by Alana Terry
“And she won’t leave me alone,” Carl complained. “Keeps threatening to beat up the nurses who come in here to take care of me.” He winked.
Kennedy glanced at Nick, who looked about as out of place as she felt.
“You gonna be home by Christmas?” Blessing asked.
Carl adjusted his bed so he was sitting up a little more. “You kidding me? I’m not settling for hospital food when I can have your mother’s cooking.”
Sandy smiled and patted his hand. “We’re hoping so, at least. Doctor says they may have to do surgery.”
“Pshaw.” Carl waved his left hand in the air. “They’re just trying to get more insurance money out of us. That’s the way these bureaucracies work. Money, money, money.” He fixed his eyes on his daughter. “So the answer to your question, sweetie, is yes, I’ll be home for Christmas. You’re coming over for dinner, right? You and Tyson and … oh, why do I keep forgetting his name? That guy … one with all the hieroglyphs tatted on his arms …”
Blessing did not look amused. “It’s calligraphy.”
Carl frowned. “Really? I could have sworn I saw something just like it in the National Geographic special on mummies. Oh, well. Is old what’s-his-name coming with you for Christmas?”
“Damion, Dad. His name’s Damion.”
Carl kept a good-natured tone in spite of the way his daughter glared at him. “That’s the one. Keep wanting to call him Dalmatian for some reason. Here, boy. Here Dalmatian.”
Sandy put her hand on Blessing’s shoulder. “What your father means is we’d love to have you over for Christmas dinner, of course. All three of you.” She shot Carl a look laced with warning.
“That’s right.” He nodded. “All three of you.”
“Good.” Sandy frowned at the clock and turned to Blessing. “Now you should get yourself back to work so you don’t get in trouble with your supervisor, and I’ll call you to let you know if I can watch Tyson on Friday.”
“All right.” Blessing gave her dad a quick peck on the cheek before heading out.
Kennedy watched the way Nick’s whole body relaxed when she left. Sandy let out a loud sigh. “Well, Kennedy, did you sleep all right last night?”
Kennedy felt guilty when she admitted that she had. “What about you?” she added. “Did either of you get to sleep?”
Sandy smiled. “Oh, Carl was knocked out like a baby. Whatever they pumped through that IV must’ve been some miracle maker. I haven’t seen him sleep that soundly in ten years or more.”
Carl snorted. “I told you we should have gone to Hawaii last summer, didn’t I? Didn’t I say we were due for a vacation?”
Sandy smiled but didn’t respond.
“So we can’t afford three thousand dollars for a week in Hawaii, so we’ll spend our five thousand dollar deductible instead for a staycation at Providence. Food’s not as good, but boy, do you sleep like a rock.”
“Well, one of us does.” The corners of Sandy’s eyes wrinkled up when she spoke. “I was lucky to get that half hour snooze between the x-rays and the doctor consult. They wanted him to have surgery last night,” she explained to Kennedy and Nick. “Make sure everything looked all right. But he said …”
Carl waved his good hand in the air. “I said of course it wouldn’t look all right if they went in there with a scalpel and started moving things around that have no business moving.”
Sandy shrugged her shoulders. “So the doctor decided we could wait a few days and see.”
“I still don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Carl insisted. “I feel fine as long as they keep that IV bag filled. I’m not dead. My ticker’s as healthy as a teenager’s — doctor said so himself. But the longer they keep me here, the more they can rack up the medical bills. Probably give all themselves a nice Christmas bonus, too.” He reached for his wife’s hand. “Remind me, hon, to wait until summer or spring next time I jump in front of a bullet, will ya?”
Sandy cast a furtive glance at Kennedy, who tried to maintain a neutral expression. “Well, sweetie.” Sandy’s voice sounded far too chipper for the moment. “Have you called your parents or your mom’s sister in Maryland?”
Kennedy was a little ashamed to admit she had slept all the way until Nick came knocking at the door, especially after hearing how Sandy had passed her night by Carl’s side.
Sandy frowned at the clock. “I guess if Nick was willing to drive, you could make it to the airport in time to catch that flight.”
“Absolutely out of the question,” someone interrupted from the doorway. Kennedy knew she disliked the voice even before she turned to see who was there behind her.
Detective Drisklay.
He frowned. “You, young lady, have a very bad habit of leaving your phone off when people need to get in touch with you.” He had his notebook in one hand, his Styrofoam cup of black coffee in the other. “But since you’re all here, we may as well get comfortable.” He swept past Nick and sat down on a swivel stool. “All right. Who’s gonna start and tell me what happened?”
CHAPTER 28
It was nearly dinnertime before Detective Drisklay was done grilling Kennedy and the Lindgrens. Nick excused himself shortly after the interview started, but Sandy made him promise to take Kennedy home for the evening when everything was done. Sometimes Sandy’s sense of protectiveness was smothering, but tonight Kennedy was glad to stay far away from the subway stations.
“So I guess you’re not gonna make the flight to your aunt’s, huh?” Nick asked as they pulled out of the Providence parking garage that evening.
“No. The detective said I shouldn’t go anywhere for a few weeks. There’s gonna be tons of questions. Legal stuff. I guess I’m supposed to talk with someone from the district attorney’s office tomorrow.” She sighed. Being the victim of a high-profile crime was about as time-consuming as her pre-med studies.
“You hungry?”
Kennedy looked at the clock and tried to remember what she had eaten that day. Just a cold sandwich and fruit salad from the hospital cafeteria. “A little.”
“Yeah? ’Cause if you are, I could take you out.” Nick’s dreadlocks whipped across his face as he turned to look at her and then straightened out to focus again on the road. “I mean, not out out, just, you know. Food.”
Kennedy was exhausted, but she had to eat something before calling it a night. “Food is good.”
Twenty minutes later, they were sitting at a booth in Harvard Square eating soup out of sourdough bread bowls.
“I have to admit, clam chowder is something Boston does way better than New York.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nick wiped his face with his napkin. “Because I was just thinking it doesn’t quite measure up to Seattle’s.”
“Are you from Washington?” Kennedy asked.
“Oregon, actually, but I spent a lot of time up and down the West Coast. That was back in my quasi-homeless, semi-nomadic, living-out-of-my-van days.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Sounds … interesting.”
He stared past her shoulder. “It was magical.”
Something about hearing an adult with dread-locks down to his waist using words like magical made Kennedy chuckle. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Guess they don’t have much surfing in China, do they?”
“Not where we were,” she answered.
“Yeah, it’s no good here, either, but I knew that when I moved. Just one of the costs of discipleship, right?”
She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “Why did you end up coming out here?”
“Short answer is God got a hold of me. I was always pretty churchy, but that was just one little part of my life, you know? Like, I took math in high school because that’s what my guidance counselor told me I had to do to graduate. It didn’t mean anything to me outside the classroom walls. That’s kinda how church was to me. After college, I sort of burned out on school. My sister, well she had been going through a lot, too. Pretty taxing stuff. So I deci
ded to take a year or two and just see what was real. Got a beat-up van, but it took me down all the way from the Oregon coast to San Diego, then all the way back up to Seattle before I finally came back home.”
He dipped a piece of sourdough into his chowder and went on talking with his mouth full.
“Well, something out there just changed me. The ocean. The waves. I don’t know. God talks to everyone in different ways, right? Sometimes he uses angels, sometimes he uses a donkey. For me, it was the coast. And I knew I wanted to spend my life helping others. Kids like me, kids who were pretty decent people but who didn’t really know Jesus.
“My friend was working at a home for troubled teens out in Vermont. Asked me to join on a Friday. By Sunday after church, I was on the road in my clunker. It got me just over the Rockies before dying. I stuck around there for a couple weeks, volunteered for a few churches, met some great people, and they helped me get fixed up and back on my way.”
Nick took a sip of his veggie juice before continuing. “So I worked at the boys home for a few years, then I met Carl. St. Margaret’s was growing faster than anyone could have guessed, and he needed help with the youth and children’s ministry there, so I settled down and became a Cambridge boy.”
Kennedy was trying to guess Nick’s age when he asked, “What about you?”
The question caught her off guard. “Me what?”
He adjusted one of his dreadlocks that had fallen in front of his eye. “I don’t know. What makes you tick? Why Harvard? Why pre-med?”
Kennedy wasn’t sure where to begin. She fidgeted with a piece of sourdough. “Well, I guess I like helping people. And Harvard had their early-admissions program, so I sort of applied on a whim, and when I got in, well … It’s one of those offers you don’t really turn down.”
Nick didn’t say anything right away, which gave Kennedy plenty of time to think of how ignorant her answer had sounded.
“I’ve thought a little about medical missions.” Why had she added that part? Did she just want to sound more mature? Was she trying to prove that she was ministry-minded like he was?
“These bread bowls are delicious.”
Kennedy nodded, grateful Nick was changing the subject.
A few minutes later, he scooted back his chair. “Hey, thanks for joining me. That was a lot of fun.” He glanced at the time. “I still have twenty minutes in the parking meter. I could drive you back to Carl and Sandy’s now, or we could go for a little walk.”
There was something endearing and almost awkward in his expression. Was he asking her out? Or was he just being nice? A year ago, even a month ago, she probably would have been flattered. She glanced outside. The night was already dark. The howling of wind echoed in her memory. What was wrong with her? Wasn’t college supposed to be all about living in the moment, being spontaneous, enjoying new people, gaining new experiences? And she didn’t want to spend an extra twenty minutes with Nick because the dark made her nervous?
Or was there more to it than that? Reuben’s face flitted through her mind, the kind expression in his eyes as he looked at her with so much concern.
Nick frowned. “You know what? I forgot how tired you must be. What do you say we just head back to the van and I’ll take you to the Lindgrens’ now. We’re not too far.”
Kennedy tried to sigh away the heaviness in her chest. “No, it’s not that, it’s just …” She stopped short. “It’s just, I’ve got a friend back on campus, and I really want to call and let them know I’m safe.”
“They’re probably pretty worried, right?” Nick’s voice was gentle. Subdued.
“Yeah.” Kennedy sighed, glad Nick had picked up on her use of the gender-neutral pronoun. “Yeah, if you don’t mind, I think I’m ready to head home.”
CHAPTER 29
“Thanks so much for dinner.” Kennedy couldn’t articulate why she felt like apologizing to Nick during the ride back to Carl and Sandy’s. “It was great.”
Nick pulled the bus into the Lindgrens’ driveway. “They make good chowder there, don’t they?” For a minute, he looked like he was about to get out of the car too, but then he just gave a little wave. “Well, I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”
She opened the passenger door. “Yeah. Sandy said you’re coming over for dinner Christmas Eve.”
He smiled. “I’ll be there.”
“All right. Thanks again.” She failed to infuse as much enthusiasm into her voice as she had intended, but she hoped she at least didn’t sound rude.
“Have a good night.”
“You, too.”
She walked up to the Lindgrens’ porch, aware of his eyes following her. It wasn’t until her hand was on the knob that she realized she didn’t have a key or any way to get in. She was about to wave Nick down to ask to borrow his phone when the door opened.
“Well, there you are!”
Kennedy was so relieved to see Sandy in the doorway she didn’t mind the exaggerated wink. “I was wondering where you two went. I left Providence at least half an hour after you did.” She leaned forward and waved to Nick, who was pulling the bus out of the driveway. “So you got something to eat, did you?” Sandy wrapped an arm around Kennedy’s waist and pulled her in. “That was awful thoughtful of Nick. I knew he had it in him to be a romantic when the right woman caught his eye.”
“We were both hungry, that’s all. It’s been a long day.”
Sandy insisted on making Kennedy some tea, and once or twice she gave Kennedy a sly smile while she bustled around the kitchen, but she graciously didn’t say anything else about Nick.
“The doctor says now Carl might be home by Saturday.” Sandy sat down at the table across from Kennedy. “You know that’s Carl’s first thought. He hasn’t missed a Sunday preaching in years.”
“That’s good.” Kennedy’s mind was elsewhere, on getting in touch with Reuben, on the Christmas she wasn’t going to spend with her parents or her aunt, on the dozens of meetings and legal proceedings ahead of her. She wished she could dump all her memories onto someone else who would testify as her proxy.
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. That newspaper reporter stopped by the hospital looking for you.” Sandy spoke as casually as if she had been mentioning a missed phone call from the friend next door. “You know which one I mean? The red-haired boy?”
Kennedy had been forced to deal with all kinds of nameless members of the press over the past few months, but one face stuck out in her memory. “Yeah, I know who you’re talking about.”
“Nice kid.” Sandy looked at Kennedy out the corner of her eyes. “Of course, I don’t know if he’s a Christian like Nick. Do you?”
Kennedy buried her face in her teacup and didn’t respond.
“Well, Carl insisted I spent tonight here at home and try to get some rest.” Sandy lowered her voice. “Between you and me, I think he just wants the room to himself so he can watch those silly Westerns he likes so much.”
“I’m probably going to go to bed soon, too.” Kennedy had emailed her aunt, who had probably called her mom, who had probably left fifteen or more voicemails by now. She needed to remember to plug her phone in tonight. She almost envied Carl. People in hospitals could choose not to return phone calls and blame it on the meds or the nurses or any number of convenient excuses.
Kennedy helped Sandy clean the table, tried twice to help with the dishes, and was finally shoved off to bed with a hug and a good-night prayer that left her feeling like she was five years old again. Kennedy fell asleep right away, thoughts of final exams and detective interviews, car chases and failed assassination attempts retreating before the heaviness and exhaustion that had clung to her the whole semester.
CHAPTER 30
The next few days were a blur of meetings. With all those detectives, lawyers, and media gurus vying for her attention, Kennedy wished she could hire a personal assistant just to juggle her schedule.
Sandy was even busier gophering Carl’s books and effects to and from his roo
m in Providence. He still insisted on preparing for his Sunday sermon. The doctors weren’t giving him a firm release date yet, but the chances of surgery decreased each day.
When he was finally let out Saturday evening, Kennedy rode with Sandy to bring him back home.
“I told you they wouldn’t keep me from the pulpit.” Carl had lost a few pounds at Providence. His chipmunk cheeks weren’t quite as full when he smiled, and he seemed to boast a few more wrinkles than Kennedy remembered. Still, besides having his arm in a sling, he walked and talked and acted like the boisterous, bustling pastor she had known as a little girl in Manhattan.
Sandy stopped by the store on the way home from Providence to pick up Carl’s prescription. “I’ll just be a minute or two.”
“Don’t listen to a word she says,” Carl whispered when she left. “She’ll be in there half an hour if she’s in there a second.”
Sure enough, when Sandy got back to the car, she was pushing a cart full of grocery bags and several rolls of wrapping paper.
“Sorry it took me so long.”
“What were you doing in there?” Carl asked after she had loaded the trunk. “Making plans to feed an army?”
Sandy turned the key in the ignition. “They had ham on sale.”
“So you got a whole cart full?”
“No. But I had to get sides to go with it.”
Kennedy loved the way Carl and Sandy always bantered back and forth. Her parents had never really been playful like that, at least not in Kennedy’s memory.
“Well, it’s just Kennedy staying with us. I don’t think you needed to break the bank. The skinny thing eats like a bird.”
Sandy waved away his remark. “It’s for Christmas Eve, silly.”
“You know Christmas is a week and a half away, right?” Carl asked.
She pulled out of the parking lot and patted her husband’s leg. “You got to plan these things ahead, you know.”
Over the next few days, Kennedy grew to understand exactly what kind of planning ahead was required for a Lindgren-style Christmas Eve dinner. She and Sandy started by making ten dozen cookies to serve the grandkids when they came to help decorate the tree. It took a day and a half to reclaim the house and vacuum up all the colored tinsel, cookie crumbs, and popcorn kernels they left behind.
