Be My Neat-Heart (18 page)

I'
ve seen albino rabbits with more color than Jared had in his face by the time we were in the elevator and on our way to Molly's room.

Lord, whatever is, is. Put Your healing hand upon this situation and please gift us with the “peace that passes understanding.” We could use a good helping of that. May Your name be praised. Amen.

The door to Molly's room was closed. Confused, we looked at a passing nurse, who gave a quick brush of her hand as if to say, “Go in. What are you waiting for?”

Jared's hands were clenched and unmoving at his sides so I reached out and gave the door a small shove. It opened onto a scene of chaos. We remained frozen in our places as Ben, wearing a pair of fake glasses, the kind with eyeballs popping out on the end of small springs, waved us in.

“What on earth?” I stepped between him and Jared so that Jared did not attempt to smack him for looking so ridiculous when his sister was on her deathbed.

“Sssshhh,” Ben hissed. “The doctor is trying to explain it to your parents.”

“Explain? You mean how she…” Jared choked on the unspoken word.

“Yeah. We all wanted to know.”

“Vultures,” Jared spat.

“I don't think so,” Ben said as he stared at Jared in bewilderment. “The only bird in this room looks to me like a loon.”

“Let me by.” Jared pushed Ben aside and strode toward his mother who was standing at the foot of Molly's bed. The divider curtain hid his sister from view.

“Mom, I'm so…”

He stopped, and his shoulder jerked as if he'd been punched. “Wha—” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Molly?”

“She opened her eyes about thirty minutes ago,” Ben explained to me in a low voice. “She's coming back to us. Molly is coming back.”

Illogically, I went to the least important issue at hand. “Us?”

Ben grimaced. “Yes,
us.
To me, too. Is that what you're asking?”

I gaped at him, still in shock.

His eyeballs, all four of them, rolled. “I was showing her some magic tricks. I was about to pull a hamster out of a hat when she opened her eyes!”

It's a wonder that she didn't take a look at Ben and faint again. His hair bristled out of his head in a hundred directions, his cheeks were flushed and those eyes…so many of them and so loosely attached to his head… And did he have a
hamster
in here somewhere?

He beamed at me and I saw for the first time something I probably should have noticed much earlier—amazingly, astoundingly, all this time Ben has been coming to “help out,” he's been falling in love!

“Ben, what's going on with you and—” I felt ridiculous saying it “—Molly?”

He bit his lip and I saw that my exploratory arrow had hit its target. “She's been like a doll laying there, Sammi, a beautiful, soft-haired, fragile cherub. Every time someone speaks about her, it's in terms of her generosity, her love, her
goodness.
” He smiled a little. “And her messiness. I like that in a woman.”

“So you began to think about how it would be to have that kind of woman in your life, that kind of woman to love.” Strangely, I understood.

“And I'd never even ‘met' her, but I found myself praying for her to recover, to wake up, to be healed.” He blushed to the roots of his hair. “And to her future.”

“And yours?”

“If God wills it.”

“God works in mysterious ways.” We were all proof of that.

“No kidding.”

Ben took me by the arm and thrust me into the crowd around Molly. Jared, Molly's parents, Ethan, three doctors and a bevy of nurses ringed the bed. Jared reached out his hand and drew me in.

She lay there blinking owlishly and appearing bemused. The bruise on her head was almost healed and she looked utterly Molly-like. Then she saw me, and a smile spread slowly across her face. With great effort, she lifted her hand as if to reach out for me and her mouth struggled around a single word. “Sam.”

That was it for me. I burst into tears and blurted, “Molly, welcome home! We've missed you.”

Her answering smile seemed to say she understood perfectly.

Things became hazy for me after that. The doctors shooed us out of the room so they could evaluate Molly and we stood in the hallway crying and laughing. Then the nurses steered us into the family room to keep us from disturbing the entire hospital with our celebration. Ultimately we all retired to the
cafeteria to swill back iced tea and laugh, cry and make a general spectacle of ourselves. It was glorious.

“So what happened,” I demanded. “What
really
happened?”

“Molly's father and I have been here all day. I read to her from the newspaper as I always do and treated her like she was ‘in there' somewhere.” A tear spilled down Geneva's cheek. “If there was any chance at all that she could hear us, she had to know how much she is loved.”

“Then Ben came along with a paper bag full of magic tricks and his usual candy bar,” Robert said.

“Candy bar?” Jared and I chimed together.

“He's got this shtick,” Mr. Hamilton continued, “Every time he comes, he lays a salted peanut roll, Molly's favorite, on the foot of the bed.”

“How'd you know what her favorite candy was?” Jared wanted to know.

“He asked.” Leave it to Ben to cut to the chase. “Anyway, Geneva and I always laugh because he'd say, ‘Molly, if you wake up while I'm here, you get this candy bar. If you don't, I'm going to eat it right in front of you. So if you know what's good for you…' and he'd make a big deal of the candy and then, of course, have to eat it before he left.

“The last few days we've been noticing responses in her. Although the doctors said it could just be reflex actions, we thought we saw her smile.”

“It seemed like she smiled a little more each time Ben came,” Geneva added.

“And today, when Ben was about to leave and went to eat the candy bar, she opened her eyes and said, ‘No!'”

“I walked in just about time this happened,” Ethan said, picking up the story. “And that's when I called you and told you to get yourself over here.”

Jared sagged in his chair. “And because it was so noisy in
the background and I didn't hear all you said, I thought something terrible had happened and she had died.”

Ethan looked anguished at the thought. “I'm so sorry, buddy. Everyone was talking and running in and out. I never dreamed you didn't hear all I said.”

“Well, it turned out all right. Better I suffer a little than Molly.” He was still willing to take the pain for the people he loved.

Ethan looked relieved.

“Now what?” Jared asked. “Does she hop out of bed and everything goes back to normal?”

“Hardly,” his mother said. “But if, as the doctors think, her mind is good, they'll start her on physical therapy to help her get her strength back. They won't give us any estimates on how long it might take, but they believe that we will have our Molly back.” And Geneva, relieved of the strain and fear that had been weighing on her, began to sob.

It was after eight when Jared finally dropped me off at my place. We were both wrung out, having been dragged through a knothole on an emotional toothpick. But the world seemed brighter, the colors more vivid, the birds louder and our hearts were bursting with relief and gratitude.

He brushed his index finger across my cheek. The movement seemed to cost him the last of his energy. “Shall I stop by for you tomorrow? Now that I know Molly is safe, I need to try to pick up the pieces of her business. She'll have
me
fired if she knows how lax I've been.”

“But with good reason,” I reminded him gently. “It's time for you to stop overprotecting her and bailing her out, Jared. Molly's a survivor, we all know that for sure now. If I know anything at all about your sister, it's that she'll come back from this charging straight ahead, tackling whatever comes in her way.”

“I wish I were so brave,” he murmured.

“You are. You've carried an impossible burden ever since you were eight years old, a misguided commission from your grandfather. You've been trying to do God's work for Him where Molly is concerned. He just showed us He can handle her on His own.”

“Touché,” he admitted. A slow smile spread across his handsome features. “But if Molly's handled, what am I going to do with my time? Who will I take care of…and love?”

I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I'll help you think of someone.”

O
nce she began to emerge from the coma, Molly's functionality increased and she progressed rapidly in therapy and her recovery. She insisted on going home as soon as possible.

“Hiya, sis,” Jared greeted her as we walked into her living room. He bent to give her a kiss on the cheek before he spied her visitor. “You? Here
again?
Is there something we should know about the two of you?” The picture Aunt Gertie had taken was sitting on the bedside table. Ironically, Molly was the only one who'd recognized immediately what it was.

“Is this guy giving you any trouble?” he asked his sister. “You want me to punch his lights out?”

Molly grinned and grabbed Ben's hand as if to protect him. “Mine,” she said firmly. “Leave him alone.”

“Geneva had an appointment,” Ben explained. “I'm filling in.”

“You seem to be here ‘filling in' here all day long. What do we hire caregivers for, anyway?” Jared asked, grinning. “Don't you have work to do?”

Ben pointed to a bunch of dreary-looking books and ring binders. “I brought it with me.”

It seems that Molly, in her semiconscious state, actually
had
been aware of much of the conversation around her in the hospital. For whatever reason, it was Ben's voice that had come through most loud and clear.

It still seemed to be the one getting her attention.

When Ben and Jared disappeared into the kitchen to see what was in the refrigerator, I sat down beside Molly and took her hand in mine.

“How are you doing today?”

“Good. The doctor says I'm amazing.” Her words were slower and more studied now and she didn't…couldn't…waste time in idle chatter.

“I've always said that.” I glanced over my shoulder toward the kitchen. “What's going on here? Anything I should know about?”

Her eyes glazed with tears. Her emotions are nearer the surface these days, as well. “I think I love him.”

Of all the answers I'd been expecting, it hadn't been that.

“You haven't known him very long.”
And most of the time you were unconscious.

“I
know
him. I heard him.”

Ben's voice is distinct and musical and to Molly he'd been a Pied Piper, luring her back to the land of the living.

“Are you telling me that you and Ben are an item?”

The weight she'd lost after the accident had left attractive hollows in her cheeks which highlighted her excellent bone structure. She beamed at me. “We're in love.”

“In love? You and Ben? How…what…?”

“I already feel as if I know him quite well, Sammi. He talked to me for hours about his family, The Timer, quantum physics…”

“And he knows you through your family and friends.” Put that way, it made sense.

Jared sauntered into the living room looking relaxed and happy. That man is so handsome that it should be illegal.

“Ben went to the grocery store,” he told Molly. “He says he knows exactly what you like.”

Hmmm. If Ben already knows Molly's likes and dislikes… “Jared, what are
my
favorite foods?”

He looked at me blankly. “Is this a test?”

“You could call it that. Ben knows Molly's favorites, I thought you might know mine.” I struggled not to add “or else.”

Abruptly I was sorry I'd started the conversation. What if he didn't have a clue? I'd set myself up to be hurt and insulted.

It took forever for him to answer. When he did, my shoulders sagged in relief.

“Oreos, hot cocoa, chocolate bars, anything Godiva, Cocoa Puffs in chocolate milk, fudge cake, chocolate chip cookies and pretty much anything else that has chocolate in it. You have a sweet tooth the size of New York City, never gain a pound and women everywhere would give anything for your metabolism. You also like steak, lobster, clams, shrimp, pork chops, mashed potatoes, burgers and fries. In fact, you just love food except for rutabaga, smelly cheese, veal, lamb, wild game and tomato aspic. And you could put a man in the poor house with an appetite like yours.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Fortunately, I'm not just any man and I am definitely not poor.”

Molly clapped as the color rose in my cheeks.

Knowing he'd made big points with me, Jared continued as if we'd never had this little digression. “Now, what were you talking about when I walked into the room?”

“Molly's in love,” I blurted.

He looked at her doubtfully. “When did you have time to fall in love? You've been unconscious.”

“Not exactly,” I corrected. “Tell him, Molly.”

And she did.

When Ben returned with the groceries, Jared greeted him with a slap on the back that made Ben nearly dropped the food sacks. I rescued the groceries and announced that Jared and I would cook lunch while he sat with Molly.

“Can you believe it's true?” Jared puzzled as he cut fresh fruit onto a plate. “Ben and Molly, head over heels in love? Maybe there's a medical explanation for what's happened to her. She seems so sure….”

“A medical explanation for love? Come on!”

“I suppose I shouldn't think I know what goes on in Molly's mind now, either,” he said with a sigh. “I had no clue before the accident, and now… Maybe Ben is the best thing that's ever happened to my sister.”

I started spreading butter on thick slabs of bread and piling them with turkey. “You heard what she said. Her disorganization doesn't bother him a bit. He thinks it's charming.”

Jared shuddered. “Ben must have had a clunk on his head, too.”

When we brought the food to them, they were holding hands and staring at each other with goofy grins on their faces.

“So I hear you think Molly's disorganization is charming, huh, Ben?” Jared said bluntly. “Do you really know what you're getting into?”

I tried to elbow him in the side and to quiet him but Jared dodged me with the agility of a wide receiver.

“That's right, Jared,” Molly said complacently. “You don't have to worry about my messes anymore because you're marrying Sammi, not me.”

I tensed. How would Jared respond to that?

“I am, am I?” His tone was carefully bland and noncommittal.

“Jared,” Molly said patiently as she put her sandwich to her
lips. “Don't be an idiot and mess this up. I don't want any sister-in-law at all if I can't have Sammi.”

Where's a water tank to cool my flaming cheeks in when I really need it?

I decided to keep my mouth shut as we drove away from Molly's. Jared had grown quiet after her startling statement and it worried me. Had I been composing a fairy tale about us while he'd been inventing an entirely different ending to our story?

I'd thrown my policy of “better safe than sorry” out the window and look where it had gotten me. In mortal danger of a broken heart.

I was so busy beating myself up for being a fool that I didn't realize at first that he'd driven to Minnehaha Falls rather than my house.

I love the falls. There are shelters and picnic tables nearby and almost invariably, there is a wedding party or two having their pictures taken with the falls in the background.

In fact, a bride and groom and their attendants were just piling into limousines when we arrived.

Brides are much younger these days, I've noticed. This one looked as though she were barely pushing twelve years old. Or is that what happens when one reaches thirty? Anyone younger begins to look like a toddler playing dress-up.

One of the groomsmen brushed by me on his way to the car and a question bubbled up inside me. I couldn't help myself. It just came out.

“Excuse me, but how old are the bride and groom?”

He looked at me strangely but he answered politely enough. “They just graduated from college. They're twenty-two and twenty-three.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

So they were of legal age. It was me who was getting toward the age when it shouldn't be legal to be single.

“What's wrong? You look as if you just had bad news.” Jared looked down into my eyes, concerned. “Don't you like it here?”

“I love it. I'm having a minicrisis. Do you know how young that couple in the limo looks?”

“They're in their early twenties, I imagine.”

So what does that make me? Grandma Moses?

Wishing I'd had a walker or a cane to stagger to the falls with, I gloomily took Jared's hand and followed him to the large stones where we could sit and look down on the water. I felt a spray of mist on my face as the wind shifted, and was transported back to all the times I'd visited here as a child…so long ago…in the dark ages…when dinosaurs roamed the earth…and I was young.

“What on earth is bugging you, Sammi?” Jared put his finger beneath my chin and lifted it, forcing me to look at him.

“It's just dumb. Never mind.”

“I've learned that nothing is ever ‘dumb' with you. I'm willing to sit here all day until you're ready to talk.”

Sitting here all day didn't sound like a bad idea, but I'm not built to remain quiet for long. Emotions and opinions don't easily stay unspoken.

“Molly and Ben—in love! And those children in the limousines—they should still have curfews! What's happening to this world? It's going so fast. My life is going so fast.”

“Getting old quickly, are you?”

That was
not
the question I wanted him to ask.

“So are you,” I retorted. “And what are we going to do about it?”

“There isn't much we can ‘do' about it.”

“So you're just going to sit placidly around getting old?”

“I take it this isn't exactly about age, is it?”

I wish he'd quit smiling at me like I was some big form of entertainment for him. “Of course it is…not.”

“And if we could do something about how quickly time flies, what would it be?”

Oh great. Now he's a philosopher.

“I don't know. Make it the best time. Not waste it.”
Not sit around on rocks and wish for something to happen
.

“And how would that be?”

I felt myself getting sucked in to his questions. “Have fun? Laugh? Worship? Eat chocolate?”

“What else?”

“I'd ski, I suppose. And travel. And surround myself with friends and family. My parents and brothers, of course. And Aunt Gertie and her husband, Arthur. Wendy, Ben and Molly.”

“Anyone else?”

“Ideally, children, I suppose. And a husband. And more pets. A pot-bellied pig or a miniature goat.”

Jared winced. “A husband and a miniature goat. I see. Where would you get the goat?”

If he was trying to distract me, it was working.

“The woman who runs the pet store I go to, Norah's Ark, has connections. She probably knows of three or four goats right now that need good homes.”

“So the goat is no problem?”

“Not really. Other than I'd need a bigger lawn. Maybe I'd have to buy a bigger house.”

“And what about the husband? Where do you go for one of those?”

I snorted—not ladylike, but effective at showing distain. “I'd probably have to advertise in the newspaper.”
Husband wanted to father children and care for goat.

Suddenly Jared's arm was close around me and I was tucked neatly into his chest and couldn't squirm away. His breath warmed my cheek and I could see every fleck of violet in those blue eyes of his.

“So where would I go to apply for the job? Of goat keeper and husband, I mean.”

“Well, since I have a small yard, I don't need a goat quite yet….”

“And a husband?”

My pulse was racing and the heat of his hand at my waist seared my skin.

“I think I'd need him before I got the goat and the children.”

“I see. Do you have an application form I could fill out? I don't have any references since I've never been married, but maybe my mother and my sister could write up a little something about my sterling character.”

“I don't need references,” I murmured, the roar of the falls and of my heart pounding in my ears. “But the job requirements include being a good kisser. Are you up to that?”

“May I audition right now?” His head tipped forward toward mine.

“I have the time, I guess.”

“Good,” he whispered, and gave the best audition of his life.