Читать книгу A Fragile Hope - Cynthia Ruchti - Страница 11

Winter’s tenacity has an expiration date. Hold onto that truth when its biting winds seem to hold spring hostage.

~Seedlings & Sentiments

from the “Encouragement” collection

Sandi? Come here, girl.”

Where was that old towel Karin used when Sandi’s feet were muddy? With the yard in such rough shape, those paws would be caked after this length of time outside.

“Sandi! Food!” A surefire result-getter.

Josiah propped open the door to the backyard and scanned for a furry but happy animal. Nothing.

“Sandi, get your rear end in here!” He whistled like a junior high boy at a girl’s volleyball game. Where was she? Come on. He did not need this. Not today.

Stupid, stupid phone. He yanked it out of his pocket, his eyes glued on the farthest corners of their half-acre lot, anticipating a tongue-flapping, tail-wagging reunion any second now. “Yes? What?”

“Josiah, do you have anger ish-ee-ooos?” Janelle asked.

“Oh, Janelle. You got my message.”

“You didn’t leave one. But I recognized your number. Hey, where were you guys this morning? We missed you in Sunday school. The Larsons tore up the class with their report on the ‘In Love Forever’ seminar they attended in the cities. You would have laughed your socks off at the ridiculous advice they were given. A hot tub filled with champagne? Those so-called marriage experts could have used a few lessons from you, Josiah.”

She continued to talk. Josiah gulped back man tears.

“Janelle, I have to interrupt. Karin’s in the hospital.”

“What? Oh, no! After all she’s been through?”

All she’s been through? What did that mean? “She was in an accident last night.”

“No! What happened? The roads were awful. They closed the interstate for a while.”

“I know.”

“How is she? Can I see her? What does she need?”

“Janelle, she’s in intensive care.”

“Intensive care? How bad is it?”

Josiah turned his back on the empty yard where Sandi should be and walked back toward the kitchen. “It’s not good. I don’t know much yet.”

“What are the doctors saying?”

“When she came out of surgery, they said—”

Janelle’s sharp intake of breath was loud enough for him to hear through the phone. “Surgery?”

“To relieve pressure in her brain.” His throat was closing off again.

“I can’t believe this. I just saw her yesterday morning. I stopped at Seedlings & Sentiments to pick up my order.”

Josiah forced himself to ask, “Did you know about . . . about him?”

“It’s a him? I thought it was too early to tell for sure.”

“What?”

“I know technology has come a long way, even since my Megan was born.”

She was talking about the baby. “So, you know about the child?”

“That’s okay with you, isn’t it? I mean, I know Karin wanted to keep everything quiet for a while.”

Understatement.

“But, I mean, it was obvious she was pregnant. How could I not ask her?”

Obvious.

“Josiah?”

He reined in a stampede of thoughts. “What?”

“Is the baby okay?”

Was it okay a baby was involved? No. Was it acceptable that Karin’s pummeled body would have that to cope with, too? Okay that his wife—his wife—would be a mother but he wouldn’t be a father?

He cleared his throat. “So far, the baby’s fine.”

“Thank the Lord for that. Where are you now? At the hospital?”

“I’m home. Getting a few things.”

“Ah. Karin’s satin pillowcase. She hates regular ones. Me? I prefer Egyptian cotton.”

Josiah headed for the bedroom to grab the satin pillowcase. He should have thought of it earlier.

“How are you holding up, Josiah? How are you feeling?”

Truthfully? Like a prisoner of war robbed of every trace of normalcy, every smidgen of joy. “I’m doing all right. Tired.”

“I’ll get the prayer team mobilized.”

“Thanks. That means a lot.”

“When do you think I can see her? Should I wait a day or two?”

Or six. Or a dozen. “I don’t know, Janelle. I really don’t know at this point. I’ll stay in touch.”

“Please do. Wow, what a mixture of joy and sadness, huh? The baby, but now this?”

She thinks the baby’s mine, or she wouldn’t say that. Karin didn’t tell her friend everything. “About the child, Janelle.”

“I understand. Keep it quiet for a while. You let me know when you and Karin have had a chance to talk about the right moment to share your news.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

She hesitated longer than her normal millisecond before filling the blank space with more words. “I’m so grieved over this.”

“Me, too.” Deeper than you know.

“You’re heading back to the hospital then?”

“Yep. Woodlands. Did I mention that? As soon as I find Sandi. She bolted on me.” Seems to be a habit among my womenfolk.

“Woodlands? Okay. Please know we’re going to pray Karin through this.”

“Thanks. I’m counting on it.”

He ended the call before Janelle could invent something more to say. Where did he leave his coat? Time to locate that fool dog.

If you’d told him a week earlier that both his wife and his dog would leave him—sounded like a sappy country-and-western ballad—he would have blasted both ideas out of the water. Faithful as the day is long, both of them.

Shows how much he knew. Perceptive. His counseling clients used the word perceptive to describe him. Boy, did he have them snowed.

Josiah knew he was rough around the edges. He hadn’t known he was rough around his core. Deep inside breathed a monster that considered abandoning his wife’s bedside to search for his dog.

The pain in his brain over driving away from the house without locating Sandi ran a ridiculously close second to the sensation he felt when he didn’t find Karin waiting for him in the kitchen.

He’d made the tough calls to let the neighbors know he was looking for his dog and, oh, by the way, his wife was in the hospital. Sympathy on all fronts. Yes, they’d keep an eye out for Sandi. Did he need anything? Anything they could do?

Anyone know the name of a good lawyer?

He wrapped the vile thought in an imaginary paper towel and threw it in the garbage can.

Driving past the impound where Karin’s car lay in state probably wasn’t the smartest idea in his current string of dumb ideas. The sight crumpled him with creases deeper than those in the mangled steel. Her car looked like a public service announcement for not texting and driving. The driver’s side took the hardest hit. Despite what Wade had done to steal Karin’s heart, no one deserved to be pancaked like that. Josiah’s stomach cramped as he stared, hands gripping the cold wire fencing that kept him from getting closer without permission. He didn’t have to search for someone to blame. Wade had volunteered. Probably driving too fast for conditions. Or in the process of trying to text Josiah. But why? Wade wasn’t the gloating kind on the golf course. Josiah couldn’t see him gloating over this. Probably driving too fast.

But that didn’t make any more sense than the rest of it. The man single-handedly ran a six-day-a-week delivery service. He’d logged more miles on the road in bad weather conditions than most. How could he have lost control?

Josiah pushed away from the fence. The same way Wade lost control of his morals, it appeared. The same way he took his hands off of his marriage vows with Leah so he could convince Karin there was something better for her than Josiah. That’s how.

Leah. Josiah waited, bracing himself now against the roof of his completely intact vehicle while he said a prayer for the woman who’d lost her husband. Had she driven past this mangled steel? What must Leah be going through?

In professional mode, he would have called and offered to talk her through the early stages of loss. But Leah’s friend and coworker Karin had apparently attempted to run off with her husband. And at the moment Josiah and professional didn’t belong in the same sentence. Who does a marriage counselor call when his own marriage is in shambles?

No one. He couldn’t let his father be right about him, that Josiah created shambles, not fixed them. That Josiah didn’t measure up as a son worthy of respect, despite his accomplishments. That Josiah was an embarrassment as a man.

He couldn’t let his father be right.

Another of Karin’s sins. She’d made Josiah paranoid. As he crawled his way back through the entrance of Woodlands Hospital, tugging a wheeled duffle behind him, he dodged the glances of visitors and medical personnel alike. When had he ever been afraid to look someone in the eye? Did that person know the Chamberlains’ story? How many knew who he was? Did hospital gossip create its own version of why his wife lay broken and pregnant? The radio news reported the fatality and the fact that another injured party remained in critical condition. “No names released until family members are notified.” That must mean Leah hadn’t gotten to the end of her need-to-know call list.

Hey, Aunt Sally. Yeah, good to hear your voice, too. Just wanted to give you a quick call to let you know that Wade is deader than dead. We’ll send word around when we know details about the funeral. Oh, and can you bring your hot potato salad for the meal after? It’s always a hit at family gatherings. Love to Uncle Ross. Talk to you later.

Everything about this reeked. It stunk that Leah had to make calls like that—although no doubt with a lot more grace than Josiah’s brain could muster. It reeked that when word got out about Karin’s full story, Josiah’s career might not survive.

He pushed the Up arrow on the elevator. Twelve times. “Jerk!”

“The elevator? It’s slow sometimes, but . . .” A woman carrying a rack of lab specimens skirted around him and aimed for the stairwell.

Not the elevator. Me. I’m the jerk. My first thought wasn’t Karin. Or that innocent baby. Babies in the womb don’t ask to be put there.

The little thing was fighting to survive. It didn’t deserve his resentment. Its father was somewhere between the morgue and the funeral home. Its mother lay unresponsive, unable to sustain her own breathing, much less its well-being. Someone was going to have to care about that baby. If it survived.

A shudder thundered through him. Had the little one felt the impact of the accident? It had to, didn’t it?

The elevator doors opened for him. Its emptiness swallowed him whole. He couldn’t afford the posture externally, but on the inside, he leaned against the wall, slid to the floor, and buried his face in his hands.

A mid-pitched ding announced his floor, although he couldn’t remember having pressed the button. Look what Karin had done to him! He’d turned judgmental and skeptical and resentful and miserable. With one decision, she’d succeeded in changing his personality. The woman stepped around ants on the sidewalk and insisted he find a “humane” way to rid their basement of mice. How had she kept her ruthless nature hidden, the side of her that could rip a guy’s heart out and rearrange his personality?

Josiah leaned one shoulder against the tiled wall of the corridor. God, help me. I hate who I am. I hate what she’s done. I hate what it will do to Catherine and Stan when they find out the truth about their daughter.

As if summoned by the prayer, Stan approached from farther down the corridor. Josiah collected himself from the corners to which the pieces of his life had scattered.

“Any new word?” he asked as Stan drew near enough for conversation.

“No. Same. Did you get any rest?”

“I showered. Took care of a few things. Sandi’s gone.”

Stan’s face registered an additional concern. “What? Where’d she go?”

Bad Josiah prepared to tell Stan what a stupid question that was. If he knew where she’d gone, he’d have found her. Good Josiah showed up and replied, “She took off when I let her out. No telling where. I alerted the neighbors.”

“Oh, son, that’s all you need.”

Karin’s father had already mastered the art of caring about others when his heart was breaking. How did he do that?

“Where’s Catherine?”

Stan nodded toward the ICU beyond the double doors. “She’s in with Karin. I have to pace myself. It’s so hard to see her that way.” His words dissolved into tears. The muscles in his jaw clenched and unclenched as if his python throat worked to swallow an antelope of grief.

Abandoning his duffle, Josiah closed the narrow gap between them and embraced his father-in-law. “It’s going to be okay. She’ll pull through this.” Lies. All lies. He had no guarantees. And her survival, much as they all prayed for it, would introduce a whole new garbage pail of unpleasantries.

The men broke their embrace when an overhead speaker paged a code blue to ICU. That didn’t sound good. Karin? How many other patients occupied ICU cells? Why hadn’t he noticed before?

Stan rubbed his hands on the sides of his thighs. “We should be getting—”

“Right. Getting back.” Josiah reclaimed his duffle and laptop case and followed Stan through the double doors. The halls had seemed colorless, lifeless in the middle of the night. By the light of day and distanced from the adrenaline overload of the previous hours, they boasted artwork and classy lighting. Yeah, let’s pretend this is a gallery.

“Nice, huh?”

“What, Stan?”

“The art. Kind of nice to see something beautiful in a place where not much else is. Look at that one. Peaceful, isn’t it?”

Josiah took in the gradient greens of the mountain meadow scene. Wildflowers. A stream so alive with reflective light he could almost hear the water bubble as it leapfrogged over the rocks in its way.

The sun, unseen but effective, must have been straight overhead in the artist’s imagination. No shadows.

Surreal.

Josiah tore his gaze away from the scene to his reality. A few more feet and they’d cross into the family waiting room, the command post from which he would not command anything. He’d watch to see whether his life and marriage would live or die.

Catherine had aged another ten years by the time her ten minutes of visitation expired. She worked up a wan smile as she greeted Stan and Josiah, but the slant of her shoulders and the way she fiddled with the hem of her jacket revealed it as counterfeit. Good intentioned, but false.

Stan rose from the couch he’d chosen as his favorite. “How is she?”

“Oh,” Catherine said, “I think she has a little more color.”

Is that the best she could do? Josiah envisioned Karin’s previously flawless skin with an improved “warmer” shade of ghostly blue. “Has the doctor been in?”

“Not while I was there. Nurses in and out. They don’t say much about her condition. I didn’t realize until now how small small talk is.” She lowered herself into a chair then popped up. “Josiah, did you eat? We should get you something to eat.”

“Mama Catherine, you’re too much. I should be asking that of you.”

“We had a little something while you were gone.”

Did they think he’d been gone too long? The look on her face didn’t offer a hint of that. “Was Sandi happy to see you?”

With true vigor, Stan shook his head from side to side, lips pressed together, brows scrunched.

After that many years of marriage, it was no wonder Catherine picked up on his less-than-subtle signal. But something got lost in translation. Catherine slapped her hand over her heart. “Oh, dear. Did she make a mess?”

No. Your daughter did.

How vigorously would Stan shake his head once the truth came out?