“There’re your books,” Jacob said. They were still sitting on one of the benches that lined the gazebo’s banister. Jimmy picked them up. There was no sign that they had been touched by the fire.
“That’s a shame,” Dave said. He pointed to the floor of the gazebo.
Jimmy looked down. There were bits of paper, black powder, and scorch marks where the firecrackers had been. The marks led to a large black mark—a black circle that looked as if someone had dropped a bottle of ink on the floor and it had exploded. The rocket, Jimmy knew. He glanced up at the roof. It was also scarred with black marks like those on the floor. Other than that, the gazebo looked the same as it always did. Obviously their prank caused a lot of smoke but no fire. Jimmy slumped onto the bench with relief.
“What do you know about this?” Dave asked.
Jimmy gazed up at Dave and confessed everything.
“You have to tell your parents,” Dave said as they drove home.
“I know,” Jimmy said.
“Don’t make excuses. Just tell them what happened.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sure they’ll understand,” Dave said.
Jimmy wasn’t so sure of that.
“They’ll probably make you pay for the damage,” Dave said. “Maybe your friends’ll help.”
Fat chance, Jimmy thought.
Dave stopped at a traffic light and studied Jimmy. “This isn’t unusual, you know. You’re going to have battles with your old friends. They’re going to want you to act like you always did, and you won’t be able to. It’ll cause a lot of conflict—more than you’ve had already. Jacob knows.”
Jimmy turned in the seat to look at Jacob, who sat in the back.
“My best friend wasn’t a Christian,” Jacob said. “And he didn’t care when I became a Christian. But he thought I’d keep doing all the stuff we used to do, and I couldn’t. I mean, we weren’t bad kids, but everything changed. I wanted to do more things at church, and he wouldn’t come with me.”
“What happened?” Jimmy asked.
“He stopped being my friend,” Jacob said sadly.
“But Tony and I have been best friends since the first grade!” Jimmy said. “I don’t have to stop being his friend just because I’m a Christian, do I?”
“If he expects you to do the kind of mischief you did today, how can you stay friends with him?” Dave asked.
Jimmy settled back in his seat and thought about it. He didn’t have an answer. There has to be a way for us to stay friends, he thought.
“You need courage,” Dave said. “We’ll pray that God will give you the courage to do the right thing. Go on, Jacob.”
Jacob prayed for Jimmy, for him to have courage, for Tony, and for Jimmy’s family as they went to visit his sick grandmother. It was a simple, heartfelt prayer that sounded strange to Jimmy’s ears, particularly since it came from someone Jimmy’s age.
How come it seems so easy for Jacob to talk to God? Jimmy wondered. “I wish I could pray like that,” he said after Jacob finished.
“You will eventually,” Dave said. They pulled into Jimmy’s driveway.
“When?” Jimmy asked.
Dave chuckled. “Be patient,” he said. “You’ve only been a Christian for a few days. Give yourself a chance to grow.”
“Does that mean I’ll be like Jacob—or you?”
“Wait a minute,” Dave said. “I don’t think you’d want to be like either one of us.”
“But I do! You guys are so smart. You always know the right thing to do.”
Dave tapped the steering wheel with his fingers. “No, Jimmy. That’s not true. We make a lot of mistakes. You only get to see us when we’re on our best behavior. Right, Jacob?”
Jacob nodded.
“I don’t believe you,” Jimmy said.
“Don’t do this to us, Jimmy,” Dave said with a sudden seriousness. “Keep your eyes on Jesus. If you look at us, you’ll only be disappointed. We have problems; we make mistakes. Keep your eyes on the One who saved you, okay?”
Jimmy said okay, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Dave playfully pushed at Jimmy. “Now go on. And don’t forget to tell your parents about the gazebo.”
“I promise,” Jimmy said and climbed out of the car.
He watched Dave and Jacob drive away. He had no idea it would be the last time he’d see them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Wednesday Night and Thursday
WITH A FOUR-HOUR DRIVE ahead of them, Jimmy decided it would be better to tell his parents about the gazebo after they were well on their way.
When he broke the news, his mom was instantly upset and couldn’t believe he’d do such a thing. His dad said he appreciated Jimmy’s honesty, but that Jimmy would have to pay for any damage and plan for an extra punishment when they got home.
Donna rolled her eyes and said, “It seems you’re getting in more trouble now than you did before you became a Christian.”
Jimmy hadn’t really thought about it, but now that Donna brought up the idea, he had to agree. It seemed everything started going wrong after he went to Dave’s youth group meeting. He said yes to Jesus and had since made Tony, his other friends, and his family mad at him, and now his grandma was sicker, too. It was as if he couldn’t win no matter what he did. What was the point of being a Christian if things weren’t going to get better?
These thoughts swirled in his head as the lights from passing streetlamps and buildings mixed the shadows in the darkness of the backseat. They lulled him to sleep.
“Jimmy,” his dad said, bringing Jimmy back to consciousness.
“Yeah?” Jimmy looked up to see his dad’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“You have no idea how thankful to God I am for your newfound faith. Hang in there.”
They arrived at Grandma Barclay’s house in a town called Newberry just before midnight. It wasn’t the house George or his brother and sister grew up in. Grandma had sold that house after Grandpa Barclay died.
This was a smaller, cottage-sized house in the middle of a village for retired people. George identified himself to the security guard at the gate and was allowed to pass. He used his key to get in the house itself. There was a note from Mildred, one of Jimmy’s grandmother’s friends, saying that she’d made them sandwiches and would call in the morning. Grandma Barclay was in the intensive care section of the hospital, the note finished.
The Barclays sleepily ate the sandwiches and organized who was sleeping where. Mom and Dad slept in the guest room. Donna got the couch in the small living room. Jimmy used his sleeping bag on the floor. No one wanted to sleep in Grandma’s bed.
The next morning, Mildred arrived as they were having breakfast in the tiny kitchen. She was a lively old woman with wild, silver hair and dancing, blue eyes. She told them Grandma Barclay had collapsed the morning before, with a sharp pain in her abdomen. Her doctor at the hospital said there was no doubt about it now—the cancer had returned. This time there would be no therapy. There was nothing anyone could do but pray.
Jimmy remembered that he had prayed for his grandmother a few days before. A lot of good it did, he thought.
They drove to Rock Creek Hospital. Jimmy didn’t like hospitals much. They had a peculiar smell, the nurses seemed unfriendly as they rushed around, and patients sometimes moaned from their rooms. Hospitals gave Jimmy the creeps.
Intensive care was a quiet area with a lot of softly beeping equipment and gadgets Jimmy couldn’t identify. The nurses and doctors looked tired. After George assured the nurse that they were all family who’d traveled a long way to see his mother, she said she’d bend the rules a little and let them all in to see Victoria. Jimmy wondered who Victoria was, then remembered that was his grandmother’s name. He’d forgotten that grandparents once had first names like that.
As they walked toward Grandma Barclay, Jimmy caught sight of other patients in the ward. They were young and old. Most of them lay very still. One man with white skin
looked as if he had died. Jimmy hoped the nurses knew.
They came to Jimmy’s grandmother. He hardly recognized her. Her normally clean and styled hair was matted and greasy. Her skin was a pasty color, and without her makeup, she looked a hundred years older than she was. She had tubes and wire hanging from her face and dangling from odd angles under her sheets.
Mary’s eyes filled with tears. Donna put her hand over her mouth. George touched his mother’s arm tenderly. Jimmy watched with a mixture of wonder and fear. He was far, far away from any of the things that gave him comfort: his room, his school, his Odyssey, his youth, his future. There his world didn’t include the old and the dying.
“If you were to die tonight…” the booklet said.
Grandma Barclay slowly opened her eyes. A shadow of a smile moved across her lips when she saw George. “You came,” she whispered in a distant voice.
“Hi, Mom,” George said. “We’re all here.”
Grandma tried to adjust her head so she could see them. “Mary…Donna….” She lifted her hand weakly. “Where’s Jimmy?”
Jimmy moved toward the bed so she could see him.
“Ah,” she coughed. “I knew it would happen. I always knew it.” She wiggled her fingers for Jimmy to come closer. He did. She touched his hand. “I’ve been praying for you since before you were born. I knew you would meet the Lord. I prayed every day.”
Jimmy felt tears burning at the back of his eyes. “Thanks, Grandma.”
“I want to talk to you,” she said. “There are…things…I want to say to you.”
“When you’re stronger, Mom,” George said.
She smiled and closed her eyes. “No strength until…later.”
George quietly ushered the family out of the room.
George insisted on staying at the hospital—at his mother’s side—if they would let him. But he gave Mary, Donna, and Jimmy the okay to leave for a while. Mary and Donna decided to go to the mall. Faced with the prospect of shopping for clothes with his mother and sister or watching TV in the waiting room, Jimmy opted for the TV. Besides, he was curious about what his grandmother wanted to say to him and didn’t want to miss the chance to talk if she woke up.
An hour or so later—after Jimmy had sampled one of the dried chocolate cupcakes in the vending machine and watched all he could stand of the TV soap operas—his dad came back. “She’s awake,” he said. “She wants to talk to you.”
Jimmy leapt to his feet.
“Now, son, don’t do anything to excite her, all right? Take it easy.”
“Okay,” Jimmy said. He followed his dad back through the corridors to his grandmother’s room. When they reached the door, George gestured for Jimmy to go in and walked away toward the nurses’ station.
She looked better this time. Someone had brushed her hair, and she was propped up in a way that made it appear as if she were at home in bed with a book. Jimmy smiled at her as he rounded the bed. She smiled wearily back to him. “Hi, Jimmy,” she said in the same distant voice he’d heard before. It was her voice, but it seemed to come from another place.
“Hi, Grandma,” Jimmy said. “How’re you feeling?”
“Awful, but I’ll get over it,” she said, chuckling. “How are you doing?”
“Okay,” he said.
She patted the mattress as a signal for him to come closer. “I mean, how are you doing now that you’ve met Jesus?”
Jimmy was puzzled. “I asked Him into my heart, Grandma,” he said. “But it doesn’t feel like I really met Him.”
“Those feelings will come,” she said. “Keep your faith and the feelings usually follow.”
“Is that what you wanted to tell me?” Jimmy asked.
Grandma closed her eyes as if she felt a deep pain somewhere. Then she opened them again. “I have so much to tell you. I wish we had years. I would love to…to see you grow up in your faith.”
“You will, Grandma. We’re praying for you!” Jimmy said.
“Good,” she said, her voice raspy and broken. “Pray hard. Not because I’ll get better, but because you should pray. Learn to talk to God, Jimmy. Talk to Him all the time. He’s listening. He’s always listening. Things won’t always work out the way you want, but He’s always there. He knows what’s best.”
Jimmy leaned forward, his elbows pressing into the mattress. “You have to get better, Grandma. It wouldn’t be fair for you to leave me right after I became a Christian.” He paused as the full reality of the situation came to him. She was going to die and leave him. “I need you.”
Grandma turned her head so she could look Jimmy in the eyes. For a moment, her eyes seemed as bright and clear as when she was healthy—the way Jimmy always remembered her. “You don’t need me,” she said firmly. “You need Jesus.”
“But Jesus isn’t here,” he said. “And I don’t have anybody else.”
“You have your family. You have your church. You have friends— some you haven’t even met yet. Jesus is in them.” She raised a finger and pointed at Jimmy’s chest. “You have Him in there.”
“But it isn’t fair. I didn’t know it was going to be this hard.”
She coughed and grabbed Jimmy’s hand. “Fair has nothing to do it with it. Look at me, Jimmy. Nobody said the Christian life was fair—or easy. Nothing in this world is fair or easy. Growing old and dying of cancer isn’t fair or easy. But God is good.”
She gasped and lay back with her eyes closed. She still had hold of Jimmy’s hand. He waited, worried she might die right then and there.
A minute passed, and she opened her eyes again. She whispered, “You want to meet Jesus? Well, sometimes the Lord has to strip everything away from us before we can truly meet Him. And sometimes it really hurts. I felt it when your grandfather died, then my brothers and sisters, then my friends…and then my own body stopped working a little at a time. It’s the Lord’s way of getting me to pay attention. He’s taking it all away from me so He can give it back in a newer, more wonderful way. It’s like He gives us a good, hard scrubbing—and it hurts a little—so we’ll be cleaned up to see Him face-to-face.” She squeezed Jimmy’s hand. “You see, He strips it away here so He can give it back to me nice and new there.”
A chill ran up and down Jimmy’s spine. Those were the same words Dave had used the night Jimmy said yes to Jesus. It led to a new life for Jimmy. In a strange way, Jimmy now understood how it would lead to a new life for his grandmother—a new life in that other place where God lives. But it still meant she would leave him, and he didn’t want that. Not now, not yet.
“Oh, Jimmy,” his grandmother said, and he saw a small tear slip from her eye and slide down her temple. “I’m so happy for you…all the adventures you have ahead of you. I’ll be watching….”
She closed her eyes again. Her grip on Jimmy’s hand relaxed completely—and let go.
That evening, Jimmy, Donna, and Mary had dinner at a restaurant with Uncle Donald and Aunt Gwen, George’s younger brother and sister. They had arrived that afternoon. Jimmy’s dad insisted they should go while he stayed at the hospital, as long as they promised to bring him back something to eat. Since Uncle Donald, Aunt Gwen, and their families rarely came to Odyssey, they had the usual conversation about how big the kids had gotten and how they were doing in school and what the adults liked or didn’t like about their jobs. Jimmy zoned out. He thought about his grandmother and once again prayed that God would let her live.
Toward the end of the meal, Mary realized she hadn’t asked George what he wanted her to bring back for him. She excused herself and went to the pay phone. Jimmy and Uncle Donald exchanged knowing looks as Aunt Gwen and Donna started talking about hairstyles. The minutes ticked away. Jimmy glanced over at the pay phone just in time to see his mother hang up the receiver and wipe tears from her eyes.
Jimmy knew.
Mary reached the table and put on the brave face that Jimmy had seen at other times when there was bad news. “I’m so sorry,” she said, choking back the tear
s. “Grandma died 10 minutes ago.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Friday and Saturday
OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS, Jimmy battled more against boredom than against grief. George, Donald, and Gwen made arrangements at the funeral home. Distant family members came to the house, cried, and left again. Errands were run. Members of Grandma’s church brought food. Friends dropped in to pay their respects.
Amid all the activity, Jimmy didn’t have anything to do. He tried to watch television on Grandma’s portable black-and-white, but she didn’t have cable, and the aerial only picked up three snowy channels. He made an effort to finish his homework, but the buzz of activity distracted him. And there was nowhere to go in the middle of a retirement village.
Friday evening arrived, and Mary handed Jimmy his Easter suit from last year. He didn’t even know she had packed it—and only then realized that she had because she had known Grandma would die.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“The viewing,” she replied.
“Viewing?”
Mary explained that it was a time for everyone to see Grandma in the coffin at the funeral home—a time to offer comfort to the family and to say good-bye to Grandma. “Don’t you remember when your grandfather died?” she asked.
Jimmy didn’t. He was just five years old when that happened and had only the vaguest memory of black suits and a long, black hearse at a graveyard.
The funeral home smelled like flowers. So did the funeral director. He took Jimmy’s hand in a cold grip and shook it while he said in a soft, deep voice how sorry he was about “Victoria’s passing.”
Dad guided Jimmy, Donna, and Mary into a cozy room with dim lighting and chairs, lamps, and tables that looked as if they belonged in somebody’s house. Near the wall on the far end of the room sat a long, brown coffin. Grandma’s head was barely visible above the shiny box and lacy linen it rested on. Donna froze in her steps. “I can’t go,” she cried.
Mary hugged her and took her aside. “Whenever you’re ready, Donna,” she said. “It’s okay.”
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