Redemption 03 - Return

by Smalley, Gary; Kingsbury, Karen

  The images of the people who once made up his world had come more than once, and each time hurt more than the last. At first Luke thought the pain came because the faces of his past made his new lifestyle hard to swallow. But now—in a room full of freethinkers, at a time when he wanted so much to embrace this new way of seeing life—now he understood the ache in his heart.

  It wasn’t only that his past flew smack in the face of his present. Rather, his memories gave him the strangest feeling, a feeling he allowed for just a fraction of a second before sending it scurrying back to the cave from which it came: That he wanted to do an about-face, set out at a dead run, straight past the piles of hurt feelings and words he regretted, and on into yesterday.

  Before the detours he was taking made it impossible to find his way back.

  John was more tired than usual but he couldn’t sleep.

  Elizabeth snored softly beside him, so he crept out of bed and made his way down the hallway to the living room and his old blue recliner, the chair where he liked to read his Bible and take in the newspaper on occasional summer mornings. Sometimes, on nights like this, he would settle back in the chair and look straight ahead at the mantel above the fireplace, at the framed senior portraits of his five children.

  Brooke…Kari…Ashley…Erin…Luke.

  Normally Elizabeth took on the role of family worrier, but tonight John felt uncomfortable in his own skin. The humidity was up, and even his heart beat out of sync.

  Ashley was just home from New York, but they hadn’t gotten a chance to talk. When they did, he would have to tell her about the phone call. Some woman from Paris, who’d spoken to him in broken English. She needed to talk to Ashley, and when she learned Ashley wasn’t around, she pressed further. A cell phone or hotel, some other way to reach her. The call was critical. He’d questioned her about the nature of the matter. But the woman hadn’t shared the details other than one: It was critical she talk to Ashley.

  He’d planned to tell Ashley the moment she got home. But she’d breezed in earlier today and collected Cole, stopping barely long enough to make small talk. Yes, they’d liked her paintings; yes, they were displayed at a gallery in Manhattan; yes, she’d seen Landon.

  Then she thanked him and Elizabeth and left with a round of kisses and promises to come by sometime that week.

  John stared at her photo now, the one she’d fought against her last year of high school.

  “Come on, Dad, the whole senior portrait thing’s outdated.” She’d rolled her eyes and flopped down on the sofa that still stood next to his recliner. “Can’t you just take any old picture and put it in a frame?”

  John and Elizabeth had insisted, and Ashley rose to the occasion. She looked stunning in the picture, her eyes a curious mix of pain and rebellion and the briefest glimmer of hope.

  Was it his imagination, or had she been in more than the usual hurry earlier today? His heart told him things she hadn’t. That whatever happened in New York, some of it she hadn’t been willing to share.

  His eyes moved to Erin’s picture. Dark-haired with a rounder, plainer face, Erin’s eyes told of her hesitancy, her desire to be accepted. More than the rest, she enjoyed being around family. How well would she do after Labor Day, when she and Sam headed off to Texas? Last fall their marriage had been in trouble, and now, certainly, the greatest tests were ahead. If they’d been able to have a baby, perhaps the move would be easier. At least Erin would have family of her own to take with her.

  John studied his youngest daughter’s face. Lord, give her a child. Please, Father.

  Sometimes when he prayed he could practically hear God echoing a reply in his soul. But not tonight. Tonight he felt only the assurance that God had heard him, and somehow, sometime, God would answer.

  His eyes rested for a beat on Kari’s photograph. She was well and happy and about to marry a man who had been her heart’s love since the two were teenagers. Thank you, God. Thank you for delivering her, for redeeming her from the pain of her past.

  But what about Brooke?

  John looked deep into his oldest daughter’s eyes. She believed now, at least somewhat. She and Peter attended church, which had to be some indication of their changing beliefs. But Brooke and her husband were so private, rarely sharing about the faith that might or might not be going on in their home. And though they were more open to learning about God now, they didn’t seem as close to each other as they’d once been.

  A sigh found its way up from John’s heart. Sometimes, when he couldn’t stop fear from lighting on the windowsill of his soul, he imagined what might happen if Maddie had been sick. Really sick. If the fevers and constant bouts of illness had led to something devastating and deadly. What would Brooke and Peter have thought of God then? If September 11 had affected them all so profoundly, what about the death of a child? One of their own.

  John rubbed his fingertips into his brow and fear took flight.

  If he’d learned one thing over the years as a parent and a doctor, it was this: Worry did no good. In his early days—back when he wasn’t sure how he would get through med school, and even a decade ago when he wasn’t sure whether Elizabeth would survive her bout with cancer—he’d armed himself with truths from Scripture.

  Truths that had a way of clearing the windowsill.

  He closed his eyes and let the words run like a soothing stream of water over the parched areas of his heart. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, with prayer and petition, give your thanks to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

  How many times had those words brought peace at such a moment?

  But this night was different. He wasn’t worried, just full. Full of thoughts about whatever the future might hold for all of them. Or maybe that was worry dressed in curiosity’s clothes. His eyes shifted to Luke’s picture.

  Ah, Luke, my boy. Where are you now? Tears poked pins at John’s eyes, and he knew, deep within, that this was the reason he couldn’t sleep. It was bigger than worry and curiosity combined. It was a desperate fear, a terrible longing for his little boy. Not the type of fear that merely lighted on the windowsill of his soul, but one that consumed it.

  A sound interrupted his thoughts. He turned toward the doorway and saw her standing there in her navy satin robe, watching him. “Elizabeth…”

  “I felt your absence.” She came closer and took the spot on the sofa nearest him. Her gaze left him and found the photos on the mantel. “This is my job, John.”

  He studied their son’s picture. “I know.”

  “It’s Luke, isn’t it?”

  “Of course.” He leaned forward, shifting so he could see his wife. “Remember how he was as a child?”

  “The light of your life.” Elizabeth looked at him, and the sadness in her small smile nearly broke his heart. “You two were inseparable. Every day he did something to amaze you.”

  John looked at his son’s photo. That was exactly right. Luke was the most easygoing child, so much so that discipline was rarely required. A memory tapped lightly on the door of John’s heart, and he willingly opened it.…

  Luke was with them in the church parking lot, and for some reason Elizabeth had gone ahead toward the main building. The Baxter kids were taught to never cross a parking lot without an adult. Breaking the rule would mean punishment.

  “Stay with us,” Elizabeth always told them. “Drivers are looking for adults, not little people.”

  But that morning, without looking, Luke set off at a flat run after Elizabeth. He made it halfway to her when he ran right in front an oncoming Jeep. John’s scream was lost in the screeching of brakes. Somehow the Jeep stopped in time—just inches from Luke. By the time John and Elizabeth reached him, their son’s face was pale, his eyes wide.

  They thanked the driver of the Jeep and held tight to Luke. John had been about to scold him when they realized he was crying. No, not just crying. Sobbing. Gulping,
heartfelt sobs that shook his shoulders and back.

  Elizabeth mouthed something to John about Luke’s being afraid. Obviously that was the source of his tears. So John stroked his son’s back. “Are you crying because you’re scared?”

  The boy pulled back and rubbed his eyes with his chubby fists. “N-n-nooo.” Luke’s tears came harder then. “I’m n-n-not afraid.”

  “Then what is it, Son? Did you get hurt?”

  “Daddy—” Luke’s response still rang clear in John’s memory—“I’m sorry I didn’t obey you.” He flung his arms around John’s neck and grabbed hold of Elizabeth’s dress slacks. “I’m sorry, Mommy and Daddy.”

  John pulled himself from the past and stared at Elizabeth. “Remember the parking-lot incident, back when Luke was five years old?”

  A soft laugh played in Elizabeth’s tone. “More worried about disobeying than dying.”

  Other memories came then, tiptoeing up the steps of his mind and slipping in before he could stop them. The way Luke had imitated everything John did. Once when Luke watched John pull weeds from Elizabeth’s garden, Luke went out the next morning and pulled up every single baby carrot plant.

  “I got your weeds, Mama,” he sang out when he came back in the house that morning. He pointed to his shirt, stretched out and folded up, overflowing with baby carrot plants. “Just like Daddy.”

  As he got older, Luke adored his sisters, and when one of them got in trouble for picking on him, he would brush off the offense. “It’s okay,” he’d tell John. “Don’t be mad at her; she didn’t mean it.”

  In his early teens, if John wore his Indiana University shirt to a picnic, Luke wore his also. For most of high school Luke even toyed with the idea of med school so that one day he could work at St. Anne’s alongside John. In the end, Cs in math and science kept him from that.

  From early adolescence, Luke had brought every troublesome thought, every curiosity, every goal and plan and dream to his father. He also explained the reason he didn’t do drugs or drink as even some of his church friends did. He feared it would damage that special something he shared with John.

  “We’re not like other sons and fathers,” Luke told him one day. “You’re my best friend, Dad.”

  John turned to his wife, and the memories lifted. “When Ashley got back from Paris—” he paused—“that’s when he started changing.”

  “Yes.” She gave a slow nod, and her eyes held a shadow of pain. “His standard was so high.”

  “Why didn’t we see where it would go? How damaging it was to expect perfection of people?”

  “I thought it was a stage.” Elizabeth shrugged with one shoulder. “Residual from a lifetime of making mostly good choices.”

  This was ground they’d covered a hundred times since Luke left home, but the signposts were only clear now in light of how the events in his life had played out. Luke’s faith before September 11 reminded John of a pond that had formed in their backyard once after heavy rains. The creek behind their house overflowed, and at a glance it looked as if a formidable lake had appeared where land had been a day before. But an hour after the rains stopped, the lake disappeared.

  “What happened to all that water?” the children asked him that day.

  “It looked deep because it was so big,” John answered. “But it wasn’t deep at all, maybe only an inch.”

  The shallow pond vanished the moment the rain stopped, the same way Luke’s faith collapsed right alongside the Twin Towers. What looked like an ocean of conviction and belief was nothing more than the shallow pond of self-righteousness.

  “John.” Elizabeth’s voice sounded tired, worn out. “It’s after one.”

  “I know.” He looked at Luke’s picture again. For a long moment he was silent, refusing to free the thing that wouldn’t take wing, the thing that hunted his soul like a lion and made sleep all but impossible. The fear he had never voiced.

  “What if—” his tone was more desperate than sad, and he turned to Elizabeth once more—“what if he never comes back?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ASHLEY FELT LIKE one of the patients here at Sunset Hills.

  The information about Luke’s son made her distracted and distant, and each night she went to bed knowing that tomorrow had to be the day. That finally Reagan would make the call or fly out with Tommy in her arms. If she called, then the moment Luke knew the truth, he’d fly to New York, maybe even tell his family what he was doing.

  Ashley was at work that June afternoon, a week after returning from New York. Twice she’d tried to call Luke, just to feel him out, to see if Reagan had called him. But both times he’d been gone, so she’d left a message.

  If the knowledge of Luke’s son wasn’t enough to distract her, she’d received word from Margaret Wellington that one of her paintings had sold already. They were sending her a check in the mail and wanted her to hurry with the next three. She and Cole had gone to dinner with her parents to celebrate, and that night she’d spent an hour on the phone with Landon.

  Ashley calculated that if she sold three pieces in two months, she could consider quitting her job at Sunset Hills. If she wanted to. But as long as Irvel was living, she definitely didn’t want to. Irvel and Edith and Helen and Bert—they did too many wonderful things for her heart.

  She stirred the chicken soup and tested it with her finger. Residents at Sunset Hills ate their soup warm, not hot. Less danger of burns that way. She took the pot and a tray of buttered toast to the table and went to find the residents. Bert was eating with them now, and though he still spent most of the afternoon in his room polishing his saddle, he enjoyed company for lunch. He was more talkative these days, but more confused also.

  It took Ashley a few minutes to get them all seated. Irvel at the head of the table, as always, with Helen on one side and Edith on the other. Bert sat at the other end. Before Ashley could say the prayer, Irvel pointed at Bert. “You’re a very nice old man.” She used her finger to draw invisible circles in the air for emphasis. “But I’m glad you’re at that end.”

  Helen shot Irvel a look. “What’s wrong with him?” She raised one eyebrow in Bert’s direction. “Is he a spy?”

  “I got a saddle.” Bert gave the women a shy smile. When none of them responded, he looked at Ashley. “I got me a nice saddle.”

  “Yes, Bert. Very nice.”

  “Very nice.” Edith gave a series of slow nods and stared at the table in front of her. “Saddles. Very nice.”

  “Spies use saddles.” Helen had seen her daughter, Sue, the day before, so she wasn’t angry or confrontational, but she definitely was nervous. She eyed Irvel. “Don’t spies use saddles, Agnes?”

  Irvel took a slow look over her shoulder, as though Helen might be talking to someone standing behind her. Then she looked at Helen and patted the woman’s hand the way a mother might pat the hand of a confused child. “Dear—” she paused for effect—“I’m not Agnes.” She pointed at Bert. “And he’s not Hank.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Hank gets jealous of gentlemen callers.”

  Ashley doled out the soup and let her mind drift. Little had changed at Sunset Hills, and the flow of conversation was comfortable. Ashley’s Past-Present method of dealing with the patients—letting them live in the time frame where they were most comfortable—had helped them. Irvel’s doctor had figured out a different batch of daily medication, so she was up and doing better. For now, anyway.

  Ashley was about to serve herself when a knock sounded from the other room. Her eyes found Irvel’s. “I’ll be right back.”

  “If it’s Hank, ask him to join us.” She winked at Edith. “Hank loves a good bowl of chili.”

  Helen dropped her spoon. “No one told me we were having chili. My mother’s the one who makes chi—”

  The voices faded as Ashley rounded the corner and headed for the front door. She opened it and found her father, wearing dress slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. She smiled and opened the door wide. “Hi.”
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br />   “I had an hour between patients.” He stepped in and hugged her. “Thought I’d drop in and see the Sunset Hills gang.”

  “They’re in the other room.” Ashley nodded toward the dining room. “Everyone’s in fine form.”

  More than once her father had marveled at the improvements the residents had made under Ashley’s care. He’d dropped in two other times to see for himself the easy way each of them handled daily routines now that they weren’t being forced to live within the confines of reality.

  “Come on.” Ashley grinned and led the way. When they reached the table, Ashley stood near Bert and put her arm around her father’s waist. “This is my father, everyone. Dr. Baxter.”

  “Dear,” Irvel leaned across the table, bringing herself a few inches closer to Ashley. “I don’t think anyone’s sick.”

  “Everyone’s fine.” Her father took the chair between Edith and Bert and rested his forearms on the table. “I’m here for a visit.”

  “Doctor visits are very expensive.” Irvel gave a slight shake of her head and raised her eyebrows at the others. “Maybe if we pitch our money together.”

  Helen lowered her brow and looked from Ashley to her father and back again. “He’s safe.” She gestured toward Ashley. “That girl checked him, right?”

  “Right.” Ashley gave her father a quick grin. “He’s been checked.”

  Burt had finished half his soup, and now he took his napkin and began making slow, deliberate circles on the table near his bowl. It was Ashley’s signal that he’d had enough interaction. He was ready to get back to work, rubbing oil into the saddle she’d positioned in his room last winter.

  Over the next thirty minutes, Ashley helped Bert to his room and the three women to their recliners in the living room. When they were all settled, she and her father slipped out front and headed for the porch swing, something Lu, the owner of Sunset Hills, had purchased that spring.