A Vow to Cherish (21 page)

T
he pungent scent of wood smoke hung in the crisp autumn air, and the yellow leaves clung tenaciously to their branches, rebelling against the inevitability of winter’s arrival.

The small stadium—home of the Calypso Wildcats—was filled to capacity. Red coats and jackets predominated on the home side, while blue blazed across the field where the visiting Tannersville Tigers had assembled. Throughout the bleachers, steaming Thermos bottles filled with coffee and hot cocoa warded off the chill. Spectators clapped their gloved hands together, their breaths hovering in wispy clouds in front of their lips.

The football field was still lush and green. The chalk lines fresh and unmarred under the bright lights. Whooping at the top of their lungs, the Wildcats broke out of the dressing room under the stadium and ran onto the field. They held their helmets aloft, smelling another victory to add to a long string of wins.

Andrew Sinclair led the team onto the field and then crossed to the center to meet with the captain of the opposing team. The two players conferred with the referee, shook hands and turned to run in opposite directions back to the sidelines. Midway, Andy slowed, looked up into the stands and raised a clenched fist to the sky. Although his mother was seated high in the reserved section, he searched the crowd until he caught her eye, and she returned his salute of victory.

This pregame salute had become a talisman for Andy, and Wildcat fans had been quick to pick it up and make it a ritual of sorts. Now three hundred spectators followed suit to Julia’s raised fist while the marching band blared out the school’s fight song.

Julia still had a hard time grasping how quickly her boys had grown up. Andy was following in the footsteps of a big brother who had broken a bevy of Calypso’s records. Sam was playing junior college football now. When he could, he came home to watch Andy’s games, but his team was playing out of state this weekend.

Julia loved the energy that flowed through this stadium every Friday night. And she was unabashedly proud to sit here as the mother of the team’s star running back.

The fight song ended in an uproar, and when the noise finally died down, a deep voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen…”

The voice belonged to John Brighton. Julia couldn’t help turning to look up toward the press box. She saw him standing behind the statisticians, microphone in hand. A little chill went up her spine. She quickly shook off the unwanted feelings and turned her attention to the man beside her.

John’s voice echoed again across the field. “Welcome to tonight’s game between the Tannersville Tigers and the Calypso Wildcats.” Again the crowd erupted into thunderous cheers. “Please rise for our national anthem.”

Julia pushed the stadium blanket from her knees and stood up. Beside her, James Vincent put one hand over his heart, the other gently, but possessively, on Julia’s back. She looked up at him and smiled.

Julia had met Jim at a church picnic six months ago. She and the boys had begun attending a small community church near their house, and one Sunday afternoon, Julia decided to attend a spring picnic the church was sponsoring. Feeling uncomfortable and out of place at first, she found herself seated across from a soft-spoken, friendly man. Jim was tall, balding and very attractive. She was drawn at once to his kind spirit. Over fried chicken and potato salad, they struck up a conversation. Julia learned that Jim’s wife of sixteen years had left him (and a teenage son and daughter) to marry another man. Almost two years later, he was still reeling from the rejection.

At the end of the evening, clumsily, he asked Julia for a date—his first since his college days. Attracted to this man, and feeling a kinship with his suffering, she’d accepted.

Jim was kind and intelligent and had a wonderful sense of humor. He had been born and raised in Calypso and had served as city administrator in the town for the past fifteen years. Julia admired Jim’s dedication to his career and his obvious devotion to his still heartbroken children.

She and Jim had found solace in their shared sorrows, and Julia had grown comfortable with Jim. They’d become somewhat of an “item” around town, and though the term “going steady” seemed a bit juvenile to Julia, she supposed that they were.

Now Jim cupped his hands and shouted across the stadium as the game began. “Go Wildcats!”

She smiled at his enthusiasm for her son’s team. She was a lucky woman.

Calypso won the toss and the crowd stayed on its feet for the kickoff. The Wildcats received and ran the ball back to the forty-yard line. When the two teams squared off at the line of scrimmage, Andy carried the ball all the way for a touchdown in the first play of the game.

Julia shot out of her seat and jumped up and down, cheering, her cheeks flushed from excitement and the cold. By the end of the half, Calypso was ahead twenty to seven, and by night’s end, they had walked away with the win and a new rushing record for Andy Sinclair.

Though the temperature had dropped below thirty, no one seemed in a hurry to leave the stadium. Parents and students huddled together for warmth in clusters about the bleachers, rehashing each touchdown, play by play, waiting for the team to emerge from the locker room for another round of applause. Julia received enthusiastic congratulations for Andy’s game, and she basked vicariously in his glory.

When the players went back to shower, and Julia and Jim finally made their way across the parking lot, it was almost ten-thirty. Jim had picked Julia up, and since he lived only six blocks from the high school, they’d driven back to his house to park the car. Now they walked briskly arm in arm with stadium blankets around their shoulders, trying to generate some warmth.

“Man, it is freezing!” Jim’s words came out in little puffs of steam.

“I know, but we won! We won!” Julia did a little dance—a silly, girlish hopscotch that set them both laughing.

Suddenly Jim’s expression changed, and he looked down at her with serious, unsmiling eyes. He took her by the shoulders and, turning her to face him, kissed her full on the lips. “I love you, Julia Sinclair.” His usually calm voice was fierce with passion. “Do you know that, Julia? I love you.”

Her heart began to hammer in her chest. It was the first time he’d ever spoken those words to her. She struggled to force John’s long-ago declaration of love from her mind.
Oh, Jim, I’m not sure I’m ready for this.

He kissed her again, gently this time, and stood back, forcing her to look into his eyes.

Not knowing how to respond, she just smiled, then impulsively planted another light kiss on his lips. But she couldn’t will a declaration of love to form on her lips. She liked Jim—a lot. Maybe she did love him. But if that were true, why did she feel so confused right now?

Had she ever questioned her love for Martin this way? Even with John and all the obstacles of their friendship—when it came to a question of love, there had never been a doubt. Had there?

Since the night John had told her goodbye, Julia had prayed—prayed fervently, daily—that God would send her someone. Someone to share conversations the way John had. Someone to make her feel as cherished and special as he had. Someone she admired as much as she admired John Brighton.

Then Jim had come into her life. In many ways, he was all of those things. He was special, and Julia knew that she was the envy of many women because she “had” Jim. She couldn’t have asked for anyone more solicitous toward her sons. She couldn’t have asked for anyone with more integrity, or who was more respected in the community.

Except John Brighton.

Her mind churned with questions. Why couldn’t she seem to give her heart fully to Jim the way he so obviously had lost his to her? Why couldn’t she put the past behind her and embrace the gift of this man’s friendship? Why couldn’t she put the ghost of Martin, and the living specter of her relationship with John out of her mind? They were both dead to her. They were in her past, and she so desperately wanted to live for today.
Please, Lord, help me. I’m so confused. If this man is a gift from You…if this is Your will for me, I want to be in it. Show me, Lord. Please, show me. I need to hear from You.

They walked along the sidewalk toward Jim’s house, hand in hand, perfectly in step with each other. Only their boots, pounding out a soft rhythm on the pavement, broke the silence of the chill evening.

But Julia’s thoughts spun out of control, a tumultuous irony against the steady rhythm of their footsteps.
He loves me,
she told herself over and over. What more do I want? Julia wondered if she could grow to love Jim with the deep love she remembered from her marriage. Maybe her memory deceived her, and it had taken time to grow into love with Martin—and with John. Maybe she just didn’t remember.

Jim, in his sweet, quiet way, seemed to sense that she was troubled. “Julia, what’s wrong? I’m sorry if I took things too fast back there.” He motioned to the sidewalk behind them, as though it were the scene of a crime.

“No, Jim. It’s not that.” It was a lie, really, but she couldn’t bear to hurt him for something of which he was innocent. “I’m just not myself tonight. I’m sorry.”

They came to his driveway, and he invited her in for a cup of hot chocolate.

“I’m sorry, Jim. It’s awfully late. Would you mind if I beg off tonight? I’d just like to get home.”

“Sure.” There was disappointment in his voice, but he opened her door for her and went around to start the car. They sat in silence waiting for the car to warm up, but after five minutes, instead of backing out of the driveway, Jim reached into his pocket and took out a small square box. Fumbling, he opened the lid and dropped the contents into his palm.

Before Julia quite realized what was happening, he reached across the console for her left hand, and pulling her glove off, he slid an exquisite diamond ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

“Julia, you have given me so much joy in these past months. I thank God every day for putting you in my life. You’ve given my life meaning again, and I love you with all my heart. Julia, I don’t want to have to take you home ever again. I want our home to be together. I want you to be my wife.”

His speech was clearly rehearsed, but Julia knew it came from his heart. His heart of gold.

Julia looked down at her hand. The ring’s brilliance was magnified through the tears that spilled onto her cheeks.

“Oh, Jim…Jim…”

T
he morning Ellen died was the kind of day she would have declared perfect. The September sun was tempered by wisps of clouds, and the air was crisp with a foretaste of autumn.

The piercing jangle of the telephone roused John from a dreamless sleep. He looked at the clock—5:30 a.m. He knew even before he was fully awake that Ellen was gone. He had stayed with her until midnight the night before, listening to her rattled breathing, wishing he could take her next breath for her. Her skin was gray and clammy, and she gasped for air with a strength she hadn’t possessed in years. John watched her, exhausted with the waiting, until finally the nurses had sent him home, promising to call him if anything changed.

Strange. Tomorrow would have been her birthday. He’d heard that people often held on until a birthday or anniversary. But, of course, Ellen had no awareness of time passing, and she had not been able to make it one more day. The fifty-sixth anniversary of her birth would have to pass without her.

More than three years had passed since John had made peace with himself and with God. While the sense of rightness he felt about his renewed commitment to Ellen pervaded everything, still, it had not been easy.

In the past year there had been one crisis after another. Ellen caught a virus that left her weak and susceptible to every bug that went around. She ended up with pneumonia, and though she finally pulled through, her lungs were scarred and weakened. In the end, it was pneumonia that came back—this time to claim her.

Mercifully, in the years since John had said goodbye to Julia, Ellen had taken on a new, quiet countenance. He felt almost as if he’d been given a gift—a reward for the sacrifices he had made. Yet he knew he had sacrificed nothing in letting Julia go. He couldn’t sacrifice what wasn’t his. Still, he was grateful for Ellen’s peace. It was a thing they could share, a thing they had in common.

When she became bedfast—unable to walk, or feed herself, or even roll over in bed—John knew the end couldn’t be far away. He felt a sort of panic at losing her. This solitary life of being Ellen’s husband was all he knew. He wasn’t sure he would know how to live any other way. What was normal, anyway? The normal he could remember from the past was full of teenagers, ball games, parties, and a pretty wife always at his side. He hadn’t had a chance to learn how to live alone—even alone with Ellen. They had been running the treadmill that Alzheimer’s forced them onto for so long. His family nest had been empty for such a long time, and today he would begin to learn how to live in its loneliness.

John arrived at the funeral home early the next morning. It had not occurred to him that walking through the doors of that building meant seeing Ellen. Recorded organ music drifted through the open doors of the sanctuary and drew John into the quiet room.

When he saw her lying in the front of the room amid a profusion of flowers, he caught his breath and reached for the back of the pew bench. He half stumbled down the aisle and stood trembling in front of the simple coffin.

She looked almost angelic. Gone were the lines that had creased her forehead. The eyes that in her last years had reflected a haunting confusion, were now peacefully closed. It was freeing for him to see Ellen this way. His breathing evened out; his heart ceased its wild pounding.

Looking down at her, he was overcome with the sense that the ethereal form that lay before him was not his Ellen. People at funerals always said the deceased looked as if they were merely sleeping. And though Ellen looked beautiful and at peace, in no way did she look alive to John. Her beauty in death was fragile and pearlescent, like that of a seashell. It struck John that indeed, it was a shell that lay before him. The Ellen John Brighton cherished had broken the shard that for so long imprisoned her and had flown away home.

John slowly looked heavenward and whispered without guilt, “Thank you.”

The funeral was a blur of familiar faces, warm with sympathy, but full of relief also. In the front row of the sanctuary Jana and Brant, along with their spouses, sat on either side of John. Howard and MaryEllen flanked Kyle, leaning on him for support. They were in their eighties now, stooped and frail, but mentally sharp as ever and so strong in spirit. The past years had aged them both. But, in a way, this day was almost a celebration for them. For all who had loved Ellen and beheld her suffering, this day gave cause for quiet rejoicing.

John held Jana’s hand tightly, and his mind was flooded with memories of Ellen as she’d been before the ogre called Alzheimer’s had come into their lives. For the first time in almost a decade, the memories came easily, and they comforted him.

He could see her sitting across from him at the China Garden, laughing and lovely. He saw the tiny apartment in Oscar and Hattie’s attic as clearly as if he sat there now. He walked the fields of Ellen’s childhood farm again as they said goodbye to their first baby. Perhaps Ellen was holding little Catherine in her arms at this very moment. The thought filled him with inexplicable joy.

He recalled not the milestones in their life together, but the little things. Impromptu picnics in the backyard when the children were small. Cheering the kids on together at ball games. And the too-brief time they’d had together after the children were grown. Quiet evenings by the fireplace, reading together on Saturday afternoons, unhurriedly making love.

John’s reverie was broken by the clear, sweet voices of Ellen’s nieces. They sang a hymn that Ellen had loved because of the poignant story behind it. The author had penned the lyrics in the nineteenth century after receiving the tragic news that his four beloved daughters had been lost at sea. The melody rose and soared through the rafters of the sanctuary like a living thing.

Unexpectedly, John’s throat swelled and tears rolled unbidden down his cheeks. He thought he had shed all his tears, but the song moved him powerfully.

For so many months, so many endless years, he had been asked to travel a hard and bitter road. But this day he had come to the end of that path, and he could turn and look back from a new, high place. He saw each fork and each rocky incline with clarity, and he knew that his journey had been honorable and not without reason. He could say with conviction, “It is well with my soul.”