To Heal A Heart (Love Inspired) (14 page)

“Oh, Mitch.”

“It didn’t matter to me that I hadn’t even gotten him off the first offense.” Mitch drew back and rubbed one hand over his face, the other going to his hip. “The guy served a year and even went through counseling, but he was a drunk. I couldn’t lay it all on him. And I couldn’t blame God. What was my faith worth, ultimately, if my God is not a God of love who always has my best interests at heart? It couldn’t be just an accident, and it couldn’t be for anyone’s benefit, so someone had to be to blame, and that someone had to be
me.
”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong,” Piper said, believing it wholeheartedly.

“I know that now,” he agreed, “but at the time I had to be guilty because focusing on my guilt kept me from facing my wife’s death.”

Piper jerked as if he’d struck her. Was that what she was doing, hiding from loss, from grief, by punishing herself?

“My in-laws finally made me see how arrogant and pointless that was,” he went on. “Do you know, they went to see that drunk driver in jail to forgive him, and to make sure that he knew God was willing to forgive him, too? It took me three whole years to forgive him because first I had to forgive myself. Only then could I really grieve. Everything before that, all the tears and recriminations and self-punishment, was a waste.”

Piper closed her eyes. That couldn’t be true. That would mean all the tears she had shed thus far, all the agony and worthlessness she’d been feeling were for nothing.

“Real guilt—not always the consequences, but the guilt—can be dealt with in an instant,” Mitch was saying. “You realize what you’ve done wrong, make up your mind not to do it again, and confess it to God.” He snapped his fingers. “Over and done with. Doesn’t even exist anymore.”

She opened her eyes hopefully at that. The Bible did say, quite clearly and repeatedly, that God not only forgave but forgot confessed sin, and yet her repeated confession had brought her only deeper sorrow. She’d started to think that she was unforgivable. Was it possible that she’d confessed imaginary sins?

“False guilt,” Mitch went on, “is conjured up out of emotion, and until we’re willing and able to face those emotions and get to the real reasons for it, we’re just stuck with it.”

Piper lifted a hand to her eyes, realizing that she had been blind to the real problem all along. She hadn’t grieved. She hadn’t let go of Asia at all. Instead she’d clung tight to guilt, anything that could keep her from facing the truth, the pain of actual loss. It hit her like a fist to the solar plexus then, literally doubling her over.

Both Mitch and Gordon were at her side in an instant. Strong, loving arms enveloped her from every direction. She began to weep as she had never wept before, not even in these past painful weeks, but this time she didn’t even try to fight it. Instead she let the horrible realizations wash over her.

Asia was gone from this world. She had spent his last moments in it with him—working to keep him here, even though she hadn’t known it was him. Despite her best efforts and for reasons she couldn’t begin to understand, God had taken Asia anyway. She would never again walk into her brother’s house and see Asia’s smiling welcome, never listen to him carefully working out his concerns, never make him laugh or hear him pray or watch him grow to maturity. Never.

Not in this life.

She screamed, anguish wrenching the sound from her chest, and for some time afterward she didn’t know anything other than the comforting strength of those supporting her.

Eventually she realized she was being guided, aware only of the supportive arms about her and the strong, solid shoulder upon which she rested her head. Awash in grief, she heard voices in quick, stilted conversation but couldn’t register the words. Carefully coaxed, she moved her feet in mechanical response until she had reached her own apartment and was lowered tenderly into a sitting position.

She wept for a very long while—it seemed like days, but turned out to be only hours—cocooned in a comforting embrace and hateful loss, until at last the shell began to crumble and awful clarity began to return.

“Asia,” she gasped, at last grasping the finality of his passing.

“I know, I know,” Gordon said, appearing at eye level and taking her hands, “but he did what he set out to do, Pip.”

“Thai?” she asked shakily, her concern for him suddenly as strong as her grief for Asia.

“Is going to be fine,” Gordon assured her. “He’s had a rough time of it, but he’s getting help.”

Feeling immense relief at that, she briefly closed her eyes. “I’m glad.”

“Pip, I know he accused you that day,” Gordon said gently, rubbing the backs of her hands with his thumbs, “but he didn’t mean it. That was his own guilt talking. He desperately needed someone else to blame.”

“I know,” she whispered brokenly.

Gordon reached up to clap a hand around the nape of her neck. “Sis, please believe me, none of us ever dreamed that you took him seriously or even that you blamed yourself. I did hear what you said about having the collar removed, but I guess I thought that was just your effort to absolve Thai of his own guilt.”

Her chin began to wobble. “All I could think about was that being Asia in there and my not even knowing and not being able to save him and if I’d made the right decisions and how would I go on without…”

Gordon pulled her upper body forward into his arms. “Oh, Pip, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no. You’ve done nothing.”

“I didn’t see how alone you were in your grief, how you blamed yourself.”

“You were grieving, too.”

“I still am. Part of me always will, just as part of Thai will always feel responsible for what happened to Asia.” He set her back then, looking her squarely in the eye. “But we all understand, even Thai now, that God allowed this to happen for a reason. Thai believes that out of this must come a great purpose for his own life. He’s just waiting for God to show him what that is.”

A great purpose, Piper thought, and her gaze turned automatically to Mitch, who sat at her side. Somehow she’d known that was where he’d be, that those were his arms in which she’d found refuge, his shoulder upon which she’d leaned, cried. It seemed entirely appropriate. Mitch, after all, had found purpose in his life due to loss, and so would Thai, and so must she. So must they all.

“Maybe you could talk to him,” she suggested hopefully.

“I would be honored to,” he replied thickly, “but Thai already has an excellent counselor in his corner.”

“But you have personal experience.”

“So does Thai’s counselor, honey. It’s one of the prerequisites. Besides, I can’t tell Thai, or you, what God’s purpose is in this. No one can. But I promise you that it exists, and that it will be enough to sustain him and you, even to bring joy again eventually, though I know you can’t conceive of such a thing just now.”

“It almost seems wrong to think about joy at a time like this,” she conceded.

“Well, it isn’t,” Gordon assured her. “Just as there is a joy that surpasses understanding, so is there a joy that abides where joy cannot exist, a joy entirely of God and our personal relationships with Him.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Mitch said, “but living to God’s purpose is never easy. I’m not sure it’s even supposed to be, because if it were, we’d just become complacent about His guidance.” Mitch looked to Gordon again and added, “Your letter is a case in point. I knew there was a reason I found it, but finding anyone connected to it seemed impossible, even after the airline agreed to help. And then I let—” he glanced at Piper “—personal considerations get in the way, though maybe that was the entire point.” He shook his head. “All I know is, God works these things out, not me, and the only thing more difficult than living to God’s purpose is
not
living to God’s purpose.”

“Your letter,” Piper whispered to her brother, stricken. “I didn’t even read it.”

“That’s okay. You’ll read it when you’re ready.”

“Maybe you’d like to read it now,” Mitch suggested gently. “I’ll get it for you if you’ll tell me where it is.”

She wiped her face with both hands, a fruitless exercise, as the tears had slowed but wouldn’t yet be stemmed. Still, the gesture felt strengthening somehow. “Top right drawer of the bureau in my bedroom.”

Mitch nodded and rose, moving silently into the other room. Gordon smiled compassionately and swept a hand over her head in a familiar gesture of affection.

“I’m so sorry that I didn’t see the shape you were in sooner, Pip. You were such a rock for the rest of us, and we let you down.”

She shook her head, chest shuddering with an in-drawn breath. “I thought I’d let
you
down, and I was sure you all knew it.”

“Believe me, that was the last thing we thought. When I heard that you’d sold your car and were giving things away, I couldn’t imagine what was going on. You weren’t answering the phone or the door. By the time I realized that you were leaving town, you had completely cut yourself off from the rest of us. I was so worried, and then in the middle of a long, restless night, I felt this impulse to write down everything I wanted to say to you.”

“And here it is,” Mitch said, reappearing with the letter, including the crumpled middle page that he’d returned to her.

When she’d found the letter pinned to her front door that day, she’d simply stuck it into her handbag unopened. Then as she was searching for her boarding pass at the airport, she’d come across it again, and for a moment she’d yielded to the impulse to read it, but once she’d slit the envelope with her fingernail, removed the sheets inside and thumbed through them, panic had set in. She’d hastily tried to stuff it all back into the envelope, but she’d wound up with the pages out of order and at least one of them folded separately.

Apparently she hadn’t gotten it back in the envelope at all but had tucked it loose, with the envelope containing the other sheets, into the outside pocket of her purse. It must have slipped out as she was on her way to board the plane. She remembered now that some guy had tried to talk to her in the gangway, but it was noisy in that confined space with everyone rushing to get on the plane. It had seemed an inappropriate time to stop and chat, so she’d pretty much ignored him. She wondered now if he hadn’t been trying to tell her that she’d dropped something.

As she took the envelope into her hands once more, she knew that she hadn’t been meant to read the letter until this moment. God had other purposes in mind when He’d had Gordon write down these words all those weeks ago. Surely it was no accident that Mitch, of all people, had found the sheet of paper on the ground that day. Feeling her first moment of real strength since her nephew had passed from this world to the next, Piper unfolded the pages and began to read.

“M
y darling sister,

“I was almost twelve years old when you were born, and you were but a couple of years younger when God gave us Asia. You have both always been miracles to me, the baby sister I had stopped expecting to have, the son I only dreamed of having. You were such a little thing when Mom and Dad shipped me off to school, and I was far too manly at fifteen to admit how badly I was going to miss you. It was selfish of me to be so glad when they decided that you should have an American education, too.

“As a father myself at that point, I understood the sacrifice that Mom and Dad were making on your behalf and had made earlier for me. You don’t know how often I’ve thanked God that He did not require such sacrifice from me! I never dreamed what He would one day require or imagine that I could survive what He would ask of me. And yet, God remains all goodness, and I will not only survive but thrive. I really believe that now, and why shouldn’t I?

“What a gift Asia was and is! Just the thought of him is almost too painful to be borne just now, but our love of him will surely never subside, and will one day be, not a cross to bear, but a cherished joy. His memory will sustain us until that time, and that’s why it is so important that we not forget. The pain makes us want, in its depth and rawness, to do just that, but to forget our dear boy would be to rob us of all the delights he brought into our lives.

“Hold on to that, dear heart. Don’t let him go, for if you do, you also let me go, and how can I bear that? To lose you as well as him is more, surely, than God can allow, so I beg you, please don’t leave. I need you. We all need you. How he would hate it if he thought that his loss would tear this family apart!

“Whatever you do, please know that I love you. I don’t blame you in any way. You will always be my treasured little sister, not a baby anymore but a woman with so much to offer those who suffer! But you are suffering now. I’m so sorry that I didn’t realize how much. In my sorrow, I selfishly took of your strength. We all did. Perhaps we always have, and your leaving will force us all to rely finally and completely on God alone. If that is so, Pip, then I take back my plea. Go if you must, sweet girl, but come back to us soon. I promise we’ll appreciate you more.

“If I’ve never told you how proud I am of you, Pip, then let me do so now. We know how hard you worked to save Asia, how hard you work to save all your patients—and how often you are successful! I’m glad for Asia that you were in the room when his spirit departed his body. He deserved the best, and that’s what he, we, always got, always will have, with you.

“So if you must go, go with God, and know that the love and prayers of your family are with you, too. That includes Asia, I am sure, and how I praise God for it! And for you.

“In Him, your loving brother,”

It was signed “Gordo.”

Piper let the letter fall to her lap and reached for her brother with both arms. How could she have hidden herself away from such love? He didn’t blame her. He had always trusted, had always understood, that she had tried her best for Asia, even when she hadn’t known that it was him on that gurney.

Why had she believed she had lost everything? In reality she had lost only one member of her family and only for the remainder of her time here on earth. It was no small thing, to lose that time with a loved one, and yet the promise of reunification in heaven was real, as real as the brother she held in her arms, as real as the man who, in obedience to his personal mission and God’s will, was bringing love back into her life when she would have banished it forever.

Looking up at Mitch, she reached out one hand and tried to tell him with her grip that she understood now, or at least that she was starting to understand.

“Thank you,” she whispered brokenly. “Thank you.”

He just smiled and bowed his head. Piper and Gordon naturally followed suit, and as easily as breathing, they went together to God, for comfort, for forgiveness, for understanding and wisdom, for direction, for peace, but most important of all, in genuine gratitude.

Mitch had never felt so torn. On one hand, he knew without doubt that he had done the right thing in calling Piper’s brother and forcing the issue. Already the healing had begun. As always, it was a joy to see, but this time the joy was especially bittersweet and the satisfaction had a dark, sharp side to it. In doing what was best for Piper, he might well have dashed his own personal dreams and hopes. Telling himself that God had only his best interests at heart in this, too, helped, but not as much as it should have.

It was easiest just to keep busy, holding at bay thoughts of the future, and as usual, he found plenty to do. For one thing, the Ninevers deserved to be kept abreast of the situation, and for another, Piper desperately needed to eat. He’d been shocked to see how much weight she’d lost in less than two weeks! Thankfully, when he asked if she’d like him to get in something for dinner, she’d shot him a wan smile and suggested somewhat mischievously, “Pizza?”

He now had no doubt about her idea of comfort food, at least. Chuckling, he’d left her in the capable hands of her brother, with whom he seemed to share a natural ease, and went out to fulfill her request. He knew exactly how to manage it. After climbing the stairs, he knocked at the door of the Ninevers’ apartment. Melissa opened the door at once.

“How is she?”

“Better.”

“Thank God!”

Mitch smiled to hear the words tumble so effortlessly from her mouth. “And thank you, too.”

She waved that away with a flip of her hand. “Does she need anything?”

“Pizza.”

Both Scott, who sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, and Melissa seemed momentarily taken aback, but then they began to smile. When Melissa had hit upon the pizza invitation, she’d insisted that she actually intended to feed her friend pizza, so it wasn’t a lie, even if it was a trick.

“It’ll need warming,” she warned, heading for the kitchen.

“No problem,” he told her, rocking back on his heels.

Scott got up and came to lean on the back of the couch. “What’s going to happen now?” he asked.

Mitch felt his smile fade. “I don’t know for sure.”

“She’s going back to Houston, isn’t she?” Melissa asked from the dining area, pizza box in hand.

Mitch found that he had to swallow before he could answer. “She should.” But he couldn’t help hoping that she wouldn’t.

Nevertheless, when Piper turned to him a couple hours later—after dining quietly on microwaved pizza and seesawing back and forth between uneasy joy and sudden sorrow—with very nearly the same question as Scott, Mitch gave her very nearly the same answer.

“I know what needs to happen next, Piper.” He saw the trust in her beautiful amber eyes and reached down deep for the will to do what was best for her. “You should go home to Houston and join Gordon and the rest of your family in grief counseling.”

She bowed her head at that, her hands tucked away beneath the small table around which they sat in her dining area. Mitch glanced at Gordon and saw a wealth of understanding in his serene expression.

“You’re right,” she said finally, and the tight, brittle sound of her voice perfectly reflected the state of his heart. She sighed and lifted her chin. “You can run from grief, but you can’t hide.”

He smiled, aching with a growing sense of loss. “It took me three years to learn that lesson.”

“I don’t know how you managed to cope for three years,” she told him softly. “I’m exhausted after three months.” Her eyes filled with tears again. He knew that they would come unbidden at the drop of a hat for a while. But he wouldn’t be there to dry them for her.

“You’re not as stubborn as I am,” he said softly, trying—and failing—to lighten the mood.

“It’s a shame we can’t counsel with you,” Gordon said, but Mitch shook his head.

“I’m too personally involved.”

“Yes,” Gordon murmured, “I suspect you are.”

Mitch looked up, and once more the two men joined in a moment of absolute clarity. Finally Mitch looked away and cleared his throat.

“You need to get some rest. I should go now.”

“I suspect tomorrow will be a busy day,” Gordon commented, and Mitch pushed back his chair. Gordon did the same a heartbeat later. For a moment Piper seemed too tired even to try to get up from the table, but then she straightened her shoulders and rose.

Mitch selfishly let her walk him to the door. It was only feet away. Still, she had weathered a great emotional storm that evening and it wasn’t over yet, though he suspected, prayed for her sake, that the worst had passed. They paused together.

“Mitch,” she began, shaking her head, “I don’t know how to—”

“Hush,” he interrupted, knowing her thanks would be misplaced. “You just concentrate on yourself and your family for now. God will take care of everything else, especially me.”

“Will you stay in touch with Melissa and Scott?”

“Absolutely. I’ll see them every Sunday, at least. Scott says they’ll be joining church soon.”

At that she closed her eyes, hands clasped against her chest. “I’m so glad.”

“You see, good has already come of this.”

She smiled through her tears. “It has, hasn’t it?”

He nodded and heard himself promise, “The best is yet to come. You’ll see.”

“Will I?” she asked. Then, before he could answer, “Will you?”

He knew what she was asking, but he wasn’t sure how to answer. His own fear was that his part in her life was finished. Now that he had accomplished his purpose, his mission, he had no more excuse to remain close to her. Gordon was right about God having a reason for all that He allowed into the lives of His children, but Mitch knew that he was correct when he’d told them both that no one could predict that purpose. Considering the way God had used Piper and her family thus far, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she would one day soon find herself called to the foreign mission field. With her nursing ability, it seemed a strong possibility to him. It seemed improbable that God would ask the same thing of him, though. He had important work right here in Dallas.

Finally he managed to say, “We’ll leave that all up to God.”

For a long moment she stood staring up at him through her tears, supplication evident on her face, but he couldn’t give her the assurances she seemed to want. He couldn’t even assure himself that she would still want them in a few weeks. As if coming to the same conclusion, she bit her lip, nodded and reached out a hand to him.

He took her into his arms, perhaps for the last time, and held on so tightly that he was sure, once he finally managed to tear himself away, that he would forever carry her imprint on his heart.

Piper couldn’t quite believe that she was going. Intellectually she knew that Mitch was right when he said she needed to return to Houston and join her family in grief counseling. Yet a part of her no longer recognized Houston as home. Then again, this apartment was not home, either, though she had lived here for months. She knew that without any doubt as she stood in the open doorway surveying it all for the last time.

Had it been only two days since she’d climbed those stairs expecting pizza, only to find her brother—and healing—waiting for her? She checked her watch. Not even two whole days, as it was only about two o’clock in the afternoon. They would be back in Houston before seven. It seemed impossible that it should be so, yet her bags had been packed and were even now being stowed in the trunk of Gordon’s car.

Mitch had used his legal expertise to get her out of the apartment lease, citing familial hardship, and the landlord had been kind enough to agree to return her deposit. The rental agency would come around to pick up the furniture soon. She’d resigned her third job in as many months by saying simply that a family death necessitated her immediate return to Houston, and Melissa had agreed to call Hannah at the insurance company and explain in whatever fashion she felt best why Piper had left things there as she had. Piper suspected that the two women would get along well, perhaps even become friends, especially after Melissa had wondered aloud whether she should invite Hannah to church.

Piper smiled to herself. Good had come of this tragedy, perhaps more than she would ever know. She would never have chosen to meet the Ninevers, Hannah, or even Mitch in this fashion, and she couldn’t with good reason say she had been the agent for any blessing that might have come to any of them through knowing her. Yet good had resulted.

The Ninevers were in church and growing in their relationship with God. Hannah, and who knew how many others, might well be influenced because of them. Mitch had fulfilled his mission; God had channeled blessing and healing through him as surely as water flowed through a pipe. Apparently even Thai had benefited, harsh as the lesson had been, from what had happened. Only time would tell what the results of that would be, but Gordon seemed to feel that Thai had turned an important corner. If that were so, then in anything that Thai accomplished during his life Asia would have a hand.

The thought comforted more than it grieved, and that was a good thing, too.

Only in one regard was Piper unsure. How could she let go of Mitch? Somehow without her even knowing it, he had become her anchor. No, it was more than that.

Now, when she thought of home, it wasn’t Houston or Dallas or houses or apartments that she thought of; it was Mitch. And yet she couldn’t stay here. She knew that as certainly as she knew her own name.

Sighing, she closed the apartment door behind her.

“Is that everything, then?”

She turned at the sound of Mitch’s voice. He looked very dear standing there—big, strong, handsome. Right. His serene smile both gladdened and worried her. To cover the latter, she adjusted the strap of her handbag on her shoulder. Could he really let her go so easily? She pushed the thought aside and answered his question.

“I think so.”

“Well, then.” He offered his arm.

She felt an instant’s letdown, but then she squared her shoulders, disciplined her disquiet and slipped her hand around the curve of his elbow, allowing him to escort her toward the security gate and the front parking area, which was actually closer to the apartment than the residents’ parking lot.