Sarah's Choice

by Rebecca St. James

  “Lung cancer?”

  “Yes. And he never smoked. Never spent time in mines or anything like that. It just happened. And I think I’ve told you he was responding to treatment. There was always the chance that he’d die eventually, but the doctors kept saying he’d probably go into remission and we’d have him for four or five years. I heard them say that myself because now that I was out of grad school and living back at home, I went to his appointments with him so Mom could have a break. She wasn’t handling things well.”

  “It’s fallen on you for a long time, then.”

  “I wanted it to be on me. That night I even talked my mother into going to Bible study, which she hadn’t been to in forever. I think the only reason she went was because Reverend Al was coming over. He was our pastor.” Sarah crossed her fingers. “He and my father were like this. So they were sitting there and my father was drinking a cup of warm milk I’d just fixed for him. He says to Reverend Al, ‘I’d offer you a cup, Al, but I can’t say much for the taste.’ Reverend Al said something about putting a little Chinese Five-Spice into it, and my father turned green.” Sarah smiled ruefully. “I think I know how he felt. It was strange then, because my dad looked at me like he wanted me to leave the room. That was never the case; I was always involved when people came in, but it was so clear to me, so I left. Sort of.”

  “Did a little eavesdropping, did you?”

  “I hadn’t done that since Denise and I were kids, but there was this one spot on the steps where you could see what was going on in the living room, but if somebody even looked like they were going to turn around and see you, you could disappear up the steps. We never got caught. That I know of.”

  “So that’s where you went.”

  “I did, and I had full view of my dad while they were talking. At first I could hear everything. My dad said this wasn’t what he expected at this point in his life, and then he said, ‘That’s what I get for expecting God to follow my plan, right?’ ”

  “Were you okay with that?”

  “We haven’t gotten to the part where I started being ticked off at God, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “I actually appreciated Reverend Al right then. He said he wasn’t convinced cancer was God’s doing. He said, ‘All I know is that we can expect God to be there, no matter what happens.’ ” Sarah took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what I expected. I expected my father to say he expected God to heal him. That’s what I knew God could do.” She closed her eyes so she could see. “But my dad just shook his head and I watched the pain lines etch into his face. And that’s when I knew my father might actually die. Soon.”

  Audrey was very still. Sarah didn’t move either. She wasn’t sure she could. The memory was so fragile she was afraid it would shatter before she finished it.

  “They started talking so softly after that, I couldn’t hear. Dad hunched over with his head down. Reverend Al got close to him and murmured for a long time. When I realized my father was crying, I couldn’t watch any more. I felt like I was intruding on something he didn’t want me to know. I went to my room and stayed until Reverend Al left. Then I went downstairs because I couldn’t leave my dad alone.”

  “How did he seem?”

  “Exhausted. I asked him if he wanted me to take him to bed, but he would never let anybody but Mom do that. He really did try to keep his dignity.”

  “That’s not all.”

  “No. I don’t even know if I can get through this part. I never even go back and look at it myself. Every time I’ve tried it’s like all this hopelessness pours over me like tar and I can’t move, and then I’m just stuck in the pain.” Sarah searched Audrey’s face. “If I have to stop, you’ll understand, right? You won’t think it’s because I don’t trust you. I do.”

  “I think I know that.”

  “You’re not knitting.”

  “I can’t. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “No,” Sarah said. “It doesn’t.” Once again she closed her eyes. “I didn’t want to be alone with him. I mean, I didn’t know what to do or say, and that had never happened before and it scared me. So I started dusting the living room—something I never did, partly because my mother did it six times a day. Once I grabbed the feather duster and started going after the picture frames and the Precious Moments figurines, I could relate. It kept me from screaming, Please! You can’t die!

  “I thought my dad had dozed off, and all of a sudden there was this gasp from the recliner. I turned around and there he was standing up. He hadn’t stood up without somebody helping him for weeks, but he was upright on his feet. And not steady.” Sarah demonstrated. “He was flailing his arms and he had a startled look on his face, as if he was seeing someone he didn’t expect to see. If I hadn’t run to him and put my arms around his torso, he would have fallen to the floor, and I couldn’t have gotten him up.”

  “You okay?” Audrey whispered.

  Sarah didn’t risk answering. “He just clung to me, you know, like I was his lifeline. I could feel his bones pressing against me, and I just held on to him and he hung onto me. All I could think was, No matter how hard we hang on, I can’t stop you from dying. And then . . . it was like all the air went out of him and he said, ‘SJ . . . God forgives me.’ ”

  Sarah tried to breathe deep, but her air was gone.

  “And that’s when I knew, Audrey. It wasn’t just that he might die. He was going to die. And soon.

  “I don’t know how I knew, I just knew, and it ripped me apart from the inside out. You remember me telling you it was like I was in a five-car collision?”

  Audrey had both hands pressed to her mouth, but she nodded.

  “That was really the first car to hit me. Not him actually dying, but knowing it was going to happen. The impact threw me out of that seat where I could believe he’d stay, and I was bruised and broken. I couldn’t even imagine how he must feel, because I knew he knew it too. He was the one who had to shift from hanging on to letting go.”

  Audrey stayed quiet.

  “Then it was like he got very small in my arms, and he asked me to help him sit back down. He closed his eyes and he breathed without gasping and he drifted off to sleep. I still don’t know if he really was asleep or if he was just pretending, but he stayed that way until Mom came home. All I said to her was, ‘I dusted while you were out.’ Was that lame or what?”

  “No, probably not.”

  “While she was in the bedroom getting him to bed, I was sobbing on the couch. I couldn’t imagine the world without him in it. And not just mine but the world he influenced every day. During his illness people had come to see him that none of us even knew existed except him. People he’d sold insurance to. Guys who met him for coffee in the morning before work. Strangers he’d befriended and listened to, just the way he did to us. Who does that? The world was going to have big holes in it because he wasn’t in it bridging gaps for people who had no one else to do it for them.”

  “I can see you being mad at God.”

  “That still wasn’t it. My mother found me there, and she didn’t even ask why I was crying. I didn’t know what my father had told her—whether he shared that he knew he would die. Evidently not because she stroked my hair and she said, ‘Something happened tonight at Bible study, Sarah, that you need to know. God spoke to me. He told me he was healing your father. Don’t worry. God is healing him.’ ”

  “Did you believe her?” Audrey said. There was no hint in her voice whether she would have or not.

  “I wanted to,” Sarah said. “My mother had a very real relationship with God, I knew that. And even though I felt like mine was deep, surely hers must be deeper. She was the one who read her Bible every day—prayed without ceasing, as they say. You couldn’t shake her faith with an earthquake. So why wouldn’t I believe that what she was hearing from God was more accurate than what I thought I knew when I was holding onto my father in that very same room? So I went to sleep there on the cou
ch with some hope again.” Sarah’s breath caught in her throat. “I woke up the next morning to my mother screaming his name. He was dead.”

  “Car number two.”

  “It slammed right into me. When they said his heart just stopped beating for no apparent reason, I knew he had just let go. Or was it God pulling him away?” Sarah tried not to let her voice rise. “I was angry and I didn’t know who to be angry with. Either God had lied to my mother, or she’d heard wrong, or she’d just made it up to comfort me. If she hadn’t told me that he was going to be healed, I would have gotten up and I would have gone to my father and I would have told him everything I wanted to tell him because I knew he was going to die. I was cheated out of that—and after a while it occurred to me that maybe none of it was God. It didn’t matter. I was through trying to hear God. So I stopped reading the Bible, and I stopped going to church, and I stopped praying. And you know what, Audrey? That’s when I stopped living.”

  Sarah didn’t know she was crying until she felt Audrey’s arm around her shoulder.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “That stuff has been in there for way too long.”

  “What am I supposed to do with it now?” Sarah sobbed. “How can I speak to a God who wouldn’t even give me a chance to say good-bye to the person I loved most in the world? I spent the last few precious moments I had with him dusting the teacups. How can I get past that?”

  “I only know one thing for sure,” Audrey whispered to her. “You’re going to find out, because now you’re asking the right questions.”

  Sarah pulled her hands from her face and stared at the goo in her palms. “I have snot everywhere.”

  “And I have Kleenex everywhere.”

  Audrey stood up. Sarah heard something liquid hitting the floor.

  “Did I spill my water?” she said.

  “No,” Audrey said, “I just spilled mine.”

  Sarah blinked at her for a full ten seconds before she realized what she was talking about.

  “Is that—”

  “Yep, my water just broke.”

  “Oh, my gosh!” Sarah leapt up and smeared her nose with the back of her hand. “Okay, so what do we do? Do we call somebody?”

  “First we stop freaking out,” Audrey said. “Jack and I have a plan in place. It’s not like this is a surprise.”

  “Okay, you call him and I’ll drive you to the hospital. In your car. I don’t trust mine.”

  “Would you relax? I’m calling Jack, and he’ll come home and we’ll take it from there. Meanwhile, I’m more worried about you.”

  “I’m fine,” Sarah lied. “This is huge for you. Your baby’s coming. I’m not messing that up.”

  “I’m not even having that many contractions yet.”

  Sarah felt her eyes bulge. “What do you mean ‘that many?’ ”

  “They’ve been coming all evening, but they’re not bad.” Audrey poked at her cell and gave Sarah a gentle shove back into the chair. “Hey sweet darlin’,” she said into the phone. “I think it’s time. And you better bring a mop.”

  Sarah looked down at the small puddle on the floor.

  “I’ll wipe it up,” she said when Audrey ended the call.

  “I want to save that for Jack,” Audrey said. “We’re in this together.”

  Sarah managed to grin at her. But she felt unutterably sad.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Audrey’s Jack assured Sarah he would text her when Baby Alex made his entrance. But tiny beads of sweat had formed on his shaved head, and before they left for the hospital he called her Sally. She was fairly certain he’d forget. Still, Sarah checked her phone every thirty minutes all night. She wasn’t sleeping anyway.

  It wasn’t visions of Audrey in labor that kept her awake. It was the memories she’d allowed out that evening. And not even those, but the questions they raised.

  Did she really still believe in God?

  Well, yes. Why else would her first reaction at the clinic have been, I can’t have an abortion?

  Then why was this even an issue?

  She gnawed on that until 2:00 a.m. when she was nursing a cup of hot milk. The very same way her dad had nursed his the night he died. What was it about that?

  Reverend Al telling him to put Chinese Five Spice in it?

  No.

  And not his not being convinced that cancer was God’s doing. Sarah had never gone there either.

  No, it was more what the reverend didn’t say. What Sarah thought he might say. Have faith, Bill. You’ll be cured.

  He didn’t say that. Her mother said that.

  What he said was, We can expect God to be there, no matter what happens.

  No matter what? Like now? When she’d all but written God off?

  Sarah got up and put the empty cup in the sink and stared into it. They’d lowered their voices after that, her dad and Reverend Al. If she’d heard what they said when her father was crying, would that have made a difference?

  Would it make a difference now?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Reverend Al’s secretary—thankfully not Denise that day—said he could see Sarah at two. That gave her time to try to talk herself out of it. How was she going to get to what she needed to know without outright telling him her situation? He wouldn’t have much choice but to tell her not to have an abortion.

  She didn’t have to tell him she was pregnant and trying to decide what to do. She could ask about visions. She needed to know if they were God anyway. And if they were, maybe she wouldn’t have to ask about her father’s last hour with Reverend Al.

  One thing was clear: the only way she was going to do this without losing it was to outline her approach in her mind. It was there as she slid into a pew in the back of the church beside the reverend. The colored light from the stained glass window behind him danced playfully on his partly bald head. It somehow matched the crinkles at the corners of his eyes that made his full-cheeked face look younger than his years. She’d forgotten the mischievous air he had about him. No wonder Denise saw him as an almost-Dad.

  “I know it must seem strange that I called you out of the blue,” Sarah said. “I haven’t exactly been . . . around.”

  “You’re here now,” he said. “Why don’t we start with that?”

  Sarah let out a little of the breath she was holding. “I have kind of a weird question for you.”

  His eyes twinkled. “Is it: if God is all-powerful and if he can do anything, can he make a stone so heavy he himself can’t lift it?”

  “No,” Sarah said, almost laughing.

  “Good, because I don’t have the answer to that one. Anything else, I might be able to help you.”

  He fell silent, the lines still crinkling.

  Sarah pulled out the words she had lined up. “I was wondering if God still speaks to people in dreams and visions like he did in the Bible.”

  “Challenging question.” Reverend Al settled comfortably into the pew, one short leg crossed over the other knee with more ease than Sarah would have expected. “Some people believe God stopped revealing himself through dreams and visions when the Bible was completed. Me? I’m not one to limit our Lord’s ability to reveal himself to his children.” He regarded Sarah with interested eyes. “Do you know someone who’s had a vision?”

  “Me. I think.” This was where she had to tread cautiously. “I have this important decision to make, and I’ve had two really vivid dreams that show me what will happen if I decide one way.”

  He nodded. The other thing she’d forgotten was that he listened like you were the only person left breathing in the world.

  “I need to know how I can be sure they’re true.”

  “Because that will help you make your decision.”

  “Right. I would’ve just passed them off as dreams if it weren’t for this card . . .”

  Sarah opened her bag, but the card wasn’t there because, of course, she’d left it at the clinic. She rolled her eyes and muttered, “F
igures.”

  The reverend recrossed his legs, never moving his gaze from her. His eyes grew more serious. “The only way to discern the truth of any vision is to measure it against the revealed word of God.”

  Sarah tried to keep the nettle out of her voice. “I don’t have time to read the whole Bible and see how they fit.”

  “Okay, then let’s take a different tack.”

  The shift didn’t seem to bother him at all. In fact, he looked even more intrigued.

  “This decision you have to make, and soon, I take it . . .”

  “By tomorrow,” Sarah said.

  “Is the decision morally neutral, where either option would fall within the will of God? Or is it a case where one option definitely falls outside his will?”

  “According to the church, it’s the second.” She tried to keep the sudden bitterness out of her voice, but apparently it was apparently oozing from her pores because Reverend Al leaned forward and said, “Let’s put doctrine aside for the moment. I think what’s at issue here is where you are with God.”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Because of your dad’s death.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t be anywhere with God now because he abandoned you then.”

  Sarah felt her chin drop.

  “I saw it at the funeral, Sarah. You were more angry than sad. That’s why I haven’t reached out to you.” He smiled a little as he tilted his head sideways and back. “Prayed for you, yes. And waited for a time when I wasn’t going to get my clock cleaned.”

  Sarah swallowed hard. “I couldn’t get past it. And now when I need to, I’m afraid . . .”

  “Afraid of what?”

  This wasn’t part of the plan she’d come in here with. Neither was the whisper. That’s what I get for expecting God to follow my plan.