“They’re giving her steroids to help strengthen Bethany’s lungs, but her cervix is thinning out. And there’s nothing they can do to get everything to close up and thicken again. She’s two centimeters and sixty percent effaced right now.” He paused. “No. Seventy. Charissa just said seventy.”
Jesus, help. “What can I do, John?”
“Nothing. If everything goes well, they’ll keep her here for a couple of days, then send her home.”
“Are you still in the ER?”
“No, they’ve got her in the labor ward now.” His voice broke, and Mara waited in the awkward silence for him to pull himself together and say something else. He did not.
“Is she up to having a visitor? I’d be happy to come by and sit with you guys. If you want company.”
John repeated the offer to Charissa, then said, “We’re okay for now, thanks. But if you know of any prayer chains . . .”
“I’m on it.” She had activated them for Meg. She’d activate them again. As many as she knew in Kingsbury and beyond. “And if you think of anything else I can do . . .”
“I’ll call you.”
“Give her a hug from me. And one for you too.”
“Thanks, Mara. I will.”
Mara leaned back in her rocking chair and stared out the window at brown thatched yards beginning to green. Across the street in Alexis Harding’s perennial garden, golden daffodils—the frilly kind with long noses—collectively bowed their heads in rows. They looked like they were praying. A whole community joined in prayer. That’s what Charissa and John needed. To be wrapped in a community of prayer. Mara would begin by calling the prayer coordinator at church, and then she would let the people at Crossroads know. Ever since Charissa’s fainting episode in the kitchen, some of the guests had become concerned about her. They would want to know she was in labor. They would want to be with her in prayer. They would want to pray for the baby. For baby Bethany.
“Hold on there, little girl,” Mara murmured. “Hold on.”
Becca
Why Hannah thought it necessary to let her know Charissa was in the hospital in premature labor, Becca did not understand. “Please keep her in your thoughts,” Hannah had written in her email. It was the sort of thing her mother might have done, asking her to pray for someone she hardly knew. The larger purpose of the email, however, was to pin Becca down on the dates she would be “flying home.”
What home could she return to? All that awaited her was the shell of a musty old house crammed with stuff that would remind her of everything she had lost. Maybe she should just tell Hannah to get rid of all of it. Or sell it. Becca didn’t much care. All the things she thought she would want to do after her mother died—like returning to Kingsbury so she could sort through her mother’s life, organize pictures, and visit her grave before going to Paris for the summer—now held no appeal for her. At all. She needed to move on with her life, not get stuck fixating on the past. Living in the past wasn’t good for her. Move forward. Move on. That’s the sort of advice she had heard her grandmother give her mother many times.
“I think I’m going to tell Hannah I’m not coming,” she said to Simon, who was typing away on his novel. Ever since returning from Paris, he had spent every waking moment glued to his computer. “Simon?”
He did not look up from his screen. “Hmm?”
“I said, I think I won’t go back to Kingsbury when the semester ends. I think I’ll just come straight to Paris with you.”
He raised his eyebrows and glanced up at her. “That’s not what we planned.”
“I know, but there’s no reason for me to go. Hannah can take care of everything.” That was no doubt why her mother had put Hannah in charge: Hannah could be counted on to take care of all the details Becca did not want to be bothered with. She tried to squeeze in beside him. He shut the computer screen. “What?” Becca said. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” He reached into his pocket for another cigarette.
“You don’t act like it’s ‘nothing.’”
“I’m right in the middle of a scene, Rebecca. I really don’t have time to discuss your travel plans right now.”
Fine. They would talk about it later. In the meantime she would reply to Hannah and let her know she had changed her mind about flying to Kingsbury at the end of the month. She skimmed Hannah’s email one more time. I’m keeping you in prayer, Hannah wrote. I hope you’re doing okay.
Becca was fairly sure Hannah’s definition of “doing okay” would be different from her own. But if “doing okay” meant making decisions to suit herself rather than other people, then she was doing just fine.
Charissa
Viable, the doctor said. At twenty-six weeks the “fetus” was “viable.” While John visibly bristled at the clinical comment, Charissa was more focused on the best-case-scenario details of what would be required of her in order to give Bethany the greatest chance of making it to full term. “Bed rest,” the doctor said. “That’s the best remedy. As little movement as possible.” There was no way to reverse what the contractions had already accomplished. They could only try to stop the labor from going further. That was the best case scenario. Worst case? She wasn’t even going to think about it.
“You can do it, Riss,” John said once the doctor left the room. “I’ll help.”
Be bedridden for three months? Three and a half, if you calculated full-term pregnancies at forty weeks. She was going to have to do nothing but stare out a window or up at a ceiling for three and a half months?
“You can read. Or watch movies. Or do research for your garden.”
“There won’t be a garden,” Charissa said. “I won’t be able to plant anything.” It seemed an odd thing to feel upset about, given their circumstances at the moment, but her eyes brimmed with tears. And what about her classes? Her teaching? Her students? She still had three weeks left of classes to teach. And they had done nothing to prepare for a baby. The room wasn’t ready. The clothes weren’t bought. They hadn’t even put together a registry or had a baby shower yet.
She stared at columns of marked drawers filled with syringes, needles, and masks.
“Charissa?” John said. She turned her head toward him. “It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”
She wished he would stop saying that. Everything was not okay. So many things were not okay. She winced as another contraction seized her.
Not okay.
eight
Hannah
The Maundy Thursday service at Westminster had always been one of Hannah’s favorite services of the year: the Scripture passages focusing on Jesus’ last hours, the acapella singing of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” the gradual extinguishing of candles and dimming of lights until the entire sanctuary was plunged into darkness, into silence.
As she sat beside Nathan at Wayfarer’s evening service, her thoughts wandered to a little church in rural Ohio where she had served as an intern her second year of seminary. They had finished the Maundy Thursday service by ringing the steeple bell thirty-three times, once for each year of Jesus’ life. But before each bell tolled, the long attached rope lashed and cracked with a violent snap. By the end of the tolling, Hannah was in tears. She wasn’t the only one. It was as though they had traveled across two millennia to hear the ruthless strike of a whip against the bruised and beaten flesh of the man from Galilee.
Nathan reached for her hand as a soloist began to sing: O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, now scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown: how pale thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn! How does that visage languish which once was bright as morn!
Hannah fingered the nail she had picked up from a basket outside the sanctuary. At the end of the service, they would be invited to come forward and drop the nails at the foot of the cross. But first they would be invited to come forward for foot washing in remembrance of Jesus’ command to love one another. She would not go forward. She could
not bring herself to offer her feet to a stranger when Meg was the one who had washed them right before she died. That was the memory she wanted to cherish, the memory of being loved and served in such a poignant way. She was not ready for a new memory to be layered upon the old.
The lights dimmed further at the second stanza, with more voices blending in melancholy harmony: What thou, my Lord, has suffered was all for sinners’ gain; mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain. Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve thy place; look on me with thy favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace. The lyrics brought to mind the mirrored cross at New Hope and the cushion where Hannah had chosen not to kneel. Perhaps the prayer stations would still be set up on Saturday for the silence and solitude retreat. Perhaps she would take time to kneel and meditate on Christ taking her place.
What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend, for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end? O make me thine forever; and should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never outlive my love for thee.
Amen, Hannah whispered. Amen.
Thursday, April 9
10 p.m.
I was worried that I would sit at Wayfarer tonight and lament the ways the Maundy Thursday service wasn’t like Westminster’s. Instead, I was able to enter into the beauty of what was offered, even as it was different from what I loved for fifteen years. Tonight’s service was another opportunity to be reoriented toward wonder and awe at the suffering of Jesus. “What wondrous love is this?” we sang together. What wondrous love, indeed. And when we sang the final verse, I wept. Because as we sang, I was reminded that beyond the veil, beloved voices also testify to the truth: “And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on, and when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on; and when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be, and through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on; and through eternity I’ll sing on.”
I’ve spent so much time the past couple of months thinking about death—not just physical death but all of the ways I’ve been invited to die—that maybe I’ve lost sight of life and resurrection. I know that grieving all of the losses in their full power has the capacity to enlarge me, not diminish me. And I do want to be enlarged, Lord. I want to experience the depth of suffering and sorrow so I can also experience the joy of resurrection and life. You are the Resurrection and the Life. Keep reminding me. None of my losses end in death but in life.
Something significant is shifting in my spirit. I perceive it, a move from desolation toward hope as I fix my eyes on the cross and meditate on your victory and love. Hineni, Lord. Here I am.
Charissa
It wasn’t the way Charissa had expected to spend Good Friday, still hooked up to an IV and a monitor. She had expected to serve alongside Mara at Crossroads. She had expected to attend an afternoon worship service at the university chapel. She had expected to fix another dinner as part of her bet with John. And as long as she was counting off expectations . . .
She had expected to finish her semester strong. She had expected to use May and June to prepare for the baby. She had expected her pregnancy to be straightforward. She had expected to carry their baby to full term. She had expected.
She stared at her hand, where bruises from unsuccessful IV prods had darkened. She ought to be grateful, grateful that they had managed to stabilize her, grateful that she had not yet given birth, grateful that she could go home and sleep in her own bed. But she was too disappointed to be grateful.
“Mom said she was on bed rest with Karli for a few weeks,” John had unhelpfully offered that morning.
Well, “a few weeks” was not ten or twelve or fourteen. And John’s younger sister had not been born premature. So if Judi thought she understood what Charissa was going through, then she was wrong. No one could understand unless they were experiencing all the losses she was experiencing right now.
John entered the room with a sandwich from the cafeteria. At least he hadn’t gone for fast food again. “You want a bite?”
Charissa shook her head. She would be getting a tasty tray of dry, stringy chicken and one of those mixed fruit snack cups any minute. Yum.
“Hannah called while I was downstairs, wanted to know if she can help with anything once we get home. I told her we’d let her know.”
Charissa did not reply.
“And I told Mom again that we really can’t handle company right now, even though she’s desperate to help.” Charissa had told her parents the same thing. Having them in town would stress her out even more. If John could keep up with the shopping and cooking and Mara could help with cleaning and the occasional meal, as she had offered, then they could keep both sets of parents at bay by reassuring them that they had everything covered. “And it’s not like you’ll have to spend every moment lying in bed. You’ll be able to sit in a chair and read or write or do online shopping or—”
Charissa covered her eyes and exhaled loudly. It wasn’t his body, wasn’t his time, wasn’t his life, wasn’t his responsibility. He couldn’t possibly understand what she was feeling. No matter how hard he tried.
Mara
Mara was stirring a pot of tomato soup on the stove at Crossroads when Hannah entered the kitchen. “What are you doing here?” Mara exclaimed. She was so surprised to see her that she nearly dropped the ladle.
“Well, I know Charissa has been helping out, and I didn’t want you to be down a volunteer.”
Mara removed her gloves so she could hug her friend. What a gift to have Hannah back! “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much for coming.”
Hannah reached into the box of plastic gloves on the counter.
“Hairnet too.” Mara pointed toward another box. As Hannah tucked her hair behind her ears and covered it with the mesh, Mara noticed there was some light in her eyes again. “You look good. Rested or something. Like a shadow got lifted.” Amazing, the change since she had last seen Hannah at New Hope. Maybe her prayers had made a difference for someone after all.
“You’re right,” Hannah said. “I can feel it.” She clasped her gloved hands together and stared at the stove. “So point me in the right direction. What can I do to help?”
“Can you chop some carrots and celery for the salad?”
“Sure,” Hannah said, and reached for a knife.
“I’ve put her on every prayer list I can think of,” Mara said as they set the food out half an hour later. “I told John I’d help with cleaning and cooking, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get them on the church’s list for meals, if they do that sort of thing.” Mara wanted to do everything she could to help, but she was strapped for cash. It would be hard to supply more than a meal or two each week. Not that John had asked for help. Until their bet, he reminded her, he had always done all of their cooking.
Hannah placed some tongs beside the salad bowl and straightened a pile of napkins. “Nate says Wayfarer has a meal coordinator. He’ll call and let them know it’s going to be a long haul.”
If they’re lucky, Mara thought. The longer, the better.
“Where’s Miss Charissa?” Billy, one of their regulars, asked as he ambled into the dining room. “She ain’t sick again, is she?”
He obviously hadn’t heard the news through the grapevine yet. “Miss Charissa is in the hospital. Her little baby tried to come early.”
Billy whistled and rubbed his crewcut back and forth. “Poor little baby. It don’t know it’s not done cookin’ yet.” He fumbled around in his coat pockets and pulled out a crumpled receipt. “You take somethin’ to her for me?”
“Sure,” Mara said.
“You got a pencil?”
Hannah reached into her purse and pulled out a pen.
“Thanks.” He sat down at one of the round tables and scribbled something on the scrap, folded it in half, and gave it to Mara. “Tell her Billy’s praying for her, okay?”
“You bet.”
He tilted his head back and sniffed the air. “Tomato soup today?”
&n
bsp; “Yep.”
He looked at Hannah and said, “Miss Mara makes the best soup.”
“Yes, she does.”
“You one of her friends too?”
“I’m Hannah.” She reached out her hand to shake his. “Nice to meet you, Billy.”
He thrust his nose into the air again. “You got those cookies today too, Miss Mara?”
“Not today, I’m afraid. Sorry.”
He looked disappointed. “Ohh. Those are good. I like those cookies.”
“Mara’s famous snickerdoodles?” Hannah asked.
“Yeah. Knew it was some funny name.”
Mara made a mental note to buy the ingredients. “I’ll make them just for you next week, Billy.”
“All for me?”
Mara laughed. “Not all for you, but I’ll make them because of you. In honor of you.”
“In honor of me?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“You hear that, Joe?” he said, bumping another regular patron with his elbow. “Miss Mara’s making cookies in honor of me.”
“What kind? Chocolate chip?”
“You like chocolate chip cookies, Joe?” Mara asked as she filled his bowl with soup.
“Yes, ma’am. My mom used to make us kids chocolate chip cookies. I used to lick the batter right off the spoon.”
“I used to let my sons do that too,” Mara said.
“My mom always left the chips on the beaters for me,” Joe said. “I liked that. Haven’t had chocolate chip cookies in a long time.”
“Well, I’ll make snickerdoodles in honor of Billy next week and chocolate chip in honor of you the week after that. How’s that?”
Joe lit up with a toothless grin. “If I get here early, can I lick the batter?”
“I’ll save a little bit for you, okay?”
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