At the Scent of Water (22 page)

Twenty-two

Sam, Mary, and Elijah stopped by the house to change clothes, then the three of them drove to Carl and Diane’s.

“I’ll get started with the chores,” Elijah offered.

“I’ll cancel appointments for the next few days,” Mary said and went inside to find the office keys.

“Does he have someone who covers for him?” Sam asked.

Mary shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’s a one-man show.”

Sam listened to the phone messages. There was a baby with an earache, a man who had pulled a muscle in his back, a woman with abdominal pain. He called all three back. He referred the baby to his brother’s partner, told the pulled muscle to ice it and take ibuprofen and call back tomorrow if it wasn’t better, and after a few questions, referred the woman with abdominal pain to Ricky. It sounded like endometriosis. He felt a sense of exhilaration when he hung up, as if he had just completed a difficult puzzle. He smiled and shook his head. His mother had taken the appointment book and gone inside to the other telephone. Sam looked around at Carl’s office.

It was four rooms. A bathroom, a tiny waiting room, an exam room, and this, his office. The exam room was a little messy. Carl had applied a cast, and the wrappers and basin of water were right where he had left them. Sam cleaned up the mess, went outside, and poured the water onto the flower bed, not willing to waste a drop. The bathroom was all right, as well as the waiting room, but Carl’s office was a rat’s nest, a tornado-strewn collection of paper and charts, fast-food wrappers and half-empty coffee cups. His high school days, when he had worked for Carl and his father, came back to him. The contrast between the two men had been remarkable. Carl, windblown and secure. His father, tidy and obsessive. Sam gathered up the garbage, emptied the can into the big bin outside, then closed and locked the office.

His mother came onto the porch after a moment. She had spoken to or left messages for all of the patients scheduled for today and tomorrow. They were all distressed, not so much by missing their appointments but for their beloved doctor’s misfortune. They all had a variety of phrasings but the same message. We love you, Dr. Carl. We’re praying for you. Get well.

“May I see that?” he asked, and his mother handed him the black appointment book, covered with Carl’s familiar scrawl. Sam looked over the appointments for the next few weeks. Each day was full, and Carl had scheduled free clinic here at his office tomorrow afternoon. There was no calling those people, for who knew who would come? Something would have to be arranged. But not now.

****

Mary watered and fed the chickens and cows. Elijah took care of the sheep and the goats.

“Do you know how to milk a cow?” Mary asked Elijah.

“I have done it, but it’s been years,” he answered, taking off his cap and running a hand over his head before replacing it.

“Me too,” she said.

“Well, maybe between the two of us we can manage it,” he said with a smile, and she felt that little flush again.

She followed him into the barn where Hilda, a brown-eyed Guernsey, waited patiently. On the way she glanced at Sam, who was, in fact, doing a very good job of slopping the hog, and she couldn’t help but smile. That little exchange with Annie had planted a seed of hope in her heart for the two of them.

Elijah got the stool. She found the bucket. They both knelt down, and Elijah insisted she have the first try. Well, why not? She sat down on the stool and positioned her hands the way she remembered, gave a squeeze, but nothing happened except a twitch of Hilda’s tail. She tried again. Still nothing. Elijah crouched down to check her technique and offer a suggestion. She tried again, and a stream of milk shot out and landed on the front of his shirt.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said laughing.

“Better you than me,” he said, laughing, as well. “Why do you think I wanted you to take the first try?”

She went back to the task, still smiling, but midway through deferred to him. “You take a turn. This is too much fun for a person to have all by themselves.”

He grinned and took her place on the stool. Hilda took another mouthful of feed and chewed placidly.

Elijah squeezed, and a stream of milk shot into the pail.

“Well, you remembered after all!” Mary said admiringly.

“I guess it’s like riding a bicycle,” he said with a chuckle.

They finished the task, then Mary took the milk inside and poured it into some Mason jars she found in the pantry. She put it in the refrigerator and made a note to come tomorrow and skim the cream off.

She went back outside just as Sam and Elijah finished cleaning the stable. All the work was done by eleven, and they returned home. Elijah went to the guesthouse to clean up.

“Come back over,” Mary invited. “I’ll make us all some lunch.”

He accepted in his courtly way, and Mary went and cleaned herself up. She made a plate of thick sandwiches, got out pickles and potato chips, cut up some fruit, and brewed a pot of coffee. She was gratified when they fell to the meal like hungry soldiers. Afterward Sam announced he was going back to the hospital, and Mary didn’t allow herself to hope. She simply nodded, then followed him out, watched him get into his car, and drive away.

She came back to the kitchen. Elijah had cleared the table and was putting the dishes in the dishwasher. Mary started to protest, then stopped. She would follow Diane’s example.

“Thank you,” she said.

Elijah flashed her a smile, his eyes glancing over her face before he went back to the dishes.

“I know a little bit about what’s going on here,” he said after a pause. “If you’d like to talk about it, I’d be happy to listen. And if you want to tell an old man to mind his business, go right on ahead.”

Absurdly, out of what he had just said, the primary thought Mary had was that he wasn’t old. Why, he was her own age, wasn’t he? And she did not
feel
old, though she supposed she was. She shook her head at her own triviality. “No. Please, say whatever you want.”

He stood up straight and dried his hands on the towel, then hung it neatly back on the rack. “Annie told me a little on the plane trip out here yesterday,” he said. “She told me about your son. About the little girl.”

Mary’s heart froze. What had she told him? That it had all been Mary’s fault?

“I take it there’s been no change,” he said.

Mary frowned, confused, then her mind cleared into understanding. Annie had told him about Kelly Bright. “Oh, no,” she said hurriedly. “There’s been no change.” She had checked the news every hour.

“You seemed confused at first. What did you think I meant?” he asked.

There it was. Out and between them, and she faced a choice. She could hide it away again. Shove it quickly back into its festering hole. Or she could tell. She looked at his worn face, his kind gray eyes, so long gone and yet so familiar, and suddenly she wanted to tell someone what no one else let her talk about, either because their own pain was too great or because they feared it would add to hers.

“I thought you were talking about Annie and Sam’s daughter,” she said and tensed herself for the question she knew he would ask. Waited for him to say “I didn’t know they had a daughter. Where is she?” But he did not say that. His eyes lit with understanding, and he nodded.

“That explains a lot,” he said quietly. “I knew there was great sorrow here.”

“She died five years ago,” Mary said, “and then Annie left.”

Elijah took a deep breath and shook his head, then turned to her, and he did have a question in his eyes. “Why do you torture
yourself
so?” he asked, and she was mortified to begin weeping again, for she could not talk about it without weeping and shaking and that fearful despair and hopelessness taking hold of her. She sat down at the table, and then she felt his hand on her shoulder.

“Lord Jesus,” he prayed, “Bring peace to your daughter. This is not of you, Lord. This is not of you,” he said firmly, and she stopped crying then, the solidness of his pronouncement surprising her into silence. She looked at his face and wondered if he was judging her. Perhaps he thought she was weak. That she should be able to go on without such histrionics. But she did not see condemnation there. Only mercy. And so she told him. And she watched his face as she spoke. His eyes were calm. Filled with hurt and grief as she told it, but calm. And when she began to shake as it came to life, he put his hand on her arm and prayed again.

“Lord Jesus, open this wound and clean it out,” he prayed.

She felt surprised again. Everything he said seemed to surprise her, and with the surprise came hope, for he was saying different things than any that had entered her mind.

“They buried her,” she finished, “but Annie and Sam were never the same. He threw himself into his work even more, and she was so sad she wouldn’t leave the house. I wasn’t any help.” She choked and could not go on for a moment.

“This situation is too big for you to help with. There’s nothing you could have done,” he said, and there again, she was granted an unexpected release.

“I
have
to help,” she argued, her mind unable to accept his absolution. “I have to fix it, to do something,” she said desperately, and as the words left her mouth, she saw where they had stranded her. Between her powerlessness and her need to repair an irreparable horror.

“No,” he repeated. “You can’t.”

She closed her eyes, her heart rocking back down to realities, for that is what she had known. This was no surprise.

“But He can,” Elijah said.

She opened her eyes. “How?” Her question was flat. Disbelieving. Faithless.

He seemed to be considering for a moment, then gave a slight nod, as if he’d figured the situation out. “Well, He probably won’t bring the child back to life. Though I have seen miracles.”

He said it calmly and in such a factual tone that she believed him.

“But I know He means to heal the hurt,” he said.

She stared at him, still not sure what to say.

“He’s Jehovah Rapha,” Elijah said. He leaned forward and almost whispered it, his voice thrumming with passion. “The God who healeth Thee.”

She wanted those words to be true more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. And not just for herself. For all of them. Every desire she’d ever had paled when compared to it.

“How?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

She felt her heart fall. He had seemed so like a prophet she’d thought he might extend his hand to her and the healing fall from it right now, right here at her kitchen table.

“But I know He’s going after it,” he said, and she felt the hope again. “Things are moving. Can’t you feel it?” he asked, and she thought perhaps she did, for it seemed there was a freshness in the air that hadn’t been there before.

“Mary,” he said, and she liked the way her name sounded from his mouth. “This torture you’ve been going through is not from the Lord. This is not His handiwork.”

“But it was my fault,” she said.

He shook his head.

“It was either my fault or it was an accident. And if it was an accident, then . . .” And there it was, the sentence she could not finish. For she would rather hate herself for a million years, would rather make it all her fault, than blame God. Better to hate herself endlessly than to hate . . .

After a few minutes of silence Elijah spoke again. “He’s big enough for whatever you’re feeling,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to be afraid.”

She stared, eyes wide, for it was almost as if he knew her thoughts.

“Despair and hopelessness are never from God. Whatever happened, this prison you’re all in is not His will. But I believe He’s working already. Just look around you,” he pointed out. “Maybe things aren’t fixed yet, but all the players are back on the stage, aren’t they?”

Well, he had a point there. Mary sniffed and considered it. She had never imagined she would see Sam and Annie in the same room again. She remembered Annie’s little tease and Sam’s smile. She nodded and mopped at her eyes and face. And suddenly she felt hope, like a tiny fire, strike up inside her. “What you must think of me,” she said, shaking her head, but when she met his eyes, he was looking at her strangely.

“I think only good things of you,” he said, and she felt embarrassed and lowered her eyes again.

Twenty-three

Sam arrived back at the hospital just in time to speak to Carl’s surgeon before the bypass. Then he and Annie sat across from each other and stared at the floor, gazed glazed-eyed at the monotonous television mounted in the corner of the surgery waiting area, looked at stale magazines, exchanged benign conversation with Diane.

When the surgeon came out, Sam realized how it felt to be on the other side of one of those familiar conversations, and he was struck with how needy he felt, how vulnerable.

“The surgery went well,” the doctor said, and Sam listened, only this time it was his own eyes that watched hopefully, and other well-known, once-loved faces that received the news. Carl had received five grafts. Things should be fine. He was conscious now but sedated. He could have visitors for a few seconds every hour according to the rules of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.

“I’ll leave now,” Sam said after the surgeon had finished and taken his leave. “It sounds like y’all are in good hands.”

Annie turned her eyes to him, and he sensed reproach, which both puzzled and exasperated him. What had he done wrong? Did she want him to stay? To have left sooner? Diane spared him further deliberation.

“Sam, could I please speak to you for a minute before you go?”

“Of course,” he said.

“I’ll go check on Papa if what you have to say is private,” Annie offered.

“No need,” Diane said in that curt way he noticed she often took with Annie. “Stay. You need to hear this, too.”

“All right.”

“Come sit down again,” Diane suggested.

Sam sat back down in the chair he had just vacated. Diane looked tired. Her kind brown eyes were drooping at the corners. He sat and waited to hear what she would say, and somehow it reminded him of that conversation he had had with the old woman in the restaurant. “Young man, I want to speak to you,” she had said. Had that just been weeks ago? He remembered what she had prayed—that an unseen hand would pull him and Annie back together. His eyes opened wider, and he felt a sense of amazement as he realized that the very thing she’d prayed for had happened. He doubted this was exactly how she had meant her prayer to be answered, though. He glanced aside at Annie. She was focused on Diane.

“Sam,” Diane said, “I don’t know how to ask you this, so I’ll just come out with it.”

He tensed, wondering what sore area she would probe.

“I need your help.”

Not what he’d expected, and to his surprise, he felt a thrust of eagerness at her words.

“Anything,” he answered quickly. “Just tell me what to do.”

“Take over Carl’s practice,” she blurted out.

He sat up straighter in the chair. Definitely not what he had expected. He glanced at Annie, but she did not look as surprised as he felt.

“Diane, I don’t know about that—”

“Now don’t tell me you can’t do it, because I know you can. I asked Ricky, and he said physicians are licensed to practice medicine, not any particular specialty. He said you were licensed in Tennessee and in North Carolina and that you trained in every area before you chose your field. He said that you should do just fine as a family physician.”

Sam shook his head. He felt a smile on his face, even though his amusement was mixed with irritation. At his brother. How like Ricky to insert himself into Sam’s affairs, get him roped into something he was in no way prepared to undertake himself. He saw Annie was smiling, too. Amusedly, for she had always been a good deal more entertained by his brother’s antics than he had.

“Diane, what you’re asking is complicated. Besides the issue of my competence to practice general medicine, there are practical issues—malpractice insurance, for instance,” he said, grabbing the first issue that came to his head. “Getting admitting privileges at the hospitals around here.”

“I know it’s complicated. I’m asking you to do it anyway. To take care of those details and help me, because I need you to.”

Well, that took away his objections. What was left to say after that?

“Listen, Sam, I’ll be honest with you. Our farm is mortgaged to the hilt, and our savings consist of about two house payments. Carl has a lot of lovable qualities, but thrift isn’t one of them.”

He glanced again at Annie, but she didn’t seem to have taken umbrage at Diane’s blunt assessment. For his part, he thought it had been an understatement. He nodded thoughtfully.

“The drought has about eaten up all our surplus,” Diane continued. “I’ve had to buy feed for two years and probably will have to sell off my stock this year if the drought keeps up. If Carl needs to retire, we need to be able to sell his practice, not just let it die.”

More silence. Sam finally spoke. “What about you, Annie?” Sam turned toward her. “How do you feel about this plan?”

“It would be all right with me,” she said, her eyes and voice soft. “I mean, I’d appreciate it, too. Whatever would help Papa and Diane.”

“Please, Sam.” Diane spoke again.

He nodded. He would not make her beg. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see if I can hold things together until Carl gets back on his feet.”

Diane’s eyes filled with tears, and she took his hand. He held hers for a long moment, looked into her eyes, and he remembered, vaguely, from many years before, feeling the same kind of link and connection with others as a part of everyday life. He smiled at her, a real smile that began down in his heart. “Don’t worry,” he said, and he watched some of the anxiety drain from her eyes. “Everything is going to be all right.”

She threw her arms around him, and he hugged her. As he turned to leave, he saw Annie watching, staring at him solemnly, her eyes thoughtful.

****

The call came to him late that night. His cell phone rang, and he sat up quickly, swung his legs over the side of the bed. He had it to his ear and the light on before he remembered he was no longer on call. This would be no emergency requiring his intervention.

“The governor signed the law this evening, and they put the tube back in,” Melvin said without preamble. “Kelly’s receiving nourishment even as we speak. Her vital signs are stable.”

Sam took a deep breath, thanked him, hung up the phone. He sat there for a moment, then pulled his clothes on and went out into the cool night. He walked out onto the lawn and gazed upward at the sky. The deepest part of the night was past. The stars were fading into that dim grayness that meant sunrise was not far behind.

He felt, somehow, that he had been given a reprieve, an unexpected and uncalled-for moment of grace. The pain that was background to his life eased, and he had a moment of hope, glimpsed in the distance much like the light that pinked the eastern sky.