Abide With Me (26 page)

“The team will be called The Welleswood Sisters. The slogan is ‘If we work together, we win together…in sports and in life.’ I think that says it all about our purpose. We want the girls to feel good about themselves as athletes and competitors, but we hope they form friendships that will last a lifetime, as if they were sisters. What do you think?”

Ginger tapped her foot and stared up at the ceiling. “Personally, I think everyone will love the name and the slogan if the volunteer who promised to add the name and the slogan to our sign in the park ever gets around to keeping his promise.”

Her husband blushed. “Tomorrow morning. I promise.”

Ginger laughed with everyone else, but Madge noted a spark of interest in Andrea’s eyes. Was she that interested in the girls’ crew team, or was she reacting to the way Bill not only smiled his approval, but pledged a donation as well, even though his own business endeavor was still a few weeks from opening?

When Andrea covered a yawn, Bill called it a night. That prompted the others to leave, too. Russell locked the door and finally closed up at nine-thirty. Before he turned out
the lights, he took Madge’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

She squeezed back. “You’re welcome. ‘We done good,’ as my grandmother used to say, but we’ll do even better. We just need a little time and a lot of grace,” she whispered, but she was not talking about the business.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Just a gentle kiss that spoke to her, promising that time and God’s grace could heal even a broken heart.

W
inter blew into Welleswood with a vengeance. The earliest snowfall in eighty years hit the third weekend in November. The heaviest snowfall on record kept everyone at home on New Year’s Eve, and it took three days before most people dug out to return to work or school.

By late January, Andrea had her second cysto. Good news again! The day she marked the midway point in her treatments, Whitman Commons finally opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at eleven o’clock in the morning, halfway through her “rolling time.”

“Some days are just not long enough, and some winters are just too cold,” she grumbled. She bundled herself up in an ankle-length, hooded down coat and laced up her fleece-lined boots. By the time she wrapped a wool scarf around the lower part of her face and neck and slipped into
thermal mittens, the only part of her body that would be exposed to the elements were her eyes.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror and shrugged. She might look like an overstuffed, black snowman, but at least no one would comment on her gaunt look or the fatigue that showed up in new lines on her face. She had lost ten pounds, but it was not the chemo at work. She had just been uncommonly busy and often did not have the time to eat regular meals, even with Jeanne’s and Doris’s help at the office. When Andrea got home from work, she was too tired to fix anything beyond a frozen entrée. She just tired more easily now, and that was probably because of the chemo.

On impulse, she added a pair of sunglasses to cut the glare from the snow along the side of the roads. She did not have to rush. Bill knew why she had missed the ceremony. She had a feeling he had scheduled the luncheon that would follow for new tenants, other business owners and town officials for one o’clock to give her the time she needed to be able to attend.

Her presence at the luncheon was professional as well as personal. As exclusive rental agent, she had played an important role in luring prospective tenants to the complex, which was very similar to the work she had done on the Town Restoration Committee. As for the personal aspect, she and Bill remained business associates and friends.

Whether or not that friendship would grow into something else was a matter she set aside today, again. She had an appointment to keep before the luncheon—a settlement that had already been postponed twice. The minute she stepped outside, a howling, bitter wind almost took her
breath away. She got blown to her car. She turned the ignition and let the engine idle. When warm air finally came out of the heater vents, she lowered her hood and scarf and drove herself to the settlement, hoping she would be able to get to the luncheon on time.

Just as Reverend Staggart stood up to say grace, Andrea slipped into her seat next to Bill. “Sorry I’m late,” she whispered as she stored her purse on the floor at her feet.

He looked at her with concern. “Are you feeling okay after the…you know?” he whispered back.

She grinned. “Actually, I feel pretty terrific,” she murmured before the pastor began the prayer and they bowed their heads.

As luncheons go, there was not much to make this one very different, especially the customary speeches. The town officials spoke too long, and the president of the business owners’ association aired the usual call for a more cooperative effort to keep the business district thriving. The food rated a B plus, but it was Bill’s short, poignant speech about hoping to make a difference in Welleswood that drew the most applause.

Then they wheeled in the dessert carts.

Instead of the usual dish of sorbet or slice of ice-cream cake roll, the carts were filled with an amazing array of the cakes that had made McAllister’s nearly legendary. Each of the three carts held a Black Forest Torte, a Baked Alaska, an Italian cream cake and a strawberry shortcake with berries the size of a child’s fist.

After the cakes had been pretty much devoured, Andrea leaned toward Bill. “You made a lot of friends today with
your speech. They probably don’t remember exactly what you said right now, but they’ll never forget dessert.”

His eyes twinkled. “Are you impressed?”

She polished off the strawberry she had saved for last. “Completely.”

“Good. Then say you’ll go out with me again.”

She furrowed her brow. “We’ve gone out a dozen times.”

“Except for our first date, we always talked business. This is different. Now that Whitman Commons is open and my office is up and running, I think we should have a real date. Maybe dinner and a show? Something fun. Something special tonight to celebrate. If you’re up to it,” he added.

Before she could answer him, her cell phone rang. Embarrassed that she had forgotten to turn it off, she apologized and grabbed for her purse. She got her phone out. She did not recognize the telephone number of the caller, but when she saw Tilton Medical Center displayed on the screen below the number, her heart skipped a beat. Had Jenny gone into labor early? She was not due for a few weeks yet.

She hit the button to take the call and eased out of her chair. “I have to take this call,” she murmured before she stepped back from the table. She answered her phone. “Yes?”

“My name is Melanie Wilkins. I’m a nurse at Tilton Medical Center. I’m calling on behalf of Ethel Moore.”

Andrea sighed. False alarm. “I’m sorry. You must have the wrong number.”

“Is this 555-3058?”

“Yes it is, but I don’t know anyone named Ethel Moore.”

“She didn’t think you’d remember her by name. She
asked me to mention another patient she helped you to see here. A Miss Huxbaugh. Does that help?”

Andrea immediately thought of the old woman at the visitors’ desk and the promise Andrea had made to her. “Yes. Yes, that helps a lot.”

“Mrs. Moore has been here for a few weeks, but yesterday she developed a few complications. The chaplain has been with her most of the day, but there’s been a pileup on the freeway. I’m not sure he’ll be able to come back to see her, and the nursing staff is shorthanded, as always. You might want to come as soon as you can.”

“Yes, of course. Tell her my name is Andrea and I’m on my way, will you?”

“I will. Just stop at the visitors’ desk for a pass. I’ll call and tell them you’re coming.”

Andrea clicked off and hurried back to the table. “I’m sorry, Bill. I—I have to go. I’m not sure about tonight. I’ll have to call you later.”

“Is there something I can do to help? You look a little flustered.”

When she saw her hands shaking as she slipped her cell phone back into her purse, she sighed. “Actually, I think I’m a lot flustered,” she admitted. “I have to leave right away.”

“Let’s go. I’ll drive.” He ushered her to the coatroom and got their coats. She explained the emergency on the way to the hospital. “I don’t know very much about her, except that she doesn’t have anyone else, and she didn’t want to die alone. I never dreamed the end might be so near or that she’d actually have someone call me.”

“How old did you say she was?” he asked as he pulled into the hospital parking lot twenty minutes later.

“Eighty or eighty-one, I think.”

He parked the car. “That’s a good, long life, Andrea. Let’s give her a proper send-off, shall we?”

Ten more minutes passed before they were headed to the elevator with passes in hand. She remembered rushing to the hospital to see Miss Huxbaugh and was glad she was not alone this time. They got off on the fourth floor. When she spied the sign prohibiting the use of cell phones, she stopped for a moment to turn hers off. Then they followed the signs to Room 418.

When Bill pulled the door open, a nurse stepped through the doorway. Her eyes were sad when she looked at Andrea. “Are you Andrea?”

“Yes,” she replied. She recognized the nurse’s voice from her telephone call.

“I’m sorry. Mrs. Moore passed away a little bit ago. I was just going to call you.”

Disappointed, Andrea swallowed hard. “Was she alone at the end?”

“No. I decided to check on her instead of taking my break. I stayed when I realized the end was so near. She was a nice lady. I understand she had been one of our best volunteers. She’s still here. Would you like a few moments to be with her?”

“Yes, I think we would. To say a prayer.”

“Take as much time as you need. Just stop at the nurses’ station on your way out and let me know you’re leaving,” the nurse said before she left.

Bill held the door open and followed Andrea inside the dimly lit room. Mrs. Moore looked very peaceful. Her face was turned toward the window, and she had a smile on her
face as if she had seen the faces of angels as they had arrived to take her Home.

Andrea knelt by the side of the bed. Bill knelt beside her. Together, they prayed for the soul of this old woman who had no one else to pray for her. When they finished, Bill helped her to her feet. “I feel so badly that I didn’t get here in time,” she whispered.

“But she didn’t die alone. I think she understands,” he replied as he led her out of the room. When they stopped at the nurses’ station, the nurse who had met them earlier walked around to the front of the counter. She reached into her pocket and handed something to Andrea. “She asked me to give this to you when you came, but only if you stayed to offer a prayer for her. I have a feeling she was a woman who lived life on her own terms. I know it isn’t much, but she thought you might like to have it.”

With tear-filled eyes, Andrea looked at the old silver cross with a safety pin still attached. “Thank you.” When she tried to pin the cross to her coat, her fingers were trembling so hard she could not do it, but Bill completed the task for her.

“Were you related at all?” the nurse asked.

“We were…just acquaintances,” she whispered as she fingered the cross, just as Mrs. Moore had done a few months ago, “but we were sisters in faith, too.”

A
ndrea was fighting as hard as she could, but she was quickly losing the battle to stay awake.

With her down coat as a comforter, she snuggled beneath the seat belt and nestled deeper into the passenger seat as Bill drove them home from the hospital. The windshield seemed to magnify the power of the late-afternoon sun that warmed her face. Soft jazz played on the radio. Between her treatment, her appointment with the lawyer, the luncheon, and the passing of Mrs. Monroe, she had had a pretty exhausting day.

Her eyelids drooped again, and she decided to let her eyes close for just a moment. Besides, she was wearing her sunglasses. Bill would not notice. Or so she thought. When he chuckled, she let out a sigh.

“I thought you might be asleep already,” he murmured.

She smiled without opening her eyes. “I’m just resting my eyes for a minute. The sun feels so good.”

“I had a feeling you might be part cat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. You’re just all curled up with your face to the sun. Cats do that all the time. They curl up, sleep for a bit, wake up, play or eat and then nap again. Hence the term, ‘catnap.’ Right?”

“They’re pretty smart animals.”

He laughed. “Go ahead. Take a catnap. That way you’ll be all refreshed for our date tonight.”

“Our date tonight?” She sighed again, but when she tried to open her eyes, they were just too heavy. “I think I’ll take a little catnap first before we talk about whether or not we even have a date. Wake me up when we get to my house,” she managed before slipping away….

Andrea stirred awake very slowly. She yawned. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She stretched—and banged her knee against a…dashboard?

Disoriented, she glanced about frantically in the dark. Through the windshield, she could see several open fires burning and skaters gathered around them to warm up frozen limbs before heading back to skate on the ice by the light of the fires and the moon. She recognized the place at once. She and her sisters had skated on the lake in Welles Park often enough as children, but she had not skated here for a long time. She had not realized they still allowed the campfires and had just assumed they had been banned for years. Firelight danced on a silver truck where hungry skaters stood in line to buy snacks. That was something new.

How did she get here? The last thing she remembered was driving home from the hospital with Bill, but that was hours ago! And where was Bill now?

The rap on the passenger window might have been gentle, but it was so unexpected, she flinched. With her heart racing, she turned, saw Bill standing alongside the car with a cardboard tray that held some food and beverages, and sighed with relief. She opened the door and picked up her sunglasses before they could fall and stuffed them into her pocket when she got out of the car.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. Since you were sitting up, I thought you were awake.”

She yawned. “I’m just getting there,” she murmured. “The cold air helps.” She stretched the muscles in her back, but before she buttoned up her coat, she shut the car door. “Can I assume I took a catnap that lasted the entire afternoon?”

He smiled. “Pretty much.”

“You were supposed to wake me up when we got to my house.”

He held the tray out and she took a cup of hot cocoa, but the hot dogs wrapped in waxed paper smelled delicious.

“I tried. That was after I remembered you’d left your car at the restaurant. I drove there first, but I couldn’t wake you up. Then I drove you home.” He chuckled. “I never saw anyone sleep that hard. When I couldn’t wake you up, I thought maybe you needed the sleep, so I took us for a ride. I was headed back to your house when I saw the campfires. I just decided a few minutes ago to get us something to eat. I thought maybe the smell of food might wake you up,” he teased.

“This is really embarrassing,” she admitted.

“Actually, it worked out pretty well,” he countered.

“Really?”

He shrugged. “Since you were asleep, I got to make the decision about our date tonight. You do remember we had a date?”

She took a sip of the cocoa and burned her tongue. Some things never change. “I distinctly remember you mentioning a date tonight, but I didn’t accept. You were rather vague about the date itself.”

“After the day you had, I didn’t think you’d be in the mood for dinner and a show. I thought maybe you’d like to sit in front of an open fire, have a hot dog and maybe watch the stars, like we did on the beach. Sort of,” he added. He nodded toward his left. “I think there’s an empty log over there next to that fire.”

She peeked onto the tray again. “I hope you brought mustard for the hot dogs.”

He turned to show her his bulging pocket. “Packets of mustard, ketchup, relish and mayo. I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I brought them all.”

The log was not empty when they got to it, but the teenage couple sitting there left rather abruptly the minute Andrea and Bill arrived and returned to the ice. “I think we interrupted a special moment,” she quipped, and sat down.

When he rested the cardboard tray on the log, she held it steady while he took a seat. “Probably,” he replied. “Poor kids. They haven’t got a chance.”

They split the hot dogs, two apiece, and she smeared a couple of packets of mustard on both of hers. “‘They haven’t got a chance.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

He pointed to a group of teenage boys. “Right there, he’s got his five buddies waiting to find out if he stole a kiss.” He pointed further to the right. “Over there, she’s got her girlfriends waiting to find out if she got him to kiss her. The phone lines will hum all weekend. By Monday morning, when they’re all back in school, two things will happen. The boy will have to decide in favor of hormones or hanging out with his buddies, and the girl will have to decide whether or not she wants to lead him on a merry chase or snatch him up fast before another girl does.”

Andrea laughed. “Dating in high school was a complicated mess, sometimes, wasn’t it?”

“It gets messier and a whole lot more complicated with age, trust me.” He took a bite of his hot dog and held the rest out to make his point. “Take us, for example. At our age, you’d think dating would be easier, but we haven’t been able to have a date yet that didn’t wind up as a disaster or a business meeting, or better still, get cut short because of an emergency of one kind or another. I guess there’s a message there.”

“You forgot to mention that sometimes I fall asleep,” she murmured and stared at the fire for a moment. She had not dated frequently over the years, but she had dated enough to know when she was about to be dumped, as teenagers called it. She should have been relieved. Oddly, she was not.

True, she and Bill had not had an official date that did not involve business one way or another since their first date. No matter what kind of disaster or unexpected interruption, however, he had shown himself to be a man of compassion, understanding, good humor and honor. More importantly, he did not leave his faith in his pew after Sunday services. He lived his faith every day.

Bill was the type of man who came along but once or twice in a woman’s lifetime, if she was fortunate. Andrea had loved and married the first man she had known with those qualities. She would be foolish, indeed, to walk away from the man who could be the second, even if he was eleven years her junior. Character mattered a whole lot more than the number of candles on a birthday cake.

Unfortunately, if she read his meaning correctly, she might have discovered that even if she did want to seriously date him, it might be too late.

“Maybe you should have listened to me. I tried to warn you that dating me wasn’t a good idea,” she suggested, just to test the waters.

“And I definitely remember telling you otherwise.”

“You’re too persistent for your own good,” she countered. Maybe it was not too late after all!

“And you’re a little more stubborn than I thought. No problem,” he insisted, and finished off his hot dog.

She shook her head. “No problem?”

“No. I might be persistent, but I’m also a patient man, in case you haven’t noticed.” He paused to get up and search around for another piece of wood and added it to the fire.

“Is that something you learned as a scout, too?” she asked, hopeful he really had not meant to stop dating or attempting to seriously date.

He sat down again. “What? Keeping a fire going?”

“No. I’ve seen you build a fire from scratch before. I meant being patient.”

He put his hands behind his head and stared up at the stars. She followed his lead and looked overhead. There
weren’t quite as many tonight as there had been on the beach, but just enough for her to be able to find an angel’s window. When she did, she fingered the old silver cross that was pinned to her coat and said a prayer for both Mrs. Moore and Miss Huxbaugh.

“I learned patience from my mother,” he murmured, “but I got my persistence from my dad. He was quite a fisherman. When I got old enough, he used to take me with him on Saturdays to the lake where he’d grown up and learned to fish as a boy. There’s no ocean in Ohio,” he explained. “I learned lots of things from him on that old fishing boat, things I couldn’t learn from books.”

She nodded, half-afraid he might still tell her they were finished as a couple, even before they really began. “Such as…?”

“Well, for one, you can drop bait into the water and reel in one fish after the other, if you’re willing to settle for the little ones. To catch the best and the biggest, you have to take it slow. That big fish you want is smart and strong and stubborn. It’ll fight you every inch. If you’re not careful, it’ll snap your line or wriggle that hook out of its mouth right when you’re ready to pull it into the boat. You need patience to catch the best fish, and you need patience when you find a woman you think is the best, too.”

She sputtered, spilled her cocoa and knocked the tray off the log. “You…you think dating is like fishing? You’re comparing me to a…fish? A
fish?
”

He let her stew for a moment while he put the cardboard tray and cups into the fire. “Don’t go getting all steamed up. You might wind up getting tangled in the line,” he teased.

She pursed her lips. “You…you made that whole story up, didn’t you? Fish, indeed!”

He burst out laughing. “Is it that obvious?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.”

He grinned. “See that? We’re making progress! I’ve gone from persistent to impossible. If you keep going backward alphabetically, you should get to the letter
d
pretty soon.”

“
D
for difficult?” she teased, adding a bit of bait to her own line.

“Go back a little further. I was thinking of ‘datable.”

“You have a one-track mind.”

“And you don’t?” he argued. “Forget I said that. You’ve got a mind that can run over four tracks headed in different directions and switch back and forth pretty quickly. That’s one of the things I liked about you right off.” He cocked a brow. “Now about that date…”

She shrugged. Time to reel him in before he slipped off her hook. “How about an early dinner at my house tomorrow after church? Maybe it’s time to let the ‘girls’ decide if we should date seriously.”

“You’re going to let your cats decide?”

She laughed. “Why not? You made up a story and compared me to a fish.”

He stared at her. “You’re teasing, right?”

“Maybe.”

He checked his watch. “It’s only eight. If we hurry, there’s still time to catch a movie.”

“Not unless tomorrow you want to eat a frozen entrée I’ve heated up for dinner. I need to get to the grocery store. There’s one open twenty-four hours a day in Cherry Hill.”

He stood up and helped her to her feet. “Show me how to get there. I’ll take you to the store on the way back to the restaurant to pick up your car.”

“My car! I forgot!”

“I do come in handy once in a while, don’t I?”

When they got back to the car, he opened the door for her, and she spied her purse on the floor. She slid into her seat and checked her cell phone, dismayed she had forgotten to turn it back on after leaving the hospital. When she did turn it on, the phone beeped and flashed a little envelope in the lower right corner of the screen. She had messages.

“Head north on the avenue,” she told him when he reached the end of the park. “I’ll just be a minute. I need to check my messages.”

He turned north.

She had three messages. She erased the first. Were the telemarketers invading cell phones, too? When she listened to the second message, which had been left more than three hours ago, she tugged on his arm. “Hurry. Turn around. We can’t go to the grocery store. You have to take me back to the hospital. Jenny’s having her baby!”