The Isaac Project (11 page)

I squatted to be eye level with him, but he seemed to look right through me.

“Poppy.” I placed my hand on his knee.

He blinked and focused on my face. I smiled.

“Evelyn?”

My smile faltered at my mom’s name. I forced it back in place.

“No, Poppy. It’s me, Rebekah.”

“Rebekah?”

I nodded and blinked back traitorous tears.

“Where’s Evelyn?”

“Poppy, Mom—Evelyn—died a long time ago. Remember?”
Please remember, Poppy.

He closed his eyes tight and leaned his head back. When he opened them again, resignation showed in their depths.

“I remember. How could I forget?” His fingers brushed my cheek. “And I could never forget you, my Rebekah Anne.”

Time was running out. Its tick, tock, tick, tock clanged in my ear.

Lisa, please hurry!

***

Luke

One would think I’d be nervous as I sat next to Lisa and waited for the call to go through, but I wasn’t. There was a peace I couldn’t explain about my decision, except to say that it was the peace of knowing I’d made the right choice. I would choose to love Becky. And with time, she’d love me in return. My pulse raced, but it was more from anticipation than anxiety.

“Becky?” Lisa smiled. “Hey, I was just calling to let you know The Isaac Project was a success.”

Lisa’s gaze caught mine, and her smile grew. This girl must have been a handful for her parents growing up. Sam was a lucky guy.

“He’s perfect.” She winked at me. Good thing I wasn’t the blushing type.

“In fact, he’s right here, so I’ll go ahead and let you talk to him.”

Lisa offered me the phone with a little nod of encouragement.

There wasn’t any script or past experience, personal or otherwise, to help me know what to say. One of Sam’s corny Christian pickup lines wouldn’t work in this situation. Although, truthfully, I didn’t know how they had worked in any situation.

“Hey, Becky. My name is Luke Masterson.” I ran a hand over my head. “How’re you doing?” Was that what you said to the girl you’ve agreed to marry?

No chipper response. No “I’m fine, thank you, and how are you?” No nothing. Just dead silence returned my greeting. Rocky start.

I tried again. “How’s your grandfather?”

“Umm…yeah…uh…hi. I’m hanging in there, and so is Poppy, thanks for asking. We both have our good days and bad days, but that’s to be expected.”

Her voice was like a river in autumn. The waters had since receded from the deluge of spring rains and snowmelt from warmer weather. Where the river had once playfully rolled over rocks and fearlessly leaped over clefts, it now trickled sedately on its course, more focused on its destination than the joy of the journey. Had her voice had always been like—like an autumn river? Or had it once contained the playfulness of spring before some jerk broke her heart?

“That’s good to hear. I’ve been praying for you.”

“Thank you.”

This conversation was awkward at best. What else was I supposed to say? The dead space actual felt painful. Thankfully, I was saved by the voice on the other end of the line.

“Is what Lisa said true?” she asked with a hint of shyness. Her vulnerability stirred a protectiveness inside me. It was a good thing Becky’s cheating ex-boyfriend wasn’t there right then, because I would’ve been tempted to use his face as my next punching bag.

“If you’ll have me, then I’d be proud to be your husband.” I was a little shocked to discover how completely true that statement was. Not twenty-four hours earlier I’d been close to mocking the whole idea of an arranged marriage in the twenty-first century. Now there I was, the prospective groom of one.

Silence once again grew thick over the line. I dragged a hand across the back of my neck. We should’ve had this conversation over Skype instead of a regular phone call. Then I’d be able to see her reactions, her body language, and, well,
her
.

“Are you okay?” I asked gently.

“Oh yes. Yes, thank you. You have no idea what this means to me,” she said, then paused. “I’m a little embarrassed about what I’m about to ask you.”

A thread of trepidation snaked down my spine. This was a woman who’d asked her best friend to find her a husband. If what she wanted to ask me embarrassed her…well…there was no telling what it could be.

“I was visiting Poppy today and talked to Rita, she’s one of the CNAs that takes care of him, and she told me he was starting a downward spiral. He hasn’t been eating much and sleeps most of the day. I’m really worried he won’t last much longer. It seems like he’s just given up.”

Her voice was shaky, and she took a steadying breath before continuing. “In light of that…and I hate to ask this at all…but…would you be willing…I mean, would it be possible if…”

“You need me there ASAP.”

“If it’s at all feasible.” The river became a trickle as uncertainty cut off its flow.

“Let me talk to my boss, but I promise I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She didn’t need to face this alone.

Lisa’s wild gesturing caught my eye, as did the concerned look on her face.

“Uh, Becky, Lisa is over here waving her arms like she’s trying to land a 747, so I’ll hand the phone back over to her. It was nice talking to you.” Lisa snagged the phone from my ear as I said good-bye.

12

Luke

MY WEIGHT RESTED on my forearms as I leaned against the dollhouse-sized butcher block island in my modest kitchen. The blank, black screen of my iPhone resting on the pale countertop mocked me. Ironic how I hadn’t been nervous to talk to Becky, a complete stranger I’d committed to marry, but the thought of picking up that phone and calling my dad made my palms sweat.

Mom had taken the news of my upcoming nuptials fairly well. At least she tried to hide her cynicism. Dad, however, liked to lay on the sarcasm as thick as icing on a birthday cake.

I wiped my hands on my pants and gritted my teeth before picking up the phone and dialing his number.

“Hey, Dad, how’s it going?”

“Eh, I’ve been better.” His husky baritone voice sounded defeated. Maybe it wasn’t a good time to give him what he’d consider bad news.

“What’s wrong? Trouble at work?”

“No, work is good. It’s Regina.”

“Is she all right? Are the two of you okay?” Regina was Dad’s third wife. After mom, he’d married a buxom Italian named Rosa. When that relationship went south, he’d moved to Nashville and found Regina, a wanna be country music singer.

“I don’t know what happened. We used to have such passion. We’d kiss, and fireworks would go off, you know? But nowadays…I don’t know…there isn’t even a spark. No sizzle. I think we’ve flamed out.” He sounded so resigned. Like there was nothing he could do about the situation but walk away.

See, that’s what happens when you treat marriage like it’s a package of fireworks. The fuel always burns out, and there’s a long, dark night left to follow. I paced the length of my apartment. Truth be told, it was too small for pacing, but I needed to expel some of the nervous energy that talking to my old man had created.

“Have you tried rekindling it?” I asked, exasperated that he was going to give up on yet another marriage. “Even when a flame goes out, there are still hot coals. All you need is a little fuel, and you can have a roaring blaze again.”

“I know you’re a fireman and all, son, but relationships don’t work like that.”

“How would you know? You’ve never stuck around long enough to give it a try.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Facing the far side of the narrow apartment, I let my head hang, my forehead resting on the sun-warmed glass of the sole window in the studio. Deep down I still carried some hurt over my dad leaving. We’d talked it through and had built a relationship in spite of the past, but it didn’t erase the pain of growing up without a father when I needed him the most. Or the agony of watching my mom’s heart break because her husband had decided he didn’t love her anymore.

“That’s not fair.” My dad’s voice boomed in my ear.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. It’s just that you seem to fall in and out of love more times than a kid who has his shoelaces untied. Did you ever stop to consider that love is a choice you make every day?”

“When you get married, you can give me advice, all right?” he snapped. 

I swallowed the lump of dread lodged in the back of my throat.

“Actually, Dad, that was one of the reasons I called. I’m getting married.”

“Married?” The surprise in his voice was evident. “I didn’t even know you were dating someone.”

And here was the tricky part. “Well, I’m not…I wasn’t…exactly.”

Dad huffed into the phone, causing static. “What are you talking about? How are you getting married if you haven’t…aren’t…dating someone?”

“It’s a rather long and complicated story,” I said and proceeded to give him a condensed version, bracing myself.

He started to laugh. I’d been expecting a lecture or a tirade, not the uncontrollable chortles of a man who deemed himself God’s gift to women.

“I’m sorry, son,” he said when he was finally able to contain his mirth. “But it’s never going to work. Marriages are hard enough when you start out already in love. Begin one with someone you don’t even know, much less have no romantic feelings for, and it’s doomed from the start. Trust me. I’ve been married three times.”

***

“Let me get this straight—you’re giving me your notice, and you don’t even have the decency to tell me why?” Chief’s booming voice resonated across the desk separating us. If I’d been a rookie, I would’ve been tempted to cower like an abused puppy, but I’d been around long enough to know that Chief’s bark was much worse than his bite. That, and it had never been in my nature to cower.

“It’s personal, Chief.”

“Personal,” he mumbled under his breath as he shuffled around some paperwork. “Can you at least tell me where you’re going?”

“California.”

He snorted and leaned back in his chair, interlocking his fingers and resting his clasped hands over his ample belly. I never did understand how Chief could do the daily physical training with the rest of the crew and still have the pooch around his middle. Granted it was rock hard, and a man could probably break a hand if he ever attempted punching Chief in his gut, but it was still a curious phenomenon.

“I like you, Masterson. Have always liked you. And so I’m going to do something that I wouldn’t do for just any man out there in the bay.” Sitting back up, he rummaged through his papers again until he found a small ledger-type book. Opening it, he took out a memo pad and started writing. He offered me the small piece of paper. There was a name and number written on it.

“That’s the name of a good friend of mine in California. He’s a captain of a firehouse out there. Now, California’s a big state, so I don’t know if that will even be useful to you or not. And as you know, firefighters can’t just make transfers, but you tell him I sent you, and he’ll find a place for you.”

“Thanks, Chief.” I stood to leave.

“One more thing, Masterson. This personal thing you’ve got—is it urgent?”

“Fairly urgent, sir.”

“Finish out the week, and I’ll cover your shifts for the rest of the month.”

I couldn’t stop the smile that spread on my face, nor did I want to. Firmly gripping the chief’s hand, I thanked him and walked out of his office. My mind reeled with all the things I would need to accomplish in a short amount of time. Number one on that list being a call to Becky to tell her the news.

First, though, I had to finish my shift. Most people thought firefighting was a glorious and heroic job. All the movies and TV shows portray it that way, anyway. But most of the stuff we did was pretty mundane. I didn’t remember the last movie about firefighters I’d seen that showed a brother or sister in uniform bent over the toilet scrubbing urine stains from the porcelain or pushing a mop around the tiled floors of the kitchen area. We didn’t have a maid to come in and do those chores. Every day we were assigned some kind of cleanup detail. We had to keep the station in top-notch shape.

Thankfully, I’d already done my housekeeping detail for the day. The common room was tidy, and the carpets sported that nice just-vacuumed pattern.

Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, I ambled over to the weight room. We also had physical training scheduled during each shift as well as time for studying. There were some at the station who were taking courses to be EMT certified, and others were working on different classes such as search and rescue, water rescue, and wildfire containment. We didn’t want to be caught unprepared in any situation.

Richard and Betty were doing some reps with the free weights in the corner, so I decided to get some bench pressing in before someone else showed up and stole the bench.

I checked the weights on the bar and added twenty pounds on each side. Straddling the bench with my back to the bar, I slowly lowered myself down until my back was flat against the bench and the bar was horizontal to my body. Gripping the bar firmly with both hands, I lifted it off its holder and brought it down a hair’s breadth above my chest. I raised the bar and weights fairly easily when I straightened my arms. This wasn’t the max I could press, but I wanted to work on endurance with the number of reps, and my arms would feel the strain after a few sets. I was just starting to feel the burn in my muscles when the tones rang throughout the firehouse. I rushed to the bay, running straight into my turnout gear.

***

Rebekah

“Hi, Poppy, it’s me, Rebekah.” I held my grandfather’s aged hand in my own. His fingers seemed to have gotten longer with each pound he lost, making his hands look like skin stretched loosely over bone.

Poppy’s eyes were closed as he napped. His even breathing was accompanied by a whistling in his nose.

“I have some good news. I’m going to get married. Can you believe it?” I forced a laugh, but it came out strangled. “I know it’s something you always wanted, so you have to hang on a little longer, you hear me? I’m not going to walk down the aisle without you by my side. His name is Luke Masterson, and he’s a firefighter. I know you’ll love him.”