Solemn Oath (29 page)

And he had no resistance. He had to rely on God's power for this. He didn't understand it. He just knew the truth. The powerful need he felt between them right now was not something that would draw her to Christ. It might well be something that could draw Lukas away from his conviction and, eventually, destroy their relationship. He had no human hope of controlling the emotions between them. Only the Spirit of Christ could do that, and she did not belong to that Spirit.

He saw it now. It didn't make this less painful, but he understood.

“Isn't that important?” she asked. “The way we feel about each other? The way we communicate so well, even without words a lot of times? That we have so much in common?”

He had to be honest with her. He couldn't lead her on or lead himself on any longer. He knew what he had to do. He looked back down at her. “There is one major thing we don't have in common, and for me that's the most important thing,” he said quietly.

At the widening pain of her eyes and the swift intake of her breath, he felt a shaft of resistance shoot through him. But only for a moment.
Yes, Lord.

There was a long silence. Lukas felt the weight of her disappointment. Was this how it felt to have your heart break?

“Why are you doing this all of a sudden?” she asked at last. “I thought…there was such a connection. You've been so tender, so…honest. I'm not some silly little schoolgirl who thinks of a kiss as a promise, but you waited for so long, and everything was suddenly so right. I thought it meant something to you, too.”

“It meant a lot.” It meant…too much. “I'm sorry, Mercy. You can't imagine how much it has meant to me to have you in my life. I—”

“Is there somebody else?” Her voice held an unaccustomed tremble.

He shot her a startled look and saw tears shimmering in her dark eyes. “No!”

The tears spilled over. “It's the menopause, isn't it? Somebody told you about my test results. Why should I be surprised in Knolls, Missouri? Of course you'd want children. A man like you—”

“Menopause? You're in menopause?” The knife pierced a little deeper into his heart. What had he done to her? Now she was going to think—

She nodded. “The hot flashes…I had an FSH.”

“Oh, Mercy, no.” He reached out and touched her then. He couldn't help himself. Couldn't help the tender compassion that flowed through him. She leaned against his chest,
and his arms reached out to her in an irresistible embrace. He felt the softness of her hair against his face. This time it was she who drew away.

“You deserve children, Lukas.”

“Of course I'd love to have children someday, but I'm not looking for a mother for future children. I want a mate to share my life with, the one whom God has chosen for me, and if He chooses not to give us children, then that would be something I could accept.”

Sudden understanding dawned on her face. “Oh.” His own pain reflected in her eyes, and then a flash of confusion. “It's a God thing.”

He took a deep breath, held her gaze a moment longer and nodded. That was one way to put it. It was the correct conclusion, but how could he explain something she would not be able to completely understand without that same Spirit in her?

“Mercy,” he said gently. “I care so much about you. A great deal. I don't know what I'm going to do without you, and I'm going to miss you like crazy. It will be hard to get over you.” His voice broke.

She slumped back in her chair and shuffled her fingers through her hair in frustration. “Lukas, you sound like a man in love to me.” Her voice still had that vulnerable quality in it that broke his heart.

He pushed away from the table, got to his feet and reached down to draw her up with him. “I'm sorry. I know how you feel, because I think I feel the same way, but, Mercy, this is wrong for us now.” What he didn't say was that it might always be wrong for them. What about Theo? “You were right the night you suggested we stop seeing each other. I was wrong to argue.”

“No, Lukas.” A quiet urgency entered her voice now.

“I kept telling myself…but I know you haven't come to that place in your life where you can allow God to take control, and we shouldn't get any closer….”

She dropped her hands to her sides and stared at him. “
Control?
” Anger gradually replaced the tears in her eyes. “You're telling me I need to give my soul to a heartless God who leads me on with the hope of a future with you and then supposedly tells you to dump me?”

“He didn't tell me to dump you.”

She backed away from him. “Where's all that compassion I see you sharing with your patients, Lukas?” The anger deepened and grew. “Where's that intelligence you displayed when you brought Darlene back from death Monday?” She clenched her fists together at her sides. “How can you stand there in your self-righteous judgment and tell me I haven't given enough to your demanding God?” She shook her head, looked around for her purse, found it and jerked it from the counter. “I'm out of here. You're crazy.”

“No! Please, Mercy, wait.” He followed her through the house. “I know I'm saying this all wrong, but I need to explain….”

She shoved open the front door and rushed outside before he could reach her. The door slammed in his face with a heavy thud, and seconds later her car started.

He ran out onto his front porch in time to see her reversing from the driveway onto the street. Her tires squealed against blacktop as she drove away, and she did not look back.

 

Mercy drove down the last block to her house at ten miles per hour, tears still dripping down her face and onto her shirt. She managed to find a tissue on the seat of her car and dabbed away most of the obvious signs of her crying. But inside she was bleeding, and no amount of tears could wash that away.

She knew she was arriving home far too early, and Mom and Tedi would wonder why, but she wasn't in the mood to drive around and kill time just to keep up a pretense.

Had this whole summer been a pretense? Had she been fooling herself into believing that something good was actually going to happen to her?

Something inside her must be inherently ugly and unlovable, and she had been rejected once again. No matter what she did, how hard she had tried to be a good doctor, a good mother, a good daughter, a good wife, she had never measured up. She felt worthless.

She pulled into her driveway alongside Mom's car and turned off the motor. She slapped the dashboard with her hand, wined at the pain and glared up into the nearly dark sky. “What do You want from me?” she asked through gritted teeth. “Why don't You just strike me dead if You hate me so much? Do You just enjoy torturing people?” She grabbed her purse and forced herself to get out of the car.

Though still raw, she stepped inside the quiet house and walked back to Tedi's bedroom to find Ivy sitting on the side of the bed while Tedi read to her. They both looked up in surprise.

“Hi, Mom,” Tedi called.

Mercy frowned at them. “Bed already? It's Friday night.”

“I coerced her,” Ivy explained. “I told her if she'd go to bed early, I'd take her on that cancer walkathon with me in the morning, if that's okay with you.”

Mercy nodded. The hospital had been advertising something about that this week, but she'd been too busy to take much notice.

Ivy leaned over and kissed her granddaughter, then stood up and crossed the room toward Mercy. “And since Tedi just finished reading me the end of the third chapter in her book, I think I'll make my escape.” She frowned and sniffed at Mercy. “You smell like smoke.”

“I had barbecued house for dinner,” Mercy explained.
And barbecued heart.

Ivy nodded. “Oh yeah, Lukas was supposed to be cooking tonight, wasn't he? Hope you had a good time.”

Mercy avoided Ivy's questioning glance. “If you like rattlesnakes and dinosaurs and Star Trek.”
And being dumped.

“No kidding?” Tedi exclaimed from the bed.

“Yeah, you would've loved it.”

“A real rattlesnake?” Tedi asked.

“It was dead, but it was real.”

“I've got some good news for you,” Ivy said. “Tedi and I visited Clarence Knight this afternoon. He's quite a character, isn't he?”

Mercy nodded, feeling her hopes rise in spite of her heartache. “What did you think?”

“I've never met anybody quite so…big, and not just physically. He really loves his sister, doesn't he? I'll keep an eye on him for a while, but I think he needs more help than that.”

“Oh? What kind of help? They can't afford to have anyone move in with them.”

“I know. I've got some ideas, but I want to think about them overnight. I'll talk to you about it tomorrow.” Ivy paused, studying Mercy's face more closely. “Honey, is everything okay?”

Mercy didn't have the energy to lie. She shook her head. “I don't want to talk about it.”

Ivy nodded in silence. “Okay. Maybe later.” She pulled Mercy into a quick, unaccustomed embrace, then wrinkled her nose. “Phew, you stink. You'd better wash your hair before you go to bed.” She turned to her granddaughter. “I'll be seeing you in the morning, Tedi. Can you be up by seven without waking your mom?”

“Yes, Grandma. I used to do that kind of thing all the time when I lived with Dad.”

“Good for you.” Ivy shot Mercy one more questioning glance, then left.

Tedi pushed back her blankets and scooted up in bed until she was sitting up against her pillows. “Mom, what's wrong? You look sick.”

Mercy nodded. In a way she was. “I'll be okay.” She strolled over and took her mother's place on the side of Tedi's bed. “What book are you reading?”

“It's called
Another Chance.
I got it at the school library. It's about this teenage girl named Gordy who's always getting into trouble—a lot like me, except I'm not a teenager yet.”

Mercy couldn't help smiling at her daughter. “So what happens to Gordy?”

“She goes out to this lake to keep a girl from killing herself, and she makes her boyfriend swear not to tell anybody she's going, and she won't let him go with her.”

“And what happens then?”

“Her boyfriend tells on her anyway, and her father and a teacher come out just in time to rescue her from drowning. I've already read the book three times. I like it because Gordy's parents are divorced, like mine. It makes me feel like somebody else knows what I'm going through.” Tedi hesitated. “You know what, Mom? There's even a place in the book where Gordy thinks her parents are going to get back together, and everything will be the way it used to be. It doesn't turn out that way. I guess I'm not the only one who thinks about stuff like that.”

Mercy sighed heavily and closed her eyes. “No, you're not.” Lukas was a dreamer, too. Far too idealistic. And sincere…He really had meant what he'd said about letting God take control. That thought eased some of her anger. It didn't help with the frustration, but she had to admit that he wouldn't have lied just to get rid of her. He really was going to miss her, probably as badly as she would miss him.

“Mom?”

Mercy opened her eyes again. “Yes?”

“What do you think about the boyfriend in this book who broke his promise and told on Gordy? Do you think he did the right thing? It saved Gordy's life.”

Mercy thought about Abner and Delphi Bell. “I'm sure that's what the writer of the book wanted you to believe.”

Tedi's eyes widened. “You mean he shouldn't have said anything?”

“I didn't say that. My concern is the principle involved. I don't believe in breaking a confidentiality.” And she felt as if she had done just that yesterday, even though it might well have saved Abner's life. In retrospect, would she have done the same thing again?

“But what if it would be saving somebody's life?” Tedi asked.

Yes, Mercy knew she probably would have done the same thing again, because it was a human life, even though it was somebody like Abner Bell. But was she right? “I know there are exceptions to every rule, but when it comes down to breaking promises, then I feel that leads to a breakdown in ethics. When someone feels it's okay to break a trust, how far will they go?” And look what happened to Delphi. Now she had a police record. Sort of.

Tedi heaved a sigh of obvious exasperation. “But, Mom, it was to save lives. She was doing something she shouldn't've been doing in the first place.”

Mercy echoed the sigh and shook her head. Why did Tedi always choose the worst possible times to introduce a deep philosophical discussion? “Sorry, honey, I'm not up to the subject tonight. Why don't we sleep on it? Maybe you can read the book to me next week, and then we'll talk about it.”

“It's a long book. It'll take a while.” Tedi sounded disappointed.