by Arlene James
She returned in less than twenty minutes with his lap desk and a dinner tray. Hilda had outdone herself with a dish that Kaylie called “drover’s pie,” consisting of tender bits of beef in a thick, dark gravy presented in a nest of mixed vegetables surrounded by a hearty helping of mashed potatoes and topped with a flaky biscuit crust. It beat by a mile the bland, anemic meal that the hospital had served him the night before. Add to that bounty a huge dish of banana pudding that was to die for, and Stephen wound up stuffing himself. Thoroughly sated, he leaned back against the stack of pillows behind him and sighed.
“I may just have to steal that woman away from your aunts when I leave here. Man, can she ever cook.”
Kaylie chuckled. “If you want to see what damage three little old ladies on the warpath can do, you just try that.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I can just image your aunts coming after me with hoes and pitchforks. Hypatia, of course, would be wearing pearls and pumps, and all the more terrifying for it, while Magnolia sported galoshes and heavy gardening gloves.”
Kaylie snorted behind her hand. She had brought the desk chair in from the other room and sat with her legs crossed at the knee, watching him pack it in. Oddly, she’d seemed to derive some sort of pleasure from watching him eat. His mother had done that when he’d been a little boy. Kaylie, however, was not his mom, and he was no boy now.
“And Aunt Odelia?” she asked, a smile wiggling on her lips.
He considered and decided, “Viking gear, complete with finger bones dangling from her earlobes and a horned helmet.”
“Except she’d tie bows on those horns,” Kaylie said, giggling.
He laughed at the thought of it, but then he shivered. Odelia would probably use his intestines to tie those bows. Still, that Hilda was some cook. It might be worth the risk.
“I don’t know how you could pass up that drover’s pie,” he mused. It was the wrong thing to say.
“I promised Dad I’d have dinner with him,” Kaylie murmured. She checked her watch then hastily rose and took the tray from his lap desk. He was really starting to hate that watch of hers. “How’s your pain level?”
“I’ll live,” he muttered, though the leg had started to throb pronouncedly.
“Let me send this down to the kitchen, then we’ll address that.”
She went out, supposedly to send the tray down to the kitchen via the dumbwaiter, and returned a few minutes later. Moving to the bedside table, she picked up several small prescription bottles there and began to go through them one by one.
“I had these filled earlier on my way back here.” She went through them one by one. “Anti-inflammatory. You take it after you eat. Nutritional supplement. Aids in repairing the bone. Antibiotic, twice a day for the next four days. Just a precaution. Pain med. One shouldn’t knock you out. Two might, but not likely. You’ll definitely feel them, though. The new injection obviously puts you on your back, so we’ll save that for bedtime and extreme instances.” She uncapped and shook out pills from all four bottles, then dumped the pills into his palm and handed him the water glass from the bedside table. “Bottoms up.”
He dutifully swallowed the collection of capsules and tablets and drained the glass.
“Now let’s get you in and out of the bathroom before those hit you. Okay?”
“Yes, please.”
She carried the desk chair back into the sitting room and pushed in the wheelchair, but it quickly became obvious that the positioning of his leg would make the chair useless in such close confines. He didn’t mind. It meant that he’d have his arm around her while he hopped to and from the bath.
They went through the laborious process, him hopping on one foot, Kaylie steadying and supporting him. He was relieved to find that he could still do pretty well for himself once he actually got where he was going. His left leg was apt to be twice as strong as the right before this was over, though. He made a mental note to have Aaron speak to the team kinesiologist first thing tomorrow, then he had to stop and think what day this was. Thursday, he decided. Yes, definitely Thursday. The team was playing tonight.
By the time he got back to Kaylie, he was aching all over. Nevertheless, he insisted that she put him in the wheelchair and push him into the sitting room so he could watch the pregame show and the hockey game to follow. She did so reluctantly and only after explaining the functions of the chair and showing him how to operate it. Wasn’t much to it. As it was all hand-operated and he had the use of only one hand, he wouldn’t be going very far in the thing by himself, anyway.
She fetched his phone from his bedside table and gave it to him, along with a slip of paper that she pulled from a pocket. “This is the telephone number here at Chatam House. If you need anything, call the phone here and Chester will come up.”
“But I can still call you, right?”
“Of course. It’s just that Chester’s closer and can take care of most of your needs. I’ll be back later to give you your injection. Okay?”
“Okay, but that’s hours from now.”
“True. So, in the meantime, if you need anything call on Chester.”
He shoved his hand through his hair. “Surely you see that I have greater need of you now than I did before this cast covered my whole leg. Besides, you have no idea how boring it is being stuck here with nothing to do and no one to talk to.”
“Well, you have the TV,” she said, plucking the remote from the mantel, “and there are books on the bedside table. Plus, you have your phone.”
He rolled his eyes and snapped, “Fine. You weren’t hired to keep me company. I get it.”
“It’s just that I have other responsibilities,” she said a tad defensively, “and I’ve already been here more today than I expected because I had to be sure how the new meds would affect you.”
“Whether they’d give me nightmares, you mean.”
“Yes, among other things.”
He had not, fortunately, dreamed at all—not that he remembered, anyway. In fact, now that he thought of it, the nightmare hadn’t come since the doctors had changed his prescription. The lack of nightmares didn’t change the reality, however.
He averted his gaze, shrugging. “Guess I’ll see you later then.”
“Yes. See you later.”
She handed him the television remote and went out.
Loneliness swamped him the instant she left his sight.
Appalled, he shook his head. It wasn’t that he was actually lonesome. Of course it wasn’t! He’d been living alone for the better part of a decade now. Good grief, could he not be alone in a suite of rooms in a house full of people without becoming maudlin about it?
He toyed with the idea of calling Aaron and getting him down here to watch the game with him, but Aaron had already made that onerous drive once today, and Stephen really couldn’t, in good conscience, ask him to make it again. He wondered whom else he might call and thought of his mother. Suddenly the need to hear the sound of her voice welled up in him, but the next instant Nick’s face wavered before his mind’s eye. Gulping, Stephen pushed away that vision, along with any desire to contact his mother. What other choice did he possibly have?
Ten minutes later, he was pecking out a text message to Kaylie, informing her that the game would be over by ten.
“It’s ready, Dad,” Kaylie said, setting the casserole dish on the cast-iron trivet in the center of the kitchen table next to a tossed green salad. “Will you bring the bread?”
“It’s not right,” Hub rasped, continuing with a theme that he’d been harping on since she’d gotten home. “You should be able to eat undisturbed at a decent hour.”
It was forty minutes past their usual dinnertime, a mere forty minutes, and they tended to eat early, but Kaylie said nothing. It would help if Stephen would refrain from texting her every half hour or so. Still, she couldn’t help thinking of the way Stephen had enjoyed Hilda’s drover’s pie tonight.
She smiled to herself, remembering the appreciative so
unds he’d made and the expressions of bliss on his handsome face. It had been thoughtful of Hilda to cook a dish that he could eat with one hand and to have it ready early. Otherwise, they would have had to find something to tide him over until the aunties’ normal dinner hour, which was about twenty minutes from now. Hilda had said she’d done it because Stephen had missed lunch, but Kaylie suspected that it was a combination of Hilda’s compassion and Stephen’s complimentary remarks regarding her gingerbread muffins. Kaylie’s own cooking did not receive such high marks from her father.
“And we ought to be able to count on a decent dinner,” Hub went on, carrying the loaf of whole wheat bread to the table from the kitchen counter by its plastic sleeve, “not these hastily thrown together, one-dish concoctions that are all you have time for now. Your mother would have laid a proper table and provided a balanced meal.”
Kaylie let her exasperation show, placing one oven-mitted hand on her hip and gesturing toward the table with the other. “What is wrong,” she asked, “with place mats, dinner plates, napkins, forks, knives, spoons and drinking glasses? Isn’t that an adequate table setting? And where do you think I got the recipe for this casserole? From Mom, that’s who! I’m sorry she’s not around to serve it, but that’s not my fault.”
Hub reared back as if she’d struck out at him. “So, you think it’s my fault?”
“Of course not!”
“Will you blame God then?”
“Never! It’s no one’s fault. Sometimes life just is what it is, and we have to deal with it as best we can.”
“We were dealing very well, I thought, until you took this job,” Hub grumbled, pulling out his chair.
“Were we?” Kaylie asked, divesting herself of the oven mitts. “Were we really dealing well?”
He set his jaw mulishly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kaylie sighed, pulled out her chair and sat down, choosing her words carefully. “Lately I’ve realized that we’ve been locked away inside this house for too long. We still have ministries to perform.”
Hub took his seat, his mouth a thin, severe line. “I devoted my life to ministry.”
“Dad, you speak as if your life is over!”
“That part of my life is, given my age and health.”
“You could live another twenty or thirty years. Just look at Grandpa Hub. He was ninety-two when the Lord took him home and still overseeing his investments and charities from his wheelchair.”
A look of such bleakness overcame her father that Kaylie wanted to weep. She reached for his hand. Though gnarled and pale, it still felt strong to her. Only his spirit, it seemed, was weak.
“You may be content to putter around your garden and sit in your chair for the next twenty years, Dad,” Kaylie said softly. “You are certainly entitled to, but I am young and healthy, and the only thing I know without any doubt about myself right now is that I am called to nursing.”
“But are you called to nurse this particular man?” Hub asked, gripping her hand hard.
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation, a little shocked that she did not have to mull that over first, especially considering her mixed feelings and many hours of prayer on the matter.
Hub released her. “I am not so sure. You’re alone with him too much. He’s too young and pushy. We know nothing about him. He—”
“He’s gravely injured and cannot manage on his own,” Kaylie interrupted, folding her hands in her lap and bowing her head. “Will you pray over our food or shall I?”
Hub cleared his throat, and Kaylie prepared herself for a long, sermonizing monologue of the sort to which Hub had only rarely resorted during his career as a preacher. Instead, he quickly asked for a blessing on the food and left it there. Grateful for that, Kaylie tried to be as pleasant as possible throughout the meal and into the evening, though her mind never wandered far from Stephen and how he might be doing.
She felt terrible guilt for leaving Stephen there on his own—and terrible guilt at the idea of leaving her father to go and check on Stephen. Reminding herself that her father truly would be alone, whereas Stephen could call upon her aunts and the staff at Chatam House, she forced herself to remain at home. She had texted Stephen that he should call when he was ready for bed. When that happened, she would go to him.
But Stephen did not call, and it was not duty that finally drove her to make her excuses to her frowning father and rush over to Chatam House. She didn’t know what it was exactly, but it felt horribly like longing, and so she whispered a prayer before she started the engine of her car.
“Lord, guide me. I am so confused, so torn. I’m not sure how to help either Stephen or Dad. I want Your will in all things, so I ask You please to reveal Your will to me in unmistakable ways. I know I should be able to discern and decide, but I don’t trust myself to know what is best. I don’t even know what I want!”
That brought her to a shocking halt, for it was a blatant lie. She did know what she wanted. She wanted to fulfill her calling as a nurse. She wanted to marry and have children. She wanted her father to find joy in this final stage of his life. She wanted to spend time with Stephen—not just see to his medical needs, but to spend time with him.
“But are those the right things to want?” she asked her Lord.
Dashing a tear from her eye, she laughed at her own confusion, opened her heart to God and just let it be for the moment.
Some ten minutes later Kaylie parked her convertible with the top up under the porte cochere at Chatam House and let herself in via the side door. Though not yet ten o’clock, the house was quiet. She walked the darkened hallways with an odd sense of anticipation, turned through the foyer and climbed the stairs without seeing another soul. As she moved along the landing toward the front of the house and Stephen’s suite, her way was partially lit by the gray light of the television emanating from his open doorway. She was halfway there when he roared in apparent anguish.
“Aaarrrgh!”
She broke into a run, swinging through the door and into the sitting room, just in time to see Stephen pound his good right fist on the arm of his wheelchair.
“Forty seconds!” Stephen howled, glancing over his shoulder at her. “He lets them go ahead with forty seconds left to play!”
Kaylie slumped against the back of the sofa, one hand splayed over her heart and gasped, “You scared me.”
“We were tied,” Stephen barked at her, “and Kapimsky let them score!” He raised a hand and made a grasping motion at the television screen, as if he might pluck this Kapimsky off his skates. “Forty seconds from overtime.”
Suddenly, his demeanor changed. Sitting forward, he lifted his fist at the TV. “Go, Smitty, go. Deke left, deke left. No! Left. Aw, man. Their goalie’s a strong right, so he always expects a shot from the left. You fake left, then you shoot right.” A buzzer sounded, and Stephen threw up his hand.
“I take it they lost,” Kaylie said, starting around the sofa. Her heart still hammered. In those few seconds before she’d entered the suite, she’d imagined him on the floor in pain, having reinjured himself yet again, and the guilt had been heavy indeed. For whose fault would it have been except her own?
Stephen muted the television and curtly nodded for her to sit on the couch. “They lost,” he confirmed, “in the last forty seconds! Unbelievable.” He shook his head.
Kaylie gladly dropped down onto the cushions. “So is it over for them?”
He shook his head. “Naw, this is a seven-game series, but we’re down two-to-one now.” Sighing, he rubbed his forehead and shifted in his chair. “I should have been in the pipes tonight. I should be there for my team!” He smacked the arm of his chair with his palm, punctuating his words. “I deserve to be cut after this. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”
“Well, yes, it is stupid for you to think like that,” Kaylie said bluntly.
Stephen looked up in some surprise then shifted again, saying, “Look, I did this to myself, okay?”
“Ok
ay. That doesn’t mean you deserve to be cut from the team, especially for what happened tonight. That’s on them.” She swept a hand, indicating the casts on his arm and leg. “This is on you, and you’ve suffered mightily for it. Still are, judging by the way you keep fidgeting in that chair.”
Stephen sighed and pointed the remote at the television. “I just want to hear the post-game—”
“Uh, no,” Kaylie said, taking the remote from his hand.
What was it with the men in her life lately? One insisted that his life was essentially over, and the other seemed determined to beat himself up even more than he already had.
“You need rest and medication.” She pointed the remote and shut off the television, tossing the small, rectangular black box onto the sofa, then moved behind his chair. The fact that he didn’t argue confirmed her diagnosis.
“Watch the drinking glass,” he mumbled.
“Hmm? Where?”
He reached down and came up with a tall crystal tumbler. “Your aunt was good enough to bring me a glass of apple juice earlier.”
“Ah.” Kaylie smiled to herself. She took the glass from him and carried it to the desk, where she left it, intending to take it downstairs with her later. “Odelia, I presume.”
He held up a finger. “That’s Tante Odelia.”
Kaylie laughed, moving back to grasp the handles of his chair. “Can you get the brake?” He leaned forward and flipped the lever that freed the wheels. She rocked the wheelchair back and then shoved it forward. “So Odelia’s styling herself as your tante now, is she?”
“Something like that.”
“Look out,” Kaylie teased, swinging the chair around in order to back through the door. “She’ll be adopting you into the family if you’re not careful.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” he said after a moment, a wistful tone in his voice.
“I expect your mother would,” Kaylie pointed out softly.
“I doubt it,” he replied, shaking his head, “not after everything that’s happened.” He quickly changed the subject then. “My father certainly wouldn’t. He washed his hands of me long ago.”
