A Mother's Gift (Love Inspired)

by James, Arlene

  Nodding, Joel eased forward, realizing only then that he still had his arm about Dixie’s shoulders. She slipped free, linking her hand to his. Realizing that she’d stretched out, he lifted his other hand and felt Vonnie’s grip it. Assuming that the women were linked to Sam, Joel bowed his head.

  “Most gracious Lord God, we thank You for sparing Sam from permanent injury. Ease his pain now, Father, and in the weeks to come as he heals. Keep Your protective hand upon him and guide the physicians as they repair the damage. Restore him, Lord, to full function and full health. The glory and honor for his healing and every other good thing is Yours, Lord, and never let us forget it. In the name of Your Holy Son, amen.”

  He heard a sniff from Dixie and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back before letting go. Joel’s heart swelled. Perhaps friendship was all they’d ever have between them, but that was more than he’d feared they could have after their last meeting, even if it was less than he wanted. He’d been over and over it in his mind. A part of him feared that his mother’s influence and his own blindness was all there was to his feelings for Dixie. Bess had declared Dixie the girl for him, and hers had been all but the last face he’d seen before the explosion and the ensuing darkness. He couldn’t deny that he’d obsessed over that a good bit. Why Dixie? Why that particular photo?

  On the other hand, if he was going to hold one beautiful face before his mind’s eye for the rest of his life, why not Dixie’s? Was he wrong to think that God had singled her out for him? He’d tried not to spin dreams, to make assumptions, to limit God in any way, but then she’d told him about her amazing dream, and it had seemed so very obvious that they belonged together, that they were meant to be. But even if that was God’s plan, and not just his own blind obsession, who was to say when it came into being? Before Mark’s death? After? Was it God’s perfect will or Plan B? And what if Dixie never saw it that way?

  Joel didn’t have the answers. He didn’t know why he and Dixie couldn’t have gotten together from the beginning, or why Mark had died and he had lost his eyesight. He didn’t know if Dixie would ever adjust to her loss and be ready to move on with her life, to love again. If not, then he had to believe that God would have someone else for him, because he definitely did not want to spend his life alone in the dark.

  Then again, he was never alone. He had begun to actually feel God’s presence in the hospital after the explosion. Trembling in fear, raging in anger, horrified at his loss, confused with his surroundings, he had begun to sense, within himself and apart from the chaos, that Greater One Whom he had accepted as a boy. He wished he had felt God’s physical presence sooner, that it had been more real to him before he’d lost his eyesight, but he had been more blind then than now.

  Sam began to grouse about not getting the wood stacked. Apparently, he’d cut the fallen tree into logs for a wood-burning fireplace. Joel hadn’t even realized that Dixie had one, though it made sense. Most newer homes did these days. He thought about how nice it would be to sit before a crackling fire with Dixie snuggled against him, Clark playing quietly on the rug at their feet. He wished, suddenly, that he could see Clark, really know what he looked like now. His mother had told him to picture himself at that age but with curls. Joel was afraid to do it. That would make Clark seem too much like his own son. That would be risking too much of his heart if Dixie never came to care for him.

  Sam grumbled about the stump in Dixie’s backyard, and Joel knew that it was just a way to keep his mind off his pain. Nevertheless, he quickly sought to reassure the older man.

  “Don’t worry about any of that,” he said, hearing footsteps in the passageway outside. “I’ll get over to Dixie’s and stack the wood. We can deal with the stump later.”

  Suddenly, Dixie’s hand grasped his arm and gently towed him out of the way as someone entered the space, several someones, actually.

  “Okay, Paul Bunyan,” a woman’s cheery voice said, “let’s get you sewed up. You folks can wait in the family lounge.” While metal parts clanked and clunked, she told them how to get there. “Doc will be out to talk to you as soon as he’s finished. Then someone will come and get you when the lumberjack here is out of recovery and heading for a room.” Wheels whirred and screeched on slick flooring as she spoke.

  “Careful,” a man said, and then they were out of the space. Joel heard the nurse joking with Sam as they wheeled him away.

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you juggling chain saws is dangerous?”

  “There goes my plan to join the circus,” Sam rumbled, and Joel chuckled.

  “Thank God you were with him,” Vonnie said, momentarily throwing Joel off-kilter.

  “But I wasn’t,” Dixie replied shakily, “not all the time. I left him there alone when I brought Clark to you!”

  “You were there when it counted,” Joel remarked soothingly, reaching out for her. He wondered if she even knew what she was doing when she stepped forward and let him slide his arm around her back.

  “Joel’s right,” Vonnie said, sniffing. “He’d have bled to death if you hadn’t acted so quickly.”

  “At least I was able to do something this time,” Dixie whispered, and Joel knew that she was thinking of Mark’s death. Would she ever get past that loss and trauma? He could only pray so.

  “Let’s find that lounge,” he said. “I, for one, could use a cup of coffee.”

  It took far longer than Dixie expected. Two interminable hours passed before the doctor came out to report.

  “Everything went fine,” he assured them, standing before them in the large, homey lounge, “but we had to be sure that the muscle was completely intact, and that the bone wasn’t cracked or broken by the impact of the chain saw. Luckily, it seemed to be a glancing blow.”

  “Don’t think it was luck,” Joel said from a chair beside her.

  Dixie’s attention zipped to Joel’s face, even as the physician targeted him with a curious look, observing, “Mr. Wallace said the same thing earlier.”

  Joel smiled. “Not surprised. Our faith teaches that God watches over us and works everything in our lives to our benefit.”

  The doctor shifted his weight, tilting his head. “You’re blind, aren’t you?”

  “I am. Concussive trauma.”

  “And you think that’s for your benefit?” the doctor asked in an amazed tone.

  Joel’s answer came without hesitation. “I do.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know. If I hadn’t lost my sight I’d still be in the Marine Corps. I might have died of war wounds or a training accident. I might never have come home, never gone back to college, never thought about law school…any number of things. Look, God didn’t plant a bomb in the road. Some bad guy did that. My vehicle hit it. Doesn’t matter to me why God allowed that. I only have to trust that He’ll work it to my good.”

  Dixie stared at Joel. The words of Romans 8:28 rolled through her mind.

  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

  Not long after Mark’s death, someone had quoted that verse to her. It had infuriated her. She’d thought that they were saying that Mark’s death was a good thing, that God had engineered it in order to bless her. But she didn’t want to be blessed from such tragedy! How dared God do such a thing.

  But maybe that was not how it worked.

  Maybe God allowed certain circumstances to unfold as someone else arranged them, purposefully or unknowingly, for His own reasons. Maybe that way lay the greater good. And maybe not. She didn’t know anymore. Still, if Joel and Romans 8:28 were right, she could trust God to work for her good. Couldn’t she?

  It was hard to see how anything good could come out of Mark’s death, but much good had come out of his life. Clark, for one thing. And good things could still come her way. If she would let them.

  The doctor smiled and said, “Admirable attitude.”

  “More a matter of faith, really,”
Joel said.

  “Then I admire your faith.”

  “Better to admire my Lord,” Joel replied with a smile. “Faith in the wrong thing accomplishes nothing.”

  “Let me guess,” the doctor said, eyes slitting. “You’re going to be a preacher.”

  “Lawyer.”

  The doctor laughed. “You’ll make a good one. Very persuasive.”

  “Be glad to persuade you a little more,” Joel said. “Anytime you want.” He put out his hand. “Name’s Joel Slade, by the way.”

  The two shook hands. “I just might take you up on that, Joel.”

  Before he swept from the room, he told them that someone would be along to get them when Sam woke up from the anesthetic. Dixie stared at Joel with new respect, sad humility and not a little pride.

  Another hour crawled by. Dixie had already checked on Clark earlier and been told that he was happily playing with the two young children in the household of her mother’s neighbor. Both were older than Clark, but Dixie knew the family well from years of acquaintance. No doubt he’d be worn-out and cranky by the time she got him home again, but she’d deal with that later. Right now, she just wanted to see her father and know that his pain had lessened. Her mother’s tension would fade then, and Dixie could finally relax.

  Joel provided distraction, making conversation, offering suggestions. At times, he sat in silent prayer. Other times, his lightest touch warmed and comforted her, an arm stretched out behind her, a hand brushing hers, the playful bump of shoulders, a friendly pat. This wasn’t the first time, Dixie recalled, that Joel’s presence had distracted her from her anxiety. This time she appreciated that fact.

  At last, a nurse in scrubs appeared in the lounge.

  “Sam Wallace’s family?”

  Both Vonnie and Dixie rose. Halfway across the floor Dixie realized that Joel hadn’t moved from his chair. She went back to him.

  “You coming?”

  He spread his hands. “I can wait here.”

  Can. She didn’t know what that meant. “Well…if you want.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, I don’t need to wait. I should call a taxi and get someone to point me toward the main entrance.”

  That certainly didn’t seem right. Dixie bit her lip and glanced at her mom, before reaching down for his hand. “Come on.”

  “I’m not family,” he said quietly, his long fingers wrapping tightly around hers.

  She felt as if she’d been kicked in the chest. It was true. He wasn’t family. Mark had been family, and in a just world it would be Mark sitting there, Mark holding her hand, Mark praying at her father’s bedside, not Joel. But none of that was Joel’s fault. She could not blame him for Mark not being here. She had only herself to blame for that.

  Suddenly the fact that she wanted Joel there, that he had been a comfort and a support to her, seemed a betrayal of Mark. Still, she couldn’t escape the knowledge that Joel’s obvious fondness of Sam and concern for his well-being had been a comfort to her and her parents. Besides, Joel had waited with them all this time; he deserved the chance to put his mind at ease where Sam was concerned.

  “Dad will want to see you,” she told him, tugging on his hand. Instead of releasing her, he let her pull him to his feet.

  “I want to see him, too.”

  “Well, then, let’s go.”

  Vonnie and the nurse led off as soon they saw Dixie and Joel following.

  “I just don’t want to intrude any more than I already have,” Joel said softly, even as he kept pace with her.

  Dixie shook her head. “We’ve taken hours of your time. You’re not intruding.”

  He clapped a hand down over her forearm. “You haven’t taken anything. I want to be here. I want to be here for you and your parents, Dixie.”

  She felt a flutter of pleasure inside her chest. Dismayed, she asked herself why Joel had to be so attractive. Despite his blindness, the man packed a real wallop in the appeal department. It didn’t seem fair. He was equal parts honesty and charm, confidence and caring and entirely too handsome.

  Mark had also been handsome, of course, she thought loyally, picturing his lanky, boyish frame and even, symmetrical features. She remembered his sweetness and willingness to please, his quiet, easygoing nature.

  A truth she had long avoided struck her. Mark had been too easygoing, too easy to please. He hadn’t liked to stand up for himself, and she had taken advantage of that. How many times, she wondered, had he given in to what she wanted, what she thought best, when his own judgment had been contrary to hers?

  Joel Slade would never let her get away with that. Joel would never let anyone or anything override his better judgment in important matters. He would yield, yes, if shown the error of his thinking. He would compromise when he could find a way, even indulge others when he felt he could, but rarely would he concede on any important matter without a fight. She knew that about him as well as she knew it about herself.

  And his blindness had nothing to say about it.

  She felt sorry for his handicap, but the idea of Joel as an object of pity was laughable to her now. Maybe he needed a little assistance at times, but he certainly wasn’t helpless. She remembered him marching her around the corner of the house that day and how he’d made his point. She thought how he’d earlier told her father not to worry, that he would stack the firewood in Dixie’s backyard and help Sam figure out what to do about the stump later. Thinking of the calm, engaging, self-assured manner in which he’d witnessed to the doctor, she concluded that the doc was right. Joel would make an excellent attorney, just as he had, no doubt, made an excellent Marine. No, not helpless at all.

  Joel Slade was blind, but his intelligence, character, compassion, personal strength and the depth of his faith made him a man more capable than most. They made him the sort of man, in fact, with whom a woman could spend her life. Not that she was necessarily that woman, of course. Still, she couldn’t help liking him, admiring him, wanting to be his friend.

  “Forget the taxi,” she said, making a sudden decision. “I’ll drive you home.”

  Joel nodded, fighting to keep his expression pleasantly bland. At least it’s a step forward, he thought. Whether or not it was a step toward his heart’s desire, he had no way of knowing, but it was definitely progress. As they journeyed through the hospital, he thought of the dream Dixie had described to him, and smiled. She might as well have described his dream as hers, for he truly wanted nothing more than to be there for her and Clark, as he wanted to be there for all those he loved.

  Loved.

  He’d known, early on, that he probably loved the idea of Dixie more than Dixie herself, but that was no longer so. She might be wrong about something, but until convinced otherwise, she’d fight on. He liked that about her. He didn’t even care, at this point, how much convincing she might take. As for himself, he’d never been so sure of anything in his life. He’d tried not to be. It hadn’t seemed smart to be so easily convinced that she was the one for him, but he just couldn’t escape the conclusion.

  He gripped her hand in his, felt her warm presence at his side, inhaled her perfume, felt the gentle gust of her breath as she turned her head to speak to him, heard the sound and timbre of her voice, and he ached to call her his. He wanted her to belong to him and vice versa. He wanted the same with Clark, the right to be with him, care for him, play with him, parent him. Joel wanted a rich and full life for all three of them. Together.

  Most of all, though, Joel wanted Dixie and Clark to be happy, with or without him.

  So, yes, he loved her and her son.

  Turning, they pushed through a heavy door into a quiet, slightly chilly, clean-smelling room. Joel grinned, hearing Vonnie laugh and Sam, still half-asleep and slurring his words, assure everyone that he was, “Fine. Fine. Ne’er be’er.”

  He even, Joel thought, loved Dixie’s parents. They were salt-of-the-earth people, as dedicated to one another and their family as it was possible for a couple t
o be, and no one had ever been kinder or more welcoming to him.

  “How many stitches, tough guy?” he asked, knowing that was something Sam would want to brag about.

  “Seventy-five!” Sam announced proudly. “Top that!”

  “Oh, good grief,” Vonnie scolded, fondness underlying every syllable. “Men! If I don’t watch you, you’ll be running around in shorts to show off the scars.”

  “’At’s right,” Sam slurred. “Gordy Blevins’s always braggin’ ’bout twenty-six in ’is arm. Ha! Piker.”

  Vonnie clucked, and Dixie snorted, but Joel just grinned all the wider. “More power to you, I say.”

  “Now, don’t encourage him,” Vonnie retorted. “He’ll be slicing up the other thigh just for attention.”

  “I’ll passh on ’at,” Sam muttered.

  “You sound like you need to sleep,” Joel said, inching over to the bed and holding out his hand. Sam’s tough, leathery fingers caught his and squeezed.

  “Thangs for comin’, Joem. Take care m’shugar lump, uh?”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it,” Joel said noncommittally, wondering how Dixie was taking that. To his surprise, her hand patted his shoulder, then she edged him aside.

  “Sleep well, Daddy. I’m so sorry about this.”

  “My own faul’, shugar, but ’s all good now.”

  “The doctor says we can go home tomorrow,” Vonnie told him.

  Sam’s answer was nothing more than a low hum, followed by a snore. Joel felt Dixie’s arm slide through his. She turned him, and they tiptoed out into the hall, Vonnie with them.

  “Mom, I’m going to run Joel home, but I’ll come back to sit with you and Dad.”

  “I can take a taxi,” Joel reluctantly volunteered, working to keep his tone casual. “Do it all the time.”

  “No, no,” Vonnie said firmly. “You two pick up Clark and get a bite to eat. The nurse has already ordered a late meal for your father and me. I threw some things in a bag before we left the house, so I’m fine for the night. I’ll call you in the morning or if anything changes, but I don’t expect a spot of trouble, not one. Now go.”