Joy in His Heart (15 page)

“It didn’t turn on. Probably the lightning fried a relay somewhere.”

He frowned gravely. “Oh. That would be a big problem.” He looked up the cliff and chuckled. “Look.” There were six heads peering over the cliff edge at them, all of the kids on their bellies in the grass. “Wave and look invincible so they don’t worry.”

“Is that how you do it? Pretend? Is all this Swiss Family Robinson stuff just smoke and mirrors? You just pretend to know how to survive out here?”

He frowned, but smiled with his eyes. “Hmm. I was thinking more Gilligan goes to the Adirondacks. Maybe
MacGyver crash-lands. Guess I blew my secret. Good thing help’s on the way.” He looked at her then, worried about his strength and the climb ahead. “It is on the way. Right?”

“Oh, undoubtedly.” She laughed. “And aren’t they going to be surprised when they find all of us together?”

Maybe still sitting on this ledge, Brian thought as he looked again at the sheer cliff above his head. “From the news reports we heard before the radio quit on us they’ll be surprised all right. Have you thought much about our families?”

Joy winced. “I’ve tried not to. Mom went through so much losing Dad the way she did. She must be worried sick. Your dad and mom already lost a child and they almost lost Greg twice. This is probably even worse on them.”

He agreed, especially considering his dad’s weak heart. “They must all be so worried. And can you imagine the guilt Harry Merrick must be suffering, having lost not just his kid but the other five, too.”

She wiped her hands on her thighs. “Oh, I want a bath.”

Brian pointed to the waterfall. “Well, there’s a shower over there. I promise not to look.”

She wacked him on the shoulder and the kids up on the cliff egged her on even though they couldn’t hear the conversation.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and called up to them. “Thanks a lot, you guys. Now that they’re finally coming for us, you turn on me. I guess you don’t need me anymore.”

There was much giggling up on the top of the cliff
and assurances of complete and total loyalty. “Are you guys coming up soon?” Dan called down to them. “Candy’s bored.” And they all cracked up again.

She shook her head. “Such a difference from the kids we found,” Joy said.

Brian put his arm around her shoulder and stared at her. If the kids weren’t watching he’d never have been able to keep from kissing her again. She was so beautiful, even with mussed hair, a smear of dirt on her face and windburned cheeks. She was such a puzzle to him. He wished he understood her. “You’ve been great with them, you know,” he told her, still feeling the lack of that kiss. “You’re really wasted as a pilot when you could be such a great mother.”

He didn’t know what he’d said at first, but her eyes flared in anger and she pushed away from his embrace. “You really are a chauvinist, do you know that? Can you imagine how you’d feel if I said to you, ‘You’d be such a great father. Too bad you wasted your time becoming a surgeon.’ That’s the difference between you and me. I don’t think I can only be one or the other. And here’s something to think about while you sit here alone. Where in the Bible did it ever say women can’t work outside the home?”

She got to her feet and walked along the ledge toward the plane, which continued to rock every time the wind rushed up the cliff walls.

“Joy! Wait! Come on. We need to talk about this.”

She looked back, her eyes hot in her fury. “No, we don’t, Brian. We have absolutely nothing to talk about. Nothing at all. I don’t think we ever did.”

He got to his feet now, too, and shouted after her. “You shouldn’t go near the plane the way the wind’s kicking up. It was bad enough when it was necessary.”

“Maybe it’s necessary now just so I can get away from you.”

What if she got hurt because he’d stuck his foot in his mouth…again! “Look, I’m sorry. That was out of line. It was a compliment. It just didn’t come out the way I meant it.”

“There’s nothing else you could have meant. And why I still care about your opinion, I can’t imagine. You’re obviously still living in the dark ages.”

He held his hand out to her. He didn’t want to follow her and push her closer toward the plane than she was already. She was a good ten or twelve feet away from him—almost to the plane already. “Just please come back,” he called as she turned away again.

Slow motion.

He’d always heard that during sudden life-changing events, time slowed to a crawl for those involved. And it seemed he’d heard right. Brian watched in horror as the ledge between him and Joy fell away. The rock just sheered off from about four feet above where she had stood only seconds before.

Joy backed up, her mouth forming a silent scream. Brian felt the end of her line run through his fingers and realized that if the ledge went and he didn’t have a good hold on it, she’d fall. She was staring up at the line and he understood her distress as she realized he’d dropped it. He leaned toward the dangling rope.

Brian heard a noise and started to look back over his
shoulder, and sucked in a startled breath as the earth moved under his feet. Then a crushing weight enveloped him and a heavy blackness welled up from somewhere below. The air left his lungs with a sickening force. Surrendering to the blackness felt better than continuing to battle the force crushing out his very existence.

J
oy heard herself scream Brian’s name and at the same time it echoed from the children up on the cliff. Brian had looked utterly shocked when the rock from above him sheered off and came down on him. And only as it was happening had she understood that he had been reaching for her lost lifeline. If he’d seen the danger he was in, he’d had no time to react, because he’d been thinking of her.

She grabbed the bright yellow nylon rope when it completed another arc back toward her. She looked up at the second rope. Brian’s line was tangled in the pile of rock covering him and several feet of the ledge between them had sheered off. There was also every chance the part of the ledge where Brian lay buried could go at any moment, especially considering the added weight of all that rock.

The kids up on the cliff called down demanding to know what they could do to help. Joy didn’t see what they could do.
She
didn’t know how to help. Her mind had gone blank of anything but the racing thoughts of
complete and utter panic. “Give me a minute to think,” she shouted back.

“Give me a minute to pray,” she sobbed quietly. She did and the clamor of panicked thoughts faded away. She found she could focus. Then she just acted.

Joy swung out over the precipice knowing seconds counted as she grabbed for Brian’s rope while holding hers taut and bracing her feet on the wall above the rubble. Then, carefully, she pushed away from the wall and landed on the ledge. The ledge held.

Hardly noticing her bad knee screaming in pain, Joy knelt and called Brian’s name. His legs didn’t move and he was buried under the rubble from his chest to his head. She tied both his line and hers to his belt in case the ledge let go. If it did, her weight would pull him upward, hopefully sending him to the top of the cliff where the children could pull him to safety. She refused to think of where that would leave her.

Then, rock by rock, she uncovered him, tossing the refuse of the collapse over the edge into the pool below, rolling the pieces too heavy to lift over the edge. She kept calling Brian’s name and ordering him to live—to not even think of dying no matter how much he hurt.

Brian never moved, but when she put her hand on his chest she could tell he was breathing, though shallowly. She sobbed in relief then uncovered the arm and hand he’d had stretched out to grab her lifeline. The arm and wrist looked badly broken, bent at an unnatural angle.

Joy kept digging.

When she’d tossed all the rock over the edge, freeing him and hopefully taking the strain off the ledge,
she prepared to deal with his arm. Joy had every faith that the transponder would draw the rescuers, but Brian’s arm had to be stabilized before they could transport him. She remembered the Air and Flight magazine she’d picked up in the plane and pulled her backpack off to get at it. Then she unwound the long length of sheeting Brian had wrapped around her palms, planning her next move as she did.

Brian cried out, nearly surfacing to consciousness when she had to move his arm. Joy felt tears well up in her eyes again at the thought of how much pain he must be in and of what such a severe break might mean to his career. Carefully, she wrapped the magazine around his arm and wrist, lashing it in place with the strips of sheeting to stabilize the break.

Please let it heal okay,
she prayed as she rolled him to his back and lay the splinted arm across his chest. Then it was only natural to cradle his head in her lap. Differences to the contrary, she loved him more than life and would gladly give hers for him. She just couldn’t live the life he wanted.

“Let him be okay, Lord. Please. Let him be okay.”

Brian opened his eyes then and frowned up at her. “You…never cry,” he said, wonderingly.

“I’m not crying.” She sniffled. “There’s just rock dust in my eyes.” But of course she
was
crying. In fact, she couldn’t seem to stop. Putting her hand on the splinted arm she said, “You broke your arm. Don’t move it, Bri. Okay?”

He nodded and closed his eyes. Running her fingers through his hair seemed to soothe him, so she gave into the need to touch him. Somehow that tangible con
nection gave her faith that he would recover. The kids never moved from their vigil on the cliff, either. They just kept watch over Brian the way she did. Praying. Thinking. Praying some more.

She wondered if the collapse had looked any different to the children. No matter how many times she reconstructed it in her mind, Joy still couldn’t think of a single warning they’d had of impending disaster. But even knowing there’d been no warning, she still felt guilty. If he hadn’t been so worried about having upset her—if he hadn’t been trying to get to her lifeline—he might have had time to get out of the way. All he’d needed was a second to grip his own rope and swing away from the collapse.

Some time later the telltale thwop-thwop of a helicopter echoed into the canyon. It had seemed like forever but she knew it hadn’t been even one hour. They might have been in the middle of nowhere on foot, but by air help had always been relatively close. She thanked God for that now.

The chopper flew in from the east and hovered for a few seconds. Joy protected Brian’s face from the blowing dust and got a salute from the spotter. As the pilot rotated to fly off toward the meadow, she realized she knew and had worked with both men before. That relaxed her a bit because she knew them to be accomplished professionals. After they surveyed the situation, the chopper rotated toward the meadow and landed there. Quickly and efficiently they rappelled down using friction equipment, not Brian’s over-under system that had worried her so much.

Brian woke again as they moved him into the basket. He was mentally alert but in a lot of pain as the ascent began. The pilot helped her scale the cliff and then she limped beside them as they carried Brian to the chopper. He also explained that they hadn’t been sent in a bigger bird because it was thought there were only two adults to be rescued. Consequently, there was no room for all the children and her. Joy suggested Dan go with Brian since he needed a hospital. She volunteered to wait for the second chopper with the children. Together she and the pilot decided Brian would be better off in a Syracuse hospital, so the plan was to fly directly there.

Then, as the men went for Dan, Joy climbed aboard, steeling herself to say goodbye. It was what she’d wanted all along—to have him out of her life—and now that it was here, she felt as if her heart was being torn out.

“I’m staying here with the kids,” she told him, hating the waver in her voice. “Dan’s going with you to Syracuse.”

“But you’re afraid out here. Leave one of the rescue team and come with me.”

It was a measure of how far she’d sunk that she was relieved he’d read fear into the waver of her voice and not the anguish this ending was costing her. “The kids are upset. They don’t need a stranger right now.” She pushed the hair off his forehead. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so dirty, but don’t worry, some pretty nurse will be giving you a sponge bath in no time.” She forced herself to smile even though she had to blink to fight tears. Touching him had been another in a series of mistakes. “You take care, Bri. And I’ll see to the kids. We
won’t be here long. There’s another bird in the air on its way to get us right now.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her just as they arrived with Dan. “I ruined everything on that ledge. I didn’t mean—”

“Sh-sh.” She kissed him on the forehead and added that to the list of mistakes she couldn’t seem to stop making. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. Just worry about getting better. There are lots more kids out there who need you.”

He swallowed and a tear ran from his eye down the side of his face. She pretended not to notice. “I love you,” he protested.

“I love you, too,” she admitted and smiled sadly. The pressure behind her eyes increased threateningly. She bit her lip and blinked. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t! “It’s no one’s fault.”

The chopper engines whined. “We’re ready to go, Joy,” the pilot shouted as he put on his earphones.

She parted with the words she’d used all those years ago, only this time they were spoken with regret, not anger. “Goodbye, Bri. I’ll see you around.” She pivoted and jumped to the ground. She bent low and limped away to join the five children standing huddled at the edge of the meadow.

One foot in front of the other, she chanted as each step carried her away from Brian.

Joy turned as the chopper lifted and her body lost its will to stand. She plunked down into the meadow. She had no idea that she was crying until Candy tried drying her tears with the edge of her jacket. Then Adam
was there patting her on the shoulder and Mike was assuring her that Brian was tough and he’d be fine. Candy said they’d all see him real soon. Kevin sat down and just took her hand and Chad handed her the last of the torn-up sheet to use as a hanky.

She knew she was supposed to be fulfilling all these roles for them and she tried desperately to stop, but all she could do was cry harder. Wracking sobs erupted and she rocked—five worried children looking on in horror as their stalwart super-woman fell apart before their eyes. And still she cried.

Brian woke from a short nap in his room in a Syracuse hospital. There was still no decision yet on what they’d do with his wrist. He and the orthopedist were waiting for test results. He knew he should be worried to death about the breaks. They were severe and his career depended on how bad the MRI looked. But he couldn’t muster one scrap of concern. He knew the top hand-and-wrist man in the country personally—had lunch with Lee at least twice a month. If it was bad, he’d told the orthopedist to stabilize it and ship him home.

He’d prayed and that was what felt right. The Lord was in charge of his life from now on. Because he’d loused it up good and proper trying to plan it out on his own.

All he could think about at that point was the broken look on Joy’s face as she’d backed away from him on the ledge and then her expression when she’d said goodbye in the chopper. He couldn’t get past it. He’d hurt her so badly and now that he thought about it, she’d been saying goodbye.

Not goodbye—she’d be by to see him as soon as she could. That would have meant she’d realized she couldn’t live without him, no matter that he wasn’t her idea of Prince Charming.

And it hadn’t been goodbye and they’d never see each other again. That would have been be bad enough, but at least it would mean she cared enough that seeing him would be painful. That might give him a fighting chance.

But she hadn’t said that.

Her goodbye meant she’d given up on him—on them. That she’d tried and couldn’t even contemplate a life with him and what she called his dark-ages ideas. That she didn’t care enough to avoid him.

“Where in the Bible did it ever say women can’t work outside the home?” he muttered, repeating the question Joy had asked on the cliff.

“Nowhere I ever saw,” his nurse quipped as she hustled into the room. “Seems to me, back when the Bible was written, women had such a full day with household chores there wasn’t time or energy left for anything. We’re no busier now. Just differently. I probably have more time with my kids than my mother did. I pay someone to clean, and I either work night shift while they sleep and sleep while they’re in school, or day shift and leave work before they get home from school.”

Brian stared at the fortysomething woman. “What’s your husband do?”

She chuckled and looked at her watch. “Right now I’d say my husband’s reading your MRI.”

Her husband was the orthopedist? And she had a career. But it wasn’t a dangerous one like Joy’s, he re
minded himself. And she had kids because she wanted them. He wasn’t convinced Joy did.

“Your rescue sure caused a media stir around here. Your family called while you were asleep to say they were on their way. They were up at Piseco and hadn’t known you were hurt until your friend the pilot told them. The rescue is the lead story on the national news. They’ll probably show footage of the landing of the helicopter at Piseco.” She pointed to the TV hanging on the other side of the small room. “You want to watch?”

A chance to see for himself that Joy and the kids got out safely? He nodded, not trusting his voice as emotions rose up to choke him.

Six days.

It had only been six days. They rushed across his mind’s eye. Each day had held so much living. So much discovery. So much closeness.

Now he was alone again. And in so much pain.

The TV picture bloomed on just as the blades of a helicopter slowed to a stop. Adam and Joy were the first out, then Chad and Kevin tumbled out behind her. Adam lifted Candy to the ground and the rescue worker helped Mike jump down. An announcer recited their identities as they turned toward the camera. Then they were mobbed. Anna Lovell and Jim ran to meet Joy and engulf her in their embrace. The same scene happened around each of the children. Family. Tears. Hugs and kisses.

Meanwhile, cameras flashed as the kids and Joy, families in tow, entered a building. The news anchor said all the children had checked out well and then he
droned on with facts about Joy’s career and Brian’s. There was also some speculation that though Joy appeared to have been injured only slightly in the crash, the injuries Brian suffered on the cliff were so severe he might never operate again.

“Don’t you pay that any attention. It has to be sensational to grab public attention these days and that’s the name of their game,” the nurse said.

“Thanks, but I’m not too worried,” Brian said.

“Maybe you should be, doctor,” a man who was clearly a doctor himself said as he came into the room. “It’s bad. I might have fused the wrist and been done with it if I didn’t know you’re a surgeon. I’ve already called that friend of yours and he has other ideas. So I’m going to do what you suggested earlier. I’ll set the upper ulna break and stabilize the lower comminuted fracture. I’m not embarrassed to say I’m not in his league and I’d do you a great disservice trying to tackle this kind of reconstruction.”

Brian felt suddenly rudderless. He was tempted to ask how many pieces there were to the fracture but that wasn’t his problem. The pain of losing any chance with Joy was beginning to numb everything else. “So how do I go about getting out of here and getting home?”