Time for Grace (7 page)

“Sarah, are you all right?” Joy Peterson asked.

Nodding, Sarah looked up and wiped her cheeks of tears of frustration she hadn’t even realized she’d shed.

“I’m just realizing I don’t know as much about my husband as I thought. How do I tell Grace that? Scott and I talked all the time but about faith and our work. About world affairs and politics. Books and movies…”

“You talked about the things you cared about as adults?”

Sarah nodded.

“Then you knew him. I knew all about my husband’s childhood. His brother and mine were best friends but we fought all the time as kids. Then when I was in the last year of high school we stopped fighting and fell in love but we were still too young. Who we were and what we wanted from life at the time forced us apart. We barely spoke for years until we were forced back together by an Angel Flight and a plane crash on the return trip. That’s when we really got to know each other enough to accept each other for who we’d become.”

What Joy said about having known the man Scott had become was true enough but it was the here and now that had really grabbed Sarah’s attention. “You’re married? You’re not dating Kip? I’m not cutting in to your alone time?”

Joy Peterson’s pretty blue eyes widened and she sputtered out a laugh. “You thought Kip and I…? Oh, no. We’re just friends and business partners.” Then she frowned. “Did he lead you to believe we were more?”

Sarah thought back. Had he? “I don’t think so. I never really talked to him about the exact arrangements for today. He wasn’t even the one who called me to confirm the time we’d leave. It was someone from his office but she said this was an Angel Flight. When he volunteered for today, he didn’t mention that he was bringing someone with him. But then there you were. And you both seemed so close. I just thought…” She shook her head and shrugged. “Well, never mind what I thought. I was obviously wrong.”

“Kip let someone else call you about today? And she said it was an Angel Flight?”

Sarah felt the blood drain from her head. “Was she wrong? Do I owe you for the plane. I don’t know how I’ll ever pay—”

“Hey, calm down. Of course you don’t owe us. Angel Flight
is
helping with gas costs. But Kip offered the plane and our time to help
you,
not some anonymous patient’s mother. In fact, I came down to see if you need help with your storage closet.”

Relieved, Sarah took a deep breath and pushed a few hairs off her face that had come loose of her ponytail. “No. I’m nearly done. I have another couple of boxes to go through. The rest are wedding presents and Christmas decorations from Scott’s family. I already know I want to bring them if it’s at all possible. I’d rather leave furniture than those. I want Grace to have the kind of family Christmas I never did.”

“There’ll be plenty of room,” Joy assured her then sort of clapped her hands. “Okay, then. I left Kip packing pots and pans. Any more empty boxes down here we can use?”

Sarah pointed to a pile of boxes. “Those need to be emptied in the paper recycling container, then we can use them. It’s what looks like all of Scott’s notebooks from school.” She smiled. “Like from eighth grade on. I’m finding my husband was a bit of a pack rat.” She picked up the partial rubber ball and a huge dart with a metal tip. “Got any ideas?”

Joy’s eyes widened and she grabbed the rubber ball. “Half ball! He must have been raised in Philly.”

“I think he was born there but moved to the suburbs when he was in junior high. His junior high yearbooks are from different school systems. What on earth is half ball?”

“A game passed down from father to son.” Joy looked around the basement. “Or in my case, father to son and daughter. Daddy didn’t figure out I was a girl till the night of my prom. Eureka!” she said over her shoulder as she rushed across the basement to a mop standing in the corner. She unscrewed it from the mop head and turned toward Sarah. With the thin mop handle resting on her shoulder like a batter in a baseball game, she said, “Pitch it to me.”

Sarah stared then blinked. “Like with baseball? I warn you I’m not much of a pitcher.” But she tossed it as ordered and Joy swung, connecting with the tumbling half ball. Sarah caught it easily as it sailed at her.

“It didn’t go very far,” she said still perplexed. “Why not use the whole ball?”

Joy walked toward her with the loose-hipped grace of an athlete. “
Because
it didn’t go far. It wouldn’t break a neighbor’s window, and it’s harder to roof it, too. It’s city-street baseball. Here,” she said and handed Sarah the mop handle and pushed her toward the other wall. “You try to hit it.”

Sarah walked to where Joy had stood. “I told you I was never into baseball.” But gamely she swung anyway. The pole and rubber connected with a now familiar
twap
but it veered left. The half ball tumbled through the air and smacked right into Kip’s forehead as he stepped into the basement.

She stared in horror as he blinked and rubbed his forehead. Then he looked at his feet and grinned. “Half ball?” He stooped to pick it up. “I haven’t seen one of these in years.”

“Sarah was just learning a little about her husband,” Joy explained. “We’ll see you upstairs. Kip can help me dump all of the paper into the recycling container.” After picking up two of the boxes and resting them on her hip, Joy stopped. “You better now?”

Sarah nodded and glanced down at the half ball. “Thanks. I think I’ll keep this after all.”

“Sure you will. You’re a natural. You can teach Grace one day with her daddy’s ball. No reason a girl can’t play with her daddy’s toys. But I’d lose the lawn darts. They’ve been taken off the market for kids. Real dangerous.”

She looked at the unsafe-looking things again and pitched them into the trash can Kip had brought down with him. Then she picked up the half ball and tossed it into the keep box. Scott must have liked playing the game his father had taught him or he’d never have saved the ball. It was something she could share with Grace about her father.

Now, more than ever, she realized she hadn’t known her husband well enough to marry him. But at least by doing what Scott had begged her to do she’d given him Grace to continue his family line. She only wished she didn’t have to raise his child alone without the family they’d both longed for.

“I
want to talk to you,” Joy told Kip as she followed him up the stairs and out to the recycling bin.

Kip dumped in the contents of one box and tossed it aside. “What about?” he asked and turned toward his partner.

“Why am I here?” she demanded and shoved the box she held into his belly, driving the air out of his lungs. At six feet, Joy was bigger than a lot of the men he knew. And twice as strong as they were, too. She stared at him, silently demanding an answer. No one could stare you down like Joy Lovell Peterson. “Was my presence supposed to make her think we’re dating?”

“You’re married!”

“But she didn’t know that. The poor girl thought she was cutting in on our private time.”

He
had
wanted to create a barrier to the attraction he and Sarah felt for each other. But he’d also wanted the person he brought to be a woman—but not so Sarah would mistake that woman as his girlfriend.

“I’m still waiting,” Joy said as she tossed the contents of her last box in the recycle bin.

Honestly, did he wear a sign that said,
I’m up to something!
He tried to quickly find an honest answer that wouldn’t expose the attraction between Sarah and him as mutual. Joy was an even more deadly matchmaker than his sister Miriam. “I wanted you here so I wouldn’t be alone with her. I think she’s very lonely and I look unattached. I also knew today would be hard for her. I didn’t want to be the one to comfort her because I wouldn’t want her to read something into my feelings for her that can never happen. She’s a nice lady but I’m not interested in an instant family or a wife. But I still wanted someone here for her emotionally.” Which he quickly assured himself was all completely true.

But Joy narrowed those laser blue eyes of hers and continued to stare at him. “Are you saying she’s throwing herself at you?”

“No! Sarah would never. She isn’t that kind of woman!”

Joy’s grin told him he’d fallen into her trap. “And you aren’t the least little bit attracted to her?”

Sometimes being a Christian was inconvenient. He couldn’t lie. He raked a hand through his hair. “No. I’m plenty attracted,” he admitted. “But since I don’t want to get married, I don’t intend to do anything about it. Letting her think there might be a chance that I’ll change my mind would be cruel.”

“Kip, you comforted me when Uncle George died. Friends care about each other. You obviously care what happens to her more than just a little.”

“But you and I were never attracted to each other. I’m not sure Sarah and I can be
just
friends. But she’s lonely and all alone but for her parents who, according to what she told Miriam, worry more about the children at their mission than they do, or ever have, about their own daughter. I’m walking a fine line trying to help without encouraging her feelings. That’s all I was trying to do by asking you along.”

“Well, you sure accomplished something else on another front altogether. When I let slip that this wasn’t a flight arranged by Angel Flight, she about fainted, thinking she should pay for the charter.”

Kip frowned. He’d never meant to worry Sarah. But he hadn’t wanted to talk to her after the way he’d run from her classroom so he’d decided to have Emily, his secretary, confirm the flight. “I wanted her to know that she didn’t owe me anything. I thought it would be easier for her to think this help today had come from the organization and not just the two of us.” He put his hand up to stop Joy’s rebuttal. “I know I called them on this. But they did help with the fuel costs. So I had Emily call to simply confirm the flight with Sarah and I did make sure she put on her Angel Flight hat for the call.”

Joy put her hands on her hips. “Kip, I don’t know why you think the Lord has planned a single life for you but I think you’re wrong. I don’t believe that story that you’ve had it with women and kids for one second. If you felt that way you wouldn’t be a coach, be involved in Angel Flight or worry about Sarah and how she’s going to manage.”

Kip shrugged and shot her a look that he knew said,
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Joy all but growled then stalked back to the apartment. He wasn’t dumb enough to believe that was the end of the conversation but there was nothing he could do about that now.

It didn’t take long to load the truck after that. Unloading it took even less time because they could pull it right up to the cargo ramp. Everything had worked out just the way he’d planned so far.

Once they got to the airport back home, his four brothers-in-law had promised to be there to pack everything into their pickups and then to help heft it all up the narrow wooden stairs to the garage apartment. Then he’d be home free. Sarah would have a great start on a new life and she’d be on her own to build that life.

Without him in it.

At least that was the plan even though it left him feeling oddly empty and sad. He climbed aboard the Convair and pulled the door shut behind him. Joy was there to lock it but then he noticed the cot they always kept onboard for emergencies in case weather grounded the plane overnight in an out-of-the-way place.

Kip frowned. “What’s up with the cot?”

“I’m exhausted. You don’t really need me and I’m here if you do. So after takeoff, I intend to catch some Z’s. I settled Sarah in the copilot seat. Have a nice flight.”

He knew it wasn’t over. “You are a rat. You know that?”

Joy grinned. “And you’re smitten. You just don’t want to admit it. I refuse to help you deny what’s right there in front of you.” She gave him a jaunty salute and flopped down in her seat. “Now go be a good little fly boy and get us home.”

Kip took a breath and trudged up to the cockpit. Sarah sat looking down at the tarmac, obviously terrified. And his heart melted. “Hey,” he said, touching her shoulder. The sharp edge of longing for her pierced his heart once again. He ignored it and slid into his seat. “I thought you were only afraid of small planes.”

“This is no 747, Kip. But I’m fine about the flight. Don’t mind me. I just got a call on my cell phone from Doctor Prentice. He scheduled Grace’s surgery. For Monday. It’s why we went to Philadelphia, but I’m suddenly panicking. What if it goes all wrong? What if I wasn’t supposed to move?”

“It’ll be fine. The whole church will be praying and we have some powerful prayer warriors.” He was tempted to reach over and give her hand a squeeze but he resisted after that jolt he got when he touched her shoulder. The consequences were too high. “I know the Lord has His hand on Grace,” he went on instead and busied himself with the controls. “How else would she have survived so long?”

“I wish I could believe that,” she said quietly.

Kip looked at her and saw doubt shadowing her dark eyes. Rather than leap to automatic reassurances, he set about finishing his checklist then got them underway.

When he had the flight well under control, he said a quick, fervent prayer for wisdom and the right words.

“Did you really mean that? That you don’t think the Lord’s hand is on her? She’s alive against all the odds. Surely that tells you He’s looking out for her.”

“Then why was she born so early in the first place? Why couldn’t God,
just this once,
have looked at how much I needed her and have made it happen the right way for a change.”

“You’re talking about your husband’s death.”

She huffed out an impatient breath. “I’m talking about my whole life!” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Do you know I can hardly remember a birthday spent with my parents? I’ve spent most of my life feeling like a yo-yo. They’d come and pick me up at a school, then their church would ask them to go somewhere else and they’d find another school to stick me in. Not the one I’d been in but a new one. A new experience, they’d call it. What I called it was more kids who I didn’t know and never would. A year would go by and it would happen all over again. It always felt like as soon as I’d really start to fit in, they’d show up and take me with them. I’d get all excited to be with them but it never lasted. Never. I’ve spent three Christmases with them since I was seven but those were in countries where we couldn’t openly celebrate the day.

“They never once saw me graduate from any level of schooling. I begged them to fly home for my wedding. Scott even offered to pay for their plane fare. They said they couldn’t possibly see that kind of waste of money for something so foolish. They wanted him to donate the money for the fare to their mission. The point was having them at my wedding, not to gain more money for their flock. I don’t even know what he said to them but the dining set arrived from a catalog company a few days before they notified me he’d been killed. I didn’t want a gift. I wanted
them.
”

She sniffled. “They didn’t come for Scott’s funeral, either. Or when Grace was born so early and tiny. Why would a loving God make me grow up on my own like that? Why did he abandon me from the moment I was conceived? Why did my parents abandon me all my life when I’ve always tried to honor Him and them?”

Kip found his mind was blank. He had no answer. “I don’t know,” he was forced to admit. “I can see why you feel that way but I just don’t have an answer. Maybe you should talk this out with Jim Dillon.

“I can only tell you what I believe and that is that everything in our lives happens for a reason. We just rarely see it while we’re in the circumstance. But the Father can use bad things for good and He does it all the time. I really believe that.”

Sarah sighed. “I used to believe it too. Maybe because of the way I grew up I was ready to take charge of my life when I lost Scott. But what good can come from him dying before he ever even knew about Grace? And what good can come of Grace’s suffering? What good could either of those things ever bring?”

He sighed. “I wish I knew,” he said and shook his head.

“But I don’t. One day, though, I have a feeling you’ll understand why Scott died so young and why Grace was born so early. It’ll all make sense to you then, and it’ll feel like the sun coming out after a long severe storm. Talk to Jim, Sarah. Don’t let bitterness keep you from the Lord’s peace,” he advised and sent up a quick prayer.

He prayed that God would send someone into Sarah’s life to help her move forward and stop looking backward at what might have been.

And this time,
he begged,
please, make it someone other than me!