At Every Turn (26 page)

She shook her head. “I don’t know. They won’t let me see him.”

“Ally girl. You need to get back to bed. I’ll find out about him. I promise.” With gentle pressure, he lowered me back to the bed.

“Who is Webster?” Mother was more insistent now. Father swung my legs up and covered them with the sheet. Lucinda inched toward the door, face white, eyes wide.

“I said, Who’s Web—”

“Our mechanic, Mother. Mr. Little. He works for Father. He built the race car. Father agreed to sponsor it. He . . . I . . .”

Father cupped Mother’s elbow. “Come, Winifred. I’ll tell you all about it over supper.”

I sighed, wondering how Mother would react to the news. But at least we’d be done with the secrets.

“And you’ll tell the nurse to take me to Webster before you leave tonight?”

Father pushed my hair from my face, kissed my forehead. He still smelled of burning rubber and gasoline. “Tomorrow, Ally. I promise.”

Nothing prepared me for the pain of Sunday. Not even driving the three hundred miles on the track in Cincinnati. Every inch of me hurt. No one had to force me to be still. Since I couldn’t go to Webster, I sent Lucinda and Father in my stead, charging them to report back to me on his condition.

Mother sat beside me, fussing over my every move, my every need. She didn’t want to leave my side. Exactly as she’d done with Grandmother.

Grandmother. Had she heard the news of the crash, or my injuries? Could her heart stand the shock? She expected us home today. Had Father telephoned to say we wouldn’t arrive?

“Does Granny know?” I asked.

Mother glanced up. “Know what, darling?”

“That we won’t be home this evening.”

“Yes. Your father telephoned Clarissa.”

“But he didn’t say anything about me?”

“Of course not.” She straightened the sheet around me.

“But Grandmother will be worried.”

“Whatever for? She knows you are with us.”

I swallowed. Mother wouldn’t like this. “She’ll worry because she knows. About the racing.”

Mother’s shoulders drooped as she let her back rest against the slats of the chair. “Oh, Alyce. You do realize if this gets out you’ll never find a man who will marry you.”

“Or maybe I’ll find the perfect man, Mother—the one who loves me for who I am and who appreciates how God made me.”

Someone like Webster.

How could my heart still hold such feelings for him when I knew he’d taken my money? In spite of the evidence, I wanted to believe him innocent of breaking my trust, for the more I thought about it, the harder I found it to fathom a thief returning to protect his victim. If he really had taken my money, he must have had a reason he felt I would understand.

He’d sacrificed so much for me. Everything, actually. And as clearly as the red starting flag cutting through a mountain of exhaust smoke, I knew I loved him—and I believed in him, just as he had always believed in me.

 35 

I
have to go to him.” I set my feet on the floor, grimacing as I stood, and then swaying a bit as I straightened.

“Alyce. Please.” Mother gave a gentle push and I sat back on the bed again. Mother leaned out the door to call for a nurse.

Father hurried to the bed. “What’s wrong? Where do you hurt?”

I shook my head. How could I explain? “Where’s Lucinda?” croaked from my throat.

“I sent her home. Back to Langston. She’ll assure your grandmother that you are well.”

“I have to talk to Webster.” With sheer determination, I pushed to my feet again. Father grabbed my waist, held me steady.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he grumbled.

I waited for Mother to concur. She didn’t.

“I don’t think it’s allowed, miss.” The young night nurse inserted herself into the conversation.

“I don’t care if it’s allowed or not. I need to see him. Now.”

“But—” Her eyes grew round. I shuffled forward, careful not to jostle the arm bandaged to my side.

“You can take me there, or I can go on my own.”

“Harry?” Mother this time. Her expression both soft and chiding. “Help us.”

Just before I thought I’d slither to the floor, Father’s eyes cut toward the nurse. She frowned. “Sit down. I’ll go get a wheelchair.”

I sat. The nurse returned. Father helped me into the chair, pushed me on a brisk journey down the hall and around a corner. Mother held my hand the entire way.

We entered a darkened room. The chair stopped moving. Rhythmic breathing whispered into the blackness. Then a shaft of light illuminated a round face. Swollen and bruised. Deathly white around the edges. Chest barely rising and falling.

“I’ll be back shortly.” The nurse turned on her heel and hurried away.

“We’ll be outside, darling.” Mother pulled Father from the room.

I leaned as far forward as I could, my heart crying his name as I smoothed a lock of hair away from his forehead. “I’m sorry, Webster. For everything.” I watched his closed eyelids, anxious for a flutter of recognition or understanding.

Nothing.

A lump swam up my throat, lodging in the middle of my neck. I tried to swallow it down, but it refused to budge. “I should never have let Mr. Trotter bully me into silence. I should have shouted the truth to Father no matter what Mr. Trotter told him in return.” His face blurred. I leaned closer to his ear. “Please don’t leave me, Webster. I need you.”

If God took my only true friend, how would I survive?

I will never leave you or forsake you.

I closed my eyes.
Yes, Lord. I know that.
I wanted it to be enough.

Even if I couldn’t give the McConnells the money I’d pledged to their ministry.

Even without Grandmother’s presence to buoy me.

Even if I lived my whole life without a man who shared my faith and understood everything about me.

My eyes roamed back to Webster’s face. Maybe it was better to let him go. Lucinda had said his heart was already taken. And even if it were free, he’d betrayed my trust by taking my money. He’d never given any indication he shared my faith, though he’d never scorned God in my presence, either.

An ache pulsed up my arm, across my shoulder, and into my temple. Then it shot across my forehead and wrapped around my skull like a turban of steel.

“I think you should rest now, Alyce.” Mother pressed her cheek against mine. I assented with a slight nod. But until sleep claimed my mind, I prayed the Lord would have mercy on my friend.

Mother found me in Webster’s room early the next morning.

“How is he?” she asked before she kissed my forehead.

“The same.”

She pulled up a chair and sat beside me, both of us staring at his unresponsive face.

“You know who he reminds me of?”

My head jerked in Mother’s direction. Instantly, I regretted the motion, biting my lip, waiting for the pain to subside. “Who?”

A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Your father when he was younger. Full of big ideas. Big dreams.” She glanced at me and then back at him. “Not handsome to everyone else, mind you. But his face fluttered my heart.”

I held my breath. Could this possibly mean she approved of Webster? Or at least that if he was my choice she wouldn’t oppose it? Of course she had no idea of his thievery. Or that I’d allowed Father to think him guilty of forcing himself on me. Or that he didn’t share my faith.

For a long while Mother and I sat in silence, nurses and doctors bustling around us. This new territory of sharing my heart with her didn’t come easily.

“Where’s Father?”

“He had some business to tend to. He said he’d be here later today.”

I nodded, strangely relieved.

The hours ticked by. My stomach rumbled. Then Father appeared in Webster’s doorway, face ashen, eyes blank. Hat clenched between his hands.

“What’s wrong?” My heart leapt into top speed.

Fiery eyes glared past me as he slowly crushed his hat into a ball. He growled out one word. “Trotter.”

I couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t breathe. I staggered to my feet, fell back into my chair again.

His shoulders hunched. Red anger faded to a bloodless complexion.

“Darling.” Mother reached his side. “What is it?”

His mangled hat fell to the floor as he knelt in front of my wheelchair. “He’s a liar and a thief.”

My eyes widened. “But he isn’t. I told you that already.”

He shook his head. “Not Little. Trotter. You were only part of his plan, Ally. Maybe an impulse, a trinket he couldn’t resist. I guess because you belonged to me.”

A low moan skittered across the silence. Or had I imagined it?

Father raked a hand through his already untidy hair as he paced the small space beside Webster’s bed. “How could I have been so stupid?”

“Harry, Harry.” Mother crooned his name as she placed her hands on his cheeks. The scowl on his face disappeared. “I’m sorry, Winifred. I should have been more careful.”

“But what happened?” I looked from Father to Mother and back again.

He grasped Mother’s hand as if all of a sudden he needed her strength. “After what you told me, I hired someone to investigate Mr. Trotter.” His mouth turned downward. “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe you, Ally girl, it’s just that I needed to know the truth for myself. And I discovered him a worse scoundrel than I imagined. He wanted to hurt me—for what reason I still don’t know. So he used you. Now he’s vanished. And so has my investment capital.”

Capital? “What do you mean, Father?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly resembling a small boy caught in mischief. “I’d culled the profits from the last year into a special fund. We didn’t need the money to live on anyway. I wanted a new challenge but wasn’t sure what. So I gathered a good bit of ready money, intending to invest.”

“Forget the money, Harry. We’ve survived on so much less.” Mother laid her head on Father’s shoulder while I marveled at her words. “At least we still have our girl.”

“I’m not concerned about the money as such. It’s what I’d intended the money to do.”

My mouth went dry. Had he meant to give it to me? For Africa? “What did you intend to do, Father?”

His look slid past me, to the still form on the bed. “I was going to tell Little after our success in the Harvest Classic, but then that scene in the garage . . .” He wiped his hand over his face, took a deep breath. “I wanted to invest in a new venture: manufacturing Mr. Little’s cars.”

I gasped.

“Why I didn’t see the truth that night, I don’t know. Little is a man with a vision, a man who’ll go far. I wanted to be a part of that. But I trusted Trotter, too. Or maybe I saw what I wanted to see. I don’t know. I guess when he claimed to be the driver of our car, I assumed he had a hidden talent. And I liked that. And if Webster trusted him with his car, well, that just boosted my consideration of him.”

Suddenly I recalled again the night Mr. Trotter came upon me in the garage, remembered he’d known about the cash money in my box, perhaps even spied on Webster as he’d hidden it. And now Father declared Trotter a
thief
and a liar. I bolted from my chair. The world spun. I reached out to steady myself. My hand landed on Webster’s broken leg.

A guttural groan accompanied the roll of his head to one side. Father scooped me up and deposited me back into my chair, and then leaned over Webster, obscuring him from view.

“What’s happening?” I pulled at the back of Father’s coat.

Another moan. Louder this time.

Father stalked to the door. “Nurse! Get in here!”

Within moments, nurses and doctors shoved past us. The fear in their eyes unnerved me. We moved away from Webster’s bed. I gulped in air, praying this wasn’t the end—and if it was, praying I wouldn’t wither in the face of calamity. I’d always asked the Lord to allow me to show my parents His presence and power in my life. But I hadn’t meant like this.

A doctor approached. “We’ve given him more pain medication, Mr. Benson. He’ll go back to sleep again. We’ll decrease the dosage throughout the night. Perhaps by tomorrow he’ll wake more fully. Then we can assess the leg. We’ll need to take some X rays to determine if the break warrants surgical intervention.”

“Whatever needs to be done for him, Doctor, I’ll make it good.”

The doctor nodded. “Fine. I’ll keep you apprised of the situation.”

He left the room. One by one, the nurses returned to their other duties, as well.

I sat by the bed again, longing to stroke the hand that lay atop the white sheet, to tell him what I knew now, to ask him to forgive me for ever suspecting him. But I couldn’t. Not with my parents watching and listening.

“Father, why don’t you ask if I can go back to the hotel with you tonight? I’ve felt much better today.”

“I think that’s a good idea, Alyce.” Mother’s agreement warmed me. She and I seemed to have reached some new place of understanding.

“I’ll find someone right away.” Father charged toward the door.

“Wait.”

He turned.

“Go with him, Mother. I’ll wait here.”

She looked past me, to the man on the bed. When her eyes met mine, they softened. “Of course, darling. Take as long as you need.”

The door clicked shut.

We were alone, Webster and me. Well, as alone as we could be behind our partition of thin muslin. He in his drug-induced sleep. Me with a heart fully awake.

I hung my head and prayed for courage. Courage to stand up in front of my church without the money for the McConnells and their mission. Courage to let go of Grandmother when the Lord called her home. Courage to convey the love of Christ to my parents. Courage to accept the possibility that Webster might not care for me as I did for him.

By the time my parents returned, my heart had emptied of its cries. I studied Webster’s face one last time before we left, silently promising I wouldn’t ask more of him than he could give.