by Loree Lough
“Yeah.” He doubled up a fist. “’Cause I’d punch ’em, right in the nose.”
One corner of her mouth lifted in a sad smile. “So you’d fight for me, would you?”
“You bet,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose. “In a heartbeat.”
She stared into his eyes for the longest time, shaking her head and biting her lower lip. Wade couldn’t help wondering what was going on in that pretty head of hers. And then she slid her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest.
“And you say you’re no hero.”
The breath caught in his throat, because she really believed that. The proof was in her voice, in her touch, in her eyes.
“Your heart is beating a mile a minute,” she whispered.
His palm cupped the back of her head. “That’s quite an astute diagnosis. I think maybe you missed your calling. Care to suggest a treatment plan?” He hoped she’d pucker up and say something like “Take two of these and call me in the morning.”
Instead, she said, “Stay away from weepy women?”
“Meaning you?”
She nodded.
“Sounds like bad medicine to me.”
“Well, you’re the heart doctor.”
Fat lot of good his M.D. was doing him at the moment.
Patrice tilted her head and smoothed his collar, in that wifely way his sister so often tidied her husband’s shirt. Grateful as he was that his sister had been blessed with a rock-solid marriage, Wade had always been slightly envious of it. Envious, because he couldn’t convince himself he had a ghost of a chance at happiness like that.
Usually, he held such a tight rein on his emotions, it was a wonder he didn’t squeak. And now, all wrapped up in her arms this way, he worried that maybe he was letting his heart do his thinking, instead of his head.
You’re the doctor….
Trapped in the moment, his lips found hers. It started slow, and so soft it reminded him of feathers and satin and velvet, all at the same time. Gradually, it became more intense, more insistent. He could only hope she was getting as much solace from his kiss as he was finding in hers.
As if in answer to a prayer he hadn’t yet prayed, a quiet moan bubbled up from deep inside her, and she combed her fingers through his hair. Wade answered with a groan of his own, bracketing her tiny face with his hands.
You’re the doctor, she’d said.
Patrice…
Good medicine? asked his brain.
The best, answered his heart.
“Guess I’d better hit the road.” Wade gawked at the kitchen clock as if unable to believe it read eleven-fifteen.
She felt as though everything stopped as he stood there near the door, looking at her.
“Don’t worry about Gus, now, y’hear? If he isn’t feeling a lot better by dinnertime tomorrow, we’ll run him over to my office, do a couple tests.”
“Okay,” she said.
Side by side, they walked to the end of her drive, where he’d parked his car. “I had a great time. Don’t think I’ll ever think of Halloween in quite the same way again.”
He gave her shoulder a gentle shove, reminding her of a boy with a crush, teasing a girl on the playground. She smiled.
“You’re quite a woman, you know that?”
“Wade, stop. You’re embarrassing me.”
“The truth shouldn’t embarrass you, Patrice.”
His face loomed nearer hers, but when his lips made contact, it was with her forehead. Patrice pretended not to be disappointed.
She watched him climb into the front seat, realizing this tough-and-tender guy had touched a chord inside her. “Dinner’s at two,” she said, “but you can come earlier if you like.”
He crooked his forefinger, beckoning her near. When she took a step closer to the driver’s door, he stuck his head through the opened window. “If you need me for anything tonight, I want you to call.”
She hoped the darkness would hide her blush. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I shouldn’t have asked you for free medical advice. It was—”
“Yes, you should have.”
“I can take care of Dad.” She said it with conviction and hoped he’d believe her. Because usually, she could.
He winked. “So, you have a character flaw, after all.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re stubborn. I never would o’ guessed it.”
She grinned. “Perfection is boring.”
He reached through the window and stroked her cheek. “I don’t think you’re the least bit boring.” And with that, he backed out of the driveway.
She stood, heart thumping happily and fingertips resting on the spot he’d touched on her cheek, until his taillights were nothing but tiny red dots in the darkness.
After locking the door, Patrice leaned her forehead against the cool, dark wood. “If he isn’t the one, Lord, I’m really in trouble this time….”
Chapter Five
The constantly changing numbers on the alarm clock beside his sofa bed told Wade he’d turned out the lights more than an hour ago. He’d booked an operating room for eight in the morning; after that, more back-to-back surgeries to perform. If he didn’t get some sleep soon, he’d be dragging by noon.
None of the usual tricks were working—not visualizing a blank chalkboard, not forcing every muscle to go limp, and especially not counting sheep. As a kid, a quick bedtime prayer was all it took to guarantee a long, restful night.
Too bad he didn’t still believe in God….
He’d left childlike faith with the rest of the nonsense adults dished out: “Brush and floss or the Tooth Fairy won’t leave a dime under your pillow!” and “Be good or Santa won’t bring that sled you want!” The year he found a fat potato amid chocolate rabbits and marshmallow chicks in his Easter basket, his mom had said, “Guess the Easter Bunny found out you never do your reading homework.”
But Wade doubted he’d live long enough to hear a lie more malicious than the one his dad had told….
Punching his pillow, he rolled onto his side and squinted his eyes shut. It didn’t keep him from picturing his father tucking him into bed. “Tomorrow,” he’d said, “we’ll go to the batting cages, and when we’re finished, those Little League coaches will be fighting over you!” Wade had barely slept a wink that night, because his birthday party, a shiny new bike, and a trip to the batting cages would happen, all in one day!
He may have grown taller, heftier in the twenty-five years since that night, but stupid things still keep you awake, Wade thought bitterly. He tried concentrating on the upcoming week’s hectic schedule, but not even back-to-back surgeries could keep him from remembering the morning after that childhood birthday.
He’d been the first one up, and thinking nobody would expect the birthday boy to fix the family’s breakfast, he’d set the table. Pouring flakes into colorful plastic bowls, he noticed a note, propped against his mom’s chicken-and-rooster napkin holder. He stood the cereal box on the edge of the table and grabbed the small sheet of paper.
“Dear Family,” it said, “there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it. I’m leaving for…” As Wade struggled to sound out the next word, he remembered, he’d thought maybe his mom was right: he should’ve spent more time doing his reading homework. He remembered, too, how his heart thudded and his ears burned when he figured it out.
“…leaving for California,” he read through the blur of tears, “to see if I can make it.”
What did it mean? Wade didn’t understand it any better tonight than he had all those years ago.
“When I get set up out there,” the note went on, “I’ll send money.” And it was signed, simply, “Dad.”
Dry-mouthed and breathing hard, he’d turned a slow circle, there in the middle of the sunny kitchen, to search out a good hiding place for the note, because if it hurt his mom half as much as it hurt him— His elbow had knocked the corn flakes box on the floor, instead.
Frustration. Another emotion Wade felt he’d never handled particularly well. But at the age of six…
He’d heard grown-ups say “I could kick myself!” But until that moment, he hadn’t understood what they’d meant. He got the message loud and clear when his mom came into the kitchen and saw him in the middle of the room, bawling like a baby, hands over his ears…
The terrible message in one hand.
Moments later, it seemed, she was on the phone, biting back tears as she cancelled the birthday party. And later that day, as she muttered something about not having a clue how to put a boy’s bike together, she returned it to the toy store. “Sorry, kiddo,” she’d said, mussing his hair, “but I have a feeling we’re gonna need that money for groceries.”
That night, after a supper of beanies and wienies— Wade’s favorite meal—she lit six candles on his cake and led Anna in a melancholy rendition of the birthday song. While they shoved blue frosting roses and chocolate filling around on their plates, his mom wondered aloud what kind of job she might be qualified to apply for in the morning…as if she knew, though he’d only been gone a few hours, that her husband wouldn’t be back.
Of all his boyhood memories, that one was up there at the top of the list, because much as he’d wanted to comfort his mom, he didn’t have a clue what to say, what to do. “Make Dad change his mind,” he’d prayed that night. Hadn’t his mother, his Sunday School teachers, Pastor O’Connor taught him “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find”? “Make him want to come back home.”
After a few months, it was easier to hate God for not answering his prayer than to hate his dad for running away. So that’s exactly what Wade had done.
And despite the fact that he’d taken enough psych classes in med school to recognize bitterness and resentment for what they were, he still hadn’t let go of the anger. What would his professors have said? That diverting his attention when thoughts of his father invaded was evidence he hadn’t reconciled with having been abandoned, that his hectic work and social schedules were still more proof that he’d never dealt with his “issues”?
It didn’t take weekly analysis to figure out that a single event from twenty-five years ago had left indelible scars. It didn’t take genius mentality, either, to know he couldn’t afford to forget that event…lest he repeat his father’s mistakes.
Wade knuckled his eyes and, feeling like a fool for continuing to give a moment’s control to the man who had deserted him, his sister, his mom, he sat up. Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he planted both feet on the tweedy brown rug.
Sometimes, a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing. Scientists had come a long way in DNA research. He need only review his own records for proof that grandfathers and fathers passed heart conditions to sons and grandsons. Health-related tendencies weren’t the only factors passed from generation to generation; he’d read dozens of medical articles that proved behavior and habit could be linked among family members, too.
And his father’s blood ran in his veins. Better—and safer—just to avoid the “relationship” thing.
Yes, knowledge could be a dangerous thing, for with age and wisdom came the mind-set that the fairy-Santa-bunny stories adults concocted for kids had but one purpose: control.
Wade sighed, scrubbed both palms over his face, then got to his feet and padded to the kitchen area of his tiny apartment. Standing at the sink, he downed two tall glasses of water, straight from the faucet.
It didn’t wash the edginess or the gloom from his system. He knew full well what was at the heart of all this soul-searching. More accurately, who.
Patrice.
He’d need an abacus to count the women he’d known before her. So what made her stand out?
She was pretty enough, to be sure, but so were the others. Smart? Successful? Capable? She was all those things—and more—but then, so were the rest.
But their main goal, it seemed to him, was to mold him into their idea of what a man should be. From the first date, they started suggesting ways he could improve himself: stop listening to country and western music, start listening to opera; move out of the humble, one-room apartment and into something that said “class”; spend less time with patients and more with them. Truth be told, his father’s DNA wasn’t the only reason it had been easy to keep a safe emotional distance!
He refilled his glass, swallowed another gulp of tepid tap water, and pictured the way Patrice always looked at him—as if she were Cinderella and he Prince Charming. If he had to single out one thing that made her different, it was that, in her eyes, he seemed fine, exactly the way he was.
A mighty good feeling, he admitted.
No doubt about it…Patrice would be good for him.
Question was, would he be good for her?
The pastor’s booming voice echoed from the high church ceilings. She’d been restless and edgy for days, now, so the first thing she’d done upon settling beside Gus in the pew was ask God to settle her unease.
All through the service her mind wandered, from the blustery wind that pummeled the church windows to what she’d prepare for Sunday dinner. Several times, shaking her head, she gave herself a good talking to. Pay attention; how do you expect to hear God’s message if your head is everywhere but in church!
Patrice vaguely remembered the pastor’s sermon topic…something about forgiving and forgetting. It had been her mother’s favorite Biblical message. “The Father forgives us all our sins,” she’d say when Patrice complained that a schoolmate had pulled her hair or there weren’t as many Valentine’s cards on her desk as on other kids’, “and it’s what He expects us to do, too.”
Now, as the choir belted out a rousing rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” Patrice balanced the hymnal’s spine on one palm, eyes closed and head bowed, and listened to what had been her mother’s favorite holy song, the one she hummed while doing housework and cooking meals, and sang softly while puttering in her gardens. If pressed, Patrice would say she remembered hearing that tune while she was still in diapers.
The choir was on the third verse by the time Patrice opened her eyes. “‘When my feeble life is o’er,”’ they sang, “‘time for me will be no more….”’ Her mother had always sounded so…sad, Patrice thought, while singing those words. Could it be she’d wanted to die then, too? Or was the unhappiness merely in Patrice’s imagination?
Were these signs and symbols the Lord’s way of answering her prayer for peace of mind? Because surely He didn’t expect she’d find it by forgetting that her mother had committed suicide. And since she’d long ago forgiven—
Or had she?
Using her thumb to mark the page in her hymnal, Patrice pressed the book to her chest. If she’d truly forgiven her mother, why did remembering that day still make her so angry?
“‘…guide me gently, safely o’er,”’ the choir continued, “‘…to Thy kingdom shore, to Thy shore….”’
Though she’d found plenty of references to people killing themselves in the Bible, Patrice had never read the word suicide. So had her mother committed an unpardonable sin by taking her own life? Or was it an act God could forgive?
While still in high school, one of Patrice’s classmates killed himself, inspiring a question-and-answer period in Sunday School on Sunday school. By the end of class, her teacher had filled the blackboard with proof that suicide was, indeed, a grave sin.
Suicide violates the Ten Commandments. The Bible does not condone ending one’s life for any reason. Life is a gift from God. Suicide is an expression of self-hatred, and God directs us to love one another as ourselves. Suicide is proof of a lack of faith. Suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness.
New to the church, her teacher had no way of knowing how close to the bone the lesson had cut for Patrice. Patrice could only cling to the promise spelled out in Romans 8:1. “…there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Her mother had invited the Lord into her heart at
an early age, a fact that would have comforted Patrice…if it wasn’t in direct opposition to the message in I Corinthians 6:19–20. “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body.”
It was a battle she’d fought from the age of fourteen, when she found her mother there on the living room couch…and one she’d likely fight till she drew her last breath. Then, as now, Patrice needed to believe that even though her mother’s act was in direct rebellion against the Father, He had promised to remain faithful to His word. Because if that were true, she’d meet up with her mother someday in Paradise—
“Earth to Patrice, Earth to Patrice…”
Her father’s gravelly whisper brought her back to the here and now. She met his eyes, saw the teasing glint there, and smiled.
“Well, you were about a billion miles away,” he said, as fellow parishioners filed out around them. “In Paradise, I take it?”
In place of an answer, she stepped into the aisle behind his chair, and, grabbing its handles, headed for the side door, where the men of the parish had installed a wide wooden ramp to accommodate the elderly and the handicapped. “So what are you in the mood for today? Roast beef? Spaghetti and meatballs? Stuffed pork chops?”
“I have a new nickname for you,” he said over his shoulder.
“Oh, really. And what would that be?”
She predicted he’d say Betty Crocker or Suzie Homemaker. Maybe even Master Chef. Patrice wasn’t the least bit prepared to hear “Mistress of Evasion.”
Stunned into silence, she maneuvered the chair alongside his minivan.
“You want to talk about it?” her dad asked as she rolled him onto the ramp.
“Talk about what?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well what he meant.
“Whatever has you in such a dither this morning.”
“Dither?” She forced a laugh. “Such talk, and on church property yet!”
Gus buckled himself into the passenger seat. “The Mistress of Evasion strikes again!” he teased. Then he reached out, wrapped a hand around her wrist. “Seriously, Treecie, you know you can come to me with anything, right?”