The truth was that she’d just quit caring. She hadn’t cared about her relationship with God or her friends or her family. She hadn’t cared about anything except her job and that plane. Not in a long time.
Like Peter after he’d denied Christ, she wept bitterly, brokenly, not expecting God to recognize or comfort her, not expecting his peace—
But suddenly it came.
Her tears slowed, her sobbing stopped, and she looked up at the dove on the window and felt his slow, warm, forgiving embrace welcoming her home.
Instead of remorse, she felt hope. Instead of shame, she felt purpose. It wasn’t too late.
For a moment, she sat still in her wheelchair, her head bowed, her eyes closed. For the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, she listened.
And God spoke.
In that still, small voice that could be so easily ignored, so quickly forgotten, so often dismissed as nothing more than an idle thought, he reminded her to whom she belonged.
And with that reminder came a flood of determination finally to do something about it.
But what?
She thought of Abby, offering to wash her hair after working a twelve-hour shift, because she couldn’t lift her own arms. That was faith in action, wasn’t it? It was giving of yourself when you got nothing back. It was stretching out of that comfort zone, even when you got cursed at.
The new Lynda would do better, she promised as she sat before that altar. She would stretch. She would grow.
And filled with a renewed spirit and a peace that gave her strength, she felt a sudden urgency to go back to her room and get started.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
She wasn’t dead.
He had been there when the plane crashed. He’d been standing at the fence, watching like a curious spectator as the plane circled overhead and the ground crews scurried around in a panic. It had made the news on all three local channels and even got a mention on CNN.
He had watched as the plane descended at the end, had held his breath as it had spun. He’d seen both wings breaking off, metal flying, glass breaking—and he’d been sure that he’d succeeded, that it was impossible for anyone to survive that.
But the paramedics had moved too quickly, and when the plane had ignited, she was out of its range. He had watched, troubled, as the ambulances blared past him, carrying both passengers to the hospital.
Still, he’d seen the blood, and he had believed that the injuries would be too great, that she would die en route or on the operating table or later in her room.
But no. She was not only still alive, but she was also doing well. No lasting impairment. No permanent damage.
It was a failure. But it would not be repeated. Next time, she would not escape.
All he could do now was bide his time and wait until the right moment. It would come soon enough. And then his problems would be over.
Then he could finally get on with his life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
The orderly who came to get Lynda from the chapel had a cautious, compassionate demeanor, and Lynda wondered with some embarrassment if Abby had warned him of her emotional state. As he wheeled her toward the elevator, he made light conversation.
“It’s gonna rain again today, looks like. And, of course, I left my umbrella in the car. Isn’t that always where it is when you need it? But I don’t get off till three. Maybe I’ll miss the storm.”
The elevator doors opened, and he wheeled her on. “Oh, I was supposed to tell you that there’s somebody here to see you. She’s down in the first-floor lobby.”
“Who?” Lynda asked, straining her sore neck to look up at him.
“I didn’t get her name,” he said. The doors opened, and he rolled her off. “She couldn’t come up because she has a kid with her. They won’t let her past the first floor. I told her you would call down when you were back in your room.”
Paige. Lynda grabbed the wheel to stop the chair and looked up at him. “I have to go down,” she said. “I have to go see her.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it?” the orderly asked her. “You look tired.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Really. It’s important.”
An alarm sounded, and two nurses bolted around the desk, running toward an emergency. “I can’t take you,” he said. “I have to help with this.”
“It’s okay. I can make it. Go ahead.”
The orderly rushed off behind the nurses, and quickly Lynda rolled back onto the elevator, ignoring the pain in her ribs when she used her arms. One crowd of people on the cramped elevator commiserated about a grandfather and a heart attack; another couple at the back cried softly and whispered together. Pain all around me, Lynda thought. Pain and desperation. How can I have floated through it for so long, not seeing any of it?
The moment the doors opened, she saw Paige across the plush maroon-and-gray lobby and pushed toward her. She was sitting on the couch, rocking Brianna back and forth gently. Her clothes were rumpled and wrinkled, and her eyes were swollen, as if she hadn’t slept in days.
“Paige?”
Paige looked up quickly. “Lynda!” She sprang to her feet and rushed to help her. “Oh, I didn’t expect them to send you down here! I was going to call you when you got back to your room. Oh, I’m so glad you’re alive! I didn’t see how you’d survive, and when I called Sally today, and she told me—”
“It could have been so much worse,” Lynda cut in, smiling at the child whose thumb had gravitated to her mouth at the sight of the bruised, cut-up woman wheeling toward her. “I’m really doing pretty well. How are you, Brianna?”
The little blonde girl took her thumb out of her mouth. “Fine. Did you hurt yourself?”
“Yes, a little. But I’ll be better soon.”
“Did you fall down?”
“Way down.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Bad. But I’m okay.”
“But you look ... terrible,” Paige said. “I mean, not really terrible. . . . Just . . . ”
“Like I’ve been in a plane crash? That’s okay, Paige. I’m just happy to be alive.”
Tears came to Paige’s eyes, and she sank to the couch again. “I’m happy you are, too, Lynda. For really selfish reasons.”
“What’s wrong?”
Using her fingers, Paige combed her fine blonde hair back from her face and held it in a ponytail. “Keith was at my house when I went home last night,” she blurted. “He was in there waiting. I saw his car in the driveway, and I kept going. I haven’t been back.”
“Did you call the police?”
She let the ponytail go, and her hair fell around her face again. “I called, but he was gone before they got there. I can’t believe they have to catch him violating the order. Do they think he’s stupid enough to be caught?”
“Where did you go, Paige?”
“To a motel. But I don’t have much money left, and then this morning—” Her voice broke off, and she covered her mouth. Sensing her mother’s despair, Brianna climbed onto Paige’s lap and put her arms around her mother’s neck to comfort her. The sweet gesture only made Paige wilt more.
Lynda pulled Brianna gently away. “Honey, see that book over there? Why don’t you go get it and look at the pictures?”
“The Winnie the Pooh one or the Barney one?” Brianna asked.
“Barney,” Lynda said.
The child considered that for a moment. “No, Pooh.”
Lynda smiled faintly as Brianna gave her mother one last look, then scurried to the table with the books. Paige watched her every step of the way.
“Then what, Paige?” Lynda asked. “What happened this morning?”
“I couldn’t take her back to day care, because he had been there yesterday. I was afraid he’d take her, Lynda, so I took her to work with me. And my boss came in and saw her, and he—he fired me.”
“You lost your job?”
“Yes,” she crie
d softly. “I might have all of forty dollars left to my name, and I’m afraid to go home.” She looked at Lynda, her eyes pleading. For what, Lynda suspected even Paige didn’t know.
Lynda took Paige’s hand. “Sally told you that I’m keeping your case, didn’t she?”
Paige nodded. “Yes.”
“As soon as I get back to the room, I’ll call her and get her to file a motion to get us before a judge so we can tell him Keith violated his order—”
“No,” Paige cut in. “That won’t do any good. It’ll just make him mad.”
“It doesn’t matter, Paige. If he realizes he won’t get away with it—”
“If they put him in jail, he’ll get out in a couple of days. He’ll come after me, Lynda. I’m afraid of him. All I want is my court date so we can get the custody hearing over with and have his visitation denied so I can take Brianna someplace where he’ll never find us—”
A man walked past the place Brianna sat reading. Springing from her seat, Paige dashed to her daughter. “Brianna, honey, bring the book and sit by me.”
“Okay.” Brianna followed her mother back to the couch and climbed up next to her. Paige put her arm around her, as if only by touching the child could she be assured of her safety. Weary, Lynda realized that a court date could still be weeks away, and the woman had no livelihood and was living in terror. If Lynda hadn’t left so much of her case to chance, it might have been over by now.
Lynda dropped her head into her hand, wrestling with the emotions she knew were on her face. “Paige, I hope you’ll forgive me for letting you down.”
“Letting me down?” Paige asked. “You haven’t let me down. You’re the only lawyer who would take me.”
“No,” Lynda said. “I have let you down. I could have pressed for a court date earlier. I could have paid more attention to your case.”
Paige was silent for a moment, obviously confused about what to say.
“I want to make it up to you,” Lynda whispered. “I’ve just been in the chapel, trying to sort things out, and I’m starting to see that I haven’t been a very nice person.”
Paige shook her head adamantly. “No, you’re the greatest, Lynda. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“That’s sweet,” Lynda said, but she wasn’t buying. “I want to help you for real this time. Somehow I feel like if I do, I’ll be helping myself, too.”
“But you are helping me.”
“No,” Lynda said. “Not really. But that can change. I want you to stay at my house.”
Paige caught her breath. “No, I couldn’t. Lynda, representing me for free is enough of an imposition.”
“It’s not an imposition. It’s a favor,” Lynda said. “Please, I want you to. My house is just sitting there, and Keith will never think to look for you there. I’ll get Sally to get you some money out of my account, so you won’t have to worry about your job or about Keith until we get into court.”
Paige was stunned. “But that’s too much, Lynda. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” Lynda said. “Please, Paige.”
“But why? I’m just a client. You hardly even know me.”
Lynda paused and tried to find the right words. “Because your hair doesn’t need washing.”
Paige breathed a laugh. “What?”
“It’s something I can do, Paige. Something besides sitting here and worrying about you. Please.”
Paige stared at her for a moment as fresh tears came to her eyes. “I can’t believe you’d do this.”
“Then it’s yes?”
Paige shrugged and looked down at her daughter. “Yes, I guess so.”
“Then I’ll go call Sally right now. She has a key, and she can let you into the house. There’s food there, but she’ll get you some money out of my account, so you can get anything else you need. Meanwhile, I’ll make some phone calls. We’ll get someone to go to your house and get your clothes and whatever else you need. Just don’t tell anyone where you are. If anyone needs you, they can go through me or Sally.” When Paige still didn’t respond, she asked, “Does this sound all right to you?”
Paige surrendered and relaxed, her gratitude evident on her face. “Yes,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
As Lynda rode the elevator back up to her room to call Sally, she told herself that she should have offered Paige this kind of help weeks ago. It wouldn’t have hurt her at all, and it would have made a world of difference in the young woman’s life.
She only hoped she had the fortitude now to finish what she was starting.
Two hours later, Lynda was still on the phone when Sally came into her room. She whispered that she was on hold, and Sally set her hands on her plump hips and glared at her. “The nurse told me that she’s calling the doctor to fink on you. She said you’d been either out of your room or on the phone all day. Lynda, if you don’t stop this, you’ll never recover.”
Lynda put her hand over the receiver. “It takes my mind off my ribs. Did you get Paige situated?”
“Of course I did,” she said. “I got her the money and gave her the key. I put them in one of the guest rooms, in case you ever get out of here. But at the rate you’re working, that’s not looking good. Who are you holding for?”
“Steve McRae.”
“Keith’s attorney? Oh, good. He ought to be a big help. He’s the one trying to take that beautiful little girl away from her mother.”
“He needs a warning,” Lynda said. The Muzak on the phone stopped as someone picked it up, and Lynda raised a hand to silence Sally.
“Lynda?” the attorney asked in a voice that seemed a little too cordial.
“Yes, it’s me,” she said. “I need to talk to you about your client, Keith Varner.”
“What a relief to hear your voice,” he said. “I saw the crash on the news last night. I have to admit, I thought it would be a while before I’d hear from you again.”
“Sorry,” Lynda said in a saccharine voice. “No such luck. I am still in the hospital, which gives me all the time in the world to work on Paige Varner’s case. And I called to tell you to warn your client that his harassment has got to stop.”
“What harassment?”
“For starters, he tried to take Brianna from day care, despite the restraining order, and he broke into Paige’s home—”
“Give me a break, Lynda,” the man cut in, dropping the cordiality. “You know as well as I do that he has a key. It was his home.”
“Was being the key word. She was granted possession of the house in their divorce, and the restraining order stated that he wasn’t to come near it. And as for Brianna, until we see him in court, he isn’t to go near her either.”
“Put yourself in his place,” the man said. “He hasn’t seen his daughter in over a month.”
“You’re right. Not since he bashed her mother’s head into the wall and knocked her out.”
“Her word against his. He contends that she knocked him out when he was defending the child from one of Paige’s rampages.”
Lynda saw now what she was dealing with. “I’ll have him arrested, Steve. If he comes near her again, I’ll use every resource I have to get him locked up. Tell him.”
The man sighed. “Anything else?”
“Yes. I’m going to appeal to the judge for a court date as soon as possible. I won’t let you keep dragging this out.”
“No need,” the man said. “I got a date this afternoon. Despite what you might think, we’re anxious to bring this to a head, too. It’s October 14.”
“That’s six weeks away!” she said. “We need it earlier.”
“Too bad. That’s as early as we could get it.”
She sank back onto her pillow and closed her eyes. “Six weeks is a long time, Steve. Tell your client that he’d better be on his best behavior during that time because I plan to pull out all the stops when we get into court.”
“Good luck,” he said. “You’re gonna need it.”
She heard the phone click in her ear, and slowly she dropped it back in its cradle and collapsed into her pillow.
“Good going,” Sally said. “You told him.” She looked at the color draining from Lynda’s face and said, “Now will you get some rest? Paige and Brianna are safe, you have a court date, Keith’s hand has been slapped—All is well with the world. Please, just get some rest before the nurses convince the doctor to sedate you.”
“All right, Sally,” she said, already feeling herself slipping away. “Maybe for a minute.”
That night, true to her word, Abby came down from ICU with a cart made especially for washing hair and had Lynda lie down with her head over the small tub full of warm water. Gently, carefully, she washed Lynda’s hair, methodically pulling more tiny chips of glass from her scalp as she did.
“It’s a wonder you could sleep with all this glass in you and your hair all matted like this,” she said. “Wasn’t it hurtin’ you?”
“Sure, it was,” Lynda said. “But I thought the pain was just from the cuts.” She closed her eyes as Abby poured more warm water over her head. “I thought they got all the glass out in surgery.”
“No, child,” Abby said. “It’s hard to get it all, and the nurses don’t have that kind of time when they’re on duty. But we’ll get every piece tonight if I have to work on it till my shift tomorrow.”
Lynda opened her eyes and gazed up at the woman. “Why would you do this?”
Abby smiled. “Because it needs doin’. We’re supposed to wash each other’s feet, but I figure washin’ hair is just as good.”
The tear that rolled from Lynda’s eye disappeared into the water Abby poured over her hair.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
There was little relief for Jake in being moved out of ICU to a private room on the orthopedic floor. He was still flat on his back, unable to sit up or stand, unable to take care of his own bodily functions without help, and his hope of being released from this place was as dismal as his hope for the rest of his life.