Thanks, Sandi.” Rebekah grabbed her overnight bag from the back of Sandi’s Jeep. Bear ran to meet her, his tail wagging. “Thanks for watching the shop too.”
“My pleasure.”
“Do you want to come in?”
Sandi shook her head. “I’m going to stop by John’s. He has dinner ready.”
Rebekah leaned against the seat. “You just said there’s nothing going on with you two.”
Sandi shrugged. “There isn’t.”
Rebekah shook her head and smiled. “Right. Well, hopefully, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She slammed the door and turned toward the house. Bear stayed between her and the fence. “What is it, boy?”
The back door flew open. “Mom, we saw the cougar!” Pepper ran out on the deck in her socks. “Bear chased it for a really long time.”
Rebekah cringed. “I didn’t think it would come back.”
Elise stood at the door. “How was your trip?”
“Fine.” Rebekah followed Pepper through the door, dropped her bag, and then whispered to Elise, “I’ll tell you later.”
“What did Grandma and Grandpa send me?”
“Send you?”
“Me and Reid. They always send us stuff.”
“Not this time, sweet pea.” Rebekah hadn’t thought to buy them gifts at the airport.
Pepper’s face fell.
“Pepper, please take off your socks.” Elise stood at the sink and scrubbed a pot. “You’re tracking all over the floor.”
“Oops,” she said, peeling her socks from her feet. “It’s the second pair I’ve gotten wet tonight.”
Rebekah patted Pepper on the head. “The kitchen looks great.”
“Elise did a ton of work.” Pepper wadded her socks in her hand.
“You shouldn’t have.” Rebekah hung her coat on the rack.
“I didn’t do that much.”
“How close was the cougar?” Rebekah put her purse on her desk.
“In the field. Bear chased it back into the forest,” Elise answered.
Reid sauntered into the kitchen. “Hi, Mom.”
Rebekah hugged him, pulled him close. “Take my bag upstairs, would you?”
“Pepper, please go tell Mark and Michael to come down.” Elise dried the pot. “Patrick called,” she said to Rebekah.
“Figures.” Rebekah slipped out of her blazer.
“Reid told him you were at your parents’.” Elise dried her hands. “Patrick said he had tried your cell.”
“He did. About a million times.”
“He also tried your parents. I ended up telling him you were in Nevada; I couldn’t lie.” Elise hung the towel on the refrigerator handle.
Rebekah pulled a chair out and sat down at the kitchen table. “I’ve made a mess of things.”
“Patrick will understand once you explain.”
“No, he was right. I shouldn’t have gone. It was too much to ask of Polly. Life is too hard for her. I was only thinking about my own desperation.”
“And Pepper’s needs.”
Rebekah rested her chin on her hand.
“When does Patrick come home?” Elise asked.
“Tomorrow.” Rebekah bit the scar on her lip. “Unless he takes a late flight tonight. Elise—” Rebekah wanted to ask her about trust. Did she trust God to take care of Ted? to take care of her and the boys?
Pepper pranced back into the room. “Mom, I have a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday.”
“Really?”
“They left a message. It’s at 2:15.”
Rebekah checked the calendar. “Reid has a basketball game that afternoon.”
“He can come to our house before the game,” Elise said.
“I wonder if I can get Sandi to watch the shop again. I hate to keep asking her.”
“I don’t think she minds. If she does, John could watch the boys, and I can watch the shop.”
“Thanks.” Rebekah put her arm around Elise. “Thanks for everything.”
Elise hugged her back, a dainty hug, but still, it was something.
Rebekah headed up the stairs with a stack of clean towels that Elise had left in the dryer. All of the laundry was caught up for a few minutes, thanks to Elise, until the kids took their dirty clothes off. Rebekah couldn’t remember the last time she didn’t have piles of laundry to wash. Reid sat at his computer on the landing, and Pepper stood over him, both of her hands glued to the back of the chair.
“It’s my turn,” Pepper wailed.
“Use Mom’s computer.”
“It’s too slow.”
“It’s as fast as this one.” Reid slammed his back against Pepper’s hands and clicked onto his e-mail.
“I want to check my mail.” Pepper yanked her hands out from behind her brother’s back and planted them on her hips.
“Pepper, go downstairs.” Rebekah crammed the stack of towels into the hall closet.
“He always gets his way.” Pepper yanked on the back of Reid’s chair.
“I wish we’d never adopted you.” Reid stood and pulled the chair back toward the computer.
“Stop.” Rebekah stepped between her children. Why would Reid say that? “Pepper, go downstairs. Reid, you have five minutes.” Rebekah crossed her arms, opened her mouth again, and then closed it.
“You know what’s ironic?” Reid hunkered over the keyboard. “That Dad is a computer geek, and we have the slowest computers in the entire state.”
“Be thankful you have a computer.” Rebekah headed down the stairs.
Reid pushed back from the computer and stood over the railing. “Mom?”
“What, Reid?”
“Thanks for sticking up for me in front of Pepper.”
“Reid, that’s not what I did.” She climbed to the top stair. “And you shouldn’t have made that comment about wishing we hadn’t adopted Pepper. That’s hurtful.”
“You know what else is ironic?” Reid hunkered back down in his chair.
“What?”
“That Pepper thinks you favor me when she’s so obviously your favorite.”
“Reid, that’s not true.”
“Mom!” Pepper called from the kitchen. “Your computer just froze.”
“It’s time for bed anyway. Pepper, you can use this computer tomorrow,” she yelled, her voice growing shrill. She was too tired to deal with them for another second. She turned back to Reid. “I do not favor Pepper.”
“Do you remember when I wore my socks outside and you made me buy my own?”
She did. They were living in Portland, and he would run outside and shoot baskets in his stocking feet. “And?”
“Pepper wears her socks outside all the time, and you don’t even tell her not to.”
An hour later, after Rebekah had checked the horses and fed Bear, she pulled back the comforter. Clean sheets. Rebekah’s eyes filled with tears; Elise had done too much. Just as she settled her head on her pillow, Bear began to bark, and a car turned into the driveway. A door slammed.
Rebekah hopped out of bed and stood at the window. Patrick grabbed his laptop and bag out of the trunk and tipped his head back, scanning the house. Did he see her? Could she fake being asleep? She climbed back into bed.
He would double-check that both doors were locked, drink a glass of water, and make sure the dryer was off before coming to bed. Five minutes later she heard his footsteps on the stairway and then across the landing. “Rebekah, I know you’re awake.” He turned on the lamp. “All you had to do was answer your phone.”
She turned toward him. “I know. I should have.”
“I was frantic.” He sat down on the bed.
“I’m sorry.”
“You can’t imagine the things that ran through my head.”
Actually, she could.
He stood and hung up his jacket. “I thought we had decided we wouldn’t ask Polly about donating a kidney.”
“You decided that.” She sat cross-legged on the bed. “But I shouldn’t have asked Polly.”
Patrick’s hand froze on the top button of his shirt.
“You were right.” She knew he liked to hear those words, but she didn’t often say them. “I need to trust God for a kidney. I’m just not sure that I can.”
Patrick sat down on the bed. “Maybe it would be easier for you to trust if I stopped worrying so much.”
“I’m sorry.” He put his arm around her.
She shook her head and began to cry.
Patrick handed her a tissue and took her in his arms. “It will be all right.”
“I know.”
“Why are you crying?”
Rebekah shook her head. She leaned against his shoulder, soaking his shirt. Fear. That’s why she was crying. She was so afraid.
The smells of the shop comforted Rebekah—the Murphy Oil Soap she used on the old oak floors, the hint of coffee, and the crisp scent of paper. She flipped the sign from Closed to Open. Sandi had moved the patriotic section to the front. It looked good.
Rebekah turned on the computer to make fliers for the Thursday morning class and Midnight Madness. What should she teach on Thursday? Creating timeless albums? Was it possible? Pepper’s first album was full of gingham-patterned paper that Rebekah now despised, but maybe in another decade she would find it endearing.
Elise hurried by the window and through the door of the shop. “I had a few errands to run and thought I would stop by. How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Not so fine.” Rebekah opened Word to make the flier. “I’m in a funk.”
Elise unwound her green scarf from around her neck.
“Listen to what the transplant coordinator told me this morning.” Rebekah stepped away from the computer. “We were chatting on the phone about the list and surgery. She said that kidney transplants are considered elective.”
“What?” Elise held her scarf in midair. “That’s ridiculous.”
Rebekah continued, “You have to have a liver, pancreas, heart, and lungs to live, but you can survive on dialysis. So technically almost any surgery can bump a kidney transplant.”
“Except nose jobs, right?”
Rebekah nodded. “And liposuction.”
Elise unzipped her jacket.
“Oh, well, surgery is a ways off.” Rebekah shrugged. “Now we’ll wait and see what happens with the list and work toward dialysis, just in case.”
“Have you talked to Patrick?”
“I apologized. He came home late last night.” Rebekah leaned against the counter. “What are you up to today? Besides errands.”
“I’m going to volunteer in the library this afternoon—after I run into Salem to get money pouches for the boys to carry their passports.”
Rebekah picked up a box of Disney products off the floor. Maybe she could host a card-making class that would appeal to Pepper and her friends. “Check on Pepper after lunch, would you? We had a rough morning.”
Elise nodded and flung her scarf back around her neck.
Rebekah’s cell rang. “Mom, I’m not feeling so hot.” Pepper’s voice fell flat.
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t concentrate, and I feel kind of sick. And itchy.”
“I’m on my way.” Rebekah stuffed the phone into her pocket.
“Is Pepper sick? I can watch the shop while you go get her.” Elise pulled her scarf off again.
“But you need to get to Salem.”
“No. I can go tonight.”
“I’ll bring her here and see how bad she is.” Rebekah grabbed her purse and hurried out the door.
A few minutes later she stood in the middle of the school hall during passing period. Reid and Michael jostled each other.
He turned.
“Pepper’s sick.”
He shrugged.
“I came to get her.”
“She’s faking. She probably just wants to go shopping.” He hurried ahead, slapping Michael on the back.
Rebekah had volunteered in the school last year, but that felt like ages ago. She felt lost as she hurried into the office. “Hi, sweet pea. Do you feel like you can go back to the shop with me?”
Pepper nodded.
“How much water have you had today?”
Pepper gathered her coat and backpack. “None.”
“Did you drink much last night?”
“Not really.”
“What did you have for breakfast?” Rebekah led the way through the crowded hall.
“A donut.”
Rebekah stopped. “Where did you get a donut?”
“From Ainsley.”
“Pepper, you can’t eat that stuff. I thought you made yourself whole-wheat toast.”
“I didn’t have time to eat it.” Pepper wiggled into her silver ski coat as they headed out the front door of the school. “This morning was crazy.”
It had been. It had taken Rebekah a few extra minutes to pull herself out of bed and to wake the kids since they didn’t get up when their alarms buzzed. Then the drain on the trough had plugged, and water had spilled over into the field. Bear had rolled in the mud and then splattered Pepper while she let the horses out, so she had to change—all before the bus arrived.
“Let’s get you something to eat and plenty of water. You’re probably just dehydrated and overloaded with sugar.” Rebekah kicked through a pile of wet maple leaves in the parking lot and reached behind the driver’s seat of the truck for a bottle of water. She tossed it to Pepper. “I have oatmeal at the shop and some apples.”
Rebekah pulled onto Main Street. “Look, they’re putting up the Christmas decorations,” Pepper said, pointing ahead. “Who’s at the shop, Mom?”
“Elise.”
“That was nice of her.”
Elise was turning out to be a dependable friend after all. Rebekah smiled as she parked under a garland of greenery and white lights wound around the pole outside the shop.
Pepper turned around in her seat. “Dad just pulled up behind us.”
Rebekah climbed out of the truck. “How come you’re not at work?”
“I decided to take comp time.” Patrick pulled his jacket from the car. “What’s wrong with Pepper?”
“She’s not feeling well.”
“I had a donut for breakfast.” Pepper grabbed her backpack from the truck and headed into the store.
“Why did she have a donut?”
Rebekah opened her mouth and then closed it. “Never mind.”
“When is her next appointment?” Patrick’s pitch rose.
“Tomorrow.” Rebekah hit the automatic lock on her key.
Patrick opened the door to the shop. “I’ll take her.”
“You said you would stop worrying.” Rebekah lowered her voice. Pepper ran up the stairs.
“I’m not worrying.”
Would it make it harder for Patrick if he took Pepper? Would he start obsessing about what percentage she was at? where she was on the list? her diet and exercise? Rebekah turned toward her husband. “They’ll check her kidney function. We’ll know how much closer she is to dialysis. They’ll probably want to go ahead and put a shunt in her arm, just so she’s ready.”
“They’ll do the shunt tomorrow?”
“No. They’ll schedule that for later.”
“I’ll take her home now.” Patrick started toward the stairs. “Come on, Pepper.”
“Make sure she gets some good food.”
Patrick nodded. “How soon will she have to start dialysis?”
Rebekah shrugged. “Ask tomorrow.”