Healing Waters

by Nancy Rue

  No, I can’t pack up and leave my house for three months.

  No, I can’t take my husband back to Nashville where he can be with his lover.

  No, I can’t keep track of your meds and your appointments while some twenty-year-old fawns over him and I read about how faithless and fat I am.

  No, I can’t dump everything to do your bidding. Again. I can’t. I won’t.

  But my imagination wasn’t up for it. I only saw that little cherub face, heard that fragile voice saying, “Are you ever coming to my house?”

  “Yeah, Bethany,” I whispered. “I guess I am.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  As the cab drove me home to Havertown on Sunday, I wondered how the life I’d left there could possibly have gone on. Why were cars still pulling into the drive-through grocery at the Swiss Farm just as they always had? Why were people still standing in line at Rita’s Water Ice as they were on every sweltering summer day?

  I let my head fall against the window. Why shouldn’t they? Gutwrenching things had happened to my family, but I hadn’t changed at all. If I had, I wouldn’t be dropping everything to keep Sonia’s life afloat again.

  Actually, my mother did the asking the first time. How, she’d wanted to know, could I not abandon my nurse practitioner studies at the University of Pennsylvania and move to Hershey and take care of that baby while Sonia kept a vigil beside her husband? I could always go back to it, Mother said. Blake could never go back to a normal life—think about that, she said.

  Of course I thought about that. Sonia and Blake had been married only a few months when she called to tell me she was pregnant. That night I ate an entire package of Oreo cookies and threw them all up. I had never hated my sister in all the years I’d taken my place outside her spotlight, but I despised her then. She was starting the family I dreamed of.

  I had given up my childhood so she could star in life, and now she was stealing the one thing I could do. I’d never known her to give a flip about kids, and I vowed I wasn’t going to go to a half dozen baby showers or be her Lamaze coach or whatever else was asked of me. I dug into my nurse practitioner program and felt my mother’s anger and my sister’s disappointment and thought of myself for a change.

  Just six weeks before Bethany was born, Blake suffered a spinal injury in a snow skiing accident in Vermont. While Sonia gave birth on January 1, 2003, Blake lay in a coma at a Montpelier hospital three hundred miles away.

  To say that I almost suffocated in guilt was an understatement. On January 8, I left the NP program, put my career in obstetric nursing on hold, and moved to Hershey into the restored Victorian that Blake’s parents had given them as a wedding present. That afternoon, before my mother and sister left to fly to Blake’s bedside, Sonia put her newborn in my arms and said, “Take care of her, sorella. I don’t trust anyone else.”

  Within a week I was completely in love with that baby girl. I lived for the contented murmurs she made during her feedings . . . for the warmth of her cheek next to mine when I rocked her back to sleep at 2:00 AM . . . for the tiny smiles, at first tentative, then purposeful, as if she, too, were living for smiles, my smiles.

  Sonia was afraid to come home, afraid Blake would wake up in her absence. Mother was afraid to leave Sonia, who, she said, was like a piece of fragile glass at her husband’s side. So it was just me caring for Bethany for the three months before Blake died, and for two more while my sister nearly suffocated in her grief and my mother became her air supply. I almost died of a broken heart myself when Sonia said she was finally ready to take over parenting the baby, the tiny girl I considered mine.

  Sonia said Bethany cried a lot after I went back to Philadelphia. So did I.

  The cabbie pulled into my driveway and looked over his shoulder at me. “This it?” he said.

  One way or another, yes, this was it.

  Chip’s Saab wasn’t there. The yard was mowed, the boxwoods trimmed, the mailbox empty. Chip had said he’d take care of things. My mind leapt to the conclusion that he’d done it all to get affairs in order before he left me for good . . .

  Lucia Marie.

  Okay. No. I wouldn’t mention the Marnie thing.

  In the dining room the mail was arranged in tidy piles on the table, and the morning sun splashed cheerily onto the Oriental rug. The fringe looked combed.

  I finally made it to the kitchen and set my purse on the counter next to a pad filled with jottings in Chip’s unreadable handwriting. He might not be a doctor anymore, but he still wrote like one.

  On a piece of paper next to the pad, something was written in my cursive.

  paint bathroom

  put last layer on torte

  redo makeup

  call modeling agency—say NO

  shave legs

  tell Sonia I want my husband back

  The list I’d made the day of the crash. It had been smoothed out and weighted down at each corner with a coaster, as if someone had tried to preserve the normal life I couldn’t return to.

  “What modeling agency?”

  I jumped. Chip was suddenly beside me, smelling of musk and spearmint.

  “I’m sorry, babe,” Chip said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I shook that away. “I didn’t know you were home,” I said.

  “I didn’t know you were coming home.”

  I picked up a sponge and went after the counter. “Where’s your car?”

  “Loaned it to a buddy of mine.”

  Since when did Chip have “buddies”?

  He took the sponge from me and held my face in his hands. “Babe, why didn’t you tell me? I would have come to get you.”

  “I didn’t know myself.”

  “So how long are you here for?”

  I felt color flood my face.

  “I guess we’re even,” he said. “I didn’t tell you I quit working for Sonia. You didn’t tell me you were starting.”

  I folded my arms awkwardly. “How did you know?”

  “Marnie told me. She thought you’d already said something to me, so I didn’t act surprised. I didn’t want to make her feel bad.”

  My chest began to tear. “You’ve been talking to Marnie?”

  He shrugged. “I still care about those people, some of them. I wanted to keep up.”

  Don’t go there. Don’t get into this. But I said, “When did you see Marnie?”

  My voice shook, and I hated it—hated everything about my fat, pathetic self at the moment, but I couldn’t stop.

  “Did she come here?” I said.

  “Here? No. Babe, what are you talking about?”

  “Don’t play stupid with me!”

  Dear God, don’t let me do this.

  I headed for the living room and tried to press it back down. When I threw myself into my overstuffed paisley chair, Chip was over me, face taut.

  “It’s not what you think with Marnie,” he said. “And no, she didn’t come here. I went there.”

  “To her hotel?”

  “No! I met her in the cafeteria at the hospital when I brought your clothes. We talked on the phone until the day the board met. She was so upset, I went over there and bought her a cup of coffee.”

  “That sure sounds like what I think. When I see you with her, it looks like what I think. When you talk to her it sounds like what I think.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I didn’t want to hear his answer. But the tiny rip in my container of rancid stuff let it spurt out. Dear God, make me stop this. I wanted my blessed numbness back.

  “What? Lucia, what?” Chip said. “Talk to me.”

  I dug my fingernails into the arms of the chair.

  “Can you even answer a yes-or-no question?” He leaned over and pressed his hands onto mine, penning me in. “Just tell me—do you want us to work out, or don’t you?”

  I turned my face away from him. “Do you?”

  “That’s what I came back here for. That’s all I
thought about the whole time in Nashville.”

  “Really?” I said. “What about Marnie?”

  “Would you forget that!”

  I tried to heave myself out of the chair, but he pushed me back. I looked up at him, stunned, heart slamming.

  “I said it’s not what you think with Marnie. It’s not even worth going there. Let’s talk about the real issue—which is that Sonia wants you to become her twenty-four-hour nurse because she’s leaving here AMA.”

  “She doesn’t trust anybody else.”

  He hissed. “She can’t push anybody else around.”

  “Don’t.”

  “You’re going to end up like everybody else that works for her.”

  “I’m her sister.”

  “Is she going to pay you?”

  “Yes.”

  Chip looked down at me as if I were pitiful.

  “Let me up,” I said.

  I struggled to get to my feet and wrenched away when he went for my arm. He followed me into the kitchen, where I hurled open the refrigerator door and pulled out cheese and black olives.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “I’m cooking.”

  “You’re cooking.”

  “Mexican casserole.” I got the freezer open and snatched up a package of chicken breasts.

  “Lucia, stop.”

  I slammed the chicken onto the counter and let my hand freeze to it.

  “If you won’t talk, then just listen.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You talk.”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets, and with them went the anger and the hardness and the rest of what had become unrecognizable to me. I steeled myself against the old Chip that took its place.

  “The one thing I did do for myself in Nashville was think,” he said. “About us and how strong our relationship is.”

  Please. I dropped the package into the sink, but he put his hand over mine before I could turn the water on.

  “Just hear me out. You waited for me when I was at Bradford. You understood when I took the job with Sonia because she was the only one who would hire me. You even sounded happy that I was coming home, when I hadn’t called you for a month—like you knew I needed space. That’s a strong bond, Lucia.”

  I went for the chicken again, but he grabbed my shoulders and jerked me to face him.

  “Just take Sonia to Nashville, get her settled in, and come back. I’ll be here.”

  I turned back to the sink, but I couldn’t think of anything to do.

  “Sonia wants you to come too,” I said. “She says you can have your old job back. She said we can work on our relationship there.”

  Chip hissed through his teeth. “When you work for Sonia, you don’t work on anything else, trust me.”

  “That’s not what she said.”

  “She said what she wanted you to hear.” Chip shrugged. “It’s beside the point anyway. In the first place, if I move back in there, I’m going to have the state medical board looking over my shoulder every minute, making sure I’m not practicing.”

  “Did they do that before?”

  “They paid me one visit, but now she’s turning the place into her own personal hospital. They’ll be breathing down my neck.” He jerked his head. “And what am I going to do for her, anyway? She can’t think she’s going to continue her ministry now.”

  “Yeah, she does.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s convinced there’s going to be a miraculous healing, and she’s going to look exactly like she did before—after all her followers have a chance to participate in her recovery. She wants to go back out on the road now, mask and all.”

  I suddenly wanted to laugh. I felt like I was telling a joke I’d been dying to have the right audience for.

  But Chip didn’t reward me with a guffaw. “That doesn’t surprise me for a minute. Do you really know what it’s all about down there?”

  “You mean Bless Your Heart Ministries?”

  He did snicker then, and let the tension fade from his face. “You’ve got that right. It’s for All Ya’ll Who Sin and Fall. Some of it makes sense, but most of it I can’t buy into. That’s why I quit, and that’s why I can’t go back down to Nashville and be her gopher.” He shook his head. “Besides, I’m telling you, there isn’t going to be a need for any of that. Her ministry is done. The first time two thousand people go into unanimous shock at the sight of her, she’ll figure it out, if she gets that far.”

  “She thinks she’s going to.”

  “I doubt Egan Ladd will even arrange an event for her. Two bits he has somebody in mind to take her place already.” He pulled in air, audibly, through his nostrils. “It’s all a moot point anyway. I have another job.”

  I stared.

  “Friend of mine offered me a position in his firm, selling medical equipment. At least gets me close to my field.”

  “Okay.” Suddenly we were in a different minefield, one I wasn’t prepared for. I picked my way carefully. “Do I know this person?”

  “His name’s Kent Mussen.” He tossed out a nonchalant hand. “You cross paths with a lot of people in medicine. I ran into him again the other day, and he said he’d give me a break.”

  I splashed the water over the package and watched the frost wash away. I didn’t ask how long he thought it would be before he “ran into” some other doctor who didn’t want him anywhere near his place of business.

  I felt Chip’s hands on my shoulders.

  “We’re on our way to starting over, Lucia,” he said. “Just because Sonia’s life has been shattered doesn’t mean ours has to be.”

  I turned off the water and dried my hands, finger by finger, on a paper towel.

  “What?” Chip leaned on the counter so I had to look at him. “I know you’ve got something to say. Just say it.”

  I took in a breath. “What about Bethany’s life?” I said.

  He winced. “I heard about that. I also heard you were wonderful with her.”

  I looked into the sink. “Sonia wants me to help Bethany get through this. You should have seen her.”

  “I have seen her.”

  “Then you know how much she needs—”

  “She needs somebody, that’s true.”

  “She needs me.”

  I kept my eyes on the stupid chicken and hated myself again. What the Sam Hill was I going to do if he just flat out said no? Could I see myself walking away from him, just when he was finally trying to put us back together?

  Or could I see myself walking away from that little cherub face?

  “All right, how about this?” Chip said. “You go to Nashville and take care of your family until Sonia finds a decent nanny and comes to her senses about this ministry thing.” He nudged me. “How long would you say this ‘miracle’ is going to take?”

  I looked up at him. His eyes were love-filled. Who was he, and what had he done with the Chip I’d known for the past three years?

  “What do you say we give it a month?” he said. “I’ll get adjusted to my new job, keep things going here. I haven’t done so bad so far. The only thing I didn’t do is shop for food.”

  Could it happen? Could we finally put the trash of our lives out on the curb and it would go away, and not come back smelling worse?

  Should I fight it or believe it?

  I realized I didn’t have the strength to do either.

  “I need onions,” I said.

  I heard him take in air again. “Can I take that as a yes?”

  “You can take it as an I-guess-so.”

  “That’ll work for now.” He took another deep breath before he said, “Let me go to Swiss Farm for your onions.”

  “Get some tomatoes too,” I said, “and sour cream.”

  He reached for the pad, then stopped, fingers on my old list.

  “What modeling agency, Lucia?”

  I ripped into the chicken package. “El Large.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. They say, ‘We put more o
f our models in the picture.’ They wanted me to model plus-size scrubs.”

  “No kidding. How did they get your name?”

  “Evidently somebody contacted them and told them I had a ‘really pretty face.’ ”

  His arms, his big-bear arms, went around me from behind. “You do, babe. And about that last item.” He squeezed tighter. “Sonia never had your husband. Neither did Marnie. I’m yours.”

  When he left, I crumpled the list and tossed it into the trash can and started a new one:

  • make Mexican casserole

  • tell Sonia she has me for one month

  • hope for a miracle

  Then I scratched out the last item and began to shred the cheese.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sully pulled the Buick into what he was convinced was the last parking space in the city of Nashville. He didn’t remember so much traffic here ten years ago. Driving down Broadway in Porphyria’s land yacht was like trying to part the Red Sea. He’d turned off before he got to the blocks with the souvenir shops and the bars and the live music venues, but even Fifth Avenue and Demonbreun, formerly a nothing corner, was a clogged artery.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” he commented to his reflection in the side window as he locked the doors and pawed in his pocket for an exorbitant ten to stuff into the slot, before he saw that the machine now took credit cards.

  As he walked around the corner onto Demonbreun Street, the new version of the Country Music Hall of Fame overshadowed him on his right, just as the Sommet Center, which had only been a planned-for arena in his day, did on the left. Ahead, what looked like a condo building at least twenty stories high was going up—in a neighborhood where no one used to dare walk, much less live, after dark.

  Sully turned onto Fourth Avenue and undid the three buttons on his polo shirt. Holy crow, it was hot down here. He was born and raised in Alabama, but he’d spent enough time out west and even in the Smokies to forget that summers in the South made him feel like he was walking through a pillow.

  He shielded his eyes with his hand to read the stone lettering on the massive Greek classical building he passed on the right. The Schermerhorn Symphony Center. When he’d left Nashville, the music scene had been all about Garth Brooks and Vince Gill and Reba McEntire. Almost nothing he’d seen so far was the same Music City he’d known as a student. Even the Shelby Street Bridge he headed for was now only for pedestrians, Porphyria had told him. He could spend all the time he wanted on it.