And I rested my head on the grass next to the phone while somebody yelled. The voice whined like a pesky mosquito, demanding my location. I swiped at it, groaning in agony.
“I have no idea!” I needed quiet, not shouting. My head throbbed. “But please don’t let him shoot the llama.”
My white shirt dripped, staining my jeans. I looked down and felt sick, feeling my last bit of panic ooze out like my blood. Oh, God, Oh, God… I thought, unable to move my lips. I guess this is it.
I remembered Mom’s funeral. The scent of lilies, and the piles of gladiolus and wreaths.
“She loved you,” said Dr. Geissler.
My body seemed to seize up, racked with pain, and my lungs convulsed. I coughed hard, unable to stop the warm flow I felt in my side. An odd sense of peace rushed over me. So this is how it feels to die.
This is how Mom felt, kneeling in the grass all alone, calling out for Stella. This is how she died, and how she sang her last song.
I thought of the wedding and of Adam…. Adam. A bitter regret stabbed through me, but it passed quickly, like a needle through numbed flesh. At the edge of my blurred vision, little pinpricks of darkness closed in slowly.
I, Shiloh P. Jacobs, am going to die.
I no longer felt the ground. I seemed to be floating, losing touch with the sensation of earth, but rough blades of grass still poked me in the cheek. I couldn’t explain it, really. I tried to move my arms through empty space, but they flopped against hard soil.
A blanket wrapped me. Cradled me. Exquisitely warm. My side still throbbed, making me cough and cry out, but I felt something else: the strange and powerful presence of God like never before.
“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”
It seemed odd, lying there in the nebulous grass, that people only quoted this verse at Christmas. It was beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful verse I’d ever heard.
I blinked up at the gray sky, remembering my lies. My plagiarism and years of arrogant running from God. The way I’d shoved Mom away. The words I’d spoken and the sins I’d committed, piled high over twenty-five years.
And the grass of another hill, two thousand years ago, that ran red with the blood of that same Savior so I could have peace with God.
“Forgiven,” I imagined God saying, punching a big stamp over my long list of sins. Forgiven! Forgiven! Forgiven!
I have been forgiven so much!
I felt weightless, free, like the low clouds overhead, passing over the sun, and I choked back a sob as I thought of Mom. Her changed life and her powerful words. Her shining faith, which had passed itself—ironically—to me. And now I would die young as she had. Following in her footsteps until the end.
And for the first time in my life, I felt proud.
“Do not be afraid…. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
The verses came faster and faster, reverberating through my head like thunder: “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power…. Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
A swell of joy surged through me, a sparkle of something alive and eternal, and I felt the weight of my old guilt fall away at last.
This is what Mom felt! This is what she found in her last moments: the Savior’s hand tight in hers, taking her home for good.
No fear. No loneliness. No racking sorrow or regret. All joy! All hope! For death has been swallowed up in victory!
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…”
For You are with me!
My eyes landed, full of tears, on a tiny yellow blossom buried in a half-chewed patch of stubble, and I remembered what Becky said about bouquets. The cut stems of freesia and roses in her hands, dripping.
A sacrifice, she’d called them. “They lived and bloomed, jest like they were made to do. And when it was time to go, they gracefully said yes.”
“Yes, Jesus!” I whispered, shivering. “The best thing I’ve ever done is say yes to You.”
“Do not be afraid! I bring you good news that will cause great joy!”
“Do not be afraid!”
Somewhere in the distance I heard the impossible grumble of…a tractor? Coming closer, its strident rattle blaring in my ears. The bellowing of cows as they lifted their heads. Agony that made me cry out and pray aloud, begging for relief. Choking coughs.
The tinkling of ethereal music, layer upon layer, and the brilliant love of God as the pasture and throbbing pain faded into darkness. Hands that felt like Mom’s brushing back my hair.
“Do not be afraid!” His voice came tender, full of joy, in words that weren’t spoken but felt. I couldn’t see Him, but I knew His warmth and life like my own breath. Ragged now, shallow.
“I’m not afraid, Jesus!” I whispered, raising my arms toward heaven. Or maybe I thought I did, since I couldn’t seem to move. Nothing worked right anymore. I tried to speak, but my mouth was full of dirt and dry grass. The roar of a tractor engine deafened my ears.
“Do not be afraid!”
And that was the last I remembered.
Chapter 38
I opened my eyes and looked down at the unflattering hospital gown and blankets. Tubes ran from my arm up to an IV bag, and a bandage stretched across my elbow where I’d skinned it in the gravel. A drain tube ran from my stomach under the blankets. Monitors beeped. I wiggled my toes, surprised to see them move at the end of the bed. And then I saw him—just a foot away. Adam leaned in a chair, sound asleep. Hair disheveled and face in his hand. Stitches grinned from a gash on his forehead.
I held up the blankets and peeked at the bandages covering my abdomen, touching them gingerly with my fingertips. I groaned as I painfully shifted my weight, trying not to think of the stitches that would have to come out of that wound. It’s going to be a long time before I run a marathon or look good in a wedding dress—that’s for sure. Wedding. Adam. My mouth fell open. He’s alive? He’s not… ?
His chest rose and fell with breath. I reached over and pressed weak fingers to his wrist, feeling warm blood pulse through his veins. He’s alive! A miracle. I turned my own hand over in the light, gazing down at my silver engagement band. The veins pumping blood to my fingers and toes. A second chance at life—no, a third because I’d already been given a second chance when I asked Jesus to forgive my sins and change my heart forever.
I didn’t care if I got married in Tim’s hunting jacket. I was alive and so was my groom.
And there on my bedside table lay my Bible. I reached for it clumsily, dumping it upside down with splayed pages, and finally hauling it onto the bed. I paged through Genesis intently, looking for the story of Abraham and Lot.
“Shiloh?” Adam said groggily, jumping from his sleep and leaning forward. “You’re awake?”
“He never knew,” I blurted. My hands shook, and I smushed one of the pages.
He cradled my free hand between his, careful not to jostle the IV tube. Tears danced in his eyes. I’d never seen them so red, puffy from lack of sleep. But neither had I seen them so happy either.
“Shiloh, what are you looking for? You’ve been—”
“Abraham.” I frantically scanned the lines of type and pointed. Shoved the Bible at Adam. “He never knew God answered his prayer.”
“What prayer?”
“For God to save Lot. All the Bible says is that Abraham prayed, and the next morning he stood looking over the smoke of the burning city. Lot fled after the angels rescued him, and he lived in the mountains the rest of his life. So Abraham never knew God had answered his prayer.”
Adam’s blue eyes bounced from the Bible to me.
My tears spilled over as I rem
embered Mom’s journal, and Adam sponged my cheek with a tissue. “Just like Mom never knew. About…about me. That I’d be okay, and I’d find her God.”
Adam’s eyelids fluttered closed, and he placed his cool palm on my forehead, brushing back my bangs. “But she trusted God anyway, just like Abraham did. Even if she never got to see it.”
Adam put the Bible down and carefully wrapped his arms around me. I pressed his face to mine—soaking up the supple warmth of his skin, rough with a hint of stubble, pulsing with life. He kissed my cheek, his lips soft and tender. I turned my face toward him, basking in the sensation of his breath on my skin.
“Your mom made her peace with death.” He pulled away to look me in the eyes. “The police opened her last two letters for evidence, and they let Becky and me take a look.” His eyes reddened with fresh tears. “Wait ’til you read them. They’re beautiful. She’d lost all her fear.” He sniffled. “And she left you the lyrics.”
“Lyrics for what?”
“That bluegrass song she liked.” He dug around in the bedside table and held out a paper for me. “It’s an old one. ‘Angel Band,’ it’s called. It’s about heaven.”
Adam rubbed his nose, which had reddened with tears. “It’s like…she knew her time was coming, Shiloh. I don’t know how, but she did.And she wanted you to know she’d be okay.”
I buried my face against Adam’s chest then doubled over in a groan.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” He jerked his hand off my arm, checking the IV tube.
I wheezed, trying to get my breath. I squeezed my eyes closed and waited for the swelling pains to subside. This felt far worse than anything I’d experienced in the cow pasture. I leaned back against the pillows, scrunching up my knees.
“Breathe.” He massaged my shoulder. “That’s it.”
I slowly relaxed my legs. “So what happened to… ?” I hesitated to say “Odysseus” again.
“Oh, Shiloh.” Adam let out a long sigh, resting his head against my hand. “There’s so much to tell.”
“He’s not still out there, is he?” I scrambled to sit up.
“No, no.” Adam gently pushed me back. “You’ve been in surgery and under some heavy drugs for about a day and a half, so we’ve had a chance to piece things together a bit. The police got Ray right away. He hit a tree. He was driving like a maniac, apparently, and bleeding from a pretty deep cut on his leg.”
I closed my eyes and let the news sink in. “And you—what happened? I thought you were…well, dead.” I winced as the images sifted back.
“We’re still not entirely sure what happened. Seems like he’d punctured my tire to get me to pull over and then hit me with a crowbar or something. It put me out, and apparently he chloroformed me, too—with some pretty strong stuff. I was out from sometime Friday night until Saturday morning.”
“But the note on your front door! The text you sent!”
“The note he left. The text he sent. He took my cell phone.”
I clung to the rails on the sides of the bed, feeling dizzy. “What about Amanda? Did she really rob the bank with Jim Bob Townshend and get away with it?”
“Now that I can’t help you with—although Shane thinks it’s really true.”
“Shane Pendergrass?” I drew back. “You mean he had nothing to do with this?”
“Nope. Apparently he really did eat some bad barbecue. He’d checked in at the minor emergency clinic when Ray came to your house, and he didn’t go back on duty until the next morning. It’s all documented.”
“Whoa.” I exhaled. “So he thinks Amanda really did rob the bank.”
“When he heard Ray’s cockeyed story, yeah. The bank cameras from twelve years ago show a single intruder, small enough to be a woman, and somebody about Jim Bob’s build covering her. It seems like she planned her own disappearance first to throw off suspicion. The police are looking for them both. Jim Bob’ll probably be easier to catch though, since he slips back in town sometimes and supposedly lives close by.”
“So he and Amanda broke up after the robbery?”
“Seems like it—if they were together at all. They might have just been old pals. She was engaged to Ray at the time, so the whole thing’s a little foggy. She and Jim Bob probably divided the money and went their separate ways, although nobody knows the details. She’s been gone for years.”
I rested a hand on my forehead. “Then that Dean guy at Rask was innocent after all.”
“Oh no. He recently bought a half-million-dollar home on a part-time income, under a false name, and police are investigating. They think Jim Bob sent him money.”
“Stolen money.” I blew out my breath. “Seems like Jim Bob should’ve sent his dad some, from the looks of that cabin.” I twitched a leg where pinkish blisters had formed. “I think I got poison ivy from his woods, too.”
“Well, maybe his dad didn’t want a new cabin. Some people are happy with what they’ve got, you know? Money can’t solve everything.”
I squeezed Adam’s hand, thinking of our budget wedding and my crazy, gorgeous table-runner dress. Still attempting to process all the details about the case. “So I’ll have to go to trial again—after I deal with the skinhead in October.”
“What’s once more? Tell them to take a number.”
“Very funny.” I watched clear liquid drip into the IV tube, which reminded me of Jerry’s leaky sink. “So Jerry didn’t do it.” A sob rose in my throat. “But he lied, Adam! He said he didn’t know Amanda Cummings. She worked at his restaurant.”
“She worked there three weeks. Jerry went to Missouri with his mom when she got sick. His old business partner, Dimitri, hired Amanda. Jerry never met her.”
“But…what about all the love notes at his desk? Those poems in red ink?”
Adam lowered his voice and smirked. “Becky found this little tidbit: he’s got a girlfriend.”
“What?” I yelped.
“Yep. Kate Townshend has a niece about his age who’s visiting for the summer from Japan. He sends her flowers all the time, and who knows? Maybe they’ll get married.” Adam lifted a finger to his lips. “But it’s a secret. And the red ink? Jerry’s color blind. He doesn’t know what color pen he grabs.”
“The rose at the restaurant!”
“Stella. She thought the chrysanthemums were too funereal. She came by the restaurant before we arrived, remember? Trinity said so.”
My mouth opened. “Paradise Lost. I saw it, Adam.”
“Well.” He raised his palms. “Sometimes things are just a coincidence. Like you sharing the same birthday with Amanda.”
I started to laugh and coughed, pain shooting through my stomach. “Can’t they put more painkiller in there?” I moaned, doubling over.
The pain mounted so intensely I started to heave, and Adam quickly handed me the bedpan and called the nurse. I tried not to look at him as she came in, checking my tubes and monitors and talking cheerfully. She whisked the bedpan away and put a fresh drip in the IV.
I just threw up in front of my fiancé. Instead of being smart, pulled together, and confident, I was sponging my face and mouth with tissues and wearing a ridiculous hospital gown big enough to fit Liv the Llama.
Adam didn’t laugh. He smoothed my bangs to the side, looking at me the way he did in January after sledding, when my hair looked like a tornado had sped through it.
“You’re beautiful,” he’d said for the first time, making a shudder of electricity pass through my stomach.
And now he was saying it again.
I couldn’t laugh, so I cried instead. Which hurt almost as much as laughing, but required tissues.
When I looked up at Adam Carter, simple Southern landscaper-turned-UPS-driver from Virginia, I couldn’t imagine a better match for me. Even if we were as different as grits and Japanese gobo root.
“So we’re not moving to the Harrisonburg apartment, I guess,” I said, shifting into a more comfortable position. “Now that the house isn’t selling
.”
“I guess not.” Adam studied me a minute. “I’ve been thinking. What if we just…well, move in there?”
“Mom’s house?” My eyes bugged.
“Your house. And then, once we’re married, our house. If you want.”
I fell speechless, imagining Adam’s work jackets in my closet. His UPS uniform and clipboards piled on the sofa, right next to my reporter’s notebooks and trendy bracelets. His tennis shoes and my Japanese house slippers strewn among Christie’s chew toys.
“I’ll commute to college, and you can keep your job.” Adam finished drying my face and tossed the tissue in the trash can. “And I guess you—we, actually—will both be stuck in Staunton a while longer.”
I looked up, cringing. “You mean we’re doomed to neighbors who throw horseshoes and spit in cups and play Hank Williams Jr. until two in the morning?”
“Yep. Looks like it. And I drive a pickup, so…” He raised his palms, and his mouth quirked a wry smile.
“Great. You’ll fit right in.” I grinned and turned my eyes to the ceiling.
Staunton, Virginia. My new home sweet home. Who’d have guessed?
Adam straightened my blankets, smoothing them along the edges. “And if you need to push the wedding date back, we will,” he said gently. “I just want you to get better. You can take your time.”
“You mean…we’ll still have a wedding?”
“Of course we will. It’ll be great. Although we’ll probably have to cut our honeymoon with all these medical bills.” He stroked his fingers across my cheek as if searching for words. “Did you know you called me, Shiloh?”
“Called you what?”
“No, on your cell phone. That day with Ray.”
“I called Pizza Hut.”
“In the cow pasture. You called me. Ray apparently tossed my cell phone, too, when he dumped me out of the car. I found it in the folds of the blanket.”
He looked pained, caressing my fingers. “I came to when I heard it ringing, and when you mentioned the llama, I figured out where you were. I know the guy who bought Fred Brewer’s llama—the only one around here. I used to trim his trees.”
'Til Grits Do Us Part Page 35
