A Morning Like This (33 page)

David sat with his knees crossed, his chin propped on a thumb, his pointer finger curved in a cee beneath his nose.

Nelson Hull took the pulpit when the music ended. While everyone waited, he attached a small, cordless microphone to his lapel.
His auburn hair never looked quite as ragged on Sunday mornings. He smiled at everyone with his entire face.

Just when he did, Braden touched his mother’s arm. “Mom,” he said, louder than a whisper. “There’s something I have to do.
I have to find out if it’s okay.”

“Sh-h-hhh.” She narrowed her brows at him. “Not right now. Later.”

“No, Mom.” He shook his head. “Sam and I have to do this. This is the chance.”

“The chance for what?”

Their conversation was disturbing others. Several people glanced in their direction. Abby leaned in close so he could whisper
in her ear. And when he did, her fingers draped loosely over the pew in distrust.

During the past three days, they had all begun to know Samantha. If they had tried not to, she would not have given them that
chance. “Do you want to know about me?” she’d asked Abby as they walked along the bank of Fish Creek looking for muskrats.
“I just finished reading a book about Squanto. I like to French braid my hair, but only when my mom has time to help me. If
I do it myself, it gets too messy.”

“It’s fun hearing about girl stuff,” Abby had said. “Your hair.”

“My favorite drink is Dr. Pepper and my favorite food is cotton candy. My favorite movie is
The Great Outdoors
. My mom bought me the video.”

“What else?” Abby had asked. “Tell me.”

“I always wanted a dog but, instead, I have a cat that’s mellow.”

“Mellow? Is he a calm cat?”

“No. That’s his color. You know it. Kind of orange with stripes, and white yellow. Mellow.” Then, a pause. “Do you ever wonder
what heaven’s like?”

“Yes,” Abby said.

“Well,” Samantha said. “Maybe I’m going to get to see it before you do.”

No
. Abby had faltered right then. She realized how tired this was making Sam, just walking along the creek-side with them, searching
for forget-me-nots and water animals. The little girl had gone pale from exhaustion and there were deep circles beneath her
eyes. “Hey,” Abby said. “We’ll go back to the house. Call your mother to come over from the motel.”

And now, this. We haven’t arranged it. Nelson is already in the pulpit.

Lord, is it You who wants this? Does this family have to be so… so transparent together?

“Mom,” Braden whispered again, his voice growing frantic. This time, he gripped Samantha’s hand. “We want to do this.”

Oh Lord Oh Lord Oh Lord
.

If Abby searched for one spark of peace inside, she couldn’t find it. She felt shaky, with nothing solid, nothing stable,
to hold on to. Her heart ached with panic. Across the heads of the children, she sought David, even though they hadn’t talked
in weeks.

If I could catch David’s eye
.

But David was staring straight ahead, as lockjawed and undistractable as a soldier standing at attention.

“It might make a difference.” Samantha, who was always braiding the fringe on things, was now braiding the straps on Abby’s
purse. “If you don’t mind him doing it.”

Abby stepped forward onto something that she didn’t know would hold her. “Of course we’ll do it. Of course it will make a
difference. Wait here.”

Loving in secret was one thing. Loving in public was another. As Abby sidled the length of the pew and came out into the aisle
in front of a settled congregation, her fear did not dissipate. As she walked forward toward the altar and motioned for Nelson
to hear her, Abby knew what she had to do to be right.

This is what You’re asking me for, isn’t it? I’ve been hiding in a glass box all this time. I haven’t wanted to let anybody
else inside.

Nelson Hull’s voice came just a tad softer than usual when he said, “We’re going to change the schedule around a little bit
today. Something has come up. We’ve decided it would be appropriate to share this with the congregation.”

Abby had just gone back to her seat. Everyone peered around to see who might be standing up next. Seconds passed. Congregants
scrunched lower in their seats as if they were concerned Pastor Hull might call on them. Only Viola Uptergrove rose higher,
pushing herself up on her walker as if she needed to take stock of every head.

For a moment, everyone thought Viola was the one going to say something. But she sat back down, too.

Nelson extended his hand. “Braden Treasure, will you come to the altar, please?”

Braden stood up and laid his picture of the warrior on his seat. Samantha rose beside him. Braden smiled and took Sam’s hand,
then led her sidelong into the aisle.

They got to the front of the church, climbed up the steps to the altar, and didn’t know where to stand. Together, they sidestepped
one way, and then the other. Nelson stooped low, murmured something, and braced Braden with a broad, firm hand behind the
shoulders.

The pastor retrieved the microphone from its stand, checked to make sure it was on, and positioned the children to one side
of the pulpit so their faces could be seen.

“Hi,” Braden said into the microphone. His voice rang out loud. “I’m Braden Treasure.”

An undertone moved through the audience. David sat back hard in his chair. Beside him, his wife’s shoulders rose and fell.
When she turned to meet his face, their look was long.

“Hi,” Braden said again as he adjusted his weight from his left foot to his right one. “Lots of people just thought we had
a friend visiting, but this is my sister, Samantha.”

The whispering grew louder.

“I’ve just met her because she came to find us. She has leukemia.”

Well,
that
made everybody hush.

Braden shifted the microphone from one hand to the other. “There’s this place called a bone-marrow register and they know
where people are all over the world. If somebody needs the kind you have, they find you and take it out of you and they fly
it to the person who needs it in a plane. There isn’t anybody registered who matches my sister, not even me.”

While her son talked, Abby plopped her elbows on the pew in front of her and laid her forehead on her stacked hands.
Oh, Father
, she finally admitted,
it’s been so dangerous to let myself care about Samantha. But I do. Oh, Lord, I do
.

“Samantha’s mom tried all the places like that before she ever called our family. My dad doesn’t match Sam, either, even though
he’s her dad, too. I’ve talked to everybody on my baseball team. But then I started thinking, well, this is
church
. I started thinking that, if you all will go to the hospital and get that test like I did, we’ll be able to find somebody.”
Braden found his mom and dad in the rows on the left side of the sanctuary and looked directly at them. “We’re all really
sad, but things are better because we’re together—”

David moved his hand from below his nose to his eye sockets and, with his thumb and his forefinger, pinched hard.

Abby lifted her face and stared at the wooden cross at the front of the sanctuary.

“Do you want to say something, Sam?” Braden held out the microphone to his sister in front of them all. Samantha shook her
head no.

“Come on. It’s okay. You take it.” He’d whispered, but the sound came over the loudspeakers.

That didn’t leave her much choice. She
did
take it. She shot everyone a shy smile. “Hi,” she said, and her own voice rang so loudly it made her jump. She regained her
composure before she went on. “I’d just like to say that I’m glad I found this place.”

Many people in the congregation that day began praying for them. Many people made decisions that moment to drive to St. John’s
and have a test. But only one person in the rows of seats prayed from a place of complete devotion. Only one prayed from a
place where a wall had been broken down. She prayed as if her own life depended on what she gave that moment to the Lord.

And maybe, maybe, it did.

O
n Monday afternoon at the shelter, Sophie Henderson lugged her blue plastic trashcan toward the office, hugging it possessively
against her chest. Her Dodge truck keys swung to and fro from her pinky finger on her favorite key chain, the skeletal-link
fish. She paused in the middle of the courtyard and took one last look around.

She would miss Abby, but she honestly hoped she would never have to see this place again.

Sophie set the trashcan by the stoop. Before she went inside she bent to give the cat one last, long rub. Phoebe the cat curved
low, dipping her vertebrae beneath Sophie’s hand, curling her tail and pushing it as high as it would go.

That taken care of, Sophie gave the door handle a twist and bumped the door open with her hip.

She found Abby sitting at her desk, her fingers splayed on a stack of forms she must have been processing for a new client.
She was staring sightlessly at a line of self-help books, the ones Sophie knew she trusted for a quick reference. Sophie watched
her studying the spines of the books, the colors of the jackets, the embossed titles, before she began to thumb through forms
again.

“Hey,” Sophie whispered.

“You ready?” Abby asked, without pivoting in her chair.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Abby tamped the papers on her desktop, aligning them in one perfect rectangle. Sophie touched her friend’s arm with sadness.

Abby said, “It’s not going to be the same without you, you know.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“You know what I mean.”

Sophie took a deep breath, deep enough to move her shoulders and sink all the way to her diaphragm. “Talking about going is
a whole lot easier than really doing it.”

“I checked out your truck. It’s full of gas.”

“Thank you.”

“I had to put air in one of the tires. There are a couple quarts of oil in the back in case you need to top it off.”

“I probably will.”

They stood square and looked at each other, neither of them wanting this to be quite the last they said. “Oh, Soph—”

“Wish me luck.”

“Luck. Prayers. Send me your address when you get settled. Or your e-mail so we can stay in touch.”

“You’ll have to give it to me.”

Another quick scramble while Abby jotted it down. “There.” And then, another hug.

“Thank you for everything. Words won’t do this.”

“Don’t try.”

“I mean it, Abby.”

“It’s okay, Soph. I know.”

Sophie hurried down the steps and turned one last time to wave. The phone rang inside and Abby stepped back, shutting the
front door so she could answer the call. Sophie bent, brandished the truck key to unlock the door, and found a scrap of paper
stuck inside the truck handle. She unrolled it, and read.

Oh, dear
. Not what she needed right now.

You are the apple of my eye,

the blue in every sky,

the—

Sophie wadded Mike’s poem and shoved it inside her pocket. She wrestled with the key, opened the lock, and had just opened
the truck door and pushed her belongings across the front seat when a rough hand clenched her arm.