Ours for a Season

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  She let the car roll forward until it sat in its place in the garage. Then she trudged into the house. Brooke’s letter lay on top of the sealed envelope in the middle of the kitchen table, where she’d left it in the hope that Anthony would change his mind and come home. She gazed down at the neatly written pages. One line stood out, almost accusatory—“I think you’ll do yourself a disservice if you don’t let some of that maternal loving come out somewhere.”

  Images of Rex and Dawna’s children, as well as the faces of neighborhood children, tiptoed through her mind. Her chest constricted, and she gripped the bodice of her dress. She hated herself for staying aloof, but at the same time she couldn’t risk loving them. They weren’t hers. They would always go home to their mothers. At the end of the day, loving them would only make her more aware of her empty arms.

  With a groan Marty moved away from the letter. She entered her bedroom and yanked open the closet door. She chose a dress, changed, and slapped the pale blue dress on its hanger back in the closet. She whacked the door into place and took a step toward the doorway, but she caught her reflection in the dresser mirror, and the stark agony etched on her face drew her to a halt.

  She stared at herself, at the crow’s feet at the outer corners of her eyes, the pair of furrows carved between her eyebrows, the lines beside her lips pulling her mouth into a constant frown. Not even a hint of gray appeared in the hair smoothed away from her forehead, but somehow she looked…old. Who was this haggard, sad-looking woman? Where had the girl, the newlywed, the contented young wife gone? She looked into her own eyes and searched for a glimpse of the person she’d been.

  Without conscious thought she let her hands slide to her flat stomach, which had never had the chance to grow round. Oh, she’d nestled a babe in her womb. For seven weeks a tiny life had grown inside her. She heard Anthony’s tender voice in her memory.

  “I hope the baby has your eyes.”

  Although flattered, she’d argued, “No, it should have your eyes—yours are deeper blue.” So he’d compromised and said a girl should have hers and a boy should have his, and they’d sealed the decision with a lengthy kiss. Only two weeks later she awakened with horrible cramps and bleeding, and the fellowship’s midwife stayed with her until she’d miscarried. The older woman had tried to comfort Marty by saying it was nature’s way of taking a child who wouldn’t have been healthy on earth—“But its little soul is well and happy with the Creator in heaven.” Marty hadn’t cared about its health then, and she didn’t care now. She would have loved it and nurtured it no matter its challenges. Three months later she’d nursed Anthony through a painful, lengthy bout with the malady that affected him more severely than it would have if he’d contracted it in childhood, and never again had her womb cradled a growing baby.

  Tears distorted the mirror’s reflection. If she’d carried their baby to term, would it have been a son or a daughter? Would its eyes have been pale blue or deep blue? Would it have had Anthony’s straight dark brown hair or her wavy chestnut hair? And why was she standing here in front of her mirror like a vain person, trying to imagine something that could never be?

  Using the back of her hand, she swiped the moisture from her eyes and headed for the living room. The morning loomed long and lonely before her. How should she fill the time? What would be the greatest distraction? As she’d done many times before when she needed to drown out the voices in her head, she clattered down the basement steps to the area Anthony had sectioned off for her sewing room. She had bins of scraps from previous projects. She’d start a new quilt for the sale that benefited missionaries and relief workers. Her small contribution to Anthony’s dream. The hum of the machine always lulled her to a place of, if not contentedness, at least mindlessness.

  Kansas City

  Brooke

  Brooke frowned at her neatly folded stack of clothes on the plastic chair next to the door of the small treatment room. She yanked again at the scratchy neckline of the hospital gown. Dr. Bothwell, her chiropractor, had always allowed her to stay in her street clothes for adjustments. Now that her x-rays were done, she could go ahead and change, even though the technician hadn’t expressly instructed her to do so.

  She pushed off the padded adjustment table and took two steps toward the chair. The door opened, and she automatically gripped the back of the gown, holding it closed. Dr. Bothwell entered the room. He carried a large shadowy square of film and wore a stern expression.

  Brooke smirked. “I take it from your scowl that I did a real number on my back. Good thing you could work me in so quickly.” She had no idea skipping the gym and spending extra hours at her desk could create so much damage. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. But then, she wouldn’t have to once this project was completed. She could trade her desk for a lounge chair.

  He didn’t smile. He gestured to the table, and she climbed back on, taking care to overlap the gown flaps and tuck them under her bottom. He secured the top edge of the film in a clamp on the light box hanging on the wall at eye level but didn’t turn on the box. Folding his arms over his chest, he fixed his gaze on hers. She began to fidget. Where was her normally lighthearted, lame-pun-making doctor?

  “Brooke, did you empty your bladder before going back for the x-ray?”

  She coughed out a self-conscious laugh. “What?”

  “Did you urinate before—”

  She waved her hand. “I know what you meant. And yes, I did.” What a weird topic. “Why are you asking?”

  He flipped the switch on the light box, and his finger trailed the definition of her lower spine, tailbone, pelvis, and upper femurs. “Your vertebrae show no indication of displacement, and your hips are perfectly aligned.”

  She frowned at the milky skeleton. If her bones were where they were supposed to be, why did pain stab her back?

  His finger drifted away from the spine to an area near her left hip bone. “Do you see this dark area?”

  Brooke leaned slightly toward the image, keeping her hand on the edge of the table so she wouldn’t slip off. Dr. Bothwell pointed to a large, barely discernible murky blob. “Yes, I see it.”

  “I wanted to make sure we weren’t seeing your enlarged bladder. If you emptied it prior to the x-ray, then I can probably rule that out.”

  Gooseflesh broke out over her body. An acidic taste filled her mouth. She wished she had access to her purse and the package of antacids. “So what do you think it is?”

  He flipped off the light and leaned against the short storage unit tucked beneath the light box. “I’m not at liberty to make a diagnosis. X-rays aren’t the best means of viewing tissue inside the body. But I’d like to send a recommendation to your general practitioner to order an ultrasound or CT scan to take a better look. The mass—”

  “Mass!” Brooke wrapped her arms across her middle, but it didn’t stop the trembling that attacked her body. “Do you think I’ve got a tumor?”

  Dr. Bothwell bolted upright and closed the distance between them. He cupped his hands over her quivering knees. “I think we need to take a closer look. What appears to be a mass on the x-ray could still be an enlarged bladder. Maybe a large ovarian cyst or a section of bowel that’s looped. Even a pocket of infection. There’s no sense in jumping to conclusions and stressing yourself.”

  Stressing herself didn’t come close to describing the visceral reaction. Her chest burned and her throat stung. She pointed to her purse. “Could you hand me that, please? I need an antacid.”

  He gave her the purse and frowned while she extracted the roll of white tablets and popped two of them. “Have you been experiencing a lot of heartburn lately?”

  She nodded, chewing. She swallowed the chalky glob. “I’ve spent the last month finalizing a very large acquisition. Lots of late hours, lots of phone calls and meetings. My stress level’s been pretty high.” The dark blob on the x-ray wasn’t doing muc
h to bring it down, either. She cradled her purse in her lap, clutching the half-empty roll in her fist.

  He glanced at the folder lying open on top of the storage unit. “Has that affected your appetite? According to your records, you’ve lost six pounds since you were here two months ago.”

  No wonder her summer suits felt so loose. She’d thought the dry cleaner had stretched them somehow. She shrugged. “No, I can’t say I’ve been eating less than I normally do.”

  “How’s your sleep been—normal?”

  She grimaced. “Not really. I’ve been more tired than usual. But I haven’t made it to the gym regularly, either, so I’m probably getting lazy. Like a cat.” She watched his face for signs of change. He had six cats, all with biblical names—Delilah, Moses, Isaiah, Levi, and Susanna—except for a black-and-white fur ball named Sully, and he loved telling stories about their escapades. When he only nodded and didn’t launch into an anecdote about a recent feline adventure, her concern rose several more notches.

  She placed her hand over his. “Dr. Bothwell, what do you think you’re seeing in the x-ray?”

  He stepped away from her and returned to the storage unit. He slid one of the doors open and removed a pad of paper and a pen. “Do you still use Dr. Susan Classen as your GP?”

  “Yes. But you didn’t answer my question.”

  He scribbled something on the pad, tore the page loose, and tucked it in the breast pocket of his scrub jacket. He pinched the edge of the x-ray and seemed to freeze for a few moments. His breath emerged in a heavy sigh. “Brooke, I’m not going to answer your question because there’s no sense in creating a false alarm.” He jerked the film loose and turned to face her. “With your permission, I’d like to fax over my notes and send this image to Dr. Classen’s office. I imagine her receptionist will call you in a day or two to set up an appointment, but if you haven’t heard anything by the end of the week, give her office a call. Will you do that?”

  Brooke wasn’t a crier. She’d never been a crier. Not since she was six years old had she allowed herself to shed tears. Why bother? Tears didn’t change anything. It was better to be tough. But the most intense fear she’d ever experienced—and as a child raised by a woman who wasn’t choosy about who she brought into the house and as a single woman living alone in a big city, she’d faced countless fearful situations—attacked her and brought with it the desire to break down.

  She cleared her throat and drew on false bravado. “Sure. When my schedule clears.”

  His frown deepened. “Brooke, nothing on your schedule is more important than your health. If you don’t promise to make the call, I’ll do it for you, with or without a release.”

  She bristled. She was the owner and CEO of a major corporation with a reputation for professionalism that stretched across the central United States. How dare he speak to her as if she were an irresponsible child? “I said I’d make an appointment.”

  He stared at her in silence for several seconds, his gaze boring into hers. She battled the urge to squirm beneath his scrutiny, certain he could see beneath the surface of her skin and past all the defensive walls built around her soul. Finally he nodded. “All right. I doubt you’ll need to call, because Dr. Classen is very conscientious. You’ll hear from her soon.” He delivered a light pat on her knee and then moved to the door. “Since you don’t need an adjustment, I’ll leave you to get dressed. Please stop by the desk on your way out and sign the release for me to forward the x-ray to your GP.”

  His kindly face lost its stern countenance, and something Brooke recognized as sympathy glimmered in his hazel eyes. “Now, I don’t want you to worry. It’s as likely to be nothing as it is to be something. Don’t borrow trouble, all right?” His lips twitched into the semblance of a smile.

  She gave a stiff nod. “Sure. All right.”

  “Enjoy the rest of your day, Brooke.” He left, closing the door with a gentle click.

  She hopped down from the table. At the sudden movement, pain jabbed across her lower spine. Mild expletives formed on her tongue, but she held them in. The same way she held in the tears that pressed for release. Only babies cried, and Brooke Janay Spalding was no baby. She tossed the hospital gown aside and donned her gray-and-pink-striped jogging capris and baby-pink T-shirt, her motions clumsy, and then snatched up her purse. Her chest burned, but she refused to chew another tablet. The burn distracted her from the fear.

  She marched up the hallway to the reception area, scrawled her signature on a release form, then slammed out the door. When she got home, she’d do some searching on the internet. Dr. Bothwell had questioned her about weight loss, heartburn, sleep, and lower-back pain. She’d explore the symptoms. He might not be willing to tell her what he suspected, but the computer wouldn’t hold back. She’d get to the truth one way or another.

  6

  Brooke

  Brooke closed her laptop and shoved it onto the sofa cushion beside her. Sliding her feet from the ottoman, she propped her elbows on her knees and rested her forehead on her palms. Seriously? Over a hundred different conditions matched the symptoms—lower-back pain, tiredness, heartburn, weight loss—she’d plugged into the search engine. After reading through the first dozen, she’d seen enough. Had scared herself enough.

  The diagnoses flashed behind her closed eyelids. Depression, hyperthyroidism, multiple sclerosis, emphysema, diabetes, lung cancer, stomach cancer, rectal cancer…

  The familiar burn built in her chest, and acid filled the back of her mouth. Grunting in annoyance, she lurched upright and stomped to the kitchen. Her bare feet left the living room’s plush carpet and met cool slate tiles. A shiver shook her frame, and she double-stepped to the open shelves next to the sink, grabbed a glass, and filled it at the refrigerator’s built-in water dispenser. She downed the entire glass, then poured a second, this time with ice. The burn in her chest remained.

  She dumped the ice in the sink, set the glass upside down in the dish drainer, and returned to the living room. An afghan lay draped across the end of the sofa. She snatched it up and wrapped it around her the way a bird folded its wings around its body. With a little hop, she flopped onto the sofa, pulled up her feet, and sat as still as a sculpture, staring across the professionally decorated, quiet-as-a-tomb room.

  She’d always loved silence. Too much of her childhood had been taken up with people yelling, items being thrown against walls or floors, the television blaring at full volume to cover the sound of other unpleasant noises. Which was probably the reason she’d attached herself to bashful Marty Krieger in first grade. Unlike every other child in the class, Marty didn’t run screeching all over the playground during recess. She was content to share a teeter-totter, push Brooke on a swing, or sit and draw pictures in the dirt with a stick. Marty, with her quiet, calm demeanor, had been Brooke’s eye in the storm of life. In many ways, she still was. Her letters with stories of the Mennonites’ simplified lifestyle, so different from the corporate world in which Brooke lived, painted a calm that Brooke often needed.

  For the first time since she could recall, Brooke found silence cloying. Maybe she should go to bed. The wall clock showed a little past ten—late enough to go to bed without feeling like an old-as-dirt lady. But she was as snug as a caterpillar in a cocoon and didn’t want to get up. She laid her cheek on her upraised knee and tried to relax, but the quiet seemed to roar in her ears, as if she’d pressed a conch shell against her skull.

  Grunting with the effort, she wriggled one arm free of the afghan and grabbed the stereo system’s remote from the little basket on the side table. CDs with music from the 1980s and ’90s—what the radio classified as light rock—filled each of the six slots. She pressed the play button with her thumb, tucked her arm back under the afghan, and nestled her head on the sofa’s high, overstuffed headrest.

  While Whitney Houston crooned “I Will Always Love You,” Brooke closed her eyes a
nd willed the music to ease the tension headache throbbing at the base of her skull, to help her forget the ugly illnesses she’d encountered on the computer screen, to bring her an element of peace. The Houston CD ended, and Hall & Oates began. She skipped past one of the songs midway through the album because its beat was too intense for her mood, but she listened to the remaining ballads. By the end of the second CD, her tension hadn’t eased. One more, and if the music hadn’t calmed the savage beast within her, she’d search out the sleeping aid at the back of her medicine cabinet and make use of it.

  Michael Bolton’s voice flowed through the surround-sound speakers. She closed her eyes, humming along with the tune, occasionally singing a few lines in a rasping whisper. Caught up in the music, she abandoned the whisper and sang, “ ‘How am I supposed to carry on when all that I’ve been livin’ for is gone?’ ”

  The query brought her up short. Her heart began to pound. Sweat broke out over her body, and she wrestled herself free of the afghan. The CD continued, but the single line reverberated in her brain. For the past dozen years, she’d poured herself into Dreams Realized. The business consumed the places a husband, children, and even pets would fill—and she’d never regretted the decision. She’d lived for the next acquisition, the next restructure, the next distribution of property, always with the goal of early retirement dangling like a carrot in front of her.

  At the completion of this latest project, her dream would fall neatly into place and she would be able to grasp the carrot with both hands. But what if— She shook her head hard. She wouldn’t allow herself to go there. Dr. Bothwell had said it was as likely to be nothing as something. That meant a fifty-fifty chance. So shouldn’t she hold on to hope? If there was a God—and Marty had done her best to convince her He existed—He wouldn’t be cruel enough to give her a major illness right at the cusp of her seeing her personal dream realized. Would He?