Mother's Promise (27 page)

Slowly she delivered the familiar words of the scripture. “The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is
our
shepherd,” she amended, silently praying that God would forgive her editing. “We shall not want. He maketh us to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth us beside the still waters.”

Jennifer's dry lips parted into a soft sigh. Without letting go of the woman's hand, Rachel reached for a washcloth, dipped it in the ice water on the side table, and pressed it to Jennifer's lips.

“He restoreth our souls,” she continued. “He leadeth us in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.”

Jennifer sucked on the cool cloth, and some of the tension left her body.

Rachel hesitated, but then knowing that Jennifer surely understood that she was dying, she whispered, “Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil.”

She took the cloth away, soaked it in the water that was certainly useless for Jennifer to drink, and pressed the cool cloth to the woman's cheek. Then she noticed that Jennifer's lips were moving. Rachel leaned in close and heard Jennifer whisper, “For thou art with us.”

It was her use of the plural that made Rachel certain that she had been listening, that she knew Rachel was there with her. In spite of herself, Rachel smiled and let her tears come. “That's right,” she whispered. “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort us. Thou preparest a table before us in the presence of our enemies; thou annointest our heads with oil.” She moved the cool cloth over Jennifer's bald head and watched as Jennifer's lips formed the next words.

“Our cup runneth over.”

Jennifer smiled then, and her breathing seemed even and steady for a moment. And then her fingers holding on to Rachel slackened as the monitor beeped out its death knell.

Rachel bent next to her and whispered the rest. “Surely goodness and mercy have followed you all the days of your life, and you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” She kissed Jennifer's temple as the nurse arrived and clicked off the switch.

“Thank you for coming,” the nurse said.

“It's my job,” Rachel reminded her.

“Maybe, but you go above and beyond—we've all noticed that.”

Uncomfortable with the compliment, Rachel smiled. “I have Pastor Paul as my example.” She looked down at Jennifer once more. “You reached her cousin?”

“Finally. But Jennifer had already seen to everything. She even asked Pastor Paul to take charge of her memorial service. I'll leave him a message to let him know she's passed. The funeral home will be here tonight, and the cousin said he would arrive tomorrow.”

“
Gut.
I'll go now, or shall I wait with her?”

“Not necessary. We've got some paperwork to finalize for the funeral director, and I'll make sure she's laid out properly by the time they get here.”

Rachel saw that the nurse was older—sixty at least—and it made sense that she was used to the old-fashioned terms that came with dealing with a dead body. Jennifer was in good hands. “I'll say good night, then.”

And farewell,
she thought as she looked back at Jennifer one last time.

So Mortimer had called his mom. Justin wondered if he should call Derek and warn him. But then it was late and what if his dad answered? Derek had made a couple of comments about his dad's temper. The two of them had talked about how everything had to be just so with parents and teachers, with adults in general, or they'd go off.

“I hope I don't get to be that way,” Derek had moaned once. “They are either weak cowards like my mom or dictators like Dad and Mortimer.”

Actually Justin liked Mr. Mortimer. He was a very good teacher, and he had a way of kidding around that reminded Justin of his father. “Dry humor,” his grandmother used to call it. But Mr. Mortimer was his teacher, not his friend. Derek was his friend. Derek and Connor and Max. The four of them had formed a tight circle almost from the first day of school. They rode the bus together. They sat together at lunchtime. They passed notes back and forth in class and snickered. And on weekends they sometimes met at the park for a game of hoops or simply to hang out.

Their weekend gatherings were rare because Justin would often beg off, saying that he had chores, and Sundays were taken up with church stuff. Mainly he wanted to keep Derek and the others from finding out that he was Mennonite—a secret that would be totally exposed the minute any of them caught sight of his mom. Lucky for him it seemed like Derek was also busy. Justin had noticed that his friend always seemed more tense than usual on Mondays, and more than once he had noticed bruises on Derek's arms. Once he'd even come to school with a black eye.

“Mind your own business,” Derek had growled when Justin asked about the injury. And he hadn't spoken to Justin the rest of the day. But by the next morning he'd been waiting for Justin to board the bus, his hand out for Justin's math homework so he could compare Justin's work to his own.

Justin wasn't naive enough to believe that Derek had done more than scribble down some numbers—numbers he would change the minute he got hold of Justin's paper. But lately he wasn't even pretending anymore. He grabbed Justin's homework and then bent over a clean sheet of paper, copying the work as fast as he could as the bus rocked from side to side on its way to school.

Sally had warned him that they would get caught eventually. She had this annoying habit of always being right about everything. Derek couldn't stand her, and Justin was beginning to see why. He was fairly sure that she had been the one to tell Mortimer about the math business. And Derek was not going to like that one bit. Justin shuddered to think of the reaction his friend would have to this news. He actually felt a little sorry for Sally.

He stood at the window and looked up toward the Shepherds' house. As usual, it was all lit up. Those folks wasted electricity like nobody he'd ever known. They were nice enough people, Sally's parents. But like Derek said, they had money—piles of it—and money gave people like that the power to do whatever they liked. Nobody would ever dare question why Sally was treated so special by all the teachers.

Justin had reminded Derek that Sally had been really sick—would have maybe even died without the transplant.

“Yeah, right,” Derek had sneered. “And how do you think little Sally went to the head of that list? Her daddy bought that transplant for her. Somebody like me—or you—would have been told, ‘So sorry, wait your turn.' But not Sally Shepherd.”

Derek's disgust for the girl had bordered on outright hatred, and Justin had wrestled with the teachings of his faith about nobody setting himself—or herself in this case—above others. Not that Sally did that. Even Justin had to admit that she tried really hard to be a regular kid, in spite of her family's money and in spite of her sickness. But when he'd hinted at this to Derek, the boy had sneered, “It's an act, you dope.” And he had given Justin a slap on the back of his head.

Justin glanced at the clock. It was past ten. He wondered how long his mom would have to stay at the hospital this time. At first when she'd been called back after hours she had asked John or Hester to come stay with him or take him home with them. If they weren't available, she would call the Shepherds. Twice he had spent several endless hours sitting in that enormous house with its white carpeting that made him nervous to even walk on with bare feet.

The Shepherds had been nice enough. Sharon had made popcorn and suggested they all play a board game. “You can do that, right?” she'd asked him.

“Yes ma'am.”

But then halfway through the game Sally had said something about being tired and not able to keep her eyes open, and the game had ended. Then while Sharon and Sally went upstairs he was left alone with Malcolm—the Shepherds had insisted that he call them by their first names and his mom had given in. He liked Malcolm well enough but the man talked to him like a father—how was school? What did he think he might want to do for a career someday? That sort of stuff.

When Malcolm asked if Justin thought he might like to follow in his father's footsteps and farm, Justin had lost it. What did any of these people know about his dad? Or his life before he came to Florida for that matter? Things had changed the day his dad was killed, and the ripples of that just kept coming.

It was right after that second visit that he had presented his case to his mother. He was not a baby who needed someone to sit with him. They lived only yards away from the Shepherds, so if anything happened he could either call them or go to the house. In short, he was old enough to stay in the cottage alone when she had to go back to work.

To his amazement, she had agreed. Of course she had given him a huge lecture about trust and laid down all kinds of rules about safety and stuff. She had called him like every fifteen minutes that first time, but after two more times, the only calls had been to let him know when she might be home and to ask if he had finished his homework.

Although he knew it was wrong, he'd taken some pride in his achievement, especially when Derek let slip that his dad watched him all the time and no way would Mr. Piper ever let Derek stay home alone. Justin was well aware that in persuading his mom to let him stay home alone he had scored major points with Derek.

Of course now with this Mortimer thing, that was all about to change. Somehow he had to warn Derek. He was reaching for the phone when it rang.

His mom sounded different—tired and maybe even a little scared. “Justin?”

Exactly who else did she think would answer?

“Hi.”

“Everything okay?”

“Fine. You coming home?”

“Just about to leave. Dr. Booker's giving me a ride.”

“Okay. Don't worry, Mom. I looked outside and the lights are on up at the Shepherd house, so if—”

“They aren't home, Justin. Sally had to be taken back to Tampa tonight. Her parents went with her. I think they must have left in such a hurry …” Her voice trailed off as if she wasn't talking to him anymore.

“Mom?”

“Right here.”

“Is Sally going to die?”

“No. Of course not. She'll be fine.” But she didn't sound like she believed what she was saying. Then she cleared her throat. “I'll be home soon, okay?”

Justin hung the phone up and went to stand out on the porch. He looked up at the Shepherds' house, focusing in on the window that Sally had pointed out as her room back a few weeks earlier. He couldn't help noticing that it was the only window in the whole back of the house that was dark.

Rachel had been planning to call a taxi when she stepped out of the elevator into the tropical garden, the waterfall silenced for the night. She was on her way to sign out at the security desk when she saw a lone figure sitting bent, nearly double, his head cradled in his hands. If there were an illustration for someone in deep anguish this man was surely it.

Her innate sense of concern for others would not allow her to simply pass by without offering to help. “Sir?” She touched his shoulder lightly, saw that he was wearing the uniform of a physician, and wondered if perhaps this man had been Jennifer's doctor.

But then he'd looked up at her and she saw that it was Ben. Her heart skipped a beat.

“What's happened?” she asked, sliding onto the bench beside him, her palm still resting on his shoulder.

“It's Sally,” he began and his voice broke. “I should have seen it, should have known. The signs were all there.”

Having already witnessed death that night, Rachel swallowed back her fear and forced her voice to remain calm. “Tell me what happened, Ben. Is Sally all right?”

He shook his head and once again plowed his fingers through his thick hair. “She's … her body is rejecting the transplant.”

“After all this time?” Rachel didn't know a lot about bone marrow transplants, but she was fairly certain that the longer a patient went without problems the greater the chances for success.