“That’s all right. I’ve already found my pearl of great price.”
“You have?” JoAnn fluffed her hair where it ended between her ear and her shoulder. One side first, then the other.
“Yes. The Bible says that the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
“Is that why you went to live amongst the poor in Africa?”
“Yes. When you have something as valuable as the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you want to share it with everyone, especially those who might not hear.”
JoAnn shifted in her seat. “You do know those oysters are an aphrodisiac?”
A soft clearing of the throat drew Elizabeth and JoAnn’s attention to Claude standing beside their table. Oh no. Had he heard?
Before Elizabeth could change her order, JoAnn rattled off their meal requests. “Oh, and add two small bottles of aloe juice, please, Claude.”
He nodded. His gaze flicked to Elizabeth before he turned and walked away.
What must he be thinking?
She wanted to reprimand JoAnn, but didn’t want to spoil the little seed she’d once again managed to sow. One of these days, JoAnn would respond to God’s call on her life. But from her friend’s total change of their conversation, it was clear today wasn’t the day. So instead of returning to the topic of the priceless pearl, she engaged in small talk until their food arrived.
The dish looked delicious. Twists of seaweed brought color to the plate, as did the mosaic of cucumber and red pepper sprinkled over each open oyster shimmering on a bed of crushed ice. A spoonful of tiny green pearls, like miniature clusters of grapes, added that final touch of color against the mother of pearl background.
“Is that caviar?” Elizabeth asked. JoAnn should know. She was far more sophisticated than Elizabeth could ever hope to be.
JoAnn shook her head. “Caviar’s black or red. Although you do get a seaweed that looks like caviar. It’s commonly called sea grapes.”
“Do you think this is it?”
“Let’s have a look at what the menu says. Should be in the description of your meal.” JoAnn reached for the menu and opened it. “Chilled Knysna oysters plated on a bed of ice with tangles of seaweed and garnished with green Serrano chili pepper pearls, slices of cucumber and red pepper, and a lime dressing.”
Elizabeth pointed at the faux caviar. “So these little green beads are actually chilies? Do you think they’re hot?”
“Probably not as hot as you’ll be after those oysters.” JoAnn waggled her brows and laughed. “Perhaps I should call Brian and warn him.”
“JoAnn!”
“What? We’re old, Elizabeth. Not dead.”
Elizabeth picked up the tiny fork on the plate then lifted an oyster. She stared at it. Now what? She glanced at JoAnn.
Pizza slice almost in her mouth, JoAnn paused. She blew out a soft huff, and set her pizza back on her plate. “Use the tiny fork to make sure the meat is no longer attached to the shell. Then slurp the oyster down.”
“Slurp? As in swallow, don’t chew?”
“You can give it one or two chews if you must, but swallowing it in one go is the best way to eat oysters.”
Eat? Why refer to it as eating when you don’t even get to taste it?
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Why had she been drawn to choose something that cost more than she’d ever paid for a meal, and that she’d never eaten?
After making sure the oyster was loose, Elizabeth lifted it to her lips and tipped her head back. The flesh slid into her mouth and before she could even attempt a chew, the slimy thing slid down her throat. She almost choked, the experience akin to being dunked beneath a wave and swallowing a mouthful of seawater.
And then she gagged.
Hand over her mouth, Elizabeth scurried out of her chair and dashed for the bathroom. Oh Lord, please let me make it. The last thing she wanted to do was beach that oyster on the restaurant floor.
She shoved open the white door with the woman icon contrasted in black and ran for the nearest open cubicle. Door half closed behind her, she fell to her knees, just in time before that little oyster came gushing out. It sank to the bottom of the porcelain bowl. As did the remnants of the two crackers she’d eaten at the gym in the hopes they would alleviate the nausea that had hit her the moment she’d stepped under the shower.
If only she’d grabbed her bag before hightailing it from the table, she could have nibbled on another cracker.
Although it had helped earlier, the mere thought had Elizabeth heaving again.
The bathroom door creaked open then clicked as it closed. Heels echoed over the tiled floor.
“Elizabeth. Are you all right?”
She managed an “Uh-huh” before she spoke to the porcelain bowl once more.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten that oyster.”
Probably not.
Finally, Elizabeth pushed to her feet. She flushed the toilet and ventured out the cubicle.
JoAnn leaned against the marble counter, the picture of sophistication in her oyster-colored dress that hugged her perfect—
Elizabeth whirled around and headed back into the cubicle and to her knees.
If only it were prayer that had her bowed low.
“You know, with your symptoms, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were pregnant. I remember when I was expecting our Jordan—same symptoms as you.”
Pregnant? Impossible. She and Brian had tried for years, until they accepted the fact that they’d never have children of their own. Seemed God’s only plan for parenthood was for them to be a mother and father to the African orphans during their years in missions.
“You were thirty, JoAnn. I’m sixty, remember.”
Elizabeth shuffled to the basin. She rinsed her mouth then patted the cold water onto her face and behind her neck. She looked a wreck. Felt it, too.
She glanced at her friend. “Would you mind if we went home?”
“Of course not.” JoAnn headed for the door. Stopping as she pulled it open. “I’ll get Claude to pack our food to go. Maybe Brian will eat your oy—”
“Don’t say the word, JoAnn.” She didn’t want to be confined to this public bathroom all day.
“You know, you keep telling me about this God of yours who loves us so much and delights to do the impossible. What better way could He show His love to you and Brian?” JoAnn smiled. “Just saying…”
Abraham and Sarah had a child in their old age. God did work in the impossible. Still, not this. This was…
Impossible.
Nevertheless, she’d call Dr. Cummings the moment she got home. The sooner she got an appointment to see him, the sooner she could rule out such a ridiculous notion.
Chapter 2
Easing himself down on the smooth, dark surface, Brian Dunham gazed out over the gray-blue expanse as he caught his breath. Spray from the waves crashing onto the rocks a little further out drifted toward him, dampening his face. He wouldn’t be able to stay here for too long. The tide was coming in, and it had turned windy. Pity he hadn’t come earlier, but he hadn’t felt this overwhelming need to pray for his wife when only a light breeze blew and the ocean was calm. And this was his place for intercessory prayer. He felt closest to God here with nothing but mussel-covered rocks and the sea surrounding him.
He’d barely finished an early lunch, a tomato and onion sandwich and tea, when the prompting to prayer descended. After exchanging his flip-flops for rock shoes, he donned a cap then sprayed his arms and legs with SPF30 sunscreen. Waterproof. Elizabeth insisted. And as much as he had learned long ago to listen to that small voice calling him to prayer, he’d learned to listen to his wife, as well.
Brian clasped his hands together and bowed his head. What is it, Lord? Why have You summoned me here to pray for Elizabeth? Is she ill? Is that why she’s seemed so tired lately? Whatever it is, Lord, would You protect her
and keep her safe? I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to her.
I pray, too, Lord, that You would give her opportunities today to share Jesus with her friend, just as I continue to pray for opportunities to share Your Son with Errol. You have given us amazing neighbors, Lord. They’re such great people. But they do need to come to know Your son.
After spending several minutes more in prayer for Elizabeth, Brian finally said amen and opened his eyes—just in time to see the water from a broken wave scurrying toward him. He leapt to his feet, narrowly escaping a wet behind. He smiled and raised his eyes toward heaven. Thank You that You even care about silly things like wet bottoms.
Feeling the burden for Elizabeth lifting, Brian scampered off the rocks and made his way across the beach back home. As he opened the front sliding glass door, voices carried from the kitchen. He stepped closer.
“Love, are you home already?” Strange. Elizabeth and JoAnn always did lunch after their spinning class on a Wednesday, and on Fridays they went grocery shopping. They were never home before late afternoon on either days.
JoAnn’s head popped around the kitchen doorjamb. “Hey there, Brian. I’m making tea. Do you want a cup?”
He nodded as a knot twisted in his stomach. “Where’s my dear wife?”
“I’m in here, honey.” The weakness in Elizabeth’s voice drifting from the kitchen filled him with dread.
“I insisted she lie down awhile, but she declared she was fine. Even though she vomited up her lunch, and probably her breakfast, too.”
“What?” Brian hurried into the kitchen. Elizabeth sat hunched on a stool, her head and arms splayed across the island in the middle of the room. He wrapped his arms around her. “What’s wrong, love?”
Elizabeth turned her head to look at him, her face pale.
“Good grief, woman. Listen to your friend and get to bed.” Slipping an arm around her waist, he slid the other beneath her knees and lifted her. He carried Elizabeth to their room and lay her down on the brightly-colored African quilt that graced their bed—a parting gift from the people of Ouagadougou. He felt her brow. She didn’t feel unusually warm. “Have you called the doctor?”
She nodded. “I have an appointment tomorrow morning at ten.”
A soft knock sounded at the door, and JoAnn entered, carrying a tray with three cups of tea.
Brian took the tray from her and set it down on the end of the bed. “Was it something she ate that made her sick?”
JoAnn shrugged. “One oyster?”
“Oysters?” Brian shook his head and glanced back at Elizabeth. She’d closed her eyes. “She’s never eaten oysters before. What on earth got into her to order those things?”
“I don’t know. I suggested to her that perhaps she was pregnant.” A laugh spilled from JoAnn’s mouth. “Although I know how impossible that seems.”
Brian narrowed his eyes and breathed in deep. He clasped a hand around JoAnn’s arm and led her out of the room. Once they were far enough away, he turned to her, struggling to contain his anger. “Pregnant? Why would you say such a cruel thing to Elizabeth?”
JoAnn cocked her head to the side. Her jaw dropped open. “I didn’t—”
“Do you know…do you have any idea how many years my wife spent yearning for a child? How hard it was for her to accept that either she was barren or I was infertile? Praying and praying and praying that God would answer this one small request, and never having those prayers answered.”
“I’m sorry, Brian, I—”
His jaw clenched. “I think its best you leave. Please.”
Elizabeth opened her eyes when she heard Brian enter their bedroom again. “Has JoAnn left?”
He nodded. “She had to go.”
Elizabeth shimmied to a sitting position on the bed. She grabbed one of the pillows from Brian’s side to prop herself up. As she tucked the soft wad behind her head, her gaze settled on the tray with three cups near her feet. “Had to go? Why did she make herself a cup of tea then?”
“I…” Brian lifted a cup and handed it to Elizabeth. He set the tray on the floor, grabbed his cup and sat down beside her, any answer or explanations hidden behind the ceramic rim.
An uncomfortable silence settled between them as they drank their tea. Finally, Elizabeth could no longer contain the question burning her lips. “You got angry with her, didn’t you? Because of what she’d said about my episode of nausea during lunch. She was probably joking. And you know we need to treat her and Errol with love and grace, no matter what. How else can we ever hope to win them to the Lord?”
“But it was a cruel and thoughtless thing for her to suggest you were…expecting, even if she was only joking. Besides, oysters are enough to make anyone puke. That doesn’t make one… Well, you know…”
“Pregnant?” She reached for Brian’s hand. “You don’t have to be scared to say the word, honey. I’m not made of glass. I learned a long time ago to accept this thing that neither of us can change.”
Had she, though? She clamped her eyes shut until the stinging emptiness subsided, then blew out a sigh. Wasn’t there always that tiny flicker of hope that had refused to vacate her soul, even after all this time? JoAnn might’ve been joking, but there was an element of truth to what she’d said. These were signs of pregnancy.
But she couldn’t be.
Surely?
Tomorrow when she saw Dr. Cummings, she’d tell him about the symptoms she’d been experiencing. But she’d leave out any suggestion that she could be pregnant. That wasn’t what was wrong with her, and to even suggest it would make her seem totally crazy. Although perhaps a good laugh couldn’t hurt.
For all her exhaustion, Elizabeth had a restless night, waking in the early hours of the morning when the birds began to twitter in the trees. Beside her, Brian snored—loudly. He’d obviously had no problems sleeping last night.
She slid out of bed, grabbed her Bible and reading glasses, then pushed her feet into her soft white slippers and padded through to the kitchen. After brewing a cup of tea, Elizabeth trudged through to the living room—mug in one hand, Bible in the other, glasses now on her face. She set the cup down on the side table next to the couch and sank into the soft cushions. She gazed out of the window for a moment at the sun peeking the top of its orange head over the watery horizon before she opened her Bible. She hoped to find some words of wisdom to get her through the doctor’s appointment without sliding down the rabbit hole of a ridiculously impossible pregnancy.
Why had JoAnn put such a thought into her head?
And yet, was it really so impossible? It had happened before. To someone far older than she.
Keen to see how the first woman mentioned in God’s word to bear a child in her old age handled the situation, Elizabeth turned in her Bible to Genesis 18. She’d read this story numerous times before, but never from the perspective of empathizing with Sarah.
“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.
“There, in the tent,” he said.
Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
Would they, too?
Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”
But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
Elizabeth reread the words that seemed to leap from the page. Is anything too hard for the Lord?
Was it too hard for God to do the same for her and Brian, as well? After all, age was just a number to God, a
lthough Sarah hadn’t believed that. She’d found the idea laughable.
Suddenly the notion she’d had last night of her, Brian, and the doctor having a good chuckle no longer seemed like a good idea.1
But that didn’t change her resolve not to ask Doctor Cummings to perform a pregnancy test. If by some miracle she did find herself paddling in the same boat as Sarah had millennia ago, God would need to orchestrate her finding that out. And before she blamed a thickening waistline on middle-age spread.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and spent time in prayer.
“Is this where you disappeared to?”
Brian’s voice, and the familiar cough that always followed his waking, pulled her from her conversation with God. Or was it from her sleep? She’d been talking to the Father, but was almost certain she’d dozed off somewhere in her quiet time.
She looked down at her lap. The open Bible had slid onto the cushion beside her. With a yawn, she removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Morning, honey.”
Brian bent over to give her a kiss. “What time did you come out here?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “The sky had barely started to lighten. What’s the time now?” Hopefully she hadn’t dozed for too long.
“It’s just gone seven.” His gaze drifted to her tea. “You want another?”
Elizabeth leaned forward and grasped the mug, still full, the contents now cold. “I’d love a hot one.” She handed the cup to Brian.
“Why don’t you get ready for your appointment, and I’ll whip up some fried eggs and bacon?”
Elizabeth’s nod and smile quickly vanished as she slapped a hand around her mouth and sprang to her feet. By the time she got to the bathroom, she’d filled her hand. She dumped the contents into the toilet, and then unraveled the roll to wipe her palm and fingers before another heave followed.
A reassuring hand rested on her shoulder. “Love, are you okay?”
She nodded and reached toward the basin, fingers fumbling for the facecloth.
Brian’s reassuring touch left her. A moment later she heard water running. “Here you go.” He handed her the cold, damp cloth, and she wiped her face. It both cooled and refreshed her.
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