Time for Grace (9 page)

“And Amen!” Leslie added with the kind of enthusiasm only a believer could have over a prayer.

Kip looked up at Sarah and saw a little more confidence creep into her soft dark eyes. He truly believed Grace would prosper and grow. He didn’t know why he believed it so strongly when to all indications she shouldn’t even be alive. But he did.

Sarah reluctantly handed Grace into the waiting hands of her nurse. Kip didn’t think he’d ever get over the sight of her sitting for a long moment in that old rocking chair, her arms still extended as the nurse turned and walked away with Grace. The longing and fear in Sarah’s eyes nearly broke his heart.

In many ways, he was glad Miriam had forced him to do what he’d wanted to do anyway. But it was a worry to him just how much he’d wanted to be there for Sarah. She meant too much to him and after today he’d have to find more ways to steer clear of her.

It seemed like it was the only way to handle the problem. He couldn’t be sure though because at the ripe old age of thirty-two he’d never before encountered a woman who made him feel the way Sarah did. Remaining uninvolved had never been a challenge before.

But then one day he’d found Sarah staring at his plane in sheer terror and determination. Until that moment no woman had ever caused even a ripple of anxiety in his heart over the thought of her sharing her life with another man. He felt like an idiot praying for the thing he dreaded most—that a man to love them would walk into Sarah and Grace’s lives.

There was no one in the green room when they got there except a volunteer who offered them coffee and donuts. Sarah shook her head and went to perch on the wide sill of a window that looked out over the university campus. A couple came in a few minutes later chatting as if they hadn’t a care in the world. It was a little annoying but Sarah didn’t seem to notice. She just stared out across the campus as if engrossed. An hour later Sarah hadn’t moved.

Then the phone rang and she jolted to her feet and pivoted toward the elderly volunteer at the desk. Kip knew it was too soon to be news about Grace. Leslie had said it might be at least two hours or maybe even longer before they heard anything. The volunteer called the other couple’s name. They stood, listened to a report on the minor surgery their child had had, then they sailed out.

Sarah watched them leave, then she paced to the hall and back to the window. She might have paced for the next hour but he turned a page in the magazine he’d been thumbing through and found an article on an Internet company that sold clothes appropriate for preemies and what they called micro preemies who were living their first months in a NICU. Micro sounded like a perfect description of Grace.

“Hey, Sarah, look at this article.”

“What’s it about?” she asked and sat in the chair next to him. Her voice had held a desperate edge as if she were as eager for a distraction as he was to provide one.

“It’s about a grandmother who started a company after her daughter had a baby who was just a little bigger than Grace was. They make clothes designed for the tender skin of preemies in a lot of different prints and colors. There are long and short-sleeve T-shirts and something called a body tee that covers their diaper too. And they used her grandson’s measurements as he grew to work out better sizing than other manufacturers have.”

Sarah’s eyes lit up. “You mean I could buy her something to wear?” she asked and held her hands out for the magazine.

“Looks like,” he said and handed it to her, silently thanking God for providing the perfect distraction.

Time moved forward after that but as hour two moved into three they were both wired. Sarah had devoured several parenting magazines but abandoned reading for pacing again. He turned and bumped into her. Only then did he realize he’d been pacing for a few minutes himself.

“What’s taking so long?” she demanded, her eyes full of frustration and fear.

He settled his hands on her shoulders. “Take a deep breath. Leslie only said how long the surgery itself would take. We don’t know if Prentice started at six or not. Prep and anesthesia may have taken longer than we think.” He forced a smile. “He could have had a flat tire on the expressway.”

“If we don’t hear something soon I’ll go stark raving—”

Sarah didn’t finish her thought because the phone on the volunteer’s desk rang. They both turned as one, hanging on every nod, every syllable the woman uttered.

“Fine. I’ll tell them,” she said and hung up.

“You can relax, you two. Doctor Prentice will be down to talk to you in a little while. Your baby came through the surgery just fine.” She stood. “I’ll be back.”

Kip looked back at Sarah and she looked up at him, a broad, relieved smile tipping the corners of her exquisite lips. He didn’t know what made him lean down and capture those lips with his own. He was sure he meant it as a celebration but what flared between them was more—and dangerous. Still holding her shoulders, Kip stepped back and all but thrust her away.

He felt singed. Branded. And terrified.

They were connected. Not just through Grace. But through feelings he very much feared he had no control over. And worse, at that moment, the connection felt unbreakable.

Suddenly and without warning Kip understood and found he shared some of Sarah’s doubts about the way God operated in the lives of His people.

Why now?

Why, when he had less than a decade left to live, would he suddenly be shown heaven on earth and know he had to find a way to push it forever out of reach?

S
arah stood staring up at Kip, her head in a whirl, taken from the heights to the depths in seconds. He’d kissed her. She’d thought in celebration but in a nanosecond her mind and senses had filled with feelings that were all about him and not about Grace at all. The strength of the longing she’d felt was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. She felt as if a flame had just sparked to life in a part of her she hadn’t even known existed. It was a part of her that Scott had never come close to touching.

And then just as she’d recovered from the shock of the effect of his warm lips on hers and his strong arms holding her so close, Kip had suddenly pushed her away as if she were poison. And the look in his eyes said he saw her as exactly that.

She looked away and sank into the chair next to her purse, tears burning at the back of her eyes. It was the same as that day in her art room. Once again Kip apparently wanted to be anywhere but near her. Had she misunderstood his meaning and responded in a way he hadn’t expected or wanted?

No matter.

Right then she wanted him gone as much as he apparently wanted to go. Sarah felt a blush start to heat her face and cast about on the floor next to her for her purse. She grabbed it, and started looking through it, searching for something—anything to divert attention from what had just happened between them. Meanwhile Kip turned away and walked to the windows.

Blessedly her hand fell on her pack of tissues. “Thanks again for waiting with me,” she managed to choke out as she made a production of sniffling and dabbing at tears. Rather than being from relief for Grace’s safe deliverance through surgery, they were tears of heartache. But she had to make him think it was only Grace on her mind. Her pride would consider nothing else.

Because, against all odds, she’d begun to fall in love with the knight who’d flown to her rescue time and time again. It hadn’t happened because of the rescues, though, but because of the genuinely kind, fascinating and attractive man that Kip had turned out to be. Again that small piece of her conversation during her interview with Jim came to mind. When she looked at Kip she felt none of the doubts about her feelings that had assailed her with Scott. The only doubt rested in his feelings for her.

“Waiting with you was no problem, Sarah,” Kip assured her. “Look, I’m sorry if I just gave you the wrong idea.”

Which meant her reaction to his kissing her
was
the problem. More exactly her
feelings
were the problem. No shock there at least. As she forced herself to look up at him, wearing a wry smile she’d pasted on her still tingling lips, Sarah hoped those drama classes in boarding school had taught her something.

“What wrong idea?” she tried to feign confusion, then said, “Goodness, Kip. Do you mean because you kissed me? I’ve been married. I’m not about to blow one little kiss out of proportion. I’m not some starry-eyed child.”

He nodded. “Good. That’s good. I really like you, Sarah, but I know you aren’t the type of woman interested in anything temporary. You have permanent written all over you.”

“Thank you for that, I think,” she said, not sure if to Kip that was a good thing or not. “I know from your sister you aren’t interested in marriage but I hadn’t thought you were the kind of man who sought out the fringe benefits of it without the commitment.”

Kip had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I don’t. That’s why I’m trying to warn you. I don’t want to see you hurt. I’m really only a friendship kind of guy. I like my freedom but I love my Lord. So…”

“I get it. Okay. Just friends. So, thanks for waiting with me and distracting me but I told both you and Miriam that I could have done this on my own. I’m very capable when I need to be.”

“According to what you said on Saturday, you’ve always
needed
to be. And you didn’t sound thrilled about it. Miriam was right. You shouldn’t have had to wait alone.”

“And thanks to you I didn’t. Thank you for your company. Now you can go off to work with a clear conscience. I’m staying for the rest of the day, though. So you may as well leave.”

“You’re sure?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. Grace and I will muddle along just fine by ourselves.”

Kip nodded. “All right then.” He backed away toward the hall. “Give Grace a kiss for me.” Now he stood uncertainly in the doorway. His eyes looked tortured. Clearly he was still worried that he’d hurt her feelings. “And…I’m glad it turned out okay for her. For you…uh…both,” he stammered, then he was gone. Running again just as he had before.

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief even as she mopped up more tears. She felt like a fool. A lonely fool who’d fallen for the first guy who was nice to her.

To Sarah it seemed that God was paying her back for promising to love and honor someone when she apparently hadn’t had a clue what real love felt like. She’d liked Scott a lot. Had even loved him in some ways. But now she was sure she hadn’t been
in
love with him. She’d felt only half for Scott what she did already for Kip.

Wasn’t losing Scott before even getting a chance to prove herself worthy of his love enough punishment? Did God have to be so cruel as to put Kip, an even more spectacular man, in her life only to yank him away just when she’d realized she loved him?

It sounded just like the God her last pastor had preached about and even more like what she’d heard in various schools she’d attended over the years. It didn’t sound like Pastor Dillon’s version of God, though. Or Kip’s. But they had to be wrong because that was exactly what had happened. The door to having a real full family life and belonging to someone special had once again slammed shut in her face.

From that moment on, Sarah swore Grace’s happiness would be her focus.

Her only focus.

Grace was all Sarah would ever let herself care about. They would be enough family for each other.

The phone woke Sarah from a sound sleep in the middle of the night between Thursday and Friday a week and a half later. She was in an exhausted stupor because Grace had been uncharacteristically fussy the night before so Sarah had stayed at the hospital till minutes before the last train pulled out of 30th Street Station around one in the morning.

The utter darkness of the moonless night disoriented her further. She groped around on the nightstand, reaching for the clanging instrument of her torture.

“Hello,” she rasped when she got the receiver to her ear.

“Mrs. Bates. This is Angela, Grace’s night nurse.”

Alarm spread through Sarah and shot her upright in an instant. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Grace began running a fever. There’s no reason to think she’s in immediate danger but the doctor thought you should be alerted to the change in her condition. You don’t need to rush down here—”

Not in immediate danger. But didn’t that mean there was danger on the way? And it was a change in her condition. From doing just fine to what? “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she promised as she popped to her feet, not waiting for another ridiculous suggestion that Grace didn’t need her. A baby needed her mother when she was sick. And a mother certainly needed to be with her baby at a time like that too. At least this mother did!

She picked up her alarm clock and stared at it. Three-oh-two. How was she going to get there now? She still didn’t have her car. That was days away. She hated to wait for the first train into the city. It wouldn’t get to her stop till six. She just couldn’t wait that long!

Sarah could hardly call Miriam and risk waking all five of her children. Besides, Gary was out of town which meant Miriam couldn’t drive her unless she woke her kids, dragged them out of bed and to the car for the long ride into the city. And she’d need the car to get them all to Tabernacle Christian in the morning which meant Sarah couldn’t just borrow it. Miriam, like Kip, had done enough for her but, once again, he was the only one she could turn to.

She stalked to the phone and dialed Kip’s number before she could chicken out and change her mind. In a way, asking his help was a good thing, she told herself. They’d chatted amiably when they’d run into one another at school. He’d even stopped by her classroom to say hello and check on his nieces’ and nephews’ artwork. She’d teased him unmercifully about some of the depictions of him while loving him under the guise of friend.

But calling him for help would go even further toward convincing him she’d thought nothing of that incredible, monumental moment when he’d kissed her. His phone rang. And rang. She listened hoping he’d answer after the message machine picked up.

“You’ve reached my machine because I’m not available. You know what to do when you hear the beep. Catch you later. Bye.”

Momentarily mesmerized by the sound of his slightly baritone voice, the beep took Sarah by surprise. “Kip, um…this is Sarah. I guess you aren’t there. I needed a ride. It’s okay, though. I’ll figure something out.”

She hung up, not even sure what she’d said. Her mind had already moved on to finding a way into the city in the middle of the night. If she was in the city she’d take a cab. That was it! She’d call a cab. She hadn’t seen any in the area but there had to be a cab company. She found a listing for CCCC—Chester County Cab Company—right away.

It took an hour and frankly her entire food budget for the week but she arrived at CHOP, signed in with the guard in the lobby by four-fifteen and rushed to the NICU.

Grace had more than a slight fever by the time she arrived. Somehow even with all the precautions they took as a matter of routine, Grace had pneumonia. Sarah found herself agreeing to anything Doctor Prentice and Doctor Kelly suggested, even returning her to the respirator she’d been off since her surgery.

Minutes dragged into hours. Any ground Grace had picked up in the last week and a half, she lost. The hours slid from dawn, to morning and onto afternoon, evening then back to night. And fever still ravaged Grace’s tiny body. How much could one little baby take? Doctor Kelly had been brutally honest only minutes before. Not much more.

They all insisted Sarah go to the cafeteria for meals to keep up her strength. She obeyed by rote. Bought food because she had to and ate it but she never did remember what it was she’d eaten when she got back upstairs.

As she rushed down the hall after an equally forgettable dinner, Sarah heard her name called from behind her just as she reached the NICU.

She stopped and turned toward the frantic voice. “Miriam, what on earth are you doing here? Did Kip tell you about Grace?”

“Kip? I haven’t talked to him. I’ve been calling him on and off all day to see if he knew what had happened to you. We never connected. Honestly this medical privacy stuff is more trouble than it’s worth. They wouldn’t tell me a thing. Not even if you were here or not. Sarah, no one knew where you were. You didn’t call in to school or get a sub for your classes.”

Sarah felt as if her brain had just overloaded. She sank down on a hall bench and blinked away tears that threatened her precarious composure—or was all her composure just plain exhausted numbness? She had no idea.

“Then Gary’s car wouldn’t start at the airport,” Miriam went on, “let’s just say it was a crazy day or I’d have been here sooner.”

“Am I fired?” Sarah asked, noting the hollow sound of her own voice. At that point she didn’t think she cared. Living there, working there, fixing up the apartment had all been about Grace and providing her the best life possible. Now hope seemed to be dwindling that Grace would survive the coming night.

Miriam’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth, closed it then shook her head. “Fired? Of course not. We all figured something had gone wrong with Grace. We were all just frantic to know what. What’s going on, honey?”

“She has pneumonia,” she said, her voice cracking.

“I’m so scared.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“They called around three in the morning. I couldn’t wake you and the kids. Kip didn’t answer at his place but I calmed down after I left him a message. I realized there must be a cab company so I found one in the phone book. They came and got me and I’ve been here since.”

“You called Kip and he never called us or came here to make sure you were all right? I’ll kill him!”

In her entire life Sarah didn’t remember ever losing her temper but anger surged through her. “I’d rather you just stay out of it! He doesn’t care about me other than as a charity case. At best I’m a buddy. And I can’t tell you how
flattering
that is. The poor man must be sick to death of having you push me and my problems on him when he wants nothing to do with me. Losing Scott was bad enough. I still may lose Grace and now I’ve lost Kip when I never really had a chance with him. News flash! He’s
not
interested in me.”

Miriam’s face flamed with obvious chagrin. “Oh, Sarah. I’m so terribly sorry.” She reached out and put her hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “I-I never meant to hurt you. I’ve been selfish, only thinking of Kip.”

Sarah took a deep breath and got hold of the temper she hadn’t even known she had. But, right then, she really didn’t want Miriam’s comfort. She stood and walked a few steps away before turning back. “I’m sorry I shouted at you but, Miriam, Kip is a big boy. He doesn’t need you trying to run his life. Maybe
Kip
knows what
Kip
needs and wants. At any rate, whatever that is, I can tell you, it isn’t me.”