Evidence of Mercy

  The butterfly flitted across the fence and lit in some wildflowers growing in an old, untended garden. Keith watched Bri-anna laughing with one of her dolls and then pouring more invisible tea and offering it a cup.

  He heard a car pull up in the front, and his heartbeat accelerated. “Lynda’s home,” Paige said as she got up. “I’ll be in front, okay, Brianna?”

  Brianna nodded indifferently as Paige went around between the garage and the house, and a slow smile came to Keith’s lips. Was Brianna really alone?

  He straightened and stepped through the bushes, watching his child with hungry, anxious eyes. He watched the butterfly flit over to the table where she sat.

  “Mommy, it’s a butterfly!” she said, her voice soft so that she wouldn’t frighten it away.

  It fluttered off, and Brianna got up and followed it. It lit in a piece of grass, and she bent over, trying to coax it onto her finger, but it flew a little further. As if it were in cahoots with Keith, it led her closer, closer, closer to the fence until she was almost close enough to reach.

  Keith stepped into her view and touched the fence, whispering, “Brianna.”

  She looked up at him, stunned. The butterfly flew away.

  His heart hammered, and his hands shook; there was so little time before Paige came back.

  “Come closer, honey,” he whispered, leaning over the fence. “Come give Daddy a kiss.”

  Her bottom lip began to tremble, and she backed away, farther out of his reach.

  “Brianna, I said to come here,” he said more firmly. “Now.”

  She started to cry and looked around for her mother, who was nowhere in sight.

  He was getting angry now. This wasn’t working out like he’d planned. Gritting his teeth, he whispered, “Brianna, I told you to come here right now! I’m your daddy!”

  He started to lunge over the fence, but Brianna screamed and lit out across the yard.

  Cursing, Keith realized he’d gone too far; he’d never catch her before she made it to the front yard. Afraid of being caught, he tore back through the woods to his car.

  Lynda had just gotten Jake into the apartment and introduced him to Paige when they heard the scream.

  Paige dashed outside and found Brianna almost to the garage apartment already, shrieking.

  “What is it, honey? What’s wrong?”

  “Daddy! Daddy! He’s gonna take me!” she screamed.

  Paige stepped back into the doorway, looking helplessly at Lynda. “No, honey. Daddy can’t get you here.”

  “It’s him!” Brianna screamed.

  “It’s me, isn’t it?” Jake asked. “She saw me coming in, and I scared her.”

  Paige wasn’t sure. “Honey, that’s not Daddy. That’s a nice man named Jake. Remember I told you he was going to live here? Remember we got the room fixed up for him?”

  Hiccuping her sobs, Brianna refused to look up.

  Paige looked apologetically at Jake. “She’s—terrified of men. If you knew her father you’d know why. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I make a pretty scary first impression.”

  “I’ll take her in,” Paige said and quickly hurried back toward the house.

  The silence in their wake was palpable, and Lynda turned back to Jake, trying to find the words that would make him feel less like an intruder. “Not exactly the welcome I had planned for you. I’m sorry, Jake.”

  He tried to take it philosophically. “Hey, I told you I’d frighten little kids. It’s no surprise. Look, if this is gonna be a problem, they were here first.”

  “It’ll be all right,” Lynda assured him. “She’s just been through an awful lot lately. Her father tried to fight her out of Paige’s arms at the courthouse just a few days ago. It was terrifying to her. It’s not the way you look, Jake; it’s the fact that you’re a man.”

  But Jake wasn’t buying it. “It’s okay, Lynda. Really, I can handle this.”

  She sighed. “We’re having dinner at seven. Paige has been doing the cooking. She made a special dinner just for you.”

  “Maybe I’d better just eat here.”

  “Out of the question. You have to have dinner with us tonight.”

  “It might spoil your appetite,” he said sardonically. “That is, if it doesn’t send the kid into hysterics again.”

  “She’ll be all right,” Lynda said. “Come on. We all need to get used to each other.”

  “Bet you never dreamed you’d have a houseful of wounded souls, did you?”

  “Recovering souls,” she amended with a smile. “And I couldn’t be happier to have all of you here. It’s about time I had someone besides my secretary in my life.” It seemed like so long ago that they’d had the argument in the plane about the emptiness in both their lives, but Jake remembered and smiled slightly.

  She went to the portable intercom she had bought just for him. “I haven’t had the phones hooked up yet. I’ll get someone here eventually, I guess. I’m just a little jumpy about having strangers here. Anyway, if you need anything, just press this button, and I’ll hear you in the house.”

  “I won’t need anything.”

  “Well, the kitchen’s stocked, the refrigerator’s full, there are towels in the bathroom. . . . Oh, and I had some special rails put into the tub, so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting in. I can’t think of anything else.”

  “It’s real comfortable, Lynda,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

  Her smile was genuine. “I’ll see you at seven, Jake. And if you don’t show up, I’m coming after you.”

  Brianna was still crying when Lynda went back into the house. Paige held her close and rocked her, but the child hadn’t calmed down at all. “Is she all right?” Lynda asked.

  “She’s scared to death,” Paige said. “She’s shaking worse than she was at the courthouse.”

  Lynda sat down next to them and stroked the tiny child’s hair. “Do you think it was Jake?”

  “I don’t know, Lynda. I think she must have caught a glimpse of him after he got out of the car. She probably thought he was Keith for a split second, and it freaked her out.”

  “Brianna, were you afraid of that man we were with?”

  Brianna hiccuped another sob. “It was Daddy.”

  “No, honey,” Lynda said. “That was Jake. And he might look a little scary with that patch over his eye and that wheel chair, but he’s a really nice man. You’re going to like him.”

  But Brianna was still trembling and crying softly, and Paige tried to loosen the child’s clutch so she could see her face. “Honey, you didn’t finish your tea party. Do you want to go out and get your dolls?”

  “No!” Terror twisted the child’s face, and she threw her arms more tightly around Paige’s neck. “Daddy’s there!”

  Paige sighed with frustration and glanced at Lynda. “No, he’s not, sweetheart. That’s just Jake, and we have to be nice to him because he needs our help.”

  But the child couldn’t be convinced. “I’ll go out and get her dolls, Paige,” Lynda said. “She’ll be all right. She just has to get to know him.”

  “Yeah,” Paige said, though her voice lacked conviction. “Look, we’ll give it a try, but if she goes off the deep end when he comes over for dinner tonight, I think I’ll just take her to McDonald’s or something.”

  “Of course,” Lynda said. “I don’t want her to be afraid.”

  She went outside, feeling more despondent than she had hoped to feel on Jake’s homecoming day. She gathered up the dolls then dropped down wearily on the porch swing with her arms full.

  What was she going to do? The last thing Jake needed was for someone to be afraid of him, reinforcing the fears he had of being too repulsive to go out in public.

  And the last thing Brianna needed was more terror in her life. They had all been through enough. Lynda just wondered when the ripples of all this tragedy would finally settle down.

  In the apartment, Jake rolled around in hi
s chair, unpacking the few belongings he’d brought with him from the hospital. Lynda had already brought over most of his things in the past few days, and they had been all neatly put away.

  Quietly, he opened each drawer in the big room, exploring the contents, taking mental inventory of where she’d put his socks, his shirts, his underwear. Then he came to the end table with the Bible.

  He smiled as if he had expected as much but closed the drawer without taking it out.

  He rolled to the window and looked out at the driveway, to the red Porsche that Lynda had moved here from the hospital just yesterday. It had been well protected; there wasn’t a scratch on it.

  Rolling to the door, he went outside, hoping the child wasn’t anywhere near a window; he didn’t want to frighten her again. But he needed to get to his car, to smell the leather of the seats, feel the wheel in his hands. . . .

  He rolled down the driveway, opened the driver’s door, and aligned his chair so that he could pull himself into the seat.

  It felt different than he remembered—cramped, tight, but he put his hands on the wheel nonetheless and imagined himself driving through town that day he’d gone to the airport. He’d been on top of the world. He hadn’t realized then how far he had to fall.

  But it wasn’t the car that was different now. He was different.

  And now he couldn’t drive this car. He might never be able to again. Even if he could by some miracle have it redesigned so that a paraplegic could drive it by hand, it wasn’t big enough to fit his wheelchair into. Besides that, it was a look-at-me car, a car that screamed that an eligible bachelor was inside, looking for a good time.

  He didn’t want anyone to look at him now, and he didn’t feel so eligible any more, and he had more important things on his mind lately than having a good time.

  Like an old girlfriend who didn’t fit into his life anymore, the car felt uncomfortable, awkward, useless.

  Grief washed over him, grief at the things he was leaving behind. The car, the job, the fast friends, the money . . .

  And what was left of him was something he couldn’t quite relate to, something he couldn’t quite identify.

  “If I’d known I was going to be left with just my character,” he whispered to no one, “I’d have worked harder at building some.”

  But there was none there, at least none that he could put his finger on. He was helpless and hopeless and heartless. And he didn’t want to be any of those things.

  Cursing, he pulled himself out of the car and back into the chair, slammed the door, and went back inside.

  He should count his blessings, he told himself sardonically. At least he had a Porsche, even if he couldn’t drive it. And a houseful of great furniture, even though it was in storage and he had no place to put it. And a little black book full of names of women he couldn’t call.

  His anger faded as his despair grew, and he found himself grasping for the real positives, the ones that might add up to just a little bit of hope.

  He was able to sit up.

  He could still see out of one eye.

  He could move his toe.

  He had a temporary place to live.

  Little things. But they were all he had. And he’d better get used to them, he thought, for he would probably never have the big things again.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  * * *

  When Brianna had cried herself to sleep, Paige laid her down on the couch and went to help Lynda prepare dinner. She watched as Lynda bustled around nervously, looking distraught, too preoccupied to notice Paige’s help. Whenever Lynda passed the kitchen window, which looked out toward the garage apartment, she peered out, as if to catch a glimpse of Jake.

  “What’s wrong, Lynda?” Paige asked finally.

  “Nothing,” Lynda said. “Why do you think something’s wrong?”

  “Well, you’ve been awfully preoccupied.”

  Lynda stopped what she was doing and looked out the window again. “I saw him go out to his car and get into it,” she whispered.

  Paige frowned. “He can’t drive—can he?”

  “No. He just went out and sat in it for a while. You’d have had to know him before to understand. He loved that car. When we were in that plane knowing we were about to crash, he was actually worried about who would take care of his car.”

  “You were going to crash, and he was worried about his car?”

  “Yeah. And it was so sad to watch him roll out there just to sit in it. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the car here.”

  Paige didn’t know what to say. It seemed so silly to her to grieve over a car when there was so much else to mourn. “So—do you think he’ll come over at seven?”

  “I don’t know,” Lynda said. “I hope so. He needs to be around people.”

  “But the thing with Brianna—I wouldn’t blame him if he stayed locked in there forever after that. That was so embarrassing.”

  “I still don’t understand it,” Lynda said. “I mean, he has that scar and everything, but it’s not that bad.”

  “That’s because you’re used to it,” Paige cut in. “We’re not. It’s the whole picture. The scar, the patch, the wheelchair. It’s going to take some time.”

  “But he’s still a man. Inside he’s just like you and me. Just because of a scar on his face—”

  “You’re right,” Paige said. “Absolutely right. But this isn’t a rational thing. It kind of took me by surprise, and it obviously jolted Brianna. I’m ashamed of myself for saying that, Lynda, but I’m going to get over it. I’m sure once I get to know him I won’t even notice those things.”

  Weary from the emotional toll the day had taken on her, Lynda sighed and dropped into a chair. “Maybe when he gets his artificial eye it’ll be easier.”

  “Oh,” Paige said, “I’m sure I’ll get used to him before that.”

  “I mean other people,” Lynda said. “I want him to be able to go out in public—to the store, to a movie, to church—without people staring at him.” But Lynda knew that if it were up to Jake, he might not ever count himself healed enough to blend normally with the public.

  “Does he go to your church?” Paige asked.

  “No. In fact, I just met him the day of the crash.”

  “Really? All this time I thought the two of you had known each other forever. I mean, the way you kept visiting him, and the way you took him in—”

  “No. He’s all alone. He doesn’t have anybody. You know, almost dying with somebody is quite an intimate experience. It bonds you somehow.”

  “Yeah.” Paige smiled. “I’ve had that experience myself.”

  Lynda realized that she referred to the fire, and she smiled. “Yeah, you have, haven’t you? Then you understand. I can’t help caring about Jake. Even if he’s totally opposite from me, and he’s belligerent and moody.” She went to stir the pot on the stove and then wiped her hands on a towel. “I have a theory about Jake. I think maybe God is refining him.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Do you know how they used to refine silver?” Lynda asked.

  Paige laughed. “No, not that I recall.”

  “Well, I heard it in Sunday school a long time ago. The silversmith hammered the silver into little pieces and then melted them. And he stayed with it the whole time, making sure it wasn’t damaged in the fire. But as the silver melted, the impure metals rose to the top. He removed it from the fire, scraped off the impurities, and saw a blurry image of himself in the silver. Then he put it back on the fire and did the whole thing again. He did it seven times, each time scraping off another layer of impurities, until he saw his clear reflection in the silver. God does that with us, too.”

  “Scrapes off the impurities?”

  “Yes. But he also puts us through the fire. What you’re going through with Keith is your fire, Paige. And what I’m going through. And what Jake’s going through.”

  Paige tried to follow. “So you think he’s making these things happen so he can
get the impurities out of us?”

  “Maybe he didn’t make them happen, but he’s using them,” Lynda said. “And with each trial, we get stronger and purer. And he sees more of his reflection in us.”

  “But people don’t always get closer to God when they suffer.”

  “True,” Lynda said. “Sometimes we cling to those impurities, and we’re impossible to refine. But I think God keeps working on us. And sometimes he has to take everything we’ve got to make us notice him.”

  Paige was quiet for a moment, and finally she looked up at Lynda. “Is that what you think he’s done with Jake?”

  Her eyes drifted to the window again. “I think that’s what he’s done with me,” she whispered. “Whatever he’s doing with Jake, that’s between Jake and God. All I know is that whether God caused or allowed the crash to happen, it happened, and here we all are in this house together. And I don’t think it’s an accident.”

  Jake struggled to get himself into the tub and onto the bench that Lynda had left there for him so that he could take a shower. But once he got there and turned on the water, pleasure burst through him. He hadn’t had a private shower since he’d gone into the hospital. An orderly had taken him into one in a wheelchair every day for the last couple of weeks, and he’d felt degraded and embarrassed to let a stranger help him with such intimate needs. Now he was on his own, and as difficult as it was, it was worth the effort.

  Getting out, his hand slipped on the rail and he fell, but he quickly pulled himself back up into his chair. He could do this, he told himself. He could take care of himself. He didn’t need nurses and aides and orderlies to wait on him hand and foot.

  He rolled back into the bedroom and gathered his clothes from the drawer. Allie had been working with him to teach him to dress himself, but it was still difficult getting pants legs up, and putting the socks on was almost too much. He looked around, wondering where Lynda had put his Birkenstocks.