Healing Waters (55 page)

“Three months feels like three days with you.” Sully swallowed the sweet thickness that had been gathering in his throat all morning as he packed. “I came here a broken man. You've helped me heal.”

“Mmm—I think it was the good Lord and you this last month, Sully.”

“It was the loneliest month of my life.” Sully took a sip from the glass she'd put in front of him, carefully avoiding the mint leaf that sprang up between the ice cubes. That must have been the piece he'd missed in his attempts to make sweet tea like hers.

“Does that mean the Lord alone is not enough?” she said.

Sully saw the gleam in her child-wise eyes.

“It means the Lord shows up in people you wouldn't expect Him to latch onto. And if you aren't paying attention, you're going to miss them. And Him.”

She nodded over her own tea glass. She was satisfied with him.

“So you're ready for the world again,” she said.

“I don't know if the world's ready for me.”

“Oh, I think the world is ready for another Healing Choice clinic. And whatever else you're going to stir up out there.”

Sully set his glass on the table and leaned on his knees. “There is one thing I want to run by you before I go.”

“You make it sound like you're never coming back. I do have a phone.”

The thickness threatened to rise. “There is no substitute for talking face-to-face with Porphyria Ghent,” he said. “I can't see your soul over the telephone.”

She closed her eyes and nodded.

“I'm thinking of looking for Belinda Cox,” Sully said. “You remember, she was Lynn's so-called counselor.”

“You can't throw her in the Cumberland, Sully. They'll put you in jail for that.”

“She's the one who should be in jail if she's still practicing therapy. I'm not doing it out of vengeance, Porphyria. I've seen what good that does.”

“So you have.”

“I just don't want anyone else to suffer what my family has—and what Sonia's family has—because of misguided dogma.”

“You know you could have a big battle ahead of you,” Porphyria said. “It won't be easy to prove she's unfit for the job.”

Sully tried to grin. “When have I ever gone after anything easy, Porphyria?”

“Never since I've known you.” She bathed his face with a long look. “Just keep your eyes on the prize, Sullivan,” she said. “The real prize.”

“I'll do that.”

She stood up and put a warm, brown hand on his shoulder. “Are you leaving now?”

“I just want to do my last podcast before I go.” Sully covered her hand with his. “How can I thank you, Porphyria?”

“By coming back to share your wisdom with me,” she said. “The Lord be with you, my friend.”

The thickness crept into his voice. “And also with you,” he said.

When she was gone, Sullivan picked up the microphone and clicked Record. He let the birds take the first few seconds with their chatter before he joined them.

“Part Last of What I Know to Be True,” he said. “God knows suffering, not because He created it, but because He experiences it with us. I know this as well as I know the piercing, biting, tearing pain of loss.”

Sully tilted his face to the sun. “It is also true that although God knows suffering, He doesn't explain it. I waited and searched and beat myself up for that, and I know now that it just flat-out doesn't happen. God only walks us through it and out into a place where we can once again be free.

“He does this not because we believe some rigid this or that about Him. He does it because He believes in us. He doesn't ask us to go out into the world telling people why they suffer. Even if we knew why, it wouldn't hurt any less. What we need to know is how to help each other live with it, and live well.” Sully felt the sweet thickness rise, and he let it come. “This I know as well as I know the sobbing, hugging, tea-pouring comfort of love,” he said. “I have seen it. I will seek it every day of the life I have left. That, my fellow sufferers, is what I know to be true.”

Sully let the birds agree before he clicked Stop.

But that wasn't the end.

That, he knew, was the beginning.

Ding-ding-ding, Dr. Crisp. Ding-ding.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

No one reads the acknowledgements unless he expects to find his name among the thanked, but in case you're the exception, please join us in our appreciation for the help of these generous people:

• Dr. Jeffery Guy, burn surgeon at Vanderbilt University Regional Burn Center, who gave hours of his valuable time, making sure we got it right. We hope you're pleased, Dr. Guy.

• Dan Ramage, LCSW, also at the burn center, who discussed Sonia with all the compassion he would give a nonfictional patient.

• The staff in the Nashville Room at the Nashville Public Library, who helped uncover more than we ever needed to know about the Shelby Street Bridge. We used it all.

• Carrie Daughtrey, Assistant U.S. Attorney, who kept us from depending on
Law and Order
and
Without a Trace
as primary legal sources. Sorry, Carrie, but we just couldn't follow your advice about leaving J. Edgar Pug out of the story.

• Marnie Huff, Margaret Huff Mediation, Nashville, who led us to Carrie and provided expertise of her own. If we misrepresent the justice system, it's through no fault of theirs.

• Dr. Dale McElhinney, Doctor of Psychology, whose painstaking attention to Sullivan Crisp keeps us from setting the practice of psychotherapy back fifty years—and keeps it moving forward.

• The brave, honest participants in Lose It for Life, especially counselor Elisa Marshall, and the God's Girls: Jennifer, Melissa, Nancy, Linda, Ethel, Judy, and Peggy. Their courageous sharing brought Lucia to life.

• Sharon Hurt, Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership, Nashville, who breathed into Wesley and made her real.

• Ken Feist, without whom we could never have gotten that plane off the ground, or crashed it, for that matter. Your attention to detail made the scene all too real.

• Luke Schurter, FF/EMT-P, who got us from the burning plane to the hospital. Space limitations wouldn't allow us to include all you taught us, Luke, but you gave us the voice of authority.

• Joyce Mocerro, who showed us the side of Philadelphia we needed to see.

• Nancy Feist, Linda Knause, Jennifer Thomas, and Melissa Craig, who read dreadful first drafts and steered us in the right direction.

• Amanda Bostic, our editor, who has no business being so smart and savvy and insightful at her tender age.

• L.B. Norton, our line editor, who is as good at putting up with whining as she is at tightening a manuscript.

• Marijean Rue, who gave us a peek at the Vanderbilt Divinity School—and a taste of SATCO.

• Jim Rue, who provided countless boat rides for viewing Sonia's house and gave her story many of its twists, as he so often does. Thank you, Jimmy, for being so un-Chip-like.

• Nan Allison, Nutrition Consulting, who models the kind of gentle, nurturing approach Sully uses with Lucia.

• Barbara Moss, Partner, Stites & Harbison, Nashville, PLLC, who shared both her professional expertise and her personal story, and inspired Lucia's courage.

• The Reverend Gordon Peerman, whose sermon on suffering brought Sully's struggles into perspective and shaped his podcasts. God bless you, Gordon.

God bless you
all.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

You may answer the following questions if you promise not to treat them like a class assignment. These are provided in case you want springboards for thought and/or discussion. Otherwise, simply enjoy the story with our blessing.

Nancy Rue and Steve Arterburn

About Faith

1. Sully describes Sonia's idea of faith as “toxic.” Do you agree? Do you see that concept applied in real life situations? With what results?

2. Do you think Sonia's faith was ever real? How did it disintegrate? What are her chances of gaining a truer perspective?

3. Can you follow the thread of Lucia's faith as it grows from virtually nonexistent to something her whole family can now stand on?

4. Can you follow the thread of your own faith's growth?

5. How do you account for Sully's ability to maintain his faith in the face of all he's lost? How about Wesley?

On Suffering

6. There are so many levels of suffering in
Healing Waters
, as portrayed by individual characters. How would you describe the suffering of

• Lucia

• Sonia

• Chip

• Sully

• Bethany

Where did it come from? How have they coped? What needs to change?

7. Sully has a, well, Sully-like view of suffering that he's able to paint through his podcasts. Do you agree with his treatment of it? Does your experience bear it out?

8. Have you ever been inclined to go with Lucia's view—that suffering is somehow based on how much God loves you?

9. At the end of the story, Lucia has begun to dig up what she's buried and fed for so many years. How do you think she's going to deal with what she has to face now?

In Therapy

10. Sully tells Lucia that whatever you bury (i.e. don't deal with emotionally), you bury alive and you have to feed it—literally as well as figuratively. Does that resonate with you in any way? 11. Lucia is so reluctant to talk about her past and her pain. Sound familiar? Why do we stuff it?

12. If you had to complete the assignment Sully gives Lucia—“I want you to be the
Family Feud
audience for your family and make a list of the first five significant things you can remember in your life with them,” what would you include on your list?

In Life

Several of the characters are conspicuously flawed, and yet have much good in them—as do most of us. How would you describe the good, the bad, the ugly, and the holy in these folks?

13. Lucia

14. Sonia

15. Chip

16. Francesca

17. Agent Schmacker

18. Sully himself

19. . . . you

If you would like to do a more in-depth study of
Healing Waters
, you can download the curriculum from
www.nancyrue.com.
You can also visit our website: sullivancrisp.com.

Did
Healing Waters
shed light on anything for you? Get you to consider anything differently? Confirm what you know? Make you want to call us up and tell us we're nuts? If so, we would love to hear from you.

[email protected]                                                   [email protected]

W
ith one flash of a camera, Demi's private
life becomes public news. She doesn't
know it yet, but her healing has just begun.

AVAILABLE IN BOKSTORES EVERYWHERE

Excerpt from
Healing Stones
CHAPTER ONE

I
sneaked down to the boat that night to say this couldn't happen anymore.

Mind you, I didn't want to. Ripping a man's heart out wasn't up there with things I relished. I don't know what I thought would come of things in the end, but I never envisioned this. “This” fell into the “have to” column. When you've made a mess so major you can't hope anymore that somehow things will turn out all right on their own, you have to fix them.

I made my usual way through the shadows, glancing back out of habit to be sure no one saw me. No one frequented the Port Orchard Yacht Club on late February evenings, and even I wouldn't have to anymore after tonight.

I sucked in damp Washington air and breathed out my urge to run from the pain. Then I slid my hand into the pocket of my P-coat, felt the key card waiting in its satin hiding place, and curled in on myself, plastic card digging into my palm.

Would everything that reminded me of Zach torture me from now on? This was just the key to the ramp. What was going to happen when I saw his face?

I managed to get the gate unlocked and then closed it behind me, clanging like a prison door. Yes, I waxed dramatic, but everything inside seemed to hold a piece of him. Zach always had a field day with the curled-up ad on the bulletin board asking for a stud for a Yorkshire terrier. Every time I picked my way in the dark down the puzzle grating on the gangplank, I anticipated his arms around me.

I started down narrow Dock C, the open-ceilinged hallway lined with cheerful doors that led to covered, inside boat slips, and I could hear Zach chuckling over the limp Valentine's Day wreath that hung over a faux porthole, reds and pinks oozing damply into each other. I belonged on this slender path to Zach's door. It always seemed to close behind me—holding me in that one safe place.

How, then, would I get out after I'd said what I came to say? My, my, Demitria. You sure know how to arrange things.