Another woman spoke up. “And then Jesus heals him anyhow, right there, regardless of his excuse.”
“Yes, exactly,” Teri said. “That’s why I marked this verse. I think it’s possible to have an infirmity of some sort and live with it as a routine for decades. It’s possible to forget that Jesus Christ has the power and the desire to heal us. We just find excuses and keep living with things as they’ve always been. But He is such an incredible, loving Father that He overlooks our weakness, even our inability to respond to Him correctly. He looks right at the heart, and He …”
“Y-ello. This is Jack.” The voice on the other end of the phone jolted Genevieve back to the task before her. She felt her neck turning red and her cheeks burning.
“Yes, um.” Genevieve cleared her throat and tried to collect her thoughts. “I, um, this is … I spoke with you earlier. This is Genevieve Ahrens. I’m calling back about the order for the maple tables and chairs.”
“Right,” Jack said.
“Were you able to find the correct order for twelve and not two tables?”
“I checked with several people on that order, and it looks as if the salesman made the mistake when he checked the inventory. We don’t have twelve tables in that style anywhere on the West Coast. The only other distribution center that carries that set is located in South Carolina, but it only has one set left. It’s a discontinued model. I don’t know if the sales rep told you that.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“What would you like me to do about your order? We can ship two tables out to you by Friday, but it would take at least ten days to get the other table from the East Coast.”
“That’s still only three tables.”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’d like to cancel my order,” Genevieve said as calmly as she could. “I’ll call the salesman who placed the order and tell him I’ve authorized you not to deliver the tables to me Friday.”
“I sure am sorry about the mix-up.”
“I am, too.” Genevieve hung up the phone with a sickening feeling in her stomach. Dialing the number for the salesman, she tried to center all her attention on the problem at hand, even though part of her wanted to fly over to the table where the women were discussing the Bible. Her thirst for truth and encouragement was overpowering.
Focus on this project.
She knew the aching in her spirit would subside if she could divert her attention and dive into a huge project. It always worked in the past. Today, it was difficult.
She made the call, left a brief phone message for the salesman explaining the problem, and asked him to call her back. Then she bent her head over the file folder, as if studying the order form. She really was listening to the women, half afraid to hear any more yet not able to turn away. To her disappointment, they had concluded their discussion.
“Before we close,” Jessica said, “I was wondering what the rest of you thought about adding half an hour to our meeting time. This hour went too fast.”
The others agreed, and the time was set for two-thirty next Wednesday at the Wildflower Café. Then Jessica prayed. Genevieve kept her head bowed over her order form with her pen in her hand and her eyes opened slightly. She loved listening to Jessica pray.
With earnest words she asked for God’s blessing on the women gathered at the table. She prayed for their husbands and their children, and then she added words that seemed to sweep across the room and wrap their arms around Genevieve.
“Thank You for bringing Genevieve and her family to Glenbrooke. Father, bless her for all she has done in providing this wonderful place for us to meet. I thank You for the way You have used her to renew the hope of so many by bringing beauty into our little downtown area. Please give her Your peace and Your joy. I pray this in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who is the great healer of our lives. Amen.”
With her heart pounding wildly, Genevieve rose from her table and slipped into the kitchen. The light from these women was too bright. All she wanted to do was go back into hiding.
Genevieve wasn’t alone when she entered the kitchen. Leah was talking to Brad, who had come over from his computer store next door.
“Hey, Gena,” Brad greeted her. “How’s it going?”
“Hi, Brad. I’m okay. How about you?”
Brad Phillips had recently gotten his hair cut shorter than Genevieve had ever seen it in the six years she had known him. She guessed he was trying to get used to the role of respectable father of two toddlers that he would soon be experiencing.
“We just had a power failure next door,” Brad said. “I’m surprised your electricity didn’t go off as well. I reset all the circuit breakers, but that didn’t do any good. I think I overloaded all the old wiring once and for all. I made a couple of calls on your phone. My lines are all goofed up.”
Leah held out the last crumbled slice of chocolate cake on a plate to Brad with a fork. “What are you going to do?”
“Pray,” Brad said before shoveling the first bite of cake into his mouth.
Genevieve knew his answer was serious. Brad and Alissa had become very serious about praying ever since they decided to adopt the two girls from Romania. The process had taken more than ten months so far, and they made it known that they were praying their way through every day of it.
When the couple had arrived in Glenbrooke several years ago, Alissa had opened a travel agency next to the café called A Wing and a Prayer. Her logo was a globe with two angel-like wings. Brad expanded the idea when Alissa and Brad switched offices, and he opened up his computer shop while she moved her office home. Brad’s business logo was a computer sporting little wings and tilted upward, as if flying off to heaven. He welcomed defunct computers that were ready to “wing their way to oblivion.” He had customers sign a document that said they were willing for their ailing units to be “organ donors.” Brad offered the customers credit for software and then he cannibalized the old computers. The old parts fed his on-line business of providing and shipping spare parts of outdated computers all over the world. That was how he and Alissa first connected with the orphanage in Romania.
“This is delicious.” Brad took another bite of cake.
“We call it Meri’s Midnight Madness,” Leah said. “The recipe came from Shelly’s sister, Meredith. It’s made with dark chocolate and mayonnaise. Isn’t it good?”
“There’s mayonnaise in this?” Brad said. “You’re kidding!”
Genevieve reminded herself never to tell the men what went into the desserts.
“What happened with the order for the tables, Gena?” Leah asked.
Genevieve explained the situation, and Brad said, “Why didn’t you tell me? I can order you tables. I can get you anything you need. Or at least once I have power back so I can go on-line. How many tables do you want?”
Genevieve showed Brad her order form with the style of maple tables she originally had ordered. “At this point, I think I’d rather spend more to buy the oak tables, but I don’t want to have to deal with the same company anymore.”
“Got it.” Brad put his empty plate down on the counter. He pulled out a pen and made a few notes in the margins of Genevieve’s order form. “Mind if I take this with me?”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
“When do you want the tables delivered?”
“Tomorrow?” Genevieve’s expression echoed the question in her voice.
Leah explained about how the old tables were needed by Shelly for the May Day weekend.
“How about this,” Brad suggested. “Why don’t you tell Shelly the tables are on loan until your new ones arrive? I’ll help Seth take them over to the camp for May Day, but we can do that Friday, can’t we?”
“What will we use for tables at the café Saturday?” Leah asked.
“You could close for the day,” Brad suggested. “Half the women in Glenbrooke will be at Camp Heather Brook anyway. Or set up folding tables. It’s not Pasadena, Gena. People around here will un
derstand if you have to wing it for a few days. We have a card table you can use.”
“I have two,” Leah said. “That’s a good idea, Brad. We’ll get creative with some tablecloths, and I would guess most customers will barely notice.”
Brad’s idea worked out better than Genevieve thought it would. By the time she and the girls headed home late Friday night, all the catered food had been prepared for Saturday’s event at Camp Heather Brook, and the dining room was a colorful hodgepodge of card tables covered with a variety of cloths. Some of the tablecloths came from Genevieve’s stash at home, and a few came from the salvaged stack of linens they had pulled from the storage shed weeks earlier.
“Do we have to go out to the camp now?” Mallory asked once they were in the car.
“No, Leah took all the food over there an hour ago. She’s going early tomorrow morning to prepare the food in the camp kitchen. That’s why I need the two of you to help me serve breakfast here tomorrow morning. We’re closing at ten-thirty, and that’s when the three of us will go to Camp Heather Brook.”
“We’re going to miss the brunch part,” Mallory said.
“Yes, but we’ll be there for the rest of the fun. Last year the May Day event went until after two o’clock.”
“I hope they have a craft again this year,” Mallory said. “That was my favorite part last year.”
“Mom, can we stop at Dairy Queen on the way home?” Anna asked from the passenger’s seat. “I’m starving.”
Genevieve glanced over at her fourteen-year-old. “How can you be starving? Plenty of food was available to you at the Wildflower for the past five hours!”
“I know, but I didn’t want any of that food. Do you mind? I’m really hungry for French fries, and you don’t serve French fries at the café.”
“Me, too,” Mallory piped up from the backseat. “I haven’t had French fries in forever. Could we please stop, Mom?”
Genevieve gave in. Anna and Mallory had been real troopers, setting up tables, sweeping the floor, and even cleaning the restroom. She drove several miles out of her way to Dairy Queen and restrained from giving any lectures on nutrition.
The hamburgers, shakes, and fries her daughters soon held in their laps made them giddy with appreciation.
“I don’t think you’ve ever taken us to Dairy Queen.” Mallory slurped her strawberry shake.
“Of course I have.”
“I don’t remember when you ever did,” Mallory said. “Dad always takes us there. He orders a peanut butter blizzard.”
Genevieve didn’t know that. Steven liked ice cream, but she never would have guessed he had a favorite blizzard flavor, especially not peanut butter.
“When does Dad get home?” Anna asked.
“Sunday,” Genevieve said. The proclamation didn’t bring joy to her the way it did to the girls. She felt as if this time when Steven left she had gone into a deeper place of suspended emotions. She barely had thought of Steven or wondered about him during the five days he had been gone. It was as if he were so separated from her everyday life that he existed as only a memory. She assumed that she and the girls were also a suspended memory for him while he was gone.
Genevieve found three messages waiting for her on voice mail when she got home. One was from Leah reminding her that if Mr. Olestrum came in for breakfast, like he usually did on Saturday mornings, Genevieve was supposed to use the egg substitute instead of real eggs because his wife was watching his cholesterol, but he wasn’t supposed to know he was being served egg substitute.
With a grin, Genevieve erased the message. The next one was from her eldest daughter, Josephina. Fina’s voice bubbled over with excitement. She had gotten the job she wanted with a sports club a mile from her apartment in Arizona. As soon as her classes ended in three weeks, she would begin to teach summer volleyball clinics.
Genevieve leaned against the kitchen counter and listened to Fina’s message again. She sounded so happy.
The realization that Genevieve wouldn’t see her twenty-one-year-old daughter for several more months entered her heart like a previously unknown variety of pain. She was delighted, of course, that Fina got the job and that she could spend the summer in Arizona the way she wanted. But Genevieve was now separated even further from a part of herself; her firstborn was truly on her own.
Genevieve saved the message. She had a feeling she would need to hear her daughter’s voice again later and be reminded of how excited Fina was about the job. This strain of reality would take a while to soak in.
The third message on her voice mail was from Steven. “Good news,” he said. “My schedule was changed. I’m in San Francisco now. I’m on standby to catch the next flight home. It might be as late as three o’clock tomorrow afternoon before I can get there. Maybe sooner. Oh, and Gena, I have twenty-three days off. We should be able to get to some of that yard work you’ve been wanting to do once the weather cooperated. I love you, Gena. Give my love to the girls. See you soon.”
Steven sounded happy to be coming home. He sounded just as happy about coming home as Fina was about not coming home.
Genevieve didn’t know how she felt about anything or anyone anymore. All she knew was that the day had been full, and she was tired.
“Girls,” Genevieve called down the hallway as she headed for her bedroom, “I’m taking a bath and going to bed. You both need to be in bed by ten o’clock at the very latest. Understand?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Good answer.” Genevieve turned on the bath water. “I love it when they just say yes instead of coming up with a bunch of excuses.”
She stopped and stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Yes. They said yes without any excuses. Where did I just hear someone talking about that?
She took off her shoes, and then it came to her. The Bible study at the Wildflower. That was Teri’s observation about the man who was healed. He made excuses when Jesus asked if he wanted to be made well.
All Genevieve’s thoughts and feelings did something they rarely did. They mingled. It was as if all her feelings lined up on one side of the dance floor while all her thoughts stood stoically on the other. In her imagination she couldn’t tell which one made the first move—whether it was a thought or a feeling—but suddenly they were mixing and mingling. Thoughts and feelings together on the same dance floor of her mind for the first time in ages. They seemed to all be in position, waiting for the music to begin.
Genevieve stared into the mirror, studying the dark flecks in the orbits of her gray irises. The whites of her eyes carried faint bloodshot streaks. The shadows under her eyes darkened as the steam rose from the tub and fogged the mirror. She was lost. Lost in herself. Hidden away.
She turned off the water, and in the split second of silence that followed, a distinct thought flashed through her mind. Do you want to be made well, Genevieve?
For a moment she stopped breathing. It was as if all the imaginary eyes on the dance floor in her mind were fixed on her, waiting for her answer. All her routine excuses hovered overhead, like balloons ready to drop at a New Year’s party.
“Do I want to be made well?” Genevieve repeated aloud. She realized that she hadn’t asked herself if she needed to be made well. That was a conclusion she had come to some time ago. Something was definitely wrong in her life and needed to be repaired.
But she had fought hard to ignore that conclusion.
Before a single excuse “balloon” could drop, Genevieve looked into the still water that now filled her bathtub. “Yes.” She heard herself whisper without hesitation. “Yes, I want to be made well.”
Chapter Seven
An orchestra didn’t suddenly come alive in Genevieve’s mind when she stated that she wanted to be made well. Her feelings and thoughts didn’t let out a cheer and begin to dance together in a gleeful frenzy, as she half-expected. Instead, everything went quiet. All the images evaporated, and in their place a strange, settling peace came over her.
Her r
equest to be made well was the first bit of a prayer that she had uttered in a long time. More than a prayer, it was a response. The unusual peace that came with her response was profound.
She lowered herself into the tub and drew in a deep breath, then another. Her lungs filled with the warm, moist air as she tried to make sense of what had just happened.
Was that God’s voice or my splintered psyche?
He called me by my name.
Or did He?
Did God just heal me?
Just like that?
What exactly did He heal me from?
I know something has been wrong for a long time, but I don’t know exactly what it is.
How can God heal me when I don’t even know what my “infirmity” is?
Genevieve had difficulty identifying what she felt. She still didn’t feel excited about seeing Steven tomorrow. The long list of past hurts didn’t seem to have been lifted from her heart.
The settling peace that had come to her presided over her thoughts, not her feelings. Her mind was able to rest. Her heart, however, was still a locked fortress.
After her soothing bath, Genevieve went to bed and slept deeply. In the middle of the night, the phone rang. She stumbled out of bed and reached for the phone.
“Is this Genevieve Ahrens?” the woman’s voice on the other end asked.
“Yes.” She squinted at the display on the alarm clock. It was 4:37.
“I’m calling from the Glenbrooke Emergency Dispatch. We sent out a fire unit to Main Street approximately one hour ago. One of our volunteers, Kyle Buchanan, asked that I call you.”
“A fire?” Genevieve was jolted wide awake.
“I don’t have any details yet. Kyle wanted you to go down right away.”
“Yes. Okay. Thank you.” Hanging up and flipping on the light switch, Gena fumbled with a pair of jeans and pulled a fleece sweatshirt on over her pajama top. She woke the girls and hustled them into the car with her. They peppered her with questions all the way, but Genevieve had no answers for them until she turned down Main Street and saw the fire engine pulling away from the front of the café.