Showers in Season (15 page)

The sound of a mother’s anguish ripped across the corridors of the Missionary Children’s Home. Sylvia heard it from the room where she played with some of the smaller children, using cardboard toilet paper rolls as instruments and sticks for percussion. The children were laughing as they made the sounds, but over the voices came the woman’s cries.

Sylvia picked Carly up and stepped out into the hall. She looked up toward the door, and saw the woman who was wailing. Julie Anderson was trying to calm her.

“What is it?” Sylvia asked, hurrying toward them.

“She came here looking for her children,” Julie said. “But they’re not here.”

Sylvia’s heart burst. “Oh, the poor woman. Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Julie said. “Hers were eight, ten, eleven, and thirteen.”

“Not even one of them?” Sylvia asked.

Julie shook her head. The woman’s pain was unquenchable, and Sylvia adjusted Carly on her hip, and touched the woman’s back, trying to comfort her.

“How did they get separated?” Sylvia asked.

“They were with their father. She found him dead, but the children weren’t with him. They’re not in the hospitals, so she was told to come here.”

“Maybe they’re still alive,” Sylvia said. “Let’s take her somewhere and pray with her.”

Julie looked as if she hadn’t thought of that. “Yes,” she said. She looked down at the woman, and told her in Spanish what they were going to do. “In here,” she said, and led the woman to one of the few empty rooms.

Carly sat on Sylvia’s lap, sucking her thumb, as the three women began to pray together. The Nicaraguan woman’s crying ceased as they prayed, and though she could not understand their language, the words comforted her. Sylvia knew that the Spirit of God was offering comfort that Sylvia and Julie did not have to give.

When they had sent the woman on her way, Sylvia went back to working with the children. God had provided several Nicaraguan women to come and help with the children. One of them was a woman who had lost her two children in the flooding. She had spent the first days grieving, but then had turned her despair into hard work for these kids. More came to help each day. It made it possible for Sylvia to do some of the public relations necessary to get the word out about the home, and the fact that parents might be able to find their children here. A steady stream of parents had come since she’d first put the posters out, and some of the children had been reunited with their parents. But in the last few days, the number of children had grown. More were being brought in than were being taken out.

She didn’t take Carly and return home until after dark that evening, and she rocked her quietly and savored the feel of the little girl relaxing in the comfort of her arms. She was getting attached to the child, she knew. Too attached. In the last couple of days, she hadn’t tried very hard to locate Carly’s mother. She told herself that she had already done everything she could, but every time a mother came to the school looking for her child, her heart tightened into a fist, until she knew it wasn’t Carly she wanted.

When Carly was asleep, she laid her down in the basket-bed she had made her, and smiled at the sweet expression on the child’s face, as if she had no idea that she had been left alone in the midst of a disaster, and that she had no family.

“I’ll be her family, Lord,” Sylvia whispered as tears filled her eyes. “Let me raise her.”

She knew the prayer was almost a betrayal of the child, for she should be praying for her family to come. She forced herself to utter that prayer, but she knew the Lord knew what she wanted most.

She heard Harry coming, and got up, afraid to let him see her doting too much over the child. Already he was worried about her. She went into the kitchen and began to make him a tamale, knowing he probably hadn’t eaten all day.

“Sylvia!” he called from the doorway.

She went running to tell him that Carly was sleeping, but stopped cold when she saw the young, dark woman with him. She was no more than eighteen or nineteen, and had big, black eyes and a bruise on one side of her jaw. “Hello,” she said, forgetting to use Spanish.

“Sylvia, this young woman is named Lupe. She’s looking for her baby.”

Sylvia’s heart crashed. Her instinct was to pray that she wasn’t the mother, that she wasn’t going to take Carly away. But she knew better. Carly needed her real mother, not some American imitation. She swallowed. “Have you taken her to the school?”

“No,” Harry said. “Honey, she has an eighteen-month-old girl.”

“I see.” She touched the woman’s arm, inviting her in, and motioned toward the basket on the floor. “Carly’s sleeping. She was exhausted from all the noise at the home, and drifted right off when I got her home…”

But already the woman was approaching the basket, slowly, as if she feared that the child there might not be her own. Sylvia froze, and Harry put his arm protectively around her.

The woman knelt over the basket, and leaned over the child. She began to cry, and brought her bandaged hand to her mouth.

Sylvia wasn’t sure if she was crying for joy, or despair. She approached the woman and knelt down beside her. She picked the sleeping baby up, and turned her so that the young woman could see hen

But the woman only turned away.

“She’s not hers,” Sylvia said. She tried to hide the relief flooding over her. “Harry, she’s not hers.” She clutched the baby to her chest, and the child kept sleeping. Harry got the young woman to her feet and walked her outside.

Sylvia got up and took the baby to the rocking chair, and began to rock her again as tears flowed down her face. She hadn’t lost her, she thought. God had let her keep the baby a little while longer.

When Harry came back in, he saw Sylvia’s tears and sat down next to her. “Crying for the mother?” he asked softly.

“Half of me,” she said. “But the other half is crying because I was so afraid she was going to take Carly away.”

“Don’t you want her to have her mother?”

“Of course. But Harry, it’s been occurring to me lately that…maybe God gave her to us. Maybe he wants us to raise her.”

Harry let out a heavy sigh. “Oh, Sylvia. You can’t believe that.”

“Why not?” she asked. “He knows how I’ve missed being a mother. Why wouldn’t he have given me a second chance to do that?”

“Because we have other work to do here. You’re needed in the school, Sylvia. You’re needed for my patients. If we do all the things God has given us to do, we won’t have time to raise another child.”

“But I can do all those things with Carly,” she whispered. “I can, Harry. Haven’t I been doing them?”

“Yes, but Sylvia, she’s not yours. Even if her mother is dead, she probably has a father, a grandmother, aunts and uncles. They’ll come for her eventually.”

“What if they don’t?” Sylvia asked. “Are we going to put her in the home when she’s old enough?”

“Well, I don’t know. We’ll just have to pray about that and see what God leads us to do. You know, some of these families who’ve lost children might want to adopt her.”

Sylvia closed her eyes, as if she couldn’t stand the thought of such a thing. “We’ll see,” she whispered, pressing her cheek against the baby’s crown. “We’ll just pray about it and see.”

Later that night, when Harry and the baby were asleep, Sylvia read her e-mails from home. She sent the same response to Tory, Brenda, and Cathy, asking them all to pray that she would do the right thing for Carly. She confessed to them how she wanted to raise this baby, and how she believed in her heart that God had sent her directly to Sylvia for a reason.

Then, when she had finished pouring out her heart, she addressed their own problems one by one. It was clear that they were keeping too many things from each other. Cathy didn’t want the others to know the trouble she was having with Mark. The only reason she told Sylvia, she suspected, was that she was so far away, and it was safe. Brenda didn’t want anyone to know that her job was pure torture, but how necessary it was for her to keep it to pay their bills. Tory had finally started sharing, but she didn’t know either of her two neighbors’ problems. So Sylvia chided them all, hoping they would listen.

Brenda
,
I’ve been praying for you and the kids and for Joseph
,
and I never forget to pray that David will come to a saving knowledge of Christ. I’m also remembering your finances. I thought hard before writing that out so clearly, because I’m writing this to all three of you, and don’t want to betray confidences. But girls
,
I have to tell you, this is not the time for keeping things to yourselves. You need each other. And I have an idea.

Cathy, I’ve been praying for you and your kids, too, especially Mark, who’s turning corners in his life that will take him to dangerous places. And I was thinking about your problem with Mark in school, the kids with whom he’s yoking himself, the lack of interest in his grades. And Brenda desperately
wants to homeschool again, but here she is working at a place she hates at night, not getting enough rest, and still barely making ends meet.

You girls aren’t sharing, and you hold each other’s solutions in your hands. Why don’t you two put these problems together, and solve one for each other? Brenda, think about quitting that job, go back to homeschooling your kids, but also start homeschooling Mark. Cathy could pay you what she was considering paying a private school. Then Mark would get the personal attention he needs, and he removed from the influence of the kids he’s following. And Brenda, we know you can do it.

It’s just an idea, and if I were there in person, I probably wouldn’t say it straight out like this. I’d take you aside one at a time. But I don’t have a lot of time to be tactful right now. Forgive me if I’ve stuck my nose in where it doesn’t belong.

And dear Tory
,
don’t be afraid. I know there’s a lot of uncertainty right now. I know you worry about this less-than-perfect child you’re carrying. What will she look like
,
how disruptive will she be, will you be up to the challenge? I can only tell you that you are. And when you hold her for the first time
,
I believe all your fears will vanish. That child is a gift from God
,
exactly as he made her. Sometimes we have to look at the events in our lives that look like crises
,
and realize that God doesn’t always send sunshine. He sends showers
,
too
,
hurricanes sometimes
,
mud slides and floods. And out of those
,
sometimes
,
come little rewards like Carly
,
beautiful blessings like children’s homes committed to raising godly children, salvation for thousands who would never have heard if they had not come to the point of desperation.

Your showers are going to yield blessings
,
too
,
Tory. Hang in there
,
honey. You’re not alone. But Barry might be right now. Go easy on him
,
and show him mercy. Don’t tell the kids about the pregnancy just to force him into accepting the baby. Give him time and space, and when you tell them, tell them together
,
with great joy. Trust me
,
it will come. I wish I could be there to share it with you.

When she hit “send,” she was weeping, and wishing she could hug each one of her neighbors now. Oh, how she missed them.

But then she went back to Carly in the little basket-bed, and stroked her back, and realized that God took things and people away, but he also brought new ones into our lives. His compassions never failed. They were new every morning.

Even during the stormy season.

When the kids had left for school the next morning, Cathy saw Brenda out watering her garden. She got up her nerve and bounced across the street. “Did you read Sylvia’s e-mail?” she asked bluntly.

“I sure did.” Brenda turned off the water. “Cathy, why didn’t you tell me about Mark?”

“Why didn’t you tell
me
how much you hated your job, and that you were having more money problems?”

“Because you’ve all done so much to raise money to pay our bills. I don’t mind working. It’s not your problem.”

“But I’m your friend. I could have at least listened.”

“And so could I. What’s going on with Mark, Cathy? Daniel told me he’d gotten in trouble at school, but that’s about all I could get out of him.”

“He probably didn’t want to tell you for fear that you’d never let him cross that street again.” She looked down at her feet. “Mark got suspended for smoking marijuana in the bathroom.”

Brenda caught her breath, and Cathy knew this was probably one of the worst things Brenda could imagine. A surge of unexpected resentment shot through her. Brenda’s kids would never do anything that rebellious, because Brenda was the perfect mother. Quickly, she shook that bitter feeling away, and told herself it could happen to anyone’s kids. “Then he went back to school, and got his report card. He’s failing most of his classes.”

Brenda nodded this time, as if she could relate to that. “I wasn’t thrilled about my kids’ report cards, either. Their grades weren’t bad—they just weren’t great. I think it’s because they’re bored.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Cathy spouted in a sarcastic voice. “Mark’s bored. Fat chance. He just isn’t studying, isn’t doing homework…”

“But maybe that really is because he’s bored. Maybe if they made it more fun…”

“That’s a little easier for a homeschooling mom than an overworked, underpaid teacher with thirty kids in each of seven class periods. Besides,
life
isn’t always going to be fun. They have to learn to sweat their way through hard things.” She lowered herself to Brenda’s porch steps. “Sylvia’s idea was a good one, Brenda. I can’t homeschool Mark myself. It would be disastrous for me. My kids won’t even listen to me about putting their napkins in their laps. I could just see me trying to teach calculus. They’d grow up to be a bunch of ignorant, illiterate adults who hated me because I didn’t make them go to school.”

Brenda laughed at her image. “Like you could undo everything they’ve already learned?”

“Well, yeah. I know it sounds stupid, but they’d unlearn it just for spite. I know they would.”

Brenda laughed and sat down beside her. “Well, I’d like nothing better than to go back to homeschooling,” she said.

“You see?” Cathy asked. “That’s why Sylvia’s idea is genius. You start homeschooling again, and I pay you everything I would have paid a private school…or I’d match what you’re making in your job. Whichever is more. You’d get to do what you really want to do. I know taking on Mark would make things
a little different, but you could do wonders with him, Brenda, and I think he would behave for you. He wouldn’t want to be the only kid acting up.”

She could see that Brenda was warming to the thought. “Are you sure you’d want to pay me that much?”

“Yes,” she said. “It would solve so many problems for me, and it just might save my son’s life. Brenda, please say yes.”

“What about Mark?” Brenda asked. “How will he feel about all this?”

“I’m not sure,” Cathy said. “But he doesn’t have a choice. Something has to be done right away. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s either you or private school. And he can refuse to do homework in private school just as easily as he can in public school. Besides, I hate to make him the new kid halfway through the year. If he was with you, he wouldn’t be.”

The smile inching across Brenda’s face spoke volumes. “I’d be willing to try it, Cathy.”

Cathy restrained herself from shouting and turning a cartwheel. She didn’t want to frighten Brenda off. “Brenda, if you can’t handle him, then you can quit. No hard feelings.”

“Oh, I can handle Mark. He’s a good kid,” Brenda said. “Maybe he’s got some bad influences, but once we remove those, he’ll be fine. He’s smart as a whip.”

Cathy got tears in her eyes and threw her arms around Brenda. “That’s what I love about you, Brenda. Your optimism. And I would just love to have someone like you influencing my son.”

“All right, you’ve buttered me up,” Brenda said, jumping up and doing a little jig. “I’ll quit my job tonight! We can tell the kids today when they get home.”

“Yahoo!” They both turned and saw that Joseph had been listening from the side of the house, and he was jumping up and down in celebration. “Now things can get back to normal again!”

“Honey,” Cathy said with a laugh, “with one of my kids around,
normal
is the last thing it will be.”