She saw a janitor’s closet up ahead. Opening the door, she slipped inside. The room was no bigger than ten by ten, with shelves along the walls filled with cleaning supplies. She saw a light switch but welcomed the darkness.
Closing the door behind her, she lowered herself to the floor. She sat cross-legged, the way she had done as a child at Sunday school, when Mrs. Nigel read them stories of Christ’s miracles in the Bible. She thought of her wide-eyed wonder as she learned of Christ waking up a dead girl, healing a man with demons, restoring a woman who touched the hem of his garment.
All through her life, she had heard and read of those miracles, and she had believed solidly in them. Why wouldn’t she? The Bible was true. Didn’t it say that if you had faith as a mustard seed, anything you asked would be done? Didn’t it say that a little bit of faith could move mountains?
Well, she had a mountain that wouldn’t move. She had prayed for miracles before, and God had granted them. Deni had come home alive. Little Sarah had been found. They’d been protected and provided for. All, just as God promised. But this mountain wouldn’t budge.
She stared up at the dark ceiling, hoping God knew she was looking for him. “You said it, Father! You promised! You said that if a child asks his father for a fish, he wouldn’t give him a stone. ‘How much more will your father in heaven do for you?’ ” The words were bitter on her tongue. “You said that. It’s not just some doctrine that men made up. It’s written in your Word!”
Her spirit broke then, and she pulled her knees up and dropped her face into them. “I have prayed and prayed and prayed, and she’s still dying! I have more than the hem of your garment! I have the Holy Spirit. I have the rent veil. I can confidently enter your Holy Place!” The Scriptures she’d spent a lifetime memorizing poured out of her.
She realized she was almost yelling, her hands coiled into fists. The veins in her neck felt taut, ready to burst. “I don’t want to believe the promises aren’t true! I don’t want to think you’re ignoring my plea for a fish. I want to serve you, but how can I teach others about faith if my own has been shattered?”
She lowered herself to the floor, prostrate on her stomach, her face on the dirty tile. “Make me understand. I have believed, I have. But I can’t make you do anything!”
She curled into a fetal position, weeping out her heart to four cold walls. “Doug’s made all the excuses for you I know. That you have a bigger picture we can’t see . . . that you’re trying to build our faith . . . that you’re doing something in us. But Beth is so frail. She doesn’t have much more time! What are you trying to do in me? Give me a nervous breakdown? Debilitate me with grief?”
Her throat ripped with her cries. “My child is dying, and you can do something about it. Nothing is impossible with you. You said that.”
She felt like Moses, pleading with God for the souls of the Israelites, begging him not to smite them. God had relented with Moses. But Beth still lay dying. And she had done nothing wrong.
Her anger racked through her. Was God angry too? Maybe he would strike Kay dead. Then it would be over.
But he didn’t kill her. He did something far worse.
He remained silent.
So what would she do if he didn’t answer? Would she stop believing? Would she declare the things she’d built her life around null and void?
There was no other Creator of the universe. There was no secret that bestowed magical powers on humans. There was no law of attraction that could bring Beth back, if God wasn’t compelled to do it.
Whether he did her bidding or not — he was still who he was.
Her cries softened. “I need your strength, Jesus. I have to know that you’re here with me. Don’t make me face this if you’re not with me. I still believe . . . I’m still counting on your answering my prayers.”
She felt as if God leaned down and put his arms around her, cradled her, and rocked her. He had wept himself, just like this. He had cried out for God to change the course of history. He had asked to be delivered.
And then he’d uttered those five frightening words: “Not my will, but Thine.”
She couldn’t make herself say those words, if it meant God taking Beth. But still she felt his presence, holding her like a father would hold his daughter. He wasn’t giving her peeks over the horizon, or premonitions of Beth healed. He wasn’t giving her words of knowledge or prophecies of good tidings.
He just held her and let her cry.
The door opened, and a janitor flicked on the light. Kay sat up quickly, wiping her face.
The man looked startled. “You okay, ma’am?”
She got to her feet and thought of making up a story about what she was doing in here. But he didn’t look stupid. “Yes. I just wanted . . . a quiet place to cry.”
She saw compassion on his face. “I could come back later.”
She shook her head and pushed past him. “No, I’m okay now. I have to get back to my family, anyway.”
Leaving the man in the doorway, Kay walked away.
NINETY-SIX
THE WAITING ROOM WAS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO WAIT. MARK wished someone would come in and order everyone to be quiet. A family across the room was celebrating after getting good news about their patient. Friends had poured in to join in the party.
In another corner, the family of a small child with pancreatic cancer hunkered together, their wet eyes shell-shocked and mournful.
And here, where the Brannings had staked out their territory, they sat with muscles so tense that they ached. Mark felt a headache starting behind his eyes. If they didn’t bring news that Beth had survived surgery soon, he felt he might explode. And he wouldn’t be the only one.
But if they did, then what? She would have to lie in a sterile room with her head open, giving her brain tissue room to swell. He couldn’t even imagine it.
Next to him, Deni fidgeted, absently rubbing her hands together. He hoped she didn’t rub the skin off. He lifted his arm to set it on the seat behind her — but Craig’s arm was already there.
Their eyes met behind Deni’s head. Mark was getting sick of this. He thought of knocking Craig’s arm off Deni’s chair, but this wasn’t the time for an arm-wrestling match.
Finally, he got up and stepped outside to the balcony. There was no fresh air. A smoky haze hovered over the place as people smoked. He went to one side and leaned over the rail, looking into an unkempt courtyard below where more people clustered.
“You okay, man?”
Mark turned and saw that Deni’s brother Jeff had followed him out.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
The sixteen-year-old backed up against the rail. “I saw the thing between you and Craig.”
Mark breathed a laugh. “Yeah, well, what else is new?”
“It’s your fault, you know.”
Mark hadn’t expected that. “What’s my fault?”
“That Craig is still hitting on her. Dude, when are you gonna ask her to marry you?”
This was a first. Jeff had never indicated much interest at all in his sister’s love life. Surprised that he would intervene now, Mark pulled the ring out of his pocket. “I was going to ask her one night — and it turned out to be the night Craig showed up in town. Then this happened with Beth. It’s just never been the right time.”
“Nice ring,” Jeff said. “But Craig’s probably carrying one too.”
Mark couldn’t help chuckling. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“Craig’s not going anywhere, man. You’d better get used to it. He may be here to stay. You gotta do what you gotta do.”
Mark turned back to the rail and looked out across the trees behind the courtyard. “I know.”
“I’m just saying, don’t wait another day, dude. He’s pulling out all the stops, and I don’t want to wind up with him as a brother-in-law. Not that she wants him, but he’s asked her to marry him twice. You haven’t asked her at all.”
Appreciation warmed through him, melting the ten
sion out of him. He turned and looked through the glass doors. He saw Deni standing up, looking toward the door to the hallway, as if expecting the surgeon to come in at any moment. Her mind was on Beth, not Craig. He saw Craig get up and whisper something in her ear. He touched her back in that proprietary way he had. Deni looked irritated and stepped away, putting distance between them.
Jeff was right. Maybe he didn’t have to wait for the perfect time or set the stage for a romantic proposal. The moon and stars didn’t have to be aligned. All he needed was a ring and a place to get down on one knee. If Beth came through surgery all right, maybe tonight should be the night.
He stepped back inside and Deni turned. Her eyes met his, and he saw pleasure there. Not irritation. She took another seat and patted the one next to her.
Mark glanced at Craig. His rival’s eyes challenged him, warning him away. Unfazed, Mark pushed past him and sat down.
She took his hand, so naturally and intimately that he knew she was his. If he asked her to marry him, he had no doubt she would say yes. He made up his mind. He would take her to the hospital prayer room tonight, kneel with her at the altar, ask her to marry him before God, and put the ring on her finger. They would be bound together for the rest of their lives.
If Beth came through surgery alive.
NINETY-SEVEN
THE CONFERENCE ROOM WAS BRIGHT WITH LIGHTBULBS and lamps, giving it a homey feel that Kay hadn’t noticed before. But it offered no relaxation. It was a place of verdicts, like God’s courtroom, bringing down decisions that cut through the heart.
They’d heard a Code Blue half an hour ago, and though they couldn’t tell which patient’s heart had stopped, Kay had a burn in the pit of her stomach that told her it was Beth. The warmth and love she’d felt from God in the janitor’s closet fled, and now she sat with her family waiting to be told whether Beth lived or died.
Dr. Overton opened the door, his mask pulled down to his neck. He had sweat rings around his armpits, down the front of his chest. His expression said it all.
“Oh, dear God, she’s dead, isn’t she?” Kay whispered.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he struggled to get the words out. “We tried to save her. We did everything we could.”
It couldn’t be true. Her Beth, who’d been so alive and vibrant just seventeen days ago, couldn’t be gone. She felt her here, waiting just beyond these walls, crying for her mother. Whatever they’d done, it wasn’t enough. Kay wasn’t sure if she said it aloud. Her words echoed through her mind, bouncing off of walls, ramming into each other. She heard Doug sobbing next to her, saw Deni’s red nose as she sniffed, saw Logan’s calm, empty stare, and Jeff’s anger.
“What?” Jeff asked. “No way. You were gonna save her!”
Deni got up and turned to Kay. “Mom!” She came around the table and fell into Kay’s arms. Kay held her, her denial a living thing that made Beth alive in her mind. God, make her get up. Make them marvel at your miracle. You’ve done it before. But those cries from her spirit seemed to slam against the ceiling, unheard.
No one came to tell her of that miracle. Beth’s life was done. As she held Deni, then Jeff and Logan and Doug, all in a tight, desperate family embrace, her body felt the crushing pain of that truth.
Her sweet Beth was dead, and no one could bring her back.
NINETY-EIGHT
KAY KNEW PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T WEAR BLACK TO FUNERALS. They chose to celebrate their loved one’s life in color. But Kay found no joy nor celebration in the funeral of her child. There wasn’t a dress in her closet black enough, and the tears that had once cleansed her now rubbed her eyes raw.
They had Beth’s funeral five days after her death. Kay sat on the front row at the cemetery where they’d buried their friend Eloise. She watched with a cold detachment as Doug struggled through the eulogy that he’d insisted on giving. Summer heat burned down on them with no mercy, no summer breeze to give them a respite. The turnout was spectacular. Neighbors and friends from town had gathered at the graveyard to honor Beth. She’d touched so many lives. They’d had to make the funeral “Bring Your Own Lawn Chair,” like they were coming to hear the Boston Pops play on a Saturday afternoon. People whose names she couldn’t remember stared at her in pity, and whispered accolades about what a strong woman she was.
It was all a crock of lies. She wasn’t strong at all. God knew it and she knew it. She was an empty, throbbing shell of someone she hardly knew anymore.
Her parents had come from Florida; they sat down the row, weeping openly. Logan sat on one side of her, holding her hand. He’d hardly said a word since Beth’s passing, though she knew he cried in private. Jeff sat on the other side, wiping his nose with a wadded handkerchief. Down the row, Deni leaned into Mark, who’d kept them afloat as they’d drifted through the days since Beth’s death, by bringing them food and water and attending to the details of life on which Kay couldn’t focus. Craig, who sat on the other side of Deni, had helped by notifying family. He’d radioed government offices in the towns where the relatives lived and had them go to their homes to give them the news. Amazingly, they had all shown up by train. She’d had to become a hostess in her mourning, when all she wanted to do was be alone.
Doug’s clothes hung on his thin body as he stood before them. He stumbled through his stories about Beth, trying to weave frayed threads that made sense out of the madness. But there was no sense to be made.
Kay sat stiff as a statue as betrayal permeated her thoughts. God had chosen not to answer her prayers. He was the God who had set a world into motion, full of curses and disease and violent men who inflicted their heartless cruelty on innocent children. The God who had raised Lazarus from the grave had left Beth dead.
She had no warm fuzzies for the Lord right now. No glory to give him. She couldn’t sing praises to him or bow her knee to thank him for Beth’s life. So she kept her mouth closed and sat rigid, railing at him in her heart and mind, demanding answers that she knew she might never get. As they lowered Beth’s polished white casket into the hole prepared for it, she turned her rage in on herself.
She was a terrible mother. She’d done everything wrong. She had misread her child in her darkest moments. She had failed to protect her.
She deserved everything that had happened.
Her grief and anger imploded, collapsing her soul. She didn’t hear a word as people whispered condolences and offered hugs.
She couldn’t imagine there ever being comfort for her again.
NINETY-NINE
DOUG FOUND KAY IN THE DARK BEDROOM, SITTING ON THE bed and staring into space. He turned on the lamp. The light from the bulb deepened the shadows in her face.
He felt weak, hollow as he sat next to her. “You okay?”
Kay’s eyes were dry, hard, colder than he’d ever seen them. “We asked for a fish, and he gave us a stone. God betrayed us. I believed, and my faith was huge.”
He looked at his hands. She was waiting for answers. Why couldn’t he give them? He was the spiritual leader. The stockbroker-turned-preacher. Doug had been asked biblical questions many times since he’d started his little lakeside church, and usually he answered calmly with the plumb line of God’s Word. But he had no proverb for Kay’s question, no scriptural band-aid for unanswered prayer. “I have all the same questions you do.”
Kay’s face twisted now, as if he’d made it worse. “Then how do we get back from here?”
He moved to his reading chair and set his elbows on his knees. As he looked at the floor, his mind reached for something that would ease Kay’s pain. His voice cracked. “When I was a kid, I had this friend named Joey. Joey had been taking violin lessons since he was three years old. His parents were accomplished musicians who played with the symphony orchestra in my town. Sometimes they would take us to rehearsal with them, and we’d run around the building while they rehearsed. They made a record, and Joey could play along flawlessly, in perfect harmony, as if he sat in that orchestra with them.”
; He saw the impatience in Kay’s eyes, but he spoke as much for himself as her. “I envied him, so when I was about ten, I asked my parents if I could start taking violin lessons. They got me a violin. I practiced hard and learned ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ ” He chuckled softly. “When I got really good at it, I put on the record — Beethoven’s Fifth. I tried to play along, but I didn’t sound anything like them. My strings squeaked and my notes were off key. Eventually, I gravitated back to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ and played that instead. But the record kept playing. Beethoven’s Fifth went on perfectly. They never missed a note.”
“Where are you going with this, Doug? I’m not in the mood to talk about your failed career as a musician.”
“Just listen.” He got up and went back to the bed, sat on it facing Kay. “Praying in God’s will is just like that. He tells us if we pray anything according to his will, it will be done. But our prayers aren’t always in line with that symphony.”
Her eyes flashed. “So you think my prayer for Beth was like playing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’?”
His eyes rimmed with tears. “I think God was playing something much more beautiful.”
She slammed her hand on the pillow. “The Holy Spirit helps us pray! Jesus intercedes with groanings too deep for words.”
“But that’s just it. Jesus knows the song, and we don’t. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit interpret our prayers according to their music, even if we’re out of key and playing something else.”
“Then what’s the purpose in praying at all? Why even bother?”
“Our prayers matter, Kay. He listens to them. But his symphony is grander than ours.” He pursed his lips, trying to go on. “He didn’t neglect her. He knew the days that were numbered for her before there was even one.”
Kay squeezed her eyes shut. “She was a child! How could he take children?”
“He takes everyone, Kay. It’s what we humans do. We live and we die.”
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