Mother's Promise (13 page)

“Well, all righty then,” she huffed. “Just trying to help.”

Justin kept walking away from her, his head down as he plowed his way through a group of kids.

“Well, will you look who's back? Yo, Fat Sally!” The boy he'd seen slamming his locker yelled, and the two boys standing near him snickered.

From behind him he heard the girl shout, “Shows what you know about anything, Derek Piper. Maybe if you opened a book once in a while …”

The boys around the large muscular guy grinned, and one of them punched him in the arm. But Justin saw the boy roughly shrug him off as he started down the hall after the girl, his eyes ablaze. Then he spotted Justin and paused. “Hey newbie,” he said with a grin.

Justin froze and tried to come up with something to say. “Hey,” he finally managed as Derek and his friends passed him.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but then Derek turned around and stared at him. “You coming or not?”

And all of a sudden Justin found himself part of a quartet of boys headed for Mr. Mortimer's classroom where the boy called Derek slumped into a seat in the back row and continued to glare at the girl wearing the baseball cap. She ignored him until their teacher decided to rearrange students, and Justin found himself seated across from Derek Piper and just in front of the girl.

“Sally Shepherd,” she whispered as if he might not have heard Mr. Mortimer call out each and every name.

“Got it,” he muttered, mortified to realize that this was the girl his mom and Hester kept going on and on about. He saw Derek Piper glance his way and roll his eyes. “Sally Shepherd,” Derek mimicked with an exaggerated grimace.

Justin couldn't hide his smile. Derek's antics were so over the top. Justin felt flattered that for whatever reason Derek had decided to include him in his group.

“Ah Mr. Piper,” the teacher said in a voice that sounded a little like the pastor's voice at church. “So nice to have you back again this year.”

Piper sat up to his full height—a good three or four inches taller than any other boy in the class—and grinned at Mr. Mortimer. “It was like I couldn't stay away,” he said.

“Do try to move on with the rest of your class this year, won't you, Mr. Piper? I would not want to deny any one of the secondary institutions in the community the pleasure of teaching you next year.”

“But Mr. Mortimer, I kind of like it here.”

“And I would like to live in Hawaii, sir. Sadly, we cannot always have our way.” Mr. Mortimer clapped his hands together, effectively ending the conversation, and instructed the class to open their textbooks.

Halfway through the class, the girl called Sally started to cough.

“Here we go again,” Justin heard Derek mutter.

Mr. Mortimer stopped writing on the whiteboard and came down the aisle to stand next to the girl's desk. “Are you all right, Sally?” he asked quietly.

She nodded but continued to cough.

“Perhaps some water,” she said.

To Justin's surprise, Derek was immediately on his feet. “I'll get it.” He was out the door in a flash. Mr. Mortimer sighed and glanced around, his gaze falling on Justin.

“Mr. Kaufmann, would you be so kind as to take a paper cup from the stack on my desk and get Miss Shepherd some water?”

“But …” Justin glanced toward the door.

“Please do as I ask,” the teacher said.

In the hallway, Justin saw Derek duck out a side door and take off across the schoolyard. He was actually leaving school in the middle of class.

“Mr. Kaufmann?” his teacher called.

Justin filled the paper cup and returned to the classroom, debating whether or not to tell Mr. Mortimer what he'd seen.

But there was no need. As he entered the room, one of the boys he'd seen hanging out with Derek at his locker glanced out the window. He pointed, and soon the entire class was straining to watch as Derek loped across the ball field. On his way he turned and made rude signs to the students watching him. Mr. Mortimer clapped his hands to get their attention.

“Desks, now, people,” he announced and returned to the front of the classroom.

Behind him, Justin heard Sally Shepherd clear her throat. “Thanks for the water,” she whispered.

Justin saw one of Derek's friends silently mimic her as he looked straight at Justin. Not knowing what else to do, Justin ignored Sally completely. The boy grinned, and for the second time that morning Justin felt like he might have connected with some of the other boys.

As the day went along, Justin realized that unlike his little Mennonite school in Ohio where he and his friends worked pretty much on their own and at their own speed, here he was going to be expected to deliver assignments daily and actively participate in class. Three times Mr. Mortimer called on him for answers. But that wasn't nearly as embarrassing as when the social studies teacher had him read a passage from their history book aloud and then asked, “And what do you think, Mr. Kaufmann?”

“About what?” Justin replied as he heard a rustle of giggles around him.

“About what you just read.”

“I don't know,” Justin hedged, trying to come up with the right answer.

“Was it right for America to go to war in this case?”

Justin breathed a sigh of relief. He knew this. He'd learned it from his parents and his pastors. “War is never the answer,” he said, quoting them.

But the way the teacher's eyebrows shot up in surprise, Justin knew he'd gotten himself into a deeper hole.

“Why?”

“Because …” Justin prayed for deliverance.
Please. It's my first day. Please.

The bell rang and immediately the other students were clamoring to leave the room. He was saved.

“We'll pick up here tomorrow,” the teacher shouted above the noise. “Chapters one and two for tomorrow if you please—and be prepared for a pop quiz.”

At the end of the day, Justin headed for his locker to pack his backpack before he went to the hospital where he would meet his mom. Sally Shepherd was waiting for him.

“I realized who you are,” she said. “You're Justin Kaufmann—you and your mom are going to live with us in our guesthouse.” She actually said this as if it were something that Justin should be really excited about. “Your mom is really nice. I like the way—”

“I gotta go,” Justin said as he spotted Derek's friends watching him. He grabbed his backpack and ran down the hall and out the side door that he'd seen Derek use earlier.

Rachel first learned of the car accident involving the teens when she was making her morning rounds, visiting patients on the children's wing at Gulf Coast. Toward the end of her rounds, she stopped by a room where a mother was sitting alone watching the television mounted on one wall. The reporter was standing in front of another hospital.

“The girl died,” the woman announced without preamble when Rachel knocked at the door and then entered the room. She must have noticed Rachel's confusion because she gestured toward the television before continuing, “Terrible thing. They were cousins—the girl driving and the one that died. First day of school. Can you imagine? My son goes to school with those kids. Maybe if they'd brought them here instead of to Memorial …” She shook her head and turned her attention back to the television.

“How old were they?” Rachel asked, not knowing how else to respond.

“Fifteen and sixteen. Mennonites from Pinecraft, according to the reports. My son's coach is the father of the girl that died.”

Rachel couldn't help but wonder if she might have met them when she and Justin went to church with John and Hester that first Sunday. Her heart went out to these families, for she of all people knew at least some of the shock and grief they were facing right now. She closed her eyes and thought of that terrible night when James—

In the corridor behind, her someone slammed a door, and Rachel startled back to the reality of the news of the day. She forced her attention to the television and saw that the reporters had moved on to another more lighthearted story. “Is there anything you need, Mrs. Baker?” she asked the woman.

“No. Thank you for asking.” She seemed to focus on Rachel for the first time, taking in her plain dress and prayer covering. “You're Amish?”

“Mennonite,” Rachel said.

Mrs. Baker's eyes widened with sympathy. “Then you must know these poor people,” she said, indicating the television. It was not unusual for outsiders to assume that people of her faith must all know one another.

“I'm new to this area,” Rachel explained, “but we must all pray for them. They have many difficult days ahead.”

Mrs. Baker sighed and stood up to straighten the covers on the rumpled hospital bed. “Don't I know it,” she murmured. Suddenly her entire body started to shake, and Rachel went to her, placing a comforting hand on the woman's back. “It's so hard,” Mrs. Baker sobbed.

“Would you like to talk about it?” Rachel asked.

“I don't want to trouble you. They should be bringing my son back soon.”

“There's time. How about a change of scenery? I can let the nurse know where you are so she can send for you the minute he comes back.” She gently guided the woman toward the door. “What's your son's name?” she asked.

Mrs. Baker smiled. “Alan—he hates the name—prefers to go by the nickname his friends gave him.”

“And what's that?”

Mrs. Baker actually giggled. “Bubba. Can you imagine? He prefers Bubba to Alan.”

Rachel smiled and guided the woman toward the chapel. She nodded to the nurse keying in data at the nurses' station and told her where Mrs. Baker would be.

“It'll be awhile yet. They're pretty backed up downstairs,” the nurse assured her.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Baker said.

They sat together for over an hour as Mrs. Baker poured out the story of her failed marriage, her three other children, her job that was in jeopardy because she was so preoccupied with her son's care, and her worries over the bills.

So engrossed was Rachel in listening to the woman that she barely noticed the time. Eileen had told her that Paul needed her to attend the weekly meeting for department heads—a working lunch, she had called it, her tone laced with sarcasm. “It never fails to amaze me how some folks assume that if there's food involved it can't really be called work.”

Rachel was nearly half an hour late when she finally slipped into the single remaining chair surrounding the large conference table. Mark from Human Resources slid a box lunch over to her, and a woman she had not yet met poured her a glass of ice water.

“As I was saying,”—Darcy said even as she pinned Rachel with a look of displeasure—“each department and every individual in that department must understand the mission of that department and its priorities.” She waited a beat for this to register and added, “So today I thought we would go around the table and have each department representative state the mission for your area.”

There was a rustling of paper as others pulled out folders or notebooks.

“Rachel, why don't you lead the way?” Darcy said with a tight smile. “For those of you who have not had the pleasure—and since she did not arrive in time for our opening introductions—this is Rachel Kaufmann, Pastor Paul's assistant.”

“Chaplain,” Mark muttered under his breath.

“Did you have something to add, Mark?”

It was a little like being back in school, Rachel thought. She actually felt sorry for Mark as every eye focused on him. But he was undaunted.

“Eileen Walls is Pastor Paul's assistant. Ms. Kaufmann is his associate or child life specialist, to be exact.”

“Ooh, my bad,” Darcy said sarcastically with that same tight smile. Everyone around the table exchanged nervous glances. “So, specialist Kaufmann, the mission for spiritual care services?”

Rachel had studied the bookmark that Eileen had given her until she had memorized the words, so it wasn't difficult to recall. She said softly, “The spiritual care services of Gulf Coast Medical Center provide comfort and support—”

“If you could speak up for those of us at this end of the table,” Darcy interrupted.

“I'm sorry.” Rachel stood and delivered the rest of the statement in a strong clear voice. “… comfort and support that respects the full diversity of spiritual values to our patients, the family and friends of those patients and to members of our staff twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.”

She sat down and took a sip of her water.

“Thank you, Rachel.” Darcy turned to a large whiteboard and uncapped a marking pen. “So let's pull out the key words here.”

As each department representative stated their mission and Darcy led them in identifying the key words, Rachel saw that she was trying to lead them to come up with a universal mission statement for the entire hospital, one that would incorporate the goals of each department.