“Oh,” Shannon said. “Is he gonna get Jack?”
“It’s not quite time yet.”
“Is Grandma’s heart all better now?”
“I think so, but they had to operate on it, and it takes a long time to get all better from that. She’ll have to take it pretty easy for a while.”
“So when can I see her?”
“You can’t right now. Little kids can’t visit.”
“I have to wait until she gets home?”
“Yes,” Bobbi said, “But I’ll tell her that you want to see her.”
“Did Brad and Joel get to see her?”
“Yes.”
“They get to do everything,” Shannon pouted.
“Jack won’t get to see Grandma,” Bobbi offered, trying to soften the blow.
“At least somebody else gets treated like a kid.”
“Did you have any trouble?” Bobbi asked Brad.
“No. I stopped in, and told Mr. Henneke how things went.”
“Thank you. I should let him know if Grandma does well over the weekend, I’ll be back at school Monday.”
“Yay!” Shannon said. “I missed you!” She climbed up in her mother’s lap, snuggling close. For the next hour, she recounted everything that happened in the last day, playing with Katelyn, spending the night at Aunt Rita’s, and the day’s kindergarten drama.
Finally Bobbi said, “Why don’t you go and very gently wake your Daddy up?”
“Is it time to get Jack?” Shannon asked sitting up straight.
“Yes,” Bobbi said, and Shannon scrambled off her lap. “Gently,” Bobbi reminded.
Shannon tiptoed over to Chuck and put a hand on his knee. “Daddy, wake up,” she whispered. When he didn’t respond, she shook his knee, and raised her voice. “Daddy!”
His eyes opened slowly, and he took a moment to orient himself. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said, pulling her into a hug. “What time is it?”
“Time to get Jack!” Shannon exclaimed. “Can I go?”
“No,” Chuck answered immediately. “I have to go by myself.” He stood and stretched, then said to Bobbi, “I can’t believe I fell asleep that fast.”
“Believe it,” Bobbi said. “Are you going to bring Jack by here?”
“I guess so. We can decide then what we’re doing tonight and tomorrow.”
“Are you the last one standing?” Rita asked Bobbi as she and Gavin entered the family waiting room.
“No, Brad and Shannon are on a quest for cheese puffs, and Chuck should be here with Jack soon.” She hugged her sister and brother-in-law. “How are you guys?”
“We’re fine. How’s Ann?” Rita asked as she and Gavin took a seat.
“She did great through the surgery. I talked to her for a minute, and Chuck saw her before he left for court.”
“How did that go?” Gavin asked.
“Not so well,” Bobbi said. “Tracy stormed out.”
Just then Rita’s phone rang. She quickly dug the phone out of her purse. “Oh, it’s Kelly. She had a doctor’s appointment today, and maybe an ultrasound.” She flipped the phone open. “Hey, what’d you find out? Wait, I can’t hear you in here.” Rita walked out into the hallway in an attempt to find a better cell phone signal.
Gavin watched Rita for a moment, and then he turned back to Bobbi. “You know, I never wanted Chuck to pursue this thing with Jack,” Gavin said. “I was afraid of what it would do to you, to your marriage.”
“I believe God held it off until we were secure enough to deal with it. If we had found out Tracy was pregnant while we were separated ... I think we would have divorced over it.”
“So you’re okay?”
“Yeah, Chuck finally realized he was a jerk.”
“Again.”
“You’d think he’d catch on quicker, wouldn’t you?” Bobbi smiled. “The big revelation was that if he expects me to trust him, trust his judgment and trust him to have contact with Tracy, then he has got to take my concerns seriously.”
“And he’s doing that?”
“He’s improving,” Bobbi said. “He kept trying to get me to be reasonable and rational. I told him that when he had the affair with her, rationality went out the window. I will never react objectively where Tracy’s concerned. Period. And it’s not about jealousy as much as fear.”
“The scars are deep, aren’t they?”
“In spite of the progress we’ve made, and as much as we love each other now, yes, the scars are very deep, and the wounds are still painful.”
“I feel kind of responsible for you, you know,” Gavin said, “since I gave you away to him and all.”
“I know you do, and I love you for it, but I’m okay, and our marriage is okay.”
“You’d tell me if it wasn’t, wouldn’t you?”
“Gavin, apart from my husband, there is no one on earth I trust as much as you and Rita. I promise, we’re okay, and he has my genuine support in this. Jack needs him. It’s worth it for his sake.”
“We’re having a boy!” Rita announced from the doorway. “Andrew Joseph Logan.”
After the exchange in the caseworker’s office, Chuck was less than anxious about seeing Tracy again. At least she was alone this time. Jack opened the front door before Chuck stepped onto the porch. “Hi Dad! Guess what?”
“What?”
“I lost a tooth at school today! See!” He smiled broadly, showing off the gap where his top left incisor had been. “Will the Tooth Fairy know how to find me at your house?”
“Oh yeah,” Chuck answered. “That’s no problem for the Tooth Fairy.”
“Great!” Jack answered, and bounced down the steps to Chuck’s car.
Chuck waited a few moments for Tracy, but then rang the bell. She’s just jerking me around, trying to get a rise out of me. Stay cool, don’t let her bait me.
At last, she came to the front door. “Jack never tells me when you’re here,” she said, glancing past him to her son, already in Chuck’s car. She slid his suitcase out, and handed it to Chuck. “I didn’t mention your mother at all. I thought you’d want to handle that.”
“Thanks,” Chuck said. “About this afternoon—”
“What about it?” Tracy asked sharply.
“I wanted to apologize. I think you’ve done a great job with Jack. I asked for more time with Jack because he’s my son, not because I want him away from you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t believe you. Tell Jack I’ll see him Sunday.” Tracy closed her front door, leaving Chuck on the porch, shaking his head. She believed him. He knew she did, regardless of the posturing. Something else was going on. Maybe Sunday she’d open up a little.
He carried the suitcase to the car, and opened Jack’s door to check that the boy had buckled his seat belt. “Jack, we need to stop by the hospital before we go home.”
“Who’s sick?”
“Grandma,” Chuck answered, and immediately Jack’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Hey, she’s going to be okay. The doctors found what was making her sick, and they fixed it.”
“Promise?”
“As much as I can make a promise like that, yes.” He patted Jack’s knee. “Shannon’s waiting to see you.”
Chuck got in the car, and as he got ready to back out of the driveway, he caught sight of Tracy watching them through the living room window. She quickly let the curtain go and disappeared back into the house. It was killing her to let Jack go, and she was enduring it, because her son needed a dad.
Her protests were about her own pain, and not anger at him. It just made a convenient cover to blame him. Guilt washed over him almost as intense as the day Bobbi discovered his affair. He swore to Bobbi he had no feelings for Tracy. And he didn’t. But ...
“Here’s your PJs, squirt!” Brad pulled the pair of Spiderman pajamas from Jack’s suitcase, and tossed them to the boy. “You can stay here in my room since you’re used to it. I’ll sleep in Joel’s room.”
“How come Joel isn’t here too?” Jack aske
d.
“He was here Thursday night, and stayed until he knew Grandma was okay after the operation. He had to get back to college though.”
“Grandma’s really okay?” Jack asked. “You’re not just telling me that ’cause I’m a kid, are you?”
“The doctor said so.”
Jack wriggled and tugged until he got his shirt off, but then furrowed his brow. “Brad, what would’ve happened if Grandma died?”
What an opening. Brad’s first instinct was to get his dad, let him handle it, but it was just one question. He could answer one question. “She’d go to heaven.”
“That’s the place with all the clouds and everybody plays harps and stuff.” Jack pulled the pajama shirt down over his head.
“Only in cartoons.” Okay, it was going to be more than one question. Now if he could just explain everything so the little guy could understand it. Brad sat down on the bed, and patted the spot beside him for Jack. “In real life, it’s the best place ever. Better than anything we could imagine.”
Jack bounced in beside him. “I don’t know. I can imagine a lot.”
Brad smiled. “The best thing is that God is there.”
“The real God?” Jack asked, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” Brad nodded, “and He wants you to be there with Him.”
“Don’t I have to die first?”
“Well, yeah, but after that.”
“I don’t know how to get there, and I can’t even drive yet. My mom won’t even let me push the pedals.”
“God gets you there, but there’s one thing you have to take care of first.”
“What?”
“Everything you ever did wrong,” Brad said, and Jack’s shoulders dropped.
“I can’t even remember all that!”
“I can’t remember mine either. But God is so perfect, we can’t be around Him unless we’re that perfect, too.”
“Well, that’s not gonna happen,” Jack said, slumping back onto the pillow.
“You’re right, and God knew that. So He came up with a plan.” Brad got Jack’s Bible from the suitcase. He’d tell him the whole story, at least as long as Jack kept listening. He read from Isaiah, and explained how Jesus would come. Then he flipped to Luke, and read the Christmas story. Jack hardly blinked as he read from the gospel of John where Jesus explained to His disciples why He had come, and what fate awaited Him. Finally, he read the stories of the crucifixion and the resurrection.
“That was the plan?” Jack asked. “I don’t get it. Why did Jesus have to die?”
“All those things we did wrong - those are called sins - and anybody who sins deserves death, and can never be in heaven with God. When Jesus died, because He never did anything wrong, He can be our substitute. We can tell God we want Jesus’ death to count for us.”
“How can He count for everybody? He’s just one guy.”
“Here, let me read you some more, so you know I’m not just making stuff up.” Brad held the Bible so Jack could follow as he read from Romans that everyone fell short of God’s standards and everyone needed Jesus’ death to count for them.
“Did you get that?” Brad asked. “Because Jesus was so perfect, and was willing to die when He didn’t deserve it, God said that counted for anybody who believed it.”
“Believed what?”
“Believed Jesus died so they wouldn’t have to.”
“That’s how you get to heaven?” Jack asked.
“Yep.”
“I don’t get it again,” Jack said, furrowing his brow. “Do I have to die or not?”
Great. He’d confused the kid. He could hear his dad’s voice, saying ‘Brad, stay out of it. Let me handle it.’ That wasn’t his dad though. He had his dad’s blessing. He could do this. Okay, how could he explain this?
“It’s like this. People are special because we have a part of us that never, ever dies. Remember Jesus told that guy on the other cross that he was gonna be in heaven that very day?
“Yeah.”
“That guy was dead before the day was out, just like Jesus. So did Jesus lie to him?”
“No way!”
“Right, even if your body’s dead, the rest of you goes someplace.”
“Okay, if heaven’s so great, how come it’s not a lot harder to get in?”
“God wants everybody to be there with Him. If it was really hard, some people might not make it.”
“So everybody’s going to heaven?”
“No.” He was losing Jack fast. He needed something concrete. Something that would make sense ... Of course, Brad grinned. He took a five-dollar bill out of his wallet, and laid it on the dresser. Then he sat back down on the bed. “Jack, that five bucks is yours.”
“All right!” He dashed over, grabbed the bill and kissed it.
“How’d you get that money?”
“You gave it to me.”
“No, I put it on the dresser.”
“I had to go pick it up.”
“Right! Then it was yours. You believed me when I said you could have it, though, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“All right. You believe God when He says if you let Jesus’ death count for you, you get to go to heaven?” Jack nodded. “Then you tell God you understand that you’ve done things that were wrong—”
“Sins,” Jack said, catching on.
Brad nodded. “Just like you hopped up, and got that five dollars, you tell God you want Jesus’ death to count for you, and you want to go to heaven.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“How do I tell God that?” Jack asked.
“You just tell Him,” Brad said, but Jack frowned. “You pray.”
“Just like at dinner?”
“Except that you don’t say anything about food.”
“Right now?”
“Sure.”
“Father God,” Jack began, and then he raised his head. “That’s the way my dad taught me to pray at dinner. Will that still work?”
“Absolutely,” Brad said. He wiped his palms on the bedspread, and breathed his own prayer of relief that he didn’t mess things up.
“Okay,” Jack said, and then he bowed his head again. “Father God, I want to go to heaven. I believe all the things Brad told me. I’ve done lots of things that were wrong like jumping on the bed ... and throwing my green beans in the trash when my mom answered the phone that time ... and, well, You probably know ‘em better than I do. Brad said when Jesus died that could count for me too, if I wanted it to. I want it to. Thanks.” Then he raised his head. “Did that do it?”
“Did it?”
“You told me it would,” Jack said.
Brad smiled. “No, the Bible said it. Remember, all those sins get taken away when we believe in Jesus. You believe Jesus died and that counted to take your sins away, right?”
“I said that already.”
“Did you mean what you said?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it’s a done deal.”
“I guess it is.” Jack broke into a wide grin. “I feel kinda tingly.”
“You should tell Dad,” Brad said. “Only don’t go in while Shannon’s in the tub.”
“Dad!” Jack shouted. “I’m going to heaven!”
CHAPTER 17
ELUCIDATION
Saturday, September 22
Bobbi stepped off the elevator to the cardiac floor, and quickly rounded the corner to the waiting room where Brad sat in one of the waiting room chairs, his long legs stretched out across most of the floor. “Hey, thanks for sitting with Grandma so I could run home for a bit. A shower and a cup of good coffee did wonders for me.”
“You’re welcome. Did Jack have any news for you?” Brad asked with a grin.
“He nearly tackled me as soon as I walked in the door. He told me everything, even what you read to him.” She sat in the chair next to Brad and patted his knee, hoping he understood how proud she was of him.
“He’s pretty
sharp. He asked a lot of good questions.”
“He can’t wait to tell Glen and Laurie tomorrow. I hope he can hang on to that joy and that enthusiasm when he goes back to his mother.”
Brad pulled himself around until he was sitting up straight, facing her. “Do you think Tracy will ever become a believer?”
No. But that was the “wrong” answer. “She’s a hard case right now. If God could soften her up, I guess anything could happen.”
“Maybe Jack can help with that,” Brad said. “You know how it is with boys and moms.” He gave her wink and a sideways grin.
For Brad, that was nothing short of declaring his love and devotion to her. “Expert on moms, are you?”
“Just callin’ ‘em like I see ‘em.” He pointed toward Ann’s room. “The doctor’s in with Grandma now. I think they’re gonna try to get her on her feet today.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Well, not running the halls, just to the chair.”
“Mrs. Molinsky?” Dr. Ayala stood in the doorway of the waiting room. “I just wanted to go over what I told your mother-in-law. She did very well. All of her vitals look good. We’re going to get her up for a little while today and increase that gradually over the next few days. Next week we’ll start talking about what happens after she goes home and rehab.”
“I’m amazed she can go through something so serious and bounce back so quickly,” Bobbi said.
“She’s right on track. I’ll stop in this evening to see how she did today. The nurses know where to find me if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Bobbi said. As the doctor walked back out, she turned to Brad. “Did you get all that?”
“Yep. I’ll pass it on to Dad. You sure you don’t want me to stay with you?”
“No, go help your dad with the kids. I brought some work and a book to read. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m gonna tell Grandma bye.” Bobbi followed Brad into the hospital room where Ann was propped up, punching buttons on the television remote. “ESPN is channel thirty-five,” Brad said.
“I already know everything I need to know about football,” Ann said.
Indemnity: Book Two: Covenant of Trust Series Page 21