Mother's Promise (5 page)

Public school.
“I'm not dressing the way our people do in a public school,” he said defiantly.

“No. I wouldn't ask that of you.” She sighed as if she finally got it that he wasn't as excited about this as she was. “I know it's a big move, Justin,” she said as she stood up. He was almost as tall as she was—something he wished that his dad could see.

“Justin!” His uncle was standing outside the barn, his hands on his hips. He looked mad. Of course, whenever he talked to Justin at all, he always seemed to be mad about something. “Chores?”

“He's coming,” his mom called back. She sounded almost as mad as Uncle Luke did. His mom and uncle had never really gotten along, especially not since his dad had died.

“Justin,” his mom said. “I promise you that it's all going to work out—for both of us. We'll come back for visits, and Gramps and Gramma will come see us in Florida. You can take Gramps fishing.” She brushed his hair away from his forehead with two fingers the same way she'd done a million times before. “I need you to trust me, okay?”

Justin knew that she wasn't asking his permission. In their world the adults made the rules and the decisions.

“Yes ma'am,” he murmured.

As he trudged off, he clung to the promise she had made—a promise he didn't see how she could keep, but one that he intended to hold her to.

As the bus half-filled with passengers sped along the highway connecting the life that Rachel and Justin were leaving behind to the one she prayed would not turn out to be a mistake of catastrophic proportions, she absently fingered the fine silky wisps of her son's hair. He was asleep now, his head on her lap, his lean, long body so like his father's folded into the bus seat beside her. He was tall for his age and looked older than his twelve years.

The growth spurt he had experienced this last year was not all that had changed about Justin. Ever since his father's death, he'd become more introverted. Before that, he had asked questions about everything from the weather to learning about the path the Kaufmann family had taken generations earlier in settling in Ohio. His insatiable curiosity was a source of gentle teasing from everyone in their large extended family. But after the funeral, and especially after Luke's family had moved into the farmhouse, Justin had taken to spending much of his time alone. When he was with family, he barely said two words. It was as if he had buried all of his questions and curiosity about life along with his father, and that worried Rachel.

She felt so uncertain of everything now that James was not with her to make the decisions for their family. It was the way of their people that the man of the house made all the major decisions while the woman cared for the children and managed the household. But James wasn't here. This was a decision she had made completely on her own. Maybe she was making a mistake. Maybe Justin would be better off living close to his cousins and grandparents even if Luke insisted on taking out his dislike of her on her son.

If she challenged him, Luke excused his strictness by telling her that Justin needed the strong hand of a man now that James was no longer around to guide him. He had actually laughed at her the first time she'd worked up the nerve to express her concern. “You and my brother have always been far too easy on the boy. He will not thank you for it when he is grown,” he'd warned. “Do not question my authority here, Rachel. You are too much tied to the ways of those outsiders you work with.”

As she stared out the tinted window of the bus, she could see little but the reflected lights of passing cars on the highway and the silhouettes of buildings in the distance. She searched the eastern sky for the first signs of the new day and saw only darkness. It was in these blackest hours before dawn that Rachel thought most often of James.

Of course, in the weeks that immediately followed his death, she had thought of little else. How could she possibly go on without him? They had known each other all their lives. Her parents had raised chickens just up the road from where James and his family had their dairy farm. She and her siblings had walked to school with James and his siblings. Her brother had married one of his sisters. The two families had joined forces numerous times to register the hallmarks of their lives—holidays, weddings, births, and deaths.

James had never been sick a day in his nearly forty years. Even the normal childhood illnesses like measles or mumps had passed him by. He had been a tall man with a kind of gauntness to his body and features. After they had married and he had let his beard grow out, more than one person had commented on his resemblance to Abraham Lincoln. It was a comparison that James found flattering in spite of the Mennonite call to avoid such compliments. More than once when he seemed to puff up a bit after someone made the comparison, Rachel had teased him that she might buy him a stovepipe hat like the one that President Lincoln had worn.

Oh, they had laughed together about so many things. And they had cried together as well. After she had miscarried four times, James had held her close, the tears leaking slowly down the burnished plains of his face. “God has a plan for us, darling girl.”

And then their prayers had finally been answered with the arrival of Justin. “I'll never ask for anything again,” Rachel had vowed.

But James had placed his fingers against her lips, shushing her. “That's a promise you cannot keep. God is with us,” he told her. “You can ask.”

She had prayed every day since the funeral for God's guidance. Then Hester's letter had arrived, and here they were less than two weeks later on their way to Florida. Of course, Hester was already way ahead of her.

“Malcolm and his wife have a guest cottage on their property that they never use,” Hester had told Rachel when she called a week earlier. “They'd be willing to rent it to you. It's small but it's only half a mile from the hospital. As soon as you get here we can take a look at that, and I'll check on other possibilities as well.”

“What about a school for Justin?”

“If you decide to rent the Shepherds' guesthouse, he can walk to the public school I told you about. The Shepherds' daughter, Sally, attends classes there, so that will give him someone to know right away. I know public school is not ideal, but the main thing is to get you both down here. Once you get into the routine of work and school and such, we can look at other options—hopefully something closer to Pinecraft.”

“I don't know about this, Hester. Mr. Shepherd is on the hospital board and—”

Hester had laughed. “He's on half a dozen boards around Sarasota, including the one here at the co-op, but don't let that intimidate you. Malcolm and his wife, Sharon, are salt-of-the-earth people, Rachel. And as for Sally—I mean, you are going to love her. She'll introduce Justin to a host of friends in no time, so that's a plus.”

“It would be nice for him to have a friend right away,” Rachel had said.

Hester actually squealed with delight. Her obvious excitement was contagious. “Do you believe this? You are coming to Florida.”

Rachel laughed. “You seem to have everything arranged.”

“Just get here. We're going to have such fun getting you and Justin settled. Having you near will be like old times when we were back in college.”

Except our lives have changed. We have changed,
Rachel thought. But she'd been unwilling to dampen Hester's enthusiasm with her doubts. “We'll be there this time a week from tomorrow,” Rachel had promised.

“John and I will meet the bus. I can't wait for the two of you to meet.”

As the bus rolled on she caught sight of a sign welcoming them to Florida. She glanced down at her sleeping son. He had said little about the move, but she knew him so well. She understood that he was not happy about leaving his friends and the familiar routine of the farm and family—even his uncle—to strike out for the unknown. Truth be told, she had no idea if she had just made the best or worst decision of her life.

She wished James were there to reassure them both.

Chapter 3

D
r. Benjamin Booker stood outside the front entrance of Gulf Coast Medical Center, marveling at the twists and turns his life had taken to bring him to this moment. As the son of a small-town preacher, he'd been raised with the idea that he would follow in his father's footsteps into the ministry. But ironically it was his father's example that had made Ben run as far and as fast as he could from that career.

Instead Ben had excelled in the sciences, eventually earning a free ride to one of the best premed programs in the country. His goal had been simple. He would get his medical degree and then go overseas to bring his healing skills to the malnourished and suffering children he'd seen as a boy on the TV news. He was going to go out into the world and not mouth the words his father preached, but do his best to put his faith to the test by offering real solutions.

But then he'd gotten seduced by the opportunities that came his way after he'd completed his training. In those early days when he'd gone to work for Sarasota Memorial, the teaching hospital, he'd told himself that the post was temporary. That he needed to hone his skills, learn everything he could before he tried to save the world. But that year had lengthened into two, then four, then eight….

Then a group of local civic leaders had seen the need for a hospital that placed a major focus on both treatment and research on the illnesses of children. His younger sister, Sharon, and his brother-in-law, Malcolm, had been the driving force behind the movement to get the hospital built. But it had been their freckle-faced daughter, Sally, who had persuaded Ben to make the change. “What if all those poor, sick, and injured children in faraway places could be brought here?” she'd asked. “You could treat them right here where you'd have everything you need.”

Now as he watched the construction workers finish mounting the sign at the front of the hospital, he thought about Sally's powers of persuasion and smiled.

“Here's the way I see it, Uncle Ben,” she had said one day two summers earlier as they tossed a ball back and forth on the lush front yard of Malcolm and Sharon's large home. “It's pretty clear that you're married to your work so I've given up all hope of helping you find romance. On top of that, Mom and Dad are determined to get this hospital built, and that means that once it's up and running with their name on little brass plates all over the place, they have no choice but to take me there for my medical stuff. You're my pediatrician, so you do the math.”

Ben had laughed. “You're the healthiest kid I ever met, not to mention the most precocious.” He'd crouched into a catcher's position and pounded his glove. “Now let me see if you've got anything resembling a decent curveball.”

A week later Sally had come home complaining of pain in her leg. They'd been tossing the ball back and forth that day as well. When the pain hadn't gone away over the next few days, Ben had suggested that Sharon bring his niece to the hospital. “Routine blood tests,” he had assured her. “I want to rule out anything more sinister than a strained muscle or torn ligament.”