At Every Turn (27 page)

 36 

F
ather escorted me to the hospital the next morning and then left to meet with his attorney about Trotter. Mother stayed at the hotel, packing our things, though I’d refused to leave Indianapolis without Webster. Just before noon, a light step sounded on the floor behind me. I twisted in my chair and then hobbled to my feet. “Lucinda!”

She rushed forward, pressing her cheek to mine, careful not to jostle my arm. “You look much better today, Alyce.”

“What are you . . . You can’t afford a day off work.”

Pink stained her cheeks. “Mr. Morgan, well, he’s, um . . .” Her face turned scarlet as her gaze locked on mine. “I may not have to work much longer.” A shy smile transformed her face.

“You and Mr. Morgan?”

She nodded. “After you and I talked—about men—I realized I’d ignored those same signs myself. Afraid, I guess. I thought he was just being nice.” She giggled. “I guess working for Mr. Morgan was exactly where I needed to be.”

I squeezed her hand as tears pricked my eyes. Lucinda deserved every bit of happiness she could find. Mr. Morgan would treat her well, and she wouldn’t have to worry anymore about feeding and clothing her children.

“But I didn’t come to tell you about me. How’s Webster? I’ve been so anxious.”

“He woke a bit last night, and he’s stirred some this morning. But he hasn’t fully returned to us yet.” I eased back into my chair, suddenly tired again.

“Do you know what I learned about Webster this week?” Lucinda asked gently.

I shook my head.

“He’s a preacher.”

“A what?”

Webster moaned. I searched his face. Anxious. Eager. But he stilled again. I turned back to Lucinda, pondering her revelation. I couldn’t make sense of it. Webster had always supported my faith, but he’d never acknowledged his own. “I think someone must have told you wrong. Webster builds cars. Fixes machinery. He doesn’t preach anywhere. I’m not even sure if he believes in God.”

Lucinda shook her head. “I had Clarissa’s sister in the other day. To help with some cleaning. She and her family might rent my house after Mr. Morgan and I . . .” She cleared her throat as her cheeks once again blazed scarlet. “Anyway, her husband ran into a man who knew some of Webster’s history.”

I bit my lip, afraid to hear more. But I couldn’t stop listening.

“Remember how I told you I’d heard about him being linked with money missing from a church?”

My stomach clenched. I remembered all too well.

She took a deep breath. “Apparently he’d held the pulpit at that church and had just resigned. That’s why suspicion fell on him. Though as I told you before, I never believed he could do such a thing.”

But I had. Shame heated my face.

“He didn’t take up preaching as a living again. He came to Langston and went to work for your father. He lived in the midst of the factory workers and such. When someone hit a rough patch, he tried to help. He prayed with them. Studied the Scriptures with them. Told them about God’s love. And, of course, left those baskets of food and money when he heard of a dire need.”

I wanted to shake Webster awake, to demand he tell me everything. He knew I would have embraced this. Even helped. Legs trembling, I rose from the chair. Lucinda caught me by my good arm. I couldn’t believe the fury inside me didn’t scorch her at the touch.

Then she gasped. Pointed.

I froze.

Webster stared up at me, blinked. Breath caught in my chest. My heart seemed to stop mid-beat.

“It’s you,” he said, his voice gentle.

Tingles chased over my arms, down my legs—until I realized that Lucinda was standing behind me. Whom did he mean to address?

My tingles turned to chills as Lucinda ran for the nurse. By the time the room emptied of her, he’d fallen back asleep.

Father insisted I go out to dinner with them, but in spite of my tangled feelings, I couldn’t abandon Webster. Not even for a few hours. My parents finally left me to my solitary vigil.

I scooted my chair closer to the edge of the bed, night creeping in around us. I ached for Langston. For home. For Grandmother. But I burned to hear Webster’s voice once more, to lose myself in his dark eyes.

“Come back to me,” I whispered. “Please come back to me.”

A cart rumbled through the room. Soft voices questioned and answered. Electric light chased shadows into dark corners.

Was my vigil a foolish one? The doctors claimed to be more hopeful now. But what if they were wrong? Could I sit by and watch him fade into eternity?

I walked to the window and looked down into the graying street. I stretched my right arm, shook feeling back into my left foot before returning to my chair. I closed my eyes, but no words of petition bled from my heart.

A clammy finger touched my wrist. My eyes flew open. He stared at me, chest rising and falling faster than usual. Was he in pain? Ought I go for help?

“Should I—”

“Don’t leave.”

Our words overlapped, but I heard his above my own. I laid my palm against his cheek. “I won’t leave you.”

“Good.” An unhurried grin traveled across his face, lighting his eyes. He reached up at the same leisurely pace and curled his fingers around mine. “Good.”

His eyelids fluttered shut, but he never let go of my hand.

I thanked the Lord for the interurban, which transported Mother and Father back and forth from Langston with greater regularity and less hassle than the train. Each evening one of my parents would come to stay with me. Each morning one would return to Langston after settling me beside Webster’s bed.

X-rays proved the necessity of surgery to set the bones in place to heal properly. Lucinda sat with me through the surgery, which Dr. Oliver assured us went well.

Webster’s smile came more frequently now, as did his lucid moments, though the pain in his head and his leg often tightened his jaw. By Sunday, just a week after the accident, he sat up in bed and ate under his own power.

“Why don’t you rest now, Webster.”

“I’ve slept too long. When can I get out of this bed?”

His grousing awakened my guilt.

“I’m so sorry. You wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t—”

His eyes softened. “It’s not your fault, Ally. It could just as easily have been me driving.” He stared at the ceiling now, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I knew what I was getting into the first time I let you take the wheel. But I didn’t mind. I knew you could do it. I knew you
needed
to do it.”

I shook my head, studying the open, empty hand in my lap. “No. My impulsiveness drove me into a situation I couldn’t handle.”

“I don’t agree.” He leaned forward. “Maybe you shouldn’t have so flippantly committed your father’s money, but maybe, just maybe, the Lord used this situation to show you something about yourself. Something important.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that you have the guts and the strength to drive farther and faster than most people would ever dream possible.”

My mouth turned down as I shook my head. “That isn’t important.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s . . . it’s . . .” I remembered again crushed steel, a concrete wall, the unforgiving brick of the track. Our very lives at stake. Did God really lead me to that place, or did I move forward with my own plan without seeking His blessing?

Webster closed his hand around mine. My stomach spun with fear and delight, reminding me of everything I still needed to talk about with him.

Can’t we just go on like this, Lord? Everything seems good. Almost like before.

I breathed in the aroma of ammonia and freshly laundered sheets. “Webster?”

“Hmm?” His head fell to the pillow propped up behind him. The look in his eyes threatened my resolve.

“Can you ever forgive me?”

“I just told you, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Not the accident.” I slid my hand from his grasp. “Will you forgive me for not defending you to Father—that night?”

His jaw twitched as fire leapt into his usually peaceful gaze. “He wouldn’t have believed you. He’d already made up his mind about me.”

“That’s not true. He trusted you completely.”

“Except when he found me with his daughter.”

“But don’t you see? Even that was my fault.”

A nurse walked in to check the bandages on Webster’s leg. When she was satisfied, she popped a thermometer in his mouth and checked it a few minutes later. The moment she rounded the partition, I leaned forward, my voice low. “Father assumed you trusted Trotter enough to let him drive.”

“But then supposed I would attack his daughter? Don’t try to excuse it, Ally. It can’t be done.”

“He knows the truth now. He’s trying to make up for it.”

He turned his face to the window. “I don’t need his charity.”

“But you give your own quite freely.”

His head whipped back toward me. “What did you say?”

I wedged my hand between the seat and my thigh. “You give your charity freely.”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”

“Lucinda.”

He lay still, eyes shut. Had he fallen asleep? Just as I reached to shake him, he pulled in a deep breath.

My shoulders sank in relief. “Father thinks the world of you, Webster. Really he does. He even—”

His hand rose. I stopped speaking. His brows drew toward his nose. “I’m sorry, too, Ally. I should have told you more about myself from the beginning of our friendship, but it was easier not to. It wasn’t shame that kept me silent. It was fear.”

“Fear? Of me?” My chest ached with the weight of his words.

“Not fear that you’d reject me—I knew that almost from the moment we met in your garage two years ago. But the more you talked of the Lord, the more I feared if you knew, you’d push me to do the uncomfortable, to embrace the vision the Lord has given me for my life, unusual though it may be.”

“What vision?”

A wave of pain crossed his face, but whether pain from his leg or a pain in his heart, I couldn’t discern. “I graduated from seminary. Preached in a small church on the other side of Indiana. But after a year or so I became dissatisfied, as if I’d missed something. I prayed and prayed for contentment. But the more I prayed the more uncomfortable I became. God seemed to be calling me to something . . . different. Finally, though, I couldn’t embrace the new, and I realized I couldn’t remain in the old. I resigned from my church and wandered westward.”