Darkness Before Dawn (35 page)

“How are you feeling?” Though her voice was calm, Meg’s insides were shaking like
the limbs of a willow tree fighting a gale force wind. She’d slept little but prayed
a lot. Those prayers had centered on forgiveness and compassion. She’d prayed for
complete healing for this young man. And she had prayed for her own strength in this
moment.

“Fine.” Jim’s answer was short and accompanied by a worried nod.

Thomas, who was now a patient in room 211—Nancy’s room—and it had been over sixteen
hours since Meg had made the hardest decision of her life by deciding to save his
life. Now after one night of observation, he would be going home, with no lasting
effects from his experience.

As her big brown eyes stared warmly at him, the fear that he’d initially shown turned
to confusion. He had to be asking himself where was the hard, cold demon who had confronted
him just two days before.

“You had me a little scared,” Meg continued after closing the gap between them. Then
noticing the flowers and cards that decorated the entire room, she observed, “I’m
glad you made it, and evidently I’m not the only one. I wonder if there are any cards
and flowers left in Springfield?” She forced a laugh. When he didn’t join her, she
walked over to the window and looked outside.

This was going to be a lot harder than she imagined. He had no reason to trust her.
Not now, not ever! She shouldn’t even be in his room. She was the wrong nurse at the
wrong time. As much as she wanted and needed forgiveness, it was simply too soon.

From behind her, he cleared his throat and finally spoke. “I don’t understand why
you did it.”

She had to say what she had come in here to say, but it was hard and humbling. There
simply couldn’t be anything more difficult than admitting you were wrong unless it
was that you were also ugly, mean, and evil. And she’d been all these things. So a
simple “I’m sorry” was not enough. Where did she begin?

While letting the words sink in, Meg turned away from the window, strolled across
the room, pulled a chair up close to the bed, and sat down. Crossing her legs, she
placed her hands in her lap, just below her baby bump, and began.

“I don’t know if you mean why I spent the last few months hounding you, maybe tormenting
is a better word, or why I tried to save your life last night. But both of those questions
deserve to be answered, and that’s really why I’m here. For your sake and mine I need
to try to make you understand not only what I became but what I’m trying hard to be
at this moment.”

“Jim,” Meg’s eyes met his and locked. His face still showed confusion, but at least
it seemed some of the apprehension that had been etched there a few minutes ago was
now gone. She smiled as she continued, “I don’t know if you can ever forgive
me, in fact, I don’t expect you can, but I am sorry for everything I did. Something
got into me, no, that’s not true, the Spirit of God left me, or at least I decided
I wasn’t going to listen to that spirit any more, and I became an almost demonic instrument
of hate. I mean . . .”

Meg paused and glanced over to the mirror. This was so hard. She was having to admit
that hate had consumed her. That was an ugly picture. But she also had to be honest,
he needed to know it all and she had to get it off her chest, for fear, that if she
didn’t, it could creep back into her life again.

“I’d be lying,” she softly admitted as she turned back to face him, “if I didn’t tell
you that a big part of me wanted you to die when Katie brought you in. I had gotten
so far from what I once was, what I should have been, that I wanted to walk away and
do nothing for you. But there was a still, small voice, a pretty powerful voice, too,
one that just wouldn’t let me do that. It wasn’t the nurse in me. It was that tiny
bit of faith that was left in me.”

Meg stopped for a moment. What she had said may have been enough, but for herself
she needed to go further, to explain even more.

“I think that the Christian in me would have been dead, too, except for the very positive,
loving influence of a young lady I met just a few months ago. As a matter of fact,
I met her in this very room. Her name was Nancy, and in some very subtle ways, she
kept after me to look inside myself. You know, I thought I had been able to ignore
everything that she had said, but I guess that I didn’t. She told me that it wasn’t
God striking out at me when Steve died. It was a shortcoming in us as human beings.
If everyone would just try to be what God wanted, if we would just pay attention to
His word and wishes, then things like this wouldn’t happen.”

Meg got up and walked over to the table where Nancy’s iPod used to be. As she touched
that spot, she was taken back to a time when music filled this room. If that same
music were here now, it would sure help. She spun slowly around to face the patient.

“Jim, Nancy actually believed God was as sad as I was about Steve’s death. She told
me then, and now I believe it, that God cried with me. But she also said that God
wasn’t mad at you, and I couldn’t buy that at that time. I thought He should have
been. But Nancy said He wanted you to ask Him for help, to reach out to Him. And He
was sad when you took a different road. Without Nancy, I’m not sure that I would have
ever realized that. Her witness probably saved your life last night. It’s folks like
her who positively touch other people’s lives. Then there are folks like me, who have
done just the opposite. I affected you in ways that make me ashamed to the bone.”

He was listening to every word she was saying, but was she getting through to him?
Smiling again, she continued, this time intent on keeping her eyes right on his.

“Nancy was one of the first people I ever met, who never—not once—demanded that I
think like or be like her. She was strong enough to know her own faith and not judge
me for my lack of faith. I guess if I’ve ever known a real wise Christian, it was
her.”

“She sounds very special,” Thomas said. “She sounds like someone I should meet.”

Now hesitating, tears welling up in her eyes, Meg whispered, “I wish you could, but
she died a few months ago. She had cancer.” Meg stopped. She knew what she needed
to say, but even after trying to put the words together all day, she still didn’t
know how to say it.

“Jim, I was very wrong. What I did to you was unforgivable. I have no right to ever
expect you to forgive me, but I want to
say that I am very sorry.” Her words had come out in a halting manner and a chill
ran down her neck as she waited for the response. It took an agonizingly long time
for the young man to speak.

“Mrs. Richards,” his voice was a little shaky, “I should be apologizing to you. I
am the one who . . .”

“You were driving,” Meg interrupted, “but the alcohol is why it happened. If it hadn’t
been for that, then there would have been no accident. It was the alcohol, not you.
You can’t change that past part of your life, but you can still put your life together.
You can use what has happened to help others from letting it happen to them.”

“Still,” the boy began, but Meg once again cut him off before he could continue.

“Jim, I have a feeling that the alcohol and the partying were an attempt to replace
something that you were missing in your life. It’s just a guess, but I have a feeling
that you were looking for something even on that night, and you probably still haven’t
found it. Heaven knows, I haven’t helped you any.”

“Mrs. Richards,” Thomas’s voice was now strong and sure, “if I’m missing something,
then a lot of my friends are, too.”

“I know. And all day long I’ve been looking for a way to do something to help you
find it. I’m still not sure what I can do, but until I discover how, I’ve got something
I want to share with you. Something that Nancy shared with me.”

Reaching into her purse, Meg pulled out a new Bible. “Jim, I’m sure that you probably
have got a bunch of these at home. Most of them probably have an inch or two of dust
on them, but tonight I just thought this one might help you find an answer or two;
at least to realize just how wrong I have been, and why now, I’m different.

“You see, I rediscovered an important part of me in this book. And I hope that you
might find something, too.”

After she handed Jim the black, leather bound book, she started to get up and leave.
But before she could walk away, he made a request. “What did you read?”

Pulling the Bible from his hands, she leafed through the pages until she came to Romans
12:9-21. Using her index finger, she pointed to the verses.

“From here to here.”

Taking the book back from her, he glanced back into the woman’s eyes, and then marked
the place with the Bible’s ribbon, closed it, and set it beside him on the bed. She
waited for him to say something, but his lips remained tightly drawn.

“Take care of yourself,” Meg answered and left the room.

She sighed as she walked down the hall. Did she make an impact? Shaking her head,
she figured that she would never know. But at least the hard words had been said.
He may not have been humbled, but she had been. And admitting her mistakes had lifted
the final heavy load off her shoulders.

She walked up to the nurses’ station and looked over at Heather. Opening her arms,
she hugged her friend.

“What was that for?” Heather asked.

“I’m back,” she whispered. “The old Meg is back. Thank God she came back before I
ruined any more lives.”

E
VEN AFTER SAVING
J
IM
T
HOMAS
’
S LIFE, EVEN AFTER DISCOVERING
N
ANCY
’
S
gift, the road back to where she had been was not an easy one. Meg had hurt too many
people and made too many deep impressions to have everyone instantly trust and accept
her. Yet the change took place, likely because the foundation had always been there.
She wasn’t as much discovering a new person as embracing the woman she’d always been—the
one Steve had fallen in love with so many years ago. And she liked that Meg a lot.

Almost two months of hard work and kind actions had rebuilt most of the bridges Meg
had burned during her campaign for vengeance. Some, like the hospital administrator,
were still keeping a close eye on her—waiting for her to slip up. But the nurses trusted
her again. In fact, they had thrown her a baby shower. And at that shower Nancy’s
husband, Joe, had shown up with a gift his late wife had ordered before she’d died.
It was nothing big, nothing really special, just a tiny pink outfit. Yet Meg wondered
why Nancy thought that she was going to have a girl. After all, she’d not even found
out the baby’s sex yet. She hadn’t wanted to know.

As Steve had said time and time again, the apartment was too small to raise a kid
in, so Meg had moved to an older, but well-maintained, two-bedroom frame home just
a few blocks from her mother’s. In the extra bedroom, Meg, her mother, and Heather
spent a whole weekend decorating a nursery in Steve’s favorite colors—red and blue.

Yet faith can only do so much. With each passing day that drew her nearer the birth
of her child, her loneliness hovered over her like a cloud. Sometimes that cloud was
dark and ominous. It brought with it pain, but no longer a cry for vengeance. Yet
even though her need for Steve’s love was still strong, her need for retribution was
gone. While she didn’t accept her loss as God’s will, she was at peace with what happened.

Being alone was not something that she enjoyed, but it was no longer a time when she
felt deserted. She had faith to support her. It wasn’t the same kind of faith as her
mother’s, Meg was still a fighter and a questioner much more than an accepter, but
it was a faith that fit her own personality. It was faith that once again worked for
her.

At first, she had been unable to visit Steve’s grave. Now she stopped by at least
twice a week with fresh flowers. Once she cleaned up the grass and weeds around the
new headstone, she sat down and informed him of the baby’s latest kicks and the other
events in her life. That one-way conversation brought tears to the eyes of observers,
but it somehow made Meg feel like Steve was still a part of her life. She didn’t want
to give them up either.

Each night, before going to bed, Meg began a new tradition. She read the Bible Nancy
left her. And every morning, just before she left for work, she’d reread the passage
she knew that Nancy had meant for her to find.

Work was no longer an escape as it had been in the first weeks and months after Steve’s
death. She looked forward to
each new day as an avenue for meeting new people and touching lives. With her quick
smile and warm eyes, she was once more the nurse everyone requested. Except for missing
Steve, her life couldn’t have been more perfect. And it was that one empty place that
pushed her on to do something meaningful, something positive and rewarding, something
that she felt was a proper way for her to dedicate herself to Steve’s memory.

Rather than bury the pain of Steve’s death, Meg now talked about it. A local representative
of Mothers Against Drunk Driving had by chance heard her speak in her Sunday school
class in early August. That woman got Meg involved in MADD. She embraced this service
with zeal and enthusiasm. She didn’t hesitate to share her story with church and school
groups, as well as legislative bodies, civic and social clubs. Each time she spoke,
she felt as if she might just be saving someone else from going through what she had.
Now, just days from her due date, she was looking forward to one of the most important
speaking engagements of her life.

“Meg,” Heather asked as they finished up another day of work, “are you sure you should
go tonight? I mean, that child is due any day now.”

“I’ve got to, Heather,” Meg explained as she completed the count and prepared to check
out. “There are going to be over five hundred high school kids there. And if just
one of them take’s note of what I say, then I’ll have done something that might save
a life.”