The Scarlet Thread

by Francine Rivers

  “No. She’s in the hospital. Just until she finishes the treatments. Five days, maybe six. Then she comes home.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “Community.” He gave her the number.

  “I’ll call you tonight, Mike.” Her hand shook as she hung up the telephone. Ron was still standing in the doorway. He didn’t say anything, but she sensed his deep concern. Over the past four months of working with him, she had learned he was a perceptive and caring man. “My mother has cancer.”

  He let out his breath slowly. “How bad?”

  “It’s in her liver,” she said huskily, afraid if she said more, she’d start crying. She felt Ron’s hand slide over her shoulder and squeeze gently in comfort.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Sierra.”

  She recalled how her mother had looked six months ago, thin, her hair graying. She had asked straight out if she was all right, and her mother had said everything was fine. Fine? How could she have kept such a secret? “She never said a word, Ron.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Her hands felt like ice. “I want to go home.”

  “Then go,” he said simply.

  She thought of the chaos she’d leave behind if she did. Her desk was piled with work. And what about the children? Who’d take care of Clanton and Carolyn? Who’d drop them off at school? Who’d take Clanton to his baseball practices or Carolyn to her piano lessons? Alex was gone by six thirty and never home before seven.

  Maybe she should pull the children out of school and take them with her. But how could she do that when she didn’t even know what she would be facing when she got home? What would they do while she was taking care of her mother?

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said shakily. “I don’t even know where to start.” Her brother’s words rang in her ears. A month. Maybe less.

  Oh, God! God, where are You?

  She wanted to be with her mother. She wanted that so desperately, she shook with fear that it wouldn’t be possible.

  Ron sat on the edge of her desk. “Call Alex.”

  She dialed Beyond Tomorrow. Alex’s secretary told her he wasn’t in the office. “He had an appointment at one.”

  “Can you page him?”

  “He told me not to—”

  “This is important! When you get in touch with him, tell him to call me here at work. Please.” She hung up. Every time she called Alex lately, he was out.

  Shaking, she began shuffling the papers around on her desk, wondering how she could get everything sorted out and finished by the end of the day. And what about tomorrow? She had the schedules to type up. She had calls to make. She had letters to write.

  She couldn’t concentrate.

  Ron’s hand stopped her agitated movements. “I’ll call Judy. She said she and Max are saving for a down payment on a house. I’m sure she’ll agree to stand in for you while you’re gone.”

  “She can’t, Ron. She’s nursing Jason.”

  “She can bring her baby with her. I won’t mind. And Arlene loves getting her hands on the little guy. If things get too hectic, I think we could track down a couple of responsible teenagers who’d pitch in.”

  “Miranda,” Sierra said immediately, thinking of a fifteen-year-old runaway who’d entered the program about the same time she’d started working with Ron. “The day care center says she’s wonderful with babies.”

  Ron smiled and brushed his knuckles lightly against her cheek. It was an oddly intimate and tender gesture that made her blush. “We’ll take care of things around here. You go see your mother.” He straightened from her desk.

  When Alex didn’t call back by one thirty, Sierra left him out of her arrangements. Marcia gave her the name of a professional nanny. Sierra called Dolores Huerta and explained the situation. Dolores agreed to meet her at the house that afternoon at four so they could go over the children’s schedules and her household duties and fees.

  Sierra was packing her bags when Alex came home. He stopped just inside the bedroom door and stared at the two open suitcases on the double bed. “What’s going on?” he said, his face paling. “What’re you doing? Where’re you going?”

  “If you’d bothered to return my call this morning, you’d know.” She yanked open a drawer. “I’m going home.”

  He uttered a soft curse and came into the room. “Look. Let’s talk about—”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she cut him off. “My mother’s in the hospital. She has cancer.” She swallowed convulsively as she put a sweater on top of a pair of dark-gray slacks.

  He let out his breath. “I thought . . .” He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said heavily.

  She spun to face him, pain etched in her features. “Sorry about what, Alex? That you’re never around when I need you anymore? That my mother has cancer? That all this is going to complicate your precious work schedule?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  She looked at him, hurt and embittered. “Where were you? Your secretary said she’d page you. Did she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I was busy.” He moved farther into their bedroom. “Look. I figured if it was really important, you’d call back.”

  She turned back to her suitcase in frustration. “It’s nice to know where I stand on your priority list.”

  “You want a fight before you go? Is that what you really want?”

  She went into the closet. When she came out with two more pairs of slacks, Alex was standing in the middle of the room, rubbing the back of his neck. Shaking, she dropped the clothing on the bed. “I needed you, Alex. Where were you?”

  Turning, he looked at her. She saw something in his expression that made her sick. Guilt. Shame. And not just because he hadn’t returned her call. It was something more, something deeper. His eyes flickered, stark and raw, and then the expression was gone, hidden.

  “What can I do to help?” he said flatly.

  She wanted to say he could hold her. He could tell her he loved her. He could promise to call her and talk with her each day. He could reassure her that everything would be fine with the children while she was gone.

  “I don’t know,” she said bleakly. “Pray for a miracle, maybe?”

  For whom, Sierra? an inner voice asked. For your mother or you . . . and Alex?

  What had brought them to this impasse? They couldn’t even talk to one another anymore. It was as though a wall stood between them, four feet thick and a hundred feet high. She was tired of trying to hack her way through it.

  He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it over a chair. “What are you going to do about the kids?”

  Anger surged through her, twisting her stomach into a hard knot. Hadn’t he just asked her what he could do to help? What a laugh. All he cared about was that he not suffer any inconvenience.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve already hired a nanny. You won’t have to look for one. Her name is Dolores Huerta. She’ll be here by seven each morning. I figured you wouldn’t mind staying home an extra thirty minutes until she gets here. Dolores has agreed to cook and do the washing and take care of the house. She drives, so she’ll drop the children off at school and pick them up. She’ll also see that Clanton gets to baseball practices and Carolyn gets to her piano lessons. I knew you wouldn’t have the time or inclination to be there for the kids. I gave her some gas money and offered her a generous salary. You’ll need to pay her on Friday.” She looked at him, waiting for a response.

  His face was rigid. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

  She bit her lip, fighting back the tears. “As long as it takes,” she managed bleakly, turning away. She couldn’t remember what she’d already packed and what more she needed.

  “You can’t take all of it on yourself, Sierra.”

  She wished she could believe he was concerned for her, but she couldn’t. What was he really worried about?

  “Mike said the doctor
told Mom she has a month, maybe less. I want every minute with her I can have.”

  “You don’t think I understand that? I love your mother, too.”

  Do you? she wanted to say. If he did, he never would have moved the family to Southern California. She wondered sometimes if he even loved his own father and mother. When was the last time he’d called them? He seemed to resent the time he took off to make two short visits home to family in the course of a whole year.

  What he loved—apparently the only thing he really loved—was his work. Nothing else seemed to matter to him anymore, least of all her or the children. Her mother didn’t even enter the equation.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” he said, defensive.

  “Should I? I hope you’ll call and tell her while you have the chance.” She glared up at him, hurt and anger spilling over into each other, flooding her with the desire to retaliate. “People need love when they’re hurting.”

  His eyes cooled. “I’ll leave you alone so you can pack.” He walked out of the room.

  The right reverend came by to talk to me today.

  Seems he’s in Galena preeching at the market place. First thing he did was look at my babies and my rounding belly and ask how long I had been married. Long enough I said. He told me Mister Grayson died last spring. He fell and cut himself on the plow blade and died two weeks later, jaws locked and body twisted like a pretzel. I asked him if that was what he had come to talk about. He said Papa is ailing and the homestead is going to seed and he thought I should know about it so I could do something to help. I said most likely Papa is not ailing but drunk. He said in Bible times Papa could have had me taken out to the gates and stoned. I said as near as I could tell the only people Jesus ever got mad at were church folk who were so busy looking for slivers in other peoples eyes they missed the logs in their own. He left none too happy.

  Now I am left to wonder what to do. Even drunk, Papa never neglected the land.

  I am staying with Aunt Martha while James is gone to the homestead to see how Papa is.

  I had forgotten how nice it was to sleep in a big bed with a lace canopy and beneath a roof that does not leak. No wind blows through the windows and the walls are painted white with a framed picture of a Grecian girl pouring water from a jug. Beth sleeps with me in the feather bed while Joshua and little Hank sleep in the small room next door. I miss James.

  People come and go quite often in Aunt Martha’s house. She has her door open to all. She invited a drummer in yesterday to supper. He looked tired and worn down to bones. He looked better when he left. She gave him money to pay for a room at the hotel. Aunt Martha and three lady friends quilted all afternoon. She invited me to join them and I did. Betsy took charge of Joshua and my babies. They fared well beneath her wings. She made pound cake for Joshua and applesauce for Hank. The ladies were pleased to watch the children play. Their own are grown and gone off to who knows where.

  I did not think it possible to enjoy womens company so much though I have always enjoyed Aunt Martha. But she is not like most I have met. These women were like her. They laugh about all manner of things, but not one unkind word did they utter about anyone.

  Life is hard and cruel.

  James said Papa is ailing and we have to go home and tend things for him. I did not dare ask if Papa’s heart has changed toward me. I will know soon enough.

  Truth is I am glad to be going home though I will miss Aunt Martha and Betsy and Clovis.

  Chapter 11

  A metal tank hummed in the upstairs master bedroom, the soft tick signaling an influx of oxygen that passed through a clear tube to Sierra’s mother. Sierra checked the tube frequently, making sure it was in place beneath her mother’s nose so that the pure oxygen would be infused into her mother’s straining lungs. Edema was causing the difficulty with breathing. Over the past few days the edema had gone down. Her mother’s breathing had eased and slowed. So, too, had the trickle of urine into the catch bag attached to the side of the bed. The hospice nurse had told her it would change color as death approached.

  Sierra rose from the wing chair beside the bed and checked the tube again. She touched her mother’s hair, once soft and dark auburn, now streaked white and oddly coarse. Her mother’s skin felt dry, like fallen leaves. She was awake.

  “Can I bring you some soup, Mom?” She was desperate to do something, anything, to make her mother comfortable, to keep her alive.

  “You can move me near the windows.”

  The rented hospital bed had wheels, but Sierra knew moving it would jar her mother and cause her more pain. She hesitated.

  “Please,” her mother whispered.

  Sierra did as her mother asked, gritting her teeth each time the bed jiggled. Her mother didn’t make a sound. “Is this all right, Mom?”

  “Hmmm,” her mother said, her thin fingers loosening their grip on the pillow. Her body slowly relaxed again. “Can you open the window?”

  “It’s cool today.”

  “Please.”

  As Sierra did so, she couldn’t stop worrying. What if her mother caught cold? Even as she thought it, she knew it was irrational. The hospice nurse said yesterday that it wouldn’t be long.

  “Brady’s mowing his back lawn,” her mother said, and Sierra noticed her speech was faintly slurred. The morphine patches were doing their work. She noticed other things, too. Her mother’s hazel eyes had lost their twinkle. Her skin was no longer tan from the long hours she’d spent tending her beautiful garden. “I always wanted skin as white as alabaster,” her mother had teased a few days before. Sierra hadn’t been able to laugh with her.

  White. The color of purity.

  The color of death.

  “I’ve always loved the smell of cut grass,” her mother said quietly. She reached out and took Sierra’s hand. Sierra felt the tremor of weakness in her mother’s grip. “This is my favorite time of year. The cherry trees bud, and the daffodils come up. Everything’s so green and pretty.” She sighed, and it was a sound of contentment, not sadness. “How can anyone fail to see God’s hand in all of it?”

  Sierra’s throat closed. She stared out the window as the clouds moved slowly across the blue sky. Her mother wouldn’t want her to cry. She had to be strong. She had to be brave. But inside, she could feel pieces of herself crumbling.

  “Every year, Jesus shows us the Resurrection,” her mother said and squeezed her hand lightly.

  “It’s a pretty day,” Sierra said mechanically, thinking that was what her mother wanted to hear. She couldn’t say what she was really feeling. How could her mother talk about Jesus now? She wanted to curse God, not praise Him! Her mother had served the Lord for as long as she could remember, and this was her reward? To die slowly, in pain? Her mother saw God’s hand in everything. But where was God’s hand in this?

  “Can you raise the bed?”

  “I think so,” Sierra said and went to the controls. She pressed a button, and the bed came up. When it stopped, her mother had a good view down on the garden below.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, content.

  Sierra checked her oxygen tube and readjusted the elastic straps looped behind her mother’s ears. One had left a crease in her mother’s cheek.

  “Would you pick me some hyacinths?”

  “Hyacinths?” Sierra said bleakly.

  “I can see a few down by the walk, near the birdbath.” Her hand trembled weakly as she tried to point. “The clippers are in the bucket under the steps.”

  Sierra hurried downstairs and out the back door to the porch. She found the clippers exactly where her mother said they’d be. She had always been one for believing a place for everything and everything in its place.

  Walking quickly along the brick path, Sierra was dismayed at the state of the garden. Even during the winter, her mother had weeded and raked and kept everything neat. Now it was clearly neglected.

  Sierra found a patch of the pretty blue flowers near the back of the garden. Hunkerin
g down, she selected two stalks of perfect blooms and cut them for her mother. When she returned to the upstairs master bedroom, she saw her mother had the controls in her hand. She had raised the head of the bed a foot higher, giving her a better view.

  What must her mother feel looking out at the sorry, deserted garden below?

  “Thank you, sweetheart.” She touched the flowers with her fingertips. She moved restlessly, pain flickering across her face. “It always amazes me to think how God made the garden and then placed man in it,” she said, her words coming slowly, sluggishly. “Everything He made, from the bottom of the seas to the heavens, was for us to enjoy. Like hyacinths and blooming cherry trees and sunshine. Sweetness, hope, light.”

  Hope, Sierra thought. Where was hope when her mother’s cancer advanced like an avenging army, ravaging her body, sapping her strength? Where was hope when death was imminent?

  She readjusted the oxygen tube. “Is that better?” she said, touching her mother’s face tenderly.

  “It’s fine, honey.”

  At night, when Sierra lay on the cot she’d set up near her mother’s bed, she’d listen to her mother’s breathing. And count seconds. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Her own heart would stop after six and then beat faster at seven. Eight. Nine. Sometimes ten. And then her mother would take another precious breath, and Sierra would find herself relaxing for an instant before she started the count all over.

  “Spring’s coming,” her mother said, gazing out the window. “The garden’s always so beautiful.”

  All Sierra could see were the weeds that had come up and the suckers sprouting at the base of several unpruned rosebushes. The fall leaves from the birch trees had never been raked and lay like a heavy black blanket over the uncut lawn.

  Over all the years the family had lived in this beautiful house, it had been her mother who had kept up the flower gardens and pruned the roses and trimmed the bushes and trees. It had been her mother who had been the gardener to loosen the soil, mulch in the compost, plant the seeds, and tend the young seedlings. Her mother had been the one to lay out the design so that flowers bloomed all throughout the year, filling the yard with a profusion of brilliant color.