The Reason Read online

  On the far side, a bearded old man stood in front of the aquarium. He turned around and offered a pleasant smile—one she found oddly familiar—and stroked the whitest beard she’d ever seen. He had a folded newspaper neatly tucked under his left arm, and the long, thin fingers of his wrinkly right hand seemed to be wrapped around what looked like—she studied it for a second—like an apple.

  “I’m heading home for the night,” she said. “You folks need anything?” Kaitlyn looked directly at the young woman, but she didn’t meet her gaze. Then she looked at the young man and gave him a threatening look that she hoped said, I’m onto you.

  He yawned at her and waved at the woman and child, muttering, “Car accident,” with an innocent face that sickened her. He smirked, and she made herself turn and leave the room.

  She made it to the elevator doors, pressed 1, and waited. She leaned back and glanced down the length of the empty hallway again.

  So quiet. So weird.

  Admissions were down. Remissions were up. The kids had been remarkably less irritable and unusually cooperative with treatment and medications. Johnny Lawson had actually gone three days without kicking any of the nurses, and the new kid on the block, little Alexander Thomas, took his first round of chemo like it was nothing and went happily on his way home.

  Kaitlyn wasn’t sure what was going on—not only with the kids, but also with some of the big people around her. Regardless, something was going on, and her interest slowly began to percolate. The elevator arrived, she got in, and the doors closed behind her.

  Religion—the great unknown.

  When Kaitlyn thought about religion, she thought about going to church as a kid. It made her remember how she and her older sister, Connie, used to hold back laughter as Mrs. Trotter sang brazenly off-key. She thought about all those boring sermons and constantly turning her wrist to see her watch, praying for twelve o’clock to come and the service to end so they could eat dry brownies and drink flat punch.

  And then gradually, over time, other things seemed to become more important. Church became every other weekend, then once a month, then hardly ever.

  Religion—the great unknown. She had made it that way. Now, however, religion appeared to be trying to nose its way back into her life. Macey was right. Something bizarre was going on.

  Mary Springsted awakens from a coma. Unusual, but not impossible—act of God?

  Cross is repaired, maybe a little too quickly—act of God?

  Zach Norman is suddenly a little less of an idiot—act of God?

  Blind minister can now see. Impossible, unless . . . Definite act of God. If it’s true. She’d wait until she heard from Macey on that front. Or Zach.

  Zach.

  The elevator doors opened, and Kaitlyn didn’t move. The five waiting visitors and staff members each gave Kaitlyn their individual looks and glares that all seemed to ask, Are you going to get out or just ride the elevator all day? This is the ground floor . . .

  “I’m sorry,” she said, stepping toward the rear. She knew, then, that she had to go back up and talk to Zach. She had absolutely no idea what she was going to say, but she knew she had to speak with him.

  She got off the elevator and passed the visiting room. The old man was sitting and talking with the young couple.

  She passed the nurses’ station. Harriet had managed to find a twin pack of Twinkies to go with her mineral water and never even noticed Kaitlyn as she walked by and continued down the hall.

  The door to Zach’s office was open, and it was a little darker than usual. Only a spill of light from a desk lamp fell lazily out the door. Zach was sitting at his desk, eyes closed; his hands were together at the palms, and his index fingers formed a steeple directly under his chin.

  Is Zach praying?

  Kaitlyn tapped lightly on the door. “Knock, knock.”

  Zach’s eyes opened, and he slowly turned toward her without saying anything.

  “Hey, Zach,” she said, in what she knew was the least threatening tone she had used with him in months. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just stopping by to say hi.”

  “Well, hello back,” Zach said kindly—almost too kindly for her. “What’s up, Kait?”

  “I guess I wanted to say great job with Alexander Thomas today.”

  Zach cocked his head back and squinted curiously, almost in a way that suggested he knew the Thomas boy had nothing to do with her visit. “C’mon in, if you want.”

  “Oh, I was just taking off for the day,” Kaitlyn said, spotting a Bible on Zach’s desk. A Bible? “Just wanted to tell you that.”

  “Oh, right,” he said, shifting to the side of his chair. “Though I don’t blame you, Kait, you haven’t complimented me or just stopped by my office to say hi in over a year. What’s going on?”

  She half-frowned and took a small step toward him. “Zach, I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She knew. The truth of the matter was that he was being almost too nice. He was acting like someone that she wanted to be with. “I guess I felt that you haven’t been yourself the last couple of days.”

  Zach nodded and rose. He came around the front of the desk and leaned against it, as if he were trying to keep a respectful distance. “Hopefully I can keep it up.”

  Kaitlyn just stared at him. He was calmer and more reserved than he usually was. She was actually comfortable with him, at the moment. “Keep it up?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I think I can keep it up. Keep from acting like my old self.”

  She squinted in confusion. “What’s really going on, Zach?”

  “What’s going on is that I owe you an apology.”

  “Apology? For what?”

  He looked down in a way that said he was embarrassed. He waited, and then he looked back at her and said, “I’m sorry for the way I treated you, Kaitlyn, when we were together. I really am. I’m sorry for the way I treated a lot of people. I guess I was focused on the wrong things.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  This wasn’t the Zach Norman she knew. He really seems sorry.

  “Just about everything,” he said, still sounding apologetic. He slowly shook his head, almost as if he was a little confused. “But more importantly—”

  “Are you all right, Zach?”

  “More importantly,” he continued. He quit shaking his head and stared at her. “I think I may have been wrong about something.”

  Kaitlyn could feel that buzz again. She could also see something. It was in Zach’s eyes. He looked like a man who was close to finding something—something really valuable.

  “Wrong about what?” she asked.

  Zach brought his hands to the sides of his face and closed his eyes. He shook his head again, then reached behind him, grabbed the Bible off the desk, and lifted it toward her.

  “About this, Kaitlyn. About this.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Jim heard the front door to the church open. He lifted his head up from the Bible he was reading at the pulpit and watched as Charlie led a woman toward him. She had straight brown hair pulled back into a simple ponytail and a youthful, healthy glow that belonged, at tops, to a twenty-year-old.

  Wait a minute. That’s no twenty-year-old. I know who that is.

  Charlie stopped at the fifth pew and turned around to head back out the door.

  “Thank you for walking me up here, Charlie,” the woman said.

  Jim closed the Bible. He went down the carpeted steps from the altar and held out his hand. “I am certainly no Henry Morton Stanley, but—Dr. Lewis, I presume?”

  “You presumed correctly,” Macey said, shaking his hand and studying his eyes.

  “Please, have a seat,” he said warmly, pointing to the first pew. “It’s certainly nice to see you, Dr. Lewis. Pun intended, I guess.”

  “Pastor Jim,” Macey said, “when I heard the news, I didn’t know what to think. But it’s really true, isn
’t it? I don’t know what to say. You . . . you can see.”

  “Yes, I can,” he said calmly. “It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” He helped her take her coat off and folded it over the back of the pew. He caught her looking at—examining—his eyes.

  “I am so sorry for staring,” the doctor said. “Please excuse me. It’s just . . . I mean, I’m no ophthalmologist, but I guarantee there is no medical explanation. And then there’s the look of them—Mrs. Lindy was right. They really do look brand-new.”

  “Yes, they do,” he said confidently. “Only by the grace of God.”

  “Pastor Jim,” she said, “I was going to see if I could come by this week and talk to you anyhow, but when I heard about your eyes, I just had to come today.”

  “You’re welcome here anytime.”

  Her face went from pure amazement to youthful confusion. “I guess I’m not really sure where to start.”

  “I suppose you want to know what happened to my eyes? How I can see?”

  “It’s not only your eyes,” she said. “There are other things— several things—happening around here lately that flat-out don’t make a whole lot of sense to me. To be honest, I’m not really all that well versed on matters of religion, and I guess what I’m looking for is your help in understanding it all.”

  “Interesting,” Jim said, smiling. “Why don’t you tell me about some of the other things you’ve noticed.”

  “We recently had a patient come out of a twenty-two-week coma.”

  “Praise God.”

  “And then walk right out the door a few minutes after waking up. Her doctor described her as being in the best physical shape she’d been in for years.”

  “That certainly sounds unusual.”

  “It’s more than unusual. It’s impossible!”

  “Improbable, apparently. But not impossible. Her family must be thankful.”

  Macey sighed. “And then there’s your cross. If you’d seen it . . . It was unfixable. When we got here, we looked at it and knew there was no way anybody could do anything with it other than haul it to the dump and get a new one. But he did. He fixed it.”

  She started to ramble, and Jim wanted to slow her down. He held up his hand as if he were stopping traffic and said, “You are talking about the carpenter?”

  “Yes!” she blurted excitedly. “He fixed it, and your son saw him do it.”

  “He was right there,” Jim said. “I know he saw it.”

  “Pastor Jim,” she said, “feel free not to answer this, but does Charlie have any history of incontinence?”

  “What?” Jim was a little surprised and then understood where Macey was going. “You’re referring to Charlie’s accident that day, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry for asking,” she said. “But yes.”

  “No,” Jim said. “I don’t remember him doing that since he was little. Are you concerned that something may be physically wrong with Charlie?”

  “Not at all,” she answered. “I believe he saw what happened, and I think it scared him enough that he wet himself.”

  “Saw what, though?” he asked. “Kenneth fixing the cross?”

  “I’m not really sure. But I think what scared him wasn’t the cross itself, but rather how it got fixed.”

  “Charlie was clearly afraid,” Jim said. “The carpenter even told us to step back for a second. I could hear some peculiar sounds, like wood bending and snapping. Charlie panicked, picked me up, and carried me away from the site. And then he was through.”

  “How long did it take him?”

  “I’m not sure how much was done up until Dr. Norman left, but the noise only lasted a matter of seconds.”

  “A matter of seconds,” she repeated. “To do the job. The whole job.”

  Jim paused, remembering. “I think Kenneth said it’d be done quickly.”

  Macey brought her hands to her cheeks and exhaled in agitation. “Pastor Jim, hardly anything was done up until Zach left. I’m telling you that something quite unusual happened—something that most people would consider impossible. Why don’t you tell me how anything he did on a cross could possibly scare Charlie that badly?”

  “Good question.”

  “I know,” she said, shaking her head, practically frowning. “It just seems like the carpenter is at the center of all these things that are happening.”

  “What’d he have to do with your coma patient?”

  “I think he was in her room before she woke up.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The woman called the paper because she saw his picture. She wanted to know who Kenneth was—said he was the man from her dreams.” Macey took a deep breath and covered her eyes like she was counting for hide-and-seek. Then she lowered her hands and glanced back at Jim. “Something is going on around here, Pastor Jim, something big. Bigger than some children’s story of Noah’s ark.”

  Jim grinned. “Why would you call it a children’s story?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking contrite. “I hope that wasn’t offensive.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “I was just curious.”

  “I don’t know,” Macey said. “I guess I always thought a four-hundred-foot ark with two of every animal on it was a bit of a stretch.”

  “A bit of a stretch?” Jim repeated. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Just remember that we’re talking about God here. He made the world. He made you. He made me. When you can do that, you can do things that may appear a stretch. You can do things like help with the ark, help with a woman coming out of a coma, heal a blind man, or even help fix a cross. And I’m using the word help a little loosely.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “I came here thinking that Shirley and Brooke were confused—traumatized by all that’s going on with Alex . . .” She tossed him a rueful look. “I didn’t expect it to be real.”

  He simply smiled back at her.

  “This all should be documented,” Macey said. “I am an oncologist, not an eye doctor. But I know the body, and I know medicine.” Her head dropped, shook, and then she rose suddenly and pointed at him, as if frightened. “What has happened to your eyes . . . It just does not happen.”

  He pointed an index finger at each eye. “It just did, Macey. I asked the Lord to heal me, and he healed me. It’s that simple.”

  Macey laced her fingers together and then lifted them, bouncing them lightly off her forehead. “It can’t be that simple. I saw the damage to your eyes the other day. And now it’s gone.”

  “I don’t know what else to tell you. The Lord did it. Let’s call it a stretch, shall we?”

  “So you just woke up yesterday morning, asked God to heal your eyes, and poof—they were brand-new?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I haven’t prayed for my sight in a good ten years.”

  “Ten years? And it finally happens now? I’m sorry. Now I’m prying.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It just happened now. In his perfect timing. When he has your attention.”

  Macey smiled. “You seem too nonchalant about it. You can see, for Pete’s sake!”

  “I am a man of faith,” Jim said, giving her a little shrug. “It’s not a stretch. Regardless of what you believe, Macey, once again, look at me. It really happened.”

  “So if God heard your prayer, isn’t he answering it a little late?” Macey asked, shifting her head closer.

  “All prayers are answered,” he said. “People just sometimes get confused because they don’t get the answers they want. I figured he’d heal my sight in heaven, if nothing else. It boils down to trusting in our Maker and his ways, even if his ways don’t appear to match up with ours. Make sense?”

  “I guess.” But she didn’t look sure at all.

  “Let me give you an example,” he said, tugging down on his maize and blue sweatshirt. “Three Saturdays from now, Michigan will be playing football against Ohio State.”

  “Biggest game of the year,” she said.

  “Only if Mi
chigan wins,” he added with a perfectly straight face. “Regardless, I am extremely confident that before the game, there will be players and fans from both sides praying for a victory. Right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well,” he said, “both prayers will be answered.”

  Macey looked at him and said, “Even if the answer is no, it is still an answer.”

  “Right,” Jim said, tapping her on the shoulder. “What we need to understand is that it isn’t about what we want. It’s about what God wants for us. It’s about God’s plan and God’s will. And if we want something and pray for it, we will get it if . . .” He tilted his head toward the doctor, inviting her to answer.

  Macey’s eyebrows arched. “If it is God’s will?”

  “That’s what I believe,” he said. “And I believe it was God’s will for me to see again.”

  “I think I understand,” Macey said. She paused again and looked up toward the altar and cross. “I like it here. I think I’m going to start coming on Sundays.”

  “Praise God,” he said.

  “Now the other reason I came,” Macey said. “That’s if you haven’t had enough of me today . . .”

  “I’ve got all the time you need,” he said. “Let me have it.”

  She stared at the cross. “This might sound really strange to you, Pastor Jim.”

  Jim waited patiently as she searched for the right words.

  “He’s here,” she said calmly. “I think God is here.”

  “Yes, he is,” Jim said with a smile. “This is his house.”

  “No, Pastor Jim. I mean here in Carlson.”

  “He is everywhere, Macey.”

  She looked back at the cross, and her voice sounded like it went up an octave as she whispered, “He brought that woman out of her coma. He fixed the cross. And he made you see.”

  “Yes, he did,” Jim said, a warm glow filling him. “And praise be to him.”

  Macey turned her head and faced him. “I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. He is here. He is really here.”

  “I understand,” he said. “And when we learn to—”