by Chris Fabry
While pacing in front of the bleachers, she had noticed Coach Harrison’s watch. He’d removed it just before he ran. Without thinking, without hesitation, Hannah took it and slipped it into her pocket without anyone noticing.
CHAPTER 11
John dried dishes in the kitchen as he and Amy processed the events of the day. There was a discipline issue in one of her classes. John’s mind was fixed on the basketball team and the loss of the twins and all of their collective uncertainty. Drying silverware caused his mind to wander and he realized he wasn’t paying attention. When Amy turned the conversation to cross-country, he regained his focus.
“There would be a lot more interest and the team would get bigger if some of the popular kids ran, don’t you think?”
“Popular?” John said.
“You know who I mean.”
John dried a salad bowl. “Ethan could do it if he wanted to.” But he’d already made it pretty clear how he felt about that.
“He sure could. You know, John, I don’t understand why he won’t run. He’s your son and he’s so athletic. He would do really well out there. And then we could be out there together.”
John thought about Will. He wasn’t a fan of running himself, but he was on board to cheer for Hannah. Maybe Ethan could get with the program. “I could go talk to him.”
“Okay, that’s good,” Amy said.
John took the stairs to Ethan’s room and found him studying in bed. He knocked lightly on the door and Ethan kept his head down in the notebook, working out a precalc problem. The room was all Ethan. Trophies and memorabilia of seasons past. Above his bed was a miniature basketball hoop and backboard.
John sat in Ethan’s desk chair and faced him. He slowly said, “Can I appeal to you to think about something?”
“What’s that?” Ethan said.
“I know you don’t want to do cross-country. But there are advantages to it.”
Ethan looked at his notebook, something close to a scowl crossing his face. “Dad . . .”
“Just hear me out,” John said, interrupting. He checked his tone. Gentle. Inviting. “I’m not going to twist your arm. Running will help you stay in shape.”
Ethan chuckled. “You make the team run as punishment.”
He had him. “Yes, that’s true. But it’ll help with discipline, it’ll show a lot of school spirit, and I think you’d be really good at it.”
The scowl turned to a softening of Ethan’s features. It looked like he was capturing a vision of something. Then Ethan spoke confidently. “You know how you’ve always practiced basketball with me?”
“Yeah.”
He put the notebook down and sat straight. “Well, even though I would hate it, if you’ll run with me to train, I’ll do it.”
John stared at his son, unable to speak.
Downstairs, John took a deep breath and found Amy in the kitchen. “He’s not running.”
“Aww, John. Why not?”
“Amy, it’s okay. He doesn’t want to and we just need to be supportive.”
Amy’s face tightened and she shook her head. “Okay, you know what? I’m going to go talk to him.”
“No, no, no, no,” John said, blocking her exit. “We just need to give him space. You know, and love him.” She looked unconvinced. “And we don’t have to bring it up anymore.”
“Really?” Amy said.
John’s cell phone rang. Saved by technology. The screen said, Pastor Mark.
As soon as he answered, Amy’s eyes widened. “Oh, I forgot to tell you . . .”
He tried to hear Pastor Mark and Amy at the same time but it didn’t work. Too much information from two different sources.
“. . . and I told him you would do visitation at the hospital . . .”
“. . . could you be there in about an hour?”
“Uh, yes, I will be there in an hour,” John said into the phone, giving Amy a bewildered look.
“Thanks for volunteering,” Mark said.
When he hung up, Amy said, “You know what, I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you.”
He headed for the shower.
“You’re a good man, John Harrison,” Amy called to him.
“Whatever,” John said.
John drove to Franklin General, reflexively looking at his left wrist to check the time. Where had he put his watch? He could have sworn he’d taken it off and put it on the bleachers before he ran that day, but he couldn’t find it when they packed up. He’d look for it again when he got home.
Normally it was Bill Henderson who accompanied Pastor Mark, but this was part of the fallout of all the changes in town. John hated losing Bill’s friendship, but he also hated the void left by someone who contributed so much to the church. Bill was great at these hospital visits, and he seemed to enjoy it, so until now John had never felt the need to step up. Would spreading out the Hendersons’ responsibilities allow others to get involved and perhaps grow deeper in their faith? Would it help him? Maybe getting outside his comfort zone was what he needed.
Mark met him in the hospital lobby and thanked John for coming. “The first person we need to visit is Ben Hutchins, fourth floor.”
John winced when his pastor took the stairs. Mark said he needed the exercise. John felt every step in his calves and thighs.
“You know Ben is one of our founding members,” Mark said.
It made sense. Ben was older and had a kind smile, was a pillar at church, always present, always engaged with people’s needs. When they reached the room, a nurse requested that only one of them go in because other family members were visiting. John offered to wait in the hall and Mark entered the room.
When John turned around, he met two nurses wheeling an empty bed straight toward him. He stepped back but lost his balance for a moment and leaned against a door. It opened and he stumbled into a room where a man lay listening to music.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
The man didn’t look at John but at a spot on the wall near the ceiling. “Who’s there?”
“I’m just waiting to visit a church member next door,” John said, motioning toward the next room. The man didn’t follow his movement or look at him. Instead, he pointed his remote toward the CD player and paused the music.
“Are you a minister?”
“No, sir. I’m just here visiting a few people with my pastor.” John wanted to get back into the hall, but something made him linger.
“Well, if you’re just waiting, maybe you can visit me, too.” He said it with a slight grin and a little hope in his voice.
John stepped into the room, tentative, looking toward the hall and leaving the door open behind him. “Sure. My name’s John Harrison.” He stepped closer to the bed and studied the man’s face. He was African American with a graying mustache and beard. He had a slight build and looked pretty sick, judging from the number of machines hooked to him.
The way the man reached out a hand it was clear he couldn’t see. It hung in the air like a wandering kite string. John stepped forward and took the man’s hand and shook it. When he did, the man smiled as if he had found something he’d lost.
“Thomas Hill,” he said. He gripped John’s hand as if they’d known each other all their lives. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, Thomas.” What to say next? What would Bill do in this situation? Or Pastor Mark?
“Umm, have you been here very long?”
“About three weeks,” Thomas said. “I’ve been trying to keep diabetes from getting too greedy. Took my sight a few years ago. Now it wants my legs and my kidneys.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” John said. “Do you have family here?”
Thomas paused and it seemed a cloud was passing over him. The sound of the heart monitor filled in the silence between them.
“I’m more or less on my own. I grew up in Franklin, though. They brought me back here from Fairview to get dialysis here.”
John chuckled. “You m
ight be the only one coming from Fairview. I think everybody else is heading that way.”
Thomas smiled and there was a light to his eyes, even though he couldn’t see. John sensed something in the man. It was like someone thirsty for words had just jumped into a clear, fresh pool of springwater and was splashing around.
“That’s what I hear,” Thomas said.
Because of Thomas’s condition, John didn’t worry about keeping eye contact. He turned and looked out the door, wondering if Mark was finished. Thomas’s voice caught his attention.
“So tell me about yourself, John.”
John turned. “Well, I’m the basketball coach at Brookshire Christian.” A pause. Under his breath he said, “I hope, anyway.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
John scratched the back of his neck. “There’s a lot of things I’m not too sure about right now. I also teach history and I’ve been assigned the cross-country program.”
“Cross-country,” Thomas said, his face lighting up even more. He chuckled. “That was my sport.”
“Yeah?”
“I was third in the state in my day.”
“Really? Then I might need some advice because I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
Thomas laughed. It was such an easy sound that seemed to work its way up from his toes. That a blind man on dialysis could generate a laugh and light like this held John back from excusing himself and walking into the hall.
John had come because Amy had volunteered him. He’d come partly out of obligation to support his pastor, but here he was pulling up a chair beside Thomas’s bed. John believed God was involved in every aspect of a person’s life. Amy talked about “divine appointments” when she “just happened” to run into a student or a friend at an opportune time when they needed encouragement.
John sat and told Thomas about the changes at the school, the loss of the football program, and the fight to hang on to as many extracurriculars as possible.
“Frankly, I don’t know why we’re keeping cross-country. There’s not a lot of interest.”
Thomas grew quiet. “For the kids who do come out, cross-country can teach a lot. I learned about endurance. The importance of training.”
John sat forward. “That’s the thing. There’s just so much I don’t know. Give me five guys and a basketball and I can diagram an offense or a defensive scheme with the best of them. But the running thing is like speaking a foreign language.”
“I think you’ll be surprised at the similarities,” Thomas said. “You prepare your basketball team for each opponent you come up against, their strengths and weaknesses, right?”
“Sure.”
“It’s the same with cross-country, but the preparation is less about what other runners are doing and more about what’s up here.” He pointed to his head. “And in here.” He pointed to his heart. “I think I might be able to help. What are your practices like?”
John told him his approach to training. Thomas listened and moved his legs when he talked as if remembering the feeling of running. His answers were insightful and John wished he had a notepad to write down what he was hearing.
John’s questions covered everything from diet to the race day warm-up. “How do you train to have that big kick at the end of the race?”
“Oh, that kick,” Thomas said, shaking his head.
Someone knocked gently at the door and John turned to see his pastor.
“John, I’m sorry to interrupt. Visiting hours are almost over.”
“Sure,” John said, missing his watch again. “Thomas, I should probably say hello next door.”
“No problem.” Thomas grew somber and searched for words. “Hey, John . . . I don’t get many visitors I can talk shop with. Feel free to come back anytime.”
The heart monitor beeped, a series of numbers and lines showing what was happening inside the man, and it made John wonder what was going on in the man’s soul. What were his doubts and questions, fears and hopes?
John wanted to leave Thomas with something pastoral, something a Christian should say to someone confined to a hospital bed. He smiled and said, “It’s good to meet you, Thomas. I’ll be praying for you.”
“I’ll take it,” Thomas said.
On the way out of the hospital, Mark asked about Thomas and John told him he had stumbled into the room and started a conversation. “It was a fluke.”
“It’s funny how the Lord works out some of these connections,” Mark said. “Maybe God’s up to something in Thomas’s life and He used you to encourage him.”
“I feel like he encouraged me more than I did him.”
“Well, maybe God is up to something in both of your lives.”
John thought about that as he drove home. The boys were in their rooms and he stuck his head in and told them good night. Amy apologized again about volunteering him and John waved her off. He told her about meeting Thomas and the insights he gave.
“Maybe he can help you with Hannah.”
John nodded. “He’s in pretty bad shape, though. I honestly don’t know how much time he has left.”
John rummaged through his nightstand drawer and went to the bathroom sink. “You haven’t seen my watch anywhere, have you?”
CHAPTER 12
“I’ll just leave this here and you can pay me when you’re ready,” Barbara Scott said, forcing a smile to the customers in the corner booth. “No hurry.”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t any hurry getting our food out here,” the man said, wiping his hands on a napkin.
“Harold,” his wife scolded across the table.
He shook his head and threw down the napkin. “The English muffin tasted like it came right out of the box. Couldn’t you at least have thrown it in the toaster for thirty seconds? Was that too much to ask?”
She was surprised by his venom. The truth was, Barbara had delivered the food to their table as soon as the order was ready. And she had toasted the English muffin, but he had said he didn’t want it burnt. She didn’t respond with any of these thoughts, of course. Don’t argue. Be polite. Don’t blame the slow kitchen.
“I’m sorry about that, sir. Can I freshen your coffee?”
“No, I’m done,” he said, waving her away like a fly at a picnic. Some customers were like that. You could do everything in your power to make their meal a pleasant experience and they’d find some reason to complain. The good ones, even if something had gone wrong with the order, treated you like you were a person, not a robot in a uniform. The good ones tipped well. But a customer like Harold, whose face looked sour, sent her spiraling down. It took only one to ruin a shift, to keep you thinking about what you might have done differently.
“Do you want me to get the manager?” she said without emotion.
He pulled his wallet out and threw a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “No, I want to get out of here. Keep the change.”
His wife touched her on the arm as if apologizing without words. Barbara knew the bill was more than nineteen dollars with tax and took the money to the cash register.
“Sounds like you got a bad one?” Tiffany said, putting two pieces of bread in the toaster. She was the newest server and half Barbara’s age.
“For some people being mean is a full-time job,” Barbara said under her breath.
“Don’t let it get to you,” Tiffany said with a wink.
Barbara smiled because that was exactly what Barbara had said to Tiffany every time she had fought back tears. Tiffany was giving her a dose of her own medicine. Barbara put the change in her pocket and wiped down the table.
“Don’t let it get to you.”
That was a lot easier to say than to live, Barbara thought. Her whole life had been an exercise in not letting it get to her. Whatever the it was, she tried to stay out of its way. But it always had a way of coming back in the door and sitting in her section.
Barbara knew worrying was counterproductive. She remembered a sermon years ago, when she was st
ill going to church, and the pastor had quoted Jesus and how worry couldn’t add a single hour to your life. The pastor had read another quote that said, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” That stuck in her soul, but it was like trying to cut down on salt when salt was already in everything. It’s hard not to worry when it’s already baked into your heart.
Barbara worried about her finances. She usually had too much month and not enough money. She constantly worried about keeping her jobs because her bosses weren’t the easiest to work for and the slowdown in town meant fewer customers and more pressure to perform. She worried about keeping her car running and paying the insurance bill.
And then there was her worry about Hannah. She couldn’t be there during the day, and some nights she didn’t get home until the girl was already in bed. She worried about Hannah’s grades. She’d tried to help with homework, but what she encountered in the textbooks was incomprehensible. What they taught in high school these days was college material when she was a teenager. This caused Barbara to question whether she could effectively raise her and help her become who she was meant to be. A heart that questions itself is a heart that finds it difficult to love.
Barbara tried to drown the doubt by keeping busy. She worked not just to pay the bills but to occupy her mind so she didn’t replay what happened fifteen years earlier. Mostly, she was successful with that, but at times, like when she cleaned tables or drove from one job to another, she thought of her mistakes. All the might’ve beens of life. Could she have somehow kept Janet from her mistakes? Maybe if she’d done one of those interventions she saw on TV? Maybe if she had driven through one more neighborhood, she’d have found Janet. One more search could have rescued her.
The past was a loaded serving tray and Barbara struggled under its weight. Each morning she looked in the mirror and lived with the regret of her daughter’s death. She hadn’t been there when Janet needed her most. And now, with Hannah looking so much like her mother, every glance at the girl opened the old wound.
