A Quarter for a Kiss (44 page)

“Not really,” I said. “I just can’t help thinking that while you’re busy making all these plans for your life, God has a better idea. He wants you to give yourself over to Him, Jodi.”

“Is that what you’ve done?”

I waited a beat, and then I nodded. “God loves you, you know. Unconditionally. Permanently.”

“God took my father away when I was thirteen. I wouldn’t call that love.”

I heard a car pull into the driveway, and I knew that Tom must be back.

“We live in a fallen world,” I said, focusing on Jodi. “It’s full of heartache. But instead of blaming God for all that’s wrong, you might try thanking Him for what’s right. You’re young and healthy and beautiful. You have a wonderful mother and a stepfather who’s a really great guy. Enough money to live your life without having to worry. A cause that’s important to you. Friends who care about you.”

“Friends who want to convert me.”

I laughed.

“I won’t shove things down your throat,” I said. “I promise. But would you do me one favor?”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“What?” she asked.

“If I left you my Bible,” I said, “would you read it? Just read it. That’s all I ask.”

“You won’t keep preaching at me?”

“I promise. I’m always available if you want to talk, but I won’t mention any of this again unless you bring it up.”

She considered my request, and then she shrugged.

“Well, you did save my life last night,” she said finally. “I guess that’s the least I can do.”

Tom found us then, stepping out onto the deck with a mysterious smile on his face. He told me to grab a cover-up and sandals and come with him, no questions allowed. I took a moment to retrieve my Bible for Jodi, and then I did as he requested.

We got in the car, and he drove us out the Northshore Road to a place called Cinnamon Bay. We parked the car and walked down to the sand, and then I saw why we had come: There on the beach was a shiny yellow canoe just waiting for us.

True to his word, Tom sat comfortably in the bow and let me paddle him around. Once we got out into the water, he whipped out a dainty little umbrella, which he opened and held over his shoulder. I was laughing so hard, I nearly capsized the boat.

“Hey, a promise is a promise,” he said.

Once I finally convinced him to put the umbrella away, I started paddling in earnest. My arms were sore from the night before, though, so I kept the pace easy, the strokes even. I was in heaven.

After that, we didn’t even talk.

And though nothing was said, I knew our minds were in the same place, our hearts were feeling the same mix of emotions. As the sun set over the clear turquoise water, I held the paddle across my lap and simply let the scene imprint on my mind, like a photograph.

I thought of Thursday night at Miss Lucy’s moonlight party, when Tom and I danced to the song “A Quarter for a Kiss.” The beauty of this island was due in great part to the charitable contribution of a Rockefeller, a donation that, truly, was priceless. I smiled now as I thought of the lyrics to that song:

Let the Rockefellers try
To find something they could buy
That could equal the value of this
—
For we found our love
Like a dividend from above,
With a quarter for a kiss

I understood that what Tom and I shared was worth more than a million St. Johns, more than any amount of money. We loved the Lord, and we loved each other.

And nothing could equal the value of that.

Forty-Eight

“Anybody home?” I asked, peeking in the doorway. I couldn’t see the bed from there, so I stepped further into the hospital room, past the bathroom, and looked around the corner.

“Callie!” Eli cried.

I burst all the way into the room, raced to the side of his bed, and slipped my arms around him. He looked pale and weak but still a whole lot better than the last time I had seen him.

There was a chair nearby, so I dragged it over to the bedside and sat, taking his hand in mind.

“When did you get in?” he asked.

“Just now,” I replied, smiling. “We came straight from the airport.”

“Where’s Tom?”

“He’s parking the car,” I said. “I think he wanted to give us a little time alone.”

Eli nodded, squeezing my hand and then just holding it. We had spoken at length on the phone the night before, so he already knew all of the details of what had happened. Now wasn’t a time for catching up. It was a time for speaking from the heart.

“Callie, if I had known what you would have to go through,” he began, his eyes filling with tears, “I never would’ve asked you to come here and help me in the first place.”

I studied his face for a moment, the kind, familiar eyes, the slightly-crooked nose that looked so much like Larry’s I was shocked now that I hadn’t caught the resemblance right off the bat.

“Sure you would’ve,” I said. “That’s what you trained me for.”

He thought about that, and then he smiled through his tears.

“I guess so,” he admitted.

I reached around for the box of tissues on the bedside table and handed him one, which he took gratefully. As soon as he wiped away his tears, however, fresh ones formed in his eyes.

“So Stella tells me you and Tom are an item,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied, grinning.

“That’s good. You’ve forgiven him. I knew you would.”

“Forgiven him?”

Eli grabbed for more tissues, suddenly looking flustered.

“Of course. Forgiven him…for taking his sweet time about things. The man doesn’t exactly move at warp speed.”

“Eli—”

“Think about it, Callie. How long have you known him? A couple years? And it’s taken until now to say ‘I love you’?”

I studied my friend’s old, familiar face, wondering what he really meant, and why he was acting so strange. He reached out and took my hand, and I remembered how horrible it had been in intensive care, when I had held his lifeless hand in mine and he hadn’t squeezed back.

“He’s good to you?” Eli asked gently.

I hesitated, wondering how I could even begin to describe how good Tom was to me. I looked out of the window on the other side of Eli’s bed, at the beautiful Banana River flowing gently in the distance.

“Yes,” I said finally. “Tom is an amazing person, Eli. I’m very much in love.”

“And you thought it couldn’t happen twice in one lifetime.”

I nodded, taking a tissue for myself.

“I was wrong,” I whispered, smiling through my own tears.

We talked for a while until the conversation came around to Larry. I knew Eli wanted to ask me about him, so I brought it up myself, asking him how it felt to find out after all these years that he had a son.

“It’s tragic, if you wanna know the truth. I just keep thinking that if I had been there, if I had helped raise him, then maybe…I don’t know. I can’t change the past. It never crossed my mind that she was pregnant. That was the sixties, you know, back when free love was all the rage and no one thought much about the consequences. I wasn’t a Christian then, and Nadine was willing. Things were very passionate between us.”

“What does Stella think about all of this?”

“Stella’s a rock,” he said. “She’s my sanity in the midst of all this craziness.”

“Have you apologized for keeping so much from her?”

He nodded.

“With a promise to be honest about everything from now on.”

I squeezed Eli’s hand again, very glad to hear it.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about Nadine?” I asked.

He shifted a bit, smoothing the IV that was taped to the back of his hand.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I never told anybody. That was a closed chapter in my life.”

“But you loved her,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” he replied. “And then I found out the truth, that she sold secrets to the Russians, and it shattered my heart into a million tiny pieces. It was easier just to pretend it had never happened.”

“You shot her.”

“I was trying to save her life,” he said. “All these guns were pointed at her, and she kept running. I thought if I could just get her in the leg, that would stop her and no one else would have to shoot.” His voice caught and he cleared his throat. “As soon as I pulled the trigger, though, everyone else opened fire. I didn’t know it was all staged. All these years, I blamed myself for her death. When I saw her alive, it made me question everything I thought I knew to be true.”

A nurse bustled into the room at that point, a gorgeous, buxom blonde who had come to hang a new IV bag.

“This is Melissa,” Eli said, introducing us. “She’s a great nurse, but I can’t let her take my blood pressure.”

“Why not?”

“Because just having her in here raises it by ten!”

We laughed.

After she replaced the IV bag, Melissa had to check Eli’s dressing. She asked if I would wait for a moment out in the hall.

“She just wants to get me alone,” Eli teased as I complied, and I felt a flash of pity for the beautiful young nurse. She must hear the same jokes at the bedsides of old men all day long.

I came out in the hall and went looking for Tom. I didn’t see him, but I did spot a door with a small stained glass window on it and a sign that said “Chapel.” Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside and was relieved to find it empty.

The chapel was tiny, with a few rows of pews and a small cross mounted on the wall up front. I sat in the middle row, bowed my head, and prayed. I just wanted to give a quick word of thanks that Eli had survived, but I found that other matters were weighing on my heart as well. I prayed for Eli’s continued recovery, for strength for Stella, for my relationship with Tom, for the healing of his hands. Finally, I prayed for Jodi, that somehow God would reach her through His Word, in a way that my words never could.

When my prayer was over, I sat there a bit longer, feeling just a little like a hypocrite. I had told Jodi to turn her life over to God’s will, all the while knowing that there was one area in my life that I hadn’t fully surrendered.

I stared down at my hands, at my wedding ring. If God really did have a wonderful plan for me, I thought, then why was I resisting the blessings He wanted to send my way? If I really trusted Him, then why couldn’t I let go of the past?

My heart surged in my chest, knowing it really was quite simple. The pew in front of me had a kneeler, which I pulled down, and then I knelt, clasped my hands, and squeezed my eyes tightly shut.

“Give me the strength to look forward, not back,” I whispered out loud. “Give me the courage to do this.”

I opened my eyes, and then I reached down and slowly slid the gold band off my finger. It wasn’t hard to undo the chain around my neck, put the ring on it, and hook it back again.

“Thank You, Lord.”

It was done. I had expected to feel a number of emotions along with that action, but instead as I looked down at my hand with the white stripe where the ring used to be, I felt nothing but peace.

Complete and utter peace.

I flipped up the bench and stood, my heart racing. I needed to find Tom. I stepped out of the chapel and went down the hall, finally spotting him out in a courtyard, just sitting on a bench. He was waiting there, I knew, to give me time alone with Eli. I felt a surge of love for him so great it nearly took my breath away.

Swinging the door open, I stepped outside. He looked up at the sound and then smiled when he realized it was me. He stood, and I moved toward him. Without speaking, I held up my hand to show him the empty finger. It took a moment for him to understand, but when he did, he inhaled deeply, and then swept me into his arms.

“Are you sure?” he said, and I could feel his heart beating against my chest.

“I’m sure,” I replied. “There is nothing on earth that can keep me from loving you.”

Finally, we pulled apart. We needed to get back to Eli, but I told Tom to go ahead, that I wanted a moment alone. He complied, and once he was gone, I sat down on the bench where he had been sitting just moments before.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture my late husband Bryan, something that was growing a little harder to do all the time. Usually, I focused so much on his tragic death that I forgot to celebrate his life. He had been a good man, and we should have shared many long and happy years together. But he was gone now, and I was not. It was time for me to start living again.

“Goodbye, Bryan,” I said, clutching the ring that hung near my heart.

Then I let it go.

The hospital was cool and quiet as I walked quickly to join Tom in Eli’s room. I got there and stepped inside, but because of the little hallway alongside the bathroom, they didn’t see me. I realized that the two men were in the middle of a discussion.

“I want to marry her, Eli!” Tom exclaimed, and I froze, knowing I had walked in at just the wrong moment. Suppressing a huge smile, I let the door quietly shut behind me.

“So ask her and be done with it,” Eli said. “It’s that simple.”

“It’s not that simple,” Tom replied. “She has to know. I have to tell her.”

My heart skipped. I had to know what? He had to tell me what?