Evidence of Mercy

  “Brianna likes her Sunday School class,” Paige said. “Don’t you, Brianna?”

  Brianna nodded and finished her mouthful of potatoes. “Are we going back tonight?”

  Paige gave Lynda a questioning look.

  “If you want to,” Lynda said. “I’m going, and I’d love for you to go with me.”

  “Can we go every day?”

  Paige laughed. “No, honey. They don’t have it every day.”

  Brianna looked perplexed at that.

  “So what did they teach you in there?” Jake asked for the sake of conversation.

  “About Jesus making people well.” Her eyes brightened, and she began to get excited. “And there was this guy like you, Jake, and he couldn’t walk, only they didn’t have wheelchairs then—”

  “She asked,” Paige interjected with a smile.

  “But he was lying down by the beautiful gate, the man was—”

  “The name of the gate was Beautiful,” Paige clarified.

  “And you know what happened?”

  “What?” Jake asked, getting uncomfortable.

  “Some of Jesus’ friends came and told the man to stand up, only he couldn’t stand up, but they took his hand like this—” She slid down from her chair and went to take Jake’s hand to demonstrate. “And he said—what did he say, Mommy?”

  “Rise and walk,” Paige said.

  “Yeah!” Brianna said. “He said, ‘Rise and walk,’ and you know what the man did?”

  Jake withdrew his hand and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to know what the man had done. He didn’t care because it had nothing to do with him. But the child waited beside him, bursting with excitement, and he knew she wouldn’t back down until he took the bait. “What?”

  “He got right up, and he could walk!”

  Jake glanced at Lynda, who was smiling proudly at the child’s enthusiasm, and he wondered if they’d rehearsed it in the car. He didn’t like being talked about behind his back, and in his opinion, the story they’d chosen was particularly cruel. He didn’t appreciate it.

  “That story is in Acts, isn’t it? And who gave him the power to do that, Brianna?” Lynda prompted.

  “Jesus!” she said. “Jake, why don’t you do it?” When he didn’t answer, she shook his arm. “Jake?”

  “I heard you,” he said, staring down at his food. “I heard every word.” He looked up at Lynda and Paige. “Nice try. If I recall, there are stories in there about people’s eyes being gouged out, too. You want to lay one of those on me?”

  “Jake, come on,” Lynda said. “We didn’t plan this.”

  Jerking his napkin out of his lap, he threw it on the table and started to back out of his place.

  “Jake, what’s a matter?” Brianna asked in her high-pitched voice.

  “Nothing’s the matter,” he said, glaring at Lynda again. “You know, it’s reprehensible to use a child to deal a low blow like that.”

  Lynda’s face showed the full force of her anger. “Oh, right. Riding home in the car today, I asked Paige what we could do to really twist the knife in you. We came up with that story, and Paige said, ‘I know! Let’s use Brianna!’ It was a clever plan, Jake, only you’re too smart for us.”

  Confused at the exchange, Brianna sat back down, still looking at Jake, and said softly, “I asked Jesus to make you walk. Didn’t I, Mommy?”

  Paige put a protective arm around her daughter. “Yes, honey. You sure did.” Her voice hardened, and she leered at Jake. “She told the whole class about you, Jake, and we all prayed for you. I don’t know how you can turn this into some kind of conspiracy.”

  A host of emotions did battle on his face. “I don’t need your prayers.”

  “Well, you’re getting them anyway,” Lynda said. “Powerful ones. Jesus said that children’s angels always see the face of God.” She looked at Brianna. “That means that God listens extra carefully to the prayers of children.”

  Jake, too, looked at the baffled child staring up at him with those big, questioning eyes.

  “If that’s the case,” he said, “then where was God when her dad was abusing her? If God’s paying special attention to the children, why do so many of them have to suffer?”

  And Lynda knew that they weren’t just talking about Brianna any more. They were talking about Jake.

  Trying with all her might to fight her anger instead of Jake, she lowered herself back into her chair. “God got her out of there, didn’t he? He used her mother to protect her.”

  “Why didn’t he protect her before anything ever happened?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of evil in this world, Jake. God didn’t cause it. And we don’t know how he’s working in suffering children’s lives. We don’t even know how he’s working in our lives.”

  “Then you’re contradicting yourself again, Lynda. Out of one side of your mouth, you tell me this beautiful idea about children having angels with access to God. And out of the other side, you say that it really doesn’t make that much difference because God can’t protect us from evil.”

  “I didn’t say that he couldn’t. God can do anything.”

  “Oh, I see. He just won’t.”

  Paige’s hand came down hard on the table, startling them all. “That’s not what she said, Jake, and you know it!”

  “It is what she said.”

  Lynda started to speak, but Paige stopped her. “You have a lot of nerve, you know that?” she said. “All she’s done is take care of you, be a friend to you, feed you, give you a place to live—and you still keep throwing her kindness back in her face!”

  “Paige, it’s all right,” Lynda said quietly.

  “No, it isn’t!” she said. “And as for God, he has protected Bri-anna. He’s protected me, too. He gave us Lynda, and a place to live, and a means to get away from Keith. And he even made it so I didn’t have to worry about money or a job or anything while I’m waiting to go to court. And I know he’s going to take care of that, too. I know because he’s taken care of everything else.” Tears choked her, and she stopped, trying to steady her voice. “You know, you’re not just blind in that one eye. You’re blind in both eyes if you can’t see that God is providing for you, too. If he didn’t care, you’d still be in the hospital right now, and everybody would be trying to figure out what to do with you!”

  Brianna started to cry. Picking her up and hugging her close, Paige went on. “Or worse. You could be just like you were before the accident, walking around on two good legs with two good eyes, worshiping that Porsche of yours and in all your vanity and arrogance, be even more blind and crippled than you are now!”

  Lynda collapsed back into her chair and covered her face, uttering a silent prayer that whatever happened, the outcome of this wouldn’t be as bad as she anticipated.

  Paige stormed from the room, carrying Brianna, and silence fell over them as Jake sat motionless in his wheelchair, avoiding Lynda’s eyes.

  She rubbed her hands down her face and looked at him over her fingertips. “Jake, I’m sorry.”

  He started rolling his chair toward the door. “I think I’d better go now.”

  “But you didn’t finish eating.”

  “I’m not hungry,” he said quietly and left the house.

  Back in his room, Jake pulled himself onto the bed and lay flat, looking up at the ceiling. Tears rolled down his temples, and he wondered why he felt as if he were drowning in that waist-deep pool with legs that served only as cement weights to pull him under. Why did he try to pull everyone else down with him?

  Restless, he sat up, wiped his face, and pushed his legs over the side of the bed. His eyes strayed to the drawer in the table beside his chair where she’d put that Bible. He pulled it out and began flipping through it.

  Acts, she’d said. He found the book then turned the pages, looking at the topic headings for the one about the crippled man being healed. He was almost surprised when he found it.

  He began to read the
third chapter aloud:

  One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon.

  Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.

  When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.

  Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!”

  So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

  Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

  Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong.

  He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

  Jake stopped reading as tears dropped onto the pages of the Bible, and he wondered why that passage affected him so. It was just a story. But it was his story. He could have been the man who’d “been put” at the gate to beg. In many ways, he was “put” here to beg from Lynda for the food and the shelter he needed. His pain was the same as that of the man who was so desperate, so alone that he had to cry out to everyone who passed to help him.

  Funny how quickly pride could vanish when you were desperate.

  His eyes strayed out the window to that red Porsche sitting like an indictment in the driveway, and he knew that Paige was right. In some ways, he had been just as crippled before the accident as he was now. He clenched his teeth. He’d rather be figuratively crippled than physically crippled any day.

  He looked back at the Bible. Why had Peter and John cared about the man? Why hadn’t they just stepped over him and forgotten him? Why hadn’t they averted their eyes? Why hadn’t they just thrown money at him?

  He didn’t know the answer, any more than he knew why Lynda had helped him. And Paige was right. He continually threw her kindness back in her face. It was a hobby, challenging her beliefs, but he’d learned already that he wasn’t going to shake them. Lynda knew what she believed. He, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue.

  But as the afternoon passed, he continued to read. Maybe he would find out.

  When someone knocked on his door two hours later, he’d already finished the entire book of Acts and had turned back to Matthew. But he didn’t want Lynda to know it yet. Closing the book, he stuck it back into the drawer then went to answer the door.

  Paige stood there, her arms crossed in front of her, and she gave a stab at smiling. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he said.

  She swallowed and looked down at her hands. “I just came to tell you I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blown up at you like that.”

  “Yes, you should have,” he said. “You were absolutely right, and it needed to be said. I owe you an apology.”

  For a moment, she seemed unsure if he was mocking her. “Really?”

  “Really,” he said. “It’s all right, Paige.”

  She laughed softly. “And I was so nervous about coming over here. I figured you’d never speak to me again, but I wanted you to come for supper. It’s just leftovers, but you liked what we had today. It was cut a little short, but—”

  “I’ll be there,” he said. “Is Brianna up?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “She just woke up from her nap.”

  “Maybe I’ll come over in a little while and play with her. Let her know I’m not a total jerk. Maybe thank her for praying for me.”

  “She’d like that.”

  He closed the door and sat for a moment, surprised at how good it felt to make someone smile.

  Maybe the day wasn’t turning out so badly after all.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  * * *

  The burning had spread partially up Jake’s calves by the next morning. Allie and Buzz didn’t want to put him in the pool again so soon, but when he managed to move one foot at the ankle, they gave in to his pleading.

  Determined that he would stand this time, he moved between the parallel bars, got his feet into place, and tightened his gluteals.

  “That’s good,” Allie said. “Real good.”

  “Just watch the knees,” Buzz told him. “Keep the stomach from bowing out. Easy now.”

  Focusing hard, Jake got his knees to lock. It took a moment for him to realize that he was standing. He looked up at them with something close to terror in his eyes.

  “I’m doing it. I’m standing!”

  He would have paid money for the look on Allie’s face as she realized that he really was.

  “Buzz, he is. He’s standing!”

  “All right, Jake. Let’s see how long you can do it.”

  Already he felt the energy seeping out of him, and he knew he couldn’t hold the position for long. “I feel so heavy,” he said. “And wobbly.” He looked up at the joy in both their faces. “But this is the beginning, isn’t it? I’m gonna walk again.”

  “Looks like it, man,” Buzz said. “I’d bet money on it.”

  His PT’s confidence was what Jake had waited weeks to hear, but now that he had, exhaustion kicked in, and he deflated like a balloon losing its air.

  “That’s okay,” Allie assured him. “You were up for about thirty seconds. That’s great.”

  “But you’re sure it means I’ll walk.”

  “It means you’ll be able to get around on your legs. You might need crutches or a cane or walker, but—”

  “No,” Jake cut in. “I’m going to walk on my own. You’ll see. It’s gonna happen.”

  No one tried to dampen that enthusiasm as he worked toward doing that for the rest of the day.

  Jake decided not to tell Lynda about his progress; he wanted to surprise her when he took his first steps. When the doctor declared that Jake’s eye was healed enough to have his prosthesis put in, he decided not to tell her about that, too. It would be more rewarding to see the surprise on her face. After she dropped him off at the hospital for therapy, he got Buzz to drive him to the optical center where he’d be fitted for his eye.

  He was mildly surprised as he wheeled himself into the shop with hundreds of pairs of glasses on the walls and posters that advertised contact lenses. “I thought this place would seem more—medical,” he told the receptionist. “I didn’t know you could pick up an eye like you’d get a pair of lenses.”

  “Well, there’s a little more to it,” she said, pushing his chair into the back room where Dan Cirillo, the optician, waited. “But probably not as much as you’d imagined.”

  He wasn’t expecting to have the eye made while he waited, but that was Dan’s intention. After they’d taken the impression of his socket, Jake waited for the wax model of his eye to be made, and sat in front of the optician and allowed him to use his other eye as a model while he painted a little disk to match Jake’s iris. When that was done, the wax model was ready to try on, and Dan checked its fit.

  Jake thought it odd that he couldn’t feel it. Pulling it back out as easily as he would a contact lens, Dan said, “Okay—go on back to therapy for a few hours, and by the time you’re done, your eye should be ready.”

  Buzz brought Jake back that afternoon, and Dan greeted him with a plastic, painted model. “So what do you think?” he asked.

  Jake cringed. “No way. That’s not gonna look normal.”

  “Wait and see.”

  Dan put the eye in, then tested the movement. “It’s perfect,” he said. “It moves right along with your other one. I think you’re really gonna be happy with this.”

  He handed Jake a mirror, and bracing himself, Jake brought it to his face. The eye looked identical to his other one, and he felt a rising sense of relief that the man in the mi
rror looked more like the Jake he used to know than he had since the crash.

  He blinked, testing it and then moved his eyes back and forth to see how it felt.

  “What do you think?”

  Jake’s smile spoke volumes. “I think I’m amazed.”

  Jake wasn’t wearing his patch when Lynda picked him up that afternoon, and she gaped at him as he got into the car. “Jake, why didn’t you tell me?”

  His grin almost split his face. “I wanted to surprise you.”

  She couldn’t stop staring. “Look at me. I can’t even tell which eye is false. It looks just like your other one!”

  Still grinning, he leaned over and planted a quick kiss on her lips. The look on her face told him she was stunned, and he began to laugh. “It’s back. The old mesmerizing charm. I hypnotized you with my baby blues, didn’t I?”

  “Well, I—”

  He kissed her again. “See? I’ve still got it.”

  Shaking her head, she started to laugh. “It’s like a whole personality change.”

  “It’s hope, darlin’,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “Just pure, colorful hope. I might just wind up with a life after all, now that I don’t make people cringe when they look at me.”

  Still laughing, she started the car. “So are there any other surprises?”

  “You mean, am I gonna lay one on you again? I don’t know,” he teased. “If I were you, I’d keep my guard up.”

  He enjoyed the pink color that faded across her cheekbones as she drove and realized what a joy it would be when she finally did learn of the other surprise he hadn’t told her. He had stood outside the pool this afternoon on both feet without holding his weight up with his arms. He was ready to walk, he thought. It was just a matter of time. In a very few days, maybe he’d be able to walk out to the car when Lynda came to get him. The look on her face would almost make all the misery he’d gone through worth it.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  * * *

  When Lynda announced that she was going back to work on the following Monday to prepare for Paige’s deposition a few days later, Paige was concerned. Lynda still had yellow bruises on her cheekbone and forehead, and last night Paige had caught a glimpse of Lynda dressing. Black bruises still colored her ribcage, and Paige could only imagine the pain that Lynda had been suffering without complaining since the crash.