“Your body is helping the baby come out,” Uncle Alfred said. “It’s all going as it should. Do you have a name for this child yet?”
“David if it’s a boy, and Elizabeth if it’s a girl.” The woman panted and then tensed as another contraction took over. “How soon? How much longer?”
Uncle Alfred did a quick and discreet examination and smiled. “I think we’re due for a baby very soon here. Go ahead and scream if you want, or—”
Her husband reentered the room. “I heard her scream again. That was right after the other one. She’s—”
“She’s having a baby, and we’re getting closer.” Uncle Alfred reached for a cloth and dipped it in the cool water and wiped it across her forehead and over her cheeks. “Go ahead and try to let your body have this baby. Don’t fight the pain; it’ll make it worse. Breathe, Mrs. Bonds. Breathe. In and out. That’s right. If you do that during the contraction, it’ll be better.”
Her husband stood at the side. “I feel so helpless. I want to help her, and I can’t. I don’t have anything I can do to make it better. And I feel so guilty.”
Isaac shot a look at his uncle. How would he deal with that?
Amazingly, his uncle laughed. “As well you might. But trust me when I tell you that in a very short time, this whole experience will be overshadowed by something that will amaze you beyond anything else. In just a few minutes—”
“Something, something, something is happening! Oh, it is!” Mrs. Bonds curled and straightened. “I think I’m—”
“Isaac, I think it’s time. Are you ready? Let’s deliver this baby!”
Uncle Alfred lifted the blanket, the woman screamed one more time, and Isaac helped a wet, wriggly baby into the world.
The baby was beautiful, perfect in every way. He handed the baby to his uncle, who wiped it with a cloth, checking it over as he did so
“Congratulations! You two are the parents of a perfect baby boy. David, right?” Uncle Alfred laid the baby on Mrs. Bonds’s chest and reached out as Isaac handed him the scissors. “Isaac, would you like to tie the cord?”
He couldn’t make his hands stop shaking as he reached over and tied the cord on the baby, whose screams took over where his mother’s left off.
His first birth. There was nothing as incredible as what he’d just seen.
“There’s one more thing I always do when I deliver a baby,” his uncle said.
“What’s that?” Isaac looked around. What was left?
“I always offer thanks and ask the Lord’s blessing.”
“Please do,” Mrs. Bonds said softly, her lips pressed against her baby’s forehead.
The four of them encircled the newborn child, united in prayer. “Thank you, dearest Lord, for this gift of life, the ultimate gift of Christmas. Bless David through his years ahead, and guide his feet to walk in Your service, his hands to share Your abundance, and his lips to sing Your praises. In the name of all that is holy on this day of Christmas, amen.”
“Amen.” Isaac breathed. “Amen.”
Eight
“It was incredible!” Isaac enthused as they walked home from church together. Two weeks had passed since the birth of the Bonds baby, and he was still talking about it.
Christal tried to feel happy for him, but her own situation kept her outlook bleak. Her future was dim and dark and foreboding. At least that was the way it seemed.
She’d gone to the library to ask if she might find employment there, but the librarian had shaken his head. No jobs.
Her hands were jammed into her pockets and her scarf wound tightly around her neck, and she burrowed into the wool as if hiding from the world.
Her mood wasn’t just about her. More than anything, she wanted her parents to be happy, and that would mean that they would go on this missionary sojourn. She could tell from their voices that it was important to them.
“So I think that I can do it. I’m really feeling energized. Maybe it’s the new year; maybe it’s that new baby. I don’t know, but I’m happy!” Isaac threw his arms out wide, nearly knocking Christal into a leafless shrub. “Oh, I’m sorry!”
“That’s all right,” she said gloomily. “If I had a branch from that chokecherry bush stuck through my chest, maybe I could say things were looking better.”
He stopped, faced her, and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I know that you’re going through some dark times now, but trust me—they’ll improve. There will be a solution.”
She wanted to believe him, but his words were just the flat meaningless syllables she heard from her own family. Trust. Her ability to trust was being tested.
“What am I going to do? What?” She knew she was being fretful, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Something will come along.”
“It won’t.”
“Oh, Christal.”
Suddenly his arms were around her, and his lips grazed the thin area of exposed skin between her eyebrows and the bottom brim of her knit hat.
She was so bundled up that she had no sense of where her body was, and there was just a bit of ice on the sidewalk. The next thing she knew, she and Isaac were tumbling down onto the ground.
Her hat had slid entirely down over her face, and her scarf was caught on the buttons of his overcoat.
Something scratched her neck under her coat collar, and she realized that they were at the base of the chokecherry and one of the branches was digging into her skin.
“I shouldn’t have said anything about being impaled by the bush, because I am—” she said as she struggled to an upright position, tugging her hat back up. “Oh!”
His face was just inches from hers, his arms around her waist, and he grinned. “And I shouldn’t have tried to kiss you.”
Suddenly brave, she smiled. “I’m glad you did.”
“I should do it again.”
“Perhaps.”
He bridged the short gap between them, and his lips touched hers.
The branch scratched more sharply at her neck, but she ignored it. He was kissing her, and for the moment the cares of her life fell away. Locked in his embrace, there was no one but the two of them, nothing but this kiss.
He pulled away. “I think this is not the place, sprawled here on the street, although I have to say I would happily stay here, frozen in your arms.”
“We’d be the talk of the church, then, wouldn’t we?” She unhooked her scarf from the front of his overcoat. “And we’d probably be famous. I can see the headline on the Dispatch now: ‘Minister’s Daughter Goes to Heavenly Reward While Smooching the New Doctor on the Street under the Chokecherry Bush.’ ”
“That’s a long headline,” Isaac said, grinning as he helped her to her feet.
“News like that doesn’t come along every day here in St. Paul, you know.” She dusted the snow off her elbows and what she could reach of the back of her coat.
“Well, since we’re newsworthy now,” he said, linking her arm in his, “I wonder if we could possibly consider going into full courting now?”
“Courting?” She swallowed hard. More than anything she wanted to look at him, but her head seemed locked into place, and her ability to speak was stifled. He was asking permission to court her! She had dreamed of this, hoped for this, wished for this; and now that the moment had arrived, she had no idea what she should say or do.
“Yes,” he said, and she could hear the amusement behind the single word.
“I, well, yes, I suppose, we, I imagine, um, why not?”
“Not the most fervent avowal of interest that I’ve heard,” he said, “but I’ll take it.”
She looked at him at last and saw again how kind he was. How happy he was. How gentle he was.
“How’s this?” she said. “I would be delighted to be courted by you, Mr. Almost-Doctor Bering.”
“Better. Much better. I’d kiss you again, but the neighbors would definitely be talking.”
“They’re already talking.”
“Very well.”
He leaned over and kissed her again, a proper and sedate kiss, yet warm in the brisk January air. She wanted to linger, but she knew they were already late for dinner.
He took her mittened hand in his as they walked the last steps to their block. He stayed with her, as he always did, until she arrived at the door of her house.
“Would you do me the favor of accompanying me to the Winter Carnival parade?” he asked.
“My, aren’t we formal!”
“We’re courting. That’s the way it’s done—I think. I’ve never courted a woman before.”
“And I’ve never been courted.” The heat climbing her cheeks told her she was blushing, but she didn’t care.
“See? We’re perfect for each other.”
“Indeed.”
“So will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Go to the Winter Carnival parade with me?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Because we’re courting?”
“Because we’re courting.”
He kissed the tip of her nose, winked, and left, taking her heart with him.
❧
Sometimes, Isaac thought, in the bleakest of moments, God showed Himself the clearest.
His uncle had fallen asleep in the parlor, a book open on his chest, but Isaac was too excited to nap.
Was what he had done all right? Had he been too forward?
He hadn’t been joking when he told her he was inexperienced with courting. He’d gone out with some young women, but nothing had been serious or lasted for long. He’d never let himself get involved with matters of the heart.
At first he’d been too immature to settle down, and he’d gone from one girl to another, enjoying each girl’s company but never finding the desire to stay with any certain one. Then as he got older, his studies came first. He rarely left his room once classes were over for the day.
Now, as the inevitability of his future weighed in on him, he realized that he was, indeed, going to be a doctor, and furthermore, he did not want to be alone.
God gave Adam a helpmate in the Garden of Eden, and that had gotten the proverbial ball rolling for romance. What had always captured Isaac’s interest in the story of Adam and Eve was the question: Did Adam and Eve love each other?
He thought the answer was yes, that when God created the first two, He created the first couple, and He created the first romantic love.
So Isaac had never considered that he would ever marry without a deep love. That was what God wanted. It was what Isaac wanted.
He’d known Christal only three months. He knew without a doubt that she was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. But three months wasn’t very long.
If her parents hadn’t decided to go to a missionary post, and if his uncle hadn’t decided to marry Ruth and travel around the world, things might have gone at a different pace. But those two factors moved everything along faster, and the next thing he knew, he was kissing Christal again.
The remembrance made him smile.
Kissing Christal was very nice. He hoped to do it again. And again. For the rest of his life.
It would be the answer to her problem, and to his.
He still had time to let the idea rumble around in his head for a while. Her parents wouldn’t leave for eight months at the earliest. His uncle had said that his wedding to Ruth was scheduled for April. He didn’t want to be hasty, though. What was that his mother used to say? Marry in haste, repent at leisure. He nodded slightly. It was best to be wise about this and not to rush into something he might rue later.
His uncle mumbled something in his sleep, and Isaac’s attention turned to him.
Uncle Alfred was an amazing man. A skilled doctor, he’d built his talent not only on the knowledge of the human body, but as importantly, knowledge of the human soul.
He’d been single his entire life, choosing to marry only when retirement was possible. Isaac smiled as he realized that his uncle would approach marriage with the same single-mindedness, making it the center of his world, assigning it the utmost importance.
A thought struck him. His uncle had clearly separated the two, being a doctor and being a husband. Did he think it wasn’t possible to be both at the same time?
He frowned as he considered that. He would be starting out as a new doctor. Maybe the time was wrong to be courting anyone. A medical practice would take almost all of his energy, especially when he was following in the footsteps of someone as beloved as his uncle.
His uncle stirred again, and Isaac studied his face. Uncle Alfred’s main diversion was reading, which he believed helped him in his doctoring. One of their earliest conversations, about the Jules Verne book, returned to him, and he could hear in his memory his uncle’s words about how even science fiction helped him understand his patients.
But might it also be that such reading provided a very needed respite?
“Is something written on my face?” his uncle asked, startling Isaac so sharply that he jumped.
“You startled me.”
Uncle Alfred sat up, his round face wreathed in good humor. “You’ve been staring at me so long that I was beginning to wonder if I had a story on there.”
“No,” Isaac answered. “I was just thinking.”
“If you would like to talk, I would like to listen.”
“I was thinking about love.”
“Ah! An excellent topic.”
Isaac mustered up all his courage. “Why did you never marry?”
His uncle smiled. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I was thinking.”
“You’re a smart young man. When you don’t know something, you think. That is excellent. Too many people, when they don’t know something, do just the opposite. They stop thinking.”
Isaac tilted his head, his gaze steadily on his uncle. “Was it because you felt you couldn’t practice medicine well and be married?”
Uncle Alfred chuckled. “There are plenty of doctors who are married, and they’re fine physicians. No, Isaac, I didn’t get married because I quite simply found no one who captured my heart to the extent that’s necessary to have a successful marriage.”
“But Ruth—oh!” Isaac leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Were you in love with her when she was married to her husband?”
“No,” his uncle answered, “there’s nothing as intriguing as that. The simple answer is this: Over the past year or so, Ruth and I’ve come to spend more time together, and we’ve found that we share many things, not the least of which is our faith in God. That smooths the way quite a bit.”
He laid his book, which had been spread open across his chest, on the table beside him. “The more time I spent with her, the more I liked her, and that turned into deep respect and then love. In our case, love was the ripe fruit on the vine.”
Isaac sighed. That was just the opposite of what he felt for Christal, which were the first eager buds, not the “ripe fruit” his uncle referred to.
His uncle put his head back and closed his eyes again. “Christal is a charming young woman. You are an intelligent young man, and I love both of you as if you were my own. But I’ll tell you this.”
He shifted in his chair. “One day you will grow old. You’ll have wrinkles, and you won’t be able to remember the name of your cousin in Baton Rouge, and she’ll have aches and pains, and her hearing will fade. That’s when you get to see the miracle of love. It does something to the eyes. She’ll still be as beautiful as she is today. It does something to the memory. Old slights vanish into the mists of the past. It does something to the fingers. They gnarl and don’t feel the roughness the years have wrought on the other’s hand.”
He didn’t speak again, and Isaac thought his uncle had gone to sleep. Then, at last, he spoke once more.
“Marry her.”
❧
Excitement along the parade route was almost palpable. Talk of the carnival was everywhe
re—in church, in the shops, along the streets—and now that the opening was only two weeks away, hardly anyone spoke of anything else.
Plus, if there was one thing that the residents of St. Paul liked, it was a parade, and the organizers had scheduled them regularly until the first day of February, when the carnival began.
“This is the first parade of many before the carnival starts, my father told me this week,” Christal said. “But I think it’s going to be the biggest, except for the one on opening day, of course.”
“It seems as if everybody in the city is here,” Isaac commented.
It certainly looked liked it. The street was solidly lined with people who were anxious to see what the first parade of the season would be like.
“My parents are here,” she said, craning her neck to see if she could find them, but there were so many people, she’d never locate them. “And I think Aunt Ruth and Dr. Bering are here, too.”
“Oh, my uncle is, most definitely. He’s very excited about this. I can’t imagine that he’d miss it.” He grinned at her. “He left before me, and he was wearing a heavy jacket, buttoned up, and a muffler and a big fur hat and thick mittens, so I’m guessing that Ruth is with him.”
Christal laughed. “They’ll be on some tropical isle, and she’ll make him button up his sarong so he doesn’t catch a chill.”
“Sarongs have buttons?” The corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement.
“They will when Aunt Ruth finishes with them.”
Standing there with Isaac, waiting for the parade to start, made the uncertainty of her future seem far off, nothing that she needed to worry about at the moment. Right now, her whole focus was the parade and Isaac and how wonderful she felt.
“Don’t you think parades are the best thing ever?” she asked, wrapping her gloved hand around his arm.
“I’ve never been to a parade.”
“What? How can that be?”
He turned to her and shrugged. “A parade just never came my way, I guess.”
“You can’t wait for a parade to come to you. You have to go to the parade.”
She couldn’t imagine never having seen a parade. In St. Paul they were fairly regular things, celebrating all kinds of events and people and companies, and she’d attended almost every one of them.
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