“It might take less energy to use the motorized wheelchair, Grandma.”
“I need the exercise.” She went in the direction of the kitchen, and Ivan followed her.
“Four months will be here before we know it.” It was a soft voice, but Ivan heard her.
“Grandma.” He had to tell her the truth.
“What, dear?” She turned around.
“We don’t have four months.”
Grandma didn’t move.
“We’re way behind on our house payment.” Any day now the house could be foreclosed on.
“I know. Then?”
“We’ll go on an adventure and move in with Willow.”
“She’ll get tired of us after a few weeks.”
“Hopefully my wrist will heal and I’ll be back in business.”
Do I believe that myself?
Ivan leaned against the doorframe and took in the sight of the old kitchen where Grandma Yun had taught him to scramble eggs when he was a kid missing his mother. His grandparents had kept the two boys and a girl occupied so they didn’t think about how their mother had abandoned them to run off with some guy to who knew where. To this day Ivan had no idea where his parents were, whether they were still alive, or what they were up to.
“We have to keep praying.”
Ivan could barely hear her.
“Yes, Grandma. Appreciate every prayer.” He choked out the words.
“Thank God the tendons are not broken. Thank God we have insurance.”
“Disability.” Not enough, but somehow things were covered. He’d figure all that out later. “Don’t worry, Grandma. I’ll be functional. Maybe even play violin again. I won’t be able to play Paganini or anything fast for some time to come.”
Or have a crossover concert career.
“But you’ll live.” Grandma waved her hands. “Want something to eat?”
“What do we have here?” He walked toward the island. It was worn out, the Formica chipped and part of the side glue had come off, baring the stained plywood underneath it. Grandma had tried to keep it clean and that was the best they could do.
Grandma pushed the brown paper bag toward him. “Chinese takeout. Like we used to do on Thursday nights with Grandpa Otto. Remember?”
Ivan remembered. “We’d watch reruns on TV.”
Maybe not.
He’d sold the TV yesterday morning to the kid down the street. A hundred dollars out of that. They could buy food for a couple of weeks.
If we watch our spending! So what is this takeout food I see?
“Where did you get the money, Grandma?”
“God always provides, dear.” Grandma tried to get a plate out of the cabinet, but she seemed to have lost strength.
Ivan quickly went around the island and helped her get a couple of dinner plates. They were chipped too, like everything else. He put the plates down. He helped Grandma to their rickety folding kitchen table and seated her.
Then he went back to the island and ripped the paper bag to get the boxes of takeout. As he was doing that he noticed the receipt. Including delivery charges, it was —
“Are you kidding me? Fifty dollars!”
“It’ll be fine, dear. We won’t have to cook for a few days.”
“Yeah. It’s a feast.” Ivan bit down on his lips. He didn’t want to scare Grandma with the news of the two checks that had bounced this weeks. Water and electric. Good thing the antique Chevy was paid for. He’d have to save gas by cycling more. But his wrist hurt badly when he held the handlebar. He’d have to get a ride from Matt. Matt said he didn’t mind, but Ivan didn’t want to impose on his old friend.
“So what’s the occasion?” Ivan asked.
“Celebrating life.”
“That’s all?” Ivan placed a full plate of food in front of Grandma. There were almond chicken and beef and lots of onions and Grandma’s favorite, shrimp fried rice.
Grandma Yun’s eyes lit up. “I don’t know if I can eat all this.”
“I know you can.” Ivan chuckled. “There’s more, besides. Who wants to say grace?”
“You do it.”
Ivan sat down. He’d make it brief. Thank God quickly and dig in. But as he opened his mouth to call out to God, he found that he couldn’t speak. He’d been so mad at God that he found it hard to come now before Him, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, to thank Him for this food bought with money that would have to come out of their maxed-out credit card.
Why did God allow their life to be this hard? It was maddening.
Maybe he should talk to an accountant to get their finances straightened out. Well, wasn’t that what Brinley had told him to do?
Brinley.
I can’t get her out of my mind, Lord!
“Are you going to say a blessing or not?” Grandma asked.
“You say it.”
Slowly, Grandma spoke. “Thank you, Lord, for who You are, for the many blessings You have given us over the years, for my Otto, who is in heaven now and whom I will see again soon, for my two wonderful grandsons, Quincy and Ivan, and my lovely granddaughter, Willow, in Atlanta, and the new great-grandchild to come, whatever his or her name will be.”
As she paused to catch her breath, Ivan wondered when Grandma’s prayer would ever end.
“And for dear Brinley, so sweet, so caring, so kind, who now knows You. Thank You, Lord, for saving her soul.”
Why did she have to bring up Brinley?
“Her salvation means so much to me and might have been why You kept me on earth this long. Thank You for letting me share your Gospel with her, for her listening ear and her desire to grow in grace day by day. So many blessings, Lord. Forever I will give You praise and honor and glory. And now for this food…”
Grandma went silent.
Ivan opened his eyes. She was wiping tears off her face. Her eyes were still closed and she continued praying. Ivan bowed his head again.
“And for this food, Lord, thank You. Thank You. In Jesus’ Name I pray. Amen.”
Ivan dug in. It was just dinner. What had overcome Grandma?
“We’re going to be all right, Grandma,” Ivan said between spoonfuls of rice. “My wrists are insured and I’ll try to see if we can get some sort of benefits in addition to the SISO insurance to hold us over until I can work again.”
“The studio?”
“When I get better I’ll reopen it.”
“You sound positive.” Grandma managed a smile. “That’s good.”
They said nothing for a while.
“I’m sorry you had to hear the argument between Brinley and me the other day. I forgot voices carry from the studio.”
“She didn’t ruin your career or your life.”
“Well, if she hadn’t given me the Strad—”
“If you hadn’t accepted it…”
“You have a point there. It’s too late now. We’ve moved on.”
“We can’t move on past the point of our last error, Ivan.” Grandma speared a shrimp with her fork. “And if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we will be stuck in the roundabout for a while.”
A roundabout. “I should write a book with all your sayings in it, Grandma.”
“I have them all written down in the margin of my Bible next to the verses that inspired me, if you want to get started.”
Ivan laughed. “You know, that’s what I like about you, Grandma. Always looking forward. Never looking back.”
“Oh, I do look back. All the milestones we have, dear, are our Ebenezers, memorials to the faithfulness of God. Never forget that God is always faithful no matter what happens to us.”
“Since He is sovereign, He knew this was going to happen to us. Yet He let it.”
“You know this is a fallen world, Ivan. Since Adam’s sin, the whole world is cursed and tainted by sin. Pain and suffering and death are a part of our life on earth. But someday when we get to heaven, it’ll be perfect. Just you wait. And I’ll see my Otto again.”
“I miss him too, Grandma.”
“He was a dear man, my Otto, although he had no head for figures. I’m afraid you might have inherited some of that.”
“I’m trying to get us out of debt and then we’ll be fine.”
“God can get us out of debt. Trust Him, Ivan.”
Proverbs 3:5-6.
That verse that Brinley had been memorizing.
Ivan ate quietly. When he finished his plate, he placed a hand on his stomach. “That hits the spot. Thank you, Grandma.”
He cleared the table. “Why don’t you go rest while I clean up the kitchen?”
“I think I’m going to go lie down.” Grandma Yun seemed to have difficulty getting out of the chair.
“Are you all right? You’re not getting sick, are you?” Ivan helped her to her walker. Then he walked with her to her bedroom at the back of the small house.
“I forgot my Bi—never mind. I’ll read it in the morning.”
“I’ll get your Bible for you, Grandma. Did you put it in the usual spot?”
“No!”
Ivan was taken aback. What is going on?
“No, Ivan. Tonight I am going to recite some verses I already know by heart.”
“Sounds good to me, Grandma.” No need to be uptight.
Ivan helped her get to the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and combed her hair. Then he put her favorite nightgown on the bed, and left Grandma in her bedroom.
He returned to the kitchen and put away the leftovers in the refrigerator.
I can’t believe that cost fifty dollars.
* * *
The house was quiet save for the water from the faucet and clinking dishes in the sink and his memories of Brinley drying plates in December. He remembered how she had disarmed his concerns and allayed his fears of being looked down upon as poor. Sure, but what had she really thought?
Forget her.
It could never be.
He wished the dishwasher wasn’t broken. It was hard to wash everything by hand, but the latex gloves kept his hands dry. He tried not to use his left hand as much but he had no choice. His wrist throbbed as the soapy water sloshed over the plates and silverware. If he turned it the wrong way this and that, a sharp pain in the wrist made him wince.
He tried to get his mind off the pain by thinking of something else. He thought of the things that Grandma had said to him this evening. She had always been a teacher. Even now at such a grand age, she had not stopped teaching her grandchildren.
Never forget that God is always faithful no matter what happens to us.
Had he forgotten God?
In his recent unfortunate circumstances, in his horrifying fear that he could never turn his wrist to reach the strings on the fingerboard again, in his anger over the potential loss of income doing what he loved best, in his inability to see any good in this tragedy, had he forgotten God?
Not in the sense that he had abandoned his faith, but that he was upset that God let all these bad things happen to his life and that somehow he had to fix things himself as if he were taking God’s place over these problems?
Had he forgotten God?
As he dried the dishes and put them away in the cabinets, the coin flipped in his mind. Has God forgotten him?
Grandma Yun would object to that, but at the bottom of a hole with no way out, Ivan wondered about it. Had God just plain old abandoned him and his family?
Grandma Yun had always been a strong and faithful Christian. Why didn’t God reward her? Why did God allow her life to be so bad and their living conditions so poor?
Sure, Grandma would say their lives were not all that bad. Someday they’d all go to heaven and things would be perfect.
Yeah. In heaven.
But they were here on earth. Next week, the house payment was due. They had no money to make the payments. All his income from SISO had been used to pay their multiple mortgages. At the back of his mind he wondered if they should have consolidated the mortgages or perhaps paid off the first before the second or third.
I’m a musician, not an accountant.
A headache formed at the top of his head and spread to all sides. He’d better get some sleep and think about this in the morning. A few days from now, he would start his first day of work at Matt’s thrift shop. However, he wouldn’t get paid until the following Friday. And minimum wage wasn’t going to keep the house. It was too little, too late.
It seemed silly to get a performance degree from Juilliard and tour the world only to come to such a bitter end with his music career. Why did God allow this? Had God not given him the gift of music? Why take it all away? He was only thirty years old. What was he going to do the next sixty years if he lived that long? He had no other skills except music.
Sure. He could teach piano. But his first love was the violin.
First love?
Shouldn’t my first love be God?
He felt ashamed as the verse from Revelation 2:4 filled his mind.
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
That was one problem with living with Grandma Yun. She had made him and Quincy memorize so many verses in their lifetime that they were all coming back to spank and pinch him now.
Ivan wiped the counters and the island, wrung out the dish towel, hung it over the old faucet, and then turned on the nightlight so Grandma could see in case she came out to the kitchen in the middle of the night for some reason. He stood at the kitchen door. He could see himself and Brinley again, standing against the sink doing dishes that Sunday afternoon. He could hear her, hear what she had said to him.
So trust your God. Wait it out. It will turn out better than you thought.
Well, it hasn’t, Brin. And maybe it never will.
Still, in his heart, Ivan knew Brinley had been right. Shortly after that, she had accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. And then he had dumped her because he didn’t want her so see him mired in his shaken faith. She had been growing exponentially as a new believer, whereas he had hit a slump in his spiritual growth. He didn’t want her to see him like this.
A failure.
Perhaps someday when he had climbed out of this pit they could reconnect—
No. It’s best for us to part ways. I’m no good for her.
“But is that what God would have wanted?” Ivan asked aloud to no one.
I’m not jealous of her spiritual growth and ashamed of my own spiritual collapse, am I?
He heard an owl or two hooting from the small grove of live oak behind the house. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. A truck revved. Usual sounds of the night.
There you go. Life goes on.
Ivan was heading upstairs to brush his teeth and go to bed when he remembered that he hadn’t checked the doors and windows and made sure he had turned off the lights. Saving electricity had been something that Grandpa Otto had harped on, and that he hadn’t forgotten.
He had locked the front door earlier, but he headed there to it again. The living room was dark so he turned on the light to get to the windows and side doors.
Hmmm. When did we paint that wall green—
He froze.
Where’s Grandma’s piano?
Chapter Fifty-Four
The next morning, Grandma Yun didn’t wake up this side of life.
Ivan had gotten up early to get to the Seaside Chapel Men’s Bible Study at the Scrolls bookstore. Running late, he had left the house without any breakfast and without knocking on Grandma’s bedroom door. He didn’t give it another thought the entire time he was at the Bible Study and at Vittorio’s therapy session.
By the time he had gotten home around nine or ten in the morning, rigor mortis had set in. Ivan called 911. The coroner estimated that Grandma had died sometime in the night.
The next three days leading up to the memorial service and graveside funeral were busy days for Ivan. Quincy flew home from Paris to help with the funeral arrangements. Willow would be arriving s
oon from Atlanta to attend the funeral. They were all the family whom Grandma had close to her.
Ivan half-wished Brinley could be there, but she wasn’t family, and he didn’t want her to do anything more for him. She’d caused enough damage to his life as it was.
“Is there anything else you need?” Matt asked as they sat on the front steps of the porch under an overcast sky.
Ivan wiped his eyes with the base of his palm. He couldn’t believe Grandma was gone, that she’d never walk across these rickety porch again, use her walker, tell him she was praying for him, and put up with him.
“No. You’ve done plenty, Matt. I appreciate it more than words. You’re a good friend. No, a terrific friend.”
A great friend.
Matt Garnett had donated a pine casket. He had mobilized their entire church to chip in to pay for a burial plot. Almost every family at Seaside Chapel had contributed, even if it was a dollar here or there. Numerous ladies cooked dishes for the after-funeral reception at church. He had even made the musical and speaking arrangements for the memorial service.
It was all coming together because Matt was the ultimate organizer.
“I’m praying for you, Ivan.”
“Thanks, Matt.” Tears streamed down Ivan’s face. “It’s my fault.”
“She’s a couple of years to a hundred years old. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go.”
“She would still be alive if I hadn’t stressed her out.”
“You can’t know that, Ivan.”
“I wish I had managed our finances better. Then we wouldn’t be behind in our mortgages, she wouldn’t have to sell her piano, and we’d be living happily.”
“If you want to use that line of reasoning, then how about this? If your grandpa had managed his finances better, his widow and grandchildren wouldn’t be in this financial mess.”
Slowly, Ivan he lifted his left wrist in the air.
“Put that down,” Matt said. “I don’t attend pity parties.”
Slowly, Ivan put his wrist down.
Matt glanced at his watch. “Funeral’s in a couple of hours. Why don’t you ride with me?”
“Sure thing.” Ivan felt this heavy pall all around him, closing in, strangling him. He didn’t want to be alone in this house. Grandma had always been there waiting for him when he came home from work, and waving goodbye to him when he ran off to SISO practice or somewhere.
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