Healing Waters (15 page)

“Mexican casserole.” I got the freezer open and snatched up a package of chicken breasts.

“Lucia, stop.”

I slammed the chicken onto the counter and let my hand freeze to it.

“If you won't talk, then just listen.”

“Fine,” I said. “You talk.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets, and with them went the anger and the hardness and the rest of what had become unrecognizable to me. I steeled myself against the old Chip that took its place.

“The one thing I did do for myself in Nashville was think,” he said. “About us and how strong our relationship is.”

Please.
I dropped the package into the sink, but he put his hand over mine before I could turn the water on.

“Just hear me out. You waited for me when I was at Bradford. You understood when I took the job with Sonia because she was the only one who would hire me. You even sounded happy that I was coming home, when I hadn't called you for a month—like you knew I needed space. That's a strong bond, Lucia.”

I went for the chicken again, but he grabbed my shoulders and jerked me to face him.

“Just take Sonia to Nashville, get her settled in, and come back. I'll be here.”

I turned back to the sink, but I couldn't think of anything to do.

“Sonia wants you to come too,” I said. “She says you can have your old job back. She said we can work on our relationship there.”

Chip hissed through his teeth. “When you work for Sonia, you don't work on anything else, trust me.”

“That's not what she said.”

“She said what she wanted you to hear.” Chip shrugged. “It's beside the point anyway. In the first place, if I move back in there, I'm going to have the state medical board looking over my shoulder every minute, making sure I'm not practicing.”

“Did they do that before?”

“They paid me one visit, but now she's turning the place into her own personal hospital. They'll be breathing down my neck.” He jerked his head. “And what am I going to do for her, anyway? She can't think she's going to continue her ministry now.”

“Yeah, she does.” I rolled my eyes. “She's convinced there's going to be a miraculous healing, and she's going to look exactly like she did before—after all her followers have a chance to participate in her recovery. She wants to go back out on the road now, mask and all.”

I suddenly wanted to laugh. I felt like I was telling a joke I'd been dying to have the right audience for.

But Chip didn't reward me with a guffaw. “That doesn't surprise me for a minute. Do you really know what it's all about down there?”

“You mean Bless Your Heart Ministries?”

He did snicker then, and let the tension fade from his face. “You've got that right. It's for All Ya'll Who Sin and Fall. Some of it makes sense, but most of it I can't buy into. That's why I quit, and that's why I can't go back down to Nashville and be her gopher.” He shook his head. “Besides, I'm telling you, there isn't going to be a need for any of that. Her ministry is done. The first time two thousand people go into unanimous shock at the sight of her, she'll figure it out, if she gets that far.”

“She thinks she's going to.”

“I doubt Egan Ladd will even arrange an event for her. Two bits he has somebody in mind to take her place already.” He pulled in air, audibly, through his nostrils. “It's all a moot point anyway. I have another job.”

I stared.

“Friend of mine offered me a position in his firm, selling medical equipment. At least gets me close to my field.”

“Okay.” Suddenly we were in a different minefield, one I wasn't prepared for. I picked my way carefully. “Do I know this person?”

“His name's Kent Mussen.” He tossed out a nonchalant hand. “You cross paths with a lot of people in medicine. I ran into him again the other day, and he said he'd give me a break.”

I splashed the water over the package and watched the frost wash away. I didn't ask how long he thought it would be before he “ran into” some other doctor who didn't want him anywhere near his place of business.

I felt Chip's hands on my shoulders.

“We're on our way to starting over, Lucia,” he said. “Just because Sonia's life has been shattered doesn't mean ours has to be.”

I turned off the water and dried my hands, finger by finger, on a paper towel.

“What?” Chip leaned on the counter so I had to look at him. “I know you've got something to say. Just say it.”

I took in a breath. “What about Bethany's life?” I said.

He winced. “I heard about that. I also heard you were wonderful with her.”

I looked into the sink. “Sonia wants me to help Bethany get through this. You should have seen her.”

“I have seen her.”

“Then you know how much she needs—”

“She needs somebody, that's true.”

“She needs me.”

I kept my eyes on the stupid chicken and hated myself again. What the Sam Hill was I going to do if he just flat out said no? Could I see myself walking away from him, just when he was finally trying to put us back together?

Or could I see myself walking away from that little cherub face?

“All right, how about this?” Chip said. “You go to Nashville and take care of your family until Sonia finds a decent nanny and comes to her senses about this ministry thing.” He nudged me. “How long would you say this ‘miracle' is going to take?”

I looked up at him. His eyes were love-filled. Who was he, and what had he done with the Chip I'd known for the past three years?

“What do you say we give it a month?” he said. “I'll get adjusted to my new job, keep things going here. I haven't done so bad so far. The only thing I didn't do is shop for food.”

Could it happen? Could we finally put the trash of our lives out on the curb and it would go away, and not come back smelling worse?

Should I fight it or believe it?

I realized I didn't have the strength to do either.

“I need onions,” I said.

I heard him take in air again. “Can I take that as a yes?”

“You can take it as an I-guess-so.”

“That'll work for now.” He took another deep breath before he said, “Let me go to Swiss Farm for your onions.”

“Get some tomatoes too,” I said, “and sour cream.”

He reached for the pad, then stopped, fingers on my old list.

“What modeling agency, Lucia?”

I ripped into the chicken package. “El Large.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I. They say, ‘We put more of our models in the picture.' They wanted me to model plus-size scrubs.”

“No kidding. How did they get your name?”

“Evidently somebody contacted them and told them I had a ‘really pretty face.' ”

His arms, his big-bear arms, went around me from behind. “You do, babe. And about that last item.” He squeezed tighter. “Sonia never had your husband. Neither did Marnie. I'm yours.”

When he left, I crumpled the list and tossed it into the trash can and started a new one:

• make Mexican casserole

• tell Sonia she has me for one month

• hope for a miracle

Then I scratched out the last item and began to shred the cheese.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

S
ully pulled the Buick into what he was convinced was the last parking space in the city of Nashville. He didn't remember so much traffic here ten years ago. Driving down Broadway in Porphyria's land yacht was like trying to part the Red Sea. He'd turned off before he got to the blocks with the souvenir shops and the bars and the live music venues, but even Fifth Avenue and Demonbreun, formerly a nothing corner, was a clogged artery.

“Beggars can't be choosers,” he commented to his reflection in the side window as he locked the doors and pawed in his pocket for an exorbitant ten to stuff into the slot, before he saw that the machine now took credit cards.

As he walked around the corner onto Demonbreun Street, the new version of the Country Music Hall of Fame overshadowed him on his right, just as the Sommet Center, which had only been a planned-for arena in his day, did on the left. Ahead, what looked like a condo building at least twenty stories high was going up—in a neighborhood where no one used to dare walk, much less live, after dark.

Sully turned onto Fourth Avenue and undid the three buttons on his polo shirt. Holy crow, it was hot down here. He was born and raised in Alabama, but he'd spent enough time out west and even in the Smokies to forget that summers in the South made him feel like he was walking through a pillow.

He shielded his eyes with his hand to read the stone lettering on the massive Greek classical building he passed on the right. The Schermerhorn Symphony Center. When he'd left Nashville, the music scene had been all about Garth Brooks and Vince Gill and Reba McEntire. Almost nothing he'd seen so far was the same Music City he'd known as a student. Even the Shelby Street Bridge he headed for was now only for pedestrians, Porphyria had told him. He could spend all the time he wanted on it.

Dang.

He slowed down before he got to the corner of Fourth and Shelby. The foreign feel of the city tempted him to pretend it had never been the way he remembered it. Maybe the bridge had never been a crumbling ninety-year-old piece of Nashville's history, and perhaps what had happened there had never gone down either.

Sully picked up his pace again. If it hadn't, he wouldn't have come back to dig through it like yesterday's trash, looking for pieces he shouldn't have thrown away.

He girded up his loins, as it were, and rounded the corner, onto what was left of the east side of Shelby Avenue. He steeled himself to feel the bridge like a slap in the face. He saw only a crowd.

The Shelby used to start here, but a happy mob carried him past the vast front of the symphony hall and across Third to the foot of the bridge, where the crowd climbed the steep incline as one. At the top, Sully could barely take in the new structure itself for the pockets of people standing in front of booths, and the lines of them circling what sounded like a jazz combo, and more of them moving across the long, straight stretch and disappearing down the other side for apparently more of the same.

“Welcome to Bridging the Gap.” A tall African-American woman pressed a flier into his hand and flashed him a model-quality smile.

“Welcome to what?” Sully said. He almost had to yell over the crescendo of a saxophone solo happening yards away.

“We're bridging the gap between downtown Nashville”—she winked at him—“and uptown Jefferson Street.”

“Really,” Sully said.

The north Nashville Jefferson Street neighborhood, if he recalled, was another one of those places people used to avoid, unless they were interested in a drug deal. A chasm had definitely existed between it and the rest of the city, and most folks downtown ten years ago had preferred it that way.

“This is sponsored by JUMP—the Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership,” the woman said. “It's a prelude to the jazz festival up there tomorrow.” She flashed the smile down the bridge. “We've got a great turnout.”

Sully couldn't tell whether the sudden gelatinous feel of his insides came from relief or plain fear. A crowd might mean he was less likely to have a panic attack once he got there, to the spot. Or it could mean a couple of thousand people would witness it.

He rolled the flier diploma-style in his hand and stitched his way through the group gathered to drink in the sax. Sweaty fear turned the hair at his temples to strips of wet litmus. His stomach cramped badly; the smells of the Southern barbecue and fried pies that he loved were nauseating. But if he didn't do this, the brutal questions and the vicious guilt would do worse to him over time. He might not be practicing therapy, but he hadn't forgotten its fundamentals.

Sully stopped almost midway across the bridge, and so, for an instant, did his heart. For that surreal moment, he'd have sworn someone had erected a memorial, right at the place where his life had died.

Dude
—it was just an overlook, curving from the main bridge like a balcony, suspended out over the river below. A circle of par-tiers occupied it, bright faced and trendy, leaving no room to get around them to the railing without asking someone to move. Sully couldn't trust his voice. If he opened his mouth he would betray himself as the coward he was.

A drum solo beyond them broke through the chatter, and the circle gave a unanimous delighted cry and hurried toward it. They left the space empty.

Dang.

There were two metal benches on the overlook, and Sully went to one and perched on its rounded edge. The area beneath the railing was metal, die-cut into waterfront images—steamboat wheels and dancing waves, playful yet somehow risky. They blocked his view of the water as he sat, and he was grateful. He wasn't ready to face the river yet.

He tilted his head back and looked up, beyond the silver steel girders to a cloudless, softening sky. This wasn't like that other night. It had rained then, in torrents. The police had determined that Lynn skidded on the wet pavement. That she was driving too fast in the Chevy Impala and lost control. They deemed it a tragic accident.

But it wasn't. He'd tried to bury that fact for thirteen years. Down where he thought it no longer mattered because he was serving the Lord. When he had finally let Porphyria help him drag it out, he had come to terms with the fact that his wife had purposely taken her own life, and their baby girl's, right here on the Shelby Street Bridge.

Behind him, the sax riff came to an end and the crowd hollered the way he remembered his people, his Southern people, did when they had the music and the fried things and the muggy night air that made them who they were. He used to be one of those people, but he'd been away from them—and himself—for a long time. It was time to come back.