Seasons Under Heaven (3 page)

“What would we do with the house?” she asked on a whisper.

He seemed reluctant to answer. “I don’t know. Whatever you want. I was thinking we could sell it.”

“
Sell
it?” The words flipped out of her mouth with such disgust that he might have suggested setting it on fire. “Harry!”

His expression fell further. She was the archer shooting her arrow straight into his dreams. She hated playing that role. She tried to breathe in some courage and took his hands, strong surgeon’s hands that saved lives with such skill…but there were many such hands here in the states, and so few overseas. Maybe these hands were meant to be used in Nicaragua.

She dropped them again. “You’ve got to understand, Harry, that this is a little sudden. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it for a long time. But I haven’t.”

“You’re right.” He found his smile again, and she saw that his twinkle was still there. “It’s just that I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few days. I miss the kids just like you do, but I keep seeing it as a new beginning, not an end. I keep thinking that God has a purpose for us, that all the training and skill He’s given me here could be used to take the gospel across the world, and take medicine to people who can’t get it otherwise. Sylvia, I’ve never felt as needed as I felt when we were in Masaya last year. Remember all the people we led to Christ? Remember Carlos, the playboy with a string of mistresses? We were able to lead his wife to Christ for a very important reason: she trusted us after I did the appendectomy on their son. And then Carlos came to church with her, and his life changed—”

“There are lost people
here
, Harry. Some right in this culde-sac. Why do we have to go across the world?”

“Because someone has to.”

With both hands, she wiped the tears forming under her eyes and tried to think logically. “Let me think about it, okay, Harry? Do we have to make a decision right away?”

“Of course not. Take all the time you need.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I don’t want to destroy your dreams.”

“God wouldn’t give this kind of calling to just one of us. If He’s calling me, He’ll call you, too.”

She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes filling with tears again. “Is it your practice?” she asked. “Are you just bored with it?”

Again, he stared down at his shoes, thinking. “I could use a change,” he said, meeting her eyes again. “But that’s not all this is about.” He opened his arms and pulled her again into a hug, held her there for a long moment as her tears soaked into his shirt. “It’s not the end, honey. You’ll see.”

“I know,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “I really do know that. I just don’t feel like I have a lot to contribute, either here or there. It seems kind of pointless to me.”

“Then I’ll pray that God will reveal to you how important you are.”

She laid her head against his chest. He was her best friend, her lover, her confidante, her provider and supporter. He’d always been so strong, so masterful. He’d also often been right.

But right or wrong, she was thankful he wasn’t asking for a decision now.

After a few moments, he let her go and ate a dessert of petit fours left over from the reception. She sat with him, eating chocolate groom’s cake. She supposed a few extra pounds on her hips wouldn’t make much difference. Wasn’t food always supposed to make you feel better?

But she didn’t feel particularly well as she walked him back out to his Explorer. She leaned in and kissed him when he was in the car. She heard a “hello” shouted from the driveway next door, and she waved at Cathy Flaherty, her neighbor on the other side.

“Why don’t you go visit with Cathy?” Harry asked. “She always cheers you up.”

“I’ve got those pictures to take down, and all that misery to wallow in,” she said with a smirk. “I wouldn’t be very good company.”

He kissed her and pulled out of the driveway. Sylvia tried to smile until he was out of the cul-de-sac, but it quickly faded. Her gaze drifted up to the hills in the distance. The mist that normally floated like angelic breath above them had been chased away by the bright sun. Everything looked so clear.

She only wished she could see her own future that clearly.

Cathy Flaherty intercepted her German shepherd as he bounded from the Bryans’ house. He was damp, she discovered as she bent down to pet him, and he smelled like a stray mutt. She wondered where he’d been. She slammed the door of her pickup truck and looked back at the Bryans again. She saw Harry kiss Sylvia before pulling out of the driveway. What a day it must be for them, she thought, to finally have all the kids married off and find that your marriage was still strong.

She went into the house, fighting jealousy. She wasn’t naive enough to think marriage was always bliss. Heaven knew hers hadn’t been. But some part of her—the largest part—wanted one more shot. It wasn’t easy being a single mother of three kids from eleven to seventeen. She’d spent a lot of the past couple of years looking for a husband for herself in an attempt to start over. She had never expected to be forty and single, nor had she ever intended to raise her kids alone. That had been decided for her.

She went into the house, breathing in the silence as if it were a balm that could heal a troubled soul. Though her veterinary practice kept her busy, she tried to come home for lunch every day while the kids were at school, just to regroup and do the housekeeping chores she hadn’t had time to do that morning. Soon the kids would be out of school for the summer, though, and the whole dynamic of her days would change.

She opened a can of soup and poured it into a bowl, stuck it in the microwave, punched out three minutes. While it was cooking, she went into the laundry room and began pulling blue jeans—the most common and indispensable item in the entire family’s wardrobe—out of the mountain of laundry to wash. Even Cathy preferred jeans over anything else. She shoved pair after pair into the washing machine, emptying pockets of change and gum wrappers and breath mints. She tossed the garbage and kept the change. That was the deal, she’d told them. If they were careless enough to leave money in their pockets when she washed, she got to keep it. She saved it in a dill pickle jar and took them all out to eat when enough had been saved.

She stuffed six pairs into the machine, decided the load could take one more, and grabbed up a pair of Rick’s long, lanky jeans. Two quarters fell out, and by rote, she reached into the pockets and grabbed hold of the rest of the contents. Her fingers came upon a small square. She pulled it out…

And her heart crashed.

It was a condom, in the pocket of her seventeen-year-old son.

She dropped it as if it had burned her. Her son hardly even dated. When would he have time enough to get into a relationship that would require a condom? Feeling sick, she backed to the wall, slid down it, and sat on the floor, hugging her knees. It couldn’t be. Not her boy.

Slowly, her mind worked past the shock and began to evaluate options. Maybe she should go to the school, snatch him out of class, confront him face-to-face, and demand an explanation. But would that be overreacting? Shouldn’t she be happy that her son was interested in safe sex?

No!
her heart screamed. She didn’t want Rick to be engaging in sex of any kind. Despite her liberal leanings, she hated the idea of her own children becoming sexually active.

The microwave beeped, and she got to her feet. As the shock gave way, rage seeped in to fill the void. Where had he gotten it? With whom was he planning to use it? Did his father know about this? Was it
his
idea?

Yes. Her thoughts seemed to crystallize as it all became clear. He’d been with his father this past weekend. It was just like Jerry to do something stupid like giving his son a condom. The man probably assumed that Rick had the same loose morals he had, and he wanted to protect him from any “mistakes.” The microwave beeped again, and as if it had been the one to corrupt her son, she threw it open, grabbed the glass bowl of soup, and pulled it out. It sloshed over the side and burned her hand, so she flung it into the sink, breaking the bowl. That was all right; she didn’t want to eat it anyway. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

Instead, she jerked up the phone and punched out her ex-husband’s work number in Knoxville. “Jerry Flaherty,” he said innocently.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“Cathy?” He seemed genuinely confused.

“Yeah, it’s me. Who else can you get into a frothing rage without even being present?”

“What, pray tell, have I done now?”

“Did you or did you not give our son a condom?”

“A
what?
No, I didn’t give him a condom!”

“Then who did? Could it have been Sandra?”

“No! My wife did not give Rick a condom. That’s ludicrous. How could you even think that?”

“Oh, well, excuse me,” she said sardonically. “But your past moral slipups tend to keep me from being too surprised at anything you do. Did you
talk
to him about condoms?”

“No. It never came up.”

“Is there someone there that he’s seeing?”

“No. Annie’s the one we can’t keep home. She’s got that friend, Joni, who has a car, and who knows what they do or what boys they meet when they leave here?”

Newer, hotter rage flared up inside her like a Fourth of July display, and she forced herself to sit down on the stool at the breakfast bar. “Has it
ever
occurred to you to tell her she can’t go?”

“For what reason? We haven’t caught her at anything yet.”

“Do you
know
where she goes?”

“Movies, Burger King, Blockbuster, that kind of thing. Come on, Cathy, calm down. It’s not like we let her stay out all night. She’s home by curfew.”

“Then why did you just say she’s probably meeting boys?”

“Because she’s a girl. That’s what they do.”

“Have you checked up on her to make sure she’s where she says? Do you know anything about this girl Joni? Have you met her parents?”

“No, Cathy. I have these kids every other weekend. I’m not intimately acquainted with the parents of their friends, and I don’t see why that would be necessary. I just brought that up to say that Rick is not the one I’d worry about, if I worried about any of them. Now what’s this about a condom?”

She let out a deflated breath and stared at the counter for a moment. “I found it in his pocket. If he doesn’t have a girlfriend there, and he doesn’t have one here, why did he have a condom?”

“Got me. Maybe he’s just saving it for a rainy day.”

The flippancy of his remark seared her. “You act like this is no big deal, Jerry. This is your son!”

“My son is seventeen, Cathy. Eventually, he is going to get involved with a girl, and frankly, if you want to know my opinion, I don’t think a condom is a bad idea. He probably ought to keep one with him.”

She ground her teeth together. “Spoken like the Father of the Year. I don’t know why you still amaze me, Jerry.”

“Cathy, relax. They’re growing up. You can’t stop them. Even Mark’s going through puberty. Twelve years old, and his voice is starting to change.”

“I’m not trying to stunt their growth,” Cathy bit out. “I’m trying to raise them right.”

“Maybe raising them right means getting them to adulthood without pregnancy or disease. Maybe that’s the best we can hope for.”

The words filtered through her like scorching water, and she dropped the phone from her ear and stared at it as if she could see her ex-husband through the little holes in the mouthpiece. Why was she even talking to him? He had the morals of a canine.

No longer enraged, she dropped the phone back on its hook on her wall, cutting off the connection. It was like the stages of grief. She had moved quickly from shock, to anger, and now into depression. All she could do was wait for the kids to get home, so she could find out where Rick had gotten the condom. She had exactly two hours to come up with a plan of action. Should she yell, lecture, punish? Or was it possible that she would be struck with a burst of wisdom on how to turn this from a crisis into a wonderful learning experience that the kids would always hold dear?

Fat chance.

It occurred to her to call the clinic and tell her receptionist to close the office for the afternoon, but she knew she had two litters of puppies coming in to be dewormed. She could put them off, she supposed, but she couldn’t really afford to turn the work away. Knocking off at four every day and refusing to work Saturday afternoons left her few enough office hours as it was. No, she needed to get back.

She went back to the laundry room, started the load of jeans, and slid the condom into her own pocket. Then, trying to ignore the dismal thoughts flitting through her mind, she went back out to the pickup. Across the street, her neighbor Brenda stood in a huddle with her four kids, all with different shades of
red hair. They were up to something, but that wasn’t unusual. Brenda, who homeschooled her children, had the most creative mind Cathy knew when it came to stimulating them. She was probably doing some sort of nature hunt or demonstrating the food chain by collecting bugs in the yard, imparting some type of life lesson that they’d never forget.

Suddenly, Cathy felt like a terrible mother who didn’t deserve the children who’d been entrusted to her.

As she backed out of the driveway, she saw David, Brenda’s husband, dragging picnic tables to the lot between the houses. He was always there, an active partner in raising the children, making a living as a cabinetmaker from the workshop in the backyard. With his wavy red hair and his slight paunch, he had never been the catch of Breezewood. But given the chance, Cathy would have traded every material possession she had to have one just like him. She gave him a cursory wave, swallowing her swelling anger at her ex-husband. She deserved better than to be raising three children alone. More importantly,
they
deserved better.

“Come on, hurry up, let’s go. We’ve got to get the decorations up before the party.” Brenda Dodd’s tone was more grand marshal than drill sergeant as she looked around at the empty lot between her house and Tory’s house next door. David had moved the two picnic tables he’d built to the center of the lot for Joseph’s birthday party.

Though Joseph had sprung out of bed mat morning and declared that he was well, he still looked weak. “But we don’t have any crepe paper,” he pointed out. “What are we gonna put up?”

Brenda grinned and lifted her eyebrows. “Did you grab a roll of toilet paper like I told you?”

“Yes, but I don’t see why the kids can’t just go in the house if they have to go to the bathroom,” Daniel said.

Brenda laughed. “The toilet paper’s for decoration, Kemo Sabe.”

All four children looked down at the rolls of toilet paper in their hands, expressions of complete bewilderment on their
faces. “We’re decorating with
toilet paper?
” the birthday boy asked, his flaming red hair making him look even paler in the harsh sunlight.

“Isn’t there some rule against that in Amy Vanderbilt?” Leah had found a thirty-year-old copy of Amy Vanderbilt’s
Book of Etiquette
at a used book sale, and read it like a novel when she wasn’t doing schoolwork. “I mean, I never saw it in the book anywhere, but it just seems kind of rude, don’t you think?”

“Trust me,” Brenda said. “Observe.” Like a scientist attempting to demonstrate a life-changing experiment, she unrolled two yards of toilet paper from her own roll. “Follow me, troops. I’m about to show you how to do the most fabulous party decoration known to man, and all for the price of a sixpack of toilet paper.”

The children all followed, doubtful.

Brenda laughed at the looks on their faces as she reached the center of the empty lot. “Oh ye of little faith.” She looked up at the canopy of huge oaks and elms throughout the yard. Rearing back, she threw her toilet paper roll into the branches overhead. The paper caught on a limb, and the roll fell to the ground, unrolling a stream of paper behind it.

“Cool!” Daniel shouted. “Mom’s letting us roll our own yard!”

The confused looks turned to expressions of sheer delight as the children joined in the act, squealing and laughing and flinging their rolls. When Brenda’s naked cardboard roll fell to the ground, she stood back, watching her kids send long swoops of white toilet paper draping through the trees like crepe paper purposely placed.

“Brenda! For Pete’s sake, what are you doing?” David called, leaning out the window of the workshop behind the house. “What have you taught them?”

“How to decorate on a shoestring, David,” she called with glee. “Come help us.”

He came out in a moment and stood there with his hands at his sides, a worried grin on his face. “How are we gonna get this stuff down?”

“Don’t worry. It’ll come down. We’ll just pull it all off after the party.”

“What if it rains?”

“It wouldn’t dare.”

The look on his face was so comical that she had to laugh out loud. “You up for blowing up balloons? We couldn’t afford the helium kind, so I figured we’d just all blow until we ran out of air.”

“Mama, can we have more toilet paper?” Rachel asked. “I ran out of mine.”

“That’s enough,” Brenda said. “Look at it. Isn’t it beautiful? Now, come help with the balloons. We’re going to blow them up, tie them in bunches, and set them on top of the birdhouses.”

Her children’s faces testified that they had caught their mother’s vision. She could have suggested that they grab some shovels and dig a ditch, and they would have been convinced they were having fun. They worked on the balloons until they’d blown up half of them, but it was getting hot, and she realized that by the time the party began, they would be nearing meltdown. Joseph was looking particularly peaked. He was pale, perspiring, and breathing hard. “David, why don’t you hook up the sprinkler in the backyard while we blow up the balloons?” she suggested. “That’ll be one of the activities at the party. They can run through the sprinkler when they get hot.”

“Good idea,” David said. He was sweating himself, and his red hair had separated into wavy wet strands.

“But they’ll be soaked,” Leah said. “Whoever heard of going to a birthday party soaking wet?”

“Ms. Vanderbilt would have loved it,” Brenda assured her as David headed to the backyard. “Come on, now. Get some more balloons and start blowing.”

She watched the kids huff and puff. But when she noticed that Joseph, too, was only watching, she tousled his damp hair and said, “Joseph, are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’m just hot.”

“Wanna go sit in the air-conditioning for a minute? Get a drink?”

“No, ma’am, I’ll just stand in the sprinkler to cool off.”

“You’re the birthday boy. Have at it.”

She would have expected him to run at the rare treat, but instead he only walked around to the back of the house. “Joseph,” she called after him, “remind Daddy to make sure the water doesn’t reach the toilet paper.”

“I will.”

They finished blowing up balloons, and by the time two o’clock came, the yard looked festive and inviting. Two cars pulled up at the same time, and out spilled eight delighted homeschooled youngsters. Brenda sent the parents on their way for some rare time alone, assuring them that there would be plenty of supervision. She saw the front door of the Sullivan house open, and Tory came out with Spencer and Brittany.

Spencer took one look at the toilet paper draping the trees and sprinted away from his mother. Brittany began to jump into the air like a pogo toy. “Look, Mommy! Look!”

Tory, dressed in a pale blue shorts set that enhanced the color of her eyes, looked like a model about to do a photo shoot. Brenda wondered why she bothered to fix her hair and makeup when she would probably sweat it all off. Tory gave her a what-have-you-done-now grin as she reached the crowd. “Brenda…”

“It’ll come down, I promise,” Brenda said, raising her right hand in a mock vow. “The kids love it.” She knew Tory didn’t consider that a good enough reason to risk a potential mess in both their yards, but it was the best she could do.

Spencer and Brittany flung their presents to the center of the table, where the other gifts were piled. “Open mine first, okay, Joseph?” Spencer demanded. “Open it now!”

Joseph, who was cooler now that he was soaking wet, shook his head. “I can’t, Spence. It’s not time yet.”

“Aw, man,” Spencer said, then immediately switched gears. “How come you’re wet?”

“There’s a sprinkler going in the back. You can play in it if you want.”

Spencer didn’t wait to hear more. He leaped down from the picnic table and tore around to the back of the house.

“Spencer, no!” Tory shouted. “I’ve bathed him twice today, and he’s on his third outfit.”

“It’ll dry,” Brenda laughed. “Come on, Tory. It’s part of the activities. David’s back there supervising.”

“Well, we could run back home and put on bathing suits…”

“Nooo!” Spencer protested. “It’s more fun in clothes!”

Tory sighed and seemed to resign herself to a fourth outfit.

Brittany almost had a conniption fit. “Me, too, Mommy? Can I get wet, too?”

Brenda knew that Tory didn’t see the appeal of “getting wet”—to her it represented another mess—but finally, she surrendered her second child to the water. As if to force her own mind off wet children, Tory looked around at the other kids. “These kids are all different ages. Aren’t any of them in school?”

“They’re all homeschooled,” Brenda said. “We go on field trips together and stuff. I thought they’d enjoy a party. I sent their mothers away—they could use a break.”

“Mama doesn’t make us do school on birthdays,” Joseph said, putting a balloon to his mouth to blow up. The balloon inflated slightly, and his face began to redden as he tried harder to blow it up.

“Here, I’ll help,” Tory said, taking one. She blew it up quickly, tied it in a knot, and handed it to Rachel, who was waiting with ribbon to tie around it.

Joseph was still working on his. Finally, he gave up and let the balloon go. It twirled in the air and collapsed on the table.

Brenda stopped what she was doing and gazed down at him. “You couldn’t blow it up, honey?”

“I don’t want to,” he said.

“You want to run through the sprinkler again?” She pushed his wet hair back from his face and touched his forehead. It wasn’t feverish. “Go ahead. It might pep you up a little.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He got up from the bench as if to do just that, but stopped and steadied himself.

Brenda bent over to meet his eyes. “Joseph?”

He didn’t answer right away, just stared blindly into space, wobbled slightly, then went limp and hit the ground.

“Joseph!” Brenda fell to her knees beside her unconscious son. “Tory, go get David!”

But David was there before Tory could move. “What’s wrong?”

“He passed out! Get me a cold rag or something.”

Daniel, who was soaked from the sprinkler and had run up behind his father, pulled his wet T-shirt off and thrust it at his mother. She was shaking as she began to stroke Joseph’s face with it. “Honey, wake up. Joseph?”

His eyes slowly opened and rested blankly on her.

“He’s awake,” Brenda cried. “David, we’ve got to get him to the doctor.”

“But the party!” Leah cried. “We can’t leave all the guests. Their mothers aren’t here!”

Tory looked helplessly at David and Brenda. “Look, you two take him on. I’ll take care of things here.”

“He’s okay, aren’t you, sweetie?” Brenda asked, trying to calm her voice to keep from frightening Joseph. “I can take him by myself. David, you can stay and have the party. Just save Joseph some cake and all his presents. There’s no need for everybody to go home, is there?”

“Okay,” he said, and Brenda knew that he too was trying to keep the concern out of his voice. “Joseph’ll be fine, and all this loot’ll be here when you get back. Leah, go get him a change of clothes so Mama can get him out of the wet ones when they get there.”

Already, she had Joseph on his feet and was walking him toward the car. She fumbled with the door, and David came to her aid. “David, I’ll call you when we see the doctor, okay? Just have fun. Joseph is fine.” How many times had they said that? she wondered. And were they saying it for the sake of the kids—or themselves?

David helped Joseph into the car as the children, some wet from the sprinkler and some from sweat, crowded around. Leah cut through them and handed Brenda her purse and a change of clothes for Joseph. As the car pulled out, Joseph looked sadly out the window.

“Well,” Brenda said cheerfully as they left the cul-de-sac. “This will be a party to remember, won’t it? For years, we’ll say, ‘Remember Joseph’s ninth birthday when he passed out cold?’”

Joseph was still gazing out the window. “Toilet paper is better than crepe paper, isn’t it?” he asked quietly. “Prettier, too. It was fun even before the people got there.”

Brenda tried to blink back the tears in her eyes as she sped to the doctor’s office.