A Mother's Gift (Love Inspired) (6 page)

“Please, Lord. Whatever You will…whatever You need from me. Please, Lord.”

S
am’s jaw clenched against the pain as the doctor closed the pressure bandage.

“Too much repair to manage in here,” he said. “We’re waiting for an operating room to clear. That way we can put him under before we give it another good cleaning and stitch the wound.”

Dixie clutched her father’s hand and asked the question they were both afraid to have answered. “Is he going to be all right?”

“He’s lost some tissue, but the muscle doesn’t appear too badly damaged, so I don’t think he’ll lose any function. Luckily, it’s on the outside of his thigh.”

“Luck,” Sam rasped, “has nothing to do with it.”

“A large, ugly scar and several weeks of recovery should be the worst of it, but don’t be surprised if he has to have some physical therapy,” the doctor went on.

Dixie heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“He’s a tough old buzzard,” the younger man replied with a smile. “I’d have passed out a long time ago.”

Sam chuckled and gasped, “And miss all the attention?”

“You’ve got about five more minutes to enjoy it,” the doctor said, sweeping from the small, cell-like room.

Sam moaned, muttering, “Where’s Mom? Should’ve been here by now.”

“I’ll go check. Be right back.”

Patting his shoulder with one hand, she clutched her cell phone with the other, intending to run out into the waiting area so she could call her mother again. Vonnie had needed to drop off Clark at a neighbor’s before she could make the dash into town. Dixie hurried from the cubicle.

“Here you are. On your left.” The nurse accompanying Joel stepped back.

“Thank you,” Joel said, a millisecond before a soft, curvy body collided with his.

“Oof!”

“Dixie!” He knew instinctively that she’d been rushing from Sam’s bedside when she’d literally bumped into him. Alarm shot through him, and he slid his hands over her shoulders and back, trying to discern her emotional and physical state. “What’s wrong? Is Sam all right? Are you all right?”

Her hands fisted in the sides of his shirt, and for an instant he thought she might lean against him, embrace him, even, but she let go and pulled back a few inches.

“He will be. They’re taking him into surgery any minute, though, and he wants to see Mom. Where is she?”

“She’s parking the car. Can I speak to him?”

“Of course. He’s still in some pain, though. They’re giving him blood, and they’ve set up a nerve block, but they don’t want too many drugs in his system because they’re going to put him under to stitch him up.”

“I understand.” She turned to lead the way, but instead of taking her arm, Joel slung his around her shoulders. He wanted her close just now, and he had the feeling that she needed the support. They moved forward several steps.

“Joel,” Sam growled. “You didn’t have to come.”

Joel smiled, relieved to hear his friend’s voice, despite the tone of pain. “Oh, but I did.” He explained about inviting himself to lunch and catching a ride out to the Wallace place with the pastor, who had been on his way to Duncan. “After Dixie called, I rode back in with Vonnie. And to think I complained about missing you,” he noted wryly. “All in all, I think I’d have preferred that to this.”

“Me, too!”

They both chuckled, though Sam’s laugh sounded rough and mirthless. Joel liked Sam, admired him. Compared to his own father, who had disappeared years ago without so much as a word to his wife and children since, Sam was a hero, a real man who took his obligations seriously but wasn’t afraid to show love and friendship. It grieved Joel to hear the pain in his voice when Sam asked, “Where is she?”

No one had to ask who “she” was.

“Parking the—”

Vonnie blew into the space before he could finish. “I’m here! Samuel Wallace, what have you done?”

“Eh. Not as strong as I used to be. Arm got tired, dropped down while the chain saw was running. Simple as that.”

While her mother clucked over her father, Dixie quickly explained what the doctor had told them.

“Thank God!” Vonnie exclaimed, her voice sounding muffled. Joel imagined that she was hiding her face behind her hands or perhaps hugging Sam. She was definitely turned away.

“Actually,” he said, sharing her relief at what was mostly good news, “that’s an excellent idea. Thanking God, I mean. Would anyone mind if we took a minute so I could lead us in prayer?”

“Please do,” Sam rasped.

Nodding, Joel eased forward, realizing only then that he still had his arm about Dixie’s shoulders. She slipped free, linking her hand to his. Realizing that she’d stretched out, he lifted his other hand and felt Vonnie’s grip it. Assuming that the women were linked to Sam, Joel bowed his head.

“Most gracious Lord God, we thank You for sparing Sam from permanent injury. Ease his pain now, Father, and in the weeks to come as he heals. Keep Your protective hand upon him and guide the physicians as they repair the damage. Restore him, Lord, to full function and full health. The glory and honor for his healing and every other good thing is Yours, Lord, and never let us forget it. In the name of Your Holy Son, amen.”

He heard a sniff from Dixie and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back before letting go. Joel’s heart swelled. Perhaps friendship was all they’d ever have between them, but that was more than he’d feared they could have after their last meeting, even if it was less than he wanted. He’d been over and over it in his mind. A part of him feared that his mother’s influence and his own blindness was all there was to his feelings for Dixie. Bess had declared Dixie the girl for him, and hers had been all but the last face he’d seen before the explosion and the ensuing darkness. He couldn’t deny that he’d obsessed over that a good bit. Why Dixie? Why that particular photo?

On the other hand, if he was going to hold one beautiful face before his mind’s eye for the rest of his life, why not Dixie’s? Was he wrong to think that God had singled her out for him? He’d tried not to spin dreams, to make assumptions, to limit God in any way, but then she’d told him about her amazing dream, and it had seemed so very obvious that they belonged together, that they were meant to be. But even if that was God’s plan, and not just his own blind obsession, who was to say when it came into being? Before Mark’s death? After? Was it God’s perfect will or Plan B? And what if Dixie never saw it that way?

Joel didn’t have the answers. He didn’t know why he and Dixie couldn’t have gotten together from the beginning, or why Mark had died and he had lost his eyesight. He didn’t know if Dixie would ever adjust to her loss and be ready to move on with her life, to love again. If not, then he had to believe that God would have someone else for him, because he definitely did not want to spend his life alone in the dark.

Then again, he was never alone. He had begun to actually feel God’s presence in the hospital after the explosion. Trembling in fear, raging in anger, horrified at his loss, confused with his surroundings, he had begun to sense, within himself and apart from the chaos, that Greater One Whom he had accepted as a boy. He wished he had felt God’s physical presence sooner, that it had been more real to him before he’d lost his eyesight, but he had been more blind then than now.

Sam began to grouse about not getting the wood stacked. Apparently, he’d cut the fallen tree into logs for a wood-burning fireplace. Joel hadn’t even realized that Dixie had one, though it made sense. Most newer homes did these days. He thought about how nice it would be to sit before a crackling fire with Dixie snuggled against him, Clark playing quietly on the rug at their feet. He wished, suddenly, that he could see Clark, really know what he looked like now. His mother had told him to picture himself at that age but with curls. Joel was afraid to do it. That would make Clark seem too much like his own son. That would be risking too much of his heart if Dixie never came to care for him.

Sam grumbled about the stump in Dixie’s backyard, and Joel knew that it was just a way to keep his mind off his pain. Nevertheless, he quickly sought to reassure the older man.

“Don’t worry about any of that,” he said, hearing footsteps in the passageway outside. “I’ll get over to Dixie’s and stack the wood. We can deal with the stump later.”

Suddenly, Dixie’s hand grasped his arm and gently towed him out of the way as someone entered the space, several someones, actually.

“Okay, Paul Bunyan,” a woman’s cheery voice said, “let’s get you sewed up. You folks can wait in the family lounge.” While metal parts clanked and clunked, she told them how to get there. “Doc will be out to talk to you as soon as he’s finished. Then someone will come and get you when the lumberjack here is out of recovery and heading for a room.” Wheels whirred and screeched on slick flooring as she spoke.

“Careful,” a man said, and then they were out of the space. Joel heard the nurse joking with Sam as they wheeled him away.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you juggling chain saws is dangerous?”

“There goes my plan to join the circus,” Sam rumbled, and Joel chuckled.

“Thank God you were with him,” Vonnie said, momentarily throwing Joel off-kilter.

“But I wasn’t,” Dixie replied shakily, “not all the time. I left him there alone when I brought Clark to you!”

“You were there when it counted,” Joel remarked soothingly, reaching out for her. He wondered if she even knew what she was doing when she stepped forward and let him slide his arm around her back.

“Joel’s right,” Vonnie said, sniffing. “He’d have bled to death if you hadn’t acted so quickly.”

“At least I was able to do something this time,” Dixie whispered, and Joel knew that she was thinking of Mark’s death. Would she ever get past that loss and trauma? He could only pray so.

“Let’s find that lounge,” he said. “I, for one, could use a cup of coffee.”

It took far longer than Dixie expected. Two interminable hours passed before the doctor came out to report.

“Everything went fine,” he assured them, standing before them in the large, homey lounge, “but we had to be sure that the muscle was completely intact, and that the bone wasn’t cracked or broken by the impact of the chain saw. Luckily, it seemed to be a glancing blow.”

“Don’t think it was luck,” Joel said from a chair beside her.

Dixie’s attention zipped to Joel’s face, even as the physician targeted him with a curious look, observing, “Mr. Wallace said the same thing earlier.”

Joel smiled. “Not surprised. Our faith teaches that God watches over us and works everything in our lives to our benefit.”

The doctor shifted his weight, tilting his head. “You’re blind, aren’t you?”

“I am. Concussive trauma.”

“And you think that’s for your benefit?” the doctor asked in an amazed tone.

Joel’s answer came without hesitation. “I do.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. If I hadn’t lost my sight I’d still be in the Marine Corps. I might have died of war wounds or a training accident. I might never have come home, never gone back to college, never thought about law school…any number of things. Look, God didn’t plant a bomb in the road. Some bad guy did that. My vehicle hit it. Doesn’t matter to me why God allowed that. I only have to trust that He’ll work it to my good.”

Dixie stared at Joel. The words of Romans 8:28 rolled through her mind.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

Not long after Mark’s death, someone had quoted that verse to her. It had infuriated her. She’d thought that they were saying that Mark’s death was a good thing, that God had engineered it in order to bless her. But she didn’t want to be blessed from such tragedy! How dared God do such a thing.

But maybe that was not how it worked.

Maybe God allowed certain circumstances to unfold as someone else arranged them, purposefully or unknowingly, for His own reasons. Maybe that way lay the greater good. And maybe not. She didn’t know anymore. Still, if Joel and Romans 8:28 were right, she could trust God to work for her good. Couldn’t she?

It was hard to see how anything good could come out of Mark’s death, but much good had come out of his life. Clark, for one thing. And good things could still come her way. If she would let them.

The doctor smiled and said, “Admirable attitude.”

“More a matter of faith, really,” Joel said.

“Then I admire your faith.”

“Better to admire my Lord,” Joel replied with a smile. “Faith in the wrong thing accomplishes nothing.”

“Let me guess,” the doctor said, eyes slitting. “You’re going to be a preacher.”

“Lawyer.”

The doctor laughed. “You’ll make a good one. Very persuasive.”

“Be glad to persuade you a little more,” Joel said. “Anytime you want.” He put out his hand. “Name’s Joel Slade, by the way.”

The two shook hands. “I just might take you up on that, Joel.”

Before he swept from the room, he told them that someone would be along to get them when Sam woke up from the anesthetic. Dixie stared at Joel with new respect, sad humility and not a little pride.

Another hour crawled by. Dixie had already checked on Clark earlier and been told that he was happily playing with the two young children in the household of her mother’s neighbor. Both were older than Clark, but Dixie knew the family well from years of acquaintance. No doubt he’d be worn-out and cranky by the time she got him home again, but she’d deal with that later. Right now, she just wanted to see her father and know that his pain had lessened. Her mother’s tension would fade then, and Dixie could finally relax.

Joel provided distraction, making conversation, offering suggestions. At times, he sat in silent prayer. Other times, his lightest touch warmed and comforted her, an arm stretched out behind her, a hand brushing hers, the playful bump of shoulders, a friendly pat. This wasn’t the first time, Dixie recalled, that Joel’s presence had distracted her from her anxiety. This time she appreciated that fact.

At last, a nurse in scrubs appeared in the lounge.