The Reason Page 21

  Jim turned and reached up in the cupboard, feeling for and then retrieving two drinking glasses. He lowered them to the counter and then filled each with cool tap water. He quickly set the last one down, overcome by a sudden need to sneeze. He pulled out his handkerchief just before he let go of the biggest sneeze he could remember.

  “Bless you, Lindy,” he said with a little laugh of wonder, lifting the handkerchief to cover his nose before sneezing uncontrollably three more times.

  “Wow,” he added, wiping delicately at his nose, his chest expanding before sneezing yet again. “Good grief,” he said, putting a hand to his chest, actually feeling winded from the episode.

  He blinked rapidly, clearing the tears from his eyes. He dabbed at the sides of his face and then the inner corners of his eyes with the handkerchief. His body rocked as he sneezed yet another time. He chuckled. “Here we go again.”

  He covered his eyes with the handkerchief and sneezed twice more.

  Jim braced himself against the counter, waiting defensively for another sneeze that wouldn’t come. “What in creation?” he said to the empty kitchen, wiping his eyes again with the handkerchief. “I must be getting allergies in my old age.”

  He began to take the handkerchief away from his eyes and suddenly stopped.

  What? No. It can’t be!

  But it was. It had really happened.

  Lord? Lord! Is it possible? He spun in a slow circle.

  He’d prayed for it, in the early years. But there’d always been bigger items on the prayer agenda. Prayers for provision. For his people. For Brooke. And lately, for Alex.

  He’d thought he’d become content with the memories over the last twenty years.

  Memories of Shirley’s face. Charlie’s.

  He thought he’d become content with the sound of Shirley’s voice and Charlie’s laugh.

  He thought he’d become settled with the mental snapshots of faces that he alone had personally assigned to Brooke and Alex. Faces he loved, but faces he’d never truly seen.

  But right now, the thing he wanted most was to see . . . to truly see Shirley, Charlie, Brooke, and Alex. The people who made up his personal fortune, making him the luckiest man in the world.

  Until he did, he wasn’t sure he could trust this.

  “Charlie!” he yelled. “Charlie!”

  He continued to pull the handkerchief away from his face, watching it wave. He didn’t need his son to know it. It had really happened. This was no dream.

  He could see.

  The handkerchief was white. It fell away from his hand like a parachute falling out of a navy bomber toward his feet.

  His feet were covered by a pair of faded black slippers. He knew about the hole in the side of his left slipper. He had felt it for a long time. Its torn edge was drooping pathetically against the floor.

  The floor was the same light brown linoleum he and Shirley had put in close to thirty years ago. It looked awful. It was beautiful.

  The table.

  The finger paintings that had obviously been done by a child posted on the refrigerator. They had to be Alex’s.

  The toaster.

  The steam coming off the Pop-Tarts.

  The cookie jar.

  The digital clock next to the stove.

  Jim walked dreamily to the sink and looked out the window.

  The cross.

  The church.

  Please don’t be a dream. I’m sorry. Please—not this time. He’d had plenty of those over the years. Dreams where he could see, and woke to blindness.

  The toaster again.

  The clock next to the stove.

  The numbers.

  The clock.

  Lord? Lord!

  The numbers on the clock. Kenneth knew.

  Jim let go of the counter and stepped cautiously to the stove. He fell to his knees for the second time that morning, bowing low. It’s impossible! Isn’t it? Isn’t it?

  “Praise be to God,” he said, knowing the full measure of possibility. “Thank you, Lord.”

  He gently rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, then slowly pulled himself up to peek over the front edge of the stove at the clock again.

  Kenneth knew this was going to happen.

  Gooseflesh ran across the minister’s back and arms, and his heart raced. And then he began to weep uncontrollably as he stared at the three black numbers on the clock.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Jim immediately recognized the man, even though he hadn’t seen him in over twenty years. The hair was certainly grayer. The skin under the chin and along the neck seemed to have loosened a bit. He was late-fall tan, making the distinct creases coming off the corners of his mouth look like the thin cracks that appeared in sunbaked mud. The lines across the forehead were more pronounced and obviously permanent. The nose was the same, but he couldn’t stop staring at the man’s ears. They seemed like they had gotten bigger.

  He smiled easily—loving it all—and leaned closer to the mirror for a better look. There was absolutely no doubt about it. His ears had gotten bigger.

  Jim continued to stare. His Indian-brown eyes were shining, almost as if they were made of glass. Unwavering, fearless, unblinking. My eyes. They looked exactly as they had in his youth. A young man’s eyes in an old guy’s face. He grinned at his reflection.

  “Lindy, you look a hundred,” he said. He ran his hands down the sides of his cheeks, and they met at his chin in prayer pose. “But it’s great to see you.”

  Jim headed down the hallway, looking curiously at the tops of his hands, noticing the wrinkles and spots, the puffy, age-thickened knuckles. Even the sight of them made him glad. Because they screamed of his miracle.

  He knew without a doubt that miracles took place all the time, and that every one—without exception—was from the hand of God.

  There were big ones. There were small ones. There were those everyone noticed, like surviving life-threatening illnesses and accidents. Then there were the many more that went unnoticed, like healthy children, something to eat, a roof, someone to love, birth, and sometimes, even death.

  He wondered what the world would be like if people would just stop and take the time to look at everything they were given every day of their lives and be thankful—to offer thanks and try to realize where their personal miracles were coming from, and give credit to where it was rightfully due.

  Jim walked into the kitchen and ran his finger along the tiny knit cross that hung like mistletoe directly above him. He knew he wasn’t Lazarus from the book of John. He wasn’t the lame beggar from Acts, and he wasn’t the risen son of the widow of Nain. He was the blind man. He was the minister, James Lindy, from the small town of Carlson, Michigan. He once was blind, but now could see. “Oh, can I see, Lord!” he shouted to the ceiling, grinning. “How I can see! Thank you, Father. Thank you!”

  Though he had always known, he now knew more than ever how truly amazing grace really was. He put his hand to his heart, overcome with the knowledge that God had chosen him, him, to touch. It made him feel as tiny as an ant, and as big as the earth, all at once.

  What a better witness he would become. He didn’t have places to go. He had people to see.

  “To see,” he said aloud. “Praise God!”

  He picked up the phone and dialed Brooke’s cell. It went straight to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message and was glancing back at the digital clock next to the stove when the carpenter’s words flitted through his mind again. “And when it happens, promise me that you will never tell anyone about it.”

  “Don’t tell them, Kenneth?” Jim asked the clock, somehow expecting it to answer. “It won’t take a detective to know I’m not blind anymore.” He lifted the phone back up and paused. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone that you knew it was going to happen?”

  The front door closed behind him in the living room, and Jim froze in anticipation. He couldn’t move. He held the phone against his ear and leaned against the wall like he had stage fright
, his heart racing triple-time.

  Someone grabbed his shoulder lightly and stomped past him to the kitchen table, snatching up one of the glasses of water before stepping to the window to look outside.

  Charlie turned sideways, not having any idea he was being watched.

  Jim felt breathless as he studied his son. He didn’t know what to say, where to start. Charlie was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen—the tight crew cut; the high Lindy forehead; the slow-motion blinks of his eyes; the innocent, trusting, and still incredibly youthful face.

  Jim had not forgotten about his son’s enormous size. His seven-foot height and bulk created a presence that was felt as well as seen.

  Charlie sipped at his water, and Jim noticed that the glass had completely disappeared into a rounded hand that looked to be the size of a catcher’s glove. Charlie held the glass to his mouth and looked right at him. Jim lifted his head off the wall and hung up the phone. Charlie grabbed the Pop-Tarts out of the toaster and put two each on the plates that had been set out earlier. Charlie then approached and tugged at Jim’s sweatshirt sleeve, prodding him to the table to join him for breakfast.

  Jim didn’t move. Charlie tugged again, and he grabbed Charlie’s arm, prompting him to turn around and look at him.

  “Hello, Charles Paul Lindy,” Jim said. “Hello, my son.”

  Charlie smiled. He always did whenever he heard his middle name. Charlie then took a giant step toward the table. He stopped, slowly turned around again, and looked at his father in a way Jim found peculiar. Charlie looked at his face—and then his eyes. He stepped back next to Jim and hunched over, lowering his face within inches of his father’s. His head slowly swiveled back and forth, as if something seemed different to him.

  He lifted his hand and waved a thick finger back and forth in front of his father’s face.

  Jim put his hand around Charlie’s finger, which felt like the handle of a baseball bat. “I can see you, Charlie,” he said, nodding. “I can see you.”

  Charlie squinted, as if confused, and Jim could do nothing but grin.

  He heard a car door close then. Jim patted Charlie on the arm and went quickly to the living room and looked out the window. He held his hand against the glass as an attractive young woman lifted a young, redheaded boy out of the backseat of a small, four-door car.

  “Hello, Brooke and Alex,” he whispered, lowering his hand from the window.

  There was an older woman closing the dented passenger door. She was saying something to the woman and the boy. She threw a floral-designed purse over her shoulder. She wore jeans that were pulled up a little too high, a hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, and small, gold-rimmed glasses that formed perfect circles around her eyes. The top of her back was arched slightly forward, and she walked slowly, as if she were hurting. He knew it was her arthritis.

  “Hello, beautiful wife,” he said, his mouth hanging slightly in amazement.

  The front door opened, and he faced the two strangers who walked in. Alex had his head on Brooke’s shoulder, and he opened his eyes to glance sleepily at Jim. Brooke carefully put Alex on the couch and covered him with the green and white knit quilt that was folded over the top of the recliner. The boy promptly fell asleep.

  “What happened?” Jim asked, watching Shirley through the glass, climbing the steps to the porch. “What did they say?”

  “They did the bone marrow aspiration,” Brooke said in a tone that Jim found surprisingly upbeat. Brooke walked into the kitchen. “Everything went well, and we go back tomorrow.”

  “Praise God,” Jim said.

  Shirley walked in, and he looked down and away shyly. He wasn’t sure why.

  Charlie was ducking under the kitchen doorway. He waved at his mother and pointed excitedly at Jim.

  “Are you men having a good morning?” Shirley asked, looking to Jim to see what was up.

  “I guess you could say that,” Jim answered, slowly meeting her gaze. “It has certainly been a rare one.”

  Charlie took hold of Shirley’s hand and pointed at Jim again.

  “What is it, Charlie?” Shirley asked, looking up at him over the edges of her glasses. “Something on your mind?”

  Charlie poked anxiously toward Jim.

  “Okay,” Shirley said playfully. “What are you two up to?”

  Charlie’s head bobbled, and he waved toward Jim again.

  But Jim paused, no words seeming right to him. No words were magnificent enough to capture what had happened! So he just grinned.

  “What’s going on?” Shirley asked, turning to Jim. “What’s Charlie trying to tell me?”

  Jim raised both of his hands to the window and looked up at the ceiling. He slowly outlined a handprint on the window with his left index finger. “Sorry about messing up your clean window, Shirl.”

  Shirley’s head pulled slightly back. “What did you just do, James Lindy? You know how I feel about people putting their hands on my clean windows!”

  “I apologized to you,” he answered. “I apologized for putting handprints on your window. It was so clean.”

  Shirley let go of Charlie’s hand and took a couple of steps toward Jim. Her tone was trusting, but suspicious. “What are you trying to say, James? Out with it already.”

  He cleared his throat and continued to stare at the smudged window. I can see smudges.

  “Your sweatshirt,” he said. He had never forgotten about colors. “It’s purple.”

  “How did you know that?” Shirley asked, looking down as if she’d forgotten what she’d put on. “Who told you?”

  “Brooke’s car,” he said, lifting his hand back up against the glass. He tapped on the window and pointed right at the vehicle. “It’s white, and there is a dent in the passenger-side door.”

  “You knew that.”

  “And over there,” he said, nodding out the window to his left at the rhythmic steps of a deer that meandered down the driveway from St. Thomas toward Church Road. “There is a doe.”

  “How in the world do you know that?” Shirley asked, crossing her arms and looking out the window at the deer. She stepped to his side, and he looked away. “How do you know that, James Lindy?”

  “Because God healed me.”

  “What?”

  “Because I can see,” Jim said, facing her. “I see you, Shirley Lindy. And you’re more beautiful than ever.”

  Shirley looked into her husband’s eyes, frowning in confusion and wonder, and her arms dropped to her sides like deadweights.

  Jim smiled boyishly and hoped his eyes were sparkling. He hoped they shouted his love for her.

  “James?” Shirley said faintly, still staring at him. He kept looking back, knowing what she was seeing. No longer were there milky patches of scar tissue that clouded the surface. They were gone. No longer were there frayed and jagged edges of detaching retinas. They were gone too. His eyes were clear and brown. They were the way they used to be. They were the way God had made them before. They were the way God had made them again.

  “James?” she whispered, completely absorbed in the gaze of a long-lost friend. Her eyes began to well with tears.

  “It’s a miracle,” he whispered back. “Something happened.”

  “What’s everybody mumbling about in here?” Brooke asked, returning from the kitchen to find Shirley falling into Jim’s embrace.

  “Something wonderful has happened,” Shirley said, her face nestled against Jim’s chest.

  “What?” Brooke asked.

  Shirley wiped away her tears and grinned up at him.

  “What is it?” Brooke asked again. But she wasn’t looking at them; she was looking at Charlie, who was standing by the window. He wore a frozen grin, his small lower teeth exposed in pure joy.

  Brooke inched next to him and looked out to the front yard. “He’s looking at that deer like he’s never seen one before. You all right, Charlie?”

  Charlie’s head bobbed back and forth, and his smile broad
ened further. He lifted his hands and began to clap ecstatically.

  “Shh, Charlie, shh,” Brooke whispered. “You’ll wake Alex.”

  “What is it?” Jim asked.

  Charlie clapped harder. His hands thundered together joyfully.

  “Something sure has him going,” Brooke said to Jim, then slowly did a double-take. “Pastor Jim?” She grabbed his arm and half squinted in apparent disbelief. “Your eyes.”

  Jim smiled at her, and Charlie shot out the front door, letting it slam shut behind him. He took an enormous leap over the porch steps and ran quickly out to the center of the front yard. He turned back toward the living room window and started clapping again, jumping up and down and pointing at the deer, which had turned around and was making its way toward him.

  Alex stirred and then sat up, and Brooke pulled him into her arms.

  “Crazy deer,” Shirley said. “She’s coming right at him! She better look out, because Charlie looks like he’s fixin’ to try and claim her as a pet or something.”

  “He looks like he has gone crazy,” Brooke said.

  Jim put his hand lightly around the back of Shirley’s neck. “Heck. I’m starting to think I’ve gone crazy too.”

  “Poor thing,” Shirley said, looking at the deer as it got closer. “What do you suppose happened to it?”

  “I have no idea,” Jim said, wincing. “Whatever happened, it sure doesn’t seem to be bothering it much anymore.”

  The doe had stopped and turned its head toward the house. Jim could see what looked like a thick, reddish-brown patch of dried blood that had clotted around a nasty wound across the edges of the doe’s rib line.

  Alex leaned out of his mother’s arms. “Put me down!” he cried. “Put me down!”

  “Be still! Your hip is gonna be sore!” Hastily, Brooke tried to set him down, but he was squirming so much, he fell heavily to his feet. Nothing seemed to bother him. He was out the door as fast as Charlie had been, slamming it behind him.