Reunion

by Karen Kingsbury; Karen Kingsbury

  One more frame remained, and now that the top two were removed, Dayne saw it was smaller than the others. Much smaller. It was facedown, but even before he turned it over, he knew. It wasn’t a document like the other two.

  It was a photograph.

  He reached into the box, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn it over. Not when his little-kid memories were coming back again. Something about that first time, the day his parents had asked him into their room at the church-leased apartment. They’d told him about the woman who had given birth to him—even though they said they’d been his parents even before he was born.

  But they’d showed him something, too.

  “Dayne we have a picture of the woman who gave birth to you.” His mother had taken a framed photo from her bottom dresser drawer and held it out for Dayne to see. “She was very young and very kind. Because she knew God wanted us to be your parents. She left us this picture, and we saved it for you. In case you ever want to see what she looked like.”

  The memory was so clear now it was spooky. Why, after all these years, would everything about that time come back to him? And if the woman had left a picture of herself, why hadn’t his parents showed it to him again, when he was old enough to make a conscious decision about it? Like, “Hey sure, I’ll take it,” or “Gee, whadya know; I sorta look like her.”

  Dayne sat back on his heels and felt in his oversized sweatshirt pocket for the picture, the one he’d taken off Luke Baxter’s desk. He pulled it out and set it up on the floor a few feet from the box. If his director could see him now, he’d think Dayne Matthews had lost it for sure. Never mind messing up an action scene or forgetting to kiss Sarah Whitley. Here he was in some dank storage unit performing a ritual with some photograph he hadn’t seen since he was six or seven years old.

  Talk about wacky.

  But still he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t keep from finishing what he’d started. And without waiting another minute he reached into the box, grabbed the frame, and pulled it out.

  It was the photograph, the one he remembered his mother showing him.

  Dayne’s hands began to shake and he set the photo down. His heart was beating wildly, and in a blur of motion he shut the box lid, set the Baxter photo on it, and placed the picture of his birth mother beside it.

  The trembling worked its way through his body. He couldn’t draw a deep breath. His eyes focused first on one picture, then the other, until there was no denying the resemblance. Not because the woman who bore him looked like him.

  But because she looked exactly like Luke Baxter’s mother.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Elizabeth was alone in the house and, as usual, fear was having its way with her.

  A week earlier she’d been sure God was answering her prayers, that the miracle everyone was praying for was actually taking place. She’d been able to sit with Ashley and discuss the wedding over tea, take walks around their property with John, and most of all, start her special project—the one she’d been wanting to do since her surgery.

  But now it was late in the third week of June, and for six straight days she hadn’t had the strength to get out of bed. She was achy and tired, with not even a little appetite. But worst of all, she couldn’t stop coughing. A cold, she called it, or flu or maybe bronchitis.

  John went along with her. He agreed that several bugs were going around and that certainly her hacking cough could be attributed to something viral. But shouting at her all the while were the facts, the ones she had tried to leave back at Dr. Steinman’s office the day they got the test results.

  The cancer was in her lungs.

  Wasn’t that what the X rays had shown? Wasn’t that at least as viable an explanation for her cough and weight loss, for her lack of appetite?

  At her request, they still hadn’t told the kids those details. That first week, when her strength seemed to be coming back, there seemed no need. She was getting stronger, better, more able to get around, and clearly God was healing her. Even as late as a week ago, the conversations between her and John were always anchored on that truth. Of course God would heal her. The cancer would be gone by fall, no doubt.

  But now, just after noon as she lay in her bed, her body aching, lungs burning, ribs sore from coughing, she was too scared to do anything but stare at the door and wish for a visitor: Ashley with wedding plans, Kari with stories of Ryan’s coaching buddies, Cole bringing her another colored picture, John stopping in to check on her.

  Anything to interrupt the building anxiety, the raw terror at what was seeming more and more obvious. That maybe she really was dying.

  The thought tried to lodge in her throat, tried to stop her from drawing another breath, but she wouldn’t let it. Lying there feeling afraid was no way to live, no matter what was happening to her.

  Her mind reeled with the possibilities. Cancer . . . cancer . . . cancer . . . spread through her lungs . . . spread through her . . .

  The idea was so frightening she lay frozen and stayed there, eyes unblinking. Imagining being ripped from her family in three short months was bound to make her more frightened, more ridden with anxiety.

  What she needed was something to distract her. The project, yes, that’s what she needed. A moment to work on the project. No matter how sick she felt, she needed to continue working, plodding away until she was finished. It was the only thing that took her mind off the terrifying possibilities.

  She reached for the portfolio she kept beneath her pillow. It was easier that way—no need to worry about climbing out of bed or even opening the drawer of her nightstand. For a while, her chest heaving from the exertion, she stared at the leather binding, then opened it. The inside cover had a pocket and three envelopes. They were in order, one for John, one for the kids, and another that read simply “Firstborn.”

  She was writing letters to all the people she loved, the people who had made her life something to sing about. The man she’d fallen in love with so many years ago, the one she fell more in love with all the time. The five kids who had given her the greatest life a woman could ever have.

  And one more.

  For the son she never knew. Not because she had any reason to believe God would give her a miracle and let her find him. But because one day he might find her; and if he did, she wanted to have something for him, some words that would tell him how she felt, how she hadn’t forgotten, no matter how hard she’d tried.

  John knew nothing of the letters. She kept them hidden at night, and tucked beneath her pillow in the daytime. The letters would worry him; she was supposed to be gearing the family up for the Florida reunion and Ashley’s wedding, not writing farewell letters.

  Elizabeth coughed three times straight and held her breath. Sometimes holding her breath warded off more coughing, and this time it worked. She was finished with John’s letter and working on the one for the kids. Each child would be mentioned, and right now she was writing the part specifically for Kari.

  Elizabeth took a sheet of floral paper from the back pocket of the portfolio and laid it across the cardboard writing surface inside. The paper was something she’d picked up at the Christian bookstore in town. Each piece had a different floral pattern and a Scripture verse printed across the top. She held her pen near the top of the page and looked up a few inches at the verse.

  “Not my will, but yours be done.”

  Elizabeth stared at the words. She’d read the verse a hundred times in her life, but now . . . now it held new significance. Was God trying to tell her something, trying to adjust her perspective?

  Ever since the diagnosis, she’d been praying for her will, and hers alone. She needed a miracle because she wanted to live, wanted to stay with her family a full hundred years before heading off to heaven. Her prayers had been entirely focused around that idea. Please, God, heal me. Please let me live; don’t let me die, God, not now. Hour after hour, day after day, she’d prayed.

  Not once during that time had she prayed for God�
�s will, and now, as she stared at the verse, Elizabeth knew why. She didn’t want to pray for God’s will. Praying like that meant that maybe, just maybe, his will might not match up with hers. His will might be to take her home before summer was over.

  Rather than risk that, she had simply prayed for her will. The will of everyone she loved. Everyone except her Savior.

  A piercing remorse cut through her and her face grew hot. She drew in a deep breath and the air rattled in her chest, sending her into a coughing spasm that seemed worse than any before it.

  She gasped for air, her lungs screaming within her. Another series of spasms and she coughed again, and again. Usually she coughed in bursts of three or four, but this time her body fell into a rhythm she couldn’t break. She dug her elbow into the mattress and worked herself up onto her side.

  Another cough and another. Her hipbone hurt from having to bear her slight frame, so she struggled and worked some more until finally, still coughing and exhausted, she was sitting up.

  Tears welled in her eyes and she stared at the bedroom door. “Someone, come . . .”

  All of the kids had told her to call, to say the word and they’d be there for her, but she had brushed away their offers. “I’m fine,” she would tell them. “Come visit, but don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”

  Two more deep coughs. She pressed her hand against her chest, willing her body to regain control.

  If she could reach the phone, she’d call them now, ask one of them to come and help her. But what good would it do? She needed help now, needed someone to get her up and take her to the bathroom so she could stand against the counter and catch her breath.

  Her body relaxed some, but she felt another wave building in her lungs, pushing her to cough again.

  Out of the bed, Elizabeth, she told herself. Now . . . out.

  She swung her legs over the edge and allowed two short coughs. Give me the strength, God . . . I can’t do it alone.

  Her feet made contact with the floor, and she pushed her hands against the edge of the mattress to give her the momentum to stand. Then, as though a pair of unseen hands were guiding her steps, she made it to the bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror and her heart caught in her throat.

  She was deathly gray, the skin around her lips a translucent blue. Her hair wasn’t growing back as well now, and bare patches still stood out along her scalp. Besides all that, her sweatshirt and sweatpants hung on her. She looked nothing like the woman she’d been only two months earlier.

  The urgency in her lungs built again, and she gripped the bathroom counter. This time the coughs came from a deeper place than before, shaking her body and leaving her nauseous and on the verge of collapse. Elizabeth wasn’t sure how much time passed before finally, mercifully, the coughing subsided.

  Something filled her mouth, and she reached for a tissue. Was she vomiting? Had the strength of her coughing brought up the few bites of oatmeal she had been able to stomach for breakfast? Whatever it was, it tasted strange and bitter.

  She spit into the tissue, pulled it back, and stared.

  Her heart skipped a beat and then flipped into a strangely irregular rhythm. The entire tissue was filled with thick, bright red, clotted blood. She stared at it, studied it, until gradually the truth began to dawn.

  Viral infections didn’t make a person cough up blood; neither did the flu or bronchitis or even pneumonia. Only one thing would bring up the thick blood she held in her tissue.

  Advanced lung cancer.

  Elizabeth wadded up the tissue, tossed it in the trash can, and rinsed her mouth. Then, with a strength that came from God alone, she made her way back to the bed and sprawled out against a stack of pillows. There, for the tenth time since their last meeting with the doctor, Elizabeth considered something she hadn’t before.

  What if she didn’t get her miracle?

  What if everything Dr. Steinman said was right? Her cancer had spread through her lungs and internal organs, and with or without a second surgery, she would die in three months?

  Her breathing came quicker, and more coughing with it. She gripped the bedspread, digging her fingernails into it until her knuckles were white. Take it away, God; make my lungs better. You know me . . . you knit me together in my mother’s womb . . . take the cancer from every part of my body, please, God. Please . . .

  The silent words became a whisper, and the whisper a desperate cry for help. “Please, God . . . I beg you, make me well.”

  Don’t be afraid, daughter. Remember . . . not your will, but mine be done.

  The whispered response blew across her heart and she fell silent. Her eyes opened and she stared out the window. It was windy; thunderstorms were forecast for later in the afternoon. A gust hit the house and the roof creaked.

  “God?” Elizabeth coughed twice and watched the sky. Dark clouds were rolling in.

  The response had been more real than anything she’d ever heard before. Not a gentle feeling or a sense of peace but loud enough to echo through her very soul. Gentle and firm, the response could’ve come from only one place.

  “Not my will, but yours be done.”

  It was the verse on the floral paper, the one she was going to use to write the letter to the kids before her coughing attack. And suddenly, her entire body went limp with wonder. Was it possible? Had God put the Scripture before her eyes as a way of getting her attention? And then when she’d fallen prey to fear and resorted to her same old prayers, had he brought the verse to mind again?

  “Not my will, but yours be done.”

  And what else had she heard? “Don’t be afraid, daughter”? Yes, that was it. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Tears stung at her eyes. But she was afraid; she was scared all the time, torn between living in the moment and making mental calculations of how little time she might have left. Three months meant she might not live to see most of her kids and grandkids have another birthday. It meant no more Christmases or Thanksgiving dinners or Easters. The more she thought about those horrible possibilities, the more frightened she felt.

  Until now.

  Now, with storm clouds gathering outside her window, Elizabeth felt a burst of sunlight in her heart, a warmth that had been missing since before her surgery. Peace flooded her being, warding off what had become a permanent chill.

  “Do not be afraid. . . . Not your will, but mine be done.”

  Something beyond peaceful filled her at the thought of God’s will. She remembered when she first heard about God’s will as a little girl. Her father had lost his job at the factory and for the first time Elizabeth could remember, the strong, unyielding man she had always counted on was broken.

  That night, after he’d dried his eyes, her father told her, “Sometimes things just aren’t God’s will.”

  And then he’d given her a word picture she remembered still. “God’s will,” he told her, “is a little like taking a Sunday drive with God behind the wheel. God’s driving.

  “He might turn where you don’t expect a turn or go through a valley that feels too dark,” her father said. “But you don’t have to worry about a thing, because you’re just the passenger. Whatever happens, God will get you home in the end as long as you let him drive.” He patted her on the head. “That’s God’s will.”

  The memory hadn’t come back to her in decades, but now it was as large as life, bigger than the thunderheads gathering outside.

  A flash of light lit the outdoors, and almost at the same time a clap of thunder shook the house. An hour ago, the storm would’ve made Elizabeth feel worse, more frightened, less in control.

  But now with her father’s words and the gentle answer from God echoing through her being, Elizabeth sank deeper into her pillows, utterly relaxed. God was in control. Wasn’t that the bottom line, the message he was trying to tell her? Not her will, but his be done. That meant that yes, maybe she would die soon. But she wouldn’t die afraid and alone with no hope. She would die with her family gathered around her
, certain of her place in heaven, convinced that one day they would all be together again.

  God had created her, and he knew the number of her days.

  Fretting about her situation, begging God to change his mind, would only color her remaining time in fear and panic—whether she had days or years left to live.

  The change of heart worked its way through her conscious and her subconscious, her sinews and bones, and even to the cancer-ridden places of her body. God was driving; she was not.

  Yes, she would like a miracle.

  “God . . . you know my thoughts.” She whispered the words, staring at the dark sky and the occasional bolt of lightning that shot through it. “Of course I want you to heal me . . . but I hear you . . . for the first time since I’ve been sick I hear you.”

  Elizabeth coughed again and once more something filled her mouth. She reached for a tissue from her nightstand and spit. More bright-colored blood. But this time she wasn’t surprised. More than that, she wasn’t afraid.

  And as another clap of thunder rattled the windows, a knowing came over her. Yes, they would pray for a miracle. But the family also needed to be aware of the very real possibility that she might not survive. It wasn’t fair to keep them wondering, guessing. She glanced at the tissue again and folded it. Not when all the signs pointed to one fact and one alone.

  Footsteps sounded in the foyer and outside her bedroom door. John burst into the room, his face a familiar mask of fear and concern. “Hey . . . sorry, honey. I meant to stop by earlier.” He headed for her bed and sat at the edge. His eyes searched hers and he leaned in close, kissing her with all the tenderness the years had given him. “Kari and Ashley called, and I guess they’ve been out looking at shoes for the wedding. They didn’t want to call and wake you. Anyway, I was talking to Dr. Steinman earlier and he says . . . Elizabeth . . .” He dusted his fingertips along her cheekbone. “What is it? You look . . . different.”

  “I feel better, John. God and I had a talk. I’m not afraid anymore.”