“I’m sure of it.” Gordon grabbed a tissue from the holder on the counter and blew his nose.
“She never gets up on the bed.” Nora put her arms around the dog’s neck and rubbed her ears. “Do you suppose dogs cry?”
“I don’t know, but they feel pain and—” Gordon turned away, his weeping contagious.
Back in bed, they held each other until the tears dried up again. With her head on his shoulder, Nora’s eyes burned. She could hear the steady thump of his heart and a sob catch in his throat. “If only I had—”
“Had what? Kept him locked in his room for the rest of his life?”
The desolation in his voice matched the void in her.
“Accidents just happen,” he added.
“True, but if that other driver was drunk, I swear I’ll…” You’ll what? That voice again, the one that drove her crazy at times.
“I’d want to kill him myself, but what good would that do?” His words sounded lost in the stillness. “It wouldn’t bring Charlie back.”
No, it wouldn’t bring Charlie back. Nothing would. She turned over, and with her husband’s arm around her, she cried herself back to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Jenna
Sometimes a minute lasted an hour.
Jenna checked her watch again, then looked closely at the second hand. Yes, it was moving. No, the battery had not died. Two hours gone by. What stage were they in now? Was the new heart in place? Had they hit any snags? Lord, what is happening? This waiting is driving me crazy.
She’d tried to read a magazine, but her mind refused to register words. The television played on a shelf high in the corner. The laugh tracks made her cringe. Nothing could be that funny. She watched an older woman, who sat by herself, knitting away. Would that help if her hands were busy? They were busy by the pile of tissue in her lap, shredded tissue, finely torn into tiny bits, which would melt in water or disappear on a puff of wind, a tiny snowbank that would match those growing outside. She’d gone to stand by the window a couple of times and, with dusk falling, had seen the flakes floating through the pools of light from the lampposts.
Her brain had been busy as well. It seemed with each ecstatic thought of Heather and her new life, a slicing grief would follow for the mother—no, the family that had lost their child.
She hoped God wasn’t weary of hearing her “please” requests. Please guide the surgeon’s hand; please comfort the devastated mother; please warm the heart to beat as soon as it becomes Heather’s; please show me how to pray for the grieving family. On and on went the alternating thoughts. It was exhausting and she couldn’t stop.
In the middle of a “please let Heather’s recovery be as miraculous as the gift of the new heart,” she noticed a man wearing a clergy collar moving from group to group, making his way around the room until he sat next to her.
“Hello, I’m Pastor Larson.”
“Jenna Montgomery. My daughter is having a heart transplant.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty.”
He nodded, then directed his gaze to the window. “Have you been waiting long?”
Jenna checked her watch again. “Two hours and twenty-two minutes.”
“Where are you from?”
“North Platte.”
“Has there been anyone here with you?”
“No, we had to come immediately. A businessman from North Platte flew us here in his Learjet, thanks to Dr. Avery Cranston. He set it all up—I think he’s had it set up for some time, just never told me.” Goodness, she was chatty. She usually wouldn’t volunteer this much information.
“Sounds like a wonderful man, your Dr. Cranston.”
“At the hospital, we all call him ‘Dr. A.’ ”
“You work at the hospital?”
“I’m an RN in the ER.”
“Talk about a pressure cooker job.” He turned to look at her. “Keeps you from thinking about home too much?”
“How did you know?” Jenna turned sideways and tucked her legs up on the seat. The stretch on her back felt good. She knew she should have been walking around some, but it was like if she moved, she might put a wobble on all the events. If she sat still, the surgeon might come out sooner.
“Good guess.” He stretched his head from side to side. “The stress get you in the neck?”
“No, lower back. How long have you been a chaplain?”
He motioned to his silver hair. “Oh, forever.”
“Because you’re easy to talk with?”
He sort of shrugged. “More because of the need. When we’re in crisis, we tend to let our guard down and the Holy Spirit gets a chance to tiptoe in.” He smiled at her, a smile that shared love and comfort. “He knows when we are needy.”
“That would be me,” Jenna said, and told him about her “please” praying. “It seems like it’s taking forever.”
“Sounds about normal for one in your position. Doctors and nurses not only make poor patients, but they don’t wait well.”
“I never have waited well. Guess I’m an adrenaline junkie.” She watched her hands to see if the internal twitch she sometimes felt had become visible.
“Would you like me to pray with you?” He leaned back in the chair as though he had all the time in the world. “An outside opinion might be helpful.”
“I think so.”
“You have a church home in North Platte?”
“Yes, but we’ve not been able to attend much this last year or so. Heather has had to stay away from crowds.”
“Makes it harder. But your pastor knows you are here?”
“Come to think of it, no. We had to leave too quickly for me to call him.”
“Give me his name and I’ll call him.” He took a small black notebook out of his pocket, which had a pen in it.
“Adam Bennington. North Platte Community Church.” She scrunched her eyes slightly to remember, then shook her head. “Can’t think of the phone number.”
“That’s okay. I’ll find it. In my other life, I was a detective.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.” He leaned back in the chair. “I was a lieutenant with the Kansas City PD. Was nearly killed by friendly fire, if that isn’t an oxymoron, and it was desk or retire. I chose to retire and God led me into the ministry. He never wastes anything. This way I don’t have to retire again. Chaplains are always needed.”
Jenna shook her head slowly in small motions. “Well, what a surprise. You know to look at you, if you didn’t wear the collar, no one would guess you are a pastor.”
“Lots of times I leave it off, but here it is helpful. People are looking for comfort. Otherwise, I sneak up on ’em.”
Jenna felt a chuckle somewhere behind her tired eyes. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Not afraid to leave your post?”
“No, not now. And we won’t be gone long.”
“And then we’ll pray?”
“Try and stop us.”
They prayed together at a small table, their coffee half drunk and a packet of crackers shared. It felt to Jenna like Jesus was sitting in the third chair. They talked about the grieving family and how they must be hurting, the fears of Heather’s body rejecting the new heart. They talked about peace and how much God loves His children and the power He has that humans so often block. When they said amen, Jenna wiped her eyes with the napkin and took a drink of the now-tepid coffee. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed that. Now I’ll go back and ‘please’ pray with assurance. I don’t ever want to forget the young person who was my daughter’s perfect Christmas.”
“I’ll walk with you. If I find someone around here who might have need of you, would you be willing to listen and pray?”
Jenna stopped walking and stared at him. Her heart felt like it was thumping in her throat. She chewed on her bottom lip, then nodded. “Yes, I guess I could do that. If you think it could help.”
“Oh, it would help all right. You neve
r know who you might meet.” His eyes twinkled from between the lines. He reached to shake her hand, but Jenna wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.
“I’ll see you again?”
“Lord willing. Here’s my number if you need me in a hurry.” He handed her a business card with a cell phone number on it. “Anytime, day or night.”
Jenna settled back into her chair, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. A deep sigh escaped, born out of gratitude and rest, rather than the earlier weariness and frustration from waiting.
Father, let the donor family know how grateful I am. I know we will write letters, but I know that right now, they need comfort. They need someone to come along just like this man. I’ve not seen you in someone’s face before. Not like this.
Chapter Eleven
Nora
How come you’re up on the bed?”
Betsy thumped her tail and rolled on her side for a belly rub.
Nora started to sit up and the reality of the previous night fell on her like a ceiling in an earthquake. She choked on the dust and the pain and burrowed back under the covers. She heard Betsy whining and felt an insistent paw digging at her shoulder. No, it couldn’t be. She would walk down the hall and look in Charlie’s room and there he’d be, sound asleep, sprawled on his stomach like always. She scrubbed her fingers in her hair and clamped them together, pulling on the strands until the pain registered.
Not that this pain could compare to that assaulting her body, mind and spirit.
She glanced at the other side of the bed. Yes, Gordon had slept there, so the horrific memory from the night wasn’t a dream. If only the twenty-four hours before that could be rewound, edited, and the terrible events left on a movie studio’s cutting-room floor.
Betsy pushed her nose under Nora’s arm and managed to insert her warm body next to Nora’s side, so the dog could reach up and lick away the tears that were flowing again. Had they ever stopped? With a fistful of tissues in hand, Nora leaned her head against Betsy’s. This was too much to bear. How do I get through the next hours? I know there are things that need to be done…. She blew out a sigh and mopped again. The tissues grated like sandpaper against the raw skin of her nose and eyes. She should put some cream on her face. “Should.” What a terrible word. She should be comforting Gordon and Christi. She should be calling friends and family. She should be planning a—her mind stumbled over the word—funeral.
All she’d asked for was one perfect Christmas. A gift from her to her family, building lifelong memories that they would laugh about years from now: Mom’s obsession with a perfect Christmas. Currier & Ives, Norman Rockwell, all the idyllic pictures.
They would never, ever, have a perfect Christmas again.
Life would never be the same again.
She had taken classes at the hospital in helping those who are grieving. She’d learned the five steps of grieving, as if you stepped from stone to stone on a garden path along the grieving trail. Up ahead sunshine shone through a break in the trees, that kind of trail. Not this abysmal pit so dark and dense, with pain shrieking inside and out and no light, no light anywhere.
“I am the way, the truth and the light.” The Bible verse floated through her mind. She’d always believed what Jesus said to be true. But if He was the light, right now He was totally hidden.
She would follow His lead. She, too, would stay hidden. The world had stopped and so would she. In the next moment, her head slipped off Betsy’s flank as the dog jumped to the floor and headed down the hall, nails clicking on the hardwood floor. Her bark announced someone at the door. Nora shook her head; even her ears must be plugged up, she’d not heard the doorbell.
Gordon entered the room in a bit. “Luke is here.”
Nora blinked and moved her head hopefully to clear her vision. “Here.”
“In the family room. We need to make some plans.”
“Plans.” If the world had stopped, there was no need to make plans.
“Christi and I would like your input too. I mean, you might have an idea what Charlie would like.”
The idea that she might have discussed Charlie’s death with her glowing, healthy boy rocked the little understanding she had left. Nora stared at him. Indeed, nothing made sense but to hide. She looked down at her ratty sweats and picked at a fuzz ball on the front of the shirt. Looking at her husband, she realized he was showered and shaved and dressed in cords and a sweater. Other than his eyes, you’d not know something was terribly wrong. How did he do that? She studied her clasped hands, with her elbows resting on her thighs. She couldn’t even sit up straight.
“How’s Christi?”
“Coping.”
That was a lie. Nobody could cope with this.
She rolled back to prone. “Later. Not now.”
Silence. She could sense Gordon remained, although her eyes were closed. You can’t see me, she thought. I’m hidden. I’m stopping the world.
“I’ve made coffee. You want a cup to help get you going?”
As if that would suffice. Anger flared at her husband. How could he go about living after all this? Shouldn’t the whole world stop in memory, in honor of Charlie?
“No, I don’t want coffee.” She knew her tone cut him, but that was the best she could do at the moment. There was a wave of air from Betsy’s tail as she and Gordon left a few moments later. Too soon after, the aroma of coffee entered her room.
“Please, darling, we can use your input.” He set a steaming cup on her bedside table.
“Later,” she managed before another flood of weeping. Later, never. What was the difference?
He left, then the murmur of voices began in the living room, but she didn’t care because she had stopped the world and was hiding.
How much longer after that, Nora didn’t know, but her eyes wouldn’t stay shut, and her ears kept straining to hear a clear word from downstairs. Maybe she would hide out of sight and just listen. Listen to “arrangements.” Tears welled up again; she lost more time lying down with Kleenex stuffed in her ears so they wouldn’t fill up with the wet.
Then, in what seemed like watching someone’s home movie in slow motion, she lifted her legs from the bed and stood up. She put one foot in front of the other to the bathroom, closed the door behind her, and clicked the lock. She would get dressed, hide and listen.
Lipstick didn’t bring her eyes to life, nor her skin, nor help her smile. That had died along with Charlie. But at least her hair was combed, teeth brushed and she felt some semblance of order. She debated on staying in her sweats, but after staring into the closet, for who knows how long, she pulled on jeans and a black sweater. She’d never been a sweats person for the whole day. She fingered the red sweater laid out, one with yellow Labs dressed in angel clothes, down to the wings. And stuffed it in the wastebasket. Christmas had stopped, along with the world.
No wonder people wore black for mourning. One could hide in it. Sliding her feet into fleece-lined leather moccasins, she left the haven of her dark bedroom and braved the light.
From her spot against the wall, hunkered down to her knees just outside the living room, she could now hear clearly. At least hear Luke and Gordon.
“So we are agreed then on a memorial service rather than a funeral, and we will have a private graveside service as soon as they release the body?” Gordon asked.
A pause, where Christi and Luke must have nodded. Gordon continued, “And we will go to the funeral home and choose a casket this afternoon?”
We will? Who all is the “we”? A surge of something brought Nora to standing. I thought we talked about cremation at one time? We don’t have a burial plot, because we are too young to worry about that kind of thing. And if we are to be cremated and our ashes spread upon Lake Superior, we don’t need a casket.
Anger propelled her into the room before she realized she was standing. “Why even discuss it? After all, there are pieces of Charlie scattered all over the country, for all we kn
ow—why not his ashes too?”
The vestige of the screech, which must have been hers, was the only sound in the room. Nora slid her hands to her mouth and tottered to the chair the kids called “Mom’s chair.”
Christi’s eyes were wide. She had on black sweats, the sweatshirt a hoodie, in case she needed to pull into her shell like a turtle. How did Nora know that? Because she wished right now she’d done the same. Her daughter was huddled into the corner of the claret leather couch. After a quick glance at her mother, she went back to staring at her hands knotted in the pouch of the shirt.
Luke bowed his head. Gordon disappeared into the kitchen and came back with coffee mugs on a tray, including a plate with samples of the baking she’d been doing, his face the color of fireplace dust. “Christi, I put cream and sugar in yours.” He handed her a red mug with Santa laughing on it, then held the tray for the others to take theirs. His gaze hung on Nora’s; she couldn’t look away. We just said good-bye. We’re moving too fast, she frantically telegraphed to him.
Nora hadn’t realized her hand was shaking, until she had to put the mug down quickly before she dropped it. Betsy came over and sat next to the leather recliner. Her basket of needlework, mostly Hardanger embroidery, sat beside the chair, along with a daylight lamp to make handiwork easier. Drink the coffee. The prompting reminded her to pick up the cup, this time with both hands. As she sipped, she realized Gordon and Luke were talking. About Charlie. She must be nodding in the right places, because every time they looked at her, she was aware they’d asked a question. Asking them to repeat it took too much energy.
Her eyes filled again and she dried her face with one of the Christmas napkins she’d hand hemmed so joyously.
Her mind wandered around on various paths, until Gordon called her name again.
“What?”
“I asked if you will go with me?”
She nodded. “Why did you change your mind about cremation?”
“Because I don’t know if that was Charlie’s wish. What would Charlie want?” He sounded desperate for her to come up with the right answer.
One Perfect Day Page 8