“Wow,” Katelyn said, eyes wide. “You’re good. I would have never figured that out.”
“Don’t mess with mothers,” Kara said, laying a hand on Katelyn’s shoulder. “We know way more than you think.”
“I guess. So what else can I say if she texts me again?”
“Tell her we’ve shopped for her for Christmas, that we’re expecting her. She can come home anytime.” She turned to Chuck and reached for his hand.
“That her dad stopped being angry with her about three seconds after she left,” he said.
“Oh, here,” Katelyn said, handing them a piece of notepaper. “That’s the number she texted from. Maybe you can catch her sometime.”
“Thank you,” Bobbi said, taking the slip. “Thank you for coming over. You made my day.”
“We’ll keep praying,” Kara said. “Maybe we’re getting close.”
“I think so,” Bobbi said.
“Oh, what did the doctor say?” Kara asked. “Didn’t you go today?”
Bobbi nodded. “Surgery on the seventeenth, then six weeks of radiation starting January second.”
“Goodness, that’s soon.”
“There’s no reason to wait. I’ll be glad to have it behind me.”
* * *
Shannon slumped into the chair at her kitchen table and dug the wad of Dylan’s money from her purse. She laid the money out on the table and stared at it. She could really use it. There was at least one fifty-dollar bill in there. Even if all the others were ones, it was still a lot of money.
There’s nothing wrong with accepting a gift. Even from him. Right?
Except it wasn’t a gift. He was buying her off. When she took the money, that was like saying everything was okay. He would think everything was okay now because he gave her money. Like he paid her for having sex with him. Which made her a . . .
She snatched the money up and threw it in the trash without counting it.
Chapter 22
Resilience
Wednesday, December 17
Chuck gave up pacing the tiny hospital waiting room and dropped into the chair beside Jack. He checked his watch once more, but it was only three minutes later than the last time he looked. Rita and Gavin sat in the chairs across from them, while Glen Dillard sprawled in a corner seat.
“You okay, Dad?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, I just hate waiting. I figured somebody would’ve let us know something by now.”
“It’s only been forty minutes.”
“It’s not ‘only,’” Rita said, winking at Jack.
Chuck tried to focus on Headline News playing on the waiting room television, but it started to repeat itself. He shifted in his chair and stretched out his legs.
“Want me to send Gavin after some coffee or a Coke or something?” she asked.
“I don’t think I could drink it,” Chuck said.
“This is a real straightforward surgery, Dad,” Jack said. “Mom’s gonna be fine.”
“I know, I know. Mom said I should have been the one sedated for the surgery.” Chuck stood again and slowly walked the length of the small waiting room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rita pointing toward the door and he turned to see Dr. Kremer. He quickly crossed the room to shake the doctor’s hand. “This is good, right?”
“Excellent,” Dr. Kremer answered. “Everything went very smoothly. She did great. We’re going to keep an eye on her until she comes out of the anesthesia. You want to come back and be with her when she wakes up?”
“Please,” Rita said, with a teasing smile, “he’s making us nuts. Get him out of here.”
“I’ll call Joel,” Jack said as Chuck followed Dr. Kremer out the door.
Dr. Kremer led Chuck through a series of doors marked Authorized Persons Only to a recovery room where Bobbi lay, still sleeping with various monitors tracking her vital signs. “She should be coming around any minute now,” Dr. Kremer said. “We planned on forty-five minutes for the anesthesia, and we beat that by several minutes. There’s a chair there, and the nurses will be in and out, so don’t hesitate to let them know if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Chuck said, pulling the chair closer to Bobbi’s bedside. He wrapped his hand around her fingers, careful not to touch the intravenous line in the back of her hand. “Dear Jesus, thank You for answered prayers,” he whispered.
As he watched her, his mind drifted back to the night she’d spent in the hospital following the shock of Brad’s death. She had endured so much, not just in the last few months, but through her whole life—her mother’s death, her father’s emotional collapse and alcoholism, his infidelity, Tracy, raising Jack, besides Brad and Shannon. She was an amazing woman.
Her eyelids fluttered and opened halfway. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said softly.
“You sound like my husband, but I think you’re in the wrong room, sir,” she said with a weak smile.
“Dr. Kremer said everything went very smoothly.”
“Good. I couldn’t tell.”
“Smart remarks,” Chuck said. “Now I know you’re okay.”
“How long was I out?”
“Forty-some minutes. Can you feel anything yet?”
“It’s not completely numb,” Bobbi said as she gingerly raised her left hand and rubbed her right shoulder. “My fingers are moving, aren’t they? I can’t see them.”
“You want to sit up?”
“Not until they tell me to. I’m trying to do everything I can in hopes that this time the anesthesia won’t make me so sick.”
“Oh, right, I forgot about that. You told them, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and they said that things had improved tremendously since Shannon had been born, and since we weren’t under such time pressure as with a C-section, I should be in much better shape this time around. We’ll see.”
“Mrs. Molinsky, you’re awake,” Dr. Kremer said as he walked into the recovery room. “How do you feel?”
“Fine, I guess. Drugged.”
“Can you sit up?”
“Probably,” Bobbi said, grabbing the bedrail with her left hand. Chuck slid an arm behind her to help ease her up to a sitting position. “Thanks,” she said with a wink.
“Dizzy or anything?” the doctor asked.
“Not bad. It’ll go away in a few minutes.”
He made a note on her chart. “They’ll go over all your post-op care with you here shortly. My pager number is on there. Please feel free to use it. Mr. Molinsky, that goes for you, too. Call, even if it’s the middle of the night.”
“Thank you,” Bobbi said. “I’ll be fine.”
“No doubt,” Dr. Kremer said. “They’re going to bring you a painkiller, and then I wrote a prescription for more if you need them. You shouldn’t have excessive pain, so if you do, something else is going on, and we need to know about it.” He slipped her chart under his arm. “Now, are there any questions I can answer?”
“Can we move the radiation to the fifth?” Bobbi asked.
“To Monday? Of course. That’s when I meant to start it anyway.” He smiled sheepishly. “I would have caught that at your follow-up.”
“I’m sure,” Bobbi said. “I thought Friday was an odd day to start.”
“Speaking of your follow-up, would you rather come in next Tuesday or Friday?”
“Tuesday.”
“Tuesday it is. If there’s nothing else, Mrs. Molinsky, I’m very pleased with how things went. I think you’re all set.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Bobbi said. Dr. Kremer shook Chuck’s hand, then left them alone.
“You got plans for the second? Is that why you don’t want to start the radiation?” Chuck asked.
“Not really.”
“We’ll have to go out. Once you start radiation, you may not feel like doing anything for a while. Jack will still be home. We can get Rita and Joel to go with us. Make a big deal out of it.”
“I think I’d like that,” Bobbi said.
* * *
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Dragging in to work, Shannon found a note on her locker advising her to stop by the supervisor’s office before she started this morning. Great. That was the last thing she needed. She told herself over and over, it was probably about some overtime for the holidays. Mrs. Wolfe knew she could always use some extra cash, and filling up those hours . . . well, nothing could fill them. She knocked tentatively on her supervisor’s office door. “You wanted to see me?”
She smiled and waved Shannon in. “Yes. Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad.”
“Good,” Shannon said, easing the door closed. A heavyset woman with skin the color of her mother’s coffee sat in the chair across the desk from the supervisor.
“This is Esther Parker,” Mrs. Wolfe said. “She’s going to be helping you out.”
“Great!” Shannon said, reaching to shake hands. Esther was the same age as her mother, Shannon guessed, maybe younger, with kind but tired eyes. “Oh, did Richie talk to you about me working afternoons or evenings in the restaurant?”
“He did. I don’t have a problem with it as long as you keep up in housekeeping.”
“Thanks. The extra money will come in handy.”
“Esther’s worked in hotels before, so you’ll just have to show her the way we do things,” Mrs. Wolfe said. “I think you’ll get along fine.” She turned to Esther. “Do you have any questions?”
“No, ma’am,” Esther said quietly. “I’ll just get started.”
“All right, ladies,” Mrs. Wolfe said. “Have a good day.”
Shannon held the door for Esther and walked her to an elevator in a back hallway. “I’m Shannon Molinsky,” she said, offering her hand again. “I don’t think that was an official introduction back there.”
“Molinsky . . . ,” Esther mumbled. “You’re not kin to that preacher boy, are you?”
“Brad? He was my brother.” Shannon pushed the button for the elevator, then looked away. “He was killed this past summer. Did you know that?”
“No, baby, I’m sorry.”
Shannon immediately felt a twinge of homesickness, shame and guilt. “What did you call me?”
“Baby. It’s just a habit. I didn’t mean anything—”
“No, it’s . . . My mom always calls me baby. . . . I guess it sounded funny to hear someone else say it.”
The elevator door slid open and they stepped on. Shannon pushed the button for the eighth floor, where she started every morning. “You have family?”
“It’s just me and my mama now. I had a son, Julius, but he’s been dead . . . oh, thirteen years now, I guess.”
“Esther, that’s too bad.”
“It’ll be all right. My boy’s in heaven. You know, it was your brother what got him there. He told him all about Jesus.”
“Really? That’s awesome.” The elevator door slid open once again, and they stepped off. Shannon led Esther to the storage closet where the housekeeping cart was kept. She flipped through her keys and unlocked the closet.
“You know, I don’t think he was faking, either,” Esther said. “I think that boy really cared about us.”
“Oh, he did. That mission was his whole life. We used to tease him about being married to it.” Shannon wheeled the cart out and pushed it to the end of the hallway and knocked on the first room door. “Housekeeping,” she said, leaning closer to listen for movement in the room. Hearing none, she unlocked the door. “This one’s a check-out, so it gets the full treatment.”
“So what’s a rich white kid like you doing here changing bed sheets?” Esther asked bluntly.
“What? Oh, I needed a job.”
“Ain’t no jobs out in the suburbs?”
“Look, it’s complicated,” Shannon muttered.
“You ran away from home, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t run away. Little kids run away from home.”
“And little kids got sense enough to know when to go back home,” Esther said, her hand on her hip. “I’ll take the bathroom in this one.”
Shannon jerked the sheets off the first bed, then pulled the cases off the pillows. How weird. Of all the people to show up here, working with her, it was somebody who knew Brad. She stripped the second bed and began rearranging the items on the nightstand.
“All right, kid, come in here and show me where the little shampoo bottles go!” Esther called.
“You’re done already? No way!”
“Mmm-hmm,” Esther said, nodding. “I got a system.”
“I guess so,” Shannon said. “Let’s see, lotion, shampoo, conditioner on that side.” Shannon pulled three small bottles from her front pocket and set them on the left side of the sink. “Two soaps, a mouthwash and a shower cap on this side. Oh, they need the coffee stuff, too. It’s out on the cart.” She stepped out in the hall and returned moments later with Styrofoam cups and small packages of coffee.
“You ever try this stuff?” Esther asked.
“No, my mom’s a big coffee drinker and my brothers like it, but I never really got a taste for it.”
“So your daddy was the one who made you mad,” Esther said, nodding again.
Shannon slapped her hands against her thighs. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Cause you never mentioned him.”
“I never mentioned any sisters either.”
“If you had any sisters, you’d be living with them and not working here.”
“What are you, psychic or something?”
“No, but I’ve seen a lot of living, baby. Lotta living.” Esther turned off the light in the bathroom. “You miss your mama, don’t you?”
“My mom is the strongest, most incredible woman there is. Nothing rattles her.”
“I bet her baby girl leaving did.”
“Maybe,” Shannon said quietly. She left the bathroom and threw a set of fresh sheets on the bed, then picked up the first pillow and began stuffing it in a pillowcase. Esther helped her finish the beds and they checked off the rest of the room without much more conversation.
After working the rest of the morning in near silence, Esther spoke gently, “If you miss your mama, and you know how much it hurt her for you to leave, why you still here? You can’t be that mad at your daddy.” Shannon looked away without answering. “Mmm, mmm. Say no more, baby. Say no more.” Esther raised her hand and shook her head.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to. You got messed up with some boy, some bad boy, and now you’re too ashamed to go home and face your mama. Mmm, mmm, mmm.”
“Esther, stop it!” Shannon was only partly kidding. “You can’t know all this stuff!”
“Come on, it’s lunch time. Let me buy you a cheeseburger outta the machine downstairs. Make it up to you.”
“Thanks, but I packed a lunch today.”
“Then you at least need a Coke. Come on.” Esther locked the cart back in the closet.
“Wow, just one floor to go,” Shannon said as they got on the elevator to go downstairs. “It’s much better working with you, Esther.”
“In spite of everything?”
Shannon nodded. “It’s good to have somebody else to talk to.” Esther followed her to the break room where Shannon pulled an insulated lunch container from the refrigerator. Esther took out a coin purse and began making her selections from the vending machines.
Joining Shannon at a table, she unwrapped her sandwich and opened her bag of chips. “If I haven’t made you too mad at me, can I tell you a story about your brother?”
“You didn’t make me mad, and I would love to hear your story,” Shannon said.
“Brad led me to Jesus, Shannon. Just after Julius died, he came to my place. Sat on my couch and talked to me. Oh, and I argued with him. Told him I was too far gone, it was too late, all that kind of stuff.”
She looked away, tears forming even after so many years. “He read to me out of Joel, of all places. God says, ‘Turn to Me now while there’s time.’ Then Brad says to me in that preacher v
oice, ‘Now’s the time, Esther. Now.’”
“Wow, he was good,” Shannon said.
“He was. But you know what God says right after that? He says, ‘I will restore, I will give back to you what you lost, what the locusts ate.’ Now, God don’t have a time machine, I know, and He ain’t gonna bring Julius back from the dead, but He did give me my self-respect back, my purpose, my hope. I gotta reason to get up in the morning, and it ain’t cleaning hotel rooms.”
Esther smiled and raised her eyebrow. “Baby, I’m sure you ain’t supposed to be here. God don’t want you here. He wants you back home with your mama and your daddy.”
“I know,” Shannon admitted, her voice barely audible over the rattle of the heating system.
“Then what’s stopping you?”
Shannon sighed deeply. “You nailed it awhile ago, I’m ashamed. I’m afraid to face my mom and dad and tell them what I did.”
“Love is stronger than shame, baby. I promise you. Love is stronger.”
Chapter 23
Breakthrough
Thursday, December 25
Just after six a.m., Abby Greenway Molinsky started the water for a hot shower. For once she managed to wake up before her husband. Joel functioned perfectly well on four hours of sleep a night, but just for Christmas, he seemed to have switched off his internal alarm clock. Her son, on the other hand, was a typical teenager and likely wouldn’t rouse until nine thirty or ten.
She and Joel always had Christmas breakfast in bed, with the first one awake responsible for fixing it. Abby had already started the coffee and put the turkey in the oven for Christmas dinner later that afternoon. Even though her parents would be here, she was calm, actually anticipating the meal. Joel’s parents were coming. They’d done so much for her, accepted her into the family with open arms, and she was glad to have the chance to pay them back in some small way. They would temper anything her parents might say or do. She hoped her mom and dad would take notes today, notes on how to accept flawed, failed people, daughters especially, with grace and dignity.
Precedent: Book Three: Covenant of Trust Series Page 26
