God's Gift

  For the first time, James was starting to understand some of the complexity in the lady he had met. “She’s using work to cope with the grief. That’s not unusual, Lace.”

  “She’s at the office at 5:00 a.m., doesn’t leave until 7:00 sometimes 8:00 p.m. She makes Dave and me look like loafers. We haven’t been able to shake her out of that routine.”

  “How much money is she managing?”

  “About twenty-five million for thirty clients,” Lace replied. “It could be seventy million if she said yes to even half the offers she gets.”

  Rae was driven by her own internal standards of excellence. Watching her with her book had shown James that. Add that kind of money to the equation, it was no wonder she was responding in the way she was. “She’s good at what she does.”

  “Rae and Leo were the only money managers in the Midwest to have beaten the S&P 500 every year for the last seven years. Rae did it again on her own last year. She’s on track to do it again this year. She’s good. But her heart’s not in it, James, not like it used to be.”

  “It would be a big risk to sell the business, walk away, Lace. You said yourself she’s not going to easily take that kind of risk.”

  Their serious conversation was broken up by a shout of laughter from the pier.

  “Dave just threw Rae into the lake,” Emily told them, racing past. “She really needs my towel.”

  Lace got to her feet. “Excuse me, James. On behalf of my out-of-commission, best friend, Rae, I’m going to go help Dave join her.”

  “He’s crazy to take both of you on.”

  “That’s why we love him,” Lace replied with a grin. “Keep what I said to yourself, okay? Rae’s opinion about her work is different than mine.”

  “I will. The background helps, Lace.”

  She nodded, looked down at the group by the pier. “Mind if I borrow your flashlight?”

  He handed it to her. “Just don’t hit him with it.”

  She grinned. “I’m more refined than that. I think I’ll suggest a late-night boat ride and let him swim back to shore.”

  The cabin was quiet, except for the sounds of the night drifting in—the soft sounds of rustling leaves, the distant call of an owl.

  James had long since given up on trying to sleep. He lay in bed listening to the night, thinking, working out construction plans for the clinics he was going to build in Zaire.

  He had loved the past weeks in the States with his family, his friends, but his heart was in Africa with the work that needed to be done. It was comforting to be able to focus on that and lay his plans. He would be able to hit the ground running when he got back in late August. They should have the first of the four clinics built and equipped by early November, the next one by the end of the year.

  He needed to see about getting the equipment for the clinic expedited while he was in the States. A face-to-face meeting would ensure the urgency was understood.

  He moved to shift the quilt and felt a familiar hot pain course through his elbow. He frowned, annoyed.

  He had stopped asking God to heal him. He understood his Scripture, he understood the power of persistent prayer. He also understood the reality that nothing was going to stop God’s plans from moving forward, not lack of money, not lack of building materials, not lack of government signatures, not lack of physical health for him. God knew what he needed and by when. James had stopped worrying about it. He had seen too many miracles in the last six years as God brought all the right pieces together for him to even worry about this need.

  It would be nice, however, when he didn’t have to fight this pain every time he moved.

  He was on a vacation. He hadn’t had one in six years. He was going to enjoy it and let tomorrow take care of itself. As long as the vacation was temporary.

  This was nice, but it wasn’t his dream.

  He wanted to be back in Africa.

  The sound of running water made him tilt his head to the side on the pillow, listen more closely to the sounds from inside the cabin. Someone was up.

  He listened for the light steps of Emily or Tom to come back down the hall but heard nothing. Someone else was up at 3:00 a.m.? He had been the one to lock the cabin, set the dampers on the fireplace, turn off the lights at midnight. Everyone else had already turned in.

  Not concerned, but curious, and wide awake anyway, James dressed in his sweatshirt and jeans.

  Rae was curled up on the couch in black sweats, a book in her lap, a drink beside her on the table.

  “Care for some company?”

  She looked up, surprised. “Come on in, I didn’t realize you were still up.”

  “I could say the same thing about you.”

  “Catnap. It’s really annoying to wake up at 3:00 a.m., wide awake. Normally I would find a financial report to read, but the cabin doesn’t run to anything that dry. No use waking up Lace with my restless turning.”

  James settled into the chair opposite her. “What did you find?”

  She glanced at the spine of the book. “Biomechanics of the Human Hand.”

  “I’d say that qualifies as light reading,” James replied, tongue-in-cheek.

  “Actually, it’s quite good. Some of their math is wrong, however. I spent twenty minutes looking at their torque calculations because I didn’t understand their answer, only to realize they made a mistake in their math. It makes sense now.”

  “Let me guess, you took engineering classes as electives.”

  She grinned. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “No,” he replied, chuckling.

  It was a nice time to talk, the dead of the night, no hurry to give a fast answer, no reason to break the silence until a new question occurred. Rae asked about the work in Africa, and James relaxed, enjoying the chance to talk about it.

  He asked her about work, and while she hesitated to answer at first, she was open and frank in what she said. He had heard Dave and Lace talking, had his conversation with Lace to go on. He knew how hard the past year had been on her. He avoided asking about Leo and she never volunteered his name.

  Even so, he learned a lot, both about business and about Rae.

  “What are the critical few pieces of information that drive your decisions? The day-to-day trading trends? The company earnings reports? The industry segment? The overall economy?”

  “Most of the planning I do is around the company’s ability to increase market share. That’s the critical factor for knowing which companies I want to recommend. The right price to buy is driven by an analysis of the books and the style of management—are they aggressive in growing the business or conservative? How well do they use the assets they have? A company with small reserves but a willingness to use them is invariably a better buy than a company with large reserves that passes up opportunities. When to sell is a crap shoot—I know the fundamentals, but it’s hard to judge how far the market will take a stock that is rising beyond what its fundamentals can support. Invariably, I sell too soon.”

  He listened to her, observed her and he realized something. Rae on her own turf, in her domain of expertise, was decisive, clear and confident. She loved the analysis, being able to make the call with confidence, having the facts to make the right decision. Her job perfectly matched her talents and gifts. She was known as one of the best at what she did because she was one of the best—others could only imitate what came to her intuitively, naturally, by instinct.

  “No, a red card does not mean it is a diamond,” Rae informed Dave, picking up the cards, overriding his appeal that he had won the hand with a trump card. “A bluff only works if the other person buys it.”

  “Face it, Dave, I can read you like an open book. I knew you didn’t have it,” Lace told him, smirking.

  “Lace, you can’t be successful all night,” Dave replied, tossing a piece of popcorn at her.

  James had figured the bridge game would be a serious event. He should have known better.

  The ladies were killing them.
br />   Rae had managed to bluff and win two hands and Lace had just nailed the ladies’ second hand.

  Tom, acting as Lace’s partner, finished scoring the hand. “Lace, you really are good.”

  “Thank you, Tom,” Lace said, pleased.

  Rae shuffled the cards with the ease of someone who had handled a deck of cards for years. “Want to cut?” she offered Dave.

  He offered the cards to Emily, sitting beside him.

  The little girl grinned.

  Rae dealt the cards, a flip of her wrist landing the cards directly in front of each person at the table. “Your bid,” she told James.

  “Two clubs.”

  Dave and Lace ended up going head to head again, both holding the last of the trump cards.

  Dave laid down the three of hearts. “Sorry, honey. You’ve been got.”

  Lace laid down her last card with a smile. “You need to count better, friend.” The five of hearts.

  Rae burst out laughing at Dave’s expression.

  “Next year we’re going to play Monopoly,” Dave told Lace, as Rae collected the cards.

  “I would love to be your landlord,” Lace replied, grinning.

  “Rae, mind some company?” James asked quietly, stopping at the bottom steps to the pavilion. The bridge game had concluded a little over an hour ago. He had left Dave and Lace haggling in the kitchen over the best way to reheat spaghetti left over from dinner, and come out to walk along the lake before turning in for the night. He had thought Rae had already gone to bed, instead he found her sitting alone in the pavilion, looking at the water.

  Tomorrow they would be packing up and heading home.

  “Come on up,” she replied, her voice quiet.

  He touched her shoulder as he reached the bench.

  She was cold.

  He slipped off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

  “Thanks.” She buried her hands into the warmth, one last shiver shaking her frame.

  “You should have come back to the cabin for a jacket.”

  “I didn’t realize I was this cold.”

  James settled on the bench beside her, pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The water was tranquil tonight, the moonlight reflecting off its surface, dancing around. A multitude of stars were out. Nights in Africa had been like this—panoramic in their display.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly. She didn’t disappear in the middle of the night without something driving her actions.

  She eventually sighed. “I don’t want the vacation to end.”

  He turned to look at her. There was so much sadness in her voice. “Why, Rae?” he asked gently.

  “I’ve enjoyed the last several days working on the book. I don’t want to give it up.” She leaned back, looked up at the stars, a pensive look on her face. “It’s simple to say I’ll make time to write when I get home, but the reality is, there won’t be time. There is so much work to do, it’s overwhelming.”

  “You’re tired.” Tired of the pace of life, tired of the weight, tired of carrying the responsibility, tired of being alone…. How well he understood tired.

  She sighed. “In three days, this will all be only a distant memory. I’ll be living on adrenaline again, going from one crisis to another.”

  “Rae, you can change it. The schedule is reflecting your choices.”

  “I have a responsibility to my clients to see that the job is done well. I’ve been looking for someone to step in and help manage the business, looking hard, but it just hasn’t happened yet.”

  He knew what it felt like to be the one carrying the responsibility to make sure a situation worked out. You did whatever had to be done, it was that simple. The early days in business with Kevin, most of the last six years in Africa…a commitment was kept, even if it meant long hours and a lot of lost sleep. But the doctors had been pretty frank—they didn’t think his symptoms would be as severe had he not been pushing himself so hard for so long.

  “I’ve watched you this week. You’re one of the best planners I have ever met. You can manage the business until you find someone. Just don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. Set some limits, do what you can and walk away from it,” he advised, wishing he had learned to heed his own advice at some point in his past.

  “I’ve never learned how to walk away and really leave my work at the office. It’s been haunting my sleep the last few months,” she admitted quietly. “I don’t want to go back to that, James. It’s not worth it.”

  How he wished he could take away the burden or make it easier to carry. Words were such a limited help.

  He thought about how dramatically the past five months had changed him. He had that to offer, the reality of what it was to know the tasks exceeded the resources to meet them. “Rae, I’ve had to learn the hard way that you have to accept and live with the limits you are dealt. You’re going to have to set limits around how much energy you can pour into work, how much stress you can carry. When you reach your limits, walk away. The world won’t stop functioning if you take twelve hours for yourself.”

  “No, I might only lose my client’s shirt.”

  He smiled. “Somehow, from what I hear, I doubt that is very likely. You’ve got to learn, Rae, that taking a break is just as legitimate a use of your time as continuing to work.”

  She sighed. “I feel guilty when I leave a job unfinished.”

  How well James understood that guilt. “Believe me, I feel the same way. Limits are never easy, but Rae, in the long run, they prove their worth. Maybe I’m fortunate with this illness to have at least learned that. My body no longer allows me to exceed my limits. It forces me to stop and rest. I wish it would do it in a somewhat less drastic fashion—the pain and fatigue are intense. But it’s made me learn to set priorities for what I will use my energy to do.”

  “It’s come down to prioritizing good versus good. I can either ensure the day-to-day decisions are right and on time and risk sacrificing the big picture, or I can focus on the future analysis and risk the day-to-day trading. It’s a no-win situation,” Rae said.

  James stopped his train of thought, realizing something. “Rae, do you like your job?”

  She was surprised by the question. Surprised enough to stop and think about it before she tried to answer it. When she did, her answer seemed to surprise her. “I want time to work on the book. I want time to spend with friends. I want the job, but not at the expense of those two needs.” She smiled. “Ambivalence. I never thought I would feel that about work. In the past, it’s been the passion and driving goal of my life. I don’t know when it disappeared.”

  “Leo’s death,” James said softly.

  She thought about it. “No. It changed before that. The day I said yes to going out with Leo. What I wanted in my life changed. I’m good at the job, I just don’t want it to be the only thing in my life anymore. I shifted gears inside to planning for a marriage and a family.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know what I want anymore.” She considered that statement for a moment. “Yes I do. I want Leo back.”

  He liked her honesty, her ability to be frank. “It’s tough to adjust when you know what you want isn’t going to happen,” he commented, knowing some of what it felt like from his own frustration with this medical furlough. “Figure out a way to put time into your schedule to write, to spend time with Lace. Reevaluate what you think about work when you’ve fixed those problems,” he suggested.

  She really did love her job. He was convinced of that. She just needed it to be her job again, instead of her life. Rae was tired, but the love of the job was still there, buried under the weight of the responsibility she was carrying.

  “I’ve been trying to think about ways to make my time during the day less fragmented—the trading is a reactive job, something I didn’t have to deal with before. That’s what’s killing my ability to do the analysis work. There has to be a way to improve the situation.”

  James was grateful to hear some of the
tension had left her voice. “You’ll find it, Rae. Think of it as a puzzle to solve.”

  She laughed. “A puzzle called Rae’s Day on the Job. That’s what it is, too, a problem to be analyzed and solved. It can’t continue as it currently is.”

  “I hate to be the one to suggest this, but it is getting late. We had probably better turn in for the night.”

  She had yawned twice and her face was showing her weariness. She needed to be in bed.

  Rae nodded, pushing herself away from the bench. “Thanks for being willing to talk work, James. I know it’s not the most interesting subject.”

  He smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s a good chunk of your life right now. I’m interested.”

  “Why?”

  “Just because,” James replied, dropping his arm around her shoulders as they walked back to the cabin.

  He stepped back as they entered the back door, let her precede him. Patricia had put the kids to bed a while ago. Dave and Lace had turned in; the cabin was quiet. “I’ll see you in the morning, Rae. Sleep well.”

  He was surprised by her attempt to contain a smile. “You, too, James. Good night,” she said softly.

  It was as he was climbing under his covers that James realized he’d been truly enfolded into this close-knit family of friends.

  They had short-sheeted his bed.

  Chapter Five

  Fifty laps. James touched the wall, breathing hard, and let the water lap around him as he let his body relax. His endurance was back. His body ached, not with pain, but with the exertion of a good workout.

  Smiling, pleased, he swam at a leisurely pace to the ladder.

  He was over the worst of the symptoms.

  Eight weeks of a lot of sleep, a lot of medicine, and careful exercise had paid off. His joints no longer ached.

  He had already talked his next step over with Kevin. He thought his body was ready to tackle a building project again. It was time to know. Three weeks working on a house with Kevin would tell him if he was right.

  The smell of chlorine was strong in the air as James crossed the tile deck to the chair where he had left his towel and locker key. The health club was surprisingly empty for a Thursday afternoon. A glance at the wall clock showed he had just enough time for ten minutes in the whirlpool followed by a quick shower before he needed to leave to pick up Dave.