Wayward Paths and Golden Handcuffs

by S.J. Thomason

  Nick pulled out of the driveway with Piper’s address plugged in to the navigation system on his mobile phone. She lived just outside of his old neighborhood, which was about forty minutes away. He listened to Christian music and hummed along as he drove to her house, feeling both light-headed and light-hearted. Time for a fun day with a gorgeous girl.

  As he drove, a sign advertising a Christian bookstore caught his eye and he remembered how he needed a Bible with both the Old Testament and the New Testament as his pocket version only contained the New Testament. He turned into its parking lot and parked.

  “Can I help you,” a friendly voice asked as he strolled through the front door.

  “Just looking for a Bible,” he answered.

  “Aisle four.”

  Nick walked over to Aisle 4 and picked out a New International Version Bible. He paid for it and returned to his car.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll go through the Old Testament,” he said to himself as he placed the Bible on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

  A short while later he approached her house, which was an older ranch-style house with beige trim and white shutters. Marigold flowers lined the walkway to her front porch, which featured by two oversized terracotta planters holding flowering hibiscus bushes. He parked in the driveway and took a deep break, still feeling the butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

  “Don’t overthink this,” he said, “she’s just a girl.” He walked to the door and knocked.

  The girl who answered the door looked like a younger version of Piper. She was wearing a ponytail and a blue sundress and was probably around ten years old.

  “She must have been very young when her mom died,” Nick thought to himself, “poor little girl.”

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi, is Piper home?”

  “Piper! Someone’s here to see you,” she yelled.

  Piper came to the door wearing a light yellow sundress over her swimsuit and a pair of black flip flops. She’d coordinated the color of her sundress with her polished fingernails and toenails, which contrasted her olive skin and dark hair. She carried a beach bag, which she’d stocked full, and a folding beach chair.

  “Are you ready?” Nick asked.

  “Yup,” she said as she closed the front door behind her and followed Nick to his car. He popped open his trunk and helped her put her things inside of it and then dashed to her door so that he could open it for her.

  She smiled at him as she tucked herself into the passenger seat.

  “Thanks, Nick.”

  He hopped into the driver’s seat and ignited the engine. They were off. He fiddled with the radio stations before landing on a country music song that he liked, which he played at a low volume so as not to stifle any conversation.

  They engaged in small talk, mainly about the weather and sports. Safe subjects for a first date. About an hour later, they arrived at Holmes Beach in Anna Maria Island, so they parked the car in the first available parking spot they found. Parking spots on Saturdays in Anna Maria Island were always difficult to find, so Nick felt lucky. They got out and grabbed their beach gear from the trunk and headed onto the beach.

  “How about here?” Nick said as he stopped mid-way between the parking lot and the ocean on the beach.

  “Works for me.”

  They positioned their beach chairs next to one another and assembled their towels and tanning gear before sitting down. Nick had packed a small cooler of sodas and waters, which he positioned between them, leaving the beer behind. He hadn’t felt the urge for a beer in a couple of weeks, ever since he’d started praying more intensely, and he was glad for that.

  He opened his cooler. “Thirsty?”

  Piper looked into the cooler. “Thanks Nick, I’ll take water.”

  “So, how was your spring semester at State?” He pulled a water bottle from the cooler and handed it to her and grabbed a soda for himself.

  “Good. I graduated. Walked down the aisle. And I just landed a job at HHB Networks as a marketing assistant. I’m going to be handling a good portion of their social media.”

  “Cool. I’m double majoring in finance or management, so I won’t graduate until December. My original plans were to catch one last semester on the football field to try to get a little more action and attention than I’d gotten before. But I’ve decided to take my final classes on-line. It’s not like the NFL was calling anyway. And I need to be home for my mom.”

  “That’s cool. Could be safer off the field anyway,” she said. “So dangerous with all of the concussions and injuries. I keep thinking about Tyrone’s death too. And his poor family.”

  “I know. I do too.”

  She nodded as she looked at Nick and said, “How’s your mom?”

  “Well, I can’t say she’s doing better. The chemo’s been awful. It kills the good and the bad cells inside of you and it’s weakened her quite a bit. She’s tired and depressed and just isn’t herself. We have a nurse who comes by to help out, and I help out when I’m home as much as possible. But she has stage four cancer and the doctor’s words are all doom and gloom. All I can do now is pray for a miracle.”

  “I’m so sorry, Nick. My mom had cancer too, so I know what you’re going through. It’s awful.”

  Both became quiet for the next few minutes as they stared out into the ocean. The breeze was light and the waves were smooth, with few whitecaps. The blue sky bore a handful of popcorn clouds, and little other than the sounds of waves and seagulls could be heard, which masked the sounds of the rings coming from Nick’s cell phone.

  “Wanna go for a walk,” Nick asked.

  “Sure.” Piper stood up from her chair. He stood up next to her and the two walked down the beach. She carried a small bag for seashells and walked next to Nick, occasionally picking up seashells as they headed south along the water. They walked and talked and Nick found that he greatly enjoyed her company; she was very easy to be around.

  Finally feeling comfortable, he asked the question that had been bugging him. “So, what made you change your mind about football players?”

  “I didn’t change my mind. That was just an excuse. I really just didn’t want to date you.”

  “Geez, tough crowd.”

  She continued, “Well, you seemed sort of obnoxious in high school, and even that time when I saw you at State and you used that story about how you wrestled with a shark on me. That had to be one of Bob’s stories.”

  He chuckled.

  “But then Marlis told me that Tanner told her that you’d changed since Tyrone’s death, and that you’d grown up. She told me that your mom had cancer and I felt that I needed to give you my support. I’d been kind of mean to you, you know, but I was always attracted to you.”

  Nick felt a twinge of excitement. “You definitely kept my head spinning, but I kind of liked that. You kept me on my toes. I never used the shark story on anyone else again,” he paused. Maybe I should give it to Bob.”

  She looked at him with a warm expression and said, “It was pretty bad, Nick. I’m glad you dropped it.”

  He started wading out into the ocean and she followed him. They spent some time floating in the water as they got to know one another a bit more. She was very attractive and he was still on his guard as he didn’t want to do or say anything stupid. He was still digesting the fact that he was with his dream woman on the beach. As they floated in the water and bounced up and down in the waves, his mom came to mind.

  “I hope she’s doing better today. The nurse was going to take her to the doctor. I hope everything is okay.” He looked over at Piper, who nodded her head in an understanding way, and again admired her physical appearance.

  “Love, love, love, the way her figure fills out that yellow bikini,” he thought to himself. He didn’t want to say anything about the bikini, however, because he feared that his words could come across the wrong way. Piper’s straight dark hair, camel-colored eyes, olive skin,
and full lips gave her the appearance of an exotic beauty. He couldn’t help but think of sleeping with her and those thoughts held his attention for a while.

  But his dreamy thoughts were interrupted with thoughts of a plane crashing and burning to the ground. Something wasn’t okay. He felt a rush of sickness and sadness well up inside of him as he turned to Piper, “Oh, man. Something’s wrong. It’s weird, I feel like something bad just happened. In Orange Bay. Something bad just happened in Orange Bay, which is at least an hour away from us.” His hands were trembling.

  “Piper, I need to go check my cell phone. I’ll be right back,” he said as he sprinted out of the water and back to the chairs.

  When he arrived, he wiped his hands on his towel and pulled his cell phone from his bag. He’d missed five calls from the home health care center. He quickly called them back.

  “Hi, it’s Nick. Everything okay?”

  “No,” responded Nancy, the director. Nick’s heart sank.

  “Your mom and nurse Fey were in an accident on I-275. They were hit head-on by a driver going the wrong-way. They’re lucky to be alive Nick. They’ve both been taken by ambulance to the intensive care unit at the hospital by your house. Your mom is unconscious.” Can you get over there? Your mom needs you.”

  “I’ll be right there. I’m about an hour away, but I’m on my way,” Nick said as his eyes filled with tears.

  “Piper,” he yelled as he ran down to the water, “Can you come with me to the hospital? I don’t have time to get you home first. My mom and her nurse were in a car accident. They’re in the ICU!”

  Piper swam and then ran out of the water, grabbing her bag of shells from the spot she’d left it on her way back to the chairs. She helped Nick gather their belongings and then both rushed over to his car, throwing everything in a sandy heap into the trunk. They were sandy too, but they didn’t have time to rinse their feet. They were off and on their way.

  Chapter 22

  The Rush to the Hospital

  With Piper by his side sitting silently, Nick drove his Mustang off the Island and through Bradenton until he reached the I-75 exit. He drove on to the ramp and began to accelerate. By the time he entered the highway, he was going fifty miles an hour. Within a couple of minutes, he was going seventy. Eighty. Then ninety.

  “Nick, please slow down! I’d like to get there alive.”

  “I need to see her. I don’t think she’ll make it out of the hospital, Piper, and I need to talk to her before she passes. I have something to tell her.”

  “Oh, Nick, don’t worry. I’m sure she knows you love her.”

  “She definitely knows I love her,” he said. He slowed down to eighty miles per hour to mitigate Piper’s concerns.

  But his thoughts were still racing. He still hadn’t fully accepted his mom’s fate when he learned of her cancer, but he’d been watching her over the days since and a future without her had started to sink in. Her face had paled and she’d lost some hope and the chemo was just killing her.

  A serious automobile accident for someone in that condition was like a death sentence, but she couldn’t die yet. He needed more time to prepare his case for Jesus and he hadn’t been making the best use of the time he’d had with her since he found out about her diagnosis. He’d just now picked up the Bible with the Old Testament included and he should have done that a long time ago. The proof was in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament passages. “Lord, please give me the time to read the passages to her.” He repeated the words over and over in his mind as he raced north on the highway. The ride seemed to be taking forever. He pushed the gas a bit harder and was now traveling at eighty-five miles per hour.

  Jesus words’ played in his mind, which were his words about the way it would be easier to squeeze a camel through a needle than to get a rich person into Heaven. “I’ll make sure her money goes to good causes. I’m sure she would have donated it herself if she’d had time to think about it. I’ll take care of it for her,” he bargained. “Please, just let me have a little more time with her.”

  He didn’t see the police car hiding in the brush on the side of the highway, and didn’t notice that it was now just behind him. But he heard the siren, so he checked his rearview mirror. That’s when he saw the cop behind him and the blue lights flashing, forcing him to slow down and pull over to the right side of the road.

  “Oh, this is just great,” he complained to Piper. “Just great.”

  The cop walked up to the driver’s side of the car and peered into the window.

  “License and registration please.”

  Nick fumbled around a bit, looking for his wallet, which was wedged inside of his glove compartment. He grabbed his driver’s license and handed it to her before searching the glove compartment for his vehicle registration. Soon both were in her hands.

  He watched the cop in his rearview mirror as she returned to her car. Her short and somewhat chunky frame jiggled a bit, but she exuded a cool confidence. Fidgeting in his chair, he felt anxious to get to the hospital as he waited and watched her in the rearview mirror. And waited. And watched. She’d already taken too much of his time and his time was more valuable now than it had ever been. Seconds passed. Then minutes. More fidgeting.

  “It’s okay. Don’t worry, we’ll get there in time,” Piper said.

  He looked at her and asked, “Piper, do you believe in Jesus?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “Well my mom doesn’t. I’ve been building a case for Jesus since I found out she didn’t believe in May to convince her that he’s our Savior, but I’m not done yet. I need to reference the passages in the Old Testament that predicted Jesus’ life, but I just bought the Bible this morning. It’s in the back seat.”

  “How about if I drive so you can find the passages?”

  He looked at her. No one else had ever driven his before and he wasn’t terribly comfortable letting her drive his car.

  “Have you ever driven a Mustang? Mustangs are powerful, you know.”

  “Nick, I can handle it. I’m sure I won’t need the strength you needed to overcome the shark!”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  The cop returned with his driver’s license and vehicle registration, along with a speeding ticket. She reprimanded Nick before returning to her car and driving off.

  Piper waited until she was out of sight before getting out of the car and exchanging seats with Nick who hopped into the passenger seat with the Bible in his hands. It was time to search for the passages.

  As he searched, he tried to hold back the tears, but failed. Tears streamed down his face as he thought of his mom and her fate. And his fate. She meant so much to him and she was all that he had. With no brothers or sisters or relatives in the area, he’d be all alone.

  Nick grabbed a pen and a sticky pad from the glove compartment and began to mark the chapters of the Old Testament that he’d heard discussed by the pastors over the months since he’d started going to church, starting with Isaiah. Then he marked Genesis 3:15 and Zechariah 9:9.

  Piper was at the wheel of the Mustang, driving down the road around seventy-five miles per hour, slightly above the speed limit but in the generally accepted safe zone from ticketing.

  Other than the sounds of page flipping and the purring of the engine, little could be heard in the car. Nick had turned the radio off early on because he found it too distracting. He was trying to concentrate his thoughts as best he could at that point.

  He thought of Tanner. Nick grabbed his phone from the center console and handed it to Piper. “Can you speed dial number two?” He asked. “Tell Tanner we’re on our way to the hospital and ask him if he’ll meet us there. I’m going to need his help.”

  Yet before she could dial, the phone rang.

  “Hello,” Piper answered. “Sure,” she said and handed the phone to Nick.

  “Hello.”

  “Nick, it’s Nancy. I’m with
your mom now. She’s still unconscious but her vital signs are good. She’s a strong woman.”

  “Yes, she is,” Nick confirmed with a hint of a grin, “We’re about ten minutes from the hospital. Had a delay, but we’ll be there ASAP.”

  He looked up at Piper, who was driving the car a little over the speed limit. “Piper, I’m sorry this has been such a horrible first date. I promise that if you’ll go out with me again, the next time will be much better. I promise.”

  She chuckled, “Yeah, can’t say I’ve had a date like this before. Who knows what’s next?”

  He turned to her and smiled warmly.

  “Nick,” she said, “I’d love to go out with you again. You have more character than I ever realized.”

  Chapter 23

  Let’s Just Say a Little Butterfly Told Me

  After what seemed like an eternity, they pulled into the hospital parking lot. Piper found a space in the parking garage on the third floor and the two exited the car and walked to the entrance of the hospital.

  “Can I help you?” the woman at the front desk asked.

  “Yes, I’m Nick O’Brien and my mom Catherine O’Brien came here by ambulance a short while ago. Can you please let me know which room she’s in? Oh, and can you let me know the room of Fey Rodriguez? She’s her nurse and she arrived by ambulance.”

  The woman checked the computer in front of her. “Your mom is in 316b in the ICU and Ms. Rodriguez is in 301a, just down the hallway.” She gave him directions to the room.

  Nick and Piper hurried down the hallway, up an elevator, and down another hallway to her room. He held his Bible tightly by his side and had prepared the things he wanted to say. He hoped to find his mom awake.

  When he entered her room just in front of Piper, he found her in her bed attached to a number of tubes and wires. A nurse greeted him and then left the room. He walked up to his mom and took a chair by her side. She was pale, almost ghostly, and he quickly noticed the bandages on her face. The rest of her body was covered in sheets, and it pained him to think of what was under the sheets, the other outcomes of the accident.

  Piper sat down in a chair by the window and Nick pulled another chair up to the bed. He grabbed his mom’s hand and held it tightly, and prayed. After opening his Bible to the verses he’d identified on his ride to the hospital, he wondered whether she’d be able to hear him if he read her the verses. Probably not. Her eyes were closed and all he could hear from her was the sound of her heart beating on the heart monitor. She was sleeping. Or vegetative. Closing the Bible on his lap, he chose to wait.