God's Gift

  “It’s a walk in the park compared to what you’re dealing with.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. At least I can clear my schedule to deal with this. Have you been able to clear your weekend to give yourself time to sleep?”

  “James, I want to be here. I’ll sleep in, then come over.”

  “Not before noon. You need the sleep, Rae.”

  She reluctantly nodded. “Noon. I’ll stop somewhere and bring us lunch.”

  Saturday came. Four days and the pain was still excruciating. James shaved, having to pause frequently because his hand could not grip the razor. He hurt. Every joint, every muscle. He looked in the mirror and hated the fatigue, the pain. He had not been able to sleep, the pain was too intense, and his face showed it. Rae did not need to see him like this.

  He could hear his mom downstairs, moving around in the kitchen.

  He turned on the faucet, suppressing the pain from his wrists. It was wearing him down. Wearing down his ability to be optimistic about anything. How many times was he going to have to endure flare-ups like this? Each time it happened, his body took longer to recover. Longer to heal.

  Was this the time he simply wasn’t going to recover?

  He forced himself to move, to ignore the question.

  He was not going to let fatigue rob him of his optimism; he was going to recover, he had done it before, and he would do it again. Small step, by small step. He had made it upstairs today. It was progress. He smiled wryly. Just as long as he didn’t fall down the stairs going down.

  He was tired of this. Tired of being tired. Tired of being in pain.

  It was the last thing he wanted Rae to see.

  God, why this? Why now? I don’t understand.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table, glancing at the paper, eating an iced cinnamon roll his mom had recently taken from the oven, when the doorbell rang. James looked at the cane. His body protested at the thought.

  “I’ll get it,” his mom called from the living room. She had been cleaning his house again even though he had a cleaning service that came in each week. James had realized his mom was going to do what she decided to do and nothing would stop her. He had kissed her cheek and let her go to it. He was grateful for the love behind it.

  He knew it was Rae. He had told her to come over no earlier than noon and it was now five minutes past the hour. He got to his feet as she entered into the room, ignoring her “Don’t get up.” She had slept in, but not enough for what her body desperately needed. She looked…wiped out.

  “How are you?” she asked, stopping close to him, her eyes searching his face.

  He leaned forward to gently kiss her. “Better now that you’re here.” He meant it, even if his body ached at the movement.

  “Rae, would you like some coffee?” his mom asked. “I’ve got homemade cinnamon rolls, too. Fresh from the oven.”

  Rae pulled out a chair beside James at the table. “Both sound wonderful. Thank you.”

  James sat down carefully.

  “You didn’t get much sleep,” Rae said softly.

  James smiled. “Not much. But I don’t think you did, either.”

  She grimaced. “No.”

  He motioned to the paper. “It sounds like the markets finally had a quiet day yesterday.”

  Rae nodded. “Probably the prelude to a bad Monday. There is concern the economic numbers being released Monday morning will prompt a rise in interest rates.”

  He studied her face and saw in her eyes the fatigue that went too deep to cover, the exhaustion that made dealing with decisions so difficult you reached the point it didn’t matter anymore. She may have slept in, but stopping had just let the fatigue crash down on her. She ought to be back in bed, sleeping away the entire day.

  He hated this disease. She needed someone taking care of her, not the other way around.

  His mom brought coffee and the cinnamon rolls, then left them to talk. A few minutes later, James heard vacuuming upstairs.

  Rae ate the cinnamon roll slowly, trying to get a conversation started, trying to inject some emotion into her voice, but the exhaustion was too heavy. She would lose her train of thought and go quiet for increasing amounts of time. Just sitting down had made her body long to sleep.

  James pushed himself carefully to his feet, his ankles flaring with pain at the movement. He clenched his jaw and ignored the pain. “Rae, come on. The living room couch beckons.”

  She moved with him to the other room. He lowered himself down on the couch, using the armrest to keep the movement slow.

  Rae moved toward the chair and James stopped her. “Sit beside me Rae, please.”

  She was reluctant to do so, but he didn’t release her hand and didn’t give her much choice. She sat down on the couch beside him. He wanted her to rest, put her head against his shoulder and close her eyes, but she protested she was fine, just a little tired. He looked at her skeptically.

  She reached for the television remote. “Which college teams are playing today?”

  Discussions of a serious nature were not going to happen today. James reluctantly let the conversation change to basketball.

  His ribs hurt where her weight leaned against him. She had been farther away on the couch and he had intentionally maneuvered her closer so she leaned against him and he could put his arm around her. It took twenty minutes, but the pain won the contest of wills. He was at the point of having to ask her to shift away from him when he saw her try to unsuccessfully stifle a yawn. He pulled a couple of throw pillows over. “Rae, stretch out on the couch and get comfortable. I won’t mind if you catnap for a while.”

  She turned to look up at him. He could see the fatigue shadowing her eyes. “You don’t mind?”

  He tenderly brushed her cheek with his hand. “I don’t mind,” he reassured softly. “Come on, stretch out.”

  She moved away from him and the pain in his ribs began to ease. Her shoes landed on top of each other on the floor and she stretched out, using the pillows he offered to rest comfortably against the other end of the sofa. “Thank you, James.”

  “Close your eyes and try to get some more sleep,” he whispered.

  Within ten minutes he could hear her breathing become steady and low as she slept.

  It felt good, it felt right, to have her relaxed with him. He muted the basketball game, then leaned his head back against the cushions, and watched her sleep.

  They had to do something about the hours she was working. She couldn’t keep up the pace, not when she was this exhausted.

  “Rae, I understand. Don’t worry about it. Go meet with the clients then call me when you get home.”

  He was going to miss not having dinner with her, but it was probably best today that her work had intruded. He was stretched out in the recliner, looking at the bird that had come to check out the bird feeder, waiting for the medication to temper the ache in his body. It had been fourteen days since the relapse began, and even the careful exercises in the pool each day were agonizing. The doctors had come up with nothing that could even check the damage. His joints were inflamed, his muscles burning. He lost more and more mobility each day.

  Dave knew, but with Rae it was a carefully laid out cover-up. She was worried enough about him that it was important to try to hide the worst from her.

  He had watched her over the past two weeks, moving toward the point of being close to collapse herself. She was not getting the sleep she needed. She was worried about him, trying to make time in her schedule to come over and help him, doing it at the expense of her sleep.

  He hated the situation. He hated it with a passion.

  He wanted to be well. He wanted to be able to be the one to go to her place, fix dinner for her, take care of errands for her, help ease the pressure on her. Instead, this disease was ensuring he was adding to the stress she was feeling.

  He spent the evening reading a book, often pausing to set the book aside, to lean his head back, think, pray.

  If he didn’t be
gin to recover soon, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. But he couldn’t do this to Rae. He couldn’t let this disease end up affecting her health as well. He refused to let that happen.

  It was a quarter to eleven at night when Rae rang Dave’s doorbell. He came down the steps from his studio office, flipped on the porch light. He saw her and flipped the locks open. He was still in sweats from an evening playing basketball at the gym.

  She didn’t apologize for the hour. Their history went back many years. He knew, without being told. He took her jacket and draped it over the stair railing, then put his arm around her as he walked her to the kitchen.

  “You look…tired, my friend.”

  She took the soda he offered. “You understate things very well.” She took a long drink. “Can you get me tickets to San Diego for tomorrow morning, return flight Sunday night? Lunch and dinner reservations at a quiet, elegant place conducive to talking serious business?”

  He looked at her and she let him see the truth, let her mask slip to show the reality going on.

  “I’ll be glad to Rae. Find a comfortable spot on the couch, relax. I’ll make a few calls.”

  He joined her in the living room twenty minutes later, handed her a piece of paper from his desk stationery.

  Rae glanced at it wearily, knowing it would be complete, finding it was. A limo to pick her up from the office, first-class seats there and back, restaurant reservations, hotel accommodations, Dave had arranged it all, or rather one of his contacts had. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  He handed her two business cards. “They are good. Use them if you need them.”

  Two attorneys, both top names in the business. Men you didn’t just make appointments with; they picked their clients.

  “The numbers are their direct lines. They will make themselves available.”

  Rae nodded, knowing it would be true. “Thanks, friend.”

  “You’re going to sell.”

  She leaned her head back against the cushion, looked at the ceiling. “I’m going to…consider the possibilities. The Hamilton trusts are not definite, but the indications from dinner tonight are positive. I’ve got to have help, Dave. Good help. Since I can’t find the right partner with the business at twenty-six million, I’m going to do my best to make it a business of seventy million and see if I can get either Richardson in Texas or Walters in New York to move. They are the only two men whose track records and style fit what I really need. But if neither one of them works out—” she sighed as she looked at the page of notes “—then yes, I’m seriously considering selling the business.”

  Dave rubbed her hand which was clenching and unclenching around the throw pillow she had picked up. “Rae, Gary is a good guy. He’ll make you a fair offer, he’ll keep your employees, he’ll do good for your clients. There could be worse solutions.”

  She heard the reluctance in his voice. “You don’t think I should sell.”

  “I think you’re going to really miss the work.”

  She sighed and looked at the page of notes again. “I know. I’ve told myself for months that I would do it only as my literal last resort. But I’m close to being there, friend.”

  “You’re tired.”

  She laughed. “I can barely remember the last day I felt rested. I don’t want this anymore, Dave. I don’t want the responsibility and the fatigue and the hours. I’ll find a partner, or I’ll face the reality and sell.”

  James touched the tile wall of the pool, let himself finally stop. Five laps. It wasn’t great, it was a long, long way from fifty laps, but it meant he was finally back to a four on his scale of pain. He let the water float his body as he tried to catch his breath. A month. It felt like an eternity.

  He had begun to privately wonder if the recovery was ever going to come. It was a battle to keep hope alive and at the same time try to accept and live with reality.

  He would take Rae to dinner tonight to celebrate.

  The idea brought a smile. She had been traveling on weekends this past month—San Diego, Texas, New York—business meetings with outcomes she remained noncommittal about. He had missed her, missed the Saturday afternoons spent together, the rare chance to see her without the burden of work pressing on her.

  The past month had simply reinforced how important she had become in his life. It was one of the reasons he had struggled so hard to keep hope alive. If he didn’t recover, they didn’t have a future together. That reality had made him willing to push through the pain and endure the toll the exercises took. There was finally a glimmer of hope, and it was time to celebrate.

  Rae’s office was less than twenty minutes away. He felt like making the request in person.

  Janet pointed him toward the trading room with a smile.

  “Hey, lady,” he called softly, pausing at the door to watch Rae. Her attention was so focused on the information in front of her, his words startled her.

  “James!”

  He loved the sight of the smile that lit her face. She was glad to see him and it made him very glad he had come.

  She crossed the room to join him at the door. “What are you doing here?”

  He leaned forward and softly kissed her, watched the blush spread across her cheeks. “Want to go out to dinner?”

  “I would love to.”

  “When should I come back and pick you up?”

  She looked back at the screen she had been studying, bit her bottom lip. “Give me twenty minutes and I can wrap this up for the night.”

  “You’re sure? Don’t hurry on my account.”

  She grinned. “Twenty minutes. Can we do Chinese?”

  He laughed. “Yes.”

  They ate at the restaurant across from the office complex, a leisurely dinner, the conversation moving from Dave and Lace, to church, to her work.

  She was close to signing a major new client and as he listened to her he heard the excitement, but inside he wondered if it was a good decision for her to make. A new client would increase her workload, increase the demands. He didn’t understand entirely why the idea appealed so much to her. But it did, and he was not one to limit anyone’s dreams—certainly not Rae’s. It mattered to her, so it mattered to him.

  He had been about a week premature in his decision to celebrate. By the end of the dinner, he was reluctantly ready to admit it was time to go home and rest. The pain was back, strong and fierce, ugly.

  “Come on in, Rae. The door is open.”

  It was easier to call than to walk. His ankles were protesting even this journey to the kitchen. The hint of a recovery had been more of a wisp of hope than reality. Six weeks, and the pain in his joints was still severe.

  The room vibrated to life with her entrance. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were pink. “James, I got the contract. I’m going to be managing the Hamilton estate, and all its various trust funds.”

  “Rae, that’s great,” James said, pleased for her. He handed her one of the sodas he had retrieved. She accepted it from him with a thank-you and spontaneously reached forward to hug him.

  She pulled back. “What kind of pizza…?”

  He hadn’t been able to mask the pain in time.

  She took a hesitant step back and her eyes suddenly widened.

  “It hurts when I hug you,” she said, the appalling realization shaking her voice. “Oh, James. I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”

  He saw the look of horror fill her face, and then she turned abruptly and hurried from the room. He didn’t have the luxury of being able to hurry after her. By the time he reached the door she had fled through, her car was already pulling from the drive.

  Rae opened the door for him, her eyes red, her face pale. She looked at him and he looked just as seriously back at her. “Can we talk?” he finally asked.

  She swung open the door and walked toward the living room.

  James set his wallet and car keys down on the end table. She had moved to stand by the window, her arms wrapped around her middle. He
stopped by the end of the couch and looked at her. It was better if she spoke first. It was a long wait.

  “I wish you would just say when something causes you pain.”

  She was trying so hard not to cry….

  With a deep sigh, James crossed over to her side. He had never intended this.

  She didn’t want to look at him.

  He tipped her chin up. “It hurts when you hug me, but I’m not going to let a little pain rob me of the pleasure. I love it when you hug me. I don’t want you stopping to think before you hug me. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  He wiped away her tears. “Rae, I like your hugs.”

  It took several moments before she replied. “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She carefully wrapped her arms around him. “It feels so awful to realize I was hurting you.”

  He gently brushed her hair back from her face, settled his arms firmly around her waist. “Rae, it would hurt me worse to have you stop.”

  He held her for a long time, relieved to have her back.

  He leaned down and gently kissed her. “Are we okay now?”

  She sniffed a final time and nodded.

  “Good. Then how about going out for that pizza?”

  It made her laugh.

  “Uncle James, I helped make the rolls. They are really good.” His niece met him at the door, sliding her hand in his, smiling. James propped the cane in the umbrella stand. He thought he could get by without it today.

  “That’s great, Emily. You’re going to become a great cook like your grandmother.”

  “She made clam chowder. Do you like it?”

  “Love it.”

  Emily’s grin widened. “So do I. We’ve got turkey and dressing, and my rolls, scalloped potatoes—my mom made those—that green stuff I like, homemade noodles, and for dessert there’s pumpkin pie, apple pie and chocolate pudding. I can’t wait for lunch.”

  James laughed and tickled her tummy. “Where are you going to put all that food?” He wished he could pick her up. He knew better than to try.

  “In my hollow leg,” Emily replied, giggling.