by Chris Fabry
The emotion came and she fought it. A vision of Janet flashed in her mind, that happy-go-lucky girl with all the hope in the world. Barbara remembered the sheet that covered her, the way the man pulled it back so she could see her face and identify her. She choked back tears.
“He’s caused me more pain than anyone in my life.” She let the words linger between them. And then she launched another salvo. “You had no right to interfere. It was not your place. I am the one that raised her! I am the one that provided for her! Not him!”
Amy nodded and Barbara thought she could at least understand, a mother’s heart would understand her pain. A mother’s heart should have put a stop to Hannah walking into that hospital.
“She will not see him anymore. And if you take her there, I have a right to bring action against the school and against you.”
Both of them stood unable to speak, looking like their house had burned to the ground. And Barbara felt glad. “Now I’ve said what I came to say.” She turned and walked out, slamming the front door.
CHAPTER 36
John stood, shell-shocked not only at what Barbara had said but how she said it. There was such anger and bitterness in her voice that it lingered in the room after she stormed out. As much as he wanted to be angry at Barbara for not listening to their side of the story, he couldn’t. His heart broke for this woman and all she had been through and all that led to the release of her tirade.
“What just happened?” Amy said breathlessly.
John went to the window and watched Barbara drive away. “I wonder what she said to Hannah. What is that girl going through?”
He closed his eyes. He wanted to fix things, wanted to explain. He wanted to call Olivia and tell her what had happened. There were a thousand things he could do, but only one seemed right. There was only one place they could go with trouble bigger than both of them.
Kneeling on the living room floor, John put his elbows on the ottoman. Amy knelt beside him and clasped hands with him, and at first, neither of them spoke.
John was unable to hold back a groan. “I’m sorry, Lord. Please forgive me if I’ve jumped ahead of You. You know I only wanted to help them. Please, don’t let this hurt Hannah or the school.”
Amy held his hands tightly and said, “Yes, Lord Jesus. Thank You.”
“Lord, I don’t know what to do. I need You to show us. Lord, please don’t let this hurt Hannah. Please take care of her. And I ask that You would take care of Barbara and help her to find healing. Lord, we need You. We need wisdom. Lord, if You have to remove me from this situation, then do it. But show us what You want us to do. We want to honor You, Lord. Please help us. Please, Lord, help us. In Jesus’ name.”
Amy picked up the prayer. “Father, when I heard Barbara’s words, I heard a hurt mother and grandmother. She has a broken heart, Lord, and she’s carried it for so long. I know she cares for Hannah and wants the best for her.”
“Yes, Lord,” John prayed.
“Would You somehow use Hannah’s relationship with her father to draw Barbara to You? You’ve done something miraculous in Thomas’s heart. You’ve drawn Hannah to Yourself. She’s now Your child. Now, Lord Jesus, mend Barbara’s broken heart. Show her how much You love her and care for her and want to show her Your compassion. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen,” John said.
The two knelt on the floor, eyes closed, hearts drawn together in the pain they felt from Barbara’s words. Then John heard a voice from somewhere in the house. Amy heard it too. They walked down the hall by the kitchen.
Amy pointed to the stairs. They crept to the top landing and saw Ethan’s door open. He and Will were kneeling by Ethan’s bed. It was Will’s voice they had heard.
“. . . and she’s got asthma, and a lot of bad stuff has happened. But she’s decided to follow You now. So I pray You would encourage her and help her see that no matter how bad it looks, You’re with her and You have a future for her.”
Amy put a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. John could barely hold back the tears. The boys had heard the commotion and had turned to prayer. They too knew God was the only One who could help them. They needed His power.
They crept downstairs again and Amy grabbed the phone. “I want to update the Bible study. Nothing specific, I just want to encourage them to keep praying.”
It was then John remembered what Larry, from their Bible study group, had said. He had reminded John of a prayer he had prayed months earlier. He had asked God to bring people and circumstances that would help grow their faith and stretch them to depend on God like never before.
John saw their struggle in a new light. He had wanted everything to get better. He wanted a fix for the problem. But what if God was working in the middle of the mess with Barbara? In the middle of the misunderstanding and hurtful words?
“I’ll call Pastor Mark and ask him to pray too,” John said.
CHAPTER 37
“What did you say to them?”
Barbara put her purse on the kitchen table, still trying to calm her racing heart, and turned to look at Hannah, not believing what she heard. “Are you worried about their feelings? How about worrying about the one that has taken care of you for the last fifteen years?”
Barbara looked closer. Hannah had been crying. Tears streaked her face.
“Hannah, do you think I’m trying to hurt you? I’m trying to protect you!”
Hannah gave her a pained look, like she wanted to say something, wanted to defend her father.
“You don’t know him like I do!” Barbara said. “Having him in your life is pain. And I’ve had enough of that. You should have told me instead of deceiving me.”
Tears ran like a flood down Hannah’s face. She found her voice and said, “You told me he was dead!”
Barbara looked away. She had only said that to protect her. It was easier if Hannah thought he didn’t exist. Easier for them to move on with their lives. And Barbara had assumed he was dead, given the way he had lived.
“I want to know my father,” Hannah said. She said it with everything in her. She said it like it was the most important thing. Then she turned and walked into her room.
Barbara couldn’t believe it. Tears came to her eyes. All the sacrifice and love she had given, and now to be treated this way. Life had never been more unfair. She’d learned her lesson with Janet’s death. Keep everything locked tight. Keep everything safe because if you don’t, it will be ripped from you. So she’d done that, and look where she was. Right back in the middle of the pain. Life was like a lazy Susan. No matter how many times you spun it around, you kept coming back to the same things inside.
Barbara surveyed the kitchen and the living room. Her eyes rested on a picture of her daughter. It was then she knew what she had to do.
Barbara parked the car and stared at the entrance to Franklin General. She’d been here only twice since Janet died. Once to see a friend who’d had surgery—one of the servers at the restaurant—and once when Hannah had an asthma attack. Both times the memories had risen like a flood. Anytime she came this direction, she took the long way around so she wouldn’t even see the hospital.
There had been construction and a new parking lot and brickwork done out front, but no matter how much they changed it, unwelcome memories intruded. Now, here she was, about to face the man she had counted as dead because to her, he was.
She should have moved away. Should have gone to Texas. Her sister lived there and had said she and Hannah could stay with her. There were lots of jobs in Texas and taxes were low, her sister said. But Barbara’s heart was in Franklin, and even if many of the memories were bad, there were good ones, too. She wanted to raise her granddaughter here. She didn’t want to run away like he had run.
T-bone. Thomas Hill.
She shook her head. His name felt like a curse word.
Three times she put the key back in the ignition but she couldn’t drive away. Finally she found the strength to get out. At the
welcome desk she asked for the room number of a patient named Hill.
“First name?”
“Thomas.” She closed her eyes and tried to get the bad taste out of her mouth.
The desk worker, an older woman with a kind face, pointed down the hall. “Take the elevator up to the fourth floor. Room 402. If you have any trouble, stop at the nurses’ station.”
“I’ll find it,” Barbara said.
She followed the directions and wound up in the middle of the hall outside room 402. The door was slightly open and she heard music inside. It sounded like the songs they played on the Christian station. Praise and worship and God is good all the time.
That sent her over the edge. Thomas had gotten religion. And religion was supposed to change everything. She was supposed to jump up and down and be thankful that he had walked some aisle or repeated some prayer. She didn’t understand that. As if saying a prayer made everything better. Wiped the slate clean. All you had to do was tell God you were sorry and you got to move on as if nothing had happened. And all the people left in the wake of the tsunami you’d created were supposed to just get over it and move on with life.
She stepped closer and peeked inside. When she saw him, her first thought was How the mighty have fallen. Thomas had been so strong, so full of himself, muscles and speed and that swagger that made him look in control. He drew Janet in like a fly to a spider’s web. And now he was trapped in a hospital bed hooked up to machines. Death warmed over.
Good, she thought. Serves him right. He can rot right here.
She pushed the door open all the way and crept in and stood at the foot of his bed, watching him mouth the words to the song on the CD. His eyes didn’t register, so Hannah was right. He was stone blind. She didn’t feel an ounce of pity. There was nothing he could go through that could compare with her pain. She felt it every night when her head hit the pillow and every morning when she awoke, that dull ache of pain and loss. But there were other moments when she’d see Janet in Hannah’s eyes or some small thing that ambushed her and brought her to her knees.
Barbara controlled her breathing, but Thomas must have sensed her presence. He held out the remote and stopped the CD.
“Is someone there?”
Barbara stared down at him, rage seething inside. She remembered that day he brought Hannah back. The day her world fell apart. The day he ran. And without emotion, without venom, she spoke.
“I won’t let you hurt her.”
She said it evenly, stating the facts. She didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of knowing that he had angered her. She didn’t care for him any more than she would a bug on the sidewalk.
Thomas froze at her voice. His eyes tracked to the ceiling and a look of recognition came over his face.
“I wondered when you might come.”
Immediately the anger rose. “Oh, I didn’t want to come. But Hannah is so determined to learn more about you. And I have told her about what she might find.”
Thomas listened and waited. When she finished, he spoke with resignation and remorse. “You’ve got every right to hate me. I can’t defend the wrongs I’ve done. And I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
Barbara focused on the machines, unable to look at his face. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pull every tube out of him and let him feel some of the pain she had felt. In this hospital, just a few floors below where she stood now, she had stared into the lifeless eyes of her only daughter. And Thomas was the reason that memory was imprinted forever. And there was no erasing that memory with a few words of regret.
Thomas turned his face toward her and there were tears in his eyes. With a trembling voice he said, “But I’m not the man you knew. I only want to love and to help Hannah.”
Barbara wasn’t moved. She didn’t care about his tears, his feelings, or his newfound religion. “Help her? You want to help her? It’s been fifteen years and now you want to help her?”
Barbara didn’t want a back-and-forth yelling match. She wanted to tell him to stay away from Hannah and leave, just like she’d done at the Harrisons’ place. But his words sparked something inside she couldn’t hold back.
“How are you going to help her?” she said, a hand on one hip. “You can’t even help yourself!”
Her words were like darts and she could tell they connected. His face contorted in pain. They had reached deep and hit the mark.
“You want to help Hannah?” she continued, and this was what she had come to say. This was the sword she hoped would pierce him. “Leave her alone.”
She let the words sink in. But she had three more to say.
“Let her go.”
She glared at him, remembering the look on his face when he’d stumbled to his car that long-ago day. He’d run so fast all his life and now she was asking him to keep running. It was the least he could do after the hurt he’d caused.
She turned to leave, her face set toward the elevator. She had said what she wanted to say. But just outside the door she heard it. Like the howl of a wounded animal. She stopped.
“You just gave her to me,” Thomas said.
Barbara took a step back toward the room before she realized he wasn’t talking to her.
Thomas was sobbing. “Give me the chance to love her, Lord. Don’t You leave me here useless.” He gritted his teeth and prayed harder. “Don’t You leave me here useless.”
Barbara’s mouth dropped open as she studied his face. A nurse walked toward her. Barbara turned and quickly went to the elevator, her hand shaking as she reached for the button.
She had walked into the hospital with anger and bitterness. But her resolve was shaken by what she had heard. She didn’t want to admit it, but Thomas looked different. Sounded different. There was no swagger to his voice, just contrition. There was no justifying his behavior or blaming Janet or anyone but himself. He had owned the pain he had caused, and that surprised her.
What was she supposed to do with all of that? She had held on to a desire that Thomas would get a double dose of what he had dished out, that God would punish him and make him pay. Now he was broken and bruised, but somehow, even in a hospital bed, he seemed more alive than she was. He had reached out to God, something she couldn’t do. Something too hard after all the years of pushing Him away.
It was one thing to believe God could forgive a sinner. It was another thing to believe that the sinner could live forgiven.
The restaurant was slow the next day and Barbara felt like she was carrying a table full of dishes on her back. She couldn’t get the sight of Thomas in that bed out of her mind any more than she could get the anger and bitterness and hurt to leave. And his wounded cries cut her heart to the quick. She wanted to keep hating him. As harsh as it sounded, she wanted him just to die and be out of her life and Hannah’s too. That way the problem would end.
“Big, Tall, and Handsome just sat down,” Tiffany said to her.
“And what would I do with somebody like that?” Barbara said.
“Get his food, I guess. He asked for your section.”
Barbara stared at the back of the man’s head. Nicely dressed. Alone. She didn’t recognize him. “My section? Are you sure?”
“Is your name Barbara Scott?”
She moved a little, trying to see his face. Was he a customer from some previous visit?
“He’s got a gold band on his ring finger,” Tiffany said.
Barbara shook her head and chuckled. “Last thing in the world I need right now . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence.
“I got him a cup of coffee and a menu,” Tiffany said. “The rest is up to you.”
Barbara grabbed a coffeepot and refilled a customer’s mug at a nearby table, then walked slowly toward the man. He was African American, broad-shouldered, with neatly trimmed hair and a kind face. He had placed a Bible in the middle of the table in front of him but studied the menu at the moment.
“Are you ready to order?” Barbara said, smiling.
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p; He looked up from the menu. “Well, is there something you would suggest? This is my first time here.”
Barbara pointed out the special of the day and the man said that would be fine. He handed the menu back to her and said, “Thank you, Barbara.”
She put the menu under her arm. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, smiling.
“Well, if this is the first time you’ve been here, how do you know my name?”
“You mean other than the tag you’re wearing?”
Barbara dipped her head. “You asked to sit in my section, right?”
He nodded. “A friend told me you worked here.”
She glanced at his Bible. On the front she read, Rev. Willy Parks.
“You a pastor?”
He nodded.
“And who is this friend of yours?”
“Someone in the area I’m visiting. A member of the flock.”
“Where’s your church?”
He mentioned the name of the church and that it was located in Fairview.
“That’s a long way to go for a visit.”
“It is, but the drive helps me think. Clears my head and my soul. You’d be surprised how many sermons I’ve come up with driving from one place to another. Listening to people’s stories. Listening to the pain.”
“There’s plenty of that to go around,” Barbara said.
He chuckled. “I won’t disagree with you there, Ms. Scott.”
His familiar tone unnerved her. She thought of letting Tiffany take the table, but what would it hurt to hear him out? She turned and said, “I’ll get your order started.”
The man cleared his throat. “My parishioner is in the hospital here. Over at Franklin General.”
Barbara stopped. Without looking at him, she said, “Is that so?”
“Mm-hmm. They had to move him here from Fairview. He’s on dialysis.”
Barbara’s heart fluttered. She stared into his eyes. Of all the nerve, to track her down here.
Barbara gritted her teeth. “Did he send you here?”