Healing Grace (3 page)

The subject of their discussion gave her a saucy grin and transferred his grip from Ted’s hand to hers. Yeah, right, sure.

Grace wondered about the reliability of taxi service in such a small town. Should she offer to drive him? She had not gotten a landline yet, either, and was contemplating not bothering. Her own cell phone had disappeared sometime during the trip here and she hadn’t taken the time to figure out something new. She did not take the slip of paper from Ted. “I don’t have any way of reaching you.”

His brows went up and he immediately held out his phone. “Well, why don’t you take this phone, then? The number for the doctor is plugged in here.”

She took it from him, holding it between her thumb and forefinger as if it might bite. He quickly showed her how to use it and then said with a grin that Eddy could help her if she forgot. Eddy held onto her hand with a two-fisted grip. He gave her a radiant look when his father mentioned his expertise.

Despite her declaration that the child was welcome, Grace felt wide-eyed and wholly incompetent to care for a boy this age for more than a fifteen-minute checkup as she watched Ted lean down to hug his child and give last-minute admonishments. He was clad in a polo shirt and cargo shorts today. His left arm trembled even more than when they first met. She stoppered her professional curiosity once again before meeting his skeptical look. Maybe someday she could ask what had happened, but not yet.

Chanting internally “act normal, be normal, you deserve a normal life after all you’ve been through,” she watched Eddy wave his father off to the waiting cab, apparently unconcerned that he was being left in the care of a virtual stranger. Maybe the fact that he had lived here once made a difference. Maybe the child was simply a happy-go-lucky kid, used to being left in the care of others. Like the mysterious Shelby.

It had been so long…so long since she’d been alone with a little boy. What would they do all day? Eddy played on the living room floor while a radio scratched out a quiet generic piano station in the background. He didn’t seem to mind the lack of television and she promised they would look in the playhouse later after her laundry was put away.

Grace put the folded towels in the bathroom cupboard and followed him into her room with a pile of things held in both arms. She had scrubbed the walls and ceiling and removed most of the shelves. She was still mulling a choice of wallpaper to cover the worst of the patched places.

Eddy looked about him with awe. “This door was always closed. I peeked once when I was a little kid. There were big boxes all over and it was cold.”

The door had been closed, hmm? Every corner of the house held some secret to pique her curiosity. But it was none of her business what had happened to Ted’s wife and nothing would make her ask the little boy where his mother was.

With efficient, practiced motions she remade her frameless bed.

“Thank you, Lord, for my dryer,” she muttered under her breath as the fresh grass and sunshine smell billowed up at her.

“What, Grace?” Eddy made faces at himself in her rusty bureau mirror. “What did you say?”

“Nothing, sweetie. Let’s go look at the playhouse.”

“Yippeee!” Eddy dodged outside past her.

The little house was filthy inside, strewn with leaves, and dead bugs of every type littering the floor. Chewed fragments of white plastic surrounded a play stove and refrigerator like snow, mixed with the typical brown pellets of mouse droppings and a suspicious pile of shredded newspaper and grass in a corner. It looked long abandoned.

“Did you ever play in here?”

“Uncle Randy said no, not even when we lived here. He told Daddy to keep me out. It was too dangerous.”

So, the stern man from yesterday was Randy, as she had thought. Curiosity got the upper hand of her vow not to care. Caring wasn’t the same as knowing helpful information. Like who else might be coming around the hedge this summer. “Hmm… Where are, ah, Uncle Randy’s kids, now—your cousins?”

“Just one cousins.”

“Oh? Is your cousin a boy or a girl?”

“Boy,” Eddy replied, swiping his fingers along a thick web in a window sill.

Twenty questions time.
How hard do I pump a neighbor’s child for information and still not get too involved with the people here?
Okay—one more.

“Does your cousin live around here?”

Eddy squinted, put a hand on his chin and then crossed his arms in obvious imitation of some adult. Grace kept her smile in check.

“No, I don’t think so. Jimmy only comes in the summer. I don’t like him. He’s lots bigger than me. He punches hard.”

What kind of woman had spent enough time with him to bear his child? He was so…surly. And gruff.

She decided that was enough interrogation about the Marshalls for now and tuned belatedly back into Eddy’s conversation.

“But this is your house now, right, Grace? You can let me play here if you want to, right?”

“It needs quite a lot of fixing up. Tell you what. If you help clean it up a little, we can see if your Uncle Randy is right about it being too dangerous or not. Then, only if there’s nothing wrong, you can play in here when I say it’s okay.”

The little guy seemed satisfied with her cautious answer.

They were still outside when Ted returned from his appointment. Hazy sunshine beat down, promising a change in weather. Spring was passing on into full summer and the grass needed to be cut again.

Ted’s frown as he made his way across the lawn, skirting the patch of bare earth that she had begun to dig for a late flowerbed, made her wonder what was up.

Eddy threw down his little shovel and shouted, “Daddy! Grace says the playhouse is hers now, so I can play in it!”

Out of the mouths…he would get her into trouble even in his innocence. She swiftly cut in. “That’s not quite it, you know, Eddy. I said we’d clean it up and see if it was safe first, then ask your dad. Remember?”

She studied Ted whose brow still furrowed. Lines etched the sides of his wide mouth. Her heart hiccupped.

“We’ll talk it over, son. Uncle Randy’s home. Why don’t you go over there now?”

Eddy galloped across the yard to the other side of the overgrown lilac and yew tree fence row. Ted leaned on a cane that replaced the crutch today. He grimaced and cranked his neck sideways to look at her, wavy black hair falling across his eyes. He reached trembling fingers to brush it away.

Grace pushed away the desire to reach out and feel the stubble on his cheek, to soothe the line of pain between his eyes and clenched jaw, to massage the muscles with her tingling touch. She tightened her grip on the handle of the broom she had been using to sweep out the musty playhouse, feeling drained.

“I have to have another MRI tomorrow,” he said. “Shelby isn’t able to keep Eddy yet… I hate imposing like this, but, could you…”

“Yes,” she said shortly. “Eddy may stay here with me tomorrow.” Pity had come and staked a claim. More than a needle stick, more than stitches, more than…say it…
cancer
…this relationship was going to hurt. Her soul already bruised deeper every time Eddy touched her, spoke to her, turned his head at her like…

She shook her head to dislodge the pain-filled memory. Sean was gone.

At least Ted didn’t share any information about his condition with her. She could stand not knowing his diagnosis a little longer. The longer it took to learn, the longer it would be before that urge to touch him, that urge to care, that urge to try to help would overtake her good sense. When she failed, she’d have to run again, and she’d barely gotten settled. “What time?”

“Would seven be too early?”

“No. Is there something I should know about this Shelby you keep mentioning? Is she Eddy’s mother?”

“Oh! No, no. Eddy’s mother is… No, she’s Eddy’s regular babysitter. Childcare provider. She has a small business in town taking care of a few kids. She’s known Eddy since he was born. She’s really good with children. Especially since she can’t have any of her own. Well, she tried… Sorry. She’s just sick.” He frowned. “Eddy’s mother…she’s not in the picture. Never really has been. We’re divorced. I have full custody. I don’t think what Shelby has is contagious, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

Ted shifted his feet and took a step with his cane. “Uh, well, I can’t be taking advantage of you, Mrs. Runyon. I’d like to pay—”

“I don’t want to talk about that now.” Grace turned on her heel and stomped back into her house as loudly as her tennis shoes would allow. Money would never be a reason to do anything. Never. Never again. If she ever used her gift again, it would be like an emotionless business exchange, a fair deal, and not a promise that she would make it all go away. If she agreed to help someone it would be because she could, not because she had to. And she didn’t have to help anyone here.

But maybe she wanted to.

She could choose.

* * * *

She’d resorted to an over-the-counter decongestant to ward away the nightmares when chamomile and eucalyptus had failed to calm her enough at bedtime. Still, memories of Woodside sifted through her, nostalgic as the scent of the tea roses that climbed her mother’s trellises. They’d brewed rose hip tea together after she’d been in the hospital. Her family had never lived anywhere else. Besides college, the only other house in which she’d lived was with Jonathan, after the wedding. There, by this time in late April the dogwood and redbuds were nearly done blooming and summer established. Everything about Michigan was foreign to her, the clothes she wore, the musty scent of the box hedge, and the grass outside. The sandy soil and the humidity. She felt out of sync, like hearing a steam whistle seconds after seeing the release. How long could she stay here, how long could this be home before she’d ruin it and have to leave?

She missed her parents, and despite her dreams, Jonathan’s parents, too, despite what she’d done and Jonathan’s father’s reaction. They had practiced hospitality so beautifully. Their hotel was always brimming with return guests.

“Elizabeth,” Grace whispered. “You were so kind, so helpful. Thank you for understanding,” she said into the dark. “You always treated me like a daughter.” Thinking of her mother-in-law left her less haunted. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad. She could choose, she reminded herself. She wasn’t obligated to act her role in society, as she’d been in Woodside.

Back there, when someone needed her, she’d gone automatically, day or night, and loved it. Loved the praise, loved the gush of power that poured through her when she worked.

Had she loved it too much? Had she done her job too well? Maybe that’s why losing Jonathan had been such a shock. Not because he’d been her husband, but because she’d never known it was possible she could fail.

Who had she failed? Jonathan? His parents? Herself? God?

But God gave her the gift. Controlled it.

Really?

She pulled back the sheets and snuggled in the smell of outside. Switch gears. Turn off the past and move on.
You’re no longer that woman, the one who failed. You came here for a fresh start, and a new life. How are you going to make that work?

The new mattress and box spring had been a splurge of her resources. Work…earning money to live. Was she ready? She stared at the ceiling, highlighted like a miniature bas relief map of the moon in the glow of the Marshalls’ yard light. A crack wiggled out from the corner. What kind of patching material and color of paint should she buy? Did she want shades and curtains for the little window? If she wanted to buy things, she needed to earn money.

Taking longer blinks, she relaxed.

You know what you can do to earn money.

She had never needed the little trust fund her parents left her a few years ago. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but would help with renovations. Jonathan’s estate was still there, waiting.

It would be so easy,
the whispers whooshed around her. Grace turned over and pulled the sheet over her ears.

 She had to be careful. Transferring the trust account to East Bay had been easy enough, though it meant revealing her current address.

So?

They could find her now. If she stayed here…

Of course I expect to stay. No one from Woodside is going to come here, silly girl.

A long-legged spider lazily spun a messy web in another corner of the room. Grace watched it, exaggerated in the shadow cast by the bathroom night-light she had left burning. As she closed her eyes, she wondered if it signaled she should be busy, too, finding something else to occupy her time. Now that she no longer practiced medicine, there had to be something else she could do.

Ted crossed to her yard late the following afternoon. The long shadow he cast crossed the patch of dirt where Grace arranged pansies and dusty miller plants she had purchased the day before. Shelby Brouwer did not have food poisoning after all, he said. Eddy’s babysitter was expecting a baby of her own.

“She nearly died the last time, before Thanksgiving last year, and Davy just got a vasectomy.” Ted shared the news, animated excitement mingled with concern. Apparently it didn’t faze him that he was confiding the most intimate details of his friends’ lives to a virtual stranger.

She held up her hand. “Mr. Marshall…”

“Ted.”

“Um, Ted, thank you for letting me know about Mrs. Brouwer, but I don’t even know her. I’m not sure she’d thank you for sharing her life story—”

“Oh, you’ll love Shelby, I know it! She’s a gem. She picked us up and got us going again after…” His face clouded as he faltered. Grace was sorry the conversation turned dark. Pregnancy should be a time of joy, not fear. Ted and Eddy weren’t the only ones to speak highly of Dr. and Mrs. Brouwer, as Grace had overheard snippets of conversation at the food mart and the gas station when she’d gone to pay, even at the library where a neighbor had picked up some books to deliver to the woman. A high risk pregnancy always made Grace anxious, even when it wasn’t her patient.

“Well, I guess you’ll want to know why I’m here.” His blue eyes almost snared her, and she looked away, disquieted.