“Of course not.” Cathy pinned Rick with a look. “You’re not helping matters.”
Rick looked as if she’d slapped him. “Excuse me for trying to help. Excuse me for coming home for a nice family meal. Excuse me for daring to open my mouth.”
Steve’s teeth came together. “Don’t talk to your mother that way, Rick.”
Rick threw up his hands. “What way?”
Steve heaved a loud sigh.
Rick got up. “I’m finished eating. Can I go?”
Cathy wondered how long it would be before she could get him back again. “I guess so.”
Rick got up and left the house, and Mark took off up the stairs. She heard his door close hard.
Annie and Tracy sat watching their faces, as if anxious for the next round.
“We need to talk about that door slamming,” Steve bit out.
“He wasn’t slamming it.” Cathy rubbed her face. “He just closed it too hard. Boys do that. They walk harder, open cabinets harder, close doors harder.”
“I used to be a boy.” Steve grabbed Tracy’s plate and dropped it hard in the sink. “I don’t do that.”
“Well, he’s still learning.” She gathered the rest of the plates and followed him to the sink. “You’re used to raising Tracy, and she doesn’t slam and make a lot of noise.”
“One time I slammed my door,” Tracy said, “and Daddy took it off the hinges for two weeks.”
“You didn’t slam it again, did you?” Steve pointed out.
Tracy grinned and shook her head.
Cathy followed him to the sink. “Please, Steve. Don’t do that to Mark. He’s had a rough year, and he came home to a changed family. I only want him to be comfortable here.”
“And I’m making him uncomfortable?”
“No, that’s not what I said. I just don’t want you coming down hard with the rules. Give him some adjustment time. He’s only sixteen. He’s not supposed to have his whole life mapped out already.”
Steve turned the water on full blast. “I’m not asking him to map it out. School is basic. You must agree with me on that.”
“It is basic,” she said, “but I can see where he’s coming from.
I can understand why he doesn’t want to go study with Brenda’s brood.”
Annie rounded up the glasses and took them to the counter. “If you ask me, he’s matured a lot since he got arrested. He’s had life experiences…not good ones. It’s got to be hard for him, coming back to his old life and everybody expecting him to be the same guy that went away. Only he’s a year older and a year wiser. And he’s a Christian now. And he just doesn’t quite know how to fit his new self back into the old skin. You know what Jesus said, about putting new wine into old wineskins?”
Cathy just stared at her daughter. “I’m not sure exactly what you just said, but I understand the concept.” She looked at Steve. “She may be right.”
“Well, if that’s true,” Steve said, “it only means he needs a little more guidance. That’s what we’re here for. Not just to throw him out in the world to make more mistakes.”
Annie folded her arms. “I’m just saying to cut him some slack. It’s got to be frustrating coming back with everything changed. I know it is for me.”
Cathy gaped at her. “Frustrating? Why?”
“Well, the house is different. The renovation changed everything. And you and Steve all chummy and romantic, like two peas in a pod, and before you were just dating…Rick gone and me getting ready for college in the fall…Tracy in your old bedroom. Mark was the youngest in the family when he left, and now Tracy is. The birth order has changed. I read all about that in an article.”
Steve wasn’t buying. “Amateur psychology notwithstanding, Mark Flaherty is still only sixteen. And if my parents had let me make my own decisions at sixteen, I’d be a fry cook alcoholic with children in every state.”
Cathy couldn’t picture it, but she didn’t tell him so. She was getting a headache and didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
CHAPTER
Five
When Cathy crossed the yard to Sylvia’s for the prayer time they had scheduled earlier, Tory and Brenda were already there, leaning against the kitchen counter as Sylvia bustled around making her favorite dip.
Tory, who seemed not to know what to do with her hands since Hannah wasn’t on her hip, munched on a carrot. “So she asks me if I want to work there part-time two mornings a week, helping with the six-to nine-year-olds.”
“You going to do it?” Brenda asked.
Cathy came and stood in the doorway, and Tory picked up the vegetable plate and thrust it at her. “Here. Eat.”
Cathy shook her head. “Can’t. We just had a family dinner. There were few survivors.”
Sylvia looked up from the dip. “Oh, no. You didn’t have a family squabble, did you?”
“Well, yeah…sort of. Long story.”
Brenda slid up onto the counter. “We’ve got time.”
Cathy grabbed a celery stick and bit into it. “But I want to hear what Tory decided.”
“Haven’t decided yet,” she said. “Part of me wants to do it, but the other part feels like I’d be neglecting Hannah. But Mary Ann thought it would be good for me to work with the older kids. She thought it would encourage me about the things that Hannah will eventually be able to do.”
Sylvia opened a jar of salsa and poured it into a bowl. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. And you know Hannah will be cared for. She’ll be right down the hall.”
“I’m thinking about it.” Tory took the vegetable plate and a bowl of chips to the living room, set them on the coffee table. Cathy followed with the dip, and Brenda brought the glasses.
Cathy plopped wearily down into an easy chair, and Tory and Brenda sat on the floor near the food. Sylvia came in, dusting her hands. “Okay, what am I forgetting?”
“Nothing,” Brenda said. “Come sit down.”
“Drinks!” Sylvia hurried back to the kitchen. “I forgot your drinks. Iced tea okay for everybody?”
The three agreed that it was, and she hurried back with a tray. “Now, that should do it.”
Cathy watched Sylvia as she sat down. Her face looked tight and preoccupied, and dark shadows beneath her eyes spoke of her fatigue. “Sylvia, are you sure you didn’t overdo it today?”
“I’m sure.” But as she said it, she averted her eyes.
“So what did you find out at the doctor?”
Sylvia’s smile faded. Pink blotches colored her neck. “Just a bad case of anemia. That’s what’s causing me to be so tired and weak.”
“What do they do for that?” Tory asked.
“Iron and vitamins. I’ll be all right in no time.”
Cathy laughed. “Well, what a relief! I was worried it was something more serious.”
Brenda looked as if she didn’t quite buy that diagnosis. “Are they sure that’s all?”
Sylvia grew quiet and looked down at her fingernails. “Well…not completely.”
Cathy sat up straighter. “What is it, Sylvia?”
Sylvia snapped her face back up, forcing a smile. “Well, you know how doctors are. If they’d stopped at the anemia, it would have been just fine with me. But no, they have to keep looking until they find something else.”
“What did they find?” Dread flattened Cathy’s voice.
Sylvia picked up her glass and a napkin, wiped the dampness off of it. “It’s probably nothing. I shouldn’t have even told you. I’m not worried about it in the least.”
Tory got off of the floor then and looked down at Sylvia. “And?”
“It’s just that they found a lump in my breast.”
“Oh, no.” Tory’s whispered words voiced what Cathy was thinking. But she told herself that it could be nothing. She’d had lumps in her own breasts, and they’d turned out to be nothing.
“Did you go for a mammogram?” Brenda asked.
“Sure did.” Sylvia sipped her drink. “It’s there,
all right. I saw it myself.”
“What are they going to do?” Brenda’s voice held steady.
“Well, tomorrow I’m going for a biopsy. I’m really optimistic, girls. I mean, just think about it. I’ve got so much work to do in Nicaragua. The children need me so badly, and Harry…” Her voice broke off, and she swallowed back her emotion. “I don’t believe the Lord would afflict me with breast cancer right now, so it’s not even something I’m worried about. I’m going to go for the biopsy, find out it’s benign, then go on back to my work. I refuse to worry about it until I get the results.”
“I had a lump in my breast once.” Brenda’s voice was too quiet to inspire confidence. “It turned out to be just a cyst. No big deal.”
Sylvia nodded. “See? That’s exactly what this is. I guarantee you.”
But Cathy wasn’t satisfied. “What did the radiologist say?”
Sylvia looked at her as if she’d been caught.
Cathy leaned her elbows on her knees and locked onto Sylvia’s face. “I know you talked to the radiologist. Harry knows every doctor in town, and if anyone would get personal attention it would be the wife of a cardiologist who worked in this town for twenty-five years. So what did the radiologist tell you?”
She shrugged. “He just showed me the lump, that’s all. There it was, smiling at us, right from the X ray. It was really very creepy.”
Cathy knew from her own experience with breast lumps that the doctor could tell a great deal from the mammogram. Cancer had specific shapes and characteristics…She knew he would have an opinion.
But Sylvia stuck to her story.
“He just set me up for a biopsy and that was it. Now who wants a piece of pie? I’d like to say I made it myself, but I just went by Kroger and picked it up. My sweet tooth was really acting up, and I figured I’d lost enough weight that I could stand to stuff a few calories into me. I also bought some red meat so I could start getting the iron back into my blood. I cooked myself filet mignon for dinner.”
Cathy looked from Tory to Brenda. They each had volumes written on their faces.
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Tory said.
“Me, either.” Cathy swallowed.
“Have you told Harry?” Brenda’s question mirrored Cathy’s thoughts.
Sylvia groaned. “I wish I could hold him off until I’ve gotten the biopsy back. But I guess there’s no chance of that, because he knows I went to the doctor today. I really, really hate to make him worry.”
“He’s a doctor,” Cathy said. “He can take it.”
“Trust me. He’s not that objective when it’s his own family. I’ll never forget when Sarah’s appendix ruptured. You would have thought it was his fault somehow, that he should have seen it and prevented it. He hovered over her in the hospital for days, worried sick.”
Sylvia got up and hurried to get the pie. “It looks good, girls. Sure you don’t want some?” she called from the kitchen.
Cathy looked at Brenda, saw the worry in her eyes.
Tory’s hand came up to her heart, and she sent a stricken look to both of them.
Sylvia fluttered back into the room with four slices. “You don’t have to eat it. But one bite and you’ll be a goner.”
She took a bite and closed her eyes. “Mmm. This is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” she said. “You girls don’t know what you’re missing. Cathy, come on and get a piece. Oh, I’ve missed American food.”
Cathy took a piece, just to make Sylvia feel better, but as she ate, she couldn’t help watching Sylvia and wondering what burden she hid behind her smile, refusing to share with them.
CHAPTER
Six
It was eight when they finished praying together. Brenda walked out with Tory and Cathy, and all three seemed lost in thought as they crossed Sylvia’s yard.
“She’s keeping something from us,” Cathy said. “I’m afraid the radiologist gave her some bad news.”
Brenda locked her eyes on Cathy’s face. “Would he really have been able to tell anything?”
“He could tell by the shape of the mass whether it looks like cancer. It’s not one hundred percent accurate, of course, and in some cases it’s nothing more than a guess, but it’s an educated guess, and I know he told her something.”
Brenda looked toward Sylvia’s house, wondering if her friend sat in there, struggling with the fear and anxiety that she refused to share with them. “Why wouldn’t she tell us?”
“Because she’s Sylvia,” Tory said. “She would think more of us than herself, and she wouldn’t want to worry us.”
Brenda felt helpless. “Wouldn’t you think she’d need to talk?”
“Sure she does,” Cathy said. “But she’s not going to. Not if it gets us upset.”
“Well, I hope she tells Harry.”
Cathy shook her head. “She’ll probably tell him as much as she told us. We really need to pray for her. And tomorrow, I’m going to close the clinic and go with her.”
Tory nodded. “Good idea. She doesn’t need to go through this alone.”
As Cathy headed back to her house and Tory back to hers, Brenda stepped across her yard. David’s light shone in the workshop, and she knew he was working late to make up for the time he’d lost working on the limousine. She opened the door and stepped in, smelling the scent of sawdust and lacquer. Her husband, with his red curly hair and freckled skin, stood over the cabinets he worked on, examining them with a critical eye.
“What do you think?” he said. “Is this my best work, or what?”
She ran her hand along the sandy wood. “I think your customer will be delirious.”
“I think so, too. Maybe one of these days I’ll make a set for us.”
She laughed. “I’m not holding my breath. You’ve got too much paying work.”
“Well, I can dream, can’t I?”
She sat on one of the counters, watching him crouch down to screw the hardware onto the doors. “I was just over at Sylvia’s.”
“Nice having her home, isn’t it? Too bad she can’t stay. When’s she planning to go back?”
“I don’t know. She had a little disturbing news.”
He looked up at her. “What was that?”
“They found a lump in her breast.”
David unfolded from his crouch and stood up. “Oh, no.”
“Yes. She’s acting all upbeat about it, like she’s not worried at all.”
“But you know better.”
“Yeah, I know better.” Brenda slid off her perch. “The doctor says her fatigue and weakness are caused by anemia. But it worries me a little, David.”
“Why?”
“Because if they’re wrong, and anemia is not the thing causing her fatigue and weakness, then maybe she does have cancer, and if it’s already affecting her that way, it could be really advanced.”
“You’re borrowing trouble,” he said. “Who was it that said today has enough trouble of its own?”
She smiled. “Jesus.”
“Oh.” He turned around and fiddled with the tools behind him, got what he needed, and squatted back down. “Never thought you’d hear me quoting the Bible, did you?”
She didn’t answer him. There was no point. “Well, I guess I’d better get inside and see if the kids did the dishes.”
He got up and pressed a kiss on her lips. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She laid her face against his chest, and he closed his arms around her. “I’m a little concerned, that’s all. But I’ll pray for her tonight, heavy-duty prayers. God will listen.”
He didn’t respond, just turned back to his work as Brenda left the building and walked across the grass to her house. She whispered a quiet prayer that she knew was familiar to God’s ears. “Take the veil from his eyes, Lord. Please help him to see.”
The fact that God did not answer immediately didn’t daunt her at all. He hadn’t for the many years that she’d been praying for David. She knew one day the prayer would be answ
ered. It had to be, in God’s timing. God had promised that anything she asked according to his will would be done. Saving David would glorify the Lord, so how could it not be in his will? There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. She only wished the Lord’s timing was more like her own.
CHAPTER
Seven
Later that night, Cathy found Mark sitting at his computer. She leaned in his doorway. “What are you doing?”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “He influences you too much.”
“What? Who does?”
“Steve.”
She sighed and pushed off from the doorway. “Of course he influences me. He’s my husband.”
Mark kept typing. “But he’s not always right. Sometimes he could be wrong, you know.”
She knocked some wadded clothes off the edge of his bed and sat down. “Mark, we’re a team now. We’re married. He’s my husband. He’s your stepfather.”
“But he’s not my real father.” Mark kept his eyes on the monitor. “I have one of those, and he happens to like my ideas.”
Again she restrained herself from making a deprecating comment about her ex-husband’s wisdom. “That’s fine, Mark, and we’ll look into it, okay? I just need some more information. We need to think this through and pray about it.”
“I have been praying about it,” he said. “I really have.”
“For how long?”
He finally turned away from the computer and faced her. “Since I’ve been home, okay? Since it’s gotten so close to school starting.” He got up and kicked his way through the clothes on his floor. He had only been home a week. She couldn’t imagine how he’d already accumulated so much laundry.
“I really do want to have a plan, Mom. But there he is, telling you what to think, what to do…and what I need to be doing. It’s just not right.”
“It is right,” she said. “Mark, he’s the head of this household now.”
Mark grunted. “The head of the household? Mom, it was just you before. You were the head of the household, and we did just fine.”
“That’s because I didn’t have a husband. But now that I do, he’s the leader.”
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