“Are you ready?”
Angie sighed. “Yes. No.”
“Have you called?” Calling was slang here for making the gather-the-family call. The call made when it looked like only days or hours were left. It was a rite of passage of sorts here. Everyone else in the center would come around for support when someone “called.” Some people had been through it three or four times if a patient was particularly unpredictable—which seemed cruel to Darcy. Oddly enough, there had been no call for Paul. Those who might travel couldn’t, phones were crazy in the height of the terrorist attacks, and those who were close by and cared enough had already said their goodbyes. Darcy felt a twinge of jealousy—Bob was getting the peaceful, attended death she had hoped her own father would have. Again, it was odd what passed for blessings in this place.
“Not yet. Tomorrow maybe. A couple of people need to fly in.”
“When’s the last time you ate anything more than a Snickers bar?” Darcy found herself rubbing Angie’s hand. The compulsion to take care of this woman’s poor, over-taxed body was so strong it was nearly a physical ache. Maybe, just maybe, this was the force that drove Meredith. Darcy didn’t quite understand what was happening to her lately. But it was happening, and it refused to be ignored.
“They brought me breakfast.” Angie inclined her head to a tray of predictably untouched food that sat in the corner.
“I mean real food. When’s the last time your hand saw the inside of a Skyline Chili bag?”
A wisp of a smile crossed Angie’s taut face. “Oh, wow, ages.”
“I can fix that,” Darcy offered, fighting the urge to reach out and smooth Angie’s hair. “Let me fix that.”
“Okay.”
They talked for a few minutes more, not really about anything important because in here the really important stuff transpired without words. The real communication took place over a plumped pillow, a rubbed shoulder, an offered tissue or a sigh of recognition.
Every single moment, the ache in Darcy’s chest doubled. By the time she and Meredith left the room, Darcy thought she would burst from her own skin. Her heart would incinerate in two seconds if she didn’t talk to someone about The Restoration Project. Without any hesitation, she grabbed Meredith by the arm and pulled her back into her office.
“Meredith,” she began, almost breathless, “you have to help me do something.”
“Do what?”
“Well, it starts with one of Dad’s loose ends….”
Chapter 9
Joan of Arc, but with Hot Dogs
The river spread before her, glazed in the afternoon sunlight. The last of October’s strong sun warmed her like a comforting blanket. Darcy could see why this had been one of her dad’s favorite places to think. In the days of his demise and in the days since his death, she’d come to think of this landmark perch atop the steps of Immaculata Church as her spot as well. A haven passed down from one generation to the next. Standing here, atop the dozens of famous steps that led up to this tiny church on Mount Adams, she could reach easily back into her memories. Soon, November’s winds would turn the pathway cold and slippery, but for now, she could let the warmth take her back to the dad that was. Not the sick one, but the healthy one. The wise, wonder-filled father who could unravel life’s thorniest knots. She’d come up here a lot lately.
Usually, the altitude gave her a sense of perspective. Not today. Today, Darcy felt as though she were standing on the edge of a very high precipice, contemplating a leap so large it made her head spin. If she had hoped time would calm her spirit and make the crazy craving of The Restoration Project go away, it hadn’t happened. Talking with Meredith today had only made it worse.
Not a single part of her life fell into agreement with this idea. Not one.
But it didn’t make one ounce of difference in how she felt.
“I’m insane,” Darcy pronounced to the last bite of her chili dog. Now, it seemed, even fast food had joined the conspirators to set her on this path, for handing the bag of chili dogs to Angie had added to the obsession. As Angie took the bag of food from her, Darcy had the inexplicable urge to grab her hands and smother them in soft, warm cream. They were so dry and cracked. So used and used up. “I’m nutters,” she reiterated, reaching for the plastic cup of iced tea. “Dad, what are you doing to me?”
Darcy looked at her watch. She had a little over an hour and a half to figure life out. After that, the bus would deposit Paula on her doorstep and the hurricane that was after-school activities would begin. Darcy needed a plan. She needed a path, like the set of steps winding up the hillside before her. Something to get her up this impossible mountain of an idea.
She imagined the church members standing at the bottom of this hill, hoping to build a church at its top. Everyone in town knew the church’s famous story: the parishioners had climbed the mountainside to the site of this church as a show of faith. The chapel had faced all kinds of obstacles to its construction. It had started out as a path, then someone built wooden steps up the hillside. Then the wooden steps became concrete. Construction of the steps led to construction of the church.
The path was a symbol, standing for a journey of faith. Had anyone known what that first footpath would eventually become? Foreseen the thousands of people who would tread those steps over time? Or were they just trying to do what needed to be done? What did it feel like to lay that first plank, knowing where they wanted to go but not at all sure they could get past the obstacles to get there? How many doubts arose?
Pastor Doug’s comment about Dad wanting her to go through this decision process popped into Darcy’s mind. What if Dad’s request was his staircase, his vision and path when he gave her that money?
Really, Darcy thought, trying to dismiss the thought as she flattened the container that held the chili dog. That’s making a bit much of it, isn’t it? Your father didn’t send you on some kind of self-discovery pilgrimage. This isn’t Lord of the Rings; no one’s handed you a save-the-world quest. This is Cincinnati and you’re eating chili dogs until the school bus comes. Don’t go all epic when you’ve got to get your third grader to Girl Scouts in two hours.
Darcy knew, though, even as those nice sensible thoughts came to her, that they were useless against the thump of her heart.
I need to do this.
I need to do this. I need to do this.
All the common sense in the world wouldn’t fight this idea, and Darcy knew it. So what now?
A small statue of Mary atop the landmark church caught Darcy’s eye. Before she could stop herself, Darcy found herself thinking, Is this what it felt like for you? Sure, you had an actual angel show up and hand you your orders, but your task was a whole other ball game. I’ll bet God’s plan made no more sense to you than Dad’s plan does to me. And I’m not even sure this is Dad’s plan.
Then, as if her insides were having an argument with each other, another thought stopped that one dead in its tracks: This isn’t Dad’s plan.
It’s yours.
Given to you. She recalled the sensation that overtook her when the idea had first come. A complete, electrifying, power surge that hatched the idea, fully formed, in side. Like a revelation.
Darcy’s hands shot off the railing, alarmed at her own thinking. Oh no. She wasn’t going to go in that direction. No way, no how was God telling her to do this crazy thing. She began pacing around the sidewalk, fighting the tidal wave that she didn’t want and couldn’t seem to stop.
No, no, no.
That was the kind of thinking that made people sell their houses and go live naked in communes waiting for aliens to come take them home. Darcy Nightengale was a housewife, not a hobbit. Oh, no, we weren’t going there on this one. That was just…plain…
Inescapable.
Darcy sank to the top step, clutching the sack of hot dogs like a life preserver. Suddenly every action, every thought since she found out about the money, seemed to slide into its place along the path. She could see them in her mind
—the trip to the spa, Kate’s reaction, Angie, Meredith, even Glynnis—falling into a pattern. Connecting through some sort of amazing thread to this place, these stairs, this moment. Like stair steps, laid one by one up the path to where she now sat.
No. Not me. She wanted to run down the stairs and run away. Every bone in her body wanted to deny what she now knew she couldn’t.
This sort of stuff was supposed to happen on moonlight nights with stars and angels and shepherds biding in the fields. In Italian grottos and biblically picturesque mountaintops. To other deeper, stronger, far more appropriate people.
Not on Cincinnati hills with chili dogs.
I don’t believe enough. Darcy cried into her paper napkin. I’m not even sure I believe at all.
The world stopped. A horrible, wonderful halt that brought the whole universe to an incredible breath-holding standstill.
At that moment, Darcy knew.
Yes, she wasn’t sure she could believe enough.
But she wanted to.
If a mustard seed was all God claimed he needed, well, that was about all He had to work with here.
A mustard seed of wannabe faith, a hunk of money, a sack of chili dogs, and Darcy Nightengale.
No way, no how was this going to work.
Darcy glanced at her watch, suddenly aware that she had no idea how much time had passed. It was 2:20.
Exactly—almost to the minute—enough time to get home and catch the bus. Not exactly the Archangel Gabriel in glowing robes, but a good omen none the less. Still having not a single idea how to deal with all this, Darcy gathered up the cup and wrappers and made her way back to the car.
All the traffic lights did not suddenly turn green at her arrival. Life did not suddenly fall into place. Just the opposite; the car began making a strange new noise when making left turns—evidently the fridge was taking in recruits. God did not come down from the heavens and appear in front of her.
As a matter of fact, the closer she got to home, Darcy wasn’t even sure she knew what had happened. Only that something had happened. Something that she had not chosen, but rather something that seemed to have chosen her.
Oh, she thought as she pulled the back door open, I’m so not ready.
Life, however, didn’t seem to really care. Paula came bursting through the door, backpack, jacket and lunchbox flying in all directions.
“Mooom! I’m starving! Betsy Cooper says I have too many freckles to be a nice person and Peter Nemski called me a walnut-brained dinosaur. I need five empty coffee cans for Girl Scouts and I lost my library book again.”
Darcy slid the plate of peanut butter cookies across the counter just as Paula hurled herself into the stool. “Coffee cans for Girl Scouts this afternoon?”
“Yep.”
Darcy mentally inventoried the recycling bin. No coffee cans. “How long have you known this, Paula Nightengale?”
“Since last time.”
“Since last time two weeks ago?”
“Yep.” Paula didn’t seem to see how that was a relevant point.
“I don’t think we have five coffee cans.” Darcy sighed, firing up the Mom Who Fixes Everything persona. Last time, it was old jeans and a washed white T-shirt on twenty minutes’ notice. How hard could a few cans be? When Paula’s face began to register catastrophe, Mom sprang into action. “Calm down, Paula bear. What are the cans for?”
“I dunno. We’re making somfin.” Evidently the coffee can shortage had not curbed her appetite for peanut butter cookies. Rather the opposite, Paula now had one in each hand and was alternating bites.
“If you can tell me what you’re making, then maybe I can find other cans that will work just as well.”
“Mooommm, Mrs. Hapson said we need coffee cans.” Peanut butter cookies evidently did little to muffle whining.
“Mrs. Hapson is a grown-up, she can adapt. Tell me what you’re making.”
Within ten minutes, Darcy had identified that luminaria were the project in question, and managed to persuade one little girl that soup-size luminaria were just as beautiful—perhaps even more so—than coffee-can-size luminaria. Two more peanut butter cookies sealed the deal, and they went on to tackle larger subjects such as why people with freckles could be as nice if not nicer than those without freckles, and that Mom was absolutely certain her daughter did not posses a walnut-size dinosaur brain.
All with twelve minutes to spare before Mike exploded through the door with his own backpack, lunchbox, hunger and demands.
Darcy sent Paula off to her room to change into the scout uniform, set vanilla cookies and a glass of orange juice out to await Mike, and turned her attention to scavenging the recycling bin for a quintet of soup cans.
As she gathered the last of the cans, Darcy froze. Mike wouldn’t be needing any snack, because Mike would not be barreling through the door at any second, because today was the day Mike was serving detention.
Again.
This time for drawing an alarmingly detailed scene of terrorists bombing Cincinnati with water balloons from a B-52 airplane they’d apparently stolen from the air museum two states over. Algebra class was turning into a carnival of imaginative bad behavior from Mike. All while still pulling straight A’s on every test.
Darcy sighed, making a mental note to look up something like Difficult Lives of Bible Heroes on Amazon.com. She was four hours into her reluctant partnership with You Know Who, and life didn’t seem to be improving much.
You were expecting Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Darcy?
Well, now that you mention it, yes.
Darcy checked the front door to make sure the hidden key was under the second step, just in case Mike forgot his house key, and then herded Paula, five cans in hand, into the car for Girl Scouts.
When she got back into the car, having successfully refrained from screaming when Mrs. Hapson mentioned Paula needed only two cans of any size, Darcy noticed the voice mail icon on her cell phone was flashing. She punched the code to hear Jack’s voice. “I want to talk to you tonight. Can we find some time?”
Jack wanted to talk. Wow. Maybe Peace on Earth Good Will Toward Darcy was in the works. What if Jack had experienced a change of heart, and could now understand what this crazy idea meant to her? Darcy’s heart did a Maxwell House-size leap in her chest, just as it had done on the church steps. She tried to call Jack back, but got his voice mail instead. She left a brief message saying she’d stop at the video store on the way home and get a movie to occupy the kids and make sure all homework was done before dinner.
Fasten your seat belt, Darcy, it’s going to be a red-letter day.
Time ran like molasses until Darcy found herself pushing Play on the DVD player at seven. Paula was duly bathed and pajama’d, Mike had, through what Darcy could only interpret as divine intervention, been cooperative all afternoon. He’d even knocked off the majority of his homework during detention, and showed her a copy of the reluctant “Sorry I drew on school property” letter he’d been asked—ahem—forced to write. One zapped bag of popcorn and a quart of Kool-Aid later, Darcy settled herself into the living room love seat beside Jack.
It was going to be a wonderful moment. She’d grabbed a minute between Girl Scouts, social studies vocabulary, and chicken casserole to change into a nicer shirt and brush her hair. She’d picked up the living room a bit so that it actually looked like a living room, not the place where everybody’s stuff seemed to be dumped on the way to the kitchen. Impulsively, she’d set out a plate of cookies and even made decaf after dinner—French vanilla, Jack’s favorite flavor. If this was the moment God was going to walk into her life and begin guiding her on her quest, Darcy wanted it right. It seemed the proper, grateful thing to do.
Jack made a little noise of pleasure as he sipped his coffee. He had something big to tell her; the tension in his shoulders kept him from sitting back against the cushions the way he normally did. She waited, watching him rehearse the words in his head.
Darcy had re
hearsed her own gracious response. She would tell him how hard it must be for him to understand such a strange idea. How much these past months must have worn on him, with so much trauma in the house. How supportive he had been as a husband, how much she owed him for continuing to show yet more support. She loved him so much for what he was allowing her to do. She was so sure he would come to see, someday, how really amazing this whole project would be, how lives would be changed.
“Darcy, hon…” he began. What a strong man it took to change such a firmly held opinion, to go so completely against his sensible nature. She admired him, at that moment, working to find the words.
“Yes, Jack.” She played with the cuff of his shirtsleeve. Turned up. He worked so hard to support this family.
“The company implemented a hiring and wage freeze today. Effective immediately.”
Whatever was inside her chest evaporated in a poof she would have sworn she could hear. Darcy could only gulp.
“Everyone’s afraid to build inventory because the economy is so bad.” He pulled his hands down over his face and let out a weary sigh. “That raise we were hoping for at my annual review next month isn’t going to happen. Not now, and not anytime soon.”
It was going to be a red-letter day all right. Stop sign, stop light, caution, warning, flashing-ambulance-light red.
Chapter 10
Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens
“And then he said, ‘It’s a good thing we have your father’s money to fall back on at a time like this.’ As if that were a given, as if totally disregarding a dying man’s last wish were something that didn’t even need discussion.” Darcy blew her nose on the tissue Glynnis handed her and added it to the six others in her lap.
Bad Heiress Day Page 8