Advance Acclaim for To Know You
“Even though I’m known for writing nonfiction, fiction is what I love to read—and Shannon has created a storyline with more twists and turns than a mountain road. But more important than the twists is the way this story explores love and sacrifice and the effects of our decisions. This book will grab you and not let go. Anyone who reads Shannon’s nonfiction books knows she hooks you with her narrative, and now she’s put that skill to great use in her first novel!”
—SHAUNTI FELDHAHN, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF
FOR WOMEN ONLY AND THE VERITAS CONFLICT
“Can you ever truly escape your past? Shannon Ethridge weaves a gripping story of a respected Christian woman who has to dig up the past she thought buried in order to save her son’s life. And amazingly, sometimes even the things we hoped we could forget end up being the things God uses to bring real wholeness to our lives. A no-holds-barred realistic portrayal of a messy life that finds peace when we confront our pasts, not try to ignore them.”
—SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE, AUTHOR OF
THE GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO GREAT SEX
“To Know You is one of the best emotional roller coasters I have been on! Who knew it was possible to interweave so many powerful sexual, emotional, and relational themes into one story and so seamlessly? This novel is what other Christian fiction needs to be: refreshingly honest, grace-inducing, and the opposite of ‘preachy.’ A work well done!”
—MICHELLE N. ONUORAH,
AUTHOR AND SCREENWRITER
“In To Know You, Shannon Ethridge does a brilliant job of turning the truths she is known for teaching into a dynamic, page-turning narrative that will touch your heart and stir your soul. She takes the reader on a very real journey of temptation and redemption along with the characters, crafting a story you do not want to miss.”
—LEIGH CONGDON, FREELANCE WRITER
“I literally read To Know You in one night. I couldn’t put it down. Everything about the characters is so real. There is no sugar-coating their struggles and temptations, and it made the entire book very relatable. But most of all, I loved the story of how the redeeming power of God’s grace transformed them one by one. Such a great example of God’s unconditional love! The world needs more books like To Know You!”
—AMBER P.
“To Know You offered an exhilarating escape each time I picked it up, and I felt so spiritually uplifted each time I put it down. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a riveting yet wholesome story that gets your heart racing and your blood boiling at the same time!”
—MICHELE A.
“I picked up the pre-released version of To Know You while on vacation. The first chapter totally hooked me and I couldn’t stop. I did not expect to identify so closely with some of the characters, and more particularly with some of the characters’ personal struggles. It helped me realize that I am not alone, and that no temptation seizes us but what is common to man (and woman!). I’m so grateful for gripping stories like this, and the power they have to transform the heart and mind—especially my heart and mind.”
—GRETCHEN E.
To
Know
You
© 2013 by Shannon Ethridge
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Author is represented by the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. www.alivecommunications.com.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.
Publisher’s note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ethridge, Shannon.
To know you / by Shannon Ethridge and Kathryn Mackel.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4016-8866-0 (trade paper)
1. Sick children--Fiction. 2. Domestic fiction. I. Mackel, Kathryn, 1950- II.
Title.
PS3605.T48T6 2013
813'.6--dc23
2013015674
Printed in the United States of America
13 14 15 16 17 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1
Shannon: To my sister Donna, in anticipation of getting to know you more when we meet again in heaven.
Kathryn: To Jeanne Dignan, who blesses me, even now.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Reading Group Guide
Acknowledgments
About The Authors
One
Dallas
Saturday, 9:15 a.m.
Don’t ask, Julia Whittaker wanted to scream.
But the words were sawdust in her mouth. Matt would ask because it was his nature to take in information, cradle it, and rebirth it so the world made sense.
“How—
Moments away from being irrevocable.
—long?”
If Julia couldn’t bear the asking, how could she ever bear the answer?
“The transplant committee moved Dillon up. He’s near the top of the list,” Dr. Ann Rosado said. She was a pediatric gastro-enterologist at Cedar Springs Medical Center, specializing in liver diseases. The Whittakers had known her all of Dillon’s life.
“Just near? Not at?” Matt was rubbing his stubbled head as if he could massage this fact into something closer to his liking. They hadn’t been home in two days. His gray slacks were wrinkled at the knees, and his oxford shirt was stained with salad dressing. He had shoveled food into his mouth to set the example for her. You have to eat, he’d said.
Yeah, Mom, Dillon had said. You have to eat. He had made an attempt on her behalf, picking apart a muffin and smearing scrambled eggs on his plate.
Black coffee and Red Bull were all Julia had patience with. The acid in her stomach was a welcome relief from that sinking sensation of time slipping away.
Of Dillon slipping away.
She dug her fingernails into her palms and stared at the pictures of children on Annie’s wall. Some were pink-cheeked with health, others had sallow skin and shadowed eyes—the autumnal shades of liver disease.
Thirteen years ago Julia had studied the pictures, looking for a sign of hope. “Are these the survivors?”
“I don’t differentiate,” Annie had said. “They are all my patients.”
“But which ones are still a—” Julia hadn’t been able to finish the question. The cruelty that children could be born blighted and die without a future was unbearable.
“They all live in my heart,” Annie had said. “They all live in God’s
heart because He doesn’t differentiate either.”
Where was God’s heart today, after thirteen years of dealing with this? Certainly not in that void between how and long.
She curled her fingertips into the arm of the sofa and counted the lights on Annie’s Christmas tree. There were no “Wait Until Christmas” tags on the presents because some children—like Dillon—could not wait until the twenty-fifth.
Julia had bought her son’s gift a month ago, the expensive Arriflex 235, which would allow him to shoot video underwater. She and Matt nixed the notion of a motorcycle rig that would allow him to shoot high-speed chases.
When I’m sixteen I’ll get my own motorcycle, Dillon had said, even as his blood pressure climbed and the toxins backed up in his liver like a clogged sewage pipe. Sixteen was more than three long years away and, even if she dared to let Matt ask how long, three years weren’t possible.
Not without a transplant.
“Dillon’s beaten the odds since he was born,” Dr. Annie said. “We’ll find him that liver.”
“Of course,” Matt said, his blue eyes distant. Computing the odds, Julia knew, because she had asked him once when they prayed together, Where do you go when you disappear?
Where the numbers add up, he had said.
She had prayed everywhere. Prayers in a dark closet. Prayers on a mountain top. Prayers in Matt’s car. Prayers in his arms. Prayers in Jerusalem. Prayers in the bathroom.
Don’t lose hope, Matt always said.
Imagine all that Dillon has before him, Matt had said shortly after Dillon was diagnosed with biliary atresia. Infancy became toddlerhood. Look, the Kasai procedure is holding, and now he’s made it to kindergarten. Cheer, Julia, because he’s in Little League and wow, can you believe our son won the sixth-grade spelling bee? Listen to his voice squeak into manhood and whatever you do, sweetheart, pretend you’re impressed by that fuzz on his lip.
Imagine what we have before us, Matt would say. College and a lovely daughter-in-law and bouncing grandchildren and a long life of blessings. Look how our son is beating the odds.
Until three weeks ago—when he wasn’t.
Dr. Annie talked on, her soft voice no veil for the ugly words coming out of her mouth. Hepatic encephalopathy. Coagulopathy. Ascites. Cerebral edema.
Matt’s fingers tightened on Julia’s. He exhaled, his mouth forming a soft O.
“No,” she said. “Don’t.”
“How—”
“Please. Don’t—”
“—long?”
Julia jumped up, pulse thundering, hands pressed to her ears to block out Annie’s response.
“Not long.”
She staggered to the door, willing God to stop the sun in the sky like he had for Joshua. But from the moment her son had been cast in her womb with a doomed liver, she knew she had no say in the matter.
From somewhere in the gloom, Matt called her name and Dr. Annie said, “I know this is hard.”
Maybe the sun did stand still outside Dr. Annie’s office. Maybe on the other side of this door Dillon was strong and thriving, playing sports and chasing girls and tripping over his feet and being brilliant in one moment and utterly ridiculous in the next. She needed to go to her son and promise he had all the time in the world.
Julia yanked at the door but it didn’t open. So she punched it.
And punched it again and still the door wouldn’t open.
“Julia, stop,” Matt called out of the distant haze. “Stop it.”
She couldn’t stop, just kept punching the door.
Because she couldn’t punch God.
Saturday, 4:32 p.m.
Julia opened her eyes to the harsh glow of hospital lighting.
A nurse appeared out of nowhere, said the surgery was a success, and wanted to know how do you feel, Mrs. Whittaker?
Like cat vomit, Julia would have said, if the cat didn’t have her tongue.
Dr. Annie had pulled every favor in her considerable book to get Julia scheduled for surgery within hours after breaking her hand.
“Where’s my husband?” Julia said. The words came out where’s my hubcap?
“I’m here.” Matt kissed her forehead. “How’re you doing?”
“Hurts.”
“That’s what happens when you shatter three fingers.” Matt brushed her hair back. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking anything. I just couldn’t get the door open.”
“That’s because it pulls inward. You were pushing it out.”
“I had to get out—”
“I know, I know. Just relax,” Matt said. “The nurse said she’d bring you some painkillers.”
“No. We don’t have time. We have to find Dillon a liver.” Julia pawed at her left hand, trying to rip out the IV. No go—her right hand was engulfed in a mummy-wrapped splint the size of a loaf of bread. Her fingers were captive, reconstructed with tiny pins and plates and swathed in gauze. Only the tip of her thumb extruded from the bandage.
Julia tried to curl her hurt hand into a fist. Pain spiked through her wrist and she cried out. The nurse scurried in. “Keep calm,” she said. “Your pulse is racing.” She took Julia’s blood pressure, fiddled with the monitor, and glared at her with an admonition to just relax.
Matt laced his fingers gently around the IV site on the back of her wrist. His face was stubbly, his eyelids heavy. At least she had had a few hours of anesthetized slumber. How long had it been since he’d slept?
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” He said it over and over so it became one word—sokay, sokay, sokay.
“I am so sorry, Mattie. I really messed up.”
“Nothing that a few plates and screws didn’t fix.”
“It’s late. Wait—Beth was supposed to get tested today,” Julia said. Beth Latham was their office manager and dear friend.
Matt made that hmm sound high in his palate, an indicator that things were bad but he wouldn’t let it get to him.
“What?” Julia said.
“There’s good news and bad news that’s really good news.”
Julia groaned. “Just tell me.”
“Beth was a match.”
“Really?”
“She can’t do it. She wants to badly. But she can’t. Not for eight months at least.”
Her heart sank. “She’s pregnant? I thought she and Bruce had stopped trying.”
“They had. She was having the physical, mentioned nausea, and they ran the test.”
“That’s wonderful news, Matt.” Julia’s voice came back hollow. They were all hanging on by fingernails. They needed to find a liver—immediately.
A terrible twist of fate had made both her and Matt ineligible as living donors. Her A-positive blood type with Matt’s B positive could have combined to AB positive in their son, the blood type that can receive all comers. But they both carried recessive genes—like hidden sins—into their pairing and gave birth to a type-O, Rh-negative baby.
Were he healthy, Dillon’s blood type would make him a universal donor. How ironic that he would have been sought after by the Red Cross to give blood every two months once he turned eighteen.
He could share with anyone but only receive O-negative blood and could only survive a transplant from a type-O donor. The fact that he was in the majority blood type made the process trickier because he had to compete with everyone on the waiting list.
Though giving up a lobe of one’s liver had some peril and an extended recovery time, friends and family had volunteered to be tested. Six—counting Beth, their office manager and dear friend—had the right blood type.
All six were ineligible.
Her assistant, Patricia, was ruled out due to her chronic asthma. Matt’s brother, Todd, had too many tattoos from his wild days, including two from his mission time in India. Their accountant, Charlie, had a history of melanoma. Pastor Rich had chronic malaria from time spent in Africa. Dillon’s debate coach, Isaac, had undiagnosed hepatitis A. Her design assistant,
Trevor, had active Lyme disease. By the time he finished the rigorous course of treatment, it might be too late for Dillon.
Without a live donor identified, the last option was grim and unpredictable.
Someone would have to die from a crushing head wound, and that someone would need to have an organ card in his wallet or have a merciful next-of-kin who could see through their grief long enough to say yes, let’s redeem our loved one’s death.
“I’m sorry,” Julia said.
Matt laughed. “You pack a mean punch. I’m going to be a lot nicer to you from now on.” He squeezed next to her on the hospital bed and draped her injured hand over his shoulder so she could snuggle into his chest. Even though it was December, he smelled like summer.
“You know what we have to do,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“Dillon’s got two sisters.”
“They don’t know any of this. They don’t know each other, they don’t know me.”
“They are the only hope Dillon has.”
Julia dug the fingers of her good hand into his shirt. “I don’t even know where they are.”
“I do,” Matt said. “I know where they are.”
Saturday, 6:18 p.m.
When Dillon was eight years old, he’d asked for a grown-up Bible. Hallelujah, Matt and Julia whispered in delight. We’ve got the next Billy Graham.
Wrong.
Her son was the Spielberg of Scripture. Since graduating from Wally McDoogle to the wall of Jericho, he had devoured and then dramatized the Bible from creation to the Apocalypse. Matt joked that the lesson was that when you give your kid a Bible, you hide the video camera.
“He’s reading Samuel,” Julia said when he was nine. “Adultery, madness, murder—”
“The stuff movies are made of,” Matt said.
For all those years, the Kasai reconstruction of his bile duct held strong, draining bile from his liver into his intestine. Allowing him to grow and even to thrive. Those were good years, but deep in Julia’s gut, she knew the Kasai was the wall of Jericho that would someday come tumbling down.
Tonight Dillon looked like an under-ripe tomato with his round cheeks and yellowed skin. Propped up on pillows and tucked under a blanket, he was surrounded by electronics. Heart monitor, IV, blood-pressure cuff, bed controls, landline phone, and call button—all belonging to the hospital. His laptop, tablet, and smart phone were never out of reach of his blazing thumbs.
To Know You (9781401688684) Page 1
