by Lois Richer
When he was with Glory he could almost forget.
Almost.
But then something—Bennie’s picture, holding Maria and knowing he’d never again be a father—would trigger the anger and he’d be right back where he’d been, fighting the bitterness, the unanswered questions, the helpless feelings that rendered him impotent. Then the rage would drag at his soul, demanding justice.
Forget? How could he forget when there were so many reminders?
And yet, as Jared considered the afternoon and the many times he’d spoken of Diana, of solutions she’d employed, when he’d remembered Nicholas chortling so hard he’d made them all laugh—at those times the pain was bittersweet. Still buried deep inside his heart, but bearable.
For the first time Jared pushed past all the pat answers he’d so easily fed himself and searched for the underlying reason that insisted he ensure Viktor would not escape justice.
The truth—he would never be free.
Because he was responsible for a child’s death as much as Viktor was.
Because he needed to prove he wasn’t like Viktor.
Because he was.
Jared took the turn to Agapé a little too fast. The jerk of the wheels over the bumpy road woke Glory.
“I’m a lousy companion,” she apologized. “I didn’t sleep much last night. I guess it caught up with me.”
“Next time don’t spend the night huddling beside Bennie,” he ordered, insides churning. “Shall we visit Sister Phil before we go to the mission?”
“Sure.”
They arrived just as the nurses were changing shifts.
“I thought Leilani told me Sister Phil couldn’t afford private care,” Glory murmured. “Not that it’s any of my business, but if someone’s taking a collection, I’d like to chip in, too.”
That was Glory—give and then give some more.
“Don’t worry,” he told her, taking her arm to escort her inside. “You weren’t left out. It’s been taken care of.”
“Oh.” She gave him an odd uncertain glance then turned away.
Sister Phil looked brighter, though Jared could see signs the cancer was winning.
“We brought you a Valentine’s gift, Philomena.”
“Two, actually.” Glory plopped her bouquet in the vase a nurse handed her and held it so Sister could smell the fragrance.
“Lovely, but I don’t need gifts. Seeing you two is enough.”
Jared realized she’d noticed his hand on Glory when they’d entered. He almost groaned.
Don’t think it, he wanted to tell her. He set the gift bag with the tissue-wrapped gown on her lap instead.
“This is for you, too.”
With trembling hands she lifted the gown free of its tissue and touched the silken threads as if afraid they’d disintegrate.
“I’ve never worn anything so fine.” She lifted her head, her smile tremulous. “Thank you, my dears. Thank you so much.”
She reached out to Jared with one hand, Glory the other. Sister drew them close, pressed her lips against their cheeks, her eyes glossy with unshed tears.
“You two make an old woman very happy. But you must go to the mission. I hear the children are very excited about a special surprise for tonight.”
“You always find out.” Jared decided Glory seemed a little teary-eyed, too. “Don’t ever try to keep secrets around her. She can ferret out the truth faster than any street-savvy cop.”
“I have my sources.” Sister Philomena crossed her arms over her chest, winked at them.
Glory’s laughter reached the rafters. She hugged the old woman, brushed her lips across her forehead.
“You’re a wonder, all right. You remind me of my father sometimes. He had a way of figuring out every secret the congregation tried to keep.” A sad little smile flickered across her lips. “I can still hear his laughter sometimes. Big, boisterous. He enjoyed a good laugh.”
“I wish I’d known him. And your mother.” Sister patted her hand. “She must have been a very selfless woman to have given her life to save you.”
Given her life? Jared gulped. He’d had no idea of the tragedy Glory had experienced, even accused her once of not understanding his loss. He’d been so busy drowning in his own sorry world he’d ignored everyone else’s. He made a vow to finally look through the personnel file Elizabeth had sent the week before Glory had arrived.
“You’re tired and we must go. I’ll stop by later,” Glory promised. She was almost at the door when Sister Phil’s forceful tone stopped her.
“No. Don’t stop by tonight, Glory. I don’t feel up to a chat. The nurses and I played chess today and it wore me out.” She smoothed the blanket with her fingers, not looking at them.
Jared’s warning radar zipped to red alert. Sister was up to something.
Glory looked crushed. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“You could never intrude, my dear. But go celebrate this loving day with the children. Soak in the excitement on those little faces so you can tell me when I see you tomorrow.”
“All right.” Glory tossed him a questioning glance.
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
She nodded. “Good night, Sister.”
“Good night, my dear. God bless you.”
Jared waited, peering through the window until he could see Glory standing by his car, far out of earshot. Then he faced Sister Phil.
“Don’t try to match-make, Philomena.”
“I would never dare—”
“You would dare that and more besides. But don’t do it.” Conscious of the nurse standing just outside the door, he hesitated to say more, though the warning had to be given.
Sister Phil watched him with hawk’s eyes. “She’s a lovely girl, a wonderful doctor. You suit each other.”
“No.”
“Do you ever get lonely, Jared? Don’t you want to have your own family, care for someone and have them care for you?”
“I had that,” he reminded her.
“I’m not talking about the past,” she reprimanded sharply. “I’m speaking of the future. You didn’t die with Diana and Nicholas.”
“I should have.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “And don’t try to play God.”
She was furious. That shocked him. He’d never seen Sister Philomena really angry in all the years he’d known her.
“You can’t bury yourself in the past, Jared, no matter how hard you try.”
“I’m not burying myself.”
She studied him for several moments then crossed her arms over her chest.
“I suppose you went to the hearing.” She waited for his nod, made a face. “Of course. You had to dig the hole a little deeper, eh?”
“I walked out.”
She brightened. “Well, that’s progress.”
“Not because of any altruistic reason. I simply couldn’t sit there and look at him without wanting to wring his neck. I was so angry, I couldn’t even remember what I was going to say, so I bolted.”
“Good. Better such words remain unspoken.”
“It’s not over,” he warned her quietly.
“Jared, please don’t harden your heart. Let it go.”
He closed his fingers around hers, pressed gently.
“I’m aware that you think it’s wrong to want him to suffer, to pay for what he did. But that’s the way I feel.” He inhaled, swallowed and confessed. “Maybe because I’m as much to blame as him.”
“You aren’t to blame!”
“I killed his son.” Jared wouldn’t let her interrupt. “I didn’t mean to but it was my hand that made those incisions, my decision that he was fit to handle the operation. His death is on my conscience and there’s no denying that.”
“I’m going to say something I should have said long ago.” Sister drew herself erect in the bed. “You’re trying to escape, to find a way to explain God’s will. It won’t work. Jesus prayed ‘Not my will, but Yours’. You have
to pray the same thing. You can’t change it, you can’t make it more palpable. All you can do is accept that God wanted it this way.”
With great difficulty Jared kept his lips clamped together.
“Until you surrender your will, your right to know, your right to get justice—until you hand that all to God and tell Him that whatever He decides will be fine by you, until then you will not find peace.”
There was nothing he could say so Jared wished her good-night and left, aware of the tears that tumbled down her cheeks when he turned his back.
“Is she all right?” Glory’s troubled gaze rested on the cottage.
“Yes.” He drove them to Agapé, carried in their piñatas and helped Glory stuff them.
They organized the children into groups and moved from ward to ward to allow each child to have a turn. The kids laughed and sang, teased each other and shared the candies and toys. Kahlia and Pono were in the thick of it, lending a helping hand here, a lap there, blissful grandparents to anyone who needed them.
Glory moved from one child to the next with a special touch, a word, a reminder. But it was Bennie she always returned to, it was him she spent the longest time with. And Jared knew she loved the boy every bit as much as any mother does her child.
A cold skitter of quiet snaked up Jared’s spine as Bennie flailed with the bat, trying to hit the piñata with one hand only because he couldn’t raise the other high enough. In that moment Glory looked at him with such pleading he had to look away to stop from making a promise he wouldn’t, couldn’t keep.
After a boisterous meal, the children learned puppeteers were coming. Wide-eyed, eager, they assembled on the patio. Those who couldn’t walk waited on the open balconies above. Glory dashed about for a blanket for this one, an extra pillow for that, determined each patient would not miss a moment. When she finally sank down on the ground, Bennie sat beside her.
Jared had no idea what the program was about. He only knew he had to get away, do something to quiet the inner trauma that taunted him. He tried studying her file but it only made him recall the shattered look on her face. Finally he closed up his office, left.
Since Potter was on call, Jared changed into his trunks and jogged down to the beach. The full moon lit the cove in a silvery glow. He swam until his lungs burned like fire and his body wilted with exhaustion. Finally he crawled out, wrapped his towel around his shoulders and huddled on a rock about four feet above the water.
A kaleidoscope of Glory-pictures flickered through his mind. He’d come here hoping to get his mind off Glory but it wasn’t working. Instead he saw her doubled up with laughter, teasing, in a fit of the giggles, empathizing, caring and silently weeping.
He couldn’t care about her. She was carefree, happy. She didn’t need someone like him weighing down her life. She would be gone in a few months, back to the Arctic.
She deserved children in her life, lots of them. She deserved a man who could give her her heart’s desire.
And that man would never be him.
Maybe it would be better if he left Agapé.
Left. Jared studied stars flickering in the dark velvet sky as the idea mushroomed. He wouldn’t go right away, of course. He’d wait to make sure Viktor stayed behind bars, until Glory left. He’d tell Elizabeth he’d stay as long as it took to find a replacement. Then he’d leave the islands, find a place to practice medicine that was arm’s length, where the patients didn’t grab your heart and squeeze it every single day.
He’d do his job the best he could but he’d never expose himself to the pain he’d felt here.
A noise from below drew Jared’s attention. Glory stood at the edge of the water, testing its warmth with one toe. After a moment she tossed her towel aside and ran into the water’s embrace, laughing as the waves wrapped round her.
She paddled across the cove, twisting and turning in a private game that sent her diving beneath the surface then bursting back up like a sea nymph in search of treasure, golden hair streaming down her back.
Jared watched unabashed, an unseen spectator to her joy in the water, the moonlight, the ebb and flow of the world around them. After a while he couldn’t resist the opportunity to share this moment with her.
Soundlessly he stepped down off the rock and slid into the water, moving through it without splashing until he was behind her. Then he waited for her to spot him so she wouldn’t be frightened.
“Hello.” That all-inclusive smile beamed in a shaft of moonlight.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“Not at all. This is too lovely to enjoy alone.” She stretched out on her back, pointed. “Do you know what that constellation is? I don’t recognize it.”
“The Southern Cross.”
“My father loved stargazing but he never showed me that one. It’s exquisite.”
She was far lovelier than any combination of stars, but Jared didn’t say that. Instead he swam along beside her, content to share her happiness.
“Thank you for finding the paddling pool. The kids enjoy splashing around in it.”
“No problem.”
“Really? How did you manage to get it in your car?”
“It was Nicholas’s pool, though he never used it much.”
“Oh. I’m—”
“He loved water. Took after me in that, I guess. Diana grew up here, so to her it was no big deal to have an ocean nearby. But I used to swim twice every day. Nicholas would beg to come in and sitting him in that paddling pool didn’t work.”
The words poured out, startling him. She was so easy to talk to.
“Aggressive like his daddy, hmm?” she teased.
“Spoiled rotten,” he agreed with a smile. “What we didn’t give in to, his grandparents did. We couldn’t seem to deny him anything.”
“Why should you?” Her hand brushed his chest as she turned on her side. “I’ve just realized I don’t know much about you. Where did you grow up?”
“Great Falls, Montana. My mother was a secretary to a lawyer.” He kept pace with her strokes. “She was big on education, wanted me to go to college, but I don’t think even she imagined I’d go to school for so long.”
“And your father?”
“Never knew him and she didn’t talk about him.”
“You didn’t ask?” Glory sounded puzzled.
“I tried a couple of times, but when I saw how sad it made her I decided I didn’t need to know. She died keeping her secret.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” She’d spoken of her father, so he decided to probe. “What was your father like?”
“A cross between a lovable teddy bear and a taskmaster,” she told him quietly. “He didn’t like shirkers but he believed in enjoying life. He died after my first year in medical school.”
“Now I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring back sad memories.”
“Mostly they’re not.” She flapped her arms, rotating her prone body in a circle. “I thought at first that I’d die, too. I was alone, in debt, with no way to finish my training. That’s when Elizabeth showed up, offered to pay for it all. In exchange, I agreed to give her back six months. That’s why I’m here.”
“And when you’re finished you’ll go back up north.” Why did those words hurt?
“Yes. I have to.”
“Have to?”
“I promised my mother.”
Unsure of what to say next but not yet ready to leave, Jared floated beside her and tried to imagine Glory as the only child of missionaries. It took a while to notice she’d headed to shore.
He caught up in a few crawl strokes. “Going in?”
“I’m chilly. I brought a thermos of tea. You’re welcome to share if you want.”
“Thanks.” He retrieved his towel from his perch, laid it beside hers then sank down. Glory leaned away from him, squeezed out her hair, looped it to the top of her head and held it there with some kind of clip. Then she tugged on the terry dress she’d worn from her cottage, s
at down beside him and reached for her bag.
“Much better.” Her chattering teeth gave lie to the words.
After twisting the top off a thermos, she filled the lid with steaming liquid. He caught the hint of mint when she passed it to him.
“You first.”
Jared had never particularly cared for tea, but now, sitting next to her, it seemed like ambrosia.
“Thank you.” He sipped twice then handed back the cup, knowing she needed the warmth to chase away her chills.
Glory cradled the cup in her hands, the steam caressing her face as she gazed out over the water.
“Sitting here like this, with the palms fluttering and the smell of plumeria on the wind, you’d never believe that somewhere in the world bombs are going off and children are starving, would you?”
“I guess we forget about that pretty easily.”
“May I ask you something?”
He studied her profile, the way her nose tilted just the slightest bit at the end, the angle of her chin jutting out to take whatever life handed her.
“I guess.”
“Do you ever wish you could hide out for a while?”
The hushed words surprised him. Was she unhappy here?
Immediately Jared chastised himself. He’d always assumed she was content, never once imagined she hid a secret desire to get away.
“Glory, I’m sure Elizabeth wouldn’t force you to stay.” A fist punched him in the gut. If she went—
When, Jared reminded himself. When she went.
“I don’t want to leave!” She turned on him so fast the tea spattered her legs. Fortunately it had cooled somewhat and she could simply brush it away. “That isn’t what I meant at all.”
Relief washed through him. He struggled to remain impassive, thankful when she turned away to replace the lid on the thermos.
“I meant—” she nibbled on her bottom lip “—every so often don’t you wish you could stop the world and savor things? Like tonight. The sky, the moonlight, the peace. Even the dolphins.” She pointed out to sea.
The black forms surged and plunged then disappeared.
“Tonight’s a perfect diamond, soon lost in a string of fantastic jewels. You need time to appreciate it, to sit back and enjoy the preciousness of this moment before it gets buried among a whole lot of others. I’m so lucky to be here.” She hugged her arms around her drawn-up knees and sighed as if she’d been handed a crown.
