The Reason Page 18

  “I’m not sure,” Zach said. “What do you call it?”

  The carpenter slowly walked toward him. Zach kept waiting for him to stop, but he didn’t until their faces were only a foot away from each other. He felt a slight chill dance across his neck but conversely felt steadied, strong, assured. He looked into the man’s eyes and waited for the answer.

  “It’s called faith, Zach.”

  Zach couldn’t look away. The chill ran down his back, and what he tried to ask only came out as a whisper. “Who are you, man?”

  “You know who I am.”

  Zach froze, and the carpenter’s face was now within inches of his.

  “Zach, I know it scares you, because it goes against everything you always believed.”

  The chill was gone. A warmth passed through him, as if he’d just wrapped up in a down blanket. He stood speechless as Kenneth took a few steps backward and then turned to walk slowly up the hill. The carpenter finally stopped at the top and turned around. He held his hands up in the air and shouted, “Only believe, Zach! Amy is more alive than ever!”

  “Only believe,” Zach whispered, his ankles and feet still feeling as if they were buried in wet cement. “I want to. But I can’t.”

  The carpenter disappeared over the other side of the hill toward the cross, and Zach looked at his watch. He was now over an hour late. “Only believe,” he muttered again.

  He turned around and limped back toward the entrance.

  “Don’t forget your coat!” he heard. “You left it back there.” It was the old man who’d been fiddling with the flowers, who was now sitting on the crumbled bench, pointing behind him.

  “Thanks!” Zach yelled, waving to the old man before rotating around gingerly on his slightly twisted knee. He walked toward the grave, and when he reached it, he said to the back of the headstone, “I’ll bet this is the first time you ever had on a $1,200 coat. Thanks for keeping an eye on it for me.”

  He stepped on top of the grave, picked the coat up, and folded it across his arm. “And I guess I probably owe you an apology too,” he said, turning to face the tombstone. “I certainly didn’t mean any—”

  AMY ELIZABETH NORMAN

  BELOVED DAUGHTER AND SISTER

  SEPTEMBER 22, 1971–DECEMBER 18, 1981

  Zach dropped the coat and blinked hard before quickly stepping backward off the side of the grave. He tried swallowing and couldn’t. His cheeks felt paralyzed, and his mouth gaped open as he stared at the headstone.

  “Amy,” he finally said breathlessly, the faded black letters on the tombstone blurring and then slowly coming back into focus. “There you are.”

  He licked his lips and ran his hand across his forehead. He looked back to the old man on the bench. He was gone.

  But then he felt it. Knew it. Knew it before he even looked.

  The carpenter was back on top of the hill, arms at his sides, looking down the hill and straight across Amy Norman’s grave into the eyes of her big brother.

  Zach felt something creeping down his cheek. He wiped it away and could feel the wind cooling it on the back of his hand. It was a teardrop. There was another one, and then another. He lifted his hand to his face, choking on sobs long buried, and looked back up on the hill.

  The carpenter was gone.

  “Only believe,” Zach whispered again, this time to the tip of the cross that glistened beyond the hill.

  His legs gave out and he dropped to his knees on top of the grave.

  Then Zach leaned his head against his sister’s headstone and cried—for the first time in twenty-eight years.

  TWENTY

  Despite the brief nap she had taken, Brooke was exhausted and couldn’t remember ever being so tired. She tugged the sleeve of her sweatshirt down into her palm and gripped it tightly to wipe the side of her face. She sat up on the couch and looked out the window at three doves that had settled on the front porch’s wooden railing.

  “You feeling better?” Shirley asked, crossing the living room to lean over and kiss Brooke on the cheek.

  Six years ago it wasn’t really that difficult to explain to the Lindys the chain of events that led to her getting pregnant. But what was coming would be tough—the thought of finally chasing that skeleton out of its closet took her from euphoric relief to absolute terror and back again, banging off two imaginary borders like a tiny rubber pinball.

  “So,” Pastor Jim said, sitting back in the aged recliner. “I hear you’re to meet with Alex’s father? That was quick.”

  “Yeah,” Brooke said. “He has the same cell phone number.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Shirley asked, perching on a rocker, coffee cup between her hands.

  “I ran into him a few years ago at the movies,” Brooke said, sitting up. “I’m lucky I got ahold of him. Other than the movies, I haven’t seen him since I worked at the plant. I don’t even know what I’m going to say.” Hey there. Funny thing. I forgot to tell you that you’re a daddy . . .

  “What’d you tell him?” Pastor Jim asked, interrupting her hundredth conversation rehearsal.

  “Just that we needed to talk and that it’s important,” Brooke answered. “He said he’ll be back in town Thursday.” She looked at the ceiling and shook her head. “Seriously. How do you tell someone something like this?”

  “Just tell him the truth,” Pastor Jim said. “And God will take care of the rest.”

  “Tell him Alexander is a gift from God,” Shirley added. “He’ll know that when they meet.”

  “And tell him he may lose a son he hasn’t met?” Brooke whispered. “Isn’t it . . . I don’t know, sort of cruel?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Shirley said, walking into the kitchen, leaving a silence in the living room that seemed to hum.

  “Leukemia,” Brooke said. The word detonated like a little bomb, flooding the room with an invisible threat.

  “It’s not going to happen,” Shirley repeated confidently from the kitchen.

  Pastor Jim slowly leaned forward in the La-Z-Boy and laced his fingers tightly together. “Let’s take a walk, Brooke, shall we?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Let me check on Alex real quick.”

  “They’re out cold,” Shirley said, walking back into the living room. “Down in the basement.”

  Brooke opened the basement door and lightly tiptoed down the steps to peek around the corner.

  Charlie was flat on his back on the small couch, his legs folded over the end of it at ninety-degree angles with his feet flat on the floor. He was wearing a white T-shirt and his gray cotton sweat-pants, and the big toe of his right foot was sticking out through a hole in his sock.

  Alex was sprawled out across Charlie’s chest. He was snoring lightly and appeared to be wrapped in a gray sleeping bag that was actually the matching top to Charlie’s sweatpants. He had a piece of popcorn in his hair, and tiny beads of sweat dotted his forehead. His small body rose with each of Charlie’s inhaled snores, and then slowly lowered as Charlie exhaled.

  Brooke lightly touched the side of Alex’s cheek, and then his forehead, noticing that the sweat that had dewed on her son’s head was alarmingly cool. Alex lifted his head, mumbled something in his sleep, and then plopped his cheek back on Charlie’s chest.

  Brooke picked up a half-empty glass of cherry Kool-Aid, grabbed a pair of macaroni-and-cheese-stained plastic bowls off the coffee table, and headed back upstairs.

  Pastor Jim was pulling a faded navy blue sweatshirt over his head that ultimately revealed Carlson Rotary emblazoned across his chest. “We’ll be back in about an hour,” he said to Shirley. He leaned his head toward Brooke. “Let’s go, kiddo.”

  Brooke put the dishes in the kitchen sink and then returned to the living room to grab a rarely worn jean jacket out of the closet. She followed Pastor Jim out the front door into a light breeze and unusually bright autumn sun.

  Both of them were quietly absorbing the news of the day, and neither of them said anything
until they had reached the gravel of Church Road.

  “Why don’t you ever worry about anything, Pastor Jim?” Brooke asked. “Why doesn’t anything ever seem to bother you?”

  Pastor Jim continued to walk while pulling lightly at his ear. “My father once told me something when I was quite young. He told me that worry is disbelief in disguise.”

  Brooke crossed her arms and cupped her elbows with her palms. “So if you worry, that means you don’t believe?”

  “I’m really not sure,” he said. “I think what my father meant was to give up control to God.”

  “I can’t help it though,” Brooke said. “I’m worried about Alex, and now I’m worried about Carla. She won’t answer my calls. I called work to tell them I needed a couple weeks off to take care of Alex, and they said she didn’t show up today.”

  “Hmm,” Pastor Jim said. “Carla was pretty horrified about Tim. She’ll get through it. And our little Alex will get through this too.”

  “I still don’t see how you never worry.”

  “Oh, I have my moments of worry,” he said with a frown.

  “What do you worry about?”

  “Charlie,” Pastor Jim said without hesitating. “I worry about Charlie.”

  “Charlie?” Brooke asked. “Charlie always seems so happy.”

  He nodded. “That may be true, but . . .”

  Brooke took his arm and they stopped. “But what?”

  He turned his head away and then back to Brooke. “What is going to happen to him when Shirley and I are gone?”

  Brooke didn’t say anything, painfully imagining life without Pastor Jim and Shirley. “Don’t worry about Charlie, Pastor Jim. I’ll take care of him. He’d always have a home with me.”

  Pastor Jim held out his arm, which Brooke stepped under. He pulled her next to him as they continued to stroll. “You’re wonderful, Brooke. But your whole life is in front of you—and Charlie isn’t your responsibility.”

  “We are all each other’s responsibility,” Brooke said. “We’re a family, and Charlie will always be part of the life that’s in front of me.”

  “Yes, we are a family,” he said, smiling. “Thank you, Brooke. Thank you for reminding me. And, honey . . . Alex is going to be fine.”

  “You seem so sure,” Brooke said, looking at three doves on the side of the road in front of them. The same three from the porch rail? That’s weird . . .

  “Do you believe that the Lord sometimes works in unusual ways, Brooke?”

  Brooke stopped walking. “I guess so.”

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you this since you got back,” he said. “I think our construction worker friend may be blessed. And I also think he may have given me a word, intended for you.”

  “You’re talking about Kenneth.”

  “Yes, I am,” he answered.

  “He sure seems to know a lot about other people. It’s not just Tim that made Carla freak out. Something happened at the bar between her and Kenneth, and she was already . . . out of sorts. I’ve never seen her like this. Even when she used to drink a lot.”

  “Why didn’t she come talk to me?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Let’s try to get ahold of her again when we go back in. Maybe she’ll pick up my call.”

  “Okay.”

  Pastor Jim took Brooke’s arm. “Listen, Kenneth told me something that I wanted to share with you.”

  Brooke hesitated. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear Kenneth’s “word” for her. Would it set her off as it had Carla? But looking at Pastor Jim’s face, she could tell there’d really be no way of avoiding it. “What is it?”

  Pastor Jim looked like he was mulling it over. “Brooke, I have complete faith in God’s ability to heal Alexander.”

  “What did Kenneth say?” Brooke said, narrowing her eyes. “Tell me.”

  “He quoted a Bible verse at the diner but changed it slightly,” he said. “Brooke, I can’t really explain it. But I just know that he was talking about Alex. It was as if he knew Alex was sick before any of us did.”

  “He couldn’t possibly know,” Brooke said. “What Scripture did he quote?”

  “He said, ‘Tell her to only believe and he will be made well.’ What else could he possibly have been talking about?”

  “It’s obviously some kind of coincidence, Pastor Jim.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Regardless, we already believe with all our heart and our soul that God can heal Alex. Right?”

  “I believe that,” Brooke said.

  “That’s all you can do.”

  They walked for a time in silence, each deep in thought. Brooke looked over her shoulder, thinking about Alex sweating, but cold. And sleeping again. “Maybe we should get back, Pastor Jim.”

  “Of course, of course.” They turned and went back the way they came. When they reached the edge of the driveway that separated the house from St. Thomas, Brooke stopped again. She crossed her arms and glanced up at the cross.

  “What is it, Brooke?”

  “Pastor Jim, do you really believe that people can know things? That they can give—I mean, really give—a ‘word’ from the Lord?”

  “I do,” he said. “But I’m not sure I ever really witnessed it until I met Kenneth.” He smiled. “Take a look at that cross. Doesn’t seeing that burned and broken, then whole, all within an hour make you a tiny bit more open to what he had to say?”

  “Open to what he has to say . . . or just willing to accept amazing carpentry skills. He didn’t claim it was an act of God. Why should we?”

  Pastor Jim just smiled and turned toward the cross as if he could see it too. “Truly, Brooke. How can we not? Sure, God used a man. But he used him mightily—all we can ever pray that he would do with each of us. I would say the Almighty has placed someone special in our path, and we’d be wise to pay attention when he has a word for us.”

  Brooke took a deep breath and saw them out of the corner of her eye—the three doves. They were about thirty feet in the air and banking hard off the tree line on the other side of the church. She held her breath as they cut across the church lawn and then quickly pulled up, gracefully lifting their wings to softly land.

  They landed on the cross.

  She slowly tilted her head to the side and said, “What’d Kenneth say again?”

  “Only believe,” Pastor Jim said. “And he will be made well.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  It’s the salsa that makes this place famous,” Kaitlyn said, dipping a warm tortilla chip into a bowl of Dos Hermanos’s superhot salsa.

  “Mm-hmm,” Macey said, taking a sip of her margarita.

  “You sure seem quiet,” Kaitlyn said.

  “Just thinking, that’s all,” Macey said, breaking a chip in two and dipping in herself.

  “A quiet Dr. Lewis is like a Sasquatch or Nessie sighting,” Kaitlyn added. “It’s more than a little rare. What’s wrong?”

  Macey seemed to force a smile. “I don’t know. You’re going to think I’m losing my mind.”

  A pair of elderly mariachis began serenading three women a couple of booths down, and Kaitlyn hoped they wouldn’t come their way. “For me to think you’re losing your mind, it must be good. Lay it on me.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “Wow,” Kaitlyn said, surprised. Something about the way Macey asked it made her uncomfortable, as if a stranger had guessed her age or weight. But this was no stranger—this was Macey Lewis.

  “Wow?” Macey echoed softly. “I get a wow?”

  “Yeah,” Kaitlyn said, squinting suspiciously. “One trip to church, and you’re asking the ultimate question?”

  “I’m sorry,” Macey said. “You asked me what was wrong, and I’m telling you.”

  “What are you sorry for?” Kaitlyn said, noting that her friend was oddly serious.

  “The God talk,” Macey said. “I guess there’s a reason people don’t talk about politics and religion. The topics can obviously cr
eate some discomfort.”

  “I’m perfectly comfortable discussing it,” Kaitlyn said. “Even though I may not know what I’m talking about when the subject comes up, I’m still comfortable with it.”

  “Answer the question, then,” Macey said, tapping her finger on the table.

  Kaitlyn hurriedly drank some ice water. Her mouth burned from the salsa, and she tongue-parked a piece of ice against the inside of her cheek. “I guess I want to believe in God—that there is something more.”

  Macey ran her finger around the rim of her sweating glass. “What would it take for you to actually believe?”

  “I guess I’m really not sure,” Kaitlyn answered. She wasn’t dodging the question; she kind of liked the idea that they were talking about God. “Is it safe for me to assume that going to church inspired this?”

  “Of course,” Macey said. “But it had a little more to do with the people we were with at the church.”

  “I agree,” Kaitlyn said, readjusting the napkin on her lap. “It felt good to me just being there, like I was doing something right. It was like I was actually where I was supposed to be on Sunday mornings.”

  “Yes,” Macey said, “but I’m not sure it was just being in church, per se; I think there are some really strange things happening around us. It’s hard for me to explain. Some of it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Like what?”

  “You saw that cross before they fixed it,” Macey said, scraping the tomatoes off a pair of tacos on the plate in front of her.

  “I’ll take those if you don’t want ’em,” Kaitlyn said.

  “Sure,” Macey said, picking up her plate and sliding the tomatoes onto Kaitlyn’s. She paused a moment. “Kait, something’s going on, and I think Zach knows it too. Have you ever seen him as quiet as he was at the diner?”

  “I thought he was sulking about me.”

  “Sorry to burst your bubble,” Macey said. “But I think it’s because he was totally overwhelmed. Zach just missed seeing whatever happened to that cross because he conveniently got that splinter in his hand. And that big guy, Charlie, saw it happen and peed his pants. He was terrified! Kait, I’m telling you that the construction worker did his thing to the cross in front of the minister who couldn’t see it, and the big guy who couldn’t talk about it, while the doctor was away.”