Family Matters

by Deborah Bedford

  “Thanks,” Michael should have said. He should have thanked his colleague for his help. They both should have said, “Sorry, better luck next time—there’s always a next time, you know—” But he couldn’t do it. He’d just lost one of his dearest friends. He felt as though he’d lost a member of his family, as well.

  He thought of Marge still in the waiting room, still pacing alone, still praying and hoping it might not be over. “I’ll tell his wife,” Michael said.

  “Fine,” Rosenstein agreed sadly.

  But when Michael took his first step out of the cardiac room and saw the lovely, elderly woman waiting for him, it took everything he could muster to keep from breaking down.

  “Doc? Michael?” she asked in a timid voice. But she didn’t have to ask. She saw his face and the tears in his eyes.

  “Marge.” He reached for her, taking one of her wrinkled hands in his own and holding it there. “I did everything I could. And Bill was strong. But this was a massive heart attack. It was just too much for him.”

  Tears came to her eyes now, too. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

  Michael nodded.

  He watched helplessly as her composure crumpled and she buried her face in his chest, her body racked with sorrow.

  Michael wrapped his arms around her, and held her as the nurses and all the assistants started coming out of the cardiac room to get out of their scrubs. They each cast knowing eyes in his direction.

  They didn’t know the half of it. As he gently held the old woman he’d known for what seemed like forever, as he watched her begin to come to grips with the fact she’d have to live her life now without her husband, he came to grips with the fact that he’d have to live his life without Jennie now, too.

  He had betrayed her, left her alone to be there for Cody when she’d needed him most. It would be months, years, perhaps a lifetime, before he forgot the anguished acceptance he’d seen in her eyes.

  And so, he thought, it’s over for us, too.

  No, you crazy fool, he reminded himself. It was all over four years ago in a divorce court.

  Marge choked back the sobs against his chest and did her best to compose herself. “Michael. I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, Marge,” he said, gripping her tighter, his own eyes still bright with his pain. “Don’t apologize, please. Go ahead and cry…”

  “I know that you both did everything you knew to do. I thank you for that.”

  “I wouldn’t have done less for him.”

  She was obviously in shock, and her mind was going in a thousand different directions at once. “Do you want the horses?” she asked. “I can’t keep them by myself. He’d love for you to have Dan and Kimbo.” She started to cry again, realizing she’d spoken of him as if he was still here. She gazed up at him with eyes so full of despair she looked as if a part of her own soul had died, too. And, really, Michael supposed it had. “I don’t know—what—to—do now.”

  “Is there anyone I can call for you, Marge?”

  She shook her head. “My daughter and her husband are on their way. They would have been here sooner but the kids were in bed and they had to find a sitter. And now they don’t know he’s gone…”

  Michael lowered Marge Josephs to the sofa in the waiting room and held her there until her family came. After that, he finally slipped away to grieve alone. It had been a torturous night.

  “Everybody ready backstage for the second number!” Andy shouted.

  “We’re going to get a hot fudge sundae after the show,” Cody told Andy. “My dad promised. You want to come with us?”

  “Thanks for inviting me, little one,” Andy told him. “I can’t make it tonight. I’ll tell your dad to get you an extra scoop so you can eat mine, too.” She squeezed him. He’d been trying hard again lately and she was proud of him. “After how hard you’ve worked to get ready for this show the past two weeks, you deserve six hot fudge sundaes.”

  “Yum! You better tell my dad that. You can find him easy. He’s sitting in the front row with Mom.”

  “You get onstage,” she said, giving his chair a little shove. “You’re on.”

  “See ya later, Andy.”

  “Do good.”

  Cody rolled out onstage and took his place beside five other kids from the swim team. The music began to play, and in the pit below them Cody could see the conductor leading it, his baton pointing crisply at each new group of instruments as they faded in.

  Cody tried to see his mom and dad but he couldn’t. The huge spotlight was shining right into his eyes. At least he knew they were there. He could feel them there.

  The microphone stuck to his chest was bugging him but he knew he had to keep it right on his collar. They had already practiced this way all afternoon. He knew the little microphone would help everybody hear his lines.

  “Down at the corner,” he said as loudly as he could, “where the old well stood…”

  He finished his poem and they all started singing. Cody puffed out his chest as far as he could. He sang so hard he knew he was red in the face. He stumbled on a couple of the words because he forgot to think when they came up. But that was okay because he knew his mom and dad would see that he was trying his best.

  He even forgot to be scared. He just kept singing and smiling. Every so often he peered out through the blinding light, doing his best to find his parents. But he couldn’t.

  When the song ended, Cody felt as if he was just getting started. He wanted it to go on all night long. Everybody was clapping for them and, one by one, they each took the little bow they’d practiced with Mark.

  “Way to go!” Andy shouted from the wings.

  Buddy Draper stood right beside her. He was clapping, too. “You nailed it, kid!”

  Just as Cody turned his wheelchair to start off stage, the curtain began to come down and the big spotlight flashed off. The audience became people again. He could see heads and hundreds of hands and faces.

  “Mom!” he shouted. “Dad! Did you like it?” And then, his breath caught. The only thing beside his mom was an empty chair.

  “Where did he go, Mom?” he asked as they hugged in the aisle and Jennie told him what a good job he had done.

  She knelt down beside his chair, and touched his hand. “He had to go to the hospital, Bear. One of his patients got sick.” She paused. “He didn’t want to leave, sweetheart. I saw his face. He wanted to see you so badly.”

  “The whole time I was singing, I thought he was there.”

  “I know,” she said, touching his little face. “I could tell by the way you were singing. I’ve never seen anybody sing quite so well.” She kissed him. “Come on. Let’s go get that hot fudge sundae.”

  When they got to the restaurant, they both ordered sundaes and, as the waitress brought them out, they giggled at how huge they were. The ice cream was jammed into icy fountain glasses and covered with huge knots of whipped cream. As Cody poured chocolate over his, Jennie tried Michael on his cell phone.

  “I’m going to call your father,” she told Cody. Then when he didn’t answer, she called the main number at the hospital. She waited on the line for almost ten minutes while they paged him. “He must still be in the cardiac room,” the nurse told her.

  Jennie and Cody finished their sundaes and headed home. Cody went to bed. Every half hour Jennie tried to reach him.

  It was past midnight when Jennie found a nurse she knew. Someone told her that Sally Rogers was on the floor. Sally usually worked with Michael when he had patients at Parkland. “Let me talk to her. She’ll tell me what I need to know.”

  “I don’t know where he is, Jennie,” Sally told her when she came to the phone. “We were all in cardiac room two but nobody’s answering over there. Michael hasn’t checked out yet. I know he’s still in the building.”

  “What’s going on with Bill Josephs? Will he be okay?”

  Sally hesitated, but only for a moment. “They lost him, Jennie. Michael worked on him a long time but he couldn’t
save him.”

  Jennie hung up and sat down by the phone, thinking of Michael, remembering his words, You’re the most important thing in the world to me.

  She wasn’t going to be influenced by her doubts anymore. God had a hope and a promise for her, and she was going to find it.

  Jennie bundled Cody up in blankets and carried him downstairs. She decided to drop him off at Andy’s house. She knew she was imposing, but she had to find Michael.

  He woke up when she put him in the car. “Where are we going?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “No need to wake up,” she whispered. “I’m going to take you to Andy’s for a while. I’m going to the hospital to be with your dad, okay?”

  Even though he was half asleep, he smiled. “Yeah,” he said, yawning. “That’s real okay.”

  Jennie found Michael in the hospital chapel. She guessed he might be there quietly grieving for his friend. And, as she silently closed the massive wooden door and stepped up behind him, she knew without a doubt that, because of the fine, caring doctor he was, there were going to be times in their lives that he couldn’t put her first.

  What mattered was what she’d seen in his eyes when he’d left the fund-raiser. What mattered were the words he’d shared, how he’d made her feel, how he’d made her trust him.

  She wanted to be there for him, now, and for a lifetime.

  “Michael,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

  He raised his eyes and looked at her almost as if he didn’t recognize her. “Jen?”

  “Hi.” It was the only thing she could think of to say as she broke out into a crazy grin.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She reached out to him and stroked one strand of hair back from his face. She tucked it behind his ear. It was exactly the way she would have comforted Cody. “I heard about Bill. I’m so sorry.”

  Michael nodded his head, still too much in grief and shock to question her presence. “I can’t believe we lost him, Jen. I tried everything. I don’t remember it ever being so rough….”

  “You probably have never done that for someone you cared so much about.”

  He met her eyes. “You’re right.”

  “I figured things weren’t going well when you didn’t come back to the show.”

  “You thought I’d come back?” So he’d betrayed her once and disappointed her twice.

  “Only if you could get away. Cody did fine. Very well, in fact.”

  “I wish I could have seen him.” I wish Bill could have lived. I wish we hadn’t messed up so long ago. His wish list was a mile long.

  “Cody understands.”

  “He does?”

  She nodded. “Yes.” Her voice was so soft now he almost couldn’t hear her. “Because he loves you very, very much.”

  He smiled at her, a sad smile but a smile just the same. “That helps me, you know.”

  “I’m so sorry, Michael.” All of a sudden, she was babbling like a child. “I’ve had no right…I’ve done this to you all your life. I’ve been making you choose—or say you were choosing—when it really wasn’t your choice at all….”

  With two hands, he cupped the top of her head and swept her long, straight hair away from her temples so he could read her eyes. “Are you saying that you’re forgiving me?”

  She shook her head. “I’m saying there isn’t anything to forgive. Or there isn’t now anyway. Once maybe there would have been. But not anymore. That’s changed, hasn’t it, Michael?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice gentle. “It has.” He gazed up at the window. “I can’t believe Bill’s gone. I had to come out of that cardiac room and tell Marge. Oh, Jen, that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, telling her like that. And the only thing I kept thinking was that she’d lost Bill and that I’d lost you. I envied her even as I grieved with her. Because the two of them grew old together and we wouldn’t have the chance.”

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “Don’t you see? It’s exactly the same thing we’ve been telling Cody all these months. You didn’t save Bill. But you gave him your best shot. You tried. Hasn’t watching Cody all these months taught you the importance of that?” Then she gripped his arms with both hands. “You may have lost Bill Josephs, Michael,” she told him. “But you haven’t lost us. You haven’t lost me and Cody.”

  He stared at her. “What are you saying? Are you saying you’re willing to try again?”

  As though the gesture were made by someone else, she felt herself nodding. The next thing she knew, he crushed her in his arms. “I’m saying I don’t want to lose you,” she said. “I’m saying that I want to save us.” She pulled back just a bit from him so she could read his face. “I’m saying that I love you, Michael—very, very much.” And she couldn’t stop herself from laughing then because she’d finally said it. “All over again.”

  He thought of letting Bill Josephs go. His good friend was probably telling an angel a joke, right about now, now that he’d arrived in heaven.

  Michael thought about the times God had called him to let go. He’d probably have to be reminded of the lesson plenty more times.

  But he saw now, how if you let something go to God, sometimes it got returned to you a thousandfold.

  He held Jennie’s shoulders, still astounded that the heartache of the past few hours was redeeming itself now with such promise. “I love you, Jennie. I don’t think I ever stopped loving you—ever—but now it’s more. More—and different.”

  “I know,” she said as she nestled against him and felt safer, more complete, than she’d ever felt before. “I know.”

  All three of them sat on the couch the next night, munching popcorn Michael had made, talking about their lives together and planning the wedding.

  “I knew it! I knew it!” Cody cried when they told him. “Are we going to live here? Or are we going to live at Dad’s house?”

  Michael glanced at Jennie. They hadn’t had time to discuss this. But, really, things had happened so fast they hadn’t had time to discuss anything. “I thought it might be more fun if we moved someplace new,” he said.

  Jennie raised her eyebrows at him. “Did you have something in mind?”

  “I did.” He didn’t say anything else. He thought he’d just sit there and tantalize her for a moment. He loved teasing her.

  “Are you going to tell us more about this?”

  He crossed his arms proudly. “Maybe.”

  “Michael!”

  “Daddy!”

  They both hollered in unison and he grinned.

  “Well,” he said, drawing it out and taking a maddeningly long time. “I’ve found a place north of town, a small ranch close to Plano. I thought it might be nice to live there.”

  Jennie looked at him suspiciously, an idea dawning on her. “Have I seen this place by any chance?”

  He raised his eyebrows and grinned again. “Maybe.”

  “Michael!”

  Suddenly they were both punching and tickling him. Jennie was saying, “The place where we went riding! Michael, that place is beautiful! Michael!”

  “I’ve—planned—it—for—a—while….” he said, gasping as he tried to fend them off. “I’d given up, though. I figured we weren’t ever going to be all together to live there.”

  He waited until they’d calmed down to tell them that Marge had offered to let them have Bill’s horses. “She’ll be glad they’ve got a good home.” When he said it, he had tears in his eyes.

  “I can’t believe this!” Cody kept saying. “I really can’t believe this!”

  “Believe it, son,” Michael said, holding him close on the sofa and rumpling his hair. “Believe it. And know that most of it came about because of you. Your bravery has taught your mother and me some important lessons.”

  Cody grinned from ear to ear as he stuffed popcorn into his mouth. And it was after eleven o’clock before he went to bed. They each kissed him goodnight then they both sat by the fire, holding on to each other as the f
laming logs turned into steady embers in the fireplace.

  Epilogue

  The sun rose over the house in a watercolor wash of color—blues…lavenders…pinks. It would be hours still until the wavering heat of summertime hit the ranch in earnest.

  A meadowlark sang out from the dew-covered Johnson grass where once, not so long ago, Jennie and Michael had ridden Dan and Kimbo.

  The ranch north of Plano was theirs now. Michael had put the offer in with the Realtor just as soon as Jennie had agreed to marry him. And it had been in Jennie’s mind all along that the place would make a lovely backdrop for the wedding.

  Upstairs, as the sun moved higher and cast an oblong shape of light on the floor, Cody rolled over and yawned. It was morning. Time to get up. And then he remembered what morning it was! The wedding day! The day his mom and his dad got married all over again.

  He flipped back the covers and climbed out, reaching for his chair as his eyes grew even more accustomed to the growing light. Then he rolled across the room to the row of books on the shelf beside his desk. Right beside him, next to the wall, stood the crutches he’d never wanted to use.

  Cody pushed his weight forward a bit in his chair and reached for them. They were wonderful things, new and shiny, like swords. As he held them in his lap, he thought about something. Just suppose he should give his mom and dad a wedding present. Just suppose he should try to stand up, right now. Just suppose he should do it. Just suppose.

  Slowly, gingerly, he balanced the weight of the crutches in his hands. They felt cool and heavy. Strong. And just right.

  He slipped one hand into each one and grabbed on to the handhold. He lowered their tips to the floor. Slowly, slowly, he pushed on them. They held firm. Instead his whole body felt like it wanted to rise up and stand with them. So, he tried it. He clenched his muscles tight just the way Andy had showed him. Then he pushed off.

  His arms started shaking like an earthquake. He felt as if he were about to fall and break his head. But he kept at it.