Healing Grace (16 page)

“He was excited about that. I’ll fix us some tea.”

She returned to the living room to Ted’s white face, his shaking hand holding her letter from Tennessee. Her first impulse was to grab the thing out of his hand and scream at him. His raised eyes met hers. Betrayed.
That was Grace’s next crazy thought, that she’d somehow betrayed him.

She took in a deep breath as she set the tea tray down on her coffee table. She seated herself and then sighed.

Ted held the page out to her with a quivering hand. “I’m so sorry, Grace. I shouldn’t have, ah, even… But it was just lying here, and…I’m sorry.”

Grace pressed her lips together and blinked away scalding moisture.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

The question sounded so anguished she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, despite her dismay.

“My past was never anyone else’s business,” she said quietly. She retrieved her letter, folded it, and put it in the drawer. “You knew I was widowed when I bought the house.”

“But you had a child. A son. Grace! All this time and I only now find out. How did he die?”

“Ted, please. I don’t want to talk about it. If you’re worried I can’t take care of Eddy, that I’ll hurt him or something, don’t. My son died in a car accident and I wasn’t there. Just…let’s pretend you never dug into my personal affairs, okay?”

He closed his mouth. “Now I’m not sorry,” he said mutinously. “And that was a totally rotten, unfair, mean thing to say. How could you have kept this from me? From us? Don’t you trust me?”

“It’s not a matter of trust! It’s a matter of privacy. I didn’t ask you all about your divorce, or why you sold your house and had to move in with your brother. That’s none of my business, like I’m none of…
your
business.”

Ted passed a hand over his face. “You had a child. You told me you…wait a minute! I wondered what you meant, ‘I
have
no children.’ Shelby knows,” he accused her. “You told her, but not me.”

“I think you’d better leave now.” Grace was surprised at how calm the directive came out. She rose, ready to usher him out.

Ted didn’t move. “Eddy. You seemed so comfortable around him. How could you be around him—or was that it?” His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. “You found out I needed help and you came here so you could be around my son as a substitute for yours.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Grace lost her sense of control and dove at him, jerking his arm to pull him off her sofa and push him out the door. “You go home, Ted! You’re being childish, now. Insane! I didn’t know anything about you. I don’t want… How could I want—”

All the emotion she had stuffed away so carefully came flooding out. Dealing with Sean’s death as if she was supposed to be thankful in all things had left her numb and angry at God. The double blow of Jonathan’s illness and her helplessness without her parents to lean on made her feel as though she had stepped out of her life and watched a copy of herself meander through it instead. Grace no longer had the strength to fight the emotions and Ted.

“It hurt so much at first. Sean… Eddy could have… Sean was only a baby. I didn’t know…”

She crumpled against Ted on the sofa, leaning against his side, where he clasped her tight with his good arm and rocked her to her internal mantra.

No tears. Stop crying. Dry eyes. Deep breaths
.

He spoke, muffled against her hair. “I’m so sorry, Grace, so sorry. I shouldn’t have pried. If I had known about Sean, I never would have asked you to keep Eddy.”

His bristly cheek rested on her forehead. His warm breath flowed over cheek, infusing her with a sort of reverse energy.

“I don’t know anyone braver than you.” He hesitated. “Or more selfish than I am.” His hand made gentle circles on her shoulder blade. “You must hate me.”

Grace let him think his distracting ploy worked. No, hate was not what she felt for Ted. Not pity, either. It couldn’t be love. Not yet. It wouldn’t be fair to Jonathan. She looked up at him, smiling slightly, recognizing his appeal to get them moving on and change subjects. But she couldn’t answer him yet.

She closed her eyes and let her cheek rest against his chest. Fear. Fear of losing him, and not being able to help him, as she had not been able to help Jonathan, locked her heart up tight. She moved away, took her tea, and drank. She set it down and smoothed her hair.
Deep breaths, deep breaths. Dry eyes. Go home. Go home.
No one will hurt you ever again, remember? He—they—are not your concern.

Ted struggled to his feet. “Grace…please. I—we—need you.”

When she stayed silent, he limped to the door. She watched, detached from the scene as if she watched a stage play. Ted stopped at the door. “You know how I feel, Grace. About us. Nothing’s different. I can’t hope for a future. Now—this moment—is all I have. And I want to share it with you.”

He left.

Things had changed between them. But for better or worse? She wasn’t sure.

* * * *

Grace flew out to Knoxville for a long weekend, driving over to Woodside and staying with Lena and her family. She did not go to her former house or even consider spending the night there. Only a year had passed—a year and a lifetime. The ceremony at the cemetery had been undemanding, respectful, well thought out, and low-key. The bronze plaque was elegant. Permanent. No one asked her to speak. She endured the photographs and said a calm thank you for the newspaper and radio and couldn’t wait to leave. Reverend Edwards spoke to her formally, stiff as his letter had been, asking kindly about her new life. She answered him as plainly and soberly about her work at the clinic, the little boy next door, and his sick father. They knew each other well enough to understand without words the emotional and spiritual cost for her to attend another sick man.

“I never cease to marvel at the wondrous wit of the Lord God,” Reverend Edwards said, barely a hint of a humor twisting his mouth. Grace watched him mull over the thought in his mind and predicted the title of next Sunday’s sermon.

Few others spoke to her. She was the one who’d left them and they didn’t like it, no matter the cause.

“Who said, ‘you can’t go home again’?” she asked Lena a little while later. The Woodside clinic had been deprived of two medical specialists and it would be another year before another doctor was ready to join them. Woodside preferred homegrown professionals.

They sat in Lena’s quiet, darkened office with only the dim fading afternoon light from the window illuminating the room. They shared a cup of green tea, companionable but strangers, too, after all this time.

“So, you live in an old apple orchard?” Lena asked, smiling.

“It’s the mother-in-law place on the homestead. The main family house is across the driveway. The orchards have been abandoned.”

Grace hesitated over how much more to add. Lena always seemed to know her heart and this time didn’t press for details. “Michigan is very nice. Cold, snowy, but great food,” Grace went on. “Church is pretty dried up, though.”

They shared a grin, thinking of Reverend Edwards’s rapturous, loud, arm-waving sermons.

“That was nice of the town, what they did today,” Grace said after a while. “Thank you for your part, too.” Lena had spoken about Jonathan and Sean, and brought the crowd to tears.

“A small thing. I’m just glad you’ve landed on your feet. I miss you. “

Guilt broke the sense of companionship. Landed on her feet? She felt more like she had been shoved to the ground. The view from the floor was not all that great. She needed a strong arm to raise her up—something Ted Marshall did not possess, nor could she give it to him. How could she tell Lena that she was about to fail, big time, again?

“I miss you, too. Thanks for finding me and writing. I’ll be better at staying in touch. Promise.”

* * * *

Elizabeth Runyon welcomed her for a quiet reunion at dinnertime, speaking soothingly of the hotel and a few incidents that occurred over winter. Grace told her about her new church, the Michigan tourist trade, Shelby and the baby, how different and alike her new patients were, and the hill folk who resettled around Grand Traverse Bay after the auto industry tanked.

“And, you, Grace. Are you happy? Did you discover your purpose?”

Elizabeth would be the one to bring that up. Grace could never claim to have simply wound up in Michigan through fate, or running out of gas. Everything under the sun had a specific purpose. “I thought I did. When I first came up there, this man and his little boy came right to me. Ted was limping. I was sure I was there to heal him.”

“And now? It’s been a year.”

“I know.” She stumbled over her thoughts admiring her mother-in-law’s serenity. “I…” She looked down at the lace doily place mat under her tea cup and swallowed. “Well, I didn’t want to, at first. Heal him, that is, not after, after…Jonathan.” The last came out whispered, fraught with guilt. “Now I don’t know if I can anymore. There were a couple of accidents at the clinic recently. I’m not sure what happened.” She described the trouble with Tony’s blood draw and the rash of the arthritic woman.

“The gift is not yours to wield at your disposal. You’ve always known that. It is for God to say the right time and place.”

“I hate that!” Grace jumped to her feet, agitated, itching to run away again. “When I thought I was supposed to, then I didn’t want to use it. Now that I want to, I can’t.”

“What changed your mind about helping that man?”

How could she admit to her mother-in-law that, if she could thaw enough to have feelings, she might find love with someone else?

“My dear, you’re a young woman. It’s natural to want to love again.”

Grace blinked. How could she know? “What if he dies? Like-like Jonathan? How can God ask that of me? To love him and think that he can be healed, when he can’t?”

“You don’t need me to remind you that the Lord only gives as much as He knows we can take.”

“I’m not that strong, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth only smiled.

* * * *

Grace returned to East Bay, mixed up in her mind and uncertain she wanted to stay. She might be better off somewhere else. Someplace where no one needed her and there was no chance of hurt.

Spring in western Michigan was a promise and a tease. Verdant grass, daffodil and tulip buds conflicted with the ice still piled up on Grand Traverse Bay. Steelhead migrated from the big lake upstream to spawn. Rafts of snow slunk among the off-road stands of pine, oak, and birch. The fruit orchards took their time responding to the warmth and longer amounts of sunshine with leaves and eventual buds.

Patient care remained routine and incident-free at the clinic. But that was a concern to Grace in a way she couldn’t share: routine was routine. No sparks, no energy, no sped-up healing of infections or wounds. Greg stopped watching her every move. She wished her state of mind were as asymptomatic. Shelby proved to be a good sounding board, and Grace was grateful for her friendship.

On a beautiful, quiet Saturday in Grace’s back yard, Alyssa slept in her carrier on a blanket in the shade of a big maple tree while she and Shelby chatted. Eddy explored a new ant colony taking shape at the corner of his playhouse, counting out loud for them the number of soldiers snaking out in a long line.

“What a great day. So warm.” Shelby lifted her face skyward. “We can still get snow this time of year.”

“Wow.” Grace bent over the baby and watched her purse her little mouth. “I feel so restless these days. Ted and I need to discuss what to do about Eddy over the summer when I’m working at the clinic, too, if I stay here in East Bay.”

“Well, I can help with that, Grace. I’ll be happy to keep Eddy two of the days. That should ease your mind a bit.”

Then her eyes widened. She searched Grace’s face. “Wait! What do you mean, ‘if I stay’? You’re not thinking of leaving, are you? You only got here! Where would you go? What would we do without you?”

Grace snorted. “It’s so hard. It seems the reasons I felt I had to run away from Woodside were all in my head, now that I’ve been back, and talked to some of the people there.” She looked at Alyssa, making little sucking noises in her sleep. “But yet, it didn’t feel entirely comfortable, either,” she admitted. The quiet thing inside her head, the real fear that the healing gift was gone for good after its brief appearance, she couldn’t share.

“You’re worried about Ted, aren’t you?”

Grace swallowed before she answered. “More like afraid. He’s slowing down quite a lot again. We’re all frustrated. It’s almost like watching my husband die all over again.” She swallowed, tasting the acid and lowered her voice. “It’s hard to explain to Eddy. He’s a little trooper about the whole thing even though he doesn’t really understand what’s happening to his father. I don’t know where exactly I fit into all of this, how much I want to fit in, or for that matter, if it’s any of my business.”

“I hope I never, ever, have to go through what you did, but Ted has come to rely on you,” Shelby finally said. She skewered Grace with a piercing gaze from her brown irises. “I’ve never considered myself a busy-body or matchmaker, or whatever.” Her eyes filled to overflowing. “Ted went from having no will to live, to fight this, whatever, attacking him, and hardly knowing what to do about his child, to finding a reason to beat this thing. It’s not fair, I know.” She sniffed and used the edge of the cloth diaper on her shoulder to wipe at her eyes and nose. “It’s just that I care about you both so much. You’ve been there for me when I needed you, and for Eddy and for Ted. And we give you nothing in return.”

Grace disagreed, but waited for a moment to put her thoughts in order. “Of course it’s not like that, girlfriend.”

Eddy wandered over to them, plunking himself in her lap with a cookie he picked up from the bag they’d brought out with them earlier. She hugged him and jiggled him until he giggled.

“I was so wrapped up in myself, back in my former life. It finally doesn’t hurt to think about what went on those last few years,” she said, surprised at the confession.

Shelby sniffled loudly. “Go on.”

“It’s true. I admit it. I became complacent, and I think, so did Jonathan. Everything always went right for us. Having a baby worked out, eventually. We didn’t question giving any more or less to anyone around us than they asked. We stopped doing anything we didn’t feel comfortable with and took whatever was handed out, proud of ourselves and our blessings and our talents, our lifestyle. Then, of course, my world fell apart.”