by Jane Peart
Three of them were completed, and everyone had praised her finished work. Of the two that remained to be done, the one that was causing her the most difficulty was the painting of the centurion. None of the sketches she had made of Evan were satisfactory. A reluctant model, after a few minutes he would demand, “Isn’t that enough? I need to stretch.”
The fact that he was self-conscious about posing was not the main problem. After all, Joy had sketched children who wiggled and moved with almost every breath. In her life classes at art school, they had worked with every sort of model, and she was good at getting quick likenesses. No, she concluded, the real problem was her own confused feelings about Evan.
Joy suspected that the hospital grapevine buzzed about the two of them. Nobody could have missed seeing them together in the cafeteria or leaving together, heading for Evan’s car. At the hospital, one person’s whisper became wild rumors.
Remembering Molly’s tactful questions about how her relationship with Evan might damage her own plans for the future, Joy knew she would have to make a decision before they got more deeply involved. She remembered again Molly’s advice to pray about it.
Joy procrastinated, almost knowing what the answer might be. However, trying another of Molly’s suggestions, she began to search her Bible. To her dismay she seemed to turn repeatedly to 2 Corinthians 6:14–15: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.…What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” She knew Evan did not share her faith. He tolerated her faith, perhaps even envied her a little for it; however, he really didn’t seem to think it was important. But it was. More important than even Joy had realized when she first went looking for life’s answers. Her faith had sustained her through many of the traumas of her early life—losing her mother, being without a real home, finding her own way in the world. Without that bedrock faith, none of the things she had accomplished would have been possible. The mural, for example. Especially the mural.
After one of these forays into Scripture, Joy would shut the Bible, knowing she was trying to find some support for her emotions, not real guidance. Giving up her relationship with Evan would not be easy. But more and more a part of her knew she had to do it. When and how she would tell him, she wasn’t sure.
While in this state of indecision, Joy found it harder and harder to go to the hospital each day to work on the mural. She also tried to avoid Evan. His presence was disturbing—it blurred her own clear-cut vision of her future. But how could she tell Evan? So she kept putting it off simply by juggling her routine. She started coming to the hospital at odd hours, during his office hours or at times when she knew Evan would be in surgery. Some days she found she could not work at all. She would make the attempt to start, then find she was too distracted, too tense, too conscious of the possibility that Evan would show up while she was still undecided about what to say or do.
One day she did not make her escape soon enough. Knowing he would be in surgery, she went in late. She had been working for about an hour when he suddenly appeared. He gave her a long, hard look, then said, “If I were the suspicious sort, I might think you’d been dodging me all week.”
Caught unprepared, Joy tightened the cap on the tube of ochre she was holding and replaced it in her paint box without answering.
“Well, am I wrong? Or have you been avoiding me?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean, ‘Not exactly’?”
When she didn’t reply, Evan went on. “I’ve come in here at different times all week looking for you.” He paused. Joy felt the rush of embarrassment warm her face. “It doesn’t look as if you’ve made much progress on the mural, either,” he continued. “Is there something wrong? Something I don’t know about? I check almost every day.”
Joy’s throat constricted painfully. “Evan, we need to talk.”
“Good. Let’s go for coffee.”
Once they were seated in the booth with their coffee, he demanded, “So what’s this all about?”
Joy had meant to lead up to it, but now she just blurted out, “I’ve come to a decision, Evan. I didn’t mean for us to get this involved—I don’t think we should see each other any more.”
He looked shocked, then grim. “Why not?”
“Well, it’s just that…your position and all, and my being here, people seeing us together. It just starts a lot of talk, and I don’t think…”
“Ah, that’s it! Afraid we’ll end up on the pages of one of those tabloids at the checkout counter?”
“Well, of course not. But I don’t like people talking about me.”
“Look, Joy, I’ve been around hospitals long enough to know that people will talk about anything they can find to talk about. It doesn’t mean anything. Soon something juicier comes along that they can discuss. A hospital grapevine is faster than any computer. Gossip is the fuel that runs the place—the hotter the item, the faster it travels.”
“Evan, I’m serious,” she started again.
“Okay, but I don’t think this is the time or place to discuss it. I have to be in a meeting in ten minutes. It can wait. Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
She began to shake her head.
He frowned. “I have surgery in the morning, so it will be an early evening. I’ll meet you at five, and we’ll go from here.”
Not waiting for her to refuse, Evan got up and with only a curt nod left the cafeteria, leaving Joy upset. She had not handled it well, not in the tactful, gentle way she had meant to— but when Evan was in a forceful, take-charge mode, there was no use trying to talk to him.
She rehearsed how she could explain it best without hurting him. She would just say that there wasn’t room for romance in her life right now, that she had long-held plans to go abroad, to study art…Joy sighed. Tonight she would try to do a better job of explaining.
With all her good intentions, when Joy attempted to bring up the subject that evening at dinner, Evan cut her off. “I don’t want to hear this, Joy. Don’t you understand that I love you? I want us to get married.”
Joy gasped. He had never mentioned marriage before.
“I know this isn’t the romantic way you would like it, nor even how I wanted to say it,” Evan continued briskly. “But surely you must have realized that my feelings for you go deeper than friendship?”
She shook her head. “Evan, I can’t marry you. I don’t plan to marry at all—at least for a long time. I want to paint and—”
He didn’t let her finish. “Of course. I know that, Joy. Getting married has nothing to do with that. You can go on painting.”
“Not the way I intend to paint. You don’t understand. To me, painting is not a hobby, not a pastime. I want to be really good. That takes work. Maybe years of work. And dedication. It has to come first. It means study, and I have so much to learn. With the money I earn from the mural, I plan to go to Europe. I may decide to stay there, if I can get apprenticed to an artist I admire or take classes. I understand you can live cheaply in Italy or France, and—”
“But Joy, darling, I can take you to Europe, to France, Italy, wherever.”
“No, Evan. I have to do this on my own.”
He looked at her for a long time, and she could not help but be aware of the tenderness in his gaze.
Finally he said, “Whether you think so or not, I do understand what you’re saying. I admire you tremendously—your drive, your ambition. Why should marriage interfere with the fact that I want to help you, support you?”
Joy felt a rush of gratitude for the love shining from his eyes. It was a love that was hard to resist. Evan only wanted to make things easier for her, help her attain her goals, maybe even sooner than she could alone. She felt herself weakening. Yet almost immediately she felt the nudge of her conscience. Unequally yoked. Evan had said nothing about sharing her faith. That would always be an unresolved issue between them. Sooner or later she would have to make a clean break of the relationship. If she stayed in it…She thought of G
inny Stratton and her affair. She remembered Ginny’s confiding, “I can’t seem to find the strength to break it off.” Joy had seen firsthand Ginny’s struggle, how her relationship had robbed her of her values. Joy suppressed a shudder. It could happen to her too.
Evan glanced at his wristwatch. “We can’t get into this tonight, Joy. I have early surgery tomorrow. All I can do is reassure you I would never do anything to interfere with your art career, what you want to do. I just want to be there to support you and help you reach your goals.”
“Evan, I know that and I appreciate it, but it just wouldn’t work—”
“Please, Joy, let’s wait to discuss this. I have to go to a medical conference in New Orleans at the end of the week. I want you to take the time to think this through, consider marrying me. I’m not trying to rush you or pressure you. I do love you.”
Resignedly Joy agreed that when Evan got back from New Orleans, they would have a long talk.
For the remainder of that week they only saw each other briefly at the hospital. It was a relief for Joy because she was still dealing with mixed emotions.
Evan Wallace was strong, caring, compassionate. What marriage to him could offer her was everything she had never known—security, devotion, financial freedom. It was all she had ever needed. But was it more than she wanted? She had worked hard to be independent, to build a career, to make it on her own. How could she be free if bound by love? All her thinking only made her more confused, more uncertain.
At those times she would leave the fourth floor and take the elevator to the ground-floor chapel. There she would slip into one of the pews and pray for guidance and the strength to follow it.
Was she being selfish to want to fulfill her own dreams? She truly believed God had placed in her heart this deep desire to be an artist. If she were to pursue it, weren’t marriage and a family out of the question, at least for years? Joy knew that Evan would not be willing to wait for years.
One morning as Joy was waiting for the elevator to take her up to fourth, she was surprised when the door opened and Ginny Stratton stepped off.
“Going off duty. I changed my shift,” Ginny explained. “I’m working nights now.”
Taken aback, Joy asked, “Do you like it better?”
Ginny made a comic face. “Well, I asked for it. It keeps me off the streets and out of singles bars,” she said flippantly. “Actually, it was self-preservation. Survival. Want to join me in the cafeteria, and I’ll tell you about it?”
Over coffee Ginny said, “I’ve stopped seeing Cliff.” Her tone was matter-of-fact but there was an edge to it. “To tell you the truth, you are more or less responsible for my doing it. Oh yes, you are. Or those panels. Maybe a combination of both. Mostly my own guilt about the relationship. Or as we used to say in the church I grew up in, ‘conviction of sin.’ I don’t use fancy words anymore to describe what I was doing. ‘Affair’ sounds so glamorous. But there was nothing glamorous about what we had. Sleazy is more like it. I finally woke up. I realized he was never going to divorce his wife. I was just a fling and there’d be others. Maybe there were even others while we were doing our thing.” Ginny shrugged.
Joy could hear the pain in Ginny’s voice under the bravado. “So how do you feel?”
“Rotten. Frankly, it’s been rough. But I knew I had to do it. I’ve had help. I’ve started going to church again, and through some people there I’ve found a great support group. I’m beginning to see there’s more to life than waiting for the phone to ring, arranging meetings, fitting into someone else’s time schedule.…It’ll be okay.” Ginny stood up, put on her jacket over her uniform, gathered up her bag. “And I want you to know, you’ve been an inspiration, Joy, so thank you.”
“Thank me? I had nothing to do with it. Jesus is the Healer,” Joy said, hoping that didn’t sound too sanctimonious.
Ginny smiled. “I know. Maybe you just reminded me.”
Joy went home deep in thought. Had meeting Ginny just now been merely happenstance, or was it divine coincidence?
Opening the front door to her apartment that evening, Joy heard her phone ringing. It was Evan.
“How is New Orleans?” she asked.
“Lonely.”
“Oh, Evan, come on. From what I’ve read, it’s a fabulous town. Fantastic food, entertainment—”
“Wild rumors. It’s a hotel room, a hamburger and milk via room service. Frustrating hours of trying to reach my girl by phone.”
Joy gripped the receiver. He’d said, “my girl.” Hadn’t he absorbed anything she had tried to tell him?
There was a pause, one that evidently Evan noticed, because he quickly said, “Listen, Joy, I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about us, and I want you to know I understand that you need your independence. But there’s something else that’s equally important, and I want you to give it some thought, okay?”
“And that is?”
“What we have found together is pretty rare in this crazy world—mutual trust, respect, honesty, friendship. And we should treat it carefully, not let it slip away by being afraid of what other people might say or suspect or imagine. We know who we are and what we’re all about. I don’t want to stop seeing you. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Evan, I—”
“Just promise you’ll think about what I’ve said, and when I get back we’ll talk about it. Promise?”
“I promise.”
When Joy hung up, she hoped that agreeing to further discussion about their relationship hadn’t given Evan false hope. Oh, why was everything so complicated?
It was easier to work on the panels without Evan’s presence. Loving though it was, it kept her from completely concentrating on her work. She suspended work on the centurion panel even though she had finally achieved some fine sketches of Evan that were usable in the scene she envisioned. So far she had only chalked in the figure of the Roman soldier. Gradually she came to the conclusion that until she had come to some definite resolution about the future of her relationship with Evan, it would be impossible to complete.
The portrait of Evan she envisioned was strong. It became fixed in her mind as the barrier between her and her artistic career goal. If she allowed him to smooth the way for her, it would rob her of her own satisfaction of accomplishment. She needed to prove something, if only to herself.
Joy wasn’t sure quite when it happened, but one morning she awoke with a new excitement, enthusiasm. Somewhere she had got a fresh insight into the unfinished panel of the centurion. She couldn’t wait to get to the hospital and work on it.
Like the centurion, Evan was a man of power, prestige, authority. He gave an order and nurses, interns, residents scrambled to carry it out without question. He was known to be demanding but fair, a man of character.
The figure she had chalked in was in a standing position, in full military regalia, his helmet under one arm, the other arm flung out as though discoursing. Now that pose didn’t seem right. Joy studied the panel, trying to imagine what was going through this proud Roman officer’s mind and heart. How he must have battled his own pride, thinking what his fellow officers, his comrades—hardened warriors, veterans of many campaigns for Caesar—might say if they knew he went to a Jewish faith healer to seek help for a favorite servant. Even though it must have been a struggle for the centurion, his affection for this young man must have been great for him to overcome his pride, risk his reputation, humble himself.
He had put aside all of his pride and gone, and of him it was written that Jesus said, “I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”
Suddenly Joy understood the man’s reason for doing it. He had come to an inner knowledge of who Jesus really was, that he was a man of greater power than his own. Someone who had command over life and death. A person to whom obeisance was due. Yes, that was it. The centurion would not have taken an arrogant, soldierly stance before Jesus. The posture was wrong.
She knew what the problem was. She opened he
r can of gesso, got out a wide-tipped brush, and began whiting out the figure as she had originally drawn it. That done, she went about setting up her palette and mixing the colors. With sure strokes she began to block in a new figure. This time it would be right. This time the centurion would be in a kneeling position.
Unaware of the passing hours, Joy painted, intently and with new confidence. She did not stop for lunch or anything else, and only when she noticed that the light had begun to fade did she glance at her watch and realize she had been working nonstop all day.
She sat back on her heels, surveying the panel with critical detachment. She knew she had painted an idealized version of the face, lending it an air of nobility and classic perfection. But the basic characteristics were Evan’s. Joy realized she had painted the face of the man she loved.
Part 2
chapter
16
THAT EVENING AS Joy left the hospital and walked outside, heavy gray clouds hung in the darkening sky. There was a bitter chill in the air. The revelation she had had in front of the centurion mural weighed upon her heart. If she loved Evan, what should she do about it?
Her mind was in a turmoil as she drove home, stopped at her mailbox, and picked up her mail. Her steps were slow as she went up the stairway, her thoughts troubled. Inside she put down her mail without looking through it and went right to the kitchen, put on the teakettle.
She knew that when Evan returned from the medical conference in New Orleans, he would expect some kind of answer. She dreaded that moment. How could she hide the truth from him in spite of her words of denial? Wouldn’t he see in her eyes the answer he wanted?