Seasons Under Heaven (5 page)

“On a school night?”

“No, that won’t work.” She moaned. “Look, I’ll just call John—”

“It’s okay, Mom. I can stay by myself. Really. Give me a chance.”

“I’m not ready. Maybe you could go to the game with Annie and her date.”

“No way!” Annie erupted. “I’ll the before I’ll take him with me on a date.”

“I’ll the before I go,” Mark threw back.

Frustrated, Cathy headed back for the telephone. She called John’s number, but he wasn’t in his office. She left him a message to call back. He would know immediately that she was canceling, and he’d give up on her, as he probably should. But she really didn’t want him to. He might, after all, be the one.

As she waited for him to call, she went ahead and got in the shower, trying to let the hot water rinse the tension from her body. She should be feeling relief, she thought, that Rick hadn’t bought the condom, that he had no plans to use it with a girl, that he hadn’t had any objection to her getting rid of it. Still…

The fact that the school had doled them out like breath mints riled her. She just didn’t know what to do about it.

She was rinsing the conditioner out of her hair when she heard Annie screaming from the hallway. “Mom, telephone!”

She finished rinsing her hair, threw a towel around herself, and ran out to get the phone. “Hello, John?”

“No, Mom, it’s me.”

It was Mark, and she frowned. “Mark, I thought you were downstairs.”

“Nope. Across the street. I came over to see why Daniel’s yard got rolled, and found out they did it theirselves. Cool, huh? Mr. Dodd said I could spend the night with Daniel tonight. Since they homeschool, it’s no big thing to do it on a weeknight.”

“But
you
have to go to school.”

“So I’ll come home first thing in the morning and get ready. What’s the big deal?”

She closed her eyes. “Let me talk to Brenda.” He put her on hold, and she could hear him talking to David. Finally, he came back. “She’s not here. She took Joseph to the doctor.”

“Well, are you sure it’s all right with her?”

“Sure,” he said. “What’s one more? I’ll come home and get my stuff.”

“Come home and do your homework,” she said. “Then you can go back.”

She hung up and sat down on the bed, wondering if there was any wisdom in her going out tonight, after all. Didn’t she want to be here when Annie got back from her date? Didn’t she want to make sure that Rick didn’t go out partying after he got off work? Didn’t she need to supervise Mark’s homework to make sure he did it all?

The door opened and Annie shot in. “Mom, does my hair look all right? Do I have on too much eyeliner?”

Cathy gave her a once-over. Her shirt flaunted too much of the figure that Cathy would have died or killed for when she was fifteen. She tried to think of a good reason why Annie needed to change, but the girl had her on a technicality. The shirt was neither low cut, nor too tight. Cathy tried to shift her thoughts to something positive. “Your hair looks gorgeous,” she said. “You look like one of those soap opera stars.”

“What about my eyeliner?”

“It looks fine.”

“Fine?” Annie asked, stomping a foot. “I
can’t
look fine. Not
that
kind of fine, anyway.” She ran into Cathy’s bathroom and began digging through her makeup drawer.

“Honey, I was about to go in there. I have to get ready for my date.”

“But Mom, I need your lipstick. Look at me, I look awful.”

“You look beautiful,” Cathy said, falling in behind her. “Come on. I need for you to move aside so I can get ready.”

“But
Mom!
”

Finally understanding what a crisis this was, Cathy surrendered her makeup table and sat on the side of the tub as her daughter panicked over her date. “So tell me about this boy,” she said.

“Oh, he’s so cute,” she said. “He’s got the bluest eyes, and these
luscious
lips.”

Cathy didn’t want to hear about his lips. She wondered if he’d been given a condom at school. “What time will you be home?”

“As soon as the game’s over, unless we go get a burger or something.”

“No burgers. Come straight home.”

“Mom, what do you care? You won’t be here.”

The fact that Annie would be coming home to an empty house with no accountability and a boy who’d just seen a film about safe sex riled her. She made a decision to have a quick dinner with John and then beg off. She had to get home before Annie did.

“I’ll be here,” she assured her. “I want you coming straight home. It
is
a school night.”

“Well, I know, but every kid in school’s going to be at that game.”

“I’m letting you go to the game.”

“Well, why can’t I go out afterward?”

“Either agree to come home after the game, or stay home and don’t go at all.”

“And if I stay home, are you staying home with me?”

The smart-aleck tone made Cathy want to throw something, but she refrained. “Annie, why do you talk to me like that?”

“Because you talk to
me
like
that.
”

“I’m your mother.”

“And I’m your daughter.”

It was one of those grueling games they played. Just like when the kids were little and they would repeat every word she said until she was a raging lunatic trying to make them stop.
Sighing loudly, she headed into the closet to find something to wear. She pulled out a simple dress and a sweater, and laid it on her bed.

“You’re not wearing that, are you?” Annie asked.

She turned back to her daughter. “What would you prefer that I wore?”

“Something prettier.” Annie went into her closet and pulled out something more colorful. “Here, wear this.”

Something about her daughter helping her get ready for a date seemed unnatural, and she felt more depressed than ever. “All right, Annie, I’ll wear that. Thanks.”

“Sure. And if you want me to help you with your makeup, I will. You could use more blush than you usually wear.”

“All right.” Cathy headed for her makeup, but Annie dashed back to it. “I’m not through, Mom.”

Cathy closed her eyes. She was supposed to have been a contented married woman by the time she had teenagers who dated. She was supposed to have been settling into the prime of her life. Not competing with her daughter for the mirror so they could both get ready for dates.

When Annie finally moved aside, Cathy applied the makeup that she rarely wore and slipped on the dress. Maybe it would be nice to get out, after all. She did need a break from responsibility and routine and constant needs and demands. It would be fun to have some adult male companionship for the evening. And who knew? It might turn into something.

As the possibility entered her mind, she began to get a little more hopeful. For the first time, she actually looked forward to the evening.

Brenda and Joseph had been at the hospital for what seemed hours, doing an echocardiogram, a MUGA scan, and other tests she had never heard of before. She wasn’t clear on the purpose for any of them, but she tried to stay cheerful and keep Joseph upbeat as the grueling day wore on.

What a terrible thing to have to endure on your ninth birthday, she thought. She would make it up to him, even if she had to have another whole party and decorate the trees again.

No one at the hospital would give her any of the results, so when she finally headed back home with Joseph, she had no more answers than she’d had earlier. They had simply told her to keep him quiet and let him get plenty of rest.

They were eating a late supper of hamburgers David had cooked out on the grill when the doctor called. “I knew you’d want to know—I got the results back on some of the tests already,” he told Brenda. “I’d like you to take Joseph to see Dr. Chris Robinson. He’s a pediatric cardiac surgeon.”

“A what?” She immediately got up from the table and took the cordless phone into the other room where the children couldn’t hear. David followed her.

“You think this is his heart?” she asked quietly.

“Some of the tests showed…well, it’s a little enlarged. It’s hard to tell why.”

“Enlarged?” The word seemed to scramble the thoughts in her brain, keeping them from any logical order. “What would cause that?”

“A number of things could cause it,” he said. “Possibly that virus he had a few weeks ago. Or an illness years ago could have caused damage that’s just now showing up. I’d really rather not speculate. I’ll be calling Robinson myself first thing in the morning, but you need to make an appointment with him. Try to get in as soon as possible.”

“Sure. I’ll call first thing.”

“I’d really like to keep up with what’s going on, so remind him to keep me informed.”

“Sure,” she said. “What do I do in the meantime? For Joseph, I mean.”

“Just keep him quiet.”

“Is there medicine?”

“Oh, sure. There are lots of ways to treat problems like this. Dr. Robinson will probably have him back to a hundred percent in no time. Don’t panic until you hear what he has to say.”

Don’t panic.
The words seemed so worthless and impossible. Slowly, she hung up the phone.

“His heart?” David asked on a rush of breath.

She met his eyes, saw the terror there. She might have been looking into a mirror.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” she managed to answer. “He wants us to take him to a pediatric cardiac surgeon.” She covered her mouth with a trembling hand, muffling a sob. “David, he said his heart is enlarged.”

“Enlarged? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” She reached for him, and he hugged her fiercely, as though the strength of their embrace could hold back whatever evil had its grip on their son.

They managed to pull themselves together for the sake of the children and didn’t speak of it again until the kids were occupied in another room. Cathy’s son Mark was over, and had brought a game of Monopoly that they were all engaged in.

When they were alone, David paced across the kitchen, rubbing his face with callused hands. “He needs the best care. The absolute best. Guess I need to take on some extra work,” he said. “These bills could get pretty hefty.”

“All those tests today,” Brenda said. She sat at the kitchen table with her Bible—the source of her strength—but somehow, she couldn’t seem to concentrate on the words she had opened to. “What’s our deductible again?”

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the counter. “Two thousand dollars. And it doesn’t cover but seventy percent after that. The joys of self-employment.”

They had decided years ago that this was the best situation for their family, in spite of the tight budget, the self-employment taxes, the poor health insurance, and everything else that came with self-employment. Being a cabinetmaker at home enabled him to help in the homeschooling of their children, to be there when Brenda had to leave, to spend time apprenticing his boys. Already, Daniel helped him in the afternoons. It was a situation that worked, and they didn’t want to change it. But at times like this, they both wished they had a company benefit program with health insurance.

“We’ll get by, David,” she said. “The Lord will provide. He always does.”

David averted his eyes, the way he always did when she spoke of spiritual things. He wasn’t a believer, and he considered her faith to be nothing more than shallow superstition. She tried not to let it bother her. “David, He
will
provide. You’ll see.”

She knew he was thinking that
he
was the one who would have to provide. “We’ll get by,” he finally agreed.

“Besides,” she said, reaching deep into herself and finding the optimism she was known for. “I don’t really think he’s that sick. It’s probably some fluke thing. We’ll get in to see that doctor, and he’ll take a look at Joseph and say there’s nothing wrong with him, that I wasted my time bringing him in. And we’ll find out that he just fainted because the sun was too hot and he’d had too many sweets. That his heart is enlarged because it’s so full of love…”

David’s look told her that this was another one of those times when their faith didn’t match. He swallowed hard and got up from the table. “I know it’s early. It’s not even dark yet, but…I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah, okay. I’m going to stay up until I get the kids into bed.”

She watched as David disappeared down the hall, then turned her eyes back to the Bible again. Her thoughts were in such disarray that she didn’t think she could find words to take to God’s throne. She wished her husband could share this with her, and that they could pray for each other when one of them had a heavy heart. But David would have none of it.

She sat back in her chair and recalled the night, almost thirteen years ago, when she had gone to a church service with a friend and had come home to tell David that something had happened. She had found Christ that night, and she’d been overcome with joy and excitement and couldn’t wait to tell him how the Holy Spirit had touched her.

She had hoped that he would want the same experience, but she’d tried to prepare herself for his indifference. What she had not expected, what had come as a shock to her, was the rage that she had never seen in David before. It was as if she’d joined some evil cult…as if she had announced her intention to leave him and join her new friends. It was frightening and irrational. He had tried to forbid her to go back to that church, and insisted on her renouncing the faith that he found so distasteful. She had refused.

That night, she had gone to bed in confusion while David stayed up watching late-night television in the other room. She
had not been able to sleep, so she had wept and prayed. Those prayers must have reached right into that other room, because sometime after midnight, David had come to bed.

With red eyes and tears on his face, he’d sat down on the side of the bed and asked her forgiveness for losing his temper. “I have reasons for hating church,” he’d said.

She sat up in bed. The light coming in from the hall illuminated one side of his face, leaving the other side in darkness. In the half that was visible to her, she saw pain. “But…you were raised in church. I thought you, of all people, would understand.”

“I understand more than you do,” he said. “Those people in that church you went to…they’re not what you think.”

“How do you know?” she asked. “You’ve never met them.”

“I’ve met people just like them.”

Flustered and unable to find a defense, she reached for his hand. “David, it doesn’t matter about the people as much as it does about Jesus.”

He got up from the bed and lost himself in the shadows. “I thought I’d escaped this. When I left home, I never had to go back. And you never cared about church. Now, all of a sudden, you’re all gung ho for this religion stuff, and I’m supposed to just accept it?”

“It’ll make me better, David. Not worse.”

“I don’t think it’ll make you better,” he said. “I’ve seen what it does to people.”

The conversation had ended, and he’d gone back to the television. She had decided right then and there that she would simply pray for him to change his mind, and make sure he found nothing in her faith to be bitter about. She must have succeeded, for when they began having children, he allowed her to take them to church. But he refused to go himself.

His reasons were locked up somewhere inside him, and he refused to let them out. Over the years, though, she had guessed at some of them, from things his mother said before she died. Things about David’s father being a preacher—a fact that
shocked her, since David had never mentioned it. Things about that same father running off with the church organist when David was a small boy. Somehow, all of that figured into his bitterness and anger at the church. But she knew there had to be more. And she prayed daily that he would someday open that cage and share its contents with her, and turn to the God who healed past hurts.

That prayer had not been answered yet, thirteen years later, but she hadn’t given up.

Her heart was as heavy as it had been in a long time, and she decided to call her prayer partner. She dialed Sylvia’s number, hoping she wasn’t waking her.

“Hello?”

“Sylvia, it’s me. Brenda.”

Sylvia had always been able to detect when something was wrong. “What is it, darlin’? Is Joseph okay? I got to the party late, and Tory told me what happened.”

“Um…I don’t really know.”

“Are you dressed?”

Brenda looked down at the clothes she’d had on all day, wondering why Sylvia asked. “Yes, why?”

“‘Cause I’m coming over. Meet me on the front porch.”

Brenda felt better already as she hung up the phone and headed outside.