“But what difference does it—”
“Maybe you should consider something.” Her voice grew stronger. “If you’re spending enough time with Lauren that people are beginning to notice, it’s because you want to spend that time with her. You haven’t asked me to come down there and accompany you on visits or go on retreats with the youth lately.”
“How could I? You broke our engagement.”
“You aren’t engaged to Lauren.”
“She’s an active member of this church and she’s an old friend. You know that. Be reasonable.”
“I’m being as reasonable as I know how to be. I’m trying to be practical. Would you please do one thing for me?”
“What’s that?”
“Would you please let me know what you decide about this church business?”
“Of course I will. We’re still friends aren’t we?”
“Friends?” Her tone was sharp and edged with pain. “You mean like you and Lauren?”
“That isn’t what I mean. We’ll still see each other, talk to each other.”
“I thought I was strong enough to do that but I’m discovering some things about myself lately that I don’t like. I’m confused right now and being with you adds to the confusion.”
Archer closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“About what?”
“About being so… I don’t know…unpredictable. I guess I’m sorry about my own confusion.”
“I’m confused about this too but there are a few things I have no doubts about.”
“What are those?”
“I don’t doubt God is ultimately in control and knows our hearts better than we do. I don’t doubt I was called to this church when I came. And I don’t doubt that I love you. Whatever happens from here on out, those are absolutes.”
“Oh, Archer,” she whispered. “I love you too.” She fell silent for a moment and then she sniffed. “How does life get so complicated?”
His heart echoed her pain and frustration. “We make it that way.”
***
As soon as Grant entered his front door Wednesday night he was struck by such a wave of nostalgia that he nearly staggered across the threshold. The effect was so powerful that for a moment he couldn’t pinpoint the source. When he closed the door behind him the mingling aromas of jalapeños and onions fried in abundant amounts of real butter made him ravenous. It also confused him. That recipe had been Annette’s. She was the only one who had ever made the Sheldon family’s special white-hot chili.
Beau came out of Grant’s home office at the far side of the living room with a notebook under his arm and an ink pen behind his ear. “Hi Dad. Your professional liability insurance company called about the lawsuit today. The hospital faxed them the medical records they needed and they want to set a date with you for a preliminary meeting. They’re hoping to settle out of court.”
The euphoria died a sudden death. “Settle? Just like that? I remember that case. I reviewed the records they faxed to me. There shouldn’t be a case.”
“Works for me. Still, if you do have a case I want to go to court with you. I need the practice so I’ll be ready for the day I get sued. Brooke and I start our new jobs at the hospital next week. Did you find any more clues about the Dogwood Springs Virus?”
“A few.” Grant sniffed the air again. “What are you cooking?”
“Nothing. What did you find?”
Grant took a list out of his pocket and handed it to Beau, who took it eagerly. “Where’s that smell coming from if you’re not cooking? I don’t think I’m having olfactory hallucinations.”
“Smell? Hey,” Beau said, reading the list, “is this true? Out of sixty-five flu symptom patients in the past three weeks only five of them were Medicaid recipients? That’s way off the percentages you usually get, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The rest were insurance or Medicare. I noticed that too.” Grant tried to step around his son to peer into the kitchen but Beau was too busy studying the patient notes to realize the case studies didn’t have his father’s full attention.
Grant was beginning to feel particularly uneasy. By popular demand, he and Beau were the only ones in the household who cooked. Unless Beau and Brooke had gone behind his back and hired a housekeeper while he was at work—and they had threatened to do that a couple of times in the past year—the only other person who could possibly be cooking up those smells was his daughter. That was not something he wanted to contemplate after a busy day of treating fretful patients whom he could not diagnose satisfactorily.
“So this means we’ve got some kind of weird middle-to upper-class virus at work, huh?” Beau asked. “Interesting. If you could get me a copy of the charts—”
“Are you sure you aren’t cooking something in there? Did you order out?”
“No. I’ve got your copies of the hospital lab reports filed in your office. Along with the charts, if you could get copies of any x-rays—”
“I can’t give you confidential patient information. You know that.”
“You could if you hired me as your home office administrator. Really Dad. I have a lot more time than you do right now and I could use one of your access codes for a medical search.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I need the experience and Brooke’s getting on my nerves.”
Her voice reached them from the direction of the kitchen. “I heard that!”
If Grant’s offspring-tracking radar was still working correctly, that voice came from somewhere in the vicinity of the stove. There was no way this could be a good thing.
Grant moved his mouth closer to Beau’s ear. “She’s cooking?”
Beau nodded, his face solemn.
“What is it?”
“She wants it to be a surprise.”
Grant frowned. “She’s still bothered by this Lauren thing, isn’t she?”
***
Lauren barely made it to the breakroom bathroom before her carefully chosen dinner of nonirritating foods abandoned her. She’d had to call in sick twice this month, so she’d been making up the time by working extra shifts for two other nurses who didn’t seem to have the same nasty little bug. Her legs lost their strength and she leaned against the side of the sink for several seconds to keep from sliding to the floor. Although she had only had minor bouts with this mystery illness during the first half of June, she hadn’t been able to keep much food down the last few days. The sick taste in her mouth would require more than mouthwash or salt water to alleviate. And besides that she had a pounding headache.
Frustrated, battling fear, she patted her face with cold water. From experience she knew the weakness would probably go away. It had every time so far. For a moment she thought about calling Grant at home but what could she tell him that he didn’t already know? The symptoms were the same as before, the same as most of the other patients.
She stepped out of the bathroom, pausing to lean against the doorframe, wondering if she should try to call another nurse to take her place. If this illness was contagious wouldn’t she just make things worse for everyone if she stayed around here?
But she could wear a mask.
Fiona Perkins came waddling past her from the breakroom. She stopped when she saw Lauren’s face. With a knowing grin she crossed her arms. “Morning sickness at night?”
Lauren didn’t have the inclination or the energy to reply. She shook her head and waited for Fiona to leave. Maybe a soda would help ease the nausea. The ER was getting busier and she didn’t want to let the others down.
She would be okay.
***
The last time Brooke had attempted to prepare a meal for the family, the three of them had nearly starved before lunch. She’d used hot water to defrost a can of frozen orange juice, had over-salted the oatmeal, and had cooked the eggs until they were hard enough to break teeth. That was sixteen months and two weeks ago. Grant remembered because Brooke had vowed never to cook for the family again. Beau had p
romised to hold her to that vow. He’d let Grant down.
Grant and Beau stared at each other across the dining room table while Brooke carried in huge bowls of steaming white-hot chili.
“I was looking through some of Mom’s old recipes and I found this one.” She placed cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese in the center of the table, along with some sour cream and a bowl of inexpertly torn lettuce. The drink of choice was milk. This family knew how to eat taste-bud-killing food with excellent natural tongue soothers.
Once again, for a moment, Grant was so steeped in bittersweet memories that he forgot to be afraid of the chili. He skeptically watched his daughter sit down and nudge her brother to put his research aside. She had the natural gift of gab but now she fell silent and waited for Beau to say grace. Prayer before meals was a family tradition Beau insisted on continuing and with which Grant wholeheartedly agreed—particularly for this meal.
After the blessing—which sounded most passionate in its sincerity—Grant took a sip of his milk and watched as his children did the same. He picked up his spoon. Then he hesitated.
Brooke picked up a leaf of lettuce. “Dad, did Beau tell you we’ve got jobs? I get to help in the laundry and Beau’s in the kitchen. Evan’s volunteering his time at The Dogwood for summer vacation.” She rolled her eyes as if the very idea of working for no pay didn’t register with her. “He’s going to interview that Sergeant Dalton who got blinded by the ammonia trap.”
“For The Dogwood?”
“That’s what he said. I told him if they print the interview he should at least get paid for that. And I bet they print it because he’s good. Have you read any of his writing?”
“Sure, Brooke,” Beau said, “Dad has time to go rummaging through all those scribbles. The first thing Evan needs is an ipad. His handwriting’s worse than Dad’s.”
Grant studied the chili more closely. It looked like Annette’s. “So Brooke, where did you say you found this recipe?”
“I was looking through some of those file drawers in the back bedroom. I thought I might dig out some of those scrapbooks Mom put together every year. I found some old love notes she used to put in your lunch bag. Remember them?”
Oops. He should have put those in a more private place. “Yes I do.” He had always looked forward to those notes, some of them homemade greeting cards with her creative stitching around the edges and her loving words of encouragement inside.
Brooke filled her spoon with chili and blew on it then took a bite, apparently unaware that Grant and Beau watched her with sudden deep interest. She didn’t grimace. She didn’t choke or stop breathing.
“Were you looking for something in particular in Mom’s things?” Grant asked.
She took a swallow of milk. “Did you know you can smell Mom’s perfume in those files? You know that honeysuckle stuff she wore? You can smell it. I just wanted to sit there and feel close to her. And I read some of the notes.” Her somber expression lightened for a moment with a teasing glint. “Pretty intense stuff, Dad.”
Grant willed away the flush that threatened to heat his face. Many of the love letters Annette had written to him were not intended for eyes other than his. Maybe he should have discarded them but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Did it help you feel closer to her?” he asked.
Brooke put her spoon into the bowl and looked down at the table for a moment. “At first it did. Then I just got depressed.”
“I know. I’ve done the same thing late at night when you two were in bed. Brooke, if it upsets you this much to think about my dating again I won’t—”
“But that’s just it,” Brooke said. “I realized this afternoon that I couldn’t bring Mom back. We’ve been saving all her stuff, even her favorite recipes, like they were some kind of a shrine to her memory. But she wouldn’t want us to. She would want us to go forward with our lives, not sit around whining. Reading her notes to you helped me realize that she wouldn’t want you to be lonely.”
Grant wanted to enfold Brooke in a big bear hug and tell her how much he loved her. But instead he did something even more loving than that. He put a huge spoonful of the chili in his mouth. He was encouraged when Beau followed his example. The mingling of flavors and the feel of the heat—just the right amount of heat on his tongue—snapped him into the past with such force he could almost feel Annette’s presence.
When they were first married and struggling to exist on school loans and Annette’s small salary as a bank bookkeeper, she had developed this recipe made with cheap ground turkey and white beans, which they ate at least once a week. Until the twins were old enough to speak for themselves, Annette continued the tradition at least once every month, even when it was no longer necessary to stretch money so far.
When the kids were eleven, Brooke gave notice that the chili gave her gas and if her parents really loved her they wouldn’t make her suffer so horribly. The tradition was modified from then on to include spaghetti for the kids.
“Hey, this is good.” Beau took another spoonful.
“Surprise,” Brooke said dryly. “You thought I couldn’t cook.”
“We all thought you couldn’t cook,” Grant said. “This is delicious. But I thought you didn’t like this chili.”
“I knew you loved it though. And all I had to do was follow Mom’s recipe. I started thinking about some things this afternoon while I was cooking.”
“You?” Beau said. “Wow Brooke, you really have been busy today.”
“Shut up, Beau. Dad, you like Lauren don’t you?”
“She’s a great nurse and she’s proving to be a good friend.”
“Especially if she’s willing to put up with Brooke for an afternoon of fishing,” Beau said.
Brooke dipped another ladleful of chili into her brother’s bowl. “Keep eating, Beau. I hope you blow up like a blimp. Dad, Lauren kind of grows on you, doesn’t she?”
“You mean like a wart or a boil?”
Brooke gave him a “get serious” look.
“She’s easy to be around.” What was he saying? She was a joy to be around.
“I was thinking I wouldn’t mind seeing her again. I mean, if you wanted to take her out on a date or something. Every couple weeks or so.”
Grant suppressed a smile. “You mean you like that female John Boy?”
Beau choked on his chili.
“Shut up, Beau. Dad, he’s been making me feel guilty all week. He keeps telling me that I’m being selfish and hardhearted.”
“You are,” Beau said.
Grant placed his spoon back in the bowl. “No she isn’t. She’s going through the grief process in her own way. We’ve all been doing that. The death of someone you love changes your way of dealing with things. I know I’ve dealt with things poorly at times. I apologize. I’m trying to improve but it just takes time.”
“You mean you’re going to try to stop nagging us so much?”
“Brooke, Dad isn’t a nag.”
Brooke rolled her eyes. “He’s even worse with you than he is me and he never lets up. ‘Brooke, you’re going to school to get an education, not to meet guys and form social relationships. Brooke, someday you’re going to be sorry you didn’t do your homework. Brooke, you’re so much prettier without all that glop on your face.’”
“Okay, okay, I hear you,” Grant said with a chuckle. It was a good female rendition of his voice and accent. “I’m not that bad, am I?”
“You’re even worse with Beau, except to him you say, ‘Beau, you’re getting a great education but you need friends too. Beau, there’s more to life than reading.’”
“Stop it, Brooke.” All the humor had left Beau’s voice.
“It’s okay,” Grant said. “It’s good for me to take a strong dose of Brooke’s reality sometimes. I know I probably smother you both a little too much.”
“Because you care,” Beau said.
“I think subconsciously I’m trying to be a father and a mother to you guys.”
“You’re getting the job done,” Brooke said. “Having you for a dad is like having a couple sets of parents.” She took a sip of milk and dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “So Dad, when are you going to ask Lauren out on a real date?”
“I’m not. It isn’t that kind of a friendship. I already told you there’s someone else she cares about.”
“Oh yeah. Archer. But he isn’t interested in Lauren. Doesn’t she know that? I watched him the other day at the hospital and then later when we went back to the fishing spot. He treated her the same way he did the rest of us. Dad, you need to learn how to read people better.”
For a moment Brooke’s voice sounded so much like Annette’s that it made Grant’s eyes smart with tears. “Do you two know how much I love you?”
“Yes Dad, we do,” Beau said. “We love you too.”
Brooke put her spoon down. “If you’re going to get mushy on us I’m going to bed.”
Chapter 23
On Thursday morning multiple birdsongs greeted Archer from the lush foliage of the Netz’s hedge-enclosed yard. He shut the car door behind him quietly. In case he decided to bolt he did not want to disturb the peace and alert Mr. Netz too quickly that he had company.
Archer wasn’t sure he was ready for this yet. He’d called and made an appointment, though, to keep from backing out at the last moment.
When Archer was five years old he’d had a slight disagreement with his mother when she took him to kindergarten for the first time. He’d kicked and screamed and hung on to Mom’s thumb until he thought he might pull it off. After that publicly humiliating episode, Mom and Dad decided their priority project from that day on was to teach Archer how to discipline his temper and his tongue.
Twenty-eight years later, as he walked up the neatly trimmed sidewalk to the Netz home, Archer felt a distinct need to fall back on his early training and guard his tongue with utmost diligence.
There would be no “time out” if this conversation became too heated. He would get no spankings but he could hurt his personal witness of the God of his life. That would be so much more painful and lasting. He could recall his mother’s gentle voice as he struggled through kindergarten and first grade: “Sweetheart, as soon as you have an angry thought you give it to God. He’s the only one big enough to handle it.”
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