by Chris Fabry
Praise for Chris Fabry
Borders of the Heart
“A thoroughly enjoyable read. . . . Chris Fabry is a masterful storyteller.”
CBA RETAILERS+RESOURCES
“In this edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense, all of the characters ring true. . . .”
BOOKLIST, STARRED REVIEW
“In this suspense-filled drama, Fabry covers hot topics. . . . Readers will be immersed in the lives of Maria and J. D.”
ROMANTIC TIMES
“[Borders of the Heart is] character driven with strong characters facing moral dilemmas.”
LIBRARY JOURNAL
“Ups the ante for fans of Fabry’s high-charged, emotionally driven fiction by adding a strong suspense thread.”
TITLETRAKK.COM
Not in the Heart
“A story of hope, redemption, and sacrifice. . . . It’s hard to imagine inspirational fiction done better than this.”
WORLD MAGAZINE
“Christy Award–winning Fabry has written a nail-biter with plenty of twists and turns. Fans of Jerry B. Jenkins and Jodi Picoult might want to try this title.”
LIBRARY JOURNAL
“A fine piece of storytelling. . . . Down to its final pages, Not in the Heart is a gripping read. While the mystery at its core is compelling, it’s Wiley’s inner conflict that’s truly engrossing.”
CROSSWALK.COM
“This absorbing novel should further boost Fabry’s reputation as one of the most talented authors in Christian fiction.”
CBA RETAILERS+RESOURCES
“The best book I have read in a long time. The plot is unique and creative . . . [and] manages to keep the reader hanging until the last page.”
READERVIEWS.COM
Almost Heaven
“[A] mesmerizing tale . . . [Almost Heaven] will surprise readers in the best possible way; plot twists unfold and unexpected character transformations occur throughout this tender story.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Fabry has a true gift for prose, and [Almost Heaven] is amazing. . . . You’ll most definitely want to move this to the top of your ‘to buy’ list.”
ROMANTIC TIMES, 4½-STAR TOP PICK REVIEW
“Fabry is a talented writer with a lilting flow to his words.”
CROSSWALK.COM
June Bug
“[June Bug] is a stunning success, and readers will find themselves responding with enthusiastic inner applause.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“An involving novel with enough plot twists and dramatic tension to keep readers turning the pages.”
BOOKLIST
“I haven’t read anything so riveting and unforgettable since Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. . . . A remarkable love story, filled with sacrifice, hope, and forgiveness!”
NOVEL REVIEWS
“Precise details of places and experiences immediately set you in the story, and the complex, likable characters give June Bug the enduring quality of a classic.”
TITLETRAKK.COM
Dogwood
“[Dogwood] is difficult to put down, what with Fabry’s surprising plot resolution and themes of forgiveness, sacrificial love, and suffering.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Ultimately a story of love and forgiveness, [Dogwood] should appeal to a wide audience.”
CBA RETAILERS+RESOURCES
“Solidly literary fiction with deep, flawed characters and beautiful prose, Dogwood also contains a mystery within the story that adds tension and a deepening plot.”
NOVEL REVIEWS
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Visit Chris Fabry’s website at www.chrisfabry.com.
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Every Waking Moment
Copyright © 2013 by Chris Fabry. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of leaves copyright © Dmytro Tolokonov/Veer. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph of woman taken by Stephen Vosloo. Copyright © by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Designed by Beth Sparkman
Edited by Sarah Mason
Published in association with Creative Trust Literary Group, 5141 Virginia Way, Suite 320, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027, www.creativetrust.com.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.
Ephesians 1:18, quoted in chapter 18, and Scripture quoted in chapter 43 are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Every Waking Moment is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fabry, Chris, date.
Every waking moment / Chris Fabry.
pages cm
SBN 978-1-4143-4863-6 (sc)
1. Caregivers—Fiction. 2. Frail elderly—Fiction. 3. Mental healing—Fiction. 4. Dementia—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3556.A26E94 2013
813'.54—dc23 2013017344
ISBN 978-1-4143-8871-7 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-4143-8410-8 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-4143-8872-4 (Apple)
Build: 2014-01-20 15:11:30
To Tricia, Nate, and Annabel “Annie” Wren McMillan. With love.
And to Elsie Young.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.
MARGERY WILLIAMS, The Velveteen Rabbit
Contents
Before
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 6
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 4
Chapter 8
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 9
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 15
Chapter 11
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 12
Chapter 12
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 3
Chapter 13
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 11
Chapter 14
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 19
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Streams from Desert Gardens: Outtake 1
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 23
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 31
Chapter 38
Streams from Desert Gardens: Scene 27
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
; Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Discussion Questions
Before
TREHA IMAGINED IT like this: A summer afternoon. Her mother’s satin dress billowing. Fully leaved, green trees swaying. Crossing a busy street.
“Keep up with me, Treha,” her mother said.
Looking into the sunlight, she saw the silhouette of her mother’s face with beads of sweat on her lip and the wide-brimmed hat casting shade. Her mother not quite smiling but showing dazzling teeth. Deep-red lipstick. Like a movie star with a hint of concern on her face.
Momentum carried them to the sidewalk and the corner shop with the tinkling bell as they passed the red bricks and moved into the cool, sweet air smells and bright colors under a sign that said Ice Cream.
Her mother led her to the glass case that held the containers. Treha stood on tiptoes but wasn’t tall enough to see over the edge, so her mother picked her up and held her, letting her hover above the colors. She pointed out the ones with dark specks and those with pecans and pralines or cookies or M&M’s.
“Which one would you like? The orange? Yellow? Don’t take all day now.”
The man behind the counter wore a white apron and wiped his hands and smiled. Behind him on the wall was a clock with a fish symbol in the middle and a second hand that jerked around the face.
Treha chose the pink, purple, and yellow all mixed together, and her mother put her on the floor. Treha studied the tile, the way the patterns worked together in threes. Triangles that made up squares that made up bigger triangles and squares. Black-and-white patterns she could see when she closed her eyes.
“Cone or cup?” the man said.
“Cup,” she said quickly, like she knew the cup lasted longer. You got more ice cream that way and less all over you.
“You’re a smart girl,” her mother said, sitting her on a chair next to a round table. The top was green and smooth and cool to the touch. “And so pretty.”
There was something in her mother’s eye that she wiped away. Dust? A bit of water?
The man brought the cup filled to overflowing, with a plastic spoon standing at attention. Her mother paid him and he went back to the register, then returned to them.
“How old is she?” the man said, handing her mother the change.
“Almost two.”
“Adorable. She’s a living doll.”
He spoke as if Treha weren’t there, as if she were an inanimate object incapable of understanding words.
Her mother knelt on the tile arranged in threes, the design continuing to infinity. She dabbed a napkin at the corners of Treha’s mouth. As hard as Treha tried to stay neat and clean, she always got the ice cream on her face and hands and dress. Maybe that was why it happened. She was adorable and a doll but too much trouble.
“I need to step out. You wait here, okay?”
Treha studied her as she took another spoonful and carefully placed it in her mouth.
Her mother kissed her forehead and whispered in her ear, “I love you, my sweet princess.”
She said something with her eyes before she stood but Treha could not decipher the message. Something between the words, something behind the stare, interconnected but dangling, like a loose thread in an unwanted scarf.
The bell jingled behind her and Treha looked back long enough to see her mother disappear into traffic, lost in sunlight.
When she finished the ice cream, the man came to the table and took the cup. “Where’s your mama?”
She stared at him with those brown eyes, wide like saucers. Milky-white skin untainted by the sun. Ice cream spots on her pretty dress that she tried to wipe away but couldn’t.
“You want another scoop?”
She shook her head. Her chin puckered. Somehow she knew. The world had tilted a little. She was alone.
The man walked to the door and looked out. Scratched his head with the brim of the white hat, then put it back on.
Treha swung her legs from the chair and looked at the sign behind the counter, the lines that connected to form words she did not understand. Words on walls and hats and buildings and cars. Letters bunched in threes and fours and more to make sentences and stories. Her story. The one she didn’t know. The one she tried hard to remember but never could. The one she had to make up.
CHAPTER 1
ARDETH WILLIAMS was eighty-nine and her eyes were glassy and clouded. She stared straight ahead with a slight head tilt as her daughter and son-in-law wheeled her past open doors at Desert Gardens of Tucson, Arizona. The companion building, Desert Gardens Retirement Home, was a fully staffed facility featuring its own golf course, a spa, exercise rooms, and several pools. But this Desert Gardens offered assisted living and hospice, a nursing home with frills. It was billed on the brochure as a complete end-of-life facility located in the comfort of an upscale desert community.
Miriam Howard, director of the facility, followed the group closely, watching Ardeth for any response. She couldn’t tell if anything was going on behind the opaque eyes. The old woman’s body sat rigid, her hands drawn in. Her head bounced like a marionette’s as her son-in-law pushed her.
Retirement was bearing down on Miriam like a semitruck trying to make it through a yellow light. It was a huge transition Miriam had dreamed about, but now that she could measure her remaining time in hours instead of days or weeks, she couldn’t suppress the sadness. This wasn’t her timing. But the decision had been made by the board and the new director was moving in.
She had developed a facility that actually cared for people inside the “compound,” as some cantankerous residents called it. There was human capital here and she knew it. And she hoped the new director would learn the same. The woman was on the job already, learning procedures, the problem residents, soaking up the routine, uncovering the scope and magnitude of her duties.
“Aren’t these flowers the prettiest?” Ardeth’s daughter said when they reached the room. “It’s so bright in here, don’t you think? And clean. They’ll keep it neat for you, Mom, and you don’t have to do a thing. You always kept everything so tidy and now you won’t have to worry about that. Isn’t that great?”
The daughter didn’t realize this was part of the problem. The same tasks that wore her mother down were the tasks that gave her structure and stability. Worth. When she could no longer do them and others were paid to accomplish things she had done as long as she could remember, life became a calendar of guilt—every day lived as a spectator, watching others do what she couldn’t and being reminded with each breakfast made by someone else’s hands. Miriam saw this clearly but could never fully explain the truth to families crunching numbers on the cost of warehousing the aged.
“You’ll have a nice view of the parking lot, too,” her son-in-law said, tongue in cheek. “All those fancy cars the employees drive.” His hair was graying and it was clear he and his wife were having a hard time letting go, though they were trying to be strong.
He pushed the wheelchair farther into the narrow room and struggled past the bed.
“She can’t see the TV facing that way,” his wife snapped. She turned the chair around, jostling the old woman.
Miriam had seen this tug-of-war for thirty years. The walk of a hopeless family trying to love well but failing. Everyone watching a parent slip away shot flares of anger that were really masqueraded loss. Deciding what Mother would like or wouldn’t was a seesaw between two relatives who were guessing. Love looked like this and worse and was accompanied by a mute, white-haired shell.
When Ardeth was situated, the man locked the wheels clumsily and patted her spotted hand as he bent to her ear. “Here we are. What do you think, Mom? Do you want this to be your home?”
Nothing from the old woman. Not a grunt or a wave of the hand. No scowl. No recognition. Behind the cataracts and age and wrinkles, there was simply bewilderment. And even a casual observer could sense
the fear. Could taste it in the air. But this scene brought out Miriam’s strength.
She sat on the bed beside Ardeth. In the early days, before she had learned the valuable lessons that came with running the facility, she would have spoken as if the old woman weren’t there or weren’t aware. Now, she gently put a hand on Ardeth’s shoulder and spoke softly, including her.
“Ardeth will not just be a patient if she comes here,” Miriam said. “She will be part of our family. Part of our village. And there are things she will contribute to the whole that others can’t.”
The daughter hung on every word. Mouth agape. Water filling her eyes.
Miriam continued. “What you’re doing, the process you’re going through, is a loving one. I know it doesn’t feel like that. You’re having a hard time even considering this, and your heart is telling you to take her home, where she belongs.”
The man crossed his arms and looked away, but the daughter nodded. “That’s exactly it. I just want to take care of her. We’re overreacting. She put up with so much from me; the least I can do is return the favor.”
Miriam smiled. “That’s a viable option. But if Ardeth was to stay with us, I want you to know that you won’t be abandoning her. You’re giving her the best care possible.”
The daughter took her mother’s hand. “I want to be here for her.”
“Of course. And she knows that, though she can’t express it.”
The woman pulled a tissue from a full, decorative box on the nightstand and wiped at her eyes.
“Our goal is to give each resident the best care,” Miriam said. “Late at night, early in the morning, all of those who work here strive to give the attention each person needs. If you decide this is the best, you can rest easy. Ardeth will lack for nothing.”
A bead of saliva pooled at the edge of the old woman’s mouth and gravity did its work. Her daughter leaned forward, taking another tissue to catch the bead as it ran down her chin.
“I don’t want her to be in bed all day,” the daughter said, her voice breaking, her tone accusatory. She caught herself and put a hand on her chest. “But that was happening at home. I hated leaving her in front of the television, but I have things to do and I can’t take her with me.” She was whispering now.