Puzzle House

by Duncan, Lillian;

  He looked at her. “Wanna go?”

  Nia shrugged. “I guess. It’s not like I got anything else to do.”

  “Great but I have to warn you about something.” He looped his arm through hers. “No pity parties allowed in my car.”

  She pulled away.

  “Come on.” He snagged her arm again. “I was just kidding. I really would like some company.”

  *

  “So how long have you been coming to Puzzle House?” Nia asked as they drove along the rural road.

  “This is my fifth year. I come every year for a few weeks in the summer.”

  “Don’t you get bored? There’s nothing to do.”

  “Nothing to do? Are you kidding me? There’s horses and the other animals. And fishing. And swimming.”

  “Like I said, nothing to do.”

  “OK, city girl. What kind of things do you do in the big city?”

  “Well, not a whole lot these days.”

  He wiggled a finger at her. “No pity parties allowed. Remember, city girl?”

  She laughed. “Fine, country boy. Let’s see. I like to go to the mall with my friends.”

  “Of course.”

  “Sometimes we go to concerts. Free ones and sometimes Auntie even gives me money for a real concert.”

  “The mall and concerts.” He made a face. “So far I’m not hearing anything I like. Now if it were up to me I’d go to every museum in the city.”

  “Museums? Why?”

  “Why? Are you kidding me? There’s so much amazing art out there.”

  “If you say so.” She sighed theatrically. “I have something else I like to do but…”

  “But what?”

  “It’s sort of a secret.”

  Still holding the wheel with one hand, he rubbed both hands together. “I love secrets.”

  “Keep your hands on the wheel, country boy.”

  “So what’s the secret? I bet it’s a good one.”

  She laughed. “Not really. I—”

  “Wait. Wait. Let me guess.”

  “You’ll never guess, but go ahead.”

  “Don’t call me a goat head.”

  “I didn’t.” She laughed. “Oh. I just got it. Go Ahead. Goat Head. I guess that’s country boy humor.”

  “It made you laugh. Let’s see. How about the zoo?”

  “No.”

  “It’s museums, right? You’re an art lover just like me.”

  “Boring.”

  “Churches. You go around the city and visit all the beautiful churches.”

  “No, but that’s a good idea.”

  “Mmm…let me think. Can I see your hand?” He ran his index finger down her palm.

  She didn’t move or breathe.

  “You have long graceful fingers. Beautiful, in fact. I’ll take a guess and say….music. You either play the piano or the guitar.”

  “I can’t believe you figured it out.”

  “The fingers. Dead giveaway. They were made to make music.”

  “I don’t know about all that.”

  “So which is it? The piano or the guitar?”

  “Both, actually.” She took her hand back.

  “What kind of music?”

  “All kinds actually. Before I got too sick I was listening and trying to play some of the classical music. But I’m not very good at it.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Don’t see how that’ll happen. Since I don’t play anymore.”

  “No pity parties, city girl.”

  She tossed her head. “It’s not a pity party, just a statement of fact.”

  “I don’t know. It sounded awfully close to a pity party.”

  “You know you really could have a little more sympathy for the sick girl.”

  “No way. You can get that from everyone else. Not me. I don’t have time for pity parties. And they don’t help anyway. Believe me, I know.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He pulled into a grocery store and put the car in park. His soft blue eyes were filled with sadness, but then he smiled. “Do you think you’re the only one who has problems?” He opened his door.

  “Hold on, country boy. What are you saying? That you’re sick too?”

  He shrugged. “I’m saying everyone has problems. We can let them dictate how we live or we can keep our eyes on Jesus. Now, let’s go. We’ve got things to do and people to see.”

  He slammed the door shut before she ask another question. A moment later he opened her door. Wow. No one had ever done that for her before. He held out a hand and smiled.

  Nia put her hand in his and grinned.

  4

  The next morning Nia walked in just as the bread popped up from the toaster. Rachel placed the toast on a plate and put it in front of her. “Want some eggs to go with it?”

  “No, I don’t eat much in the morning. It makes me kind of sick.”

  She did look sick, her eyes were dull and her face pale. Rachel’s heart went out to her.

  Nia picked up a glass of orange juice. “Is this for me?”

  “Sure.”

  After taking a drink, she smiled. “Wow. That’s the best orange juice I ever had.”

  “It’s fresh-squeezed.”

  “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Well Annie left last night after you went up to bed. And Brandon’s around somewhere. Not quite sure what he’s up to today. So it’s just the two of us. Which is good. I wanted to spend some time helping you with your puzzle.”

  “Do you mean my puzzle for real, or my life puzzle?”

  Rachel smiled. “Maybe a little of both.”

  After eating they walked to the puzzle room together.

  Rachel used her cane.

  “Why do you need that?”

  “The brain tumors messed up my hearing and my balance.”

  “If you’re a healer, you should be able to heal yourself. Right?”

  “I wish, but it didn’t work out that way. Do you remember what Jesus asked me?”

  “Not really. By then I was getting mad at you. I wasn’t really listening.”

  “He gave me a choice. To be healed or to be a healer? I made the choice to be a healer which apparently meant that I had to live with the consequences of my brain tumors.”

  I think you shoulda picked to be healed.”

  “At the time I didn’t even know I had brain tumors. And even when I learned about them, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. At first.”

  “So was that true? They wasn’t no big deal.”

  “Oh no, I was very, very wrong about that. They were a big deal.” She raised her arms separating them as far as they could go, her cane waving in the air. “Huge deal. They completely changed my life. And not necessarily in a good way. It’s been a long time but I still struggle with the aftereffects of them.”

  “Like not walking real good?”

  “Among other things.”

  “But they were benign. So how bad could they be? It’s not like you had cancer like me.”

  “That’s very true and I wouldn’t ever say what I had was as bad as cancer. But really, when it comes to being ill or sick or having a condition, it’s not fair to compare one to the other. When you don’t feel good, you don’t feel good.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” It made her think of Brandon the country boy. What was his problem? He looked healthy enough so it must be something else. Probably family problems. She thought of asking Rachel but had a feeling the woman wouldn’t tell her.

  “Can you keep a secret?” Rachel whispered, as she looked around.

  “Sure.”

  “I really learned to hate that word. Benign. Everyone kept telling me. Aren’t you lucky that they’re benign? I’d smile and agree, but inside I wanted to scream at them. Look at me. Look at my problems. Look at what I can’t do anymore. I knew they meant well, but it was a bit of an irritation at the time. And yet I knew they were right. It could have been lots
worse, but still, it made me sort of mad.”

  “Yea, a lot worse. So what else did the tumors do to you?” She touched Rachel’s cane.

  Rachel lifted up her hair to reveal a hearing aid. “I lost all my hearing in one ear and some in the other. That’s why if I say something that doesn’t make sense, it’s probably because I heard it wrong.”

  “Oh, I thought it was because you’re a crazy white lady.” Nia grinned. “No offense.”

  Rachel chuckled. “None taken.”

  “So I guess Jesus meant it when He told you to pick one or the other, huh? You’d think He’d want you to be really healthy so you could go around healing everyone.”

  “I would have liked that to happen, but there were things I needed to learn. And I probably wouldn’t have learned them if I’d stayed healthy.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Compassion. Understanding what it really means to someone when they’re very sick. How it affects every part of their life.” Rachel sat down at Nia’s puzzle table. “Want to hear a little more about it?”

  Nia nodded as she sat down.

  “Like you, I thought to myself, Jesus made me a healer so I should be able to heal myself. But that’s not how it happened.”

  *

  There was nothing in the rule book that said she couldn’t heal herself. Not that she’d found the rule book yet, but she knew she’d figure it out. Sooner or later. After all Jesus had promised her she would be a healer. That was the only thing she was sure of.

  There wasn’t a whole lot of information available about neurofibromatosis. What she could find didn’t sound good. But the doctor’s visit the day before hadn’t been all gloom and doom. He’d been quite hopeful. In the grand scheme of things, the NF2 hadn’t sounded all that bad. Still after all she’d read the past few days, she wanted to go curl up and cry. A lot.

  Cooper would tell her to stop focusing on the negative and look on the bright side.

  Thanks to the accident, they’d found the tumors early. Hopefully, that meant they wouldn’t cause all the problems she’d been reading about.

  Of course, Cooper wasn’t the one with tumors in his head.

  She was scheduled for her first treatment in two weeks. They called it Gamma Knife surgery—it didn’t involve a knife or surgery at all, but was a type of radiation treatment.

  She’d wanted them to do both sides at once, but apparently that was a big no-no.

  “Not happening.” The doctor had said. He’d refused to even discuss the possibility. One treatment now, then in a year they’d talk about the second treatment. That seemed overcautious, but he was the doctor.

  Still she wanted to get it over with so she could get back to her life. And to healing other people.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it, hon. It’s probably Dan,” she called out to Cooper in his own office upstairs.

  Her boss had called and asked to stop by. Besides checking on her, he was probably worried about how her health would impact her job.

  She would have been in his place.

  “OK.” Cooper’s disembodied voice floated down.

  Rachel opened the door.

  Dan stood in front of a backdrop of sunshine, the first they’d had in weeks. Winter was gloomy in Ohio. It was hard to get used to.

  Seeing the light reminded her of Jesus. Suddenly she was overwhelmed by the whole hospital experience once again. Her cheek tingled where Jesus had held her face in his hands. Tears filled her eyes.

  “Everything OK?” Dan’s voice brought her back to earth.

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry. The sun blinded me.”

  “Yeah, not something we’re used to seeing at this time of the year.”

  “I don’t know how you people stand it. Come on in.”

  “You people? Well, you’re one of us now. So you’ll learn to live with it too. How are you feeling?” He unbuttoned his coat.

  She took the coat. “Are you being polite or do you want to know the truth?”

  “The truth. That’s why I’m here.”

  She hadn’t decided just how much she would tell him. There was no way of knowing his religious beliefs. Religion had no place in the workplace these days. “Let me hang this up, then I’ll get us some coffee.”

  Cooper bounded down the steps. “I’ll get the coffee, hon. You sit down and rest.”

  She smiled at Dan. “He’s been like this since I got home from the hospital. I think he’s more worried about my tumors than I am.”

  “That’s not surprising. I’d be the same way with Claudia. Plus you did get hit by a truck. I can’t believe you weren’t seriously hurt.”

  “It was definitely a miracle.” She motioned him toward the living room.

  They sat down.

  “Well, I’m not sure how I am. Still a little shocked by the whole thing. I don’t feel as if there’s anything wrong with me.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “I guess but it sort of makes it seem not quite real. I’ll have my first treatment in a few weeks and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, I plan to come back to work until then, take a few days off after the treatment and then back to work the following Monday.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “I don’t see why not. The doctor said there wouldn’t be any reason why I couldn’t. But there’s something else I want to talk to you about.”

  He nodded.

  “I saw Jesus when I was in the coma. He talked with me. He touched me.”

  “Jesus?” His eyes widened and his voice filled with skepticism. “It was probably a dream, Rachel. I don’t really put much stock in those near-death experiences.”

  “I never did either. Until now.” She’d suspected this might be his reaction. “But you do believe they’re possible, right?”

  “Lots of people have had them, I guess. But then again I’ve never had one so what do I know. I’ve even read some scientific explanations for them. Something to do with some chemicals in the brain.”

  Seeing Jesus hadn’t happened because of some chemical in her brain. It had been real. She leaned forward. “Not only did I talk with Jesus, but he gave me a gift while I was in my coma.”

  “I didn’t hear anybody call it a coma, they said you were unconscious.”

  “OK, unconscious. Anyway, Jesus and I took a walk while I wasn’t awake. Whatever you want to call it. And when I woke up, I knew things I had no way of knowing.”

  “Like what?” A spark of interest was in Dan’s eyes.

  “I knew what the one doctor looked like who worked on me in the emergency room. And that I’d had an MRI and what color the technician’s hair was.”

  “Interesting. I still can’t say I really believe it.”

  “What’s interesting?” Cooper asked as he walked in with a tray of cookies and mugs. He set the tray on the coffee table then sat beside Rachel.

  “She was telling me about how she knew things when she woke up. And her visit with Jesus.”

  “Unbelievable, huh?”

  “Don’t tell me you believe it, Cooper?”

  “Of course, I do. We’ve talked about it several times. I never get tired of hearing about it. I’m a little jealous.”

  “You really believe her? That she talked with Jesus?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Dan leaned forward and picked up a chocolate chip cookie, avoiding her gaze. Clearly he was uncomfortable with the topic. “I’m sure she dreamt it. But that’s about as far as I’ll go. Real or not real. I have no way of knowing that.”

  “I can understand that but it’s really a matter of faith. God is a supernatural God. That means he can do supernatural things. Even when we don’t understand them.” Cooper smiled.

  “You make the best cookies, Cooper.” Dan took a bite with a look towards Rachel. “You’re a lucky woman.”

  “More than you know. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. He’s a great cook. And he loves doing it. He’s such a blessing
from God. And I tell him and everyone who’ll listen to me every chance I get.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Also, when you have a visit from Jesus it changes everything. Everything includes my job.”

  “Are you saying that you’re quitting?”

  “Not at all, but I wanted you to be aware that I’m a different person now than I was a few weeks ago.”

  “You look the same to me.”

  “Jesus told me I could be healed or be a healer. At the time I had no idea what he meant because he assured me that I wouldn’t have any long-term injuries from the accident. Of course now, I know he was talking about the tumors.”

  “You really believe if you’d chosen to be healed, you’d be all right now?”

  “Absolutely. Without a doubt.”

  “Then you must really regret your decision, huh?”

  “Not at all. I always wanted to help sick people. I don’t regret my decision. I’d do it again if given the choice. I’m not quite sure how it’ll affect me yet. I just wanted to share my experience with you.”

  “I’m not sure what you want me to say, Rachel. Are you sure you’re not resigning your position? I don’t see how you’ll have the time to heal people and do your job.”

  “I don’t know how either. But God will work it out. And I have no plans to quit at this point. I just thought you should know I’m not the same person I was before.”

  “Well, you’ll be fine after your treatment. Take all the time you need to recuperate. Your job will be waiting. You did a great job with the conference, by the way. Reverend Smith was impressed. He said he couldn’t wait until next year’s conference.”

  “I’m not worried about my job. I just needed you to be aware that…” She stopped. “I just needed you to understand that I saw Jesus. Talked with Him. And that it was utterly amazing.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it’s not every day someone has a sit-down with the Big Guy.”

  “Actually we didn’t sit at all. We walked, well, more like floated around the hospital. Do you want to hear about it?”

  “I’m sure it was wonderful and as long as it doesn’t affect your job, it doesn’t matter to me.” After a few more pleasantries, he left.

  “I thought he’d be more impressed.” Rachel was disappointed.

  “Well, not everyone has the same beliefs we do.”