Blue Ridge Setup

by Kimberly Rae

  Now, humiliation aside and only a sleepless night ahead, Kayla lay in the darkness and thought about death, and how much closer she was to it than she had ever been before.

  The doctor, a nice, tall man with thick white hair and kind eyes, had told her that if people with Addison’s disease have surgery or other physical trauma without getting a stress dose of hydrocortisone, they often died. Had she been taken to surgery without them realizing her disease, she would likely never have woken up.

  Thoughts of life and death brought to mind Aunt Lavender’s walkway with its uneven, sloppy composition. It was unsafe and unstable. The exact opposite of what a walkway should be.

  She had chosen her visual well, Kayla realized, only groggily acknowledging the nurse who entered to check her vital signs for the third time that night. Her faith was shaky and unstable. Not something to stand on. Something to tiptoe over for fear of falling.

  That was Kayla’s relationship with God. She tiptoed around the idea of Him, afraid of doing something wrong, or not doing enough. Certain that she herself was a disappointment.

  The same way she felt about her father.

  “Sorry we have to keep coming in and waking you up,” the nurse said, tucking Kayla’s sheets where they had been mussed by her uncomfortable shifting. “They want us to check your vitals ever hour and make sure your blood pressure’s okay and you aren’t running a temperature.”

  “It’s okay. I wasn’t sleeping. But thanks.”

  “Well, I hope you can rest a little before the next round comes through. This is the end of my shift.”

  “Thanks for being so nice.” Kayla reached for the Bible on her bed stand, the one thing the doctor had allowed Aunt Lavender to bring her before ushering her out of the room again. “Could you turn the light on as you go out?”

  “No problem. Goodnight.”

  Kayla looked down at her Bible. Yes, somehow, despite the circumstances — or maybe because of them — it was going to be a good night. She had about seven hours left before the morning began and her life would take a significant turn. In those seven hours, she was going to find God. Not through her father. Not through a church.

  If there was a chance she was going to be facing God tomorrow morning, she wanted to face him as a friend. As a disciple. If possible, as a beloved daughter.

  While the world around her slept, Kayla went looking for the Father she had always wanted.

  And as promised in Jeremiah 29:13, as she sought Him with all her heart, she found Him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kayla stretched and sighed. It felt wonderful to be able to breathe without pain. Whatever that doctor had given her, it was good stuff. She almost pushed the nurses’ button and asked for more, but then held back. She had heard of people leaving the hospital addicted to their medication. Maybe she would wait till later in the morning, closer to lunchtime.

  Or at least an hour or so.

  Maybe ten minutes.

  Oh dear, was she addicted already?

  When Ryan’s boyishly hesitant face peered around the doorway, she sat upright. “Ryan! Come in. I’m so glad to see you!”

  His eyes had the look of a warrior facing a totally unexpected new opponent. He cautiously made his way into the room.

  “Sit here, please.” She patted a spot on her hospital bed. “I can’t get up without help. All these tubes — I think there are seventeen. I counted them last night, but they’re all mixed up together like spaghetti noodles, so I’m not really sure.”

  When he was within reach, she threw her arms around him.

  ****

  A hug was the last thing Ryan expected. He stiffened.

  She sat back and dropped her arms. “Oh, you’re upset with me. That’s understandable. I’m sorry for getting angry about the walkway. You didn’t even know what it was about, and even if you had, it wasn’t as big a deal as I was making it. Oh, Ryan, it feels so good to not hurt! And last night I stayed up reading my Bible, and I found out I wasn’t a disappointment to God! He isn’t like my dad. He’s… He’s love. I found this verse in Zephaniah — can you imagine having a name like Zephaniah? — that says He sings over me. You don’t sing over someone you’re disappointed in, or even someone you want to ignore.”

  “Ryan.” She grasped his shirt. “I get it. The walkway. My faith wasn’t something I could stand on.” She smiled, a joyous, beaming smile that left him stunned. “It is now.”

  Ryan had no idea what to do. Like a mannequin, he sat totally still, afraid of showing emotion in any direction and messing up the wonderful thing he thought was happening.

  Her radiant smile deflated. “I really am sorry, Ryan.” She was patting his shirt, like he was a puppy or something. Her movements were jittery. Had she just used her inhaler? “Will you forgive me, please?”

  Her eyes looked up at him, and he knew he was lost for good. It didn’t matter — angry, crying, overflowing with joy — his heart was so soaked up with this woman it was going to start leaking soon.

  “Of course, Kayla.” He felt totally inept. This was one of those moments he was supposed to say something important, like Laverne Bloom would put in her books, but his mind was a blank slate, except for the picture of her. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he finally said. It was beyond an understatement, but at least something had come out of his mouth.

  “I am.” She beamed. “Oh, Ryan, I am feeling better. Really better. This medicine is great.” She laughed and it almost hurt he enjoyed it so much. “I want to hug everybody.”

  He had a response for that. “Well, I’m here.”

  She laughed again and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back, at first carefully to avoid pulling out any tubes or wires, but once his arms were secure around her, he pulled tight. She sighed into him, and he buried his face into her neck, hiding away from the fear he had lived through the night before.

  “Oh my!”

  Aunt Lavender’s interruption startled them both apart so quickly, Ryan’s arm got entangled in several of Kayla’s tubes. As he gently pulled and twisted, trying to remedy the situation while also keeping his embarrassment at bay, the doctor entered, filling the room with his large presence.

  “She’s not a marionette,” he deadpanned.

  Ryan dared not glare at the doctor, so he glared at the tubes instead, focusing on unwinding himself even as Kayla giggled like a child at his consternation.

  “Good morning, Aunt Lav. Good morning, Doctor Bradley.” Her face was lit up like a birthday candle. “I feel so much better this morning. You saved my life. This medicine is wonderful. I’ll be able to go home soon, won’t I? And then the medicine will fix this disease thing, and then I can go back overseas, right?”

  Overseas? He had forgotten about that option. Just the thought of her walking out of his life again was about more than he could handle. Last night he was worried about her dying. Now it was her leaving. How much could a guy take?

  When Ryan stood and moved to look out the window, his back to the woman looking at the doctor with such hope in her eyes, he heard the doctor take his place at the side of Kayla’s bed.

  “Kayla.” His voice was not the booming, jovial sound from the night before. This morning’s tone was serious. Not foreboding, just lacking any levity. It made Ryan shudder. He stopped analyzing his feelings about her leaving and focused on the doctor’s words.

  “Remember all those tests we ran early this morning?”

  “Before breakfast? Yes, I was so hungry! They wouldn’t let me eat until they were done.”

  Again, her voice sounded like a happy child. Ryan was not sure he wanted to hear what the doctor said next.

  “I just read over all the results and studied your x-rays. I’m sorry, but we did not catch your illness in time. I need to talk with you about surgery.”

  Ryan kept his back turned, but he heard Kayla’s little squeak of disbelief. A machine somewhere started beeping faster.

  “But I feel so much better!”
<
br />   “I know.” At this point Ryan turned and saw the doctor nod. “That’s the massive doses of hydrocortisone you’re on. The medication is helping you, but it will not be enough to stop the process of illness you’re on right now. I need to do a thoracotomy.”

  When Kayla’s hands started fluttering, Ryan reached out to stop them, hold them still, but the doctor remained in what Ryan thought of as his seat next to her side. “What’s a thoracotomy?” he ground out.

  The doctor answered, keeping his eyes on Kayla. “I will be making an incision in your side, going in through your ribs, and scraping the infection from your lungs. While in there, we will also put in tubes to drain the fluid that has built up.”

  He pulled a pen from his pocket and tapped it on the clipboard in his lap. “Do you consent to having this surgery?” he asked.

  “What happens if I don’t?”

  The doctor’s mouth quirked. “You’ll die.”

  Ryan sucked in a breath, and took a step back, his balance off, when Kayla threw her head back and laughed. “Well, I guess that narrows my options a bit, doesn’t it? Hmm, let me think about it for a minute.”

  She tapped her chin, as if in thought, while Ryan gripped the nearest windowsill for support. How could she be laughing about this?

  “Yeah, I guess so,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “I’d like to stick around here awhile longer if the Lord doesn’t mind.”

  He wanted to tell the doctor and Laverne Bloom to leave the room so he could take Kayla in his arms and tell her how much he needed her to “stick around,” as she’d put it. That life would have a gaping, torturous hole if she was not in it. That he needed her.

  But once again, no one was asking what he needed. Kayla’s aunt held Kayla’s left hand as she prayed aloud. The doctor wrote instructions on his clipboard. Kayla herself had her head bowed and eyes closed, her face a reflection of a peace that passed all understanding.

  When the doctor stood, summoned a nurse, and began giving instructions about anesthesia, Ryan seized the moment and reclaimed his spot by her side. He took her right hand in his.

  As her aunt continued to pray, Kayla opened her eyes briefly and her gaze met his. She smiled, a smile he wanted to capture and hold forever. Then her eyes closed again, and out of respect for the Great Physician, whom he knew he would be beseeching on Kayla’s behalf for the rest of the day, Ryan, too, bowed his head, closed his eyes, and asked for help.

  ****

  When Ryan had to release her, as they wheeled her hospital bed into the hallway toward surgery, Kayla felt a moment of panic. The nurse had already hung some kind of tranquilizing drug to drip through her IV, relaxing her before the official anesthesia, but Kayla had yet to feel its effects.

  Her eyes searched for Ryan. Why wouldn’t they let him walk with her? For a moment she wondered why it mattered so much to her that he be there, but then her thoughts became fuzzy and such questions seemed insignificant. She just did, that was all. It did not matter why.

  Reaching for strength, she thought of the promise she had found in the wee hours of the morning in Isaiah 41:13. “For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’”

  Ryan’s hand had been strong, but not strong enough for what she now faced. She opened her right palm, and as her eyes closed in weariness, she asked her Heavenly Father to hold her hand.

  Kayla smiled as she closed her fingers. Now, whether she woke up in the hospital later that afternoon, or in Heaven, she was holding on to the hand that mattered, the hand of the One who loved her most.

  Just as she was falling asleep, giving in to the heaviness induced by the medication, she heard a bit of a shuffle from down the hallway. Her mind registered sounds, movements, then a face was above hers. Ryan’s?

  Her thoughts were foggy, but it felt like he bent over and kissed her forehead, running one hand down her cheek. And as her bed was wheeled away, she almost thought she heard, “I… love…” But the medication claimed her before she could hear the rest or decide if the voice really was his.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “It’s a nice idea, but it won’t work,” Elizabeth said matter-of-factly. The teen group had gathered at the church after school to pray for Kayla, and someone had suggested visiting her. “She’s recovering in ICU. They won’t let us in to visit until she’s out of ICU and on a regular floor.”

  “Well, there’s got to be something. Should we buy her flowers?”

  All eyes swiveled toward Joe. He shrugged, forcing both eyebrows down. “What? I just want to do something to say we care. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Jainey punched him lightly on the arm. “We do. We just didn’t expect anything like sending flowers to ever come out of your mouth.”

  “Maybe there’s more to me than you think.”

  Jainey’s smile was wistful. She rubbed the spot she had just punched. “Maybe there’s more to all of us than we think.”

  Karl jumped to his feet. “I’ve got it!” He threw his hands upward in a touchdown sign. “I’m a genius.”

  “Well, before you give yourself a medal, why don’t you tell us your idea?” Elizabeth said.

  “Remember when we took that little boy home the other day? You know, the kid with the frog?”

  Jainey held her nose. “That place was a hovel. The poor boy. How can anyone live that way?”

  “Let’s go fix up his house. That would make Miss Kayla way happier than flowers.”

  Jainey rose up and kissed him on the cheek. “You know, I think you’re right.” She grinned across the room. “Unless they were from Ryan, that is.”

  Ryan pretended not to hear that last part. “Great idea, Karl. I can pick up my tools from Aunt Lavender’s house, and we could head over there this afternoon.”

  Karl gave Ryan a fist bump. “Let’s do it, Dude.”

  Elizabeth nudged Jainey. “Did you notice he’s calling her ‘Aunt Lavender’ now?”

  They giggled, and Ryan did not even bother to feel embarrassed. There wasn’t any room for any extra feelings other than concern over Kayla and how she was doing. He had hounded the doctor and Laverne Bloom so much they had ordered him off the premises with the promise to call him every hour with an update.

  So far the only updates given were that she’d made it through the surgery, it was successful, and she was in a lot of pain. He thanked God for the first two, and was glad for an excuse to get to work on something to get his mind off the third.

  “Let’s get going, then. We’re wastin’ daylight.”

  Karl came to stand beside him. “Was that a quote from a movie or something? Who said that?”

  Ryan smiled. “A Knight in Shining Armor.”

  “What?”

  “It was really John Wayne.”

  Karl shook his head. “Dude, you’re weird sometimes, you know that?”

  Ryan chuckled. “It was a private joke.” He liked the idea of having a private joke with Kayla. In fact, he was starting to like the idea of a hundred private jokes, spread out over a lifetime.

  Only how was he supposed to tell her that if they wouldn’t let him in to see her? And even if they did, what could he say if she started talking about going back overseas? Was that really what she wanted?

  If it was, he knew for certain that wherever she went, she’d be taking his heart with her.

  ****

  “It was totally gross, Miss Kayla.” Karl was perched on the arm of the one chair in the hospital room. “That little boy’s house was like — like a pigpen or something. I’ve never seen a pigpen, but I bet that’s what one looks like.”

  Kayla laughed, but then wrapped both arms around her ribcage. “Don’t make me laugh, Karl. It hurts.”

  Karl’s eyes narrowed. “But I wasn’t joking. It was awful.”

  Elizabeth edged closer into the room and nodded. “It really was. I think Jose’s mom does drugs or something, because you could tell she never cleans the place, and when we came over
and offered to help, she didn’t even really respond.”

  “She just sort of waved us toward the kitchen. ‘Do whatever you do-gooders want,’ she said.” Jainey’s face contorted with disgust.

  “We fixed the broken-down steps, and Ryan rebuilt the door that somebody had knocked off — or kicked off — its hinges,” Joe added proudly.

  “You guys got the easy job. We had to clean out the nasty bathroom and kitchen.” Jainey shuddered. “There were huge cockroaches in the bathroom.”

  “Probably not as huge as the rat I saw in the kitchen,” Elizabeth added. “I’ve never seen a place so neglected. Poor little Jose. It’s no wonder he spends all his time outside.”

  Ryan wanted to tell the teens to go spend some time outside so he could have Kayla to himself. It was the first time they had allowed visitors to her room, and though his eyes had not moved from hers since the moment he’d entered the room, he had yet to get a word in.

  “Jose spends his time outside because his mother’s boyfriend won’t let him around when he and his friends come over.” Joe’s arms were crossed. “If you ask me, there’s something fishy about that.”

  “Yeah, like the fact that the mother is all out of it when we first came, but then a couple hours later, as we were finishing up, it’s like she wakes up and starts screaming at us?”

  Karl started mimicking the woman, “What are you doing in my house? What do you want? You think you can blackmail me by fixing things without my permission? I’m not giving you any money!”

  His shrieking brought in a slightly panicked nurse. “What is going on here?” She looked around. “This patient is only to have two visitors at a time. Not ten. And certainly not ten as loud as you all.”