without her?”
“You would be no better off than Sister Constance.”
Eliza greeted her stalwart volunteer. She worried at first when the older woman had turned up to work in the pantry and dispense food, clothing, tea, and broth, but Mrs. Haskins insisted she’d had yellow fever five years earlier and wouldn’t get it again. Besides, she was old enough that she gave no more thought to her life when she saw the stacks of coffins in the streets and the unending lines outside St. Mary’s every day. It was nearly impossible now to hear of a block within the city limits where no home had been infected. Yellow pieces of cardboard marked the homes of the ill. When someone within passed, yellow changed to black, with a scrawled note, Coffin needed. A wagon left an empty coffin. The plague cheated the families of parting rituals or comforting ceremonies as they simply cleaned the bodies of their loved ones and placed them in pine boxes with mixtures of tar and acid and held vigil for the next wagon and the shout of, “Bring out your dead.”
The Inn at Hidden Run Page 14