Different Paths

by Judy Clemens

  “Oh, no. Peter’s okay, isn’t he?” I pictured their kind minister, and the beautiful clean lines of the brick church and newly-painted sanctuary.

  “Not our church. Kulpsville. Katherine’s church.”

  “Katherine’s?”

  “The woman who you met last night. The new minister.”

  “I know who you mean, it’s just… What happened? Is she all right?”

  “I guess so. I don’t know much else. Lenny went to The Towne for breakfast and one of the guys mentioned seeing a bunch of cop cars at the church, and heard something about a break-in, but he didn’t have details. I thought you might know something.”

  “Nope. But I can think of someone who will have all the facts.”

  “Ma?”

  “You got it. I’ll call you back.”

  I punched the flash button and dialed Ma’s number. She answered on the first ring.

  “Ma? What happened at Katherine’s church? Is she okay?”

  “You heard already?”

  I explained Lenny’s early breakfast.

  She harrumphed. “News sure does travel. Katherine’s fine. She wasn’t there since it happened in the middle of the night.”

  I glanced at the clock again, even though I knew what time it was. “Then how did she find out already?” How did everybody find out?

  “Her brother-in-law, David. He goes for a run each morning, real early. On his way back he went past the church and thought something looked off, so he jogged up to the door and saw it was open. He went right back to Katherine’s house to get Alan, and they went into the church together and found a mess.”

  “What did the vandals do?” I hadn’t been inside that church for years, if ever, so I couldn’t picture their sanctuary or even any of their lay-out.

  “The damage is mostly in Katherine’s office. The Pastor’s Study. She’d hardly unpacked anything yet, but the boxes were torn open. Her books were destroyed, all of her family pictures and artwork. It’s awful.” Her voice was steely. “And they broke into the computer and the filing cabinet. Who knows what personal things were in there. Notes the interim pastor left, information about people in the congregation. The members are not going to be happy.”

  I closed my eyes. Not a good way for Katherine to get started. Even if it wasn’t her fault. “I hear they called the police.”

  “Of course they did. They’re over there now.”

  It wouldn’t be Willard. Kulpsville was out of his jurisdiction. “Will you let me know what they find out?”

  “Yes. But I haven’t told you the worst of it.”

  “What? I thought you said Katherine was okay.”

  “She is. Physically. But she’s pretty shaken up. She was doing all right until she saw what they’d spray-painted on the wall of her office. Alan wanted to hide it from her, but there was no getting around it.”

  Oh, crap. “What did it say?”

  Ma’s breath went loudly in and out. “It took up almost the entire wall. In bright red. It said, ‘GO HOME SINNER.’”

  ***

  “Poor Katherine.” Lucy stood beside me, leaning on her pitchfork. She’d shooed Zach off to check on his calf, and taken over his cleaning responsibilities. “And you know why they did it.”

  I grunted and threw a load of wet shredded newspaper onto the manure conveyor.

  Lucy continued. “It’s because she’s a woman. You know it is. I can’t imagine they have anything else in her life to complain about. And I certainly haven’t heard of any other new pastors getting that kind of a welcome. But, oh gee, they just all happen to be men.”

  I peered at Lucy over my shoulder.

  She picked up her pitchfork and jabbed it into the bedding of the stall next to mine. “I know, I know. I need to chill.”

  “I didn’t say that. It’s just interesting to see you all het up about something.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, don’t get me started on this topic.” She threw her load out of the stall. “I’ll just focus my anger adrenaline into my work.”

  I stood up and stretched my back. “So I can leave this all to you?”

  She looked down the row. “Sure. There aren’t that many left, anyway.”

  “Great.” I leaned my pitchfork against the wall. “I’m going to check on Wendy. Zach went out earlier and reported no new calf, but I’m going to go see for myself, to make sure we don’t need a vet.” When Gus, Zach’s first calf, had been born the summer before, Wendy had needed a C-section. I was keeping my fingers crossed she wouldn’t need one this time. Especially since Carla wouldn’t be making house calls anytime soon.

  Lucy flung another load out of the stall and I got out of the way. Real quick.

  Wendy had moved to another corner of the pasture, and it didn’t take an expert to know that birthing was imminent. A circle of wet splotched the ground behind her, and her back end, while not showing any little hooves, looked about ready to burst open. I stepped a little closer to pat her haunch, and she scuttled sideways, crunching my foot under her hoof.

  I smothered the shout that rose up my throat and channeled the energy into shoving Wendy off my foot. When she finally shifted I hopped away, cursing. An attempt to step on my left foot sent sparks of pain up my ankle and leg, and I swore some more.

  “Thanks a whole helluva lot.” I glared at Wendy. She gazed at me with her wide gentle eyes. She thought it was my own damn fault. She was probably right.

  I hobbled back up the hill to the barn and limped into the parlor.

  Lucy dropped the clean bedding from her arms and trotted over to me. “What happened? Is it Wendy?” She grabbed my arm. “Are you going to faint?”

  “I am not going to faint. But I need to sit down.”

  She guided me to a bale of straw and lowered me onto it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wendy—”

  “The calf?”

  “No. My foot. She stepped on it.”

  “Oh, no.” Lucy looked down at my boot. “Can you walk?”

  “Sort of.”

  She gave me a flat look.

  “Just go finish the stalls. I’ll sit here. It’ll be fine.”

  “You need to go to the doctor.”

  “No. I need to sit. Go away.”

  She looked at me some more, then shook her head. “You’re worse than Tess.”

  “So?”

  She made a growling sound and spun around, going back to work.

  I leaned against the wall, hoping the dizziness in my head would soon go away.

  It didn’t.

  A half hour later, Lucy was back. “Stand up.”

  “What?”

  “Stand up. If you can walk without wincing, I’ll leave you alone.”

  I glared at her. “Are you my mother?”

  She tapped her foot.

  I stood up. But not without wincing.

  She pushed me back onto the straw. “I’m going to tell Zach where we’ll be. Don’t go anywhere.”

  As if.

  Chapter Ten

  I popped some ibuprofen and Lucy situated me in the passenger seat of the Civic. The seat went back almost far enough I didn’t have to scrunch my foot under the dash.

  Lucy started the car. “Maybe I can visit Carla while you’re in the ER.”

  “We’re not going to the ER.”

  Lucy squinted at me. “Yes, we are.”

  “No, we’re not. We’re going to my doctor.”

  “She can’t help with this.”

  “Sure she can. She can take a look and tell us it’s not broken.”

  Lucy shook her head and took off down the lane. “You’re impossible, you know.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Dr. Rachel Peterson had been my doctor for only a year. She’d treated me following my motorcycle accident the summer before, and I’d stuck with her. Before that, the last doctor I’d seen regularly had been my pediatrician. Dr. Peterson c
onvinced me it was good to see a physician for more than just an emergency every ten years.

  Not that I’d been in that often.

  The waiting room held several people, but after a slight amount of Lucy’s badgering, the receptionist said Dr. Rachel would be able to squeeze us in. The receptionist wasn’t very happy about it, but what could she do? Lucy wasn’t going away.

  We’d been waiting about fifteen minutes, alternately trying to avoid being sneezed on by sick people and reading pamphlets on nutrition for the pregnant woman, when the outside door opened and a man came in. He strode up to the reception desk, his comb-over flying high as he walked. “Dr. Peterson said I should stop by sometime to talk about my prescription.” He took a pill bottle out of his pocket and set it on the desk.

  The receptionist smiled. “All right. I’ll let her know you’re here. And your name is…?”

  The man went red. “Not her. It’s Dr. James Peterson I want.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Dr. James isn’t in today. But Dr. Rachel would be happy to—”

  “I don’t want her. I want him. When will he be in?”

  The smile on the receptionist’s face faltered. “Today is Wednesday. He won’t be in again until Saturday morning.”

  “Satur— But my prescription runs out tomorrow!”

  “I’m sorry, sir. But, like I said, Dr. Rachel will be glad—”

  “Forget it. Just forget it. And tell Dr. James he can forget me, too. This is the last time I’ll be put off by him. I’ll have my new doctor send for my records. Today.”

  He spun on his heel, strode toward the door, and shoved it open. He disappeared outside, but was soon back, stomping toward the reception desk. My muscles went tight, and I wondered how quickly my foot would allow me to get to the desk if he got violent. His hand shot out from his side, and he swiped his prescription bottle from the desk, knocking over a pen holder and scattering its contents onto the floor.

  I hoped the door would smack his ass as he left.

  “Well.” Lucy slipped from her chair and picked the array of pens and pencils off of the tile floor. She righted the holder and placed the pens back into it, setting it gently in front of the receptionist. “I guess that’s not something you see every day.”

  The receptionist’s fingers fluttered toward her hair, then to the arm of her glasses. “Not every day, no, but far too often for my taste.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lucy sat back down and I watched the bright color on the receptionist’s face slowly fade. When the phone rang a few minutes later she jumped, but her voice sounded steady as she spoke.

  A nurse soon called my name and I pushed myself from my chair. Lucy rose to come with me, but I waved her back. “I don’t want my mommy.”

  She frowned. “What if you need me?”

  “I promise to have the nurse get you if I think I’m going to cry.”

  She rolled her eyes, and sat back down.

  “Besides,” I said, “shouldn’t you be reading that brochure about quitting your smoking habit?”

  A young mother close by glanced at Lucy, and I grinned at the fire I could imagine coming out of Lucy’s eyes.

  The nurse did the usual—temperature, blood pressure, embarrassing questions—and left me alone in the examining room. She didn’t attempt to take off my shoe, and I didn’t get into a gown.

  Dr. Peterson came in just about the time I’d decided it was too cold in the room and was standing on my good foot, rooting around below the sink for something to drape over my shoulders.

  “Help you with something?”

  I pulled my head out of the cabinet. “Blankets?”

  “Ha, ha.” She pointed at the examining table. “Sit.”

  I hopped up, and she stood in front of me, arms crossed. “So. You got stepped on?”

  “Huge pregnant cow.”

  “Ouch. I guess we’d better take a look.”

  She gently untied my boot and slid it off my foot. It hurt, but there were no tears. Lucy could stay in the waiting room.

  Dr. Peterson peeled off my sock and together we stared at the swollen black and blue mass that used to be my foot. She pushed on a few spots with her fingers while I clenched my teeth.

  “Well.” She stood up. “It’s x-ray time for you.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yup.” She rolled a stool over and began filling out a prescription for the procedure. “You can go right next door to the hospital. No need to even drive anywhere.”

  “Great.”

  She laughed. “You don’t sound too pleased.”

  “Why should I be? This will set me back a day of work.”

  She stopped laughing, but kept grinning, shaking her head. “It’s going to set you back more than that.”

  I closed my eyes. Of course she was right.

  “You’d better get Lucy,” I said. “I think I’m going to cry.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Dr. Peterson did get Lucy, but it was because she wanted her to wheel me over to the hospital. I looked down at the wheelchair, then up at the doctor. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  She wasn’t. She pointed at the chair, and I sat in it. Lucy began pushing me toward the door, but Dr. Peterson stepped in front of us, searing me with a schoolteacher stare. “Now I don’t want to hear any reports that you’ve been a difficult patient. You go in and do what you’re told.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  And I did. It wasn’t hard setting my foot on the table and holding it still. Even I could manage that. Fifteen minutes later I was out of the room and headed back to the doctors’ office. We were part way to the door when I grabbed the wheel. The chair lurched to a stop and Lucy banged into the back of it.

  “Let’s go see Carla while we’re here.”

  “We really ought to get you back to—”

  “It’ll take a couple of minutes for Dr. Peterson to get the x-rays and read them. Come on. She’s just over here.” I gestured toward the ICU.

  Lucy sighed. “Fine. I’d like to see her, anyway.” She started to push, but the chair refused to move. “Stella, hands off.”

  “Sorry.” I let go of the wheel, and we were soon in front of the ICU nurses’ station.

  The nurse, a familiar face from yesterday, looked at Lucy, and then at me. “Weren’t you standing up yesterday?”

  “Yup. Carla in?”

  She waved her hand. “Go ahead. Boyfriend’s in there, though.”

  “Oh, great.”

  Lucy grinned. “Good. I want to meet this guy.”

  Bryan jumped to his feet when we opened the door, but still kept a hold of Carla’s hand. Tightly, if the grimace on her face meant anything. She pulled her fingers out of his and flexed them.

  Carla’s forehead furrowed as she stared at my wheelchair. “What in the world?”

  I pointed at my foot. “Cow stepped on me. That real pregnant one.”

  “Wendy?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “She still hasn’t had that calf?”

  “’Fraid not.”

  She thought for a moment, probably remembering the C-section last summer, then shook her head. “You’ll have to have Bruce or Tim come out if there’s a problem again. Don’t think I’ll be delivering calves any time soon.”

  “She’ll be fine. It’s my foot that won’t.”

  “Broken?”

  “Guess we’ll see. I was just getting an x-ray.”

  Carla brightened. “Those folks are nice down there, aren’t they? Did you have Nancy as your technician?”

  I looked at her and tried not to laugh. “Sorry. Didn’t make it a point to get to know her.”

  “Well, it’s your own fault.”

  Lucy put her hand out toward Bryan. “Lucy Spruce. Friend of Carla’s.”

  Spruce. It still took me a moment to think who she was talking about, without the old “Lapp” after her name.

  Br
yan cleared his throat, looking briefly at Lucy’s face before ending up gazing somewhere past her shoulder. “Bryan Walker. Um. Friend of Carla’s.” He shook Lucy’s hand. “I think…uh…I’ll go get some coffee. Or lunch. Or…something.” He swiveled his eyes toward Carla, his face pleading.

  “You do that, sweetie. These ladies will keep me company for a bit.”

  He tried to grab Carla’s hand again, but she avoided the clutch and patted his arm. “Go ahead.”

  He scurried toward the door, not looking back.

  I raised my eyebrows. “What’s up with him?”

  “You are.”

  “What?”

  “You make him nervous. He thinks you don’t like him.”

  “Oh. Well…”

  “I told him that was ridiculous. What’s not to like?” She pierced me with a steady gaze.

  Lucy giggled. “I think he’s adorable.”

  I looked up at her so quickly I got a crick in my neck. “You do?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And why shouldn’t she?” Carla said. “He is adorable.”

  My mouth opened, but I shut it before any sound came out. I leaned my head down and rubbed the back of my neck.

  Carla and Lucy rehashed how the two new lovers had met, from the dance, to what Carla was wearing, to exactly how long it took him to kiss her (three dates). Carla explained what all she knew about him (not much beyond his job and what kind of music he liked) and how sweet he was with her dog, Concord. I was about to scream when Lucy finally said, “So, how are you today? How’s your head?”

  Carla wrinkled her nose. “Yesterday they said they’d let me eat.”

  “And?”

  “Jello and chicken broth.”

  I laughed, the pain in my neck forgotten.

  Lucy gave me a stern look. “Better than nothing, right?”

  I snorted. “Not for this woman. But look up, Carla, by tomorrow you’ll be able to have pureed carrots.”

  She groaned. “At least they’re considering letting me go home today.”

  I blinked. “Already?”

  “They say my vessel tear isn’t expanding. The blood’s being reabsorbed into my body, and apparently that’s a good thing.”

  “It is.” Lucy’s voice was flat. From the look on her face, she’d had personal experience with Carla’s type of situation. Probably when Lucy’s first husband, Brad, took the fall down the stairs that first paralyzed, and finally killed him.