by Heaton, Lisa
Just after Christmas, Chelsea took the girls to Montana to see Louise and Claude. Claude had recently had another mild heart attack, preventing them from traveling to Oklahoma to see the girls. So they had a late Christmas celebration together. As much as she anticipated the trip making her sad, instead, Chelsea found that it was comforting to be there. The girls slept together in the room she stayed in when she and John were dating. She stayed in his room, the room they shared when they traveled there after they married.
His bed was full of sweet memories. At the time, Chelsea was amused by how much John liked making love to her in his double bed. He would tell her how often he wished he had a beautiful young girl in his bed with him as he was growing up. Finally he did. She was young all right, he would remind her. Such memories of him made her feel warm and loved, as if he were present with her in those moments.
Once, Chelsea stood in the middle of the hallway, all alone, listening to his voice in her head as he told her, “The hall is international waters. We’re safe here.”
She giggled as she recalled him suddenly warning her that a teenage boy lived just across the hall. There were no regrets. She made him just as happy as he had made her. In a way, God gave John a do-over. All the goodness of life he had forfeited in his pursuit of enough was offered to him again. God gave John the opportunity to experience young and exciting love. Such kindness by the Lord extended to her precious husband was a small reminder of why He was originally her First Love. It was a piece of what she had given up restored.
That was what she was watching for, those little pieces that she could tuck back into her empty heart, those reminders of Who God really was. Most days, He gave her something to grab onto.
Winter passed by surprisingly quickly, and spring finally arrived. Already the gray skies of winter became a distant memory. Because of the milder weather, the girls spent many afternoons playing in the back yard. This day, they were out back while Chelsea watched from the kitchen window. A knock on the door prompted Chelsea to call through the window and ask Lucy to keep an eye on Sara Beth.
When she answered the door, Chelsea found a young woman waiting, a woman about her age. The woman stood and stared, as if she were scared to speak.
Finally Chelsea asked, “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mrs. Keller,” Caroline stammered.
Caroline felt a bit nauseous and regretted coming. All of a sudden, this didn’t seem like such a good idea. She should have just called as her husband suggested.
“That would be me.”
Noting that the woman who answered the door was her age, Caroline smiled. “I think I’m looking for your mom.”
Chelsea thought for a second. “My mom is at work, and I’m the only Mrs. Keller. She is Mrs. Whittaker.”
“You were married to John Keller then?”
Chelsea felt a little light-headed at the sound of John’s name. Thoughtfully, glad for any opportunity to say his name, she said, “Yes, I am married to John.”
Looking more intently at the woman, suddenly a bit suspicious, Chelsea asked, “And who are you?”
“I’m Caroline Jenkins. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought Mr. Keller was older, I just assumed…” She trailed off, embarrassed.
Chelsea smiled softly, seeing that the woman was so flustered.
“Yes, he was much older.”
Caroline sighed, feeling a bit of relief from her embarrassment. Having never exactly decided how to begin with Mrs. Keller, she blurted out, “I’m here to thank you. To let you know who I am and how much your gift meant to me.”
“What gift?”
“Paying for my heart transplant. I wouldn’t have lived much longer without it.”
Tears sprang to Chelsea’s eyes. John had paid for this woman’s transplant and never told her. How like him. Inviting her in, Chelsea led Caroline to the kitchen so that she could keep an eye on the girls.
They sat at the kitchen table and Chelsea offered her some tea. While placing Caroline’s tea before her, she asked, “So, I take it you are doing well after your surgery?”
A surge of jealousy rose up in Chelsea’s heart as she wished John had been so fortunate.
“Yes. It’s been nearly a year, and I’m doing exceptionally well.”
Caroline quickly tried to minimize her enthusiasm. Considering the circumstances, her gain was Chelsea’s loss.
“If not for your husband’s sacrifice…” As always, the thought of what Mr. Keller had done brought tears to her eyes, and Caroline found that she couldn’t finish.
Chelsea looked at Caroline, curious. “Sacrifice?”
Nodding, suspecting for the first time that Chelsea didn’t know of John’s actions, Caroline said, “Because he removed himself from the list, I was given the heart that should have gone to him. And then he paid for my operation. We would have gone bankrupt if he hadn’t.”
Chelsea blinked rapidly, trying to allow Caroline’s words to sink in. Before she could fully process what the woman was actually saying, Caroline had pulled out photos of her three little girls.
“I want you to see my family.”
Chelsea stood. “I didn’t know anything about this.”
Walking to the window, she looked out at her little girls who had lost a father and a step-father. She didn’t want to look at photos of the girls who had a mother at John’s expense. Without turning back to Caroline, Chelsea suggested, “I think maybe you should go now.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”
Quickly Caroline gathered her photos and moved toward the front door.
Chelsea stood motionless, considering the implications of what Caroline said. John gave up. He was offered a heart but refused it. Reaching for her phone, she dialed John’s cardiologist and left a message. It would likely be hours before she heard back from him. Until then, she would have to wonder how it came to be that John’s heart was given to another. Maybe it wasn’t a close enough match. Why hadn’t John told her?
Just before dinner Tuck arrived to pick up Lucy. It was an unusually early day for him. When he arrived and knocked on the front door, he was surprised that Lucy was the one to open the door. She already had her backpack slung over her shoulder.
“Hey, Lucy. I was expecting your mom.”
Lucy walked out onto the front porch, saying, “She’s not feeling well. Granny Gail came to get Sara Beth. I was waiting for you.”
“Should I go in and check on her?”
“No, I don’t think so. When she got off the phone a little while ago, she went to bed. Her head is hurting.”
Tuck walked with Lucy to the driveway, still hesitant to leave. As she climbed up into the cab of the truck, he asked, “You sure I shouldn’t see if she needs anything?”
“I think she wants to be alone. That’s why she called for Granny Gail to get Sara B.”
Chelsea was curled up in the bed, wishing she had never opened the door for Caroline. After speaking with the doctor, everything she believed disintegrated; the volatile pieces of her new life were suddenly shattered. It was exactly as Caroline had suggested. John refused the heart. Once he was notified that the heart was available, he pressured the doctor to find out who was next on the list. As much as the doctor told John that he wasn’t allowed to share such information, John somehow talked him into finding out. When John discovered it was a young mom, he said he couldn’t take the heart knowing she may never get one.
As much as Chelsea wanted to admire such a selfless act, she couldn’t. All she felt was this intense and unbearable anger. He left her when he could have stayed. That changed everything about his death. Instead of looking back, viewing their last months as if they were waiting for something that never came, she instead realized that he had passed up his opportunity to stay with her. Certainly she didn’t want Caroline to have died, but John left a y
oung child fatherless. How could he do such a thing? He left her a widow. After once suffering as a widower himself, how could he make a choice that left her alone to raise their child?
With this newfound revelation came grief deeper and more penetrating than Chelsea had yet to experience. She didn’t lose a husband who fought until the end; he left her willingly. That word willingly echoed in her mind. It was up to him and he chose to leave her.
As Bob rode into town, he felt more unsettled than he could ever remember. He had tried Chelsea’s number several times, but she wasn’t answering. Gail had the afternoon off and had picked up Sara Beth just after lunch. They assumed Chelsea would run errands or do whatever she needed without a toddler tagging along. That wasn’t the case. The call he received from Chelsea’s neighbor had disturbed him enough to get him moving quickly toward town.
Inside the ice cream parlor, Bob found Chelsea just as Doug said he would. She was sitting at a table facing away from the windows, feet in the chair, and knees pulled to her chest. At the moment, she didn’t seem to be crying as Doug had last seen her, but she was clearly not okay.
Resting his hand on her shoulder, he squatted down beside her, saying, “Moonshine, it’s Daddy.”
When she turned to look at him, her expression was rather blank, as if she were confused as to why he had come for her, so softly he said, “I’m here to take you home. Can you stand up for me?”
Chelsea shook her head. “I can’t leave yet.”
In all the times he had witnessed her depressive episodes, and they could be called nothing less, he had never seen her appear so withdrawn.
“Why’s that? What are you waiting for?”
“I’m trying to figure it out.”
“What?”
“Why he would lie to me that way. Do you know?”
Bob was even more confused. When he had heard she was at the ice cream parlor, knowing John proposed there, he assumed she was simply there remembering and grieving. Their anniversary was just around the corner, and he and Gail had both been bracing themselves for the worst. She had done too well to not fall apart eventually. They sensed her true grief was yet come.
“Chelsea, honey, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Right here, at this very table, he said as long as it was up to him, he would never leave me, but he did.”
“You know he was very sick. It was nothing he chose.”
“He took himself off the transplant list. He stopped fighting for us.”
Bob was shaken, surprised that Chelsea knew. As far as he knew, John never planned to tell her what he had done. Trying to collect his thoughts, he moved over into the chair across from her.
When her dad said nothing to show surprise at what she had told him, she asked, “Did you know?”
He nodded. Pausing for a moment, remembering how angry he was with John when he found out, he finally said, “I didn’t know until it was too late.”
When John admitted what he had done, Bob hardly spoke to him for almost a week. As much as John tried to explain his actions, Bob was furious. It was just as Chelsea said: it was as if John stopped fighting. In all his years as an adult, even as a teenager, technically, Bob had never had what he had consider a close friend. He worked and had a family. Who had time for friendships? But with John, Bob had found someone he could relate to like no one he had ever known, which might seem ridiculous to some considering their different places in life. Deep down, though, no matter the businessman John became, he was still just a guy. They did guy stuff, and Bob enjoyed it.
As for John bailing on his daughter, that made him the maddest. He knew what would happen to Chelsea without John. He never had any doubt the time would come when she would slip off into that place where no one could reach her. By the vacant look in her eyes, he could tell she was already there.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I considered it, but I knew you’d just be upset over something you couldn’t do anything about. I tried, honestly I did, to get him to go back on the list and wait for the next heart. I realize now he would have never lasted long enough.”
Bob sighed and leaned in, still as puzzled by John’s decision as he was then. “He said it was for the young woman, but somehow I don’t believe that’s the only reason. He never said any more than that.”
“Nothing feels the same anymore.”
“But it is. He loved you unconditionally. He loved you more than I’ve ever seen a man love a woman. Heck, Moonshine, I wish I would have loved your mama as well as he loved you.”
“I know he loved me, but why would he choose to leave?”
There was no way he could answer that question. It was the same thing he had wondered for nearly a year. Shrugging, he admitted, “I never got it either.”
Soon enough, Bob convinced Chelsea to let him take her home. He stayed with her until Gail came with Sara Beth. For the most part, Chelsea seemed okay, or at least better than when he first found her. The sight of Sara Beth running into her arms and the way Chelsea lit up at seeing her daughter, Bob felt a tremendous feeling of relief. Most likely, this was a minor hiccup, not the severe plummet into depression that he had been anticipating. Chelsea was a strong woman and a good mama to the girls. She would work through this new revelation.
Chelsea sat on the swing while the girls played outside. Lucy was always so kind to Sara Beth. She was like a little mommy. Ever patient, always encouraging, she was exactly like her father. Tuck had those same qualities.
Since her parents had stayed with her for most of the afternoon until Lucy got home from school, Chelsea hardly had time to process all the things that were traveling through her mind. The more she thought, the more confused and sad she became.
Thinking of what her dad had said about John’s unconditional love for her, she had to view the facts in context of that kind of love. What specifically would have allowed him to leave? She considered that first year when he was most adamant that they should part. In his heart, he was doing what he thought was best for her, which signified he loved her and was putting her first. There had never been a time, as much as she could recall, when he did anything that wasn’t ultimately with her best in mind. From the moment they met, his focus was on her. He was extravagant and over-the-top most of the time in personal matters, but even in business, he continually nudged her along to learn and to grow. Taking time after meetings, he met with her to help her understand and glean from whatever business encounter she had just overheard. Always, he was looking out for her.
Peering through the lens of his love for her, what could possibly justify his leaving her? Was he afraid of the outcome of the heart transplant? Did he fear he would live in a weakened state afterward and might be a burden to her? He should have known better. They had read so many cases of transplant patients going on to live perfectly normal lives. In no way was there any reason to believe otherwise. So why? It was the one question that plagued her. Knowing him and considering he had done nothing in the past five years that didn’t have her at the forefront of his mind and motives, why?
Why would he look outside of their family at another mom and put her interest ahead of his wife and children? What he did was a great thing from anyone’s perspective, but why did it even cross his mind to begin with? If his only focus had been her for as long as they had known one another, why suddenly did someone else matter so much that he would give up their lives together? Until she came to some understanding of it, she was certain she could never find peace. Before Caroline’s visit earlier in the week, there was at least some level of peace, but suddenly, that peace was shattered.
“I’m trying,” she whispered to the Lord.
After midnight, the girls were sleeping, but Chelsea lay there wide awake. The past few days had been a struggle, more and more so with every passing hour. She was exhausted most of the time and hardly cared about the things she n
ormally did. She was inching along, trying to take care of the girls, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it and she knew it.
When Lucy was home, things were better. Sara Beth adored Lucy and was perfectly content to sit and play as long as Lucy was nearby, but during the day, that’s when Chelsea was having the most difficulty. Sara Beth was a wonderful child, much like Lucy, in that she minded well. Still, though, she was a two-year-old, who was curious and energetic, so much so, that Chelsea often found her in dangerous situations, a climber who knew no fear. She would stack objects on top of each other to stand on to reach a book she wanted on a high shelf. It was nothing for Chelsea to walk into the kitchen to find her sitting on the countertop eating whatever she had been intent on getting. Once even, she found her climbing the pantry shelves to get to the animal crackers. Her antics terrified Chelsea, especially since she had been so out of it.
Since finding out John refused the heart that might have saved him, Chelsea was lost. It felt similar to what she experienced during the holidays prior to John coming for her, similar but worse. What she currently experienced was not that of a jilted girlfriend. She was a devastated wife and mother who could hardly function most days because the man who loved her wasn’t taken but rather left her willingly. Every other moment she was angry with him. The moments in-between, she felt guilty over her anger. How could she be so furious with the man she loved so much that she feared she might die without?
Just as she had experienced while in her lost condition before, only sleep eased the pain. She longed to sleep and forget, but crazy little Sara Beth might not survive her mother taking a nap. When Lucy was home, she slept as much as she was able. Lucy was kind and understanding, telling her to sleep all she needed and she would keep an eye on Sara Beth. During the hours when Lucy was in school, however, Chelsea wouldn’t even lie down for fear of falling asleep. The one time she did, Sara Beth fell off her little table and busted her lip. After that, feeling responsible and guilty, Chelsea sat or stood for much of the day. Only when Sara Beth napped would she nap. Then, they snuggled in Chelsea’s bed together and slept at least two hours away.