At the Scent of Water

by Linda Nichols

  Annie went toward him, leaned over, and brushed his cheek with her lips. “I love you, Papa,” she said into his ear, and then they were gone. Diane walked with them. Annie stood watching until they had disappeared. She went back out to the waiting room, half expecting Sam to be gone, but he was still there. He was talking on his cell phone. She sat down across from him and checked her watch. It was four o’clock. She glanced outside the plate-glass windows. It was still dark. The sun would not rise for another two hours.

  Sam finished his call and put the telephone back into his pocket. They faced each other for a second before Sam glanced up at the television. Annie followed his gaze and saw what had drawn it. CNN was discussing the plight of Kelly Bright. She looked back at his face as they listened to the correspondent say there was no change in the situation. She was holding her own. Sam’s face was dark with suffering. This was his torment, and she asked herself if she was happy to see him suffer. No. No, she was not. In fact, her own heart ached for his in spite of everything else. CNN finished the story and went on to another. His eyes returned to hers.

  “Sam, I didn’t come to watch you suffer,” she said.

  “I didn’t really think you had,” he admitted quietly. “Let’s not fight anymore.” Tired, resigned, too weary to make the effort.

  “No,” she agreed. “Let’s not.” She felt suddenly very weary, too. And sad. As weary and sad as Sam looked. She glanced away from his eyes, down to his shoes. They were good quality leather and well polished. She looked at her own feet. She was wearing a pair of Diane’s boots she had found by the front door, the first thing she had come to.

  “You never took any of the money,” he said, “after that first thousand.”

  So he had noticed. She shook her head.

  “It’s half yours,” he said. “And it’s all still there.”

  She nodded. “Thank you.” What would she spend it on? She had a sudden vision of a house in El Segundo. New furniture and clothes. New life. She stared down the tiled corridor, and it all seemed prideful now, the idea that you could manipulate your life, to make things happen the way you wanted.

  She stood up, needing to move, to be out of this room. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” she said. He nodded. He did not offer to come with her. She went to the cafeteria and found it closed, bought two cups of coffee from the vending machine in the hall outside it. She pressed the buttons for no sugar, extra cream the way Sam had liked his. She put everything in hers and carried the two small cups back to the waiting room, but halfway up the jostling elevator she began to wonder why she should think he would still be there. What if he had left? She felt a moment of dismay. She needn’t have. He was still there, waiting where she had left him. He thanked her when she handed him the coffee. They sipped in silence, and by the time they were finished, the sliding doors slid open again and Laurie and Ricky came in. She had just completed an awkward round of greetings and hugs with them when Mary arrived. Annie hugged her, feeling again that strange mixture of fresh grief and love. Nothing had changed, and she wondered again why she had come to reopen this wound.

  The sliding door opened again, and someone else came through.

  “I parked the car,” Elijah Walker said, and Annie stared, openmouthed.

  “Elijah!”

  “Hello, Annie,” he said.

  “You two know each other?” Sam asked, glancing from Annie to Elijah.

  She nodded. “We sat beside each other on the plane.”

  “Well, isn’t that a coincidence,” Sam said, as if he were barely interested.

  “Elijah is staying in my guesthouse,” Mary explained, her face pink.

  Annie felt a sense of wonder. It was amazing, though she couldn’t exactly say what made it so.

  Elijah’s face was a little flushed, and Mary’s blossomed into a full blush. Annie would have inquired further if she hadn’t been distracted by the arrival of the cardiologist from Knoxville. He and Sam shook hands, then disappeared back into the bowels of the hospital. To the cath lab, presumably. Annie went back and sat down in the waiting room.

  Laurie looked the same. A little fuller around the face but still beautiful with her dark cloud of hair, her brown eyes, and quick smile. She sat down beside Annie and put a hand on hers. She sighed and patted it, and their friendship rushed back at Annie. She remembered their mischief and intimacies, their projects, and the drama Laurie had created about nearly everything. Her eyes filled, and she gave her friend and sister-in-law another awkward hug.

  “What about me?” Ricky asked.

  She hugged him again, too, and he gave her a gentle smile. “I’m glad you’re back, Sissy,” he said, reverting to the nickname he had given her as a girl. He sat down beside Laurie, and Annie felt humbled. Their grace was unexpected and undeserved.

  Mary smiled whenever their eyes met, but she looked ill at ease. Elijah Walker did, as well, and had apparently driven Mary at Sam’s request. He hovered awkwardly, half in and half out of their circle.

  Sam and the cardiologist came out after a time and said they had decided to operate in the afternoon. They would do a bypass to avoid further damage to his heart. The surgeon here was a good one, Sam assured her, and the hospital a fine facility. Everything possible was being done.

  She stared at him hollowly and remembered hearing those words before.

  They sat and talked awhile longer, and then Diane joined them, her eyes red, her face drained.

  She plopped down unceremoniously in the empty chair. “I need help,” she said simply, and Annie was suddenly envious. How easy and refreshing it must be to simply ask for help when you needed it.

  “What can we do?” Sam said quickly.

  “Someone needs to feed and water my stock and cancel Carl’s appointments.”

  “We can take care of that,” Mary said firmly.

  “I can help you,” Annie offered.

  “Absolutely not,” Mary said, and Annie was surprised at her starch. “You both need to be here.”

  “Someone should call Theresa,” Annie said, suddenly remembering her sister.

  “I’ll do it,” Diane said. “I’ve got my cell if you have her number.”

  She did. Somewhere in her purse.

  “We’ll be off, then,” Sam said.

  “Do you remember how to slop a hog?” Annie teased him.

  He looked at her quickly, surprise on his face. She had surprised herself, too, but it had just popped out.

  He met her eyes, and she tensed, afraid she had offended him, had crossed some boundary line. But then he smiled at her, and her heart caught. For when he smiled, the sun came out. She had not seen that smile for years and years, and it warmed her.

  “I think I can handle it,” Sam said. “I can still find my way around a barn.”

  “You ought to be okay, bro. It’s not rocket science,” Ricky quipped.

  “Thanks for that,” Sam said, and Annie felt something stir, which she quickly pushed down.

  Twenty-two

  Sam, Mary, and Elijah stopped by the house to change clothes, then the three of them drove to Carl and Diane’s.

  “I’ll get started with the chores,” Elijah offered.

  “I’ll cancel appointments for the next few days,” Mary said and went inside to find the office keys.

  “Does he have someone who covers for him?” Sam asked.

  Mary shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’s a one-man show.”

  Sam listened to the phone messages. There was a baby with an earache, a man who had pulled a muscle in his back, a woman with abdominal pain. He called all three back. He referred the baby to his brother’s partner, told the pulled muscle to ice it and take ibuprofen and call back tomorrow if it wasn’t better, and after a few questions, referred the woman with abdominal pain to Ricky. It sounded like endometriosis. He felt a sense of exhilaration when he hung up, as if he had just completed a difficult puzzle. He smiled and shook his head. His mother had taken the appointment book an
d gone inside to the other telephone. Sam looked around at Carl’s office.

  It was four rooms. A bathroom, a tiny waiting room, an exam room, and this, his office. The exam room was a little messy. Carl had applied a cast, and the wrappers and basin of water were right where he had left them. Sam cleaned up the mess, went outside, and poured the water onto the flower bed, not willing to waste a drop. The bathroom was all right, as well as the waiting room, but Carl’s office was a rat’s nest, a tornado-strewn collection of paper and charts, fast-food wrappers and half-empty coffee cups. His high school days, when he had worked for Carl and his father, came back to him. The contrast between the two men had been remarkable. Carl, windblown and secure. His father, tidy and obsessive. Sam gathered up the garbage, emptied the can into the big bin outside, then closed and locked the office.

  His mother came onto the porch after a moment. She had spoken to or left messages for all of the patients scheduled for today and tomorrow. They were all distressed, not so much by missing their appointments but for their beloved doctor’s misfortune. They all had a variety of phrasings but the same message. We love you, Dr. Carl. We’re praying for you. Get well.

  “May I see that?” he asked, and his mother handed him the black appointment book, covered with Carl’s familiar scrawl. Sam looked over the appointments for the next few weeks. Each day was full, and Carl had scheduled free clinic here at his office tomorrow afternoon. There was no calling those people, for who knew who would come? Something would have to be arranged. But not now.

  ****

  Mary watered and fed the chickens and cows. Elijah took care of the sheep and the goats.

  “Do you know how to milk a cow?” Mary asked Elijah.

  “I have done it, but it’s been years,” he answered, taking off his cap and running a hand over his head before replacing it.

  “Me too,” she said.

  “Well, maybe between the two of us we can manage it,” he said with a smile, and she felt that little flush again.

  She followed him into the barn where Hilda, a brown-eyed Guernsey, waited patiently. On the way she glanced at Sam, who was, in fact, doing a very good job of slopping the hog, and she couldn’t help but smile. That little exchange with Annie had planted a seed of hope in her heart for the two of them.

  Elijah got the stool. She found the bucket. They both knelt down, and Elijah insisted she have the first try. Well, why not? She sat down on the stool and positioned her hands the way she remembered, gave a squeeze, but nothing happened except a twitch of Hilda’s tail. She tried again. Still nothing. Elijah crouched down to check her technique and offer a suggestion. She tried again, and a stream of milk shot out and landed on the front of his shirt.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said laughing.

  “Better you than me,” he said, laughing, as well. “Why do you think I wanted you to take the first try?”

  She went back to the task, still smiling, but midway through deferred to him. “You take a turn. This is too much fun for a person to have all by themselves.”

  He grinned and took her place on the stool. Hilda took another mouthful of feed and chewed placidly.

  Elijah squeezed, and a stream of milk shot into the pail.

  “Well, you remembered after all!” Mary said admiringly.

  “I guess it’s like riding a bicycle,” he said with a chuckle.

  They finished the task, then Mary took the milk inside and poured it into some Mason jars she found in the pantry. She put it in the refrigerator and made a note to come tomorrow and skim the cream off.

  She went back outside just as Sam and Elijah finished cleaning the stable. All the work was done by eleven, and they returned home. Elijah went to the guesthouse to clean up.

  “Come back over,” Mary invited. “I’ll make us all some lunch.”

  He accepted in his courtly way, and Mary went and cleaned herself up. She made a plate of thick sandwiches, got out pickles and potato chips, cut up some fruit, and brewed a pot of coffee. She was gratified when they fell to the meal like hungry soldiers. Afterward Sam announced he was going back to the hospital, and Mary didn’t allow herself to hope. She simply nodded, then followed him out, watched him get into his car, and drive away.

  She came back to the kitchen. Elijah had cleared the table and was putting the dishes in the dishwasher. Mary started to protest, then stopped. She would follow Diane’s example.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Elijah flashed her a smile, his eyes glancing over her face before he went back to the dishes.

  “I know a little bit about what’s going on here,” he said after a pause. “If you’d like to talk about it, I’d be happy to listen. And if you want to tell an old man to mind his business, go right on ahead.”

  Absurdly, out of what he had just said, the primary thought Mary had was that he wasn’t old. Why, he was her own age, wasn’t he? And she did not feel old, though she supposed she was. She shook her head at her own triviality. “No. Please, say whatever you want.”

  He stood up straight and dried his hands on the towel, then hung it neatly back on the rack. “Annie told me a little on the plane trip out here yesterday,” he said. “She told me about your son. About the little girl.”

  Mary’s heart froze. What had she told him? That it had all been Mary’s fault?

  “I take it there’s been no change,” he said.

  Mary frowned, confused, then her mind cleared into understanding. Annie had told him about Kelly Bright. “Oh, no,” she said hurriedly. “There’s been no change.” She had checked the news every hour.

  “You seemed confused at first. What did you think I meant?” he asked.

  There it was. Out and between them, and she faced a choice. She could hide it away again. Shove it quickly back into its festering hole. Or she could tell. She looked at his worn face, his kind gray eyes, so long gone and yet so familiar, and suddenly she wanted to tell someone what no one else let her talk about, either because their own pain was too great or because they feared it would add to hers.

  “I thought you were talking about Annie and Sam’s daughter,” she said and tensed herself for the question she knew he would ask. Waited for him to say “I didn’t know they had a daughter. Where is she?” But he did not say that. His eyes lit with understanding, and he nodded.

  “That explains a lot,” he said quietly. “I knew there was great sorrow here.”

  “She died five years ago,” Mary said, “and then Annie left.”

  Elijah took a deep breath and shook his head, then turned to her, and he did have a question in his eyes. “Why do you torture yourself so?” he asked, and she was mortified to begin weeping again, for she could not talk about it without weeping and shaking and that fearful despair and hopelessness taking hold of her. She sat down at the table, and then she felt his hand on her shoulder.

  “Lord Jesus,” he prayed, “Bring peace to your daughter. This is not of you, Lord. This is not of you,” he said firmly, and she stopped crying then, the solidness of his pronouncement surprising her into silence. She looked at his face and wondered if he was judging her. Perhaps he thought she was weak. That she should be able to go on without such histrionics. But she did not see condemnation there. Only mercy. And so she told him. And she watched his face as she spoke. His eyes were calm. Filled with hurt and grief as she told it, but calm. And when she began to shake as it came to life, he put his hand on her arm and prayed again.

  “Lord Jesus, open this wound and clean it out,” he prayed.

  She felt surprised again. Everything he said seemed to surprise her, and with the surprise came hope, for he was saying different things than any that had entered her mind.

  “They buried her,” she finished, “but Annie and Sam were never the same. He threw himself into his work even more, and she was so sad she wouldn’t leave the house. I wasn’t any help.” She choked and could not go on for a moment.

  “This situation is too big for you to help with. There�
�s nothing you could have done,” he said, and there again, she was granted an unexpected release.

  “I have to help,” she argued, her mind unable to accept his absolution. “I have to fix it, to do something,” she said desperately, and as the words left her mouth, she saw where they had stranded her. Between her powerlessness and her need to repair an irreparable horror.

  “No,” he repeated. “You can’t.”

  She closed her eyes, her heart rocking back down to realities, for that is what she had known. This was no surprise.

  “But He can,” Elijah said.

  She opened her eyes. “How?” Her question was flat. Disbelieving. Faithless.

  He seemed to be considering for a moment, then gave a slight nod, as if he’d figured the situation out. “Well, He probably won’t bring the child back to life. Though I have seen miracles.”

  He said it calmly and in such a factual tone that she believed him.

  “But I know He means to heal the hurt,” he said.

  She stared at him, still not sure what to say.

  “He’s Jehovah Rapha,” Elijah said. He leaned forward and almost whispered it, his voice thrumming with passion. “The God who healeth Thee.”

  She wanted those words to be true more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. And not just for herself. For all of them. Every desire she’d ever had paled when compared to it.

  “How?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered.

  She felt her heart fall. He had seemed so like a prophet she’d thought he might extend his hand to her and the healing fall from it right now, right here at her kitchen table.

  “But I know He’s going after it,” he said, and she felt the hope again. “Things are moving. Can’t you feel it?” he asked, and she thought perhaps she did, for it seemed there was a freshness in the air that hadn’t been there before.

  “Mary,” he said, and she liked the way her name sounded from his mouth. “This torture you’ve been going through is not from the Lord. This is not His handiwork.”