Ellie caught it and, after skimming the note, giggled.
“I don’t need comments from the peanut gallery back there,” Benjamin said.
After Ellie repeated his comment to Matt, she said, “Matt wants to know if you know where the term peanut gallery comes from.”
“Howdy Doody,” Benjamin said.
“No, before that,” Ellie read from Matthew’s pad.
“Kindly remind our little smarty-pants friend that I made no promises to get him home safely, so if he doesn’t watch it, I’ll accidentally forget him at the next rest stop.”
In the rearview mirror he watched as Ellie repeated his comment to Matthew, who broke out in a wide grin. He wrote something back to her.
“What’d he say?” Benjamin asked.
“That you’d miss him too much to ever do that.”
“He’s right,” Abbi said.
He is right.
Matthew had been living with them since the week before Thanksgiving, both of them knowing the boy only agreed to it because he still felt guilty about his part in their losing Silvia, and the first couple of weeks had been uncomfortable as all of them tried too hard.
But now, nearly a month and a half later, Benjamin couldn’t imagine their home without him. Any remaining awkward moments were only because he and his wife sometimes forgot they now had a teenager in their house, not an infant. They left little sticky notes on the bathroom and bedroom mirrors reminding each other that clothing was no longer optional. And Matthew made a lot of noise before entering any room. They had worried when it started, him seemingly so klutzy, dropping things or banging against walls. He finally told them he did it on purpose; he’d come into the kitchen one morning when Benjamin and Abbi were kissing, and he wanted to make sure to warn them before he stumbled upon them in a more intimate situation.
They added locking doors to their sticky-note reminders.
The trip to Buffalo had started with a phone call. Abbi somehow convinced Matthew to let her call his father, and Jimmy Savoie wanted to see his son. He hadn’t known Matthew was sick. He didn’t even know the boy wasn’t living with Melissa anymore. Yes, yes, he said, he could have done a bit of digging, found the number and called. But the way he and Matthew’s mother had parted—well, he figured Melissa wouldn’t have let him talk to his son anyway.
“But tell him . . .” Jimmy had said. “Tell him I still have that picture of him, from that day we went to the fair, the day his face turned blue from the snow cone—tell him I have that one on the mantel. Tell him he has brothers.”
Matthew said he didn’t remember the fair, or the blue ice. But when Benjamin told him they’d take him out to New York over Christmas vacation, he’d agreed.
They had left on Sunday, early, suitcases and snacks crammed in the trunk, pillows and blankets mounded between them, and drove twelve hours, spending the night in a cheap motel outside Chicago— he and Matthew in one full-sized bed, Abbi and Ellie in the other. The next morning they logged another six hours, stopping in Cleveland so Matthew could have a dialysis session, staying another night. Then another two hours today.
Abbi turned around. “Anyone want to stop for breakfast?”
Benjamin glanced in the mirror again, saw Ellie look at Matthew. He shook his head. “No, I think we’re good,” Ellie said.
“Well, there’s some granola back there. And fruit in the cooler. I think a couple sandwiches from yesterday.”
His wife was worried about Matthew. So was he. Benjamin hadn’t had a moment to talk—really talk—about how Matthew felt being so close to the end of this leg of the journey.
He loved the boy. He didn’t think, after Silvia, he’d be able to love a child so freely again. And it wasn’t like with the baby, an overwhelming instant of emotion crashing over him. It came on in bits and spurts, surprising him, because who outside of God himself would have known a brilliant, deaf kid, a vegan hippie, and a toeless soldier would find themselves some sort of family?
They didn’t get only Matthew, though. Ellie came over nearly every evening, and more afternoons than not, Benjamin found Sienna and Lacie playing Polly Pockets in the living room, or sitting at the kitchen table, Matthew helping with homework. Even Jaylyn showed up a couple of times a week. And Heather, once. She had been looking for the girls, and Abbi invited her to dinner. She stayed, uncomfortable and self-conscious, but there nonetheless. Slowly, like rock candy crystals, they all piggybacked on one another, growing thicker and stronger and sweeter.
He reached across the armrest and threaded his fingers through Abbi’s, smiled at her and mouthed I love you. She covered their hands with her other one, picked at his knuckles. Things were better between them. They tried now, every day, working hard at loving, like the blistering, sweaty task it was, the unnatural discipline of denying oneself. He grilled his own steak when he wanted it; she bought him paper napkins and disposable razors while grocery shopping. They didn’t meet in the middle, but above it, in that place neither could reach alone, but in Christ was possible. Not all the time. Not even most of the time. But when they did, they could rejoice in the magnitude of the tiny victory and think, Yes, God is growing us.
They drove in silence, no radio, no scribbling in the back seat, and after all the hours and the planning and the wondering, they were in Buffalo. Benjamin pulled in to the first gas station he found, and Abbi asked Ellie to help her get coffee for all of them.
Benjamin checked the directions to the Savoie house. “About fifteen minutes more,” he told Matthew.
Matthew nodded.
“You okay?”
More nodding.
“You’re sure?”
Ben, I’m fine.
“I don’t think you need to be concerned. Abbi said she got the sense he’d be open to a transplant, and—”
Matt stopped him with a shake of his head. It’s not about that. Not really. Not now. Not anymore.
“I know.”
I never really thanked you. Both of you.
“You don’t owe us anything.”
I didn’t say owe. I said thank.
“You’re welcome, kiddo. And so much more.”
The women returned, and Benjamin navigated through Buffalo. Eventually he turned into the Savoie driveway, a little bungalow with asbestos siding and a basketball hoop cemented into the oil-stained blacktop. They all got out of the car.
“Do you want us to go in with you?” Benjamin asked.
Matthew shook his head.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” Abbi said.
I’m not alone.
“Should we wait, or maybe come back in an hour?” Benjamin asked.
The boy looked toward the house, where a lanky man with a dark blond beard looked out from behind a glass storm door covered in paper snowflakes and gummy Christmas clings. Do you mind staying here? In the car?
“We’re not going anywhere.”
And then Matthew was in the house, the three of them inside the Volvo, alternating between idling the engine so the heater would work, and sitting with the cold pressing in on them.
“He’ll be fine,” Abbi said. “He will.”
“Relax,” Benjamin told her, pushing up the armrest so she could slide over against him. He draped his arm over her, and she rested her head against his chest.
There were two of him now—Benjamin before Silvia, and Benjamin after. He’d have been a liar if he said he still didn’t think of her every day, still didn’t get angry he had to give her back. The Whalens were sending a photo of her every week. At first Benjamin deleted them from his inbox without opening the e-mail. Then curiosity overcame him, and this dark-eyed, apple-cheeked cherub smiled at him from the computer monitor, two teeth poking up from her bottom gums. Jared asked them to visit, but neither he nor Abbi were ready for it. Not yet. The summer, they said. Maybe on her first birthday.
The front door opened again, and Matthew waved, gesturing for them to come inside. “He wants us,” Abbi said, and Benja
min heard the relief in her voice, and they ran from the car, through the sleet, into the Savoie home, where Matthew waited for them, not alone.
Acknowledgments
My sincerest gratitude and appreciation to all who helped in my research for Watch Over Me:
Tishia Chambers, who patiently and honestly explained her experiences as a deaf woman in a hearing world.
Officer Denny Pottebaum of the Sioux Falls Police Department, for his expertise regarding child abandonment laws.
Shirlena Freund, Kelly Kingrey-Edwards, Joy Maynard, Mellymommy, Manda Troutman, and Shanna Wright, for answering my foster care questions; Loretta Tschetter, for her South Dakotan eyes and ears; Rebecca, for her personal insights into familial relationships within the Indian culture; the Alport Syndrome Foundation; and all those men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have bravely posted their stories on-line so others might know they are not alone.
A huge thank-you to my editor, Karen Schurrer, who endured the verb tense-change nightmare with me; to Dave Long, for his keen insight and chauffer service around Dallas; to Noelle Buss and her marketing magic; and to all those at Bethany House Publishers who work not only on my behalf but on behalf of the Kingdom.
My thanks to Bill Jensen, my agent and one of my biggest fans. To everyone at Redeemer Church, Greater Glens Falls Christian Home-schoolers, and Gentle Christian Mothers who uphold me in prayer. To Sharon and Krista, for welcoming Jacob into your homes each week. And to Jo, Marilyn, and Kay, just because.
To my parents, for their never-ending love and support, and for learning to share. To Jacob, for grudgingly agreeing to let me dedicate this book to him—I adore the person God is growing you to be. And to Chris, without qualifiers, for allowing Him to use a silly little card to do a “wicked awesome” thing.
A past winner of Associated Press awards for her journalism, CHRISTA PARISH now teaches literature and writing to high school students, is a homeschool mom, and lives near Saratoga Springs, New York. Her first novel, Home Another Way, was a finalist for the 2009 ECPA Christian Book Award for fiction.
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