This Side of Heaven

by Karen Kingsbury

  God’s Word was reviving him.

  Josh took a final look at the pictures on the mantel, then turned and walked slowly down the short hallway to his bedroom. He could walk a little straighter than before. Amazing, the power of having a true friend. No amount of pain medication could fully relieve the spasms in his back or the burning along his spine. But an hour of conversation with Cara and he felt like life was possible again. Like he could tackle another day.

  In the beginning, their talks left them both drained because when they were honest with each other it was obvious things hadn’t been easy for either of them. But now—now she was full of hope and life and encouragement, and Josh realized there could be only one reason for that: His new hope was spilling over into her life. And that was something that made him feel useful, like he had a purpose.

  As he finished brushing his teeth, Josh smiled at the memory of their talk. Tonight they had tiptoed out of the safe confines of an instant message and stood for a brief moment on the balcony where the view was far grander. As Josh lay down and tried to find that elusive comfortable spot, as he begged God to keep the demon of deep, excruciating pain at bay, and as sleep finally found him, he thought about Cara and realized something else. Along the way God’s Word wasn’t only reviving him.

  It was reviving both of them.

  TWO

  Annie Warren pulled the chilled raspberry cheesecake from her built-in Sub-Zero refrigerator, set it on her granite countertop, and sliced it onto a dozen china plates. The cheesecake was the same kind she served at the last function two weeks ago, and it was a huge hit. This time, she had a backup in the fridge just in case. It took no time to line the plates on a tray and steady it in her hands.

  “Need help?” Her husband, Nate, rounded the corner, two coffee cups in his hands. He dropped them off near the sink. “They’re hungry out there.”

  “No, thanks.” She could feel the weariness in her smile as she walked past him toward the dining room. She tossed a quick glance back over her shoulder. “Maybe check the coffee. This crowd keeps every Starbucks in Colorado Springs in business.”

  Nate’s laugh was low and discrete, muffled by the sounds as he worked the coffeemaker, fiddling with the springform top, the metal against metal. Annie eased her shoulder through a pair of double doors and found her practiced smile, the one she used whenever they entertained—and with Nate a member of the Colorado State Board of Education, the Warrens entertained this way at least once a month.

  Tonight it was the public librarians. Nate was up for reelection in a year and whatever he did he wanted the public librarians on his side. The board made decisions at every monthly meeting that directly affected them, and Nate wanted to make himself very clear: He was a friend of the public libraries. Hence the cheesecake.

  Annie set the tray down near two nearly empty silver carafes of hot coffee.

  “I told you.” Babette, a librarian from the north side of the Springs, led her coworker closer to the dessert table. She smiled at Annie. “This is the cheesecake from Marigolds, right?”

  “It is.” Annie took a step back from the table. Good thing she bought two. “It was Nate’s idea. ‘Only the best for the librarians.’ ” Even as she said the words she could hear herself saying them last week about the teachers union. “Only the best . . .”

  Babette was rail thin, but Annie had never known her to attend a party and eat less than three desserts. She helped herself to the first piece. “Best cheesecake in town, that’s what I say.” The other librarians made their way to the table as Babette took a few steps closer to Annie. “So . . .” She turned her back to the others. “I was thinking the other day about Josh, and he’s what, now, in his late twenties? Because I was doing the math and it seems like this past June it was ten years since he and Blake graduated.”

  “Right.” Annie’s stomach tightened. She stood a little straighter. “Ten years, same as Blake.”

  Babette took three quick bites and seemed to swallow them whole. “Blake’s an intern this fall, did I mention that? He ran into Becky Wheaton at the hospital the other day. She’s a therapist now—beautiful girl. She was Josh’s girlfriend way back when, wasn’t she?”

  “She was.” Annie worked to keep her smile in place. “They haven’t talked in a while.”

  “Blake says he might take her out for coffee. Just to reconnect.” She waved her hand in the air, as if she’d forgotten her main point. “Anyway, Blake’s the top intern in the program. I told you where he’s at, right?”

  “St. Anthony’s in Denver.”

  “Yes.” She picked up her fork and stabbed it in the air. “Boy’s so driven he puts me to shame. Barely makes time for anything else. His instructors think he’ll be a surgeon before he’s thirty-two. Isn’t that something?”

  “Something.”

  “Becky Wheaton thought so. Blake said she was very impressed with how he was doing.”

  Becky Wheaton would never love anyone the way she’d loved Josh, Annie told herself. She poured a cup of coffee. She would need it to get through this night. Once she had it steadied on a saucer she looked at Babette again. “You must be proud.”

  “I am. I mean, my son was always driven, you know? Schoolwork, sports, the debate team. You name it.”

  “Definitely. That’s Blake.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. The familiar pause that told Annie exactly what was coming next. Babette consumed the rest of her cheesecake. “Like I said, I was thinking about Josh and . . . So, how’s he doing, anyway? I mean, the whole recovery from the accident and everything?”

  “Actually, he’s doing very well.” Annie didn’t hesitate, didn’t give the woman anything but her most practiced answer. “He’s in rehab for his back, and making progress. He’s talked about starting his own business once he gets his settlement from the accident.”

  The woman smiled in a way that fell just short of condescending. “That’s the Josh I remember. Always resourceful. And that Lindsay of yours—she was a smart one. Saw one of her feature stories in the paper the other day and I told myself, ‘That Lindsay, she’ll have books in our library one day.’ She’s quite a writer.” She paused just long enough to refuel. “But then sometimes girls are more ambitious than their brothers. I read that in a Cosmopolitan article, and I stopped right there and thought of all the cases where that was true. Girls more successful than their brothers and the brothers never really—”

  “Babette, I’m sorry.” Annie held up her hand. She couldn’t take another minute. “I need to slice the second cheesecake. Nate doesn’t want his librarian friends leaving here hungry.” She turned toward the kitchen and sipped hard on her coffee. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Definitely. Go ahead.” Babette turned back toward the dessert platter. “If the rest of you haven’t tried this cheese-cake you better grab a piece now. Best cheesecake in the Springs.”

  Annie let the double doors swing shut behind her and she steadied herself against the kitchen island. Why did they have to ask? Dear God, isn’t it enough that everyone knows about Josh’s failures? Do they have to make me talk about the details?

  Conversations like the one with Babette made her feel like Josh was a piñata hanging high above the party while everyone took swings at him. Even her. Because the truth was she shouldn’t work so hard to defend Josh. Just once, at one of these parties with people they’d known all their lives, Annie wished she had the courage to look a person like Babette in the eyes and say, “Josh is struggling. He moved here from Denver and he lives in a low-income, one-bedroom apartment. He’s addicted to pain medication, he’s trying to lose the last forty pounds of a significant weight gain, and his days are taken up waiting for a call from his lawyer saying that his settlement check is finally in the mail. But even then he’ll probably spend the rest of his life in chronic pain.”

  Her heart hurt and she hung her head, blocking out the party chatter from the next room. He’d had so much potential, so many ways he could
’ve succeeded. Her precious youngest child, her only son. The deeper truths Annie didn’t want to admit to herself, let alone to a crowd of acquaintances. Josh had intentionally done things his way. He’d walked away from the faith he’d been raised with and made one poor choice after another.

  And now he was paying for it with an existence that troubled Annie every waking hour.

  She sensed someone behind her, and then felt a touch on her shoulder. “Annie?”

  No need to find her happy hostess smile with Nate. She turned and let herself draw strength from his eyes. “Babette Long is driving me crazy.”

  “You?” He kissed her forehead. “I get e-mails from the woman every day, keeping me posted on the needs of the public libraries.”

  Exhaustion strained Annie’s sense of control. “I don’t envy you.”

  “What’d she do?”

  Her eyes softened. “She asked about Josh.”

  Nate studied her for a few seconds, then he went to the fridge and pulled out the second cheesecake. “Not everyone who asks about Josh is trying to upset you.” He set it on the counter next to the knife. “You know that, right?”

  “How am I supposed to feel?” She kept her voice low. “The woman tells me about Blake, and ‘Weren’t Blake and Josh in the same graduating class?’ and how Blake is breezing his way through med school.”

  A deeper pain flickered in Nate’s expression, and for the slightest moment the last ten years of heartache showed in the lines around his eyes and the creases in his forehead. “You were smart to walk away.” He sliced the cheesecake and grabbed another twelve plates. “Let’s get this out there. They’ll leave when the dessert’s gone.”

  Nate was right, and not just about the dessert. Annie stayed away from Babette the rest of the evening, making her rounds and working the crowd—the way she was used to doing. This was their life, and Nate needed the support of every librarian in the Springs. That was the purpose of tonight, the reason she’d driven to Marigolds for two raspberry cheesecakes on a summer afternoon when she’d rather walk through their neighborhood or play tennis with Nate or sit on their spacious deck and watch the deer through the grove of trees that made up their backyard.

  “The election isn’t a sure thing,” Nate reminded her often. “A position of influence comes with responsibility.”

  Annie knew the drill well. She worked her way around the room telling each group of librarians the same thing. “Nate’s compelled to carry your needs before the board,” or “Nate’s always been passionate about public libraries.” Nate enjoyed his position on the school board, and when she took a magnifying glass to her heart, she enjoyed it too. Maybe not her husband’s monthly trek to Denver, but the sense of prestige that came with an elected position.

  If people were busy looking at Nate and her, at their efforts toward another winning election and their position as part of Colorado Springs’ social elite, then they were less likely to notice the fact that Josh wasn’t doing much with his life. That’s what Annie told herself, anyway.

  The party ended and Annie moved into the kitchen. Even over the kitchen tap water she could hear Nate saying good-bye to the last librarians. “An increased budget for new books,” he was saying, “that’s what I’ll be bringing up at the next meeting.”

  Annie rolled her eyes, and then felt bad for doing it. Nate’s promise wasn’t an empty one. Her husband really did care about librarians and public libraries, and whether the Springs was competitive on a statewide and national level with other progressive cities when it came to academic standards and testing.

  It was just that on a night like this, when Josh was all she could think about, every line felt practiced and forced—like the plastic cheesecakes in the windows of Marigolds.

  Finally, she heard the door shut, and silence. Wonderful, delicious silence. Nate joined her in the kitchen, grabbed a dish towel, and moved to Annie’s left. She could feel him unwinding, relaxing—releasing the extra bit of air he’d kept in his lungs all night long. “That went well.”

  “Yes.” She didn’t look at him. She didn’t want to spend another minute thinking about librarians. “Very well, dear.”

  He dried a handful of silverware without saying anything. Then he turned toward her, the way he did when he had something profound to say. “Not every kid grows up to be a doctor or a lawyer or a writer.” There was an edge to his voice. “Everybody doesn’t make the all-stars, Annie. Not in Little League and not in life. That doesn’t mean Josh is a failure.”

  “What are you saying?” She didn’t want to get mad at him. They got nowhere when they let their frustrations about Josh come between them.

  “I don’t know, I feel guilty.” He tossed his hands in the air and then leaned back against the counter. “What if he could hear us talking about him? How would he feel if he knew we were disappointed?”

  “I’m not disappointed.” She hated that word, hated the finality of it. She turned back to the sink full of dishes. “I’m concerned for him and sorry for him because he never asked to be hit by that car.” A catch sounded in her voice. “Lindsay’s off making a name for herself at the paper, and where’s Josh? Hooked on pain meds, sitting around his apartment.” She gritted her teeth. “I ache for that boy because if he hadn’t been injured, who knows what he’d be doing right now.” The futility of it surrounded her, suffocated her. She threw the sponge into the sink and grabbed hold of the edge of the counter. “That isn’t disappointment, Nate. It’s just . . . why did that woman have to make Josh sound like a failure when he’s only twenty-eight?”

  “Annie.” Nate put his hand on her shoulder. His voice was calmer than before. “It’s okay to be disappointed.” Before she could respond, he gave her a final look, picked up one of the clean pitchers, and began drying it. The conversation was over.

  She studied him for a minute. In the past at a time like this she might’ve kept talking—just to make her point, or to get the last word in. But a long time ago she learned there was no point adding to a dialogue that had already ended. It was one of those understood aspects of their marriage—like how going out to dinner was assumed when he came home from work and found her curled in a chair reading a new novel or lost in the pages of her Bible study, or how a paper Nordstrom bag of his dress clothes left by the front door meant she was supposed to take them to the cleaners.

  They finished the dishes in silence. Before Nate moved on to their bedroom, he leaned close and kissed her cheek. “I love you,” he whispered near her ear. “Josh is going to be fine.”

  “I hope so.” She responded to his touch, not angry with him. They needed each other more in this season of life than ever.

  Nate slouched, his posture proof of what had to be an inner battle with defeat. “Josh is a good boy.” His smile barely lifted his lips. “Some kids take longer, that’s all.”

  Annie nodded and stared at the empty sink. “We’ll keep praying for him.”

  “Yes.” He touched her shoulder once more and then left.

  She waited, listening to his feet leave the tiled floor and transition onto the carpet and up the stairs to their room. She dried her hands and went into the living room, to the bookcase next to the piano—the one with a dozen framed photos. She looked at them and then reached for the largest on the center shelf, the one of Lindsay and Josh in high school. By then Lindsay was shorter than her brother, but she was a senior, with confidence in her expression and the way she held herself.

  Annie looked hard at Josh, at his eyes. He had that impish silly grin, the one he wore often in his early years at Black Forest High School. Like he didn’t have a care in the world except one—his friendship with Lindsay. He looked up to her from the time he could crawl, chasing after her and beaming whenever she paid him attention.

  Annie smiled at the picture, the way they had their arms around each other’s necks. Their friendship had always been mutual—Lindsay adored Josh and saw him as her personal source of entertainment. While she was busy conque
ring one school year after another, Josh was less serious. He could make his sister laugh no matter what tests or projects she had pending. And up until his senior year in high school, Josh followed in Lindsay’s footsteps, writing for the yearbook and newspaper and getting nearly straight A’s in school.

  But that was the year Lindsay fell in love with Larry, and after that she had less time for Josh. He had Becky Wheaton, of course, a bright, intelligent, beautiful girl who saw only the best in Josh. The two had been inseparable ever since they met at the beginning of their sophomore year. Josh loved her like he’d never loved anyone else in his life, and had even talked about marrying her after they finished college. But as she racked up one success after another, Josh began to flounder. He drank with his buddies on the baseball team and was kicked off the squad his senior year. They broke up, and though he tried junior college for a couple of years, he eventually lost interest in school. When he decided to tow cars in Denver instead of continuing at a university, Annie and Nate figured the job was only a phase. Give him a year, they agreed, and he’d be ready to get serious about his future again.

  But that never happened.

  Annie squinted hard at the photograph. Everything used to be so easy, so certain. Lindsay and Josh, best friends, with the whole world ahead of them. Becky, forever a part of Josh’s life. Annie sighed. She had the ending all written, but somehow the story line changed.

  Lindsay was busy now, married with two kids and a full-time job as a feature writer at the local Gazette. But even so, Lindsay was closer to Josh than she or Nate. Annie set the photo down, but her eyes lingered. Funny, she thought, how an entire lifetime can be summed up with one framed picture.