Blessed Child (32 page)

Then again the stakes had never been as high. He punched in Banks's number and lifted the phone to his ear. Maybe Crandal was right. Maybe they should have done this two weeks ago.

24

Day 28

D
R
. P
AUL
T
HOMPSON LIVED ON THE COAST
, fifty miles north of Santa Monica off the Pacific Coast Highway. He convalesced in a two-story Spanish-style house overlooking the slow roll of blue waves as they swept in from the west. It was a serene setting in which to end one's life.

Jason and Leiah had followed the black-shrouded Mercedes up the coast and had been ushered into the home with Caleb and Nikolous. A plump Swedish nurse named Heidi had emerged from the back hall and asked them to wait in the living room for a few minutes while Paul spoke with the boy alone.

That had been over an hour ago.

Nikolous sat cross-legged and silent for thirty minutes before rising and asking the nurse what was happening with Caleb. She'd simply smiled, brought him another soft drink, and told him to show a little patience. Dr. Thompson would spend only as much time alone with the boy as fit his judgment, and he was not a careless man.

Leiah had joined the nurse in her smile and offered to help in any way she could. They disappeared into the kitchen and talked quietly. Fifteen minutes later Leiah had come out and asked Jason if he wanted to wait on the deck with her.

They sat at a small glass-topped wrought-iron table overlooking the bay. A sea breeze cooled their faces.

“I had no idea our host was such a heavy hitter,” Leiah said. “Do you realize who he is?”

“Only what Nikolous told me. Big man in evangelical circles.”

“If the evangelicals had a pope, it would be Dr. Paul Thompson. His opinion will weigh heavily in the minds of a lot of people.”

The trip had been gnawing at Jason from the beginning, and he decided to speak his mind. “Well, frankly, I don't see that it'll make any difference. He could be the Dalai Lama, the pope, Mohammed himself. In my mind he's tainted by religion, and he'll see what he wants to see.”

“Have a heart. He's also dying of leukemia.”

“And that's why we're here. Not to hear his wisdom on Caleb.”

She looked out to sea. “Caleb's tainted by religion as well. You hold that against him?”

“Caleb's different. For one thing, he's a child who doesn't know any better. For another, he's actually doing something, not just pretending. If his power came from some Hindu god, then we oughta see a few other people accessing that same god and walking around doing these kinds of things. The same goes for every other religion's gods. Dr. Thompson may be the cat's meow among his buddies, but he's only one religious zealot among a thousand, and as far as I'm concerned, they're all missing the point.”

“And what is the point?”

“The point is he's complaining of a gut-ache this morning, an ulcer for all we know; the point is Caleb's
life's
in danger. The point is that he's being ruined by this circus.”

“Of course that's the point; I've been saying that for weeks. But you can't ignore what he does. How many people do you know who can do what he does?”

Jason looked at her, surprised at her defensiveness. “So suddenly we've flipped sides on this?”

“No. I'll give anything for his safety. But I've also been coming to the realization that what Caleb does is part of who he is. We can't just separate the two. Why does his power bother you so much?”

It was a good question and he couldn't answer. His own son's death entered into the picture somehow, but thinking of it gave him a headache.

“I don't know. It doesn't,” he said.

They sat staring out to the wind for a few minutes, he with his right arm on the glass tabletop, she with her left. The waves washed back and forth far below.

She faced him without speaking; he could feel her eyes on him. But a heaviness had settled on him and he just looked forward.

It
was
his son, wasn't it? Caleb's powers angered him because what seemed so effortless for the boy had been withheld from his son. They'd done everything they knew to do; they had begged God and made fools of themselves and in the end a fool of Stephen. And then he'd died.

He swallowed.

Her hand touched his. A light, cool pressure on the top of his fingers. But it made him immediately warm.

“It's okay, Jason. I know how it feels, believe me. It doesn't seem fair.”

Jason looked at her. She was speaking of her burns. Caleb's power had been withheld from her as well. He had assumed that she ignored it with a stiff upper lip, but now he knew differently.

She was holding his hand. He had touched her in the restaurant; he'd touched her feet on the couch. But this was the first time she had touched him. He glanced down and saw her fingers resting gracefully on his own. The rumpled flesh began at her wrists and then disappeared under a light windbreaker.

Jason lifted his head and stared into her eyes. They were blue, like the sea; they were tender like her hand. But they were swimming with fear as well.

He tried to smile, but he wasn't sure how it came off. “I know.”

She looked away. Her fingers moved, and he grasped her hand to stop her from withdrawing. Now it was she who was swallowing.

“I know it's hard,” he said. “Maybe you should ask him.”

The muscles in her jaw flexed.

Poor, dear Leiah, you're so wounded. And have I told you that I think I might be falling in love with you?

Goodness! What was he thinking?

She looked back at him and her eyes were misted. “I'm afraid,” she said.

Afraid of what? Of loving me or of asking the boy?

The door opened and Heidi stuck her head out. “He'll see you now.”

Jason released her hand and cleared his throat. His mind was jumping rail, he thought. Going places it had no business going.

Dr. Paul Thompson sat in a wheelchair by a large picture window overlooking the bay when the nurse ushered Nikolous and company into the room. A liquid oxygen tank stood beside the bed to their right, and an IV pole suspended a bag of solution over the electric bed's elevated head. The smell of alcohol hung lightly in the air. The large suite was the quarters of a dying man.

But to look at the tall man slumped in the chair, there was no sense of death at all.

Thompson's hair was white and his face was pale, but the brightness of his baby blues and the infectious curve of his lips had him glowing nonetheless. His flesh hung loose on a large frame. A nasal tube rested on his lap and snaked to a portable tank on the back of the chair.

Caleb stood beside the evangelical heavy hitter with his back to them, drawing imaginary lines on the window.

“Good morning,” Thompson beamed. He coughed once, but the smile did not leave his face. “Jason and Leiah, I presume. And you must be Father Nikolous.”

“Yes,” they each answered with a nod.

It struck Jason then that Dr. Thompson wasn't standing. He was not healed. So what had they been doing for the last hour?

“So you're the people responsible for Caleb?”

“Yes,” Nikolous said. A frown had found his face. “So are we . . . successful?” he asked.

Right to the point.

Thompson folded his hands and looked up at the Greek. “Successful?”

“Has the boy attempted . . . anything?”

“Well no, I wouldn't say that. We've been talking, haven't we, Caleb?”

The boy looked over from his drawing and nodded with a smile.

“Talking,” Nikolous said. “Is there a problem?”

“No. No problem.” Thompson looked at the Greek, inviting him to pursue the matter. But Nikolous was flummoxed. There was tension in the air, and Thompson seemed to relish it.

“He can't do it?” Nikolous asked.

“Do what?”

“Please, Doctor. I brought the boy here to heal you as requested by your associates. Surely you are aware of the boy's power. And I will say that private sessions do not come cheap.”

For a few seconds Thompson just looked at the Greek, smiling. Then he turned to the boy. “Caleb, how would you like a chocolate shake?”

Caleb turned without responding.

“Have you ever had a chocolate shake?”

“No.”

“Well, well, you are in for a treat. Heidi—”

“I'm sorry, but I can't allow that,” Nikolous objected.

“No? And why not?”

“We are monitoring every—”

“Lighten up, Nikolous,” Jason interrupted. “A shake isn't going to ruin your precious money machine. He's a boy, for heaven's sake. Let him have a snack.”

Nikolous glanced at the three of them, obviously outnumbered. He finally nodded.

“Wonderful!” Thompson said. “Go on, Caleb. You have to try a chocolate shake. Heidi will make one for you. And if you ask the right way, you might be able to talk her into a banana split.”

Nikolous looked as though he might object again, but he thought better of it. Heidi led Caleb from the room and shut the door.

They stood in a semicircle around Thompson, who motioned to several armchairs beside him. “Please, join me. I don't want to be the only one seated in comfort.”

They each took a chair, and Thompson wheeled around to face them, coughing again. Jason liked this man. He carried himself with the kind of gentle authority you might expect from a leader.

Thompson studied them for a moment and then turned to face the blue sky beyond the window.

“It's always amazed me how so many of my fellow humans manage to live their entire lives without ever seeing the vacation by the sea.”

He faced them. “That was how C. S. Lewis put it, and I can hardly do better. He compared us to children busily making mud pies in the slums, unaware that just beyond the horizon there waited a stunning vacation by the sea. But the children never go to this paradise by the sea, because they either don't know about it, or they don't believe it's possible.”

Nikolous shifted in his seat. “I'm not sure it was made clear, but I do have an appointment—”

“Do you know what the mud pies represent, Father?”

The Greek didn't respond.

“The mud pies are this world. The vacation by the sea is the kingdom of God. I have lived seventy years among the mud pies with only glimpses of the kingdom. Now I ask you, why would I want to postpone my vacation by the sea?”

The audacity of his perspective hit Jason like a hammer to the chest. But Thompson was smiling and a twinkle flashed through his eyes.

“Why would I put off for one day what I have eagerly awaited my whole life?” He faced the window again, and a mist covered his eyes. “All of creation groans for the day I will soon face, my friends. The doctor tells me that I may have a couple months, and I can hardly stand the wait.”

He chuckled. “Two months seems rather long, don't you think? Although I'm sure my heavenly Father knows what he's doing. I feel like my work is done; perhaps I'm wrong.”

Nikolous just stared at Thompson with round eyes. Leiah was smiling in awe. And Jason was thinking that the old man had lost his marbles.

Thompson faced them. “I knew the instant that I saw Caleb that he could ask the Father for my health, and his request would be honored—God has given him that unique gift. And I'm sure my associates mean well; I don't blame them. It's not every day that a Caleb walks our streets. But I simply can't. You understand.”

“So Caleb didn't pray for you?” Leiah asked.

“I asked him not to. And he agreed.”

“So what did you talk about for an hour?”

“Mostly about how fortunate I was.”

“That's it?” Jason asked. “You spent an hour talking about how lucky you were to be dying?”

“No, not dying, son. Living.”

Leiah cut in. “So you think that Caleb's power really does come from God?”

Thompson coughed raggedly. “Excuse me. Contrary to what some of my colleagues in high places might think, I have no doubt.”

Jason checked his earlier attraction to the man. He wasn't sounding reasonable. “You can't just say that without hearing the arguments,” he said. “Everyone sees what they want to see through their own bias. And you're different?”

“I may be confined to this chair, my friend. But neither my eyes nor my ears have failed me yet. As you might guess, my schedule is not very full these days; I've followed Caleb like a hawk and I've heard every argument cast. More importantly I've just spent an hour with the boy, and I really don't see the great mystery that surrounds him.”

“And you say that his power comes from God?” Leiah asked again.

“It isn't his power. He will tell you that. It's the power of the Holy Spirit.”

“Which comes from God?”

“Yes. And which is God himself.”

Leiah might be enamored with the old man, but Jason wasn't ready to let him off the hook.

“The scientific community is saying that his power's from his mind, and they have documented cases of other psychokinesis.”

“Yes, they do say that, don't they? And do they have cases of man parting the Red Sea? Or multiplying a loaf of bread to feed five thousand? Or knocking five thousand men and women from their feet with a song? Really, it stretches the imagination, don't you think?”

“No more than saying that the parting of the Red Sea and the feeding of the five thousand and knocking people over comes from some spirit. Both explanations are completely immeasurable. What makes you think one's better than the other?”

“I've experienced one,” Thompson said with a raised brow. “The other's only hearsay.”

“You've knocked people over too?”

“No. That I haven't. But I've felt the power of God's Spirit in other ways just as real.”