Sweet Sanctuary (29 page)

35

L
ydia, much to the chagrin of the nurses on duty, took up residence in Nic's room. For the next several days, she monitored his treatments and added her own regimen of muscle massages, exercises, and verbal stimulation. When she ran out of things to say, she read to him. Chapter after chapter of the Bible.

On the twelfth morning, while Lydia read aloud from Psalms, Nic's eyelids fluttered. That evening, at Lydia's prodding, he squeezed her fingers. The next day he opened his eyes and gave her a funny lopsided grin that set her heart to pattering because it resembled the Micah-grin she remembered. But she forced herself to smile at Nic rather than the memory of Micah.

Two days after Nic awakened, Allan Eldredge checked him out of the hospital, paid his bill in full, and brought him home to stay in the family's guest room until he had completely recovered. He remained with them through Christmas, giving Lydia an opportunity to deepen her friendship with him. Although they drove to work together, ate supper together, and visited every evening, she never summoned the courage to broach the subject her father had introduced concerning a permanent relationship with Nic.

On Christmas Eve, a card arrived in the mail from New York. Lydia crept into the front room to open it in private. Her hands shook as she removed the brightly colored card from its envelope, and when she read the signature—“Love, Micah & Justina”—the breath squeezed from her lungs. Pain stabbed, and she crushed the card to her chest.

Nic ambled around the corner. His brow furrowed when he caught sight of her, frozen in front of the fireplace. “You all right?”

Unable to speak, Lydia shook her head. She opened the card and gave it to Nic.

He squinted at the writing. “Who is Justina?”

Lydia forced a reply past her tight throat. “Micah's wife.”

Nic's eyes widened. “He got married to someone besides—?” He stopped without adding the word “you,” but it hung in the air between them.

Tossing her head, Lydia assumed a cavalier attitude. “It's okay. Really. It's been months since I've seen Micah. And how could anything develop between us when we live in separate states? He was never meant to be more than a friend.”

Sympathy softened Nic's gaze, but he didn't argue with her. As their eyes locked in understanding, she couldn't help but wonder if God was thinking of Nic when He'd told her to be patient and wait. Was Nic's the life she was meant to touch?

She looked deeper into Nic's eyes, hoping to find the answer there, but then Nicky galloped around the corner, straddling a hobby horse Father had given him several days ago. Directly following Nicky's entrance, Mother stuck her head around the corner.

“Nicky, put Squirrel in her stall. It's dinnertime. Come along, Lydia and Nic.”

Both reluctant and relieved, Lydia pushed away thoughts of Micah.

Mother had prepared a succulent beef stew thickened with barley and seasoned with garlic and basil. Served with fresh biscuits dripping with honey, the meal should have pleased everyone's palates. But midway through their meal, Father pushed his plate away and growled, “I can't eat. I wish I hadn't read the newspaper.”

“What is it? Bad news?” Lydia cleaned Nicky's face with a napkin and sent him upstairs to play.

Father's cheeks flushed with indignation. “Over eighty American prisoners of war were massacred a week ago near Malmedy, Belgium. The SS men in charge didn't want to be burdened with feeding them, so they just shot them—slaughtered them like animals.”

The words reminded her of the story Micah had told her about the Jews, and she swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. “Oh, Father . . .”

Father slammed his hand on the table hard enough to rattle the teacups. “I don't understand. It's Christmastime—a time when people spout peace and goodwill to men, but look what's happening. Peace? Bah! The world's gone mad!”

Nic placed his arm carefully on the edge of the table. The doctor had removed his cast a few days earlier, but he still treated the arm gingerly. “The world needs to recognize the Savior who came on Christmas Day. His goal was to bring peace. I read the Christmas story to Nicky last night. Then I did some readin' on my own. Found a verse in John—John 14, I think—that spoke of peace. I don't remember it word for word, but it was Jesus talking and it said somethin' like, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. . . .'”

He shook his head, his expression sad. “All that fightin' goin' on, all those failed attempts to win peace—the ones who refuse to embrace God's ways are the ones who create this madness.”

Lydia expected Father to roll his eyes and bluster at Nic, but to her surprise her father's eyes took on the sheen of unshed tears. “What else does it say?”

Nic closed his eyes for a moment, his lips pressed tight in deep thought. “The end of the verse seems particularly fitting. It says, ‘Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' That's a good thought to hold on to while so many things are goin' wrong around the world.”

Father sat quietly for a few moments, seemingly absorbing Nic's words. Lydia's chest puffed with appreciation for the message Nic had shared. Why Father accepted this kind of teaching from Nic when he refused it from anyone else confounded her, but it seemed Nic's words were impacting her hardheaded father.

One of Micah's favorite verses flitted through her mind—
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
She'd been so frightened when Nic located Nicky, forcing his presence into her life. Oh, how she'd fought against his intrusion. Now she welcomed him. God had used this big one-armed ex-morphine addict as a tool to reach her father.

She glanced at Nic, who picked up his spoon and lifted a bite of stew. How at ease he appeared, sitting at her table as if he'd always belonged here. Was Nic meant to be more than a friend to her in the future? She replayed his final words to Father—
“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Right there at the table, she winged up a prayer.
Lord, remove these troubling thoughts from my heart, and let me find Your peace. Show me where I belong. Show me where I'm meant to make a difference.

Micah's face appeared in her mind's eye, but she steeled her heart against the remembrance. Micah was another troubling thought that must be dispelled. The sooner the better.

January 1945 passed in a blur for Micah. An outbreak of influenza wreaked havoc among the Italian immigrants, and he spent much of his time visiting quarantined apartments, providing treatment and teaching mothers how to care for their ailing children. The wind blew strong in the city, cutting off his breath as he moved through the streets, and he longed for springtime and an end to this illness.

He also longed for an end to the war. He hadn't heard from Jeremiah since early November, and his worry increased daily with the newspaper reports of German attacks on Allied airfields in France, Belgium, and Holland in what the German leaders called The Great Blow. It was, indeed, a great blow, destroying over one hundred fifty British and American aircraft. Hitler had also launched attacks in the south near Strasburg, attempting to overtake the American Seventh Army.

Although Jeremiah wasn't in any of those areas, Micah worried that Germans were also busy in places too small to warrant coverage. Fear for his brother's safety as well as for Jeremiah's health became his constant companion. The winter months had always been hard on Jeremiah—his polio-weakened legs ached terribly in the cold—and each time an icy blast blew Micah's coat away from his own legs, he sent up a prayer for his brother.

As the month continued, reports showed Allied forces fighting fiercely to keep Hitler's army on the run. Airplanes bombed Berlin almost daily, and on the streets of New York people cheered the loss of life in the German city. He couldn't understand their pleasure. Maybe it was his vow as a doctor to preserve life—all lives, even Germans—that made his heart cry when he heard others celebrating the death of German civilians.

His daytime hours were filled with doctoring the immigrant population, caring for Justina, and tracking the war. But nighttime. Ah, nighttime. Those hours stretched long and empty.

As he settled beneath his covers, his thoughts carried him once again to Boston. Since Lydia's telephone call asking his advice concerning Nic's care, he'd only received one communication from her—a Christmas card. She'd enclosed a brief note informing him her father was home and recovering well, Nic had been released from the hospital and was staying with the family, and Nicky was happy and healthy. She'd closed with, “Nicky sends his love.” But there was nothing personal to him from her. It had disappointed him.

He rolled over in his bed and snapped on his bedside light. Lydia's card lay next to his Bible, and he lifted it, smoothing his fingers over the embossed cardinal on the card's face. Bright. Cheerful. In direct contrast to the emotionless note inside. He read her words again. Slowly. Hoping maybe he'd missed something. But no—the stilted message was the same. He flumped onto his pillow and sighed at the ceiling, the card still in his hand.

Lydia . . . If he closed his eyes, he could picture her on the curb, the sun shining on her hair, her eyes bright as she blinked back tears, a smile quavering on her lips. Behind her, Nicky loped around the yard, hard at play, riding an imaginary horse named Squirrel. He'd sent the boy a hobby horse for Christmas, but she hadn't acknowledged it. Maybe it hadn't gotten through. He propped himself up on one elbow and punched his pillow, then folded it in half before lying down again.

He wanted to visit her. He wanted to see her. He wanted to see her
now.
But he had to wait until he wasn't so busy. Then he'd have time. Time to visit. Time to court. Time to . . . propose. His heart thumped erratically at the thought of asking
Lydia to be his wife. He couldn't imagine spending the rest of his life with anyone else. He smiled in the dusky room, considering how quickly his love for her had blossomed. It must be a God-given love. What else could explain it? War and busyness and distance hadn't changed his feelings for her. If anything, his affection had deepened, becoming so rooted in his heart nothing could pluck it out. And he'd been certain she held affection for him, too.

So why did she remain so aloof? Why hadn't she called to ask who Justina was? Might she be avoiding him because her heart had changed? Maybe having Nicky's father under her roof had turned her heart elsewhere. It would be good for Nicky to have his daddy and the woman he called mama truly united.

Give me a chance to talk to her again, Lord, to settle these feelings that wage like a personal war inside of me.

The patter of little feet interrupted his prayer. A small shadow slid across the floor and then the little girl followed. She padded directly to the side of the bed and reached out a small hand. The hand stilled midway to his nose as she looked into his open eyes. She blinked twice, her expression innocent. “Papa?”

“Do you want to come up?” He patted the bed beside him. “Up? Come up?”

Justina smiled her beaming smile that lit the room and then clambered onto the bed. She curled herself against his side, resting her head on his shoulder. “Papa. Sweet-heart.” A contented sigh whisked from her lips.

Micah brought up the edge of the blanket to cover her. He let his thoughts continue, but he spoke them aloud, sharing them with the little girl who snuggled beneath his arm. “Yes, I love Lydia. And I love you, too, sweetheart.” Justina nodded, tipping her head to peer attentively into Micah's face. He went on, as if telling a bedtime story. “I wish I'd had a chance to tell
Lydia about you when she called. I think she'd love you, too. She has a little boy named Nicky, and he's just about your age. You two would get along great, I reckon. He's very articulate, and with your wide vocabulary”—he released a quick chortle at his own joke—“Lydia and I would probably never get a word in.”