Desert Gift (14 page)

“Because I haven’t had any problems.”

“Except all of a sudden you can’t stand your wife.”

“We’ve discussed that. Things have been building up for a long time. I’ve been in denial. It’s why I took the longcut.”

“The way you’ve solved the problem is totally out of character and out of line. Even I left my wife with more courtesy than you’ve shown Jill.”

Jack winced. He could not deny what Baxter said.

“Listen, bud. I can’t get a handle on you. Neither can Sophie. It all points to post-concussion syndrome.”

“What? Come on, Baxter. You’re chasing windmills. I have good reason to be acting a little weird.”

“I want to do an MRI to rule out physiological causes. Sophie set it up. Lunchtime tomorrow. If your brain is okay, I promise to give it a rest.” He smiled. “Because I trust you’ll be seeing a counselor one way or the other and he can dig into emotional causes.” He motioned to the television. “Turn the sound back on, please.”

With a shake of his head, Jack picked up the remote. If Baxter the Bulldog and Sophie the Whiz had joined forces, there was no doubt he’d be having an MRI tomorrow.

* * *

Jack awoke with a start, his heart booming like a kettledrum. The bedroom was pitch-dark. He didn’t bother to turn on a light and find his watch.

Lying still, he took deep breaths and grumbled. If Bax had not tried to diagnose him earlier that evening, he would be absolutely fine. By speaking about post-concussion syndrome and tests, Baxter had sown all kinds of disruptive seeds.

Were symptoms honestly in play?

Irritability? Yes. It was growing against Baxter.

Stubbornness? Growing as well.

Insomnia? As of this moment, yes.

Change in personality? Yes. The accident was a wake-up call, not the cause of it. His eyes had been opened to the rut he and Jill were living in. The brush with serious injury energized him. The point was, they did not have to continue living in it.

Loss of memory?

Jack sat up, piled pillows behind himself, and leaned into them. He drew up his knees, pressed his forehead against them, and covered his head with his arms.

Loss of memory.

Yes.

Yes.

That was the worst. That was the most telling.

He’d avoided explaining to the cop, the ER doc, Jill, Baxter, and anyone else who asked that he did not distinctly remember seeing the stop sign or braking. He’d simply read the clues. Given the location of the accident and the policeman’s reference to the stop sign, it was an easy conclusion. Less obvious was why he was there in the first place. Clothes covered in plastic from the dry cleaner’s hung in the back. Evidently he had picked them up before the accident. He did not know why he’d taken such an indirect route home. What he told Baxter was a stab in the dark, though it could have been the truth. He had not been eager to go home for a long time.

But why was the car window open during a sleet storm? The impact jerked his head and smacked it against the edge hard enough to slice it open.

He imagined driving his car. Chicago’s long winters meant it was common for him to drive home from the office in the dark during inclement weather. Grateful that he did not need to take an expressway, he often avoided even main thoroughfares and instead followed a maze of neighborhood streets. They were less congested. They were more interesting and calming even if snowplows did not get to them. They prolonged the trip home.

Sometimes he listened to Jill’s radio station—if they played uplifting music. If they chitchatted or got stalled in hip-hoppy rock, he switched over to the jazz channel.

He remembered leaving the office later than usual that night. Most likely there had been music on the radio at that hour, the sort he liked. Maybe Michael W. Smith or Matt Redman. Maybe—

“Oh.” The word escaped him like an expulsion of a breath held too long.

From the recesses of his memory came a tune, unfamiliar, something about
come to Jesus, come to Jesus
. Something about living, singing, dancing, flying. Sophie had introduced it to him. In the same roundabout way she helped patients see the uncomfortable reality of their insurance issues, she talked about her faith. It wasn’t an in-your-face or a dogmatic black-and-white expression of God. There was a gentleness and subtlety about it.

He liked that about Sophie. The song was gentle and subtle too. He enjoyed listening to it in the car that night and thinking about Sophie.

The song had faded out and Jill’s voice came through the speakers. It was a recorded commercial on her station for her program. She also mentioned the recent release of
She Said, He Heard
and an upcoming interview with some PhD she had quoted in the book. She said the title three times.

Three times.

He remembered distinctly.

He didn’t slow down. He sped up to twenty-five miles per hour, the maximum on that street for a dry, sunny day. It was an inadvertent push on the gas pedal. An unconscious reaction . . .

To an in-your-face, black-and-white expression of a God who offered no mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Chapter 17

San Diego

Jill gazed straight ahead at the back of Dustin’s longish dark hair. He was driving the new minibus and Jill was ignoring her seatmate.

Somehow she had ended up on this outing rather than Viv’s trip to a shopping mall. Somehow the zoo invitation had become an expectation. Somehow she had become an honorary member of the Casitas Pack.

Perhaps it was for the best. Viv had gotten testy last night when Jill asked more about Marty’s cryptic words. Viv refused to explain why he had a reason to leave their marriage.

Like Jill couldn’t guess. The Other Woman fit that scenario. What was with Viv’s reticence? She seldom held back. What was the big deal for her to admit that Marty, like a huge percentage of husbands across the nation, had had an affair?

The hard part always came after. Jill could not guess at the timing of Marty’s indiscretion, but surely he and Viv still lived with that cloud hanging over them. Kudos to them for forging ahead, but how could Jill minister to Viv if her sister would not let her inside?

“Everything all right, angel?”

Jill jumped at the voice.

Her seatmate, Agnes Smith, smiled. The palest of pale blue eyes gazed at Jill. Up close her complexion appeared translucent, as if the rounded cheeks were lit from within.

Suddenly Jill understood she could no longer hide from the intimidating ringleader of the Casitas Pack. The woman had blatantly coerced her into joining them for today’s visit to the zoo. She had finagled her peacock blue velour–covered bottom into the seat next to Jill’s.

And now she glowed from within and suddenly it all became too much for Jill to hold inside.

She shook her head vigorously. “No. Everything is not all right.”

The story poured from her into the listening ear of a stranger who dug into a peacock blue backpack and pulled out a hankie for her.

Jill wiped her nose. “I’m sorry to unload on you, Agnes. You don’t even know me.”

“No worries, dear. Apparently you needed to unload on someone outside your circle of acquaintances. I just happened to be here.”

“I doubt you believe in ‘just happened.’”

Agnes chuckled. “You’re right. It’s my euphemism for ‘God arranged this.’ People tend to hang around longer if I don’t hit them over the head with the God talk right off the bat.” She squeezed Jill’s hand. “I have two observations. Do you care to hear them?”

Jill smiled. “I’ve been gleaning advice from experts for years.”

“I’m no expert.”

“Oh, I suspect you are.”

“Well, I was married for forty-five years and I’m eighty years old. I guess one could say I’ve been around for a while.”

“Those are impressive credentials.”

“It’s just life.” She shrugged. “I’m wondering what you think about God.”

The release from telling her story to this elderly woman was palpable. Jill’s chest did not hurt. But at the question, she squirmed. “I think He loves me and wants the best for me. I think He hears my prayers. I think Jesus was God with skin on and came to show us what God is like.”

“I used to see Him as a distant king sitting on a throne, concerned only with rules, ready to rap our knuckles with a yardstick if we disobeyed. So I made sure I dotted all my i’s and crossed all my t’s.”

Jill winced at the echo of her own words.

“As a young wife and mother I did everything according to what I thought God wanted.” Agnes chuckled. “Even if it looked prissy and persnickety. Heavens to betsy! I was pigheaded about some things.”

“None of us are perfect.”

“No, we are not. But I thought I was close enough in order to have earned all the perks like a happy marriage, perfect kids, and no major problems. Guess what? My husband struggled with leukemia for years. One son was so embarrassed by me he left home at sixteen and didn’t talk to me for ten years. The other son became a pastor and he’s got the ‘holier than Christ Himself’ act down pat. My daughter married a gambling addict. My twenty-year-old grandson was killed in Iraq.” She sighed deeply. “At first I questioned God’s existence. Eventually I began to question my image of Him. Finally I concluded that God loves me.” She smiled.

“And?”

“And that He is crazy about me. That He actually likes me.”

“And?”

“That’s all.” She clapped her hands once. “Everything else follows from that, from living in the mystery of His wild love.”

Jill blinked. “I am sorry for all your pain.”

“Thank you, angel.” She patted Jill’s arm. “So as I was saying, I have two observations. One, you remind me of myself at your age.”

“I do?”

“Yes. The black-and-white formulas about keeping rules in order to earn God’s favor.”

“I don’t think that way.”

“I read your book.” Agnes winked. “You do think that way. Most likely not consciously.”

“My method is to put handles on how to live a better way. That might look like a formula, but I only want to help people.”

“Of course you do. And there is hope that you have succeeded.”

“Hope?” Jill hoped they had succeeded in reaching the zoo.

“Yes, hope. Which brings me to my second observation. There is truth in what you’ve written, in what you teach, in what you believe. Therefore I trust you have helped people see differently. But it’s not the end-all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dear, simply that God wants you to lighten up. Let go of your tight grip on the need to have all the answers. Let Him show you how much He adores you.”

“I know He loves me.”

“There you go with the pat answers. Oh, look!” She pointed toward the windshield. “Here we are at the zoo. Maybe we can learn something from the animals.”

“The animals?” Marty was wrong. The woman wasn’t like a car wreck. She was like a carnival worker who ran the roller coaster and sent people careening and screaming.

Agnes leaned in close to Jill, almost nose-to-nose. “One look at the warthog and you’ll get an idea how much God must love His wacky creatures.” She settled back in her seat and hummed softly, looking out her window.

Letting her words find their mark in Jill.

They stung. Jill had admitted to God and Gretchen her role in pushing Jack down the proverbial hill. If she had taken time out from her pursuits, they would have stayed current. He would not have tumbled so far down the path as to say he did not love her.

Okay. Take ownership, make repairs, move forward.

But this . . .

Lord, this is too much. It’s too much.

She shut her eyes.
Not only did I
do
it all wrong, I
am
all wrong.

Her boisterous brother-in-law and this oddball stranger—two people who would not see eye-to-eye on anything—basically agreed on what was wrong with the Galloway marriage.

Jill pressed on her burning chest. Her breath became ragged.

No, Lord. Please.

Were Marty and Agnes right? Did people see her as a persnickety Goody Two-shoes who trusted in keeping rules rather than in God? Was that the message she promoted?

If so, then she was everything she had always abhorred.

Silent sobs wracked her body. The oddball stranger held her hand.

* * *

At the sight of the warthog, Jill smiled. She could not help herself.

She stood at the low chain-link fence in front of the wild hog’s pen, absolutely transfixed. Weighing in at over two hundred pounds, the animal might have been the figment of a child’s bizarre nightmare. Top-heavy with legs too small and head too large, he had curvy tusks and warty protrusions on his face. His noncolor of browns and grays blended into the surrounding rock and dirt. Guttural snarls and grunts came from him, ghoulish sounds.

How had Agnes tied such a thing to the love of God?

When Dustin had stopped the bus curbside at the zoo entrance, Jill disembarked with the others. She could not recall her feet actually touching the ground nor handing her ticket to the gatekeeper.

Her body ached from the recent sobbing, a release of pain so deep it had been inaudible. It subsided, leaving her with a sensation of moving in a bubble that only Agnes could penetrate.

“Jill, go see the warthog. Get a glimpse at what real love is.” She pressed a map into Jill’s hand and traipsed off.

As Jill had gotten her bearings, the bubble melted away, gently, peacefully. A riot of flowers and pink flamingos came into view, their colors vibrant. People filled the walkways, their voices and faces and clothes distinct to her senses. Odors mingled and separated—eucalyptus, animals, sweet waffle cones.

Now, after a long trek to the hog exhibit, she wondered at the almost-unbearable beauty surrounding her. Even the ugliest animal she had ever seen in her life expressed it.

She noticed a family of four near her. Mom and Dad laughed loudly. Big Brother roared, pointed at the hog, and mimicked him. Little Sister burst into tears at the others’ reactions. They moved on, still chuckling and hugging each other.

Agnes Smith would say that little girl was like God, full of compassion for the unlovely.