“So what’s this for again?” Mark asked as he faced the stack of letters she wanted him to stuff into envelopes.
“For your education and your moral health,” Cathy explained matter-of-factly.
Annie, who had also been enlisted, made a derisive noise of disgust.
“What?” Mark asked.
“It’s about sex ed at our schools, meathead,” Annie told her brother. “And the fact that Mom is trying to ruin our lives.”
“How am I ruining your life?” Cathy flung back.
“Get real, Mom,” Rick said, coming in from the other room. “Our friends are already calling you ‘the condom lady.’ They think it’s a big joke that you’re fighting the school on this. I may never show my face in that place again. I’ll probably run away before school starts in the fall.”
“He’s right, Mom,” Annie said, and Cathy would have marked this rare moment of sibling agreement on the calendar if she hadn’t been so appalled at their attitudes. “You wouldn’t believe what a hard time we’re getting. Today at the Y pool, Selena Hartfield started telling everybody that our mom didn’t want them talking to her kids about sex at school ‘cause we don’t know the facts of life yet. It embarrassed me to death. If you wind up making any more of a deal about this than you already have, I’m going to live with Dad, ‘cause I don’t need this.”
“I’m doing this for your own good,” Cathy said. “The school doesn’t have the right to pour junk into your heads, and if they can’t even let a mother view the video they showed you, something’s wrong. If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t go to all this trouble. You think I like spending every minute of my spare time on this?”
“Yes,” Annie said. “I think you do. It’s given you a life, even if it means that we can’t show our faces out of the house for the rest of the summer.”
“Isn’t that just a little dramatic?” Cathy asked her. “So far, you haven’t spent two straight hours in the house, unless you’re sleeping. I think your social life is fine. Too good, in fact.”
Annie shrugged. “Well, maybe for now. But when you start making speeches at the school board meeting…Besides, look at poor Rick. His social life was already bad enough, and now he’s practically an outcast.”
“I am not!” Rick said. “Why don’t you shut up?”
“You shut up. Mom and I are having a conversation.” She turned back to her mother and crossed her arms belligerently. “Mom, I’m sorry, but I have to take a stand. I refuse to be a part of this. Rick and Mark can stuff envelopes if they want, but I’m standing up for my principles.”
“Principles? What principles? You’re standing up for the right to have condoms passed out in the school?”
Annie looked flustered, then quickly rallied. “Mom, you just don’t understand. Some people need them.”
Cathy couldn’t believe her ears. “Annie, tell me you don’t mean that.”
“I do. Not me, Mom, but other people. They’re going to do things anyway, so you might as well arm them so they don’t get diseases and stuff.”
“She’s brainwashed,” Cathy said to no one in particular. “I’m too late. They’ve already brainwashed her.” She covered her face with her hands, then realized she couldn’t just play dead. She looked up, breathing in enough energy for the fight. “Annie, it’s wrong to have sex before marriage, no matter what your friends or your teachers or your boyfriends say.”
“Why?” Annie demanded. “If two people really love each other, and they’re not, like, sleeping around, then why shouldn’t they?”
“Because!” Cathy racked her brain for a ready reason, but they all seemed to escape her. “It’s not the decent thing to do. It’s…it’s bad for you. For a lot of reasons.”
“Okay, it’s bad because of, like, pregnancy and AIDS. But if they’re protected so those things don’t happen—”
“It says not to do it in the Bible!” Cathy said, suddenly relieved that the thought had come to her. “It says it clearly.”
“Where?” Annie asked. “Show me. Sarah Beth says that it tells you not to have adultery, but that’s because someone’s getting hurt in adultery. If it’s between two consenting people who aren’t hurting anybody—”
“Sarah Beth is fifteen years old!” Cathy shouted. “You’re going to listen to her word over mine?”
“At least she has documentation.”
Cathy wanted to throw something. “Look, I don’t know where it says that in the Bible, but I know it talks about fornication. I’ll find it.” She felt flustered and frustrated, and furious at herself for not knowing Scripture.
“Well, even if you do, I’m not sure I buy into the Bible, anyway. It’s outdated, Mom. Those rules may have worked in the Stone Age, but things have changed.”
“Yeah, things have changed,” Mark agreed.
“Things have not changed! The Bible is still true.” Her voice broke off with the last words, and a lump rose in her throat. How could she have let this happen? How could she have raised her kids without the one value system they needed? How could she explain morals to them if they didn’t have anything to base them on?
“I believe it’s wrong to have sex before marriage,” Rick said quietly, as if he could see his mother needed help.
Cathy fought to hold back her tears. “Thank you, Rick. That gives me some comfort.”
“That’s just because you’re afraid of girls,” Annie told her brother.
“I am not!”
“He’s shy, Mom. Look at him. How often does he even go on dates?”
“I’m going to homecoming, doofus. I can get a date anytime I want!”
“That’s enough!” Cathy belted out. Red-faced, she stood up and grabbed a stack of envelopes. “Sit down, Annie, and don’t say another word.”
“What? I told you I’m not helping with this! It’s propaganda, and I don’t want any part of it!”
“Sit!” Cathy shouted. “Now!”
Annie didn’t sit, but she jerked the envelopes out of her mother’s hand. “Rick, you too,” Cathy ordered. “Start stuffing. Mark, you take these.”
Annie shook her head with disbelief. “Guess I’ll have to run away and live with Dad.”
“I’m the one who’s about to run away!” Cathy shouted. She forced herself to rein her temper in, and sat back down. “Oh, and Annie?” she said in a quieter voice that simmered with fury. “Don’t threaten me with your I’m-going-to-live-with-my-daddy routine anymore, because it sends me into a rage, and I’ve been known to take away privileges for entire months for that, haven’t I, Rick?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rick muttered.
“And you want a good reason not to have sex before marriage? Try this one. Because if I think you’re even thinking about it, I’ll ground you for life. How’s that?”
The doorbell rang. Angrily, Cathy shouted, “Come in!”
Sylvia pushed the front door open and came tentatively into the living room.
“Oh, hey, Sylvia,” Cathy said, wilting. “Sorry I didn’t get up. I figured it was one of the kids’ friends. I was ready to lambaste them, too.” She noticed Sylvia’s somber look. “Everything okay?” she asked. “Harry isn’t making you pack for Nicaragua, is he?”
“No,” Sylvia said with a faint smile. “I thought you’d want to know that little Joseph’s back in the hospital.”
“Oh, no. Is it his heart again?”
The kids stopped stuffing and looked up at Sylvia.
“I’m afraid so.”
“What’s wrong with him, Sylvia? What did they say?”
“He needs a heart transplant.”
Silence. Even the three children were stunned. Cathy stood slowly. “A heart transplant? Sylvia, isn’t there something else they can do before that? I thought that was the last resort.”
“This is the last resort,” Sylvia said. “He collapsed again today, and his heart almost stopped for good. They revived him, but apparently, without a transplant, he’ll die.”
&nbs
p; Stricken, Cathy turned back to her children. Shock and amazement were evident on their faces. Even Annie was speechless. Little boys weren’t supposed to experience failure in major organs. They weren’t supposed to have to fight for their lives.
She forced her thoughts into a logical sequence. “Sylvia, is there anything I can do?”
“Well, maybe,” she said. “We need to raise money. The Dodds don’t have adequate health insurance, and David just doesn’t make that kind of money.”
“Sure,” Cathy said. “We’ll think of something. Won’t we, kids?”
The children all nodded. It was the quietest she’d ever seen them. Crisis always quieted them, she realized. When their father had announced his intentions to divorce her, they had been silent for days.
“So what hospital is he in?”
“St. Francis,” Sylvia said. “Harry’s not his doctor, but he’s keeping an eye on him.”
“Good. I’m sure that gives Brenda some comfort.”
“I hope so. Well, I’m going to take the Dodd kids home and put them to bed. Brenda and David are both at the hospital.”
Cathy nodded thoughtfully. “Annie and I can do some babysitting, if that will help.”
Annie shot her mother an unappreciative look, then shrugged and grudgingly said, “Yeah, sure.”
“And maybe Mark and Rick could help keep their yard cut.”
Rick leaned forward on the table. “Whatever I can do.”
“I’m sure they’d appreciate that,” Sylvia said. “And they’ll probably take you up on it. It could be a long haul. There’s no telling when a heart could become available.”
Cathy sat again. “Boy. And I thought my problem with the school board was bad.”
When Sylvia was gone, Cathy stared down at the letters she’d been so feverishly addressing. Somehow, they just didn’t seem that important anymore.
“Mom, how do they get a heart?” Mark asked quietly.
“What do you mean, how?”
“I mean, like if they take it out of somebody else, won’t they die?”
“That’s kind of the point, dooms,” Annie said.
Ricky’s voice was kinder. “They take it out of somebody who’s going to die anyway, don’t they, Mom?”
Mark still looked confused. “You mean, out of somebody who’s sick and isn’t gonna get better?”
“No, nothing like that,” Cathy said. “It’s usually an accident victim. Somebody who’s technically dead, but their heart is still functioning. They’ll take it out and put it in somebody who needs it. They do that with all kinds of organs.” Cathy had never imagined that she would have the need to explain this concept to her children.
“So somebody’s gonna have to die to cure Joseph?” Mark asked.
“Looks that way.”
The kids were quiet for a moment, and finally, Annie lost her belligerent look. Her voice was softer as she asked, “What if they don’t get one in time?”
“They have to,” Cathy said. “That’s all there is to it.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she wanted more than anything to reach out and hug each of her kids, hold them until her arms got tired, rock them as she had when they were little. But she knew they wouldn’t allow it. Somehow, she’d lost her privilege to do that years ago. Now she didn’t know how to get it back.
She closed her eyes and let the tears flow for a moment. When she opened them, the kids had all dispersed to their separate rooms to deal with their own thoughts. And even in their stubborn rebellion and their maddening defiance, she found that she was thankful they all had functioning hearts.
CHAPTER
Twenty-Six
The Dodd children were unusually quiet as they got ready for bed that evening.
“Mom would have called us if anything bad had happened, wouldn’t she?” Leah asked.
“Of course,” Sylvia said.
Daniel was watching her face, waiting for some clue to Joseph’s real condition. “So how long does Joseph have to stay in the hospital?”
“No one knows, but it could be a while.”
Rachel sank down on the bed and put her hand over her heart. “I think I have it, too.”
“Have what, too?” Leah asked.
“Heart trouble. My heart keeps pitter-pattering.”
“Everybody’s heart pitter-patters,” Daniel said. “It doesn’t mean you have to go to the hospital.”
“But if Joseph’s sick, what if the rest of us get it?”
“Stop thinking about yourself,” Leah exclaimed. “Joseph’s the one we should think about.”
Daniel was still watching Sylvia, and she felt he could read every thought as it passed across her face. “When’s Dad coming home?”
Sylvia had made a valiant effort not to lie to them, but also to avoid saying too much. David and Brenda would be the ones who’d want to break the news to them. “He should be home soon,” she said. “It’s been a long day for both of them.”
“Well, where’s Mom going to sleep?”
“They have a cot in the room with Joseph.”
“Did he wake up?” Rachel asked. “Is he talking?”
“Oh, sure,” Sylvia said. “He’s the same old Joseph, according to Dr. Harry.”
She sent them all to get ready for bed, wondering whether at their ages they needed to be tucked in. She thought back to when her children were ten and twelve. Had she tucked them in? Yes—in fact, she realized, she had tucked them in, in one way or another, until the day they’d left home. At least, she had kissed them goodnight and said a prayer with them. But she didn’t know how Brenda and David did things.
After a while, she found the children huddled in Rachel and Leah’s room. Daniel sat on the floor, Leah and Rachel on each of the twin beds.
“You kids ready for bed?” Sylvia asked.
“We want to pray first,” Leah said. “For Joseph.”
“I think that’s a real good idea.”
Rachel and Leah got on the floor next to Daniel, and Sylvia completed the circle. “Let’s hold hands,” Leah suggested.
They all held hands and bowed their heads.
She was amazed at the prayers that came from those young lips, prayers that exhorted the Holy Spirit to do His work, as if they knew Him. Brenda had been doing a good job with them, she thought. They knew where to turn in times of trouble. She wondered how David could avoid being impacted by the faith of these children.
When they’d finished praying for their brother, they all wiped their eyes, and Daniel got up and headed for his own room. She tucked in the girls one by one, gave them a kiss on the forehead, then went to Daniel’s room and saw him hunched on the bottom mattress of the bunk beds. She felt more awkward approaching him. He was a cross between a boy and a man—a taller version of Joseph, a smaller image of David. She tried to remember Jeff at that age. She had treated him with understanding and respect. She tried to do the same tonight.
“Good night, Daniel,” she said.
“Night,” he answered. “When Dad comes home, tell him I’m sleeping in Joseph’s bed.”
“Okay.”
He looked up at her as if he wasn’t quite finished. “I mean, I don’t want him to come in and freak out or anything, thinking I’m not where I’m s’posed to be.”
“I’m sure he’ll understand.”
He sat there thinking for a minute, then finally got under the covers and pulled them up to his chest. “Joseph’s going to be fine. My brother’s tough.”
“Sure, he is. All of you are tough.”
“No, but he’s really tough,” he said. “I mean his heart. It probably isn’t even that bad. It’s just sick. It’s going to get better, isn’t it?”
“He’s in really good hands. Dr. Harry’s taking care of him, and Dr. Robinson. They’re very well trained.” She knew the words didn’t comfort the boy.
“You think they’ll let me go see him tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. There might be a problem with visi
tors because of germs. We’ll have to see,” she said.
He thought that over for a moment. “Joseph’s going to have a hard time being there,” he said. “Wish we could do something like make a video every day, so he can see what’s going on at home. But we don’t have a Camcorder.”
Sylvia smiled. “I’ll loan you mine. I haven’t needed it since the wedding. That’s a great way to keep the family together even when it’s apart.”
“Yeah.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “I wish it hadn’t happened to him. I wish it had happened to me, instead, ‘cause I think I could take it better.”
She wanted to say something about it being God’s choice, but she didn’t know if that particular bit of theology would comfort the child in any way.
“Thanks for coming over and taking care of us,” he said.
“No problem. Good night, Daniel.”
She turned off the light and headed for the kitchen. The kids, obviously well trained, had cleaned up after themselves, but still she kept herself busy, puttering around and putting things away until their father came home.
CHAPTER
Twenty-Seven
Cathy stood in the doorway to the hospital room the next day, dressed in the surgical gown and mask the nurse had made her put on for her visit. Joseph was lying still with his eyes closed, apparently asleep. Brenda, dressed the same, looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. “You didn’t have to come by,” she said, giving Cathy a hug. “I know you need to be at the clinic.”
“I always close for lunch,” she said quietly. She stood over Joseph’s bed, looking down at him. As if he felt her gaze, he opened his eyes and looked up. “Hey,” he whispered.
“Hey,” she said, leaning over him. “What do you think of this mask they made me wear in here?”
He managed a smile.
“So how you doing there, Champ?”
“Okay,” he said.
“He’s a little groggy still from the procedure they did this morning,” Brenda said. “They put the Heart Mate in.”
“D’you know I’m getting a new heart?” he asked.
“That’s what I hear,” Cathy said, trying to sound impressed. She reached into the bag she carried and pulled out the games she’d bought for him. “Look, I brought some things to keep you busy while you’re here. When you’re feeling a little better.”
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