The Last Detail

by Lisa J. Lickel

  Board president Dean Abelard had said no to his petition.

  Merit still had to bite hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from a juvenile show of tears or temper right out on the street. Yes, Mr. Abelard, I heard about the fighting in Nehrangestan. First-hand, as a matter of fact. Yes, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak: refugees in Chicago. Yes, at the campus with Ms. Friese. Some young administrator named Jaycee offered the dorm, how nice. But we’re all going home sometime. There’s always fighting over there. They offered some payment to help rebuild. They’ve come for supplies, yes, and yes, at gunpoint, but, no, they’ve never hurt me.

  “What can I get you?”

  Merit broke out of his reverie at the sound of a young man’s voice. “Huh?”

  The white-aproned waiter stood frowning impatiently, holding an order pad.

  “Ah, iced tea?” Merit said.

  “Lemon?’

  “No.”

  “Sweet?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’ll bring it right out.” The young man turned away and tended to another customer on his way inside.

  Merit drummed his fingers on the glass-topped table as he watched tourists stand and gape or photograph sights of the city. Business people rushed around. Police officers directed traffic. Merit chaffed at the board’s denial to allow him to return to his mountain village. There would be no gunfire at the clinic. He didn’t care what the board thought. Villagers needed time to clear away the debris from the earthquake and the landslide and salvage what they could of the already short planting season.

  Abelard had offered him a stateside position, training more missionaries for the field, instead. Stateside.

  “A training position.”

  A shadow loomed over the table. “Excuse me? Here’s your tea.”

  Merit didn’t realize he had spoken out loud. “Sorry. Thank you.”

  The waiter had already moved on to his next customer.

  Merit clinked the ice cubes in the glass, watching the play of light fracturing off them. Not much ice back home in the mountains. Heartsick at the thought of life in the village, he missed the lyric flow of the language and the way the sun seemed to press down from an intimate indigo sky. The air felt heavy and old here, full of acrid fuel smells and honking and hurry-up noises. In the mountains, Tangra’s daughters put bells on all of their goats’ colorful collars. The granddaughters giggled whenever he passed them on the path to and from the clinic.

  Merit now felt like those displaced Nehrangese, in love with their home and not allowed to return to clean up and rebuild their lives. Abelard had been to the clinic once that Merit could recall. Worth had gone to the mission as soon as he could. That’s all Merit remembered him talking about during high school. Then Worth gave his life on the field, dying in a helicopter crash, taking their visiting parents with him. Merit had been home to finish his last year of seminary and language training, having picked up quite a lot during the summers he’d spent at the mission. Justice had been seventeen that year, settled with Prudence and Tom, a senior in high school.

  Merit turned the sweating glass of tea in his hands. The mission post stayed open after Worth’s death until Merit could get there. Justice was safe with Pru, he thought. The call of the mission tugged him overseas. Then, one spring morning before their brother’s graduation, Pru sent a message. Justice had vanished.

  So long ago. Nothing they could do. No word, no clue. What should Merit have done? He kept on working in the mission clinic, where things happened. Good or bad, something happened. Something that could be measured and defined, rejoiced or mourned over. Not the void of never knowing.

  The work in Nehrangestan would never be over. How could Merit make the board understand that? By the time they allowed him to return, who knew what would be left? Why would the board spend all that time, and money, and effort to train him and then not allow him to use his gifts?

  A family sauntered past Merit, the women completely smothered in Burkhas, the men pointing, explaining something in one of the hundreds of Asian dialects.

  Training.

  Lord, Lord.

  Training. He had told Abelard and the board he needed to pray about it. Think, think, think. What would God want him to do? Could he even do it? Would he be any good at training other missionaries? Experience proved to be the best teacher. Did he even have the gift of teaching? The board agreed upon a week’s deadline for his answer.

  Remembering to leave money and a tip to pay for the untouched drink, Merit stuck a bill under the sweating glass and continued to walk the hard cement sidewalks of New York City.

  At the bus station in the evening, Merit contemplated his destination. Pete in Fox Falls? Prudence in Missouri? Making decisions had never felt so difficult.

  Prudence.

  * * *

  Prudence had not seemed surprised at his request for a ride when he called from the bus station. An hour later she arrived alone to pick him up. “I parked the kids with the neighbors,” she said. “You sounded like you need to talk.”

  When they got to her house, she shoved a bright red and yellow toy train engine off the kitchen chair so Merit could sit. “You want me to pray with you?”

  Merit sank into the seat and put his head in his hands. “Yes.”

  Afterward, Merit listened to the homey sounds of his sister preparing snacks.

  She joined him at the table in companionable sibling silence, waiting for him, as she had done when they finished burying Worth and their parents. As she had done after she had broken the news about Justice. Bursting with energy one minute, Pru also had the gift of serenity. Pru was the strong one.

  Merit lifted his head to study his older sister. She had turned thirty-two, and if she had any wrinkles or gray hairs, Merit couldn’t find them. Her dark blonde hair glistened in the late afternoon sun shining through the kitchen window. Her clear eyes studied him now with concern.

  Merit made himself grin through his weariness. “You should be the one in the field, Pru. You’ve always been the one who knows what to do, what to say.”

  Pru shook her head and reached out to set her hand on his arm. “Can’t stand the thought of sick children. Tell me.”

  “The board denied me permission to return to Nehrangestan.”

  Merit counted to twelve in Nehrangesi before he heard her voice. “A very wise nun once said that the Lord always opens a window when he closes a door. Something tells me you weren’t drawn to the scene outside the window.”

  Merit laughed at that, his load already lighter. “You read me like a book. Yes, I’m so altruistic I can’t stand myself. My wounded pride is pure unadulterated selfishness. I wanted my way, and when I didn’t get it, I refused to look at the whole picture.”

  Over the rim of her glass Prudence’s eyes crinkled at the corners.

  “Outside window number one is training future missionaries.”

  Pru’s smile extended to her lips. “To take your place.”

  “Yes.”

  “So perhaps you can teach them to be more careful of popping out of hiding during a skirmish.”

  Merit made a mock salute. “Touché.”

  “Window number one, eh? There are other options?”

  “Perhaps. I am multi-talented, as you recall, trained in both medicine and theology.”

  “Ah, yes, a truly remarkable combination of abilities. How long do you have to decide?”

  “A week. Pru…Worth started a lot of good things over there. Why can’t I be allowed to finish them? I always thought I was supposed to work at the mission.”

  Without even a glance in the direction, Pru stuck her hand out and grabbed a worn Bible from the table top. “A man who wrote lots of letters can answer that better than I. First Corinthians three.”

  Merit found himself repeating some of the familiar phrases with her.

  “‘I planted the seed. Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only
God who makes things grow. The man who plants, and the man who waters, have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it.’”

  Merit closed his eyes about the time Pru read the word “grow.” When her gentle voice trailed off, he opened them and smiled at his precious sister. Only the two of them left now. He cherished her wisdom and support. He hoped he told her enough how much he loved and appreciated her. “Yes. Worth began the good work and I watered it, but I must trust God with the growth. Maybe he is telling me that I needed to move on. But, where? I don’t have any place to go. I should be more like you.”

  Pru closed the good book and set it aside on her tiled tabletop. “I’m not going to presume to speak for God. Right now, you can stay with us for a while, relax. I hear Illinois calling you back, though. Especially to the refugees. How long can I have to baby my little brother?”

  “Forever?”

  She stood and ruffled his head, hugging his face to her stomach. “Nah. How ’bout till next Tuesday?”

  * * *

  Not on call at the fire department for a change, Tom took Merit fishing on one of the deep northern Missouri lakes. Lawrence had begged to come along and Merit kept careful watch not only over the child but how father and son interacted. Prudence had chosen her husband well. Tom Dayton made a wonderful father, patient with his five-year-old, full of answers to the boy’s questions and not afraid to hold his son close.

  Merit noticed other things during the long weekend with his sister’s family. In the past, he had taken for granted the fierce loyalty Prudence had shown Tom. Having dated Pru all through high school, he practically grew up at their house and the death of the older Campbells had been, in some ways, hardest on him.

  Prudence deferred to her husband on the bigger decisions, but neither of them exuded any hint of superiority, as far as Merit could see, in their healthy relationship.

  So, how could Justice have disappeared from their house? Merit thought he had accepted things, that he’d been all right after Mom and Dad died. What had happened to him? An eighteen-year-old girl from a different nearby town had run away from home about the same time. Everyone assumed the two cases were linked, but no one could prove it. A rumor circulated later that the parents had kicked the girl out. They refused to confirm. The police never had any leads.

  Justice took off, his future with him.

  But what about me? Why did he still dwell on his lost brother?

  Closure. Merit shook his head. Sounded weak.

  The question still lingered in his mind. If he could not return to Nehrangestan, what else could he do? Merit told Prudence he had options. True. Nurses were in demand in many areas, and with his experience and credentials, finding a hospital job shouldn’t be too hard. He could be a pastor—use that seminary training. If Merit were called in that direction.

  If.

  That left the training option. But how could he train families about what to expect in the mission field? He had never known worry over a wife and children.

  Single. That’s why he remained single. Merit saw again in his mind the grief of his friend Paul over the loss of his wife and children, all gone in a flash. Merit thought about Tricia and Lawrence. How would he feel if anything happened to them? Devastated, of course. But it still wasn’t the same as if they’d been his and and he’d lost a wife of his own.

  On Monday afternoon when Merit and Prudence sat together in the backyard watching the grill and basking in the aroma of cooking steak, he brought up the subject of family.

  “Pru, how can you love your husband and kids so much, knowing something, anything, terrible could happen at a moment to take them away? An accident, or illness? At least Mom and Dad went together. But Tom’s a firefighter. He has one of the most dangerous jobs on the face of the planet. How can you bear thinking that something might happen to him?”

  Merit’s sister lazed in the chaise with her ankles crossed. With her face tilted in the direction of the sun, she answered. “They’re not mine, you know.”

  He had been reclining on a blanket, staring at the clouds scuttling across the sky, but sat up at Pru’s statement. “What? I beg your pardon?”

  “None of you are.” She smiled before opening her eyes to look at him. “Mom taught me that at Tricia’s birth. I’d been so scared, worried that I wouldn’t make a good mother, didn’t know how to be one. Mom had that way, you know, of making you wonder why you were afraid of anything.”

  Merit nodded, encouraging her to go on. He missed their parents every day over the past eight years. He could see Pru felt the same, for she spoke as though she and their mother had the conversation just yesterday instead of weeks before Mom’s death.

  “Mom said that we are caretakers of God’s precious gifts. He chose us specifically to love and nurture this child of his and asked us only to do the best we could. We have to trust him to take care of the rest.”

  Merit pulled his knees up and clasped his hands around them.

  “I’ve always loved Tom. Even before we got married and had kids, I knew that together we were better than when we were apart. That’s how God made us, Merit. Two halves of one whole. I can’t imagine functioning without Tom, but I also trust God to be in charge of my life. If he wants Tom home in heaven before I feel like I’m ready to let him go, then I know God is taking care of me in the way that’s best for me.” She smiled. “Simply because it would be hard to see the whole picture doesn’t mean I get all bent out of shape because God takes away the best thing in my life here on earth. This life is nothing compared to what’s in store for us.”

  Merit turned his head away, thinking furiously once again that Pru had it all together, while he couldn’t even figure out his next move. Details. Only one other person he knew had such a good grip on reality. Amalia Kennedy. He felt his sister’s hand on his shoulder and glanced up at her.

  “I don’t always have to like what God chooses for my life,” Pru told him, “but gratitude is more than a feeling. ‘Give thanks in all circumstances’ is not an emotion, but an action.”

  Merit set his chin on his knees. “Worth said that the first time he came home from Nehrangestan.”

  “He had to learn that, too. Remember Jolie?”

  Of course Merit remembered his brother’s fiancé, the nurse practitioner who ran the tiny field clinic while Roger Carstairs tramped all over the area. She had encouraged Merit to get his own nursing degree when he finished high school early. Pretty little Jolie had been ambushed just weeks before her and Worth’s wedding. Roger had been home on leave, so she went into the mountains on a medical emergency that turned out to be fake. Worth had always made the school and the medical clinic the main focus of the mission. The ambush had been set up by a faction that had never come into the area before and had not returned. No one even knew what they wanted. Jolie had been the single casualty. “I still don’t understand why God took Jolie.”

  “Sometimes we have to remind ourselves we’re part of the mosaic, little brother. Check the coals, will you?”

  * * *

  When Prudence drove him to the bus station early the next morning, they had time for one more conversation.

  “You know, Merit, if you chose the training option, there’s something you should consider. You’ll be working with whole families going into the field. And while you’ve experienced my family, you don’t know what it’s like to have a family of your own. You can read about love, you can desire a woman, observe children, pray with and for people, but until you love your own wife and child, you cannot experience the joy or the despair or the richness of being part of something greater than yourself, nor communicate that with anyone else.”

  Merit offered Pru a lopsided smile. “You’re giving me permission to pursue a relationship?”

  Pru parked before she leaned an elbow on t
he steering wheel and stared at him. “Do you want to?”

  “Maybe.”

  “With Amalia Kennedy?”

  “Miss Kennedy’s not available.”

  Pru opened her door and jumped into the humidity of August in Missouri. Merit followed her to the back of the minivan where he had stowed his bag. Pru slammed the hatch then turned to hug him. “Things have a way of working out. But I think you ought to start a little more simply. You have that wonderful great, big, empty house of Uncle Bruce’s. Why not ask her to help you get it ready for a new venture—training missionaries?”

  “Hmm. The board didn’t say where I should set up this training camp. I assumed they’d want me in New York.” He shuddered. “But if I don’t have to go there, maybe—”

  “With a refugee camp in Chicago already, maybe you’re meant to stay in Fox Falls. And you know, I think Uncle Bruce would be delighted to know the house is being used for a good cause.”

  “Maybe. I’ll think about it.” He kissed his sister’s cheek. “I’ll think about everything you said on the way back.”

  The trip ended much too soon.

  * * *

  Merit hadn’t come any closer to a decision when the bus stopped in Fox Falls. He left his bag at the station and walked to New Life Church, hoping Pete could talk. Mrs. Field told him that Pete had gone home for afternoon since he had a lengthy committee meeting scheduled that evening.

  Prudence’s words would not stop roiling around in his mind. Great, big, empty house. Use it to train missionaries. Make Uncle Bruce happy. Ask Amalia to help with the details. He went to the Thompson’s where he found Pete lazing behind reflective sunglasses on the deck.

  Merit laid out his options clinically, stating pros and cons of whether Fox Falls would permit such a thing as missionary training, how the neighbors might feel about people coming and going, how many people could actually stay in the house, and even whether or not he, Merit, was equipped for such a work. And how he could get the place ready.

  Pete had an idiotic grin fixed on his face during Merit’s speech, which made Merit antsy. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bothering you on your afternoon at home.”