Southern Fried Sushi (42 page)

into hospitals one way and out another—either saved, like I’d been in Winchester, or changed forever in an instant. And all out of our control.

At nine p.m. the emergency-room door opened, and I saw a flash of Tim. I jumped up and ran to him, heart in my throat.

I
knew immediately the news wasn’t good. Red rimmed his eyes, and his face gleamed wet. He reached up in a daze and wiped it with his hand.

“Tim?” My eyes filled. I took a step back, shaking my head.

“She … uh …” He struggled to keep his voice steady.

“Did she … lose…?” I couldn’t say it. I felt small, like a speck on one of those immaculate white walls. I was helpless; I could do nothing. Just like at Winchester. Duct tape on my wrists.

Tim closed his eyes, drew in a sharp breath, and nodded. “Yeah. The baby’s gone.”

I crumpled, gasping, covering my face with my hands.

“It’s okay, Shiloh,” said Tim in a hoarse whisper, tears streaming. He knelt beside me. “God is good. He gives an’ He takes away.”

I inhaled a sob then reached up and clasped his hand tight. He squeezed it in both of his, shoulders shaking.

“You’re sure? I mean, maybe they’re wrong, and …?” I bawled, tears dripping on the floor in glossy little dots.

“No mistake. I shore wish it was.” Tim wiped his face and helped me stand up. “I’d … uh … better get back with Becky. I done called my parents, and …”

“How’s Becky?” My throat swelled so tight I could hardly squeeze out her name. I saw her there in Barnes & Noble buying a baby-name book, glowing, and in the parking lot at Jerusalem Chapel Church. Becky’s miracle. And now it was gone. “She’s okay. Sad, but … she’ll get through.” “Give her my love, Tim. I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t find anything else to say. He clapped me on the shoulder and disappeared, cowboy boots clacking mournfully on the shiny floor.

I struggled to steady my ragged gasps and made my way back to my seat. People averted their eyes, hiding behind magazines. I pulled out my cell phone and sent a message to Adam: B
AD NEWS
.

My nerves frayed an inch away from snapping. The cell phone shook in my hand and then clattered to the floor. I didn’t pick it up or even see if Adam wrote back. Tears dripped down my chin.

I barely noticed when the door opened and a figure came in, clad in a rain-spattered dark jacket, and sat down next to me. Touched my shoulder.

I turned and saw Adam, eyes red. He picked up my phone and put it in my purse. Reached out a hand and wiped my wet cheek.

Without a word, I buried my face in his shirt collar and wept.

And he wrapped his arms around my head and wept with me.

Without a doubt, I had just experienced the worst weekend in my adult life.

I slumped in the hard waiting-room seat, exhausted and emotionally shot, side pulsating so much I doubled over. Adam brought me a cup of tepid water and found some aspirin in histruck, but on top of my already-strong pain medication and my mood, I threw it all up in the bathroom anyway. I just sat there stiffly, arms locked around my waist.

When Faye arrived, wet from rain, I didn’t even look up. I left my keys with Tim so they could use the car, and followed

Faye for the ride home, wincing and clutching my drippy pea bag.

Gordon was still sprawled in my living room, and the thought of wrapping my arms around something soft and squeezable made me tremble. I needed him. His silly grin. His heavy head across my foot, stinky dog breath and all.

Adam and Faye spent a long time in the lobby, speaking in low tones, and I heard my name repeated quietly—and the words “alone.” Adam worried about leaving me by myself.

It made me angry, but he was right. I had no one. Tim and Becky, after all, had loving family and friends to surround them. They would grieve and cry and heal, circled in protective arms. Cared for. Cooked for. Loved.

And although I bitterly resented the implication, I didn’t. I could call Kyoko, but she already considered me mentally unstable. Kyoko, mind you, who had skulls on her purse and dated men who won green peppers.

Dad and Ashley? Hmph. They might as well live on the moon for all we kept in touch.

So Adam told me I was staying with Faye. He put his hands on his hips in a way that suggested he’d argue if he had to, but I didn’t even care to pick a fight.

As we trudged through the rainy, copper-lit parking lot to Faye’s car, I hated Staunton. Hated everything. Hated that I’d ever come here and gotten all tangled up with Tim and Becky. It hurt too much. I should’ve just let Ashley and Wade sell Mom’s house and keep the money. At least I wouldn’t be stuck here in Hickville, Virginia, trying to keep down aspirin and crying over another tragedy.

I remembered the first night I left Best Western with Faye, my job loss fresh and aching and the streets unfamiliar. Now I felt the same way again, watching telephone poles flash past and wondering why on earth I’d come.

“Now, you just relax, sugar.” Faye patted my knee. “Everything’s gonna be all right.”

“That’s what I told Becky,” I snapped, wiping my swollen eyes. “And it isn’t!”

“Oh, but it will be. It’ll hurt for a while, but it’s never the end of the world. They’ll come through.”

I stared at Faye, an inch from spouting something rude, but then remembered what she said about Mack. About children. “Did you ever … you know …?”

Faye didn’t make me finish. “Yes. Twice.” She turned a sad smile in my direction. “It was real hard. Mack gave me a lotta support, though I do remember feelin’ he could never understand my pain. But it was okay. The Lord did. And He got me through it.”

In my mind I saw Mom’s Kobe rose bush, leaves beaded with rain. I forcefully pushed it away.

“I don’t understand, Faye. How can you say, ‘The Lord did’? From my perspective He didn’t do anything! He got your hopes up for nothing, just like Becky and Tim. And then took it all away. I thought maybe I believed in Him, but …”

We stopped at a red light, and I listened to the signal click, click, click. Such an empty sound.

“We chose it, sugar.”

“Chose what? To lose babies and suffer?” My words came out harsh and angry, stomach roiling with fresh nausea.

“Honey, God didn’t create this mess. We did. If we’d a listened to Him, we wouldn’t be in our fix. Life would be perfect.”

“No, I didn’t eat the forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve did.”

Faye chuckled. “Doll baby, there’s a little bit a Adam and Eve in all of us.”

We drove through town in silence, and I stared out at the bright gas station signs and dark houses. Steel-gray ribbons of shiny streets. Each window hiding its own pain and memories.

“The Bible says His mercies are new ev’ry morning,” said Faye softly. “We’ll cry some, Tim and Becky’ll cry some, but we’ll get up t’morrow lookin’ for His mercies. ‘Cause they’re there, just waitin’ on us.”

I turned my head so Faye wouldn’t see my tears.

U
nexpected scarlet stole through Faye’s woods in a late August cold snap—the earliest in more than fifteen years. My rose blooms fell like Becky’s hope, still lush with color. When Adam brought my car over Wednesday evening, sporting paint-flecked hands and dirty jeans, he suggested we prune the rose canes that bloomed on old wood.

The other roses, he said, would need pruning in early winter or late spring, if whoever bought Mom’s house knew anything about plants.

I reminded him at my house-staging rate, nobody this decade would be buying squat.

“Looks like summer’s over.” Faye stood beside me in her tennis shoes, face lit with glowing gray sky. She said it matter-of-factly, without any hint of sorrow.

But as I remembered Becky and Tim, I felt that summer had indeed slipped away. I couldn’t imagine Becky without her smile, and yet it seemed gone for good, never to return.

“Yeah. I guess so.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and trudged next to her, down over the sloping cow pasture bordering her backyard.

“Thank ya for yer help, Shah-loh,” Becky’d said over thephone, her voice blue and lifeless. “You did great ta git us out to the hospital so fast. And the flowers you an’ Faye sent were jest beautiful.”

“Ah.” I brushed it away. As if flowers could help anything. “Don’t mention it. I just want to see you happy again.”

“I will be. Don’t ya worry none.”

Words stuck in my mouth like dry rice. “Becky, it was supposed to be your miracle,” I finally whispered. “I don’t understand.”

“It was still a miracle. Just ‘cause it didn’t turn out tha way I wanted, don’t make it any less of a miracle.”

Words imploded.

“We’s jest the vessel, Shah-loh. We ain’t in charge. God forms the clay, an’ I done give Him my life. He knows what’s best. “

Vessel. Jar. Of fragile clay. God’s workmanship.

My fingers fluttered to my forehead. “Well, if there’s anything I can do, just tell me. Please, Becky. I’d do anything for you.”

“I know you would. You’re such a good friend to me.” Her voice crumbled. “Just keep prayin’ to the Lord. He’ll bring us through. Ain’t nothin’ ever too big for Him to handle.”

Such strange hopes, these Christians. That God would hear and understand and somehow make something beautiful from the mess.

“There’s a purpose in ev’rything,” I could still hear Tim drawl, relieving a tearful Becky of the phone. “We jest don’t always git it. But He sees the whole pitcher, start ta finish.”

Just speaking about their loss made me feel worse, not better, reminding me it was startlingly real. Being believers in God hadn’t protected Becky and Tim. And yet, neither had it broken them.

Strange. I racked my brain, trying to come up with some logical explanation. Grief and denial. Something like that.

My flowers fade, and the petals shiver and drop
, Mom had written, as I paged through her journal in Faye’s pretty spare bedroom, quilt around my shoulders.

Winter comes barren across the land. But you know what I’ve discovered? Barrenness sets the stage for miracles. So many holy women of the Bible were barren. And yet God reserved His greatest miracles for them—to bring forth nations! Rulers! Prophets! Forerunners of Christ! Can a woman ask for more?

And winter, in fact, is not an image of loss but of fullness. Of culmination. Of brilliant fire and gleeful cold, hands rubbed together against our breath. Breathtaking mornings and stars over ice. A picture of the gospel: “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.” Snow that covers. Snow that blots out. Snow that promises shouts of victory just beneath the surface, all the roots and shoots and stirrings waiting, joyfully, to erupt at just the proper time
.

Do not be so smug, Death. Sin. Pain. Your victory is short-lived
.

Mine is forever!

“You gonna keep walkin’?” asked Faye, bringing me back to reality. “You been lookin’ out at that field an awful long time.”

“Huh?” I looked up and saw a cow staring at me, cold wind rippling the tawny grasses. “Oh. Sorry. Just thinking.”

“‘Bout?”

“I don’t know.” I scuffed the grass with my foot. “Why didn’t God give you children, Faye? What you wanted most?”

“It ain’t what I wanted most. Or Becky either. We want a life spent lovin’ Him.”