by Stacy Adams
“Hello? Helloooo?”
Melba’s voice floated through the cell phone and snapped Rachelle back to reality. She was swooning over her first husband and needed both a fan and a wake-up call.
That must explain Melba’s timing.
“Are you at the hospital?” Rachelle asked.
“I’m on my way,” Melba said.
Rachelle could tell she was using her Bluetooth; she heard air swirling in the background while Melba drove.
“Are the girls squared away for the day or do you need to stay there with them?”
“No,” Rachelle said. “I’m on my way too. Both of them will be hanging out with their friends’ families for the day, including Miss Grown-Up Indigo, who wanted to stay here by herself.”
“Humph,” Melba said. “She better get used to not always getting her way. How is she, otherwise? And has anyone talked to Reuben?”
Rachelle hadn’t shared Indigo’s reaction at the accident scene, but it was just like Aunt Melba to understand that the crash would leave the girl, and Reuben, shaken.
“They both seem fine,” Rachelle said. “I talked with Reuben last night, and he was upset, as expected. I didn’t give him any details. All he knows is that Aunt Irene broke her hip and is having surgery.”
“Well, we need to get him back on the phone,” Melba said. “He needs to know the full story.”
Rachelle frowned. “Why? How is that going to solve anything?”
“It may not solve anything, little niece, but it’s no secret that Irene was driving drunk. The Jubilant Herald has pictures of the accident scene and traffic backup it caused, along with a brief story. It’s on the front of the city section and details who was at fault. My dear sister had a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, and when she crashed into those two cars, she injured a five-year-old boy.”
Rachelle’s mouth fell open. Uncle Charles had informed them that Aunt Irene had been intoxicated and that a child had suffered minor injuries, but this was bad. Someone did need to break the news to Reuben, and to the girls.
The phone had ceased ringing nonstop about an hour ago. Now Rachelle knew why.
20
Despite their awkward encounter earlier, Troy kept his word.
He showed up about two hours into Aunt Irene’s four-hour hip replacement surgery and joined Uncle Charles, Aunt Melba, Rachelle, and Pastor Taylor in the waiting room. The folks who had called earlier and told Rachelle they would be stopping by the hospital never materialized.
When lunchtime rolled around, Troy accompanied Rachelle and Melba to the hospital’s cafeteria.
“Just the smell of that food makes my stomach turn,” Rachelle said as they rode the elevator to the basement.
“You get used to it, and after a while it doesn’t faze you,” Troy said. He let the ladies step out first, then walked between them to their destination.
Melba raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you worked in a hospital too—a singing, mechanical engineer physician?”
Troy threw his head back and laughed. It was contagious. Rachelle and Melba joined in.
“You guys think I’m the bomb, don’t you?” he said and grinned.
When they had paid for their sandwiches and claimed an empty table, he explained his earlier comment.
“My mother was diagnosed with colon cancer about eight years ago, so I spent a lot of time with her at the hospital,” he said. “So much that a lot of the staff got to know me. I kept telling them I’d sing for a good meal, and one day, they took me up on the offer.”
Melba laughed heartily. “I’m so sorry to hear about your mother, Troy. But did I just hear you say you sang for hospital cafeteria food?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I was young and trying to impress people, okay?”
Rachelle read between the lines. Trying to impress the women, he meant to say.
“You weren’t that young eight years ago,” Rachelle teased. “You’re five months older than me, so that would have put you in your late twenties. Come on, now.”
He shook his head. “You ladies win, okay? Let’s just eat.”
They munched on their food in silence for a while, but Rachelle wanted to know more about his mother. “Is your mother okay?” she asked.
“She’s in heaven now, but yes, she’s okay,” he said.
Rachelle’s heart went out to him. She wanted to reach for his hand, to comfort him, but knew better, especially on Aunt Melba’s watch.
“When she was diagnosed, we moved her to Milwaukee to live with my brother and his family. He had just been hired as an assistant principal there and couldn’t come back to Dallas,” Troy said. “I was working for an engineering firm that had an office in Milwaukee. I asked for a transfer so I could be there to help.”
He looked at Rachelle. “I don’t know if you remember my sister.”
Rachelle nodded. “Of course. She was very pretty and very bright.”
“Tania was a mixed-up teenager when all of this was going on,” he told them. “Before the move and Mom’s illness, she really got off track, had a baby, and dropped out of high school before graduating.”
“Tania?” Rachelle was incredulous.
Troy nodded. “When we moved to Milwaukee, she started dating some thug and wound up on drugs. She’s in prison now, serving a seven-year sentence for possession of cocaine.”
Rachelle gasped. “Not Tania. Troy, I’m so sorry. How did that happen? She was always so smart and focused when we were dating. I just knew she was going to do great things.”
He fixed his eyes on his half-eaten sandwich. “I think she struggled without our father and searched for love in the wrong places. Then Mom got sick, and it was just too much for her. She couldn’t handle it, I guess.”
“So Chaundra is her daughter?” Rachelle asked.
Troy nodded. “Yeah. We have no idea where her father is. After my sister got strung out, he moved on to his next victim.
“Mom had passed away; my brother’s wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and they had three young children; so really, I was the only logical person to take her and prevent her from getting lost in the foster-care system. She’s thirteen now and I’ve had her since she was eight.”
Rachelle’s eyes widened. “You’ve been a parent for that long? By yourself?”
She saw the pride in his eyes, and she understood it. He had often talked about the hole punched in his heart when his father abandoned the family.
“With God’s grace and wisdom and lots of help from caring friends, I’ve been able to do it. That’s the only way.”
Rachelle reached for his hands. “That’s really great of you, Troy.”
He grabbed her hands and held them. Aunt Melba coughed and warned Rachelle with her eyes.
Rachelle wriggled free from Troy’s grip and took another bite of her sandwich.
On one hand, she felt as if she were being stalked by a middle school hall monitor. On the other, she knew that was probably what she needed, especially when it came to Troy.
21
In southern Uganda, the villagers were thankful. For everything.
They uttered “Webele nyo!” (Thank you very much!) and “We-bese Kotanda!” (Thank God!) so frequently that Gabe had become fluent with the phrases.
He was amazed at how thrilled they were to have Americans come to their homes. They treated him and the rest of the team like royalty or long-lost relatives.
He feasted on more mush than he had believed was humanly possible, but he had no intention of complaining or refusing a meal. Each bowl of food was made with care and offered with gratitude by the recipients of his medical expertise. He understood now why Stevens came every year and why this place and these people had stolen his friend’s heart.
At night, a peaceful quiet descended on the orphanage where Gabe, Lyle and Chrissa Stevens, and Veronica were staying with others on the medical mission team.
The team members would find a quiet spot to sit by themselves and
recount the day’s events or exchange advice and encouragement. Chrissa would lead the group in songs that she often performed across Houston with a Christian band.
This evening was no different. Each of the team members shared details about a particular challenge or success they had experienced hours earlier, including how some of them wound up praying for the people they were also trying to physically help. How could you not pray for a child who was wasting away because the lack of antibiotics had caused an infection to spread throughout the six-year-old’s body? Or for the grandmother who was dehydrated and refused to eat so that her daughter and grandchildren would have enough food to keep them healthy and strong enough to work?
At some point, the conversation shifted to the team members themselves and how they were faring in an environment so different from home. That conversation led to one about the importance of committed relationships, and how what they were doing in Uganda was modeling for the people they helped how unconditional love and friendships could blossom despite differences in color, culture, and status.
A few team members kept steering the discussion to romantic connections.
“I’m no good at them,” Veronica said, and glanced at Gabe. “At least not long-term ones.”
“Why not?” Chrissa asked. “That’s usually an answer a man would give.”
Gabe leveled his gaze at Stevens’s wife. “Be careful, woman . . .”
Chrissa laughed. “It’s true,” she said. “Most guys don’t bother to stick through the hard stuff. They want everything to revolve around them, to go their way, to make their world easier.” She looked at her husband. “Dr. Lyle Stevens had that same problem, until he met a man named Jesus. Thank ya!”
She threw her hands in the air and threw her head back, causing her blond ponytail to flail behind her.
Gabe bellowed with laughter. Chrissa was a sweetheart, but she needed to give up trying to be hip.
When he had composed himself, he turned to Stevens. “What really changed you, man?”
Stevens shrugged. “Like she said, I met a man named Jesus. When I developed a deeper relationship with him, I realized that when I served and loved my wife, I was serving and loving him.”
Something tugged at Gabe’s heart. He had never heard a commitment to God described that way.
“You alright?” Stevens asked.
Gabe nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That was just deep.”
Veronica’s lilting laughter filled the air. She winked at Gabe and smoothed her loose-fitting linen shirt over her ample chest. She had left her cosmetics at home, but even just a hint of lipstick and mascara gave her an exotic look. Gabe knew she wanted him.
The way his wife had been acting, he deserved to be pampered. He craved some attention, but lately, he had desired it from Rachelle.
Gabe stood and excused himself from the group. He ambled toward the edge of the orphanage’s enclosed terrace. The area was only partially lit, and he felt less exposed. “Stevens, come here for a minute?”
Gabe stuck his hands in the pocket of his khaki slacks and waited. When Stevens joined him, out of the group’s earshot, Gabe asked a question that had been nagging him for several days, since he had witnessed a Ugandan mother bury her sickly infant and another woman squeeze the last of her milk out of a dry breast. The supply of food and water that Gabe and another team member arrived with had left the second mother delirious with joy.
“About this loving and serving stuff, how does that work in the real world?” Gabe asked. He felt awkward asking such a touchy-feely question, but this was his friend.
Stevens draped an arm across Gabe’s shoulder. “You finally ready to have ‘The Talk’?” Stevens joked. “It’s all tied to God, man.”
Gabe’s stomached clinched. This sounded serious. And holier-than-thou.
He knew he wasn’t ready for that. But being informed couldn’t hurt. Not any more than he already was at the moment.
22
S ince Aunt Irene’s drunk-driving accident had been detailed in the newspaper, it seemed as if everyone in Jubilant who knew the family was abuzz with disbelief or contempt.
Four days after the incident, she came home from the hospital. Though the house was a single-story rancher, she would be confined to a hospital bed that had been ordered by her doctor and set up in the living room. A physical therapist would visit three times a week to help her regain her mobility.
The only bright spot Rachelle could find in this situation was that school was out for the summer. Yasmin and Indigo wouldn’t be forced to face their friends right away. The girls had been hiding out in their rooms and avoiding phone calls since they had returned home after their outings on the day of Aunt Irene’s surgery. Chaundra seemed to be Indigo’s only friend who hadn’t changed with the wind.
Rachelle considered asking her mom to invite the girls to Philadelphia, to share the last three weeks of vacation with Taryn and Tate.
Then she questioned whether helping them escape would be teaching them to do what she had done most of her life—run away from problems. If she stayed in Jubilant for a while, and the family surrounded the girls with support, hopefully they would come through this experience wiser and stronger and better able to cope with life’s challenges.
Rachelle had been rising early each morning to prepare breakfast for the family and make sure Aunt Irene took her medicine on time. The first time Aunt Irene heard Rachelle bustling in the kitchen, she protested.
“I want to help,” Rachelle insisted. She had to keep telling her, until finally Aunt Irene relented, and even made a request.
“If you need something to do then, would you mind sitting with me in the mornings and reading from the Psalms?” Aunt Irene asked. “This medicine leaves me too weak to hold onto my big old Bible.”
Rachelle would read aloud as soon as Aunt Irene woke up and had a cup of coffee.
Because of all that she was facing, from legal woes to disgrace in her church and the community, she told Rachelle the Psalms, penned by David as he endured his own trials, comforted her.
“Can I hear Psalm 91 again?” she asked this morning.
Rachelle complied and unwittingly felt moved by the passage herself, especially the last few verses.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”
Aunt Irene nodded and wept as she listened. “God will give me another chance,” she said softly.
Rachelle wanted to agree, yet she had doubts.
Why was Aunt Irene equating herself to a person concerned about enemies when she had gotten herself in this mess? She had chosen to drive drunk.
Rachelle wanted to ask someone steeped in their faith about that, someone who wouldn’t be put off by her questions. Troy fit that bill, but she had been reluctant to contact him, given Aunt Melba’s eagle eyes and stern warning.
Reaching for Troy’s hands in the hospital cafeteria had been innocent on her part, but Aunt Melba told her to reconsider.
“What if Gabe had walked in on that? Would he think it was innocent?” Aunt Melba asked. “Or vice versa? If you walked in and saw him holding hands with an old girlfriend, what would you think?”
That question hit home.
She thought about Gabe’s nurse, who had accompanied him and the rest of the team on the Ugandan mission trip. Rachelle had admired Veronica at first for agreeing to go and give up her creature comforts for ten days to help others in need.
But like Gabe, Veronica understood what a boost for her résumé this mission experience would be. Rachelle had overheard her sharing that view with a group of nurses at a recent retirement party for a hospital administrator. In the process of raising her profile, Veron
ica had said, she might actually help a few people.
Rachelle also hadn’t been oblivious to the frequent calls between Veronica and Gabe as the trip loomed. She hadn’t bothered bringing them up, knowing he would try to explain them away or dismiss her as paranoid. But Rachelle knew a turkey when she saw one. Veronica was ready to gobble up something that didn’t belong to her.
Rachelle wasn’t sure yet what she wanted from her marriage long-term, but in the meantime, Gabe had better watch himself.
23
Just before sunset, a rainstorm swept through the village and forced Gabe and the rest of the mission team to call it a day.
When they returned to the orphanage, they dispersed for some quiet time before dinner.
Most of the older children who lived in the orphanage were helping prepare tonight’s meal, so Gabe took the liberty of lounging on the sofa in their rec room. Sleep tugged at him, but before it won, he mentally tallied up the number of women and children he had examined during the day.
All of the AIDS patients in the area continued to visit the clinics where they routinely received treatment when the missionaries were in town, but Gabe had seen men, women, and children with just about every other kind of ailment.
Some needed the bulk supply of vitamin D supplements he had given them to prevent or slow the progression of rickets. Some needed kits to cure yeast infections. One child had a bug bite that had become grossly infected because it had gone untreated for so long. Gabe delivered two antibiotic shots and, through a translator, instructed the boy’s mother how to properly clean the wound.
Their faces floated across his mind’s eye, and Gabe felt satisfied, knowing that even on a workday cut short by the weather, he had done some good.
Veronica sauntered into the recreation room and joined him on the sofa. She knew as well as he did that it was inappropriate in Ugandan society for an unmarried man and woman to be alone like this, but Gabe decided not to play enforcer.
“Where’s everybody else?” he asked.
She shrugged, curled her feet beneath her, and moved closer. She rested her chin on his shoulder. “What’s up, Gabe?”