Authors: Sally John
“It’s a padded envelope that she never opened. Mamá wrote on the outside of it, asking her to save it for us in case she . . .”
Sheridan filled in the blanks.
In case she died.
Luke said, “For your sakes, I hope it’s simply a memento of a mother’s love. But I’d appreciate if you invited me along.”
“Because,” Sheridan said, “it could be more.”
He nodded.
With that curt gesture, Sheridan felt dismissed. Gabriel the angel had finished his work. She was where she needed to be, literally and figuratively. She was with her sister, and she could navigate her own way back home. He could get on with his work, no longer entangled with her needs.
With every ounce of willpower she squashed a growing desire to sit beside him on the couch, snuggle in his arms, and lay her head on his shoulder.
The buzzing and chiming of the cell phone startled Sheridan awake. She grabbed it from the top of the nightstand where she had left it last night, turned on, volume set to high and vibrate. She wasn’t going to miss another call from Eliot.
“Hello?”
“Señora!” Mercedes nearly shrieked the word and launched pell-mell, in Spanish, into a description of Eliot’s night.
“Slow down, honey. I’m not quite awake.” Sunlight filtered through the blinds already. The clock read 7:10. And she was still in bed? Odd. In all the upheaval, she was sleeping better than she had in a long time.
In over eighteen months?
“Oh, señora. His night was so bad. Javier massaged his shoulders. I rubbed his feet. We gave him medicine. Padre came and prayed. And still, he moaned and cried for hours and hours.”
Sheridan sat up, her stomach twisted in a knot. Poor Eliot. If she were there, things would have been different. He depended on her so much.
Too much. Too much. She simply could not carry him long-distance this week.
“Mercedes, I’m sorry. Is he sleeping now?”
“Yes. I left when he went to sleep. I had to come to my aunt’s and call you right away. I got a ride with a deliveryman down at Davy’s.”
“But you should be at home, sleeping while he does.”
“No, no. Javier must go to work and padre has things to do. We promised not to leave him alone, señora, so I had to come now to call you.”
Sheridan rubbed her forehead. What was she supposed to do from Chicago? “I am so sorry,” she said again. “Did you say it started yesterday afternoon?”
“Yes. That is why I am calling. His worst never happens then, does it?”
Eliot’s pain varied in intensity. The nurses at the hospital would ask him to give it a number from one to ten. When he stopped replying “Twelve” every time, they let him check out. Nowadays, she had to ask—much as they both disliked the question—in order to gauge his medication. The number moved up and down, unpredictably but usually between six and eight. She knew it hit ten and above when he refused to reply.
One constant remained, however. What Mercedes described was a twelve. As she said, those did not happen in the afternoon.
Something must have triggered it.
“Mercedes, what was he doing when it started?”
“Before he cleared off the desk with one swoop of his arm?”
Sheridan shut her eyes. “Yes.”
“We were working. He was jumping ahead in his story, not going in order, telling me about meeting you. I said—oh, I talk too much—I said we should write about his first embassy assignment and his first wife. I think that was when he knocked over his water glass. Then he only wanted to talk about you, about your hearts
communing
.”
A pang of nostalgia hit her. Eliot had always liked the way she described their first meeting.
“Finally I gave up. I said to myself,
I should just do it his way.
So I said we need to put this in order. Why did you go to this event where it was love at first sight? I said I think God must have led you there. And then . . .” Her voice caught.
Sheridan drew her knees up, laid her forehead on them, and held her breath.
“And then he went kind of crazy. With the pain and vertigo, too. But, oh, señora, it scared me. It scared me so much. He pushed everything off the desk and he swore. I ran outside and rang the bell.”
Mercedes and Javier had devised the signal. When she needed him, she would swing a cowbell as hard as she could until he stepped out of his shop and waved up the hill.
“He came right up and we got señor into bed. I straightened the study. Padre checked out the computer. He says it’s all right.”
Sheridan tuned her out. Eliot never really minded talking about his first wife, Noelle. There was always regret and hurt in his voice, but nowhere near what would set off an incident like this. Conversation about his and Sheridan’s first meeting always made him smile. It had been innocuous on the surface, but underneath was that heart communion that led rather quickly to their marriage. It was a happy moment to remember.
What was his problem, then? Why would he go crazy when Mercedes mentioned the idea of God bringing them together? Eliot believed. Until the shooting, he’d been more faithful than she about attending church. It reminded her of her father’s reaction to God talk.
A shudder went through her. Eliot was nothing like Harrison.
Sheridan finished the conversation with Mercedes, unsuccessfully ordering her to hire a nurse or a housekeeper to help. Evidently the girl had just wanted Sheridan’s assurance that she had not done anything wrong.
Still scrunched into a tight curl, she noticed the crucifix on the nightstand. She’d left it out with the phone the night before. Looking for comfort? Trying to hear His voice again?
“I’m listening, Jesús. What do you want from me? He’s sick. And I can’t fix him.”
Exactly.
Exactly.
“Sher!” Calissa called out, and then she opened the door. “Sher!”
A first glance at her wide eyes and Sheridan knew. She hurried over to her. “When did it happen?”
“A few minutes ago.” Calissa put a hand over her mouth. Tears formed. Sheridan had no words for the passing of their father. She didn’t have any tears, either.
So she just hugged her sister tightly.
Topala
“Padre Miguel.” Eliot shifted his weight gingerly on the padded lounge chair. “I’m quite fine now. You needn’t sit with me. Javier is right inside the house.”
A wide grin creased Padre Miguel’s cherubic face.
The old codger was indefatigable.
“Eliot, it’s no problem.” Sometime during the middle of the night he had lost his formal address of señor.
The familiarity did not ruffle Eliot’s feathers in the least. Which should have surprised him, but he seemed incapable of surprise this morning.
Seated at the table nearby, the area dappled by sunlight through tree leaves, the padre tore off a piece of hard roll and slathered it with jam. “Javier is resting. We’ll let him be for a bit. And Mercedes may be delayed in town.”
“But I do feel absolutely fine, and I’m sure you have other things to do.”
Padre Miguel chewed, and his deep brown eyes danced.
Painwise, the night had been Eliot’s worst since moving to Topala. Unlike past experience, the off-the-scale torment struck quickly and early in the day. It made no sense and frightened him. Was it yet another new development he would have to learn to live with?
Then he remembered the events leading up to it.
“Why did you go to this event?”
Mercedes had asked.
“God must have led you.”
The enormity of what he’d done hit him like a walloping box to the ears.
There were things Sheridan didn’t know, things she didn’t need to know, things no one needed to know now.
The year before, while lying in the hospital in Houston, he had begun to consider what he would do with his time. Given his physical limitations, it seemed that writing his memoirs might be a good choice for occupation. He calculated the risks of revisiting certain times of his life. Old difficulties would be stirred up, no question about it.
But it was his story. He would choreograph the entire thing, present what he deemed significant. There was no reason for it to be exhaustive. Who would care to read every detail of some minor official’s existence anyway?
He would write biographical vignettes, from his childhood overseas to his diplomatic service as an adult. Recent American history would be included. His whole purpose would be to inspire readers. Far too few young people aspired to such a goal anymore, to serve in the capacity he and his father and grandfather had. He wanted to encourage the next generation.
The detail of his encounter with one malevolent man would simply not be addressed.
End of story.
“Why did you go to this event? God must have led you.”
Padre Miguel brushed crumbs from his hands. “May I get you something more to eat?”
“No. No thank you.”
“So.” He folded his hands on his small paunch. “You feel absolutely fine. Isn’t that marvelous?”
Eliot nodded.
“Is it odd? I mean, after such a night?”
He stared at the priest, not sure whether to be appalled or amused at his ability to snooker him into the core of a matter with such innocuous observations.
The priest went on. “In spite of my faith and prayers, I feared we would be driving you to the hospital in Mesa Aguamiel.”
“Good heavens. Promise me you’ll get an ambulance if ever the need arises.”
“Ah, but that involves so much time and expense.”
“Padre, I can hold on for days by a thread, and I have the money. Please.”
He smiled. “It is odd, isn’t it, that you’re up and about?”
Eliot figured there was no escape. “Yes. It was odd first of all not to hurt the night after our trip by car. It is extremely odd that after last night I am now awake, not the least bit foggy-brained, and relatively pain-free.”
“What do you suppose is going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“
Odd
often points to God’s hand tipping the scale.”
God’s hand.
In for a penny, in for a pound. “Speaking of hands . . . the day we went to Mesa Aguamiel, you touched my arm and hip. I felt a distinct impression of intense heat.”
“That happens sometimes.” Padre Miguel smiled. “Odd, isn’t it?”
“Indeed.”
“Tell me, Eliot, where are you on the scale this morning?”
“You know about the scale?”
“I am nosy, and señora sometimes obliges. Once when we talked of your pain, she explained this measurement. I suppose it is helpful, although inadequate. In reality none of us is able to put a number on our hurts, are we?”
Eliot felt like an insect splayed on a board. Straight pins held wings, head, and legs in place. He couldn’t move; he couldn’t speak. All he could do was lie there, totally exposed and vulnerable to an old Mexican who had the power to touch him with God’s hand.
“Hurt encompasses whole worlds beyond the physical.” Padre Miguel pulled on his lower lip as if in deep thought. “I’m talking about when other people hurt us. Our psyches are wounded as surely as if a bullet could strike them. Scar tissue forms. Things look healed on the outside, but underneath, the pain goes on and on.” He paused a beat. “We feel it at various levels throughout life. Sometimes it reaches a two on the scale; sometimes it soars up to a twelve.”
Eliot blinked.
“If we truly want to be free of the pain, then we must forgive the offender. Of course. That’s a given, don’t you think? ‘How many times shall I forgive,’ Peter asked. ‘Seven?’ ‘No,’ Jesús said. ‘Seventy times seven.’”
Eliot could only blink again and wait for the punch line he knew was imminent.
“Our Lord told His disciples that if they did not forgive someone, then that person’s sins would be retained.” He bolted upright, palms against the chair arms, his eyes bright and focused on his captive insect. “Now where do you suppose those sins might be retained?”
Eliot didn’t think the man really wanted a reply.
Padre Miguel slapped a hand to his own chest with a thump. “Right here. Right here inside of me. If I do not forgive someone who has hurt me, then I am holding on to sin in my heart. In
my heart
. It gouges me deeply. It puts down roots, and after a time it even bears fruit.”
“Fruit?”
“Yes! Anger and fear and pride and . . . well, you get the picture.” He settled back in his chair, hands folded once more across his midsection. “Don’t you?”
All energy drained from Eliot. Virtually pinned down, he’d been slit open, his inner self exposed. He rasped, “The man wreaked havoc in my life and countless others.”
“And retaining that fact in your heart helps you how?”
A warming sensation flowed through Eliot, as if the exposure was not to shame but to a radiant light.
Padre Miguel said softly, “When we simply let the offense go, Eliot, when we simply hand it over to our Lord, the fruit withers up. And we realize how rotten it tasted.”
Eliot formed his lips around the sound of
b
, the word
but
on the tip of his tongue. But . . . there were no other words to defend, explain, or argue. In essence the padre had delivered an ultimatum: continue to wallow in anger, fear, and pride or let go their cause.
Let go the wrongs committed against you by Harrison Cole.
Padre Miguel smiled. “Don’t try to analyze it. God will show you how.”
The kitchen door banged open and Mercedes rushed out onto the patio. She reached Eliot’s chair and knelt, red-faced and perspiring. “Oh, señor! It’s señora’s father. He is dead. I am so sorry.”
Eliot had waited nearly thirty years to hear such news, such rattling good news.
But . . . His stomach clenched. How was Sheridan taking it? How was he supposed to take it? And now what? Now what was he supposed to do about forgiving that piteous excuse of a man for wreaking havoc in his life? Was it now a nonissue? Did he even need to address it anymore? It didn’t feel like it was over for him.
He looked at Padre Miguel, who did not need to hear a question before answering it.
The priest shook his head, a small smile on his lips. “No, Eliot, you’re not off the hook.”