Solemn Oath

by Hannah Alexander

  From what Lukas could see of the apartment, it was the antithesis of his home. It was spotless. “What’s wrong, Theodore?” he asked.

  Theo shook his head and sank down on a secondhand sofa. “You caught me just in time. I shouldn’t have rented a place so close to a liquor store, but this apartment came cheaper than anything else in town. I was just sitting here thinking about how good a few sips of bourbon would taste right now, and then I was praying, kind of halfheartedly, that God would keep me from doing something stupid. I was just stepping out to buy one of those little tiny travel bottles with a couple of swallows in it, but I know it wouldn’t have stopped there.” He heaved a sigh and looked at Lukas. His face was a deep well of dismay mixed with relief and wonder. “God brought you here, didn’t He?”

  Lukas nodded, unable to hide his own surprise. “Yeah, I guess He did.”

  “I was using all the arguments I could come up with to talk myself out of it. I was thinking about my date next week with Mercy and Tedi, and about how disappointed Tedi would be, and how mad Mercy would be. And then another part of me argued that it was just a couple of drinks, and that nobody would find out anyway.”

  “Oh, yeah? Have you forgotten the town we live in? This is Knolls, Theo, not New York City.”

  “I know. I kept trying to remind myself how I’d be letting everyone down. I don’t want to do that again. You don’t know how much Mercy’s suffered, and she didn’t deserve it. I just want to be able to prove to her that I can do this.”

  “You can’t,” Lukas said.

  Theo blinked at him. “What?”

  “You can’t do it. What do you think that whole salvation thing is all about, Theodore? You have to let God do it, because you’ve proved to yourself that you can’t. Every single time you feel the temptation, you have to give it to Him.” Lukas felt like a hypocrite. How did he know what it was like to be an alcoholic?

  But he knew what it was like to be a sinner. And sin was sin. “Ask Him to take the temptation away,” he continued. “Stay in His Word. Recite Scripture. One of my favorites is ‘I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.’”

  Theo leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “But that’s the problem. I’m not doing everything. I belong to Him now, and I’m supposed to be a brand-new person, but I’m still struggling.”

  Lukas shot him a dry grin. “You thought you’d be Superman.”

  “I thought I’d be a holy Christian, not the same old drunk. I thought I wouldn’t need the booze anymore.”

  “But you still have a human nature, a human body. Accepting Christ as your Savior isn’t like waving a magic wand and making everything perfect. You still have to learn and grow and be fed. When you first took algebra in school, you didn’t pick up the book and automatically know the material. You had to learn it step by step.” Lukas glanced over at the side table and saw the New Testament Theo’s boss had given him. He picked it up and turned to a passage he’d been trying to learn in his life ever since he started treating patients. “You should mark this one, Theo, where God tells the apostle Paul in Second Corinthians, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ You have to keep acknowledging your own weakness daily in order to allow God to control your spirit. You give up your own will, and—”

  Suddenly Lukas’s own personal truth drove through his heart like a white-hot probe. He caught his breath at the discovery, and at the pain.

  For him, the feelings that were growing inside his mind and heart for Mercy—and the powerful physical reactions that had helped drive them—were forbidden to him, just as forbidden as alcohol was to Theodore.

  “Lukas?” Theo said, concerned. “Are you okay?” He leaned forward. “You were talking about giving up my own will.”

  Lukas tried to swallow back the pain. This talk wasn’t about him, it was about Theo. “You’ve got to give it to God,” he said softly. “We all have to turn it over to God. We don’t control our lives any longer. He does.” The future Lukas had recently begun to dream about with Mercy seemed to disappear in the darkness. He was going to have to let her go. He couldn’t think of marriage at this point, couldn’t continue a budding romantic relationship with someone who did not share the Spirit that made up who he was. He knew it, had known it all along, but he’d conveniently grabbed at the fact that she seemed more and more open to discussions about spiritual things. It was almost as if he’d been trying to pressure her for his own selfish reasons.

  And the thought of losing her now caused a pain reminiscent of the grief he’d felt when his mother died. He knew he would see Mom again. With Mercy, how could he know?

  While Theo took the Book from him and read, Lukas felt his heart grow softer for this struggling man and his pain. And for the first time in his life he could identify.

  And as he listened, he also argued with God. The answer remained the same. Let her go.

  Was he going to be alone for the rest of his life? He should have listened to Mercy when she tried to break it off in the first place. She was right—it would have been less painful two weeks ago, when he hadn’t even allowed himself to acknowledge the possibility that he was in love with her.

  Theo put the New Testament down and sighed. “Lukas, I’ve started saving some money from my paycheck, and I’m going to try to pay Mercy back everything she spent to protect me from the embezzlement charges. I want to pay child support. I know she doesn’t need it, but she paid me all those years. It’s my turn.”

  Lukas struggled to answer past the ache inside him. “That’s good, Theo.”

  “I sent the first money order today. She should get it in the mail at her office tomorrow. I just hope I can keep doing it.”

  “Talk to God about that, too,” Lukas said. “Talk to Him, not just about Him. He’ll be there when you ask.”

  He would be there for both of them. Lukas swallowed his pride and realized he needed God’s constant presence as desperately as Theodore did.

  Ivy Richmond still left her front porch light on and the door cracked open when she expected company, even if it was just her daughter, Mercy. It was her own brand of hospitality, her way of saying welcome.

  Mercy needed that welcome tonight. She needed a warm comforter wrapped around her, a steaming cup of apple cider and a good mystery novel. She needed something to get lost in, to help her forget about Shannon’s pain-filled face. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the bruises. Every time it grew silent, she heard the shock-filled voices of Shannon’s parents.

  And then she thought about Delphi Bell’s life of struggle and the bruises she suffered so often from a man she couldn’t seem to get away from. There were too many battered people in this world.

  Mercy stepped into her mother’s house without knocking and found Ivy and Tedi together on the overstuffed blue love seat, Ivy reading the Knolls Review by lamplight, and Tedi watching Steve Urkel getting hit by a pie on Family Matters. They looked so much alike. Like Mercy, they had Cherokee blood from a not-too-distant ancestor.

  Tedi laughed out loud, a free, unrestrained sound that always brought a smile to Mercy’s face. A commercial blasted past the canned laughter at the same time Tedi saw Mercy.

  “Hi, Mom!” Tedi jumped up and ran over to hug Mercy—a wonderful tendency she hadn’t yet outgrown. “Can we stay long enough to see the end of the show?”

  “You’ve seen that episode four times.”

  “Yeah, but I like it. Please? By the time we get home it’ll be over.”

  Ivy stood up and added her voice to her granddaughter’s plea. “If you stay awhile, I’ll heat you up a serving of my baked cinnamon apples with some frozen yogurt on top.”

  Mercy shook her head and pulled at her already too-tight waistband. In spite of her lack of appetite lately, she was gaining weight. Blame menopause. “We can stay, but I’d better stick to water.” She walked into the dining room and plopped down on a solid wooden chair while Tedi returned to the television for the f
inal segment of slapstick comedy.

  Ivy came into the dining room and turned on the overhead chandelier. Soft, warm light revealed a spotless kitchen, something that had been more in evidence since Ivy found herself with few daily activities besides watching Tedi after school four days a week. The kitchen and dining room took up only about a third of the great room, which held a computer area, exercise area and skylights over an indoor garden. Leave it to Ivy Richmond to grow life anywhere she was.

  Ivy stepped over behind Mercy and reached down to knead her shoulders. “Tense day?”

  The press of her strong fingers against overtight muscles felt great. “In a lot of ways.” Mercy sighed as Ivy continued to massage her stiff muscles.

  “Did you hear about Bailey Little? He resigned his position as hospital board president. His nasty letter to the editor is in the Review today.”

  Mercy didn’t reply. She’d heard, but she was on emotional overload and didn’t even want to think about that.

  “Today was supposed to be your day off,” Ivy said, still massaging. “I thought you were just going to have lunch with Lukas and then go home.”

  “Lukas had to work today, and a couple of my patients ended up in the E.R. Mmm…that feels great.” She sat for a moment in silence, letting the massage ease away some of the stress that had been taking over her shoulder muscles since this morning. “Mom…are you bored?”

  “What?”

  “You know, do you find a lot of excess time on your hands?”

  The massage stopped for a moment, then continued. “Why do you ask?”

  “You mentioned the other day that you were suffering from the empty-nest syndrome, and yet you’re stuck taking care of Tedi after school, so you can’t go to Springfield as a volunteer at the free clinic with your friends. Are you looking for something else to keep you busy?”

  Ivy’s hands stilled on Mercy’s neck again. “I help take care of an active eleven-year-old, and I love it. Do I act bored?”

  Mercy shrugged, hoping that would reinstate the massage. It didn’t. “Well, you sent home three meals for Tedi and me last week, you cleaned my house Tuesday and you volunteered to host a slumber party for Tedi and three friends Saturday night. I don’t know, maybe it’s a stretch, but you could be looking for a little more to keep you occupied.”

  The massage regained momentum at last, accompanied by Ivy’s skeptical voice. “I get the feeling you have some input for me.”

  “He weighs about four hundred and seventy pounds, and right now he’s totally bedridden. His sister—the only family he will claim—just came out of a coma at Cox South. That was the emergency I had Monday morning when I dropped Tedi off with you. Clarence and Darlene have no friends. Lukas and I have been making house calls on them this summer, and Clarence is finally on state aid, but it isn’t enough.”

  “You need money for them?”

  “It may come to that, but right now, while Darlene is recovering, they both need a friend who is as bullheaded and tough as they are.” The massage got a little deeper. “Ow! I meant that in the nicest possible way.”

  Ivy stopped kneading and started chopping out the muscles with the sides of her hands. “You say this guy weighs four hundred seventy pounds? How’d he get that way? I don’t think—”

  “He isn’t what you think, Mom.” Mercy gave an abbreviated history on Clarence and Darlene.

  “Sounds like a big project,” Ivy said at last. Then she realized what she’d said. “You know what I mean.” She pulled out a chair and sat down across from Mercy at the dining room table. “You have a giving spirit, Mercy. I’m proud of you. Let me pray about it and sleep on it.” She leaned forward, wisps of gray-streaked hair falling, as usual, from the clasp that held them. She reached forward and laid a hand on Mercy’s. “Now, why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you.”

  Mercy held her mother’s dark, insightful gaze for a moment, heard the sound of Tedi’s laughter in the other room, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I’ll never have another child, Mom.”

  Chapter Twenty

  At nine o’clock Friday morning Lukas fastened the top button of his worn Wrangler jeans, pulled on an old red-plaid shirt and stuffed his double-stockinged feet into his Danner hiking boots. A good mud-eating hike in the Mark Twain National Forest would clear his head. He should probably call Mercy to make sure she was still coming over tonight, but he couldn’t. He knew it was sheer cowardice that kept him from picking up that phone, but the thought of talking to her brought too much pain. He didn’t want to think about his sudden revelation at Theodore’s apartment last night.

  If Mercy did come for dinner tonight, it could be the last time. He couldn’t think about it right now.

  He was stuffing a water bottle, an apple and a package of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts into his small backpack when the telephone in the living room rang. His immediate thought was that it was Mercy, and then his automatic reaction to that thought was to rush to the phone to pick up. In spite of everything, he wanted to hear her voice.

  “Hello, Dr. Bower? This is Judy at the hospital. Dr. Garcias asked me to call and see if you could please come in for a little while. We’re having a rush like you wouldn’t believe, and we just got ambulance calls with more coming in, one class one and two class twos. They’re supposed to be here in about six minutes.”

  Lukas sighed. “I thought Dr. Hill was on backup call today.” He wished it were Mercy on the line.

  “I just tried him. He told me he didn’t have time to come over and coddle the new doctor. He said that’s your job.”

  Lukas stifled his frustrated anger. Here went the squeeze play again. Members of the medical staff were required to take medical backup for E.R., which meant that if the E.R. doc got into trouble or was overwhelmed with serious emergencies, the on-call doc would come in. It didn’t always work that way when the backup doc had his own practice and a waiting room full of patients.

  “Want me to call Mrs. Pinkley about it?” Judy asked. “Sounds like prejudice to me. One of Dr. Hill’s office assistants overheard him complaining because you hired a Mexican. If you’re busy, maybe I could call Dr. Mercy to—”

  “No, Judy, don’t call her. I’ll talk to Mrs. Pinkley about it later.” Lukas knew Dr. Hill disliked E.R. call, but in a small hospital setting like Knolls, with no interns or residents to take up the slack, medical backup was important.

  “Tell Dr. Garcias I’ll be there.” He hung up, grabbed the package of Pop-Tarts and left his backpack on the overly cluttered kitchen counter. No time for a long hike today, but maybe he could take a shorter one if he escaped the hospital in time to clear out the congestion of clothing, dirty dishes and old mail that had accumulated around the house in the past few months.

  As he drove his Jeep to the hospital, he thought again about Dr. Hill. What if there had been no one else to back Dr. Garcias up? What if someone died?

  Hospital politics was one of the most frustrating aspects of E.R. practice. The E.R. doc and patient often became the components of a hot potato tossed back and forth between the family practitioner and the specialist. The family practitioner was unwilling to admit an unstable patient. The neurologists, cardiologists, pulmonologists and others didn’t want to take cases they felt could easily be managed by the family practitioners. Too many times there was a margin between the two opinions, through which the patient fell while the E.R. doc begged and pleaded and did a lot of ego stroking. Sometimes it was the patient who called the shots, when the condition worsened.

  Ten minutes later Lukas drove into an overflowing E.R. parking lot. Two fire trucks were double-parked along the street with their lights still flashing. Three police cars took up space in patient parking, and two ambulances sat in the bay.

  Inside, the scent of smoky clothes stirred through the air, and the E.R. proper sounded like a loud party minus the laughter, crowded as it was with firefighters, ambulance attendants, police and concerned family members. Somewhere in the chaos there must b
e patients. Judy had said so.

  Lukas searched through the din and caught sight of the secretary at the desk waving toward him frantically.

  “Thank goodness, Dr. Bower!” she called. “Dr. Garcias is doing a needle decompression in Trauma Two, but the woman in One has some bad burns and smoke inhalation, and they need you in there. Beverly’s in with her now doing a saline soak. Then we have a fireman in three who also has some smoke inhalation and a possible concussion from a collapsed ceiling. We already had five others in exam rooms. We’re full and running.”

  Lukas pulled out the trauma gear. “Where was the fire this time, Judy?”

  “Little Mary’s Barbecue burned to the ground.”

  “Oh no.” Little Mary’s was practically a historic institution in Knolls. It was where the ambulance attendants and police and firefighters and courthouse employees all took their dinner breaks. According to Mercy, it was a community heart attack waiting to happen.

  Lukas loved barbecue, but he’d had an unfortunate incident at Little Mary’s soon after his arrival in town, and he was afraid to return for fear of arrest. He’d been mistaken for a pervert when he’d innocently carried a medical textbook in with him to study one evening—a textbook complete with illustrations that would have been considered graphic anywhere outside a medical classroom. The café employees did not seem to take it well.

  Lukas walked into the first trauma room to the accompaniment of coughing and groans of pain. Beverly, soon-to-be Mrs. Cowboy Casey, was bent over a woman with a blackened face and singed hair and a deep grimace beneath the transparent blue oxygen mask. Sterile cloths were draped over burned portions of the woman’s chest and arms, and Beverly murmured soothing words as she applied cool saline. She had already established two IVs with lactated ringers and had placed the patient on a monitor—carefully, between patches of red, blistered skin.