How long could they stand there criticizing jackets? Didn’t they have somewhere to go—something to pillage?
Oh. That. Burrito. I was going to explode. I groaned. “I’ve got to get to a bathroom. And I don’t care who sees me. I’m gonna die whether I stay in here or whether the Malevolents see me,” I whispered in Reba’s ear.
“Just wait until they go around the corner, and we’ll all go together. The bathroom is right down that hall there past the gloves.”
I waited as long as I could possibly wait and right before the last Malevolent rounded the corner to the next section of clothing, I scooted out of the jackets, down the hall, and into the bathroom faster than a biker running from the law.
What. A. Relief.
“Ewwww.” Lily held her nose and waved a hand in front of her face. “Man, Kirstie, that’s not ladylike at all.”
“Like I don’t know that? Try being the one in the throes of it.”
We kept our voices low and didn’t turn on the lights. A small window of glass bricks let in a little bit of daylight. The door opened, and I assumed someone peeked into the bathroom and left. We couldn’t see who it was because we hid in the stalls. I stood alone, Reba was in the stall next to mine, and Lily and Opal shared the third one down.
We stayed hidden for a long time before we thought it might be safe to come out.
“You know we’re cooked if a Malevolent has to go to the bathroom.” I thought hiding was silly and left my stall.
“Hopefully they didn’t eat Mexican before they came.” Lily giggled.
I adjusted my doo-rag in the mirror. “I have to tell you, ladies, I’m feeling a little guilty running from them instead of trying to get to know them and minister to them or something.”
“They’re probably gone by now.” Lily walked out of the stall. Reba and Opal emerged, and we all leaned against the wall.
“I’m sorry, Kirstie, but I’m just not in the frame of mind to deal with that woman. Especially with Milo being sick.”
“No problem, Lily. What are friends for if not to hide behind jackets and endure Kirstie’s fluffing. Friends stick together no matter what.” Opal patted her on the back.
Everyone giggled.
We peeked out the door and made our way down the hall.
“That’s strange,” I said. “The lighting in here is different now.”
“Oh, no.” Reba gasped.
“What?”
“They’re closed.”
We ran to the front of the store and tried the doors. They didn’t budge. The store was closed, and we were locked in. Our bikes sat in the parking lot alone and vulnerable.
“What do we do?” I couldn’t believe this.
“We call someone. The police.” Opal ran for the phone on the front counter.
“No, not the police!” I cried. “If you call the police, they might arrest us, and I don’t need that. We’re already having enough trouble at the church.”
“Why didn’t they realize someone was still here when our bikes were sitting out there?”
“Maybe they thought we caged it with somebody somewhere,” Reba said.
“I’m going to have to call Aaron. He isn’t going to like this. What about Atticus? Opal, he knows everybody. Does he know the owners?”
“I don’t think so,” Opal said. “And look.” She handed me a flyer. So this was why the store closed early. A bike rally in Bloomington.
“Looks like we’re spending the night.” Reba moaned.
“Oh, no,” Lily and Opal whimpered in concert.
“Look on the bright side,” I said.
“What bright side?” Reba growled.
“At least we know where the coffee is.”
40
The next morning we hid in the dealership’s bathroom again as the employees arrived. When the store was up and running and customers filled the showroom floor, we ventured out and mixed in with the crowd. The night before we left money on the counter to pay for the coffee, snacks, and packs of cards we’d “borrowed.” If there was a surveillance camera, we didn’t see one. But, since we’d left the money, we were hopeful they would have a good laugh and not come looking for us.
I never want to sleep on a concrete floor again as long as I live.
We looked like twice-baked death when we rolled into home the next day.
Aaron laughed, which I didn’t mind. It was better than being angry.
“I’m beginning to get used to your antics. You’ve given me a lot of sermon material since you began riding that bike of yours.”
“Ha ha, very funny.” I gave him a playful punch and laid my head on his chest as he wrapped me in his arms. I sighed. “I’m taking a long, hot bath. I don’t care if the house is coming down around my ears, and Timmy’s painting the dog purple.”
“Timmy’s playing happily in the sprinkler with the dog until I can get out there to swim with them.” Aaron kissed my forehead.
“Where are Daniel and Patrick?”
“Daniel’s with his violin teacher for the afternoon, and Patrick”—Aaron grinned ear to ear—“is at work at his new job.”
“He got a job?” I was pleased and shocked.
“Yep. He’s working at the Delmuth farm in the chicken houses.”
“Our Patrick? In a chicken house? Are you sure that’s
our
Patrick?”
“I’m sure. He wants a car.”
“Oh, Aaron, that’s wonderful news. But if you see him before he comes in the house, tell him to take his clothes off at the backdoor—I don’t want that smell in my house.”
Aaron laughed. “I’ll tell him. Hurry and take your bath, and I’ll order Chinese and rent a good movie. How does that sound?”
“Delicious. Get a movie Timmy will like.”
“I think there’s a new crime drama. I’ll check it out.” Aaron walked toward the backyard, and I headed to my bathroom upstairs.
Settling into a big tub of steaming bubbles was another one of my ideas of heaven on earth. Bubble baths are most delicious after a long day’s work, a ride on a motorcycle, or any kind of stress. I’m terribly serious about my bubble bath.
I always light at least one candle. But today I got out all the candles I could find, lit them around the bathroom and turned off all the lights except the one over the mirror. I needed that one for reading. I opened a favorite playlist on my phone, chose some soothing piano music, and plugged it into the portable speakers.
With classical music wafting into the room, I started the bath and poured in my favorite foaming bubbles from the cherry blossoms bottle. While the water ran, I washed my face, used a scrub, and ended with a delicious fruit-scented green tea mask. The cool ointment smelled like fruity cereal, but I loved the way it made my skin feel.
I crawled into the tub and allowed myself to sink in slowly. I sat with my eyes closed and let the music, the sound of the water, and the steam lull me to a pure state of relaxation. I reached for my novel on the edge of the tub and let myself get lost in its pages. Between the music and the water, I couldn’t hear anything going on outside the bathroom door. I was in a state of delicious bliss.
Not long into my journey to paradise my phone rang. Rats. Why did I bring it into the bathroom with me? Banishment of the phone should be the first cardinal rule when taking a bubble bath.
Reluctantly I crawled out of my soothing cocoon of bubbles and reached for my phone. I looked at the caller I.D. Lily.
“Hello?”
“Kirstie, it’s Milo. He fell outside. No one knew it, and who knows how long he laid there.”
Lily didn’t sound right.
“Lily? Are you OK? Is someone with you?” I grabbed a towel and pulled the plug on my bath.
“No, I mean, yes, I’m OK, no, no one is with me.” Her voice cracked.
“Where are you? Where’s Milo?” I used a demanding tone.
“I’m…I’m…I’m at the house waiting for an ambulance. I don’t, I don’t know where they will take him. I don’t know if…he’s so cold.”
“Lily, I’m on my way.”
I hung up and called Aaron. He brought Timmy in from the pool and immediately made arrangements for Trace to take care of the boys—Timmy for now and the others when they got home.
We both got dressed as fast as we could.
Trace came by until Reba could get there.
Aaron and Trace’s voices carried upstairs.
“Thanks for coming by, Trace. I hope you didn’t have to close the store. You and Reba seem to be the only ones we can call for Timmy on a moment’s notice.”
“No problem. My buddy Cooper’s got it covered at the store.”
I’d just finished blow drying my hair and was on my way downstairs when Timmy, still in his wet bathing suit, ran to Trace, and gave him an enthusiastic embrace. Unusual for him.
Aaron pulled Timmy away. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to change him yet.”
“No problem, we can handle that. You guys get going. Hey, Timmy, how about tacos for supper tonight?”
“Taco? No Taco. Burrito.” Timmy spun around the room.
“Did she say if he was breathing?” Aaron asked as he came back up the stairs.
“She said he was cold. She didn’t say anything about him breathing.” I couldn’t find my shoes. Timmy must have been playing in my closet again. Flip-flops would have to do.
We left Trace with instructions and jumped in the van.
Aaron peeled backward out of the driveway.
“Poor Lily.” I looked out my window and watched farmland fly by.
Neither of us talked. Both of us whispered prayers.
By the time we got there, paramedics already had Milo in the ambulance.
Lily looked alone and tiny standing in front of the big farmhouse. Her dogs sat beside her, panting softly. In fact, the entire farm seemed eerily still.
“Oh, Lil, I’m so sorry,” I whispered as I gathered her in my arms.
“Kirstie, he’s gone. My sweetheart is gone. And I wasn’t there to say good-bye. If I’d been there, I wouldn’t have let him fall. I should have been there.” She sobbed into my shoulder, releasing painful wails of pent-up agony saved from the first diagnosis of Milo’s disease.
I held her and kept her from falling to the ground. “Lily, you know that’s not true. You can’t be everywhere at once. Go ahead and cry. There’s healing in tears. That’s it...”
Aaron stood uncomfortably to the side, tears streaming down his face. He was going to miss his old friend. And now, he needed to pull himself together to do the funeral for him. My heart ached for my sensitive husband. He dearly loved Milo.
Once I got Lily in the house, she was able to tell me what happened.
“I got home, and I thought he was asleep in his bed as he usually is at this time. I swear, I thought I checked on him. I guess I didn’t before I went out to feed the animals and work in the garden.” She removed her glasses and wiped her eyes with the tissue I handed her. “Time got away from me. I have no idea how long he’d been laying out there in the front yard. He was ice cold, Kirstie, ice cold.”
“Wasn’t someone here while you were gone?”
Had someone left Milo all alone?
“They were supposed to be. I never dreamed he’d be left alone, or I wouldn’t have gone on that trip with the Lady Eels to Indy.”
“Lily, this isn’t your fault. Please don’t blame yourself.” Aaron hugged her and let her cry some more.
We made a phone call to hospice and Milo’s private nurse but discovered that no one had missed a shift. Lily was even more devastated.
“That means he fell on my watch, Kirstie. He walked outside and fell on my watch.”
I prayed for the right words to say. And God gave me words. “When Milo fell, Lily, Who was with him?”
“No one. No one was there.”
“Yes. Someone was there. Someone Who always had Milo in His wonderful hands.” I lifted Lily’s chin to make her look at me. “God stayed with Milo. He never left him because he had Alzheimer’s. If anything, He hovered ever nearer.”
“Thanks, Kirstie. I know this in my head. But my heart will take a while to catch up.”
“Oh, honey.” I hugged her near again. “I know. I know.”
I made Lily some tea and helped her stay busy straightening up an already clean house until relatives arrived. Once we knew she was surrounded with love and comfort, Aaron and I said our good-byes and headed home to the boys.
“Sometimes this is so hard,” Aaron said. “But at least I know that Milo is now in his right mind and enjoying life again.”
I nodded. Aaron’s words broke down the walls I’d kept up for Lily’s sake. God always gave me grace for the moment and allowed me to fall apart later. I knew being strong for others in a crisis had to be His grace because the real me wouldn’t be able to keep it together.
By the time we got back it was getting dark outside. We picked up our favorite Chinese food and a movie. It would be hard to enjoy ourselves or sleep tonight. As we turned the corner to our street, we noticed a beautiful glow in the trees a few blocks away.
“I wonder what that is?” Aaron mumbled.
“Is something going on at the church tonight?” I squinted through the car window but couldn’t see any better.
“Not that I know of.” Aaron sighed and flipped on his turn signal. “Better go by and see what’s going on.”
We drove past our house and up the hill to the church. As we neared, both of us gasped at the scene before us.
The church was an inferno.
“Call 9-1-1,” Aaron said.
41
Aaron and I jumped out of the car. I heard Goliath barking and turned to see him and Patrick running up the hill away from the house.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was walking Goliath, and he kept pulling me up here. What happened?” Patrick tried to stop the monster dog, but he kept lunging up the hill.
“I don’t know. Go back to the house. You shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous.”
We could hear the sirens from the fire trucks and volunteer firefighters’ personal vehicles wailing as they neared the church.
“Take him home, Patrick,
now
,” I yelled, but Goliath kept pulling him toward us.
“He won’t come, Mom!”
I ran down the hill to meet them and tried to pull Goliath toward home. He barked and charged toward the church building. Before I knew it, he yanked the leash out of my hand and bounded away.
“Goliath! No!” I yelled.