Seasons Under Heaven

by Beverly LaHaye

  His silence pulled her gaze back to him. A tear rolled down his face, but he didn’t seem to have the energy to wipe it away. She did it for him. “What if I never see him again?” Joseph whispered.

  She looked down at him, waging a war within herself to keep from falling apart. “It could still happen, Joseph,” Brenda said in a shaky voice. “You might still get a heart.” It was the only answer she was capable of giving him. That stubborn faith was the only thing keeping her functioning—keeping her in this room day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, talking to Joseph, trying to keep him from despairing—trying to keep herself from despairing.

  Joseph shook his head feebly. “What if I don’t, Mama?”

  She didn’t know if her voice would make it through an answer. “We’re still praying, Joseph,” she said. “God’s still in control. He knows about your heart. He hasn’t forgotten.”

  “Then why hasn’t He given me one?”

  “It’s not time yet,” she said.

  He stared up at her, thinking, and she wanted to tell him to stop it, that it wouldn’t do any good, that he needed to spend his time thinking little boy thoughts, pretending he was a wounded cowboy, an injured soldier, a football player who’d just scored a winning touchdown. He needed to pretend he was going to get better and get up out of this bed and go home. But he wasn’t having little boy thoughts. His thoughts were those of an old man who’d lived his life to its end, and now faced the death that his loved ones weren’t prepared for.

  “Mama?” he whispered, finally meeting her eyes.

  “Yes, sweetie. What is it?”

  “I want to go home. I want to sleep in my own bed.”

  She stroked his forehead and tried valiantly to hold back the tears. “Of course you will, when you get that new heart and the doctor releases you. We’ll have a big party. The whole neighborhood.”

  He stared at the ceiling for a long while as his thoughts reeled by. Finally, mercifully, his eyes closed. He fell into a light sleep. Relieved that she wouldn’t have to answer his questions anymore—not for a while, anyway—she tucked his blanket around him, then went to the end of the bed to make sure his feet were warm. His toes were swollen, further testimony that his heart wasn’t adequately pumping his blood. She got a pair of socks and slipped them on him, then tucked the sheets and blanket around them. She stood at the window, staring out into the night. Crossing her arms across her stomach in a selfembrace, she let the tears flow harder and faster than they’d flowed yet.

  After a while, she turned back to the bed and regarded her little boy with his gray face and his bluish lips, held hostage by a heart in rebellion. Soon, that heart would go on strike altogether. It might be a quiet, merciful ending. Or there could be pain that grew worse hour by hour, long past the point either mother or son should be able to endure. Only God knew.

  She heard footsteps in the corridor outside, then David appeared in the doorway. It was after visiting hours, and she hadn’t expected him.

  He saw her crying and quietly came to her and pulled her into his arms. She clung to him with all her might. “Did you leave the kids alone?”

  “No,” he whispered. “Sylvia came over to spend the night so I could come back. It was good that she did.” He seemed to hesitate, then added, “I felt like I should be here tonight.” His voice caught on the last words, and still holding her, he looked at his sleeping son. “Any change?” he asked.

  Brenda shook her head. “He’s talked a lot about dying.”

  David closed his eyes. His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

  “We talked about heaven,” she said quietly, her eyes fixed on Joseph’s face. “He’s worried that he’ll get there but never see you.”

  He looked down at his little boy, then back up at his wife, and shook his head drearily. “I’ll tell you something, Brenda. I find it real hard to believe in a God who would let a little boy like this get sick and die at nine years old.”

  The angry, whispered words cut through her heart. “David, you didn’t believe even when things were fine. If none of this had ever happened, it wouldn’t have made any difference to you—not spiritually.”

  “Well, we’ll never know that, will we?” Wearily, he went to Joseph’s bed, leaned over, and pressed a kiss on the boy’s forehead. Then he dropped his head to the sheet next to Joseph’s head, and his shoulders began to shake as the sobs tore silently out of him. Brenda put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him up. He turned around and held her, his body quaking with despair.

  “You know, if I could cut out my own heart, I’d give it to him.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I feel the same way.”

  “None of this should be happening. Life stinks.”

  She couldn’t answer. They sat down together on the vinyl couch, wiping tears from their faces as they watched their little boy sleep, checking every rise and fall of his shoulders, every weak, irregular bleep of his heart on the monitor. It was nearing midnight, and except for the occasional footsteps outside the door, there hadn’t been a sound. It was as quiet as death, and she wondered if Joseph would just slip away from wherever he was right now—just stop breathing quietly, without a fight, and never open his eyes again.

  Hours passed, and without meaning to, she and David dozed off, their heads resting against the back of the small vinyl couch. When Brenda awoke, it was one A.M. She felt instantly guilty for falling asleep when her son was dying, and she got up and went to Joseph’s bed.

  Behind her, she heard David stirring. “Is he all right?” he asked softly.

  Joseph hadn’t moved since falling asleep last night. Studying the monitor, she was discouraged by how weak his heartbeat was. Would those little peaks flatten out altogether before morning came?

  “Brenda?” David asked, getting up and joining her beside the bed.

  “He’s…I don’t know.” She checked the pulse in his neck. It was so weak she almost couldn’t find it. “He hasn’t moved. He’s just lying there, on his back. He never sleeps on his back.”

  They turned him on his side, and began massaging his back and legs, trying to get his blood circulating. His heart rhythm changed as they did, which brought two nurses in to check on him. They seemed somber and concerned, which made Brenda worry more. The activity around him didn’t waken him.

  They sat back on the couch, watching their son as if he would pass from life as soon as they took their eyes off him. When the monitor began to show a weaker beep, they both stood up.

  Brenda went to Joseph’s bed and shook him, watching the monitor as she did. His heartbeat didn’t change. “Joseph, no!” she cried.

  Suddenly the line on the monitor flattened, and an alarm sounded. Nurses bolted in and pushed her aside. Doctors rushed in behind the nurses. They all began working on her son, shouting instructions to each other and calling for equipment. Someone ushered them out into the hall, and she buried her face in David’s chest as she waited for them to pronounce her son dead.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty-Nine

  Daniel Dodd couldn’t sleep that night. Sylvia heard him walking down the stairs, and she rolled out of Brenda and David’s bed, pulled on her robe, and followed him down. “Daniel? Is something wrong?” she asked.

  He headed into the kitchen and turned on the light. His eyes were sleepy and his hair ruffled, but he didn’t look like the twelve-year-old child he was. He had changed in these past few months, just as Leah and Rachel had. He was older. Sylvia could only guess at the thoughts that went through his mind. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

  “Are you worried about Joseph?”

  He didn’t answer. For a moment, he just looked down at the floor. “I was thinking about his shoes,” he said finally. “He couldn’t get them on his feet when he left for the hospital because his feet were swollen. I thought maybe he could wear mine. But they’re so sweaty and dirty, I thought I’d wash them. We could take them to him tomorrow. He likes my shoes.”

  “Then
what will you wear to school?” Sylvia asked.

  He shrugged. “My flip-flops, I guess. Doesn’t matter.”

  She remembered when her children were twelve. Shoes had mattered a lot. Sarah had gone through a stage where she’d wanted black sneakers that she’d neon-painted herself. Jeff had insisted on a certain brand of high-tops that he swore enabled him to make the junior high basketball team.

  Neither of them had suffered through sleepless nights over a sibling whose shoes didn’t fit.

  “Do you know how to wash them, Miss Sylvia?” Daniel asked. “I know how to wash jeans and underwear and stuff, but not sneakers.”

  “Sure,” she said, taking them out of his hands and heading into the small laundry room. She dropped them into the washer, poured the soap in, and started the cycle. When she turned back around, Daniel was still staring at the floor.

  “What are you thinking, Daniel?”

  Again, he shrugged. “Just that I wish I could miss school tomorrow and go to the hospital. There are things I need to tell Joseph when he wakes up.”

  Sylvia pulled the chair out from the table and sat down. “What things?”

  “Things like…what a cool little kid he is. I never told him that. I just called him dumb and stuff.”

  She watched him standing there in a baggy T-shirt and gym shorts, his feet bare. “I’m sure he knows you didn’t mean it.”

  “I’d still like to tell him.” He was struggling with the emotions pulling at his mouth.

  She knew he would never allow her to do what came most naturally—pull him into her arms and hold him. She felt helpless, inadequate. “How about some warm milk?” she asked finally.

  He nodded.

  She warmed it up in a saucepan, then poured two glasses, praying it would help him sleep. When he’d finished, she set her elbows on the table and gazed at him. “Feel pretty helpless, don’t you?”

  He stared down at the empty glass and nodded.

  “Me, too,” she said. “I’ve been praying and praying. It’s like my mind won’t let me rest. It keeps saying that we have to keep praying.”

  “We do,” Daniel said. “Joseph needs us to.”

  “That’s what I was doing when I heard you on the stairs.”

  He gave her a half-smile. “That’s what I was doing before I came down.” He got up and put his glass in the sink, then slid his chair back under the table. “Thanks for the milk. Guess I’ll go try to sleep.”

  “Okay.” She watched as he padded to the kitchen doorway. “Daniel?”

  He stopped and turned back around.

  “Lots of others are praying, too, you know. Joseph’s pretty well surrounded with prayer.”

  “I know,” he whispered. Then he headed back into the darkness upstairs, where she knew he would pray some more.

  CHAPTER

  Forty

  Brenda was exhausted and emotionally drained as the last of the doctors filed out of the room. Joseph had been revived. He was alive, but she knew it was just a matter of time before his heart failed for the last time. He looked as if his soul had already left his body—or as if it would flee again at any moment.

  It was the longest night Brenda and David had ever shared together, yet the moments seemed so short. When morning came, she realized that Joseph hadn’t stirred since he’d been revived. She went to his side and found his hand under the covers. It was cold as ice. His fingers were blue. She remembered when his hands were hot and his palms were sweaty, when his cheeks would get red after running from Daniel or chasing the dog.

  Hours passed. Nurses moved Joseph, gave him injections, changed his IV, checked his monitors. He never woke up. David didn’t leave the hospital. He left ICU only to get them food, which neither of them could eat. Neither of them had showered, and Joseph’s breakfast tray went untouched. When the lunch tray came, they took the breakfast tray, then at supper, replaced the lunch. Still, Joseph did not wake up.

  When he had been asleep for twenty-four hours, Brenda bent over his bed. “Where is he?” she asked David. “Why won’t he wake up?”

  David, draped across the rail on the other side of the bed, looked ragged and exhausted. She was exhausted, too, but could not take the chance of resting again.

  She thought of her son’s questions yesterday about death and heaven, and suddenly the thought of his dying here was unbearable. Old people died in hospitals, suffering people that saints were praying home. Not children. Children needed to be in their own homes, with things that gave them comfort.

  “The last thing he said to me yesterday…” she whispered to David. “He told me he wanted to go home. Sleep in his own bed.”

  David closed his eyes, and tears plopped onto Joseph’s sheet.

  “David, Joseph’s going to die, isn’t he?”

  He nodded, unable to speak. She covered her mouth and bent down to press her forehead against her son’s. “What if we took him home?” she asked.

  There was a moment of silence, and finally she looked up and saw the tragic look on David’s face.

  “What do you mean?” he asked painfully.

  “I mean…if he’s going to die…let’s take him home, David. Let’s let him die in his own bed. Not in a cold hospital room with tubes and alarms. Not here.”

  Again, silence. “But the children,” David whispered finally. “It would be too hard on them.”

  She covered her face with both hands, wishing she knew what to do. “I’m thinking of them, too. They need to say goodbye to him. He’s their brother.”

  He stared down at the boy, his face twisted as the thoughts turned in his mind. “But Brenda, as long as he’s here, there’s still a chance he’ll survive until—”

  “David, I don’t want my son to die here.”

  “What difference does it make where he dies?” he whispered harshly, the corners of his mouth trembling with the words. “Here or there—what difference does it make?”

  “He wanted to go home. He wanted to be in his own bed.”

  “But there’s still a chance…” His voice trailed off as despair flooded up in him, rendering him unable to finish.

  “We could take the machines with us,” she said. “We could take him home in an ambulance. Get a private nurse. We would keep giving him what he needs. But he would be home, in his own room, with his own family. Harry would be right across the street. If they do find a heart, we can have him back here in just a few minutes. And if they don’t—he’d be at home, David. His own home.”

  David stared at her for a long moment, turning the idea over in his mind. She could see the turmoil the suggestion created in him.

  “What if his heart stops again?” David whispered at last. “Who would revive him?”

  The words came so hard that she almost choked them out. “How many times do we want the heroics, David, if there’s not a heart? Joseph may be suffering. Maybe there’s a time…to let go.”

  The rims around David’s eyes reddened, and he sucked in a sob and covered his face with a callused hand. He wept for a moment, as hard and as deep as she. But finally, he raised his head and met her eyes. “Okay,” he whispered. “Maybe I can catch Dr. Robinson before he leaves the building. And I’ll call Harry.”

  David left the room, and Brenda looked down at her son, wanting so much to hold him, to cradle him in her arms, to let him feel the love she had for him. So she climbed onto the bed next to him, careful not to pull any of the tubes coming out of him. Carefully, she slid her arm under his head, and held him as she wept against his face.

  Joseph never moved.

  After a few minutes, David came back in. “They’re still waiting for Dr. Robinson to answer his page,” he said softly. “I called Harry, and he tried to talk us out of it. But when I explained, he said he understood. He said he’d help all he could.”

  Brenda squeezed her eyes shut. “We’re taking you home, Joseph. Can you hear me? You’re going home.”

  But Joseph didn’t respond.

  He just l
ay there, limp and gray.

  CHAPTER

  Forty-One

  Harry couldn’t sleep after David’s phone call, and with Sylvia at the Dodds’ house, he saw no reason to stay in bed. He spent some time praying for Joseph, and for Brenda and David, then decided to go to the hospital and see if they needed help getting Joseph ready to go home.

  He tapped on the glass at the side entrance and waited for the security guard to let him in. As the door opened, he heard the sound of a woman wailing.

  “What’s that?” he asked the guard.

  “Big accident on the interstate,” he said. “Some lady’s losin’ it over in ER.”

  Concerned, Harry detoured through the emergency room. Ambulance lights flashed just outside the glass doors, but the patient had already been brought inside. A woman wept loudly, uncontrollably, in her husband’s arms. Her legs gave way, and he bent with her until she was on the floor, balling up as if that could assuage her grief. The man wept, too, but more quietly, in a way that was perhaps even more tragically helpless. Clearly, someone they loved had died. No matter how many times Harry had seen it, he’d never gotten used to it.

  Outside the emergency room, two paramedics turned and moved slowly down the hallway, a look of defeat on their faces.

  Other patients—a man with a broken arm, a woman with a cut on her foot, a teenaged boy with asthma—all quietly watched the family’s anguish. Harry, too, stood watching, wishing there was something he could do. He thought of approaching the family, but he saw that someone was already there, urging them into a conference room. He wasn’t needed.

  Whispering a prayer for them, he started through the swinging doors that would take him to the elevators. As he pushed through, he ran into Dr. Robinson, rushing out.

  “Chris! What’s the rush?” Harry asked.

  The man looked shaken, distracted, and his eyes sought out the weeping parents. “I’m glad you’re here, Harry,” he said quietly. “I may need you.”