Healing Grace (25 page)

“Really! She took care of my niece’s child, you know. At that clinic in town. Hurt her something dreadful.”

“They’re talking about me?” she asked Greg. The numbness was back around her heart, gripping it, squeezing, like that last day she’d sat with Jonathan, willing each tortured breath to be his last. Please, God, let him die…please, God, take me too.

Greg took her home.

* * * *

Randy paused on the threshold of Kaye’s, debating whether to stay. The atmosphere felt so tense. Although the place was half-full of customers, the conversation was sporadic and carried out in tone outside of comfortable range, whiny like a mosquito in the dark.

Tanya slammed her pitcher down with a crash on the lunch counter.

“How dare you?”

The background hum came to an abrupt halt, customer’s mouths open in mid-gossip, hands gesticulating in mid-point. Even Randy jumped.

“You heard me!” She yelled, her voice echoing through the sunny room. “How dare you people act like this? Are we back in seventeenth century Salem here? Granny died of natural causes. Doc Reuwarts said so. Natural. Causes. She liked Grace. You can all guess how the clinic got paid.”

Kaye walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a white towel and stood next to her niece. With an apologetic glance at Randy, she squeezed Tanya’s shoulder and added her voice.

“Tanya’s right. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. How many of you folks has she done right by? Without asking a lot of questions?

“You, there, Gil Winters. I can guess what you been seeing her for. Most everyone knows what you do when you go off on one of your weekends. How did she hurt you any? Huh?

“And you, Maryann. Your girl would repeat anything anyone told her, truth or no. You know that. Everybody knows that.”

Randy felt helpless to move, awed by their rage. Kaye quivered. Maryann got up quickly and took her daughter out of the café. No one stopped her or asked for her check.

He watched in slow motion as this amazing woman studied her remaining customers.

“We’ll be closing up for the day, folks. We’ve just run out of…everything.”

Tanya held up her heavily bandaged hand. “Grace saved my finger. I believe she helps people, not hurts them.” She drew herself up, proudly. “You all better just think about what you’re doing to…to my friend, Grace, and to each other. I don’t believe any of you can prove that she’s hurt you on purpose, either. I’m ashamed you would turn on her so quickly.”

Kaye added, “Especially if you believe Jilly, the one who really did almost destroy the town’s business and hurt all of you for real.”

Wow. Randy watched Tanya turn the door sign to “Closed” and lock up. He shook his head, grateful they were on the same side. He’d better do something quick to make sure he didn’t lose Kaye this time.

* * * *

Restless after their meal one evening at the big house, Ted asked Grace to join him for a walk. Her cheeks had hollowed over the past month. Her eyes lost their sparkle and even her hair looked dull. He ached for her, knowing that only the passage of time would work against the foolish and shameful attitude in town. He hoped he would be around long enough to see them sorry for what they had done.

Maybe he would make it to the first snow. He would miss outside most of everything he would have to surrender to death. Heaven must be something else if it was better than watching the seasons of a fruit tree. Ted hated the fact that his brother could effortlessly pick him up these days and carry him to bed when he couldn’t drag one foot in front of the other. Jean, the home health aide, was a necessary evil.

“I’m tired of being tired. Take me for a walk, would you?”

They wouldn’t go very far, obviously. He simply wanted an excuse to be alone with her. Ted shuffled his feet along the furrows of the old orchard. Stumps and straggly growth made an eerie backdrop that was the perfect foil for his attitude. The sun was just below the horizon so they could not go far. Twilight and chill cocooned him. She matched his ponderous pace, as silent as he was. They had become comfortable in their unspoken places, which only made the thought of leaving her ache more deeply. They had become the walking wounded.

“Dad was ready to start cherry trees,” Ted said, his words spurting out in gasps. “He loved this place so much. It was his life, after Mom passed away. I wonder if Eddy will want to stay here, work with the land.”

Grace stopped. Ted leaned on the crutches, trying to breathe evenly.

“Eddy has a great future ahead of him, with a wealth of opportunity,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll make good choices.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I was wrong, denying him his mother. Or any mother. I could have married someone else.”

Grace stared at the ground and said softly, “I have no doubt at all that you’re doing the best you can by your son. Eddy deserves only love and joy in his life. You were careful not to show him how to hate his mother, but to let him know that she couldn’t take care of him the way Randy can. Eddy will always have a family who will be honest with him, remind him of how much you…” She started to sniffle. “How much you love him.”

Ted closed his eyes before he reached across the crutch to take her hand. With the other, he gently caressed her cheek. She took the step closer he needed in order to wrap her as tightly as he could against him. Drawing emotional support from her revitalized his dread-filled heart. When their mouths met, he could feel the strength of her love flowing into him. Hungry for an intimacy he could not claim, he kissed her deeply, wanting her to know how much he would regret letting her go. She tasted of the mulled cherry cider they had with the pork. He detected a hint of the garlic from the potatoes. Sweet and sour—just like life.

When he was able to pull away, she stayed close, turning to lean her back against him and wrapping her hand around his biceps. They stood, locked together, facing the direction where the sun had gone down.

Before it was completely dark, they returned to the house.

She stopped at the stoop. “I have to go home, Ted.”

He couldn’t let her go without returning some of the courage she had infused in him. He felt her withdrawal and did not blame her for wanting to physically distance herself from this place and the people who had grieved her. He hoped she would stay until… But she had the right to do what was best for herself.

“I know things have been pretty rough these last few weeks. Thank you for not giving up on us. At least, not yet. No one’s holding on to you here, and you certainly have good cause to leave us. But people will calm down. Things will get better, really, if you wait a little longer. Randy told me how Kaye and Tanya stood up for you the other day, and I think more will follow suit. They’ll remember your care.”

He shifted a little around his crutches, lifting his head with some effort, rotating it to ease the muscle strain. “I can’t apologize for my ex-wife. There’s simply no excuse for her maliciousness. I’m sorry you were hurt. I’d give anything to make everything all right again.”

Grace smiled in the glow of the porch light. “I know. It’s all right, Ted.” She drew her finger down his nose. “It’s all right,” she whispered again and lightly brushed her lips against his.

He shivered with the ache of being forced to keep on breathing, thinking, listening, and responding when he felt as though he was already halfway to the other side. “Would you at least come in for dessert? Tanya brought something. It would make her feel good if we ate it.”

“All right. For a little while.” She smiled. “For Tanya.”

Dessert was cherry cobbler warm from the oven with ice cream. Grandpa and Grandma Marshall stories were told freely, all the dreams and hopes included.

Ted jumped when Eddy ground on something hard and shrilled. “Ouch!”

“Oh, there, now—I’m so sorry, sweetie. I must have missed a stone,” Tanya said.

Ted watched him reach into his mouth to remove the little round cherry pit, curious to see what the boy would do.

He looked at it, puzzled, and then a wondrous smile slathered his face. He bolted out of his chair. “It’s the cherry first tree! Mrs. Webb says trees come from seeds! I’m gonna plant this one! I’m gonna have an orchard when I grow up, and take care of it like Grandpa.”

Randy felt the change when fall slowly cooled the atmosphere of East Bay. It was a relief to watch the change of summer children to winter children. No more time for petty stories to circulate on the city playgrounds, no whispered fears to fuel the fire against his family and friends. The harvest kept them busy. Talk turned to prices and packing and shipping and finding good help.

Shortly before leaving for college, Jimmy had allowed Tanya to cut off some of his hair. Randy thought it made his son look more mature. On the day the dorms had opened, Randy left him after they’d built the loft for his bed. Jimmy’s smile had been shaky, but so had his.

He’d soon be raising another boy. What had he done right with Jimmy, what had he done wrong? This time he’d have Kaye to help.

* * * *

Grace agreed to pick up Shelby’s lesson plans from church on her way home from work one afternoon. Walking down to the basement classrooms, she paused and cocked her head toward an odd scratching sound. She hoped it wasn’t mice and decided to investigate.

Twitching feet stuck out of the janitor’s room.

“Oh! Mr. Jeffries! What’s the matter? No! Don’t move! Just…” She hesitated only a second at the fear in the old man’s eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous! You know I won’t hurt you. Can you speak?”

His eyes rolled back in his head. She went into action, clearing his breathing passages and wadding up her sweater for a pillow underneath his head.

“Help! Reverend Mattisse! Mrs. Rush!”

Once she determined the gathered phlegm was his only obstruction and had his head turned so that he wouldn’t gag and choke, she wondered why no one had answered her call. His eyes opened. She had no choice but to leave him so she could call the ambulance. “I have to run for help. I promise—I’ll be right back.”

At his whimper she almost turned back. She ran all the faster.

* * * *

“Massive stroke,” Greg shared with Grace the next day when she went in for the few appointments on her docket. Despite the formal privacy act he told her anyway. “You deserve to know you caught him in good time. It was pure luck you happened to be there just then. The old man would have died—with the pastor and secretary in the office all the time, totally oblivious.”

She knew better than to refute Greg’s “luck” theory when he was complimenting her, so she simply nodded thanks.

“Just so you know,” Nancy whispered at lunch, “I said to everyone that you were the one who was there and saved his life. I don’t care what anyone else says. It’s time those busybodies quit.”

“I—”

“And I don’t care what you say, either! You’ve been the greatest. When Brian’s mom died, I know you didn’t want anyone to know what you did for us, but, honestly, Grace, I don’t know what we would have done without you there to help with the kids.”

* * * *

Mrs. Jeffries surprised everyone next Sunday in church.

As soon as Reverend Mattisse’s “amen” finished bouncing around the cold sanctuary, and before the organist could slam the first chords of the response, petite, powdered and rouged Mrs. Jeffries stood up.

“Reverend! I have to say something!”

“Mrs. Jeffries! Excuse me. I’m not—”

“Oh, I’ll only take a second to update the good folks here.”

Mrs. Jeffries turned around and pointed at Grace.

A hole in the floor could not open fast enough to swallow me, Lord, Grace prayed frantically.

She checked Reverend Mattisse’s expression from between the fingers of the hand she held in front of her face. Oh, man, oh, man. Red cheeks. She listened to Mrs. Jeffries, whose voice seemed peculiarly magnified.

“As many of you already know, last week my husband Earl, the church’s janitor, had a stroke. Who knows how long he laid there on the cold floor near the furnace without anyone noticing.”

A thump came from the direction of the pulpit. The microphone squealed.

Mrs. Jeffries’s tone grew louder. “Grace Runyon happened to come along and find him. If not for her, he would probably have died. But thanks to her quick action, not only is Earl alive, but he’s going to make a good recovery. I simply wanted you all to know that. Thank you for your attention.”

She folded under the tweed skirt of her usual summer suit and retook her seat, but not before nodding firmly at Grace.

No one moved.

Mrs. Jeffries jumped up again. “And he’s able to receive visitors.” She sat.

The Reverend wiped his mouth with a striped hanky. “Ah, thank you.” He gestured vigorously at the organist, who began a creaky rendition of the Doxology, normally played after the offering.

Ted squeezed Grace’s hand. She felt Randy shivering on her other side. Worried, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. His shoulders were shaking. He covered his mouth with his right hand and had his eyes squeezed shut.

She glanced at Ted, who shrugged.

Mrs. Jeffries was the center of attention after the service. The woman repeated her story over and over, clutching Grace’s elbow in a vice grip.

“We’re so grateful to Grace,” Mrs. Jeffries said. “East Bay could not get along without her help at the clinic, or in the Ladies Guild. And you know how she dotes on that boy, and the Brouwer baby.”

* * * *

Grace and Shelby took Alyssa out for long walks in the stroller on days they plucked like lilies from their calendars. Shelby had decided to stay home with her daughter instead of going back to the daycare center. “I know. I should be an advocate of daycare with my credentials, but I just couldn’t do it, Grace. I couldn’t put my little one in with all the other kids all day long even though I would actually be there with her.”

“It’s the right thing for your family. And you’re fortunate you can afford to do that. Not everyone has that choice.”

“But though I’m glad to be home with her, I tend to go stir-crazy some days. I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you here, willing to take time for me and the girl.”