Time for Grace (6 page)

K
ip pulled his car into a spot next to the playground at the school end of the church property and parked. He had his first basketball practice of the season scheduled for after school. As he got out of his car, the final bell rang and he looked across the lot. Doors in the high school wing opened moments later and the kids came pouring out. Sarah Bates, her chestnut hair blowing in the stiff breeze, pushed open a double set of doors and led a group of small children to the line of school buses waiting to take them home.

It was the first time he’d seen her since she left to talk to Jim after Sunday services the week before. He’d been out of town on a long charter last Sunday so he hadn’t seen her at church either. Early last week his friend and pastor had let slip that, when he’d told her the job was hers, she’d begun to cry from sheer relief. Jim had also mentioned that the job might be a permanent one as long as all her references checked out.

Sarah looked at home there among children on that first full day she’d been teaching. He wondered how she’d done. And how little Grace was faring at CHOP.

Kip glanced at his watch. He had a good fifteen minutes before the team was supposed to meet in the gym. He sauntered toward her and arrived as the last child in her charge boarded the bus.

Sarah turned, and a wide smile brightened her face, making her look younger and less burdened. He felt good about that. She deserved any happiness she found after all she’d been through.

“So how was the first day?” he called out to her.

“Wonderful,” she said when he reached her side. “I came in for the morning yesterday so I could visit all the classes and meet all of the students. And I observed Joanne in some classes. In the afternoon after I left, she had the classes make welcome cards for me. I’m going to hang them up. I have several from your nieces and nephews. Do you want to see them?”

“Sure,” he said and fell into step next to her. “I can even help you for a few minutes. It feels good to be back teaching, then?” he asked her as he pulled open the door to the school and held it for her.

“It feels wonderful to be back teaching. I’d forgotten how much I like it. And since I’ll be working K through twelve I’m going to be wonderfully busy.”

“Then you don’t resent having to work instead of being with Grace?”

She tilted her head in thought and stopped just outside her classroom. “Resent it? No. Scott thought I should stay home when we had children, but I hadn’t been sure about that. I really love working with talented kids in the upper grades and trying to uncover talent in the younger ones. Getting them to express their emotions on paper with whatever medium they choose is one of the greatest rewards. Now, I don’t have to make a choice between home and school. This is just the way it is.”

“That’s good then. I thought because you always spent so much time with Grace that you’d be missing her a lot.”

“I do miss her but we’ll have plenty of time together in the afternoons and the evenings. It’s more of a relief than you can imagine having her at Children’s Hospital. I can finally trust the people taking care of her. I’m even sleeping better,” she admitted.

“Then you think you’ll stay in the area?”

“Definitely. Now I just have to figure out how to move some of my things here.”

“How much do you have?”

“A small dining room set my parents ordered for us as a wedding gift, some keepsakes, my clothes, and a few things I’d bought for Grace that she won’t wear for months and months. There are a bunch of household items that I’d rather not have to replace too. One of the teachers I worked with asked if I wanted to sublet my apartment to her and sell her whatever furniture I couldn’t afford to ship. We already got permission for the sublet. Except for a bed I’ve already bought, I’ll do without what I sell to her and replace it a little at a time or from a thrift shop,” she explained as she led the way into the school’s large art room. It was set up in three sections.

Kip looked around and chuckled at the room. It reminded him of his youngest niece’s favorite fairy tale. “This looks like the three bears designed it. Small, medium and large.”

Sarah laughed, a musical sound he could probably listen to all day and not grow tired of. “K through twelve,” she said, sweeping her hand across the wide room. “It’s like a one-room schoolhouse and I’m used to that. I like the interaction between the ages. The little ones really bring out the best in the older ones.”

He nodded, seeing her point. “So is the apartment working out okay, even though it’s so far from the hospital?”

She nodded. “I’m trying to treat this time the way I would if Grace was in day care. Now that my workday is over here, I’ll go into the city to see her instead of picking her up at day care to go home. I come home about seven-thirty or eight. That’s about the time she’d probably go to bed anyway. So really, if she were a full-term baby, all I’d be missing is getting her up and ready for the day and a middle-of-the-night feeding.” She shrugged. “Those would soon be a thing of the past anyway.”

He watched her sort through a pile of pages and marveled at her ability to adapt and adjust to each curve life sent her way. “You’re going to be a great mother. You remind me of my mom.” She’d been the same way after his father died, unlike Aunt Emily who couldn’t have survived without his mother’s help and now not without her grown daughters. He smiled, thinking of his capable mother. “Grace is a lucky little girl.”

Sarah smiled sweetly and looked up. “Thanks, Kip.”

“I wondered if you’d like me to fly you to West Virginia to pick up your things. I’m free this weekend and I’m nearly sure the cargo plane is, too.” Before she could protest he held up his hand. “We usually fly patients round trip so, in a way, I owe you a flight.”

“Good heavens, Kip, you don’t owe me a thing. Your thoughtfulness and generosity have helped change my life and Grace’s. I already don’t know how we’ll ever thank you.”

He didn’t want her thanks. He just wanted to know she was on the road to a good life with as little hardship as possible. Then he’d be able to go on with his own life, content that she and little Grace were going to be okay on their own. He chalked his fascination with Sarah up to worry for a nice woman who’d had one too many bad breaks. That was what it had to be.

“Thanks aren’t necessary,” he told her, not for the first time. “Come on, Sarah, you know you don’t want to be gone a long time. This way you won’t be out of town more than the better part of the day. And think of the expense of shipping all that. Unless you plan to drive a rental truck, there’s no cheap solution.”

Sarah smirked. “As a matter of a fact, that
was
my plan. I learned to drive a truck while I was teaching in Doctal. If I could get around in that old truck, I can drive anything.”

Kip’s estimation of her went up another notch but the idea of her on the road from West Virginia to Pennsylvania all alone just didn’t sit well. “What if something went wrong with the truck?”

She shrugged, “I’d call a tow truck if I couldn’t fix it.”

“Doctal again?”

“It was a
cranky
old truck.”

“But anything could happen. Everyone isn’t trustworthy and you’d be all alone on the interstates.”

She seemed to consider that but there was still merriment in her dark eyes. “I learned to fence in boarding school. I was quite good. Suppose I keep my épée in the cab with me.”

He couldn’t help chuckling. She was different from any woman he’d ever met. “Not a bad plan,” he conceded with a grin, “but all teasing aside, you have to admit there’s no way you can get there and back without being gone a whole weekend if not longer.”

She looked uncertain but then she nodded. “You’re right. I really don’t want to leave Grace for that long right now and I can’t keep wearing your sister’s clothes. One of the older girls even remarked that Mrs. Castor has a skirt just like the one I’m wearing. I’d have to make sure my friend and the building’s rental agent would be able to meet me at the apartment so I can turn over the key and she can sign the lease. She’s even agreed to drive Scott’s car out during the Christmas holidays. She’s a history teacher and she’s always wanted to see Philadelphia. It would make the move here so much easier. I know you don’t want my thanks but I am grateful.”

He let out a purposely dramatic sigh. “Fine, be grateful. Just agree. I’ll pick you up at seven Saturday unless your friend can’t arrange the time.”

Sarah nodded. “So, are you ready to help with the artwork of all these budding geniuses?” she asked and handed him a fistfull of pushpins.

It was all so uncomplicated until their hands touched. Kip sucked a shocked breath when what felt like a bolt of electricity shot through him.

This isn’t good,
he thought.

And worse was the surprised gasp from Sarah that told him she’d felt the spark of attraction, too.

Really not good,
he added.

Sarah looked away, her hands trembling as she reached for the pile of pictures on her desk. She glanced back up at him, a blush coloring her cheeks. “I…um…I thought I’d hang them sort of mixed up, paying no attention to the age of the artist.”

“Okay, let’s get this done so you can go see Grace and I can get to the gym for B-ball practice,” he grumbled, trying to get hold of feelings he wasn’t used to dealing with.

Sarah eyes widened. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about why you were here in the middle of the day. You must be one of the busiest people I know and here I am wasting your time.”

He glanced at his watch. “Yeah, I guess I’d really better go. You never know what teenagers will get into if you aren’t watching them.”

Sarah busied herself with the pictures but sounded confused and unsure of herself. “I’m sure that’s true. You’re welcome to stop by some other afternoon and see your nieces’ and nephews’ artwork. One of them is very talented.”

“Right,” he said backing out of the room. The second he cleared the door he turned toward the gym and rushed away. It wasn’t until he was nearly to the gym doors that he realized he was still holding the pushpins that had started all the trouble.

Kip felt like a fool for the way he’d actually run away. Sarah probably thought he’d slipped a cog! He may have even hurt her feelings.

But he’d had to get out of there. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. He’d realized from the first that Sarah was special and he was attracted to her. But he hadn’t been prepared for the depth of that attraction until that innocent touch turned into something so much more.

He enjoyed the company of women but rarely felt attraction to any them. All the years of lukewarm feelings had lulled him into thinking he was safe from the temptation of desire. He knew he’d better give Sarah Bates a wide berth.

Except he’d just promised to spend hours in a plane with her and help her gather her things from her apartment.

No, not good at all.

E
arly Saturday morning Sarah heard a quiet knock on her door. She knew it had to be Kip. “Coming,” she shouted and finished tying the laces of her running shoes. “Calm down,” she ordered her pounding pulse. She wished she’d never agreed to this. How was she going to survive hours sitting next to him in a cockpit?

Sarah had no doubt that she’d made a fool of herself with him the other day. And ever since she’d been trying to tell herself that the attraction she’d felt was an aberration. No one felt an electric charge when someone touched them unless it was the result of plain old static electricity.

Unfortunately for that theory, it also had happened the first day she’d met him. It was also unfortunate that there was no carpeting in the art room—nothing, in fact, that would produce the kind of friction to give anyone even a mild charge, much less what she’d felt.

Most unfortunate of all, she’d agreed to this trip before she’d acted like an idiot. If only he hadn’t sounded annoyed when he’d reminded her that he didn’t have all day to help her. His irritation was the worst part of the whole embarrassing episode because it told her he’d noticed her reaction to him.

And if his annoyance hadn’t made it clear enough then what he’d done Thursday made it crystal-clear. All she was to him was a charity case. He hadn’t called to confirm as he’d said he would. Instead he’d had an Agape Air secretary call her to verify today’s flight as an Angel Flight and to give her the time. Which meant this flight wasn’t even one friend doing a favor for another. It was a handout.

Sarah plastered a smile on her face and pulled her apartment door open. “I’m all set,” she told Kip and turned back to grab her purse.

“Come on then. The meter’s running,” he quipped with a kind smile and a gesture toward his big black pickup.

Kip’s teasing put her at ease—a little. Maybe he’d forgotten what happened. Or maybe it had meant so little to him it just wasn’t worth remembering.

Knock it off! This flight is about Grace, not you.

He was flying Sarah back to West Virginia so she wouldn’t be away from her precious daughter for an entire weekend or even longer in order to pack and move her things. She wouldn’t let pride or injured feelings get in the way of anything concerning her daughter’s welfare.

Kip was a nice man, even if all he felt for her was pity. Besides, he could have been very busy this week and his offer of help could have been about friendship. His easy smile certainly said so. She prayed that was the case even as it stung.

Think of him as the brother you never had,
she ordered herself as she pulled the apartment door shut behind her and locked it.

Sarah followed Kip to his extended cab pickup and stopped dead when her hand fell on the passenger side door handle. Sitting in the seat was a stunning blond woman. “I hope you don’t mind riding in back,” Kip said over the hood. “Joy’s way too tall to fit back there. They call this a four-passenger cab but only if two of them are munchkins.” He grinned. “Your height qualifies you for back-seat duty today, I’m afraid.”

The blonde opened her door then pushed open the door to the back seat that opened in the opposite direction. “Sorry. I’ve tried to sit back there but, embarrassing as it was, I got motion sick all crunched up like that.”

Sarah stood stunned and not really thinking too clearly. Then her brain kicked into gear.

Message received. He brought along his girlfriend and I’m just another passenger.

She forced a smile, desperate to hide a hurt she had no reason to feel. “Don’t be silly, I’ll be fine back here,” she said and climbed in. “The headmistress at the first boarding school I went to had a favorite saying when any of us complained about something. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ she’d say. I’m grateful for any help I can get if it helps me get settled quicker so I can take better care of Grace. Kip’s been more than generous with his time. I’ll be forever grateful.”

And message sent, and received, I hope. I know my place now.

“I told you, I don’t want your gratitude,” Kip grumbled and put the truck into gear. “Joy agreed to co-pilot. Joy Peterson, meet our passenger, Sarah Bates. Because of the cargo coming back with us, we’re flying a bigger plane today, Sarah. We can take more of your stuff that way and I thought you two should finally meet.”

So she is your girlfriend and this is your way of warning me off?
She felt herself blush. “You’re a pilot, too? Do you work with Kip?” Sarah asked the tall blonde since she could hardly voice her real question.

“Joy is my partner,” Kip put in. “Or more to the point, I’m hers since she let me buy into Agape Air.”

How much more embarrassing could this get? Kip’s blonde was also the other person who’d helped pay Sarah’s hotel fees. Thank heaven she’d sent the woman a thank-you note, she thought just as Joy turned a bit in her seat and said, “I got your note and the wonderful picture of Grace.”

“I wanted you to know that I appreciate all you did. You and Kip.”

Kip looked up and into the mirror at her and she prayed her blush had subsided. “I met Joy through the Angel Flight East organization. She and her uncle were trying to build up their airline at the time and I was freelancing. I hired on with her and her uncle. After he retired, she was looking for a partner so I bought into the company.”

“It’s nice you two have the business to share.”

“It’s been a godsend to have a partner with the same values as I have to share the responsibility with,” Joy said with a bright smile before turning front.

“I’m sure it is,” Sarah replied, troubled by her jealousy.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d been hoping Kip might turn out to be someone she could build a future with. It wasn’t that she felt she needed a man to lean on. It was simply that she needed someone to care for and to care for her other than Grace. She’d been alone for so many years. She also felt unfulfilled and lonely—as if God had intended her to be a
wife
and mother. Not just a single parent.

But that begged the question of why the Lord had let Scott die. Tired of circular thinking, Sarah put her head back and closed her eyes. Hopefully, they’d think she’d fallen asleep because of the early hour.

She found the flight less awkward than she’d thought she would because she sat in one of the passenger seats behind the cockpit separated by a bulkhead. Kip showed her the cargo space before they took off so she’d know how much of her furniture she’d be able to bring. It was clear she’d be able to bring more of her things than she’d dared to hope for. She might not have to sell much at all to her friend Mary Jane, and that would eliminate her need to replace those items in Pennsylvania.

Joy and Kip had managed to borrow a truck through their airport contacts so they all squeezed into the front seat and went right to her apartment.

In the few days between the end of their honeymoon and his departure with his Guard unit, she and Scott hadn’t wasted any of their precious time together on moving him in. They’d just stuffed the extra bedroom with all his boxes with the idea that she’d unpack after he left. She’d worked slowly incorporating his things with hers those first few weeks. Then after his death, it had been too painful to go through the rest of his things so she’d moved the rest of the boxes down to the basement. She’d left them packed alongside the empty boxes she’d already unpacked.

Sarah suggested Kip and Joy handle her linens and the kitchen cabinets. She knew she wanted all of that so they wouldn’t need her further input. And she hoped that way she wouldn’t be intruding on what private time they could find after giving up their day off to help her.

Her friend was waiting for their arrival so after they handled the lease with the superintendent, Mary Jane packed up Scott’s clothes and hauled them to her car to drop off at the Salvation Army store. Then she set about packing Sarah’s clothes and the few she’d bought for Grace.

Which left Sarah free to retire to the basement storage bin while everyone else worked on the apartment. She unlocked the padlock on the door and took a deep breath before she plunged ahead. It had to be done, she told herself, and there was no sense putting it off.

She opened the first box and found picture albums of Scott’s ancestors and some from his childhood. Without looking at them further she scrawled “Keep for Grace” on the top of the box and set it on the floor outside the enclosure.

The next box yielded a surprise cache of trophies. Soccer. Baseball. Track. Sarah stared at them. She hadn’t even known Scott played sports, though most boys did, she supposed. The irony didn’t escape her that she knew Kip had played football, basketball and baseball as a boy.

After staring at the big box she sat on the dusty floor and looked at each one, lining them up from smallest to tallest, she decided to keep the first and the most impressive for each sport. The rest, she supposed, were trash. She couldn’t donate them. Who’d want trophies with a stranger’s name on them, after all? Feeling disloyal yet trying to be practical, Sarah walked them out to the trash container and returned with the empty box.

After labeling it so she could add other mementoes to the few trophies she’d kept for Grace, Sarah moved on. But as she went through more treasures of Scott’s childhood, she realized they had no meaning without his input. Half of a rubber ball. A pile of blank postcards. A rock. The list went on.

Sarah stood staring at the things in her hands. How could she just throw out his life? How could she have married him and never bothered to learn what that life had been like? He’d lost his parents in his last two years of high school—one right after the other. Then his much older bachelor brother had moved back to the family home to raise him. He’d loved and honored him only to lose him.

His trophies had stopped with the deaths of his parents. Did that mean he’d no longer played? And why? Had his brother not cared to attend the games? That was why she’d quit the fencing team even though she’d been one of the best they had. It was just no fun if no one was there cheering for you on except the parents of other players who were really cheering for a team win.

When she came to his junior high and high school yearbooks, she slid down the wall again and began searching in earnest for a hint of her husband’s formative years.

He looked young, of course, but something was different about him in these early pictures. She touched the photos of him captured by an amateur photographer during a soccer game and on later pages running down a basketball court, his long blond hair streaming behind him or whipping across his face. Then as the high school years progressed and the sports shots continued, his hair got shorter and his smile changed, too. But at least she knew he’d continued to play.

Then she looked again and knew what had changed about him. This was the smile she’d known. She’d always believed it to be carefree. Looking back at the older photos, however, she knew she’d found the difference. The grin he’d worn in those later years hadn’t been quite as genuinely carefree.

Lonely.

Scott had been lonely, too.

That was why they’d gravitated toward each other! The other teachers had seen it quickly. “Alike as two peas in a pod,” the oldest faculty member had said. Tears Sarah hadn’t even realized she’d begun to cry fell onto her hands. Had he loved her or had he been as desperate for someone to count on as she had been? More important, since it was he who had had such little time, had
she
loved him as much as he’d deserved?

Sarah desperately hoped so. She really did. But the fact was, she hadn’t been as sure as he’d been about their swift marriage. She remembered the conversation with Jim Dillon about relationships. Which kind of couple would they have been? She shook her head. It didn’t matter now. But she had little doubt that though their marriage might have been bumpy it would have lasted because they’d both been equally committed to making it work.

But would they have been happy? Would they have been cheating each other?

Shaking her head, Sarah admitted that while she’d never know for sure, she was afraid they would have been. As it had turned out, though, she would always be grateful to Scott for insisting they marry before his deployment. Their marriage had given her a precious gift—Grace. And hopefully she’d given him a hope-filled and happy last week before he went off to war. It was the least she could do to try to make him seem real to their child when the time came.

So she started again to discover who the father of her baby had really been. The next two boxes she came to were full of old school papers and term papers. She read one entitled:
A woman’s role as wife and mother as opposed to corporate executive.
Scott’s views
had
been a cloud on their horizon, that was for sure. She hadn’t wanted to give up teaching. And now, Grace was surely not going to have her mother twenty-four-seven.

Still, it was a window into the mind of the man Grace would want to know about. She dropped it and one other term paper—a silly one comparing soccer to world politics into the keep box and put the rest aside in the boxes headed for the trash.

Taking a deep breath, she started back in on Scott’s boyhood treasures. She picked up the postcards again. Maybe they would correspond to family vacations pictured in the photo albums she’d already packed away. Those she added to the trophies and term papers. But what about the rock, the half of the rubber ball or a piece of tooled leather she’d found under the postcards? She stared at them, clutching them in her hands. How could she glean enough about the life of her child’s father from the few remnants he’d left behind? Then it struck her that these might not even be his keepsakes but his brother’s. With no family to ask, she had no way of knowing.