“Abraham,” a familiar voice called. “I got here as soon as I could.”
He looked up to see Reverend Reeves and Leah coming his way. What was she doing with his pastor? Standing, he said, “Leah, what are you doing here? How did you find out?”
“I was with Melvin when he got the news. I’m so sorry, Abraham. If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”
Guilt welled up in Abraham as he recalled their recent conversation about Michael. The boy couldn’t be trusted with a position at MEEG, but he could be trusted to donate an organ to Isaac. He couldn’t help but feel like a hypocrite. Yet that was a minor price to pay for his son’s life.
Deciding he’d rather have his conversation with Leah in private, Abraham reached out his hand to Reverend Reeves. “It’s good to see you, Reverend,” he said. “Your coming means a lot to me, and I know it’ll mean a lot to Saralyn and Rebecca.”
“I had to come,” Melvin said. Pointing to a row of empty seats along the back wall, he added, “Now sit down before you fall down.” Abraham did as he was told. When they were seated, Melvin directly next to him and Leah next to Melvin, the reverend asked, “How is Isaac? And how are Saralyn and Rebecca holding up?”
Abraham wiped his hand down his face. “Saralyn and Rebecca are doing about as well as can be expected, given the news we just received. Isaac needs the transplant. According to his doctor, his problem is too severe to be treated with oral medications. I’ll have some specialists here tomorrow for a second opinion but for now we’re operating under the assumption that a liver transplant will be needed.”
Melvin rested a hand on Abraham’s shoulder. “I know this was hard news to hear, Abraham, but don’t be disheartened. Isaac will find a donor. I’ll get tested and I’ll have an announcement made in church so that others will know to be tested.”
“You should look into having a test site at the church to give people easier access,” Leah suggested. “Maybe one Wednesday night around Bible study time and then another one on Sunday.”
Reverend Reeves kissed Leah’s cheek. “That’s a great idea and that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Abraham tried to look past the reverend to Leah, but he couldn’t see her face, couldn’t read her expression.
“I want to say a few words to Saralyn and Rebecca and then I would like to pray with all of you,” Melvin said. “After we do that, Leah and I will get to work organizing the church testing site.”
Abraham nodded. “Go on in, Pastor,” he said. “I’ll be there shortly. I need to discuss something with Leah.”
Melvin glanced at Leah, who gave a slight nod, and then he left them alone.
Abraham cleared his throat. “I hate to ask you this, Leah,” he said, “especially after our conversation the other day.”
She met his eyes directly. “I hate that you have to ask me,” she said. “But I would do the same thing if it were my son.”
“The doctor wants to do a living donor transplant,” he said. “The donors are usually blood relatives. Unfortunately, neither Saralyn nor I are good matches.”
Leah finished for him, “You want Deborah and Michael to be tested. Is that what you’re asking?”
“They’re his half siblings and the doctors think they could be a match, Michael more so than Deborah because he and Isaac are similar in stature.”
Leah didn’t answer immediately, and Abraham wondered what she was thinking. Her straight face gave away nothing. When she finally spoke, she said, “It’s a lot to ask, Abraham.”
“I know it is,” he said. “I wouldn’t ask if there were any other options. There aren’t. Do you think they’ll do it?”
“Deborah has a soft heart. She’d do it for a stranger so I’m sure she’ll do it for Isaac. Michael is another story. I’m not sure about him.”
Abraham closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “Sins of the father,” he murmured. “What have I done to my children?” When he opened his eyes, he looked directly at Leah. “I still have to ask him,” he told her. “You understand, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Like I said, in your shoes I’d do the same.”
“Will you try to convince Michael?” he asked. “Isaac could die without the transplant.”
Leah shook her head. “I can’t, Abraham,” she said. “It’s not my place. They’re adults. I can give them my opinion but I can’t tell them what to do.”
“Could Michael live with himself if Isaac died?”
She smiled sadly. “You lived with yourself and prospered for thirty years, never even thinking of Michael as your son. I don’t advise playing the guilt card with him. It won’t work.”
Her words shamed him. Abraham knew she was right but he was out of ideas. “How should I approach him, then?”
“Approach him like you’d approach a business associate you’d once done wrong and with whom you’d now like to play ball,” she said. “Tell him why you’re asking and how it makes you feel to ask. Be honest and forthright. And, most of all, listen to the answers he gives.”
Abraham nodded. “Thanks,” he said. Then he got up. “I’d better get back to Isaac’s room. The pastor said he wanted to pray.” He hesitated, then asked, “Do you want to join us? We can use all the prayer we can get.”
She shook her head. “I don’t belong with you and your family now,” she said. “I came to support Melvin and to offer my best wishes for Isaac. I’ve done that.”
“What’s with you and Melvin?” he asked, his head tilted. The kiss that Melvin had given her on her cheek had not gone unnoticed.
She met his eyes. “He’s asked me to marry him,” she said. “We’ve been seeing each other for about a year or so.”
“A year? I didn’t know.”
“We kept it a secret.”
“Well, I’m glad for you. He’s a good man, Leah. He’ll treat you right.”
She smiled at him. “He already does.”
He tried to smile back but his lips didn’t turn up far enough. Then he turned and headed toward his son’s room.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Deborah walked hand in hand with Alan through the hospital waiting room. She wasn’t sure what holding her hand meant to him, but she took it as a sign that he was becoming more comfortable with the idea of a relationship with her. She stopped walking when she spotted her mother dialing on her cell phone. “Mama?” Leah turned around. “What are you doing here?”
Leah closed her phone. “Deborah, you’re here. I was about to call you about Isaac.” She hugged her daughter. “How did you find out?”
Deborah pointed to Alan. “I was with Alan when he got the call.” Alan and Leah exchanged greetings. “How did you find out?”
“It’s a long story,” Leah said. “I was with Abraham’s pastor when he got the call.”
“Abraham’s pastor? How do you know Abraham’s pastor?”
“Like I said, it’s a long story.”
Alan put a hand on Deborah’s shoulder. “I’m going to go check on Isaac. Will you be all right?”
Deborah nodded. “Go on ahead. Mama will catch me up.” After he left, she turned to her mother. “Now tell me the long story.”
“I don’t want to get into it here,” Leah said. “This time should be about Isaac.”
“Look,” Deborah said, “I’ve done what I could do for Isaac by getting tested. Now tell me the long story.”
Leah sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you here, but since you’re so insistent, I’m dating Melvin Reeves, Abraham and Saralyn’s pastor.”
“What?” Leah asked. “You’re dating? Since when did you start dating?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I’m not dead yet.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “It’s just that I haven’t known you to date. Sure, you went out a few times over the years, but nothing more. I’m happy for you. It’s about time. But a pastor?”
Leah chuckled. “That’s why we kept it a secret.”
Deborah�
�s ears perked up. “A secret? How long have you been seeing this pastor?”
“A little over a year,” Leah said. “We kept it a secret because I feared Saralyn would cause problems for him with his congregation if she knew I was the woman in his life. I didn’t want him to have problems in his church because of me.”
Deborah heard her mother’s words, but that she hadn’t shared something so important concerned her. “I can see you keeping it a secret from outsiders, but I can’t believe you kept it a secret from me and Michael for a year. How could you, Mama?”
“Don’t blow this out of proportion,” Leah said. “I explained why we kept it a secret.”
“Your explanation doesn’t make sense,” she said, hurt at her mother’s deception. “Michael and I aren’t people off the street out to do you harm; we’re your children. How could you not tell us?”
“I thought it was best, Deborah,” she said. “It was my decision to make and I made it.”
She eyed her mother skeptically. “I don’t remember you going on any dates with this pastor. When did you see each other?”
“Mostly after my evening classes.”
Deborah’s eyes widened. “When you told me you were at faculty meetings or meeting with students?”
Leah nodded.
“Mama,” Deborah cried, wondering where this side of her mother had come from, “you lied to me. You flat-out lied to me. You should at least feel bad about it.”
Leah sighed. “I didn’t know where the relationship was going at first. It seemed to gain legs as we got to know each other better, and I was afraid I’d jinx it by going public. It was easier to keep on as we were.”
“To keep lying to us. To me.”
“You’re not listening to me, Deborah. This wasn’t about you. It was about me. It was something I wanted for myself. I didn’t want you to know at first because of the Abraham-Saralyn connection through Melvin’s church. This relationship began before Abraham decided to reinsert himself into your lives.”
“Well, Abraham’s been back for more than five months now. You had plenty of time to tell us, Mama.”
“It’s complicated, Deborah. By then I had grown to like Melvin—a lot. All I could think was that Saralyn would somehow use our relationship to cause problems between him and his congregation. I didn’t want that.”
Deborah still didn’t understand. She and Michael would have kept the secret. There had to be more to this than her mother was telling. “I hear what you’re saying, but it still doesn’t make sense to me.”
“I know it doesn’t,” Leah said. “Let’s talk about it later, after you’ve met Melvin. He’s a wonderful man. He’s been wanting to meet you and Michael for a long time. I’ve been the hold-up.”
Deborah smiled, relieved that at least one half of this secret couple had some sense. “Now this sounds like a man I can like.”
Leah reached for her daughter’s hand and squeezed. “You’ll love him,” she said. “I know you will.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Now I’ve got to call Michael.”
Deborah shook her head. “I already called him. I don’t know if he’s coming, but Josette said she’d try to get him here. I told her about the transplant and being tested.”
“Do you think he’ll do it?”
Deborah shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I told Josette to get him here without telling him the details of Isaac’s condition. You and I will convince him to be tested once he gets here. I think we can do it, don’t you?”
Leah shook her head. “No, we won’t,” she said. “It’s not your place to tell Michael what to do in this situation, and neither is it mine. I’ll give him my opinion, but I’m not going to try to convince him of anything. I only wish he had made peace with Abraham before now.”
“No kidding,” Deborah said. “Alan told us the other day that Abraham was pulling back on giving Michael a seat on the board. Michael seemed to take it okay, but Abraham’s decision did nothing to improve Michael’s opinion of him.”
“Well, this is between Michael and Abraham and Isaac.”
“But what if Michael doesn’t get tested and Isaac dies? How will he feel then? Do you want him to live with that regret? I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t at least try.”
Leah noticed her daughter used the same logic as Abraham. “Well, that’s you,” she told her daughter. “You can’t expect Michael to make the same decision. And you have to make your decision for the right reason. You have to do it for Isaac, not to win points with Abraham or Saralyn, or to try to make Abraham proud of you. You can’t go into this expecting some change in their attitudes toward you, and neither can Michael. If you did, you’d be deceiving yourselves.”
“Isaac is my half brother, Mama. I can’t do nothing.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t help him. In fact, I’m glad you’ve come to that decision. All I’m saying is that you have to give Michael the freedom to do the same. If something goes wrong during the surgery and Michael is harmed in some way, I don’t want you to feel guilty. Could you go to work each day with Isaac and know that Michael died saving his life?”
Deborah shook her head back and forth. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
Leah grasped her daughter’s hand. “This is Michael’s moment, Deborah. We have to let him make his way through it. All I can tell him is not to use his decision as a way to gain revenge on Abraham. Other than that, it really is his choice.”
Deborah wasn’t sure she fully agreed with her mother, but there was little else she could say. Their family matters were much too complicated. And now with the introduction of her mother’s new man, their family matters had gotten even more complex. She hadn’t even thought that was possible.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Don’t ask Michael, Dad,” Isaac told his father. He sat up in his hospital bed, Rebecca on one side, his mother on the other. His father stood at the foot of the bed. “It’s too much.”
“Of course we’re going to ask him,” his mother said before his father could answer. “And he’s going to do it.”
Isaac turned to his mother. “Why would he, Mom? Why would he allow himself to be cut open and a part of his body removed for me? Tell me why he would do that.”
“He’s your brother,” Rebecca said softly. “That will matter.”
Isaac reached for Rebecca’s hand, brought it to his lips and kissed it. Then he looked deeply into her eyes. “You know him better than we do,” he told her. “So be honest. Would the Michael you know, the Michael who has tried to make my life miserable, do you really think he’d give me part of his liver?”
He watched tears well up in his wife’s eyes and had his answer. He looked to his father, who still hadn’t said anything. “It’s not your fault, Dad,” he said. “You don’t control Michael.”
Abraham cleared his throat. “I know that, but I also know that I haven’t handled things right with him from the beginning. If I had, you two might be as close as brothers should be and this decision wouldn’t be an issue for either of you.”
“You can’t play the woulda-coulda-shoulda game, Dad. It’s a no-winner.”
“We can offer him money, a seat on the MEEG board, whatever he wants,” his mother said. “If he won’t do the right thing out of the goodness of his heart, then he’ll do it out of his own self-interest.”
Isaac shook his head as he smiled sadly in his mother’s direction. “I love you, Mom,” he told her. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. What a silly question.”
“Well, I’m going to say something that may hurt. If the tables were turned and it was Michael Thomas needing the transplant, would you be encouraging me to be tested to be a living donor? If I were a match, would you want me to go through with the transplant?”
His mother didn’t answer, instead looked away. While her answer disappointed him, he appreciated her honesty.
“Somewhere along the line,” he said, “we made Michae
l and Deborah the enemy. Truth be told, there’s very little difference between them and me. None of us controlled the conditions of our births, yet we’re living under the shadows of those conditions. It’s amazing that I can see that so clearly now but I couldn’t see it before.”
“I’m sorry, Isaac,” his father said again. “So sorry.”
Isaac smiled. “One thing that being sick and feeling your mortality does is give you a bit of clarity. I forgive you, Dad,” he said. “You made a whopper of a mistake thirty years ago but at least you tried to make it right, albeit it took a long time.”
His father wiped his eyes with his hand. “Thank you, son,” he said.
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “I guess it’s the Martin way. It takes us a while to see the error of our ways, but when we do, we make every effort to rectify it.”
“Michael’s a Martin, too,” Rebecca said. “That should give us hope.”
Isaac kissed his wife’s hand again. “I need you to forgive me, Rebecca,” he told her.
Her eyes widened. “For what?”
“For being a self-righteous you-know-what. I do love you and I want to make our marriage work.” Tears flowed down her cheeks. “It’s going to take some time to rebuild the trust between us but I’m willing to work at it if you are.”
“Of course I am,” she said. “Thank you, Isaac.”
“You’re not dying, Isaac,” his mother snapped. “So stop talking like it.”
Isaac laughed. “I know I’m not dying,” he said. “But you have to admit I’ve never been this close to death before.”
“Still,” his mother said, “stop with all the forgiveness. You’ll have plenty of time for that later. Let’s talk about the good times we’ll have when you get out of here. The first thing I think the four of us should do is take a long, a very long, vacation. We’re blessed people and we have a lot to be thankful for.”
“A vacation sounds nice,” Rebecca said. She looked at Isaac. “A getaway would give us some time together.”
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