Mother's Promise (34 page)

Sharon shook her head vehemently. “She's given up. You haven't seen her this way. It's so awful. My little girl is in such pain and I can't help her.”

“Yes you can. When Sally comes back you can let her know that you are going home for a while to shower and nap and take care of things like the mail and phone messages.” She rubbed Sharon's back and gently added, “Give her normal, Sharon. Let her see that the routine of daily life continues.”

Sharon pulled away and stared at Rachel. “You think that will help bring her out of this? I've never seen her come so close to giving up before.”

“It can't hurt to take a couple of hours to restore some of your strength so that you're ready to face whatever comes next. It's possible that in refusing to leave her side you've given her the impression that things are much worse than they really are. She's not going to trust what the doctors tell her—they've been wrong before. For the real story she will always look to you.”

“And what if she begs me to stay?”

But Sally didn't. In fact, she barely acknowledged her mother's leave-taking or the fact that Rachel remained seated next to her bed. She merely lay there, her eyes open, her body tensed into a fetal position, her fists clenched against her chest.

At first Rachel said nothing, searching her brain for some possible topic that might bring about a breakthrough.

“Sally, do you remember that terrible car accident last month?”

Sally blinked but did not respond.

Rachel pressed on, telling her about the meeting with the accident victim's mother and the request to help. She described the VORP program and her meeting with the dead girl's parents. As she talked, slowly, Sally's body began to relax. She stretched out her legs and unclenched her fingers to pull the sheet over her shoulders. She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. All the while Rachel kept talking. The truth was that she was afraid to stop for fear she would break the web of progress that she was weaving.

“The father is going to be the tough one,” she continued with a heavy sigh. “He's so very angry and …”

There was a sound from the bed. A croak that sounded like “Duh.”

Rachel permitted herself a small smile and kept talking. “Exactly. Who wouldn't be furious at such unfairness? I expect that everyone involved is struggling with anger as well as grief—they go hand in hand. But you see, Sally, in our faith, forgiveness is the cornerstone. And these two families need to find their way back to each other because in each other's love and forgiveness they will find the strength they need to go on without this wonderful girl. I just wish …”

Sally rolled onto her side and came up on one elbow. “She would have wanted that for them, don't you think?”

“I do,” Rachel agreed as she got up to fill a glass with water and hand it to Sally.
Keep it normal,
she reminded herself. “What makes
you
think that she would have wanted that?”

Sally shrugged and sipped the water. “From what you've told me, she loved them, all of them.” She took a little more of the water and then flopped back onto the pillow. “But it's so hard,” she whispered.

“Ja. Life can be that way.”

They were quiet for a moment. Sally closed her eyes, and Rachel thought perhaps she was asleep. But then she murmured, “Did you ever hear the saying that God doesn't give people more than they can handle?”

“I have heard similar words.” Rachel wondered where the girl's thoughts might be headed.

“He must think I'm like the strongest person ever,” she murmured and closed her eyes again.

Rachel caught the shadow of movement outside, and then she saw Ben silhouetted in the frosted glass panel of the door. Very quietly he turned the handle and stepped inside.

“I can't speak for God,” Rachel continued, “but I do know that you are a very strong girl and that you have a good many equally strong people around you helping you find your way through this.” She used one of the sterile pads on the side table to wipe away the single tear that trickled from the corner of Sally's closed eyes. “One of them is here now,” Rachel whispered. “So I'll leave you to visit with your uncle.”

Sally opened her eyes and gave Ben a crooked smile. “ 'Bout time you showed up,” she said.

“I do have other patients, you know. People who are actually sick instead of malingering,” he bantered as he pulled the chair closer. He took Sally's hand, and his voice cracked a little as he added, “And it's way past time that you came back to us, kiddo.”

Rachel moved around the end of the bed. “I'll stop by tomorrow if that's okay.”

“Rachel?”

“Ja?”

“Danke,” Sally murmured.

“Get some rest,” Rachel replied. “Both of you.”

“Bossy, isn't she?” Rachel heard Ben tell Sally, and then as she stepped into the hall and the door swung closed behind her she heard Sally giggle.

Chapter 20

A
fter Rachel left, Ben sat with Sally until Sharon and Malcolm returned.

“You and Rachel would make a good pair,” Sally announced almost as soon as Rachel had said good-bye, promising to stop by again.

“She's Mennonite,” he reminded her.

“And?”

“And I'm not.”

“Details,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“All right, let's look at this another way. If Rachel and I were to get together you do realize that Justin would be your stepcousin, then?”

“Fine with me.”

“Rachel is my friend, honey. Like she's your friend and—”

“She's a better match for you than Darcy is.”

“Darcy and I are only friends as well.”

Sally let out a bark of a laugh. “Yeah?” She pointed to her eyes shielded by the tinted glasses. “These are rolling right now. As Dad says, ‘If you believe she's just a friend, then there's some real estate in the Everglades that I'd like to sell you.' ”

“It's true,” Ben protested.

“Maybe
you
think that's the deal, but my money is on the fact that Darcy thinks it's a whole lot more.”

“You're a kid. What do you know about such things?”

“Apparently more than you do. Men,” she sighed dramatically as if he and the rest of the species were a lost cause.

That was the moment Malcolm and Sharon arrived. Ben made his excuses, wanting to give them time to enjoy Sally, whom he could see was tiring fast and would soon be asleep. Sharon followed him into the hallway.

“Thank you, Ben. I don't know how you did it but …”

“I didn't. It's Rachel you have to thank. And apparently that goes double for me. It's good to have both my sister and my niece back among the living.” He hugged her and then gave her a little shove back toward Sally's room. “Go enjoy your daughter—and do not listen to anything she has to say about Rachel and me.”

His sister's laughter followed him down the hall. He was glad to hear that she found the idea of a romantic attachment between Rachel and him as ludicrous as he did.

Or was it really so farfetched? The truth was that he was far more attracted—romantically speaking—to Rachel than he was to Darcy. And under other circumstances—if she weren't Mennonite—he might have asked her out by now. Certainly between the times they had been together at work and then at his sister's house, they had forged a relationship, a friendship.

He found her easy to be with, and once she'd gotten past her initial nerves at starting a new job in a new city where she basically knew no one, she'd seemed at ease with him as well. So, why not ask her out? Why not suggest that they meet for coffee?

He headed down to the spiritual care offices. Eileen was getting ready to leave for the day when he entered.

“Paul's already left,” she said.

“Is Rachel in?”

Eileen nodded toward the cubicle next to hers at the same time that Rachel said, “Right here.” She stepped around the barrier. “Has something happened to Sally?” she asked.

“No. Thanks to you, Sally is doing a whole lot better—at least emotionally speaking. And so are her parents and uncle.”

Eileen was taking her time collecting her purse, lunch bag, and a dog-eared paperback novel. She cast furtive glances from Ben to Rachel as a small smile played over her lips, a smile that Ben saw her bite back as she turned finally and started for the door. “Well, if there's nothing you need, I'll see you both tomorrow.”

“Have a good evening,” Ben said, holding the door for her.

“Eileen,” Rachel said, “remember I won't be in tomorrow. I have to be in Tallahassee for the day.”

“That's right. Good luck with that.”

“What's in Tallahassee?” Ben asked once Eileen was gone.

“I'm meeting with my supervisor from the certification board. Thank you for typing my paper. I'd like to repay you.”

“You already have.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “How?”

“Sally.”

“Oh, that is my job. Sometimes I think that I gain as much as the patients and families do when there is a breakthrough. Has Sharon come back already?”

Ben smiled. “Yeah. You did wonders getting her to leave for the little time that she did. She had changed clothes, showered. She looked better, and when she saw Sally sitting up …”

“Sally is a fighter. She needed some time to regroup. We all do.”

“Even you?”

“Of course I do.”

“I don't know. You always seem so composed and calm whatever the situation.”

Her cheeks glowed with rising color. “I am not so calm all the time. Ask Justin.”

“I'd rather ask you. How about joining me for a cup of coffee before you head home?”

She glanced at the wall clock above Eileen's desk. “Thank you, but I need to be at home. I sent Justin on ahead to start working on the gardens. I want everything to look especially nice when Sally comes home.”

“You do know that it won't really matter to her—or any of them. Getting her home is the main thing.”

“Ja. But it will matter to me, and it's a way that Justin and I can let them know we are thinking of them.”

“Then I'll help.” He opened the door and waited. “Ready?”

She didn't move. “I … the bus …”

“Now, why would anyone stand around on a hot day like this waiting for a bus when she could ride in a convertible?”

“We Mennonites are plain people, Ben. A car is simply a vehicle to get us from one place to another, same as a bus. I would not want others seeing me ride in a convertible car. Something so … showy is not our way.”

“And yet I seem to recall that you accepted a ride the other night,” he reminded her.

She blushed. “That was … it was late and Justin was home alone and …”

“Got it. Then let's go wait for that bus.”

As he paid his fare, Ben realized that he could not remember the last time he'd ridden a city bus. He'd probably been in college at the time. He'd forgotten a lot about the diversity of the riders—each with his or her unique story. In his college days he had enjoyed speculating about each person—who they were, where they were headed, what they were thinking as they stared straight ahead or out the window.

“You know, when I was in med school and used to take the bus between classes and the hospital,” he told Rachel as they sat next to each other midway back on the long bus, “I remember having such a deep respect for the people around me. In my mind they were the kind of unsung heroes we barely notice in this country.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hardworking folks trying to make it day-to-day. I imagined that in many cases they were coming or going from a job they found unfulfilling but that they worked because they needed the work. I always wondered about their dreams.”

“In what way?”

“What did they really want out of this life? What had they once dreamed of achieving?”