“Does he know you’re going to the Millers’?”
“Of course, Mother.” There was no need to relate the questions she had been forced to avoid answering. “I’ll be back tomorrow before he comes in.”
“Well, would you like me to—” But she stopped before she finished making the offer. Clearly Abigail could not imagine herself at the Miller farm—or any farm, for that matter.
“I’ll be fine, Mother. I need to . . . to see Ruthie,” she finished vaguely.
Her phone conversation with Ruthie had been confusing. At first the girl had seemed so definite that, no, she was not going to give up the baby. But then Ruthie had said Mr. Miller wanted to see her. Kyle had felt a stab of hope. What other reason could there be for such a meeting, except that he wanted to talk to her about taking the baby? So there had to be a chance after all. But this was nothing she could explain to either Kenneth or to Abigail. They would hear about it only when all was definite and final.
Abigail sighed, “Oh. I see. Very well.”
Another glance through the front window. Still no taxi. “Why did you call?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really. I had a favor to ask.” Abigail stopped, and Kyle waited for her to explain. “I went in the other day for a physical. The doctor’s office called last night.” Another breath. “The doctor in charge of my examination wants me to come in to see him this morning.”
The news drew Kyle away from the window. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. I haven’t really been feeling like myself, but . . .” Another pause, then, “I was hoping you could come with me.”
“Anytime but today, Mother.” Which was not exactly true. Kyle was not sure she would be able to force herself into another medical facility anytime soon. “The Millers have invited me up, and it’s important.”
“Well, if you’re sure.” Kyle said nothing in response. Abigail took a breath and said, “How’s your puppy?”
“Oh, Goldie’s fine. She’s asleep in the kitchen. A neighbor agreed to stop in and check on her this afternoon and again tonight.”
“You’ve named the dog Goldie?”
“Kenneth says it’s not a very imaginative name, but I think it suits her. Her coat just shines with the brushing and bath.”
Abigail’s tone warmed. “I’m glad you’re making her part of the family.”
“Yes, we are.” Family. Kyle glanced through the window again. The street remained empty. “Kenneth says Goldie is becoming a one-woman dog. Her eyes do seem to follow me everywhere I go. And all I need to do is sit down for a moment and she’s right there beside me.”
“I wish I had let you have one when you were young,” Abigail confessed. “I wish . . .”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. What’s done is done.” But she sounded very sad.
Kyle decided it had to be the doctor’s appointment that was worrying her mother. She paced back to the hall table and put the phone set down. “They probably just want to run a few tests,” she said with as much confidence as she could. “I’ll call you as soon as I get to the train station.”
“I won’t be back by then. And they’ve already run more tests than I thought existed.” Abigail tried for briskness. “It’s probably nothing. Call me when you get home.”
“Yes. Of course I will.” She started to turn back to the window, but her attention was snagged by her reflection in the tall oval mirror.
“Have a good trip, dear. And do take care.”
“Thank you, Mother.” Kyle slowly hung up the phone without glancing away from her reflection. She was dressed in a new dark blue two-piece outfit she had bought with her mother. A lady’s suit, the saleswoman had called it, enthusing over how lovely the designer ensemble had looked on Kyle’s slender frame. And she did look good. In fact, she probably had never looked better. Her hair was precisely cut in a fashionable style, her makeup as perfect as she could do it. A silk blouse of palest gray, a single strand of pearls, matching earrings, and pumps and purse the exact shade of her suit completed the look.
But it was not her comely appearance that held her so. It was the expression on her face, in her eyes, as she had finished speaking with her mother. Kyle lifted her hand from the receiver and touched her cheek.
Her eyes were what held her. Not the tension in her features, nor the firm way her mouth was pursed, nor the narrow lines etched across her forehead. Her eyes.
A sudden thought struck her. She had seen that gaze before. The eyes had been a different color, but the gaze had been the same. The same tightness, the same emptiness. They had stared down at her throughout her childhood years, checking her appearance, her behavior, disapproving of everything she had done and was. Kyle stood and looked at her face and wondered when she had taken on Abigail’s gaze. And where her own eyes had gone.
A horn honked, startling Kyle. She rushed to open the door, wave to the taxi, then went back to retrieve her purse and case. Kyle forced herself to avoid her reflection in the mirror as she turned and walked from the house.
Abigail had always prided herself on knowing how to be prepared for anything. Today she had three magazines, the newspaper, and a book she had heard discussed by a news commentator. But the paper remained folded on the chair beside her, and the magazines lay unopened on her lap.
She looked around the half-empty waiting room. They all smelled the same, these places. No matter how well appointed the room was, or how nice and attractive the receptionist might be, or what pretty art they put on the walls, it was still a doctor’s office. They all smelled vaguely of antiseptic and fear. Pain and uncertainty seemed to have seeped into the walls and the furniture, adding to the concern she already felt about the doctor’s summons.
A woman came through the door leading from the examining rooms. She had been crying. Her makeup had been cleaned away, but Abigail could still see a smudge on either cheek, and her eyes were red. Abigail knew she should not be staring, but she could not help herself. It was like looking through a window into her own future.
The receptionist gave the woman a smile of forced cheeriness and handed over a slip. “We’ve set up the appointment for you tomorrow morning at nine. Here, see, I’ve written down the room you need to report to at the hospital. Now be sure not to eat or drink anything after dinner tonight, all right?”
The woman accepted the paper without looking at it or the receptionist. She turned and started for the door. Abigail sat and watched until the woman had left. Only then could she manage to draw a full breath.
“Mrs. Rothmore?” The receptionist turned her professional smile in Abigail’s direction. “Good morning. The doctor is ready to see you now.”
Abigail gathered her magazine and newspaper, trying to force her hands to stop their trembling. She rose unsteadily to her feet, not even making an attempt to respond to the nurse’s greeting. She followed the woman down the long hallway and was directed into a small room. The doctor was not there. Abigail sank into a chair and stared at nothing as the nurse closed the door, leaving her alone. A file with her name was lying there on the desk. She had no desire to take a look.
There in the empty, lonely room, she felt something she had never known before. Not as a child when her father had lost the family fortune, not when her husband’s new company teetered on the brink of disaster, not when she learned she could not have children, not when her husband died, never once. Until now. Abigail did not just feel lonely and frightened. She felt defeated.
Here and now, her life had been taken out of her control. There was nothing she could do about what she faced. The inevitability left her bereft and stripped of her defenses. All those little white lies—and the big black ones. Now they all came crashing down around her. Every last one. It felt as though the structure of her entire life, all her protection, was crumbling around her, turning to the dust that she would soon become.
The door opened. The doctor entered and said briskly, “Good morning, Mrs. Rothmore. How a
re you today?”
But Abigail could not have responded even if she had wanted to. She was weeping far too hard to speak a single word.
25
THE MILLERS HAD HELD LUNCH for her arrival. It was the most difficult meal Kyle had ever eaten, but not for the reason she would have expected. She was nervous, yes, and eager to sit down and speak with Mr. Miller. The entire train ride she had tried to concentrate on all the points she would make. How she could give the baby a good home. How she would make plans for him to get into the proper kindergarten and then the best private school in the nation. How he would lack for nothing. Of course, that was why Mr. Miller had asked to see her. He could see how important it was, and he would talk to Ruthie.
But the lunch was unsettling. The family was very friendly to her. She had expected to find some resistance, possibly even some hostility. After all, she was clearly so much better off than they were. She could see the effects of their hardship everywhere. The house and the outbuildings all desperately needed painting. The Miller family’s clothing was worn and mended. The farmyard was strangely silent, as though there weren’t many animals around. And the simple food on the table fed them all, but there were no offers of seconds.
And yet they were all so happy. The talk was cheerful, their greetings warm. They asked about everything—her life, her family, her husband. The only subject they did not mention was Ruthie and the child. She tried to bring it up on several occasions, but it was just brushed aside. Finally Kyle accepted that she would have to wait. But the lunch and the questions seemed to go on forever. She felt unsettled by their genuine interest in her. These kind people and their gentle questions seemed to pry at the seal she had set in place over her heart.
Time after time she found herself thinking back to the image she had seen in the mirror that morning. These people could not have been kinder, more caring, more thoughtful and concerned. Why did she keep remembering how she had looked, and the expression she had seen in her own eyes? Why did she feel so threatened? Was she afraid that she would not be able to keep everything in place, that they might expose what she was carefully keeping hidden inside?
After lunch Mr. Miller invited her to join him on the porch. Her heart hammered in her chest as she walked slowly behind the big graying man. His crutch thumped and the floor creaked as he crossed to the oversized padded chair in the porch’s far corner. He smiled up at her. “Sit down, my child. Why do you stand?”
“Oh. I . . . thank you.”
“Choel, he made this seat for me with his own hands. And Ruthie, she sewed the cushions.” Joseph Miller beamed. “Such riches a man has, with a family like mine.”
That was her opening. Kyle leaned forward and said, “Thank you so much for seeing me today, Mr. Miller.”
“Ach, what is this Mr. Miller? I am Choseph to you. Still are we family. And always will we count you as one of us.”
“Thank you . . . Joseph. Actually, I wanted—”
“Patience is needed in speaking with the old,” Joseph said gently, the light in his eyes inviting her to calm down. “Something is needed to be spoken. Good it is that you are here. You will now give me patience and hear my words?”
“Of course,” Kyle said, forcing herself to settle back. She would wait. She had no choice.
“Sister of Choel, listen carefully. God is a good God. He is always faithful and chust. This means He does everything right, and He does everything in the right way. Yah, yah, I know. You have your reasons to think other thoughts. But these words, still they are true. Maybe there is blessing for one and suffering for another. Maybe life is hard, and we wonder, where is our God? Maybe even we think, how God has let this happen? Why does it happen again today? When will there be an answer to my need?”
A sermon. Just what she needed. Kyle tried to feel irritation, impatience. But instead, she felt frightened. Exposed. Somehow the words shook her as nothing had in, well, months and months. The tone was gentle. Joseph did not even look at her most of the time. Yet the power of his kindhearted talk reached deep into her and began to pry away her fiercely guarded barriers.
“I am a simple man. Reasons are not here for why we must suffer. I cannot explain the sadness of life. No. All I can say is that always will God be with us. Always. Yah, this I know. In the darkness, in the suffering. So long as we let Him into our hearts and receive His comfort. For receive it we must. Like a gift. I hold it out to you but you must take it.”
He demonstrated with his hand toward her, then he reached up and began to stroke the long gray beard. She found herself staring at the hand, unable to turn away. It was creased and hardened and scarred, that hand. The fingernails were stained and battered by years and years of hard work. But the action seemed so gentle, so thoughtful, just like the words.
“I sit here and I think. It is an old man’s way, to think on things. I think, yah, my life has been hard. It has cost much, this life. I think about the days before, and sometimes a glimmer comes. A tiny ray, like the sun just rising on a summer day. I think of Peter, the apostle who stumbled like me. Once he turns to the Lord and asks about his end. The Lord tells him because Peter, he is the Lord’s friend. A simple man with many faults, yah, but still a friend. So Peter, he points to another man and says, What about this man here, how will his end be? And you know what the Lord says? You know this part of your Bible?”
Kyle realized with a pang of guilt that she had not opened her Bible for many days. And how much longer had it been since she had really absorbed the words? Kyle licked dry lips. “No,” she acknowledged.
“Ach, it is a small passage. But spoke to me it did, that passage. I ask that so often, you know. Why me and not that man? I ask. But the Lord, He said to Peter, If this is what I will, what is that to you? The Lord, He was saying, think you only of your own fate, not that of another. Think you of your own faith. Think you of your own salvation. Think of God’s purpose for you.”
The chair creaked as Joseph Miller shifted to draw it closer to her. His eyes glowed as he looked at her, seeming to examine far below the surface, deep into the areas that she had tried so hard to hide away forever. “So careful must we be, careful always when we look at the victories and the defeats of life. Careful to hold room for the mystery of God. The power of our Lord to turn defeat and pain and suffering into good—He is good for each of us.”
She wanted to come back with something bitter. Something drawn from the well that he was exposing, the pain and the distress and the unwanted memories. But she could not speak. For there alongside all the agony was something else. A peace and a healing touch so gentle she could not fight it. Could not force it away, even as it threatened her efforts to hold everything in place.
Joseph Miller seemed to understand her turmoil. He nodded slowly, his gaze piercing now, the light in them almost blinding. But his voice remained gentle as he quietly said, “You are angry with God that He took your baby.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he said, “You think God makes a mistake. But you do not want to say that, even to yourself. So, instead, you hide your heart away, far away from your family who loves you. And you hide your heart away from God.”
Kyle’s eyes dropped to her hands twisting in her lap. But his voice compelled her to look at him again as he said, “When we face failure in our life, hold we must to God. When we weep, it is on God’s shoulder that we cry. When we suffer, it is with Him there beside us. Why? Because then will He heal us. Then will He make whole again.
“And when life pushes and tugs and tries to pull us away from God, this must we remember: The symbol of our King is the Cross. The Father lost His Son, too. Lost to separate us from our sins, the whole world’s sin. Lost to death, He was. Tragic, painful death.” He waited a long moment, his gaze reaching as deep as his words, then finished quietly, “The Lord God, our Father knows, my daughter. He knows.”
26
KYLE HURRIEND UP THE LONG DRIVE to the Rothmore estate, her face set by the panic she had heard in Abigail’s voice
. She did not want to be here at all, and most especially she did not want to be here today. Even so, she could not have denied Abigail’s plea that she come out. She had never heard the woman’s voice so—what? So broken. On top of her visit to the Millers’ farm, Kyle felt as though her own world was being shaken to its very core.
When the large stone mansion came into view, she had a moment’s pang over all the past and all the memories. It had been over a year since her last visit to her childhood home. Kyle climbed the stairs, relieved that the faces from her childhood were not there with expressions of their concern. Old Jim, the former gardener, now had a small apartment in Baltimore near his daughter. Maggie and Bertrand, the housekeepers, had retired to the Maryland coast. Even so, they all seemed very close just then, and Kyle felt a twinge at the thought of all of Maggie’s unopened letters gathering dust in her top drawer. She had felt she just couldn’t face the truth they would contain.
Kyle unlocked the door and pushed it open. The maid who had been with her through those first dark weeks came rushing up. “Miss Kyle, thank the good Lord you’ve come.”
“Where’s Mother?”
“She’s upstairs, Miss Kyle, and she’s fit to be tied.”
Evelyn. That was the woman’s name. Kyle felt yet another twinge over the way she had treated her. Kyle tried to shake it off as she headed for the stairway, but the feeling of guilt following her could not be dispatched so easily. Kyle ran up the stairs and down the long upstairs hall, stopping outside her mother’s door. She had a fleeting impression of another door, one hidden deep within herself, that gradually was being cracked open, and the first whispers were emerging.
She shook her head against the thought, knocked on the door, and called, “Mother?”
“Oh, Kyle. Thank goodness.” There was the sound of footsteps hurrying across the floor, then the door flew back, and a woman she knew but did not know pulled her into a frantic embrace. “I’ve been so afraid and so alone.”
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