Mark stepped into the hospital hallway. He wished for a quiet place to hide, to pray, for the fluorescent light above his head to stop buzzing.
Her face. My God, her face. He leaned against the wall, the tile behind him cool against his palms, and closed his eyes. Trying to forget the sights of the day. Amanda in the fetal position balled on the apartment floor. Begging him to help her and save the baby.
He’d never felt so inadequate. So helpless. Never had he felt so far from God. Crazy thoughts raced through his mind, hymns and verses jumbled together. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. How precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. The red against the white of her thigh. Sin and sacrifice, paid for in blood.
Her face, in the hospital, paler than the pillow. The checks from her gown dancing in front of his face. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. Copper hair twisted around her.
I am looped in the loops of her hair.
He’d asked, “How are you feeling?” A stupid question.
Two single tears began to flow out her eyes, taking on speed and strength to course down her cheeks. She didn’t brush them away and they pooled, sacred springs of sorrow wetting the sides of her temples.
She held his hand like a lifeboat line, thin and slipping, holding so tight her knuckles whitened.
Then he heard the words come out of his mouth. God’s will. Best. They tasted like bitter death on his tongue, and he watched them fall on her. Making the darkness in her eyes grow, as if way in the back a light had been extinguished.
He’d meant to soothe her. To put a balm on the hurt. Instead, he fouled the room with his presumption, poisonous and painful.
She rolled to her side, slowly, heavily, a ship tipped over in deep waters, and she didn’t look at him again.
The tap of his dress shoes had sounded his defeat as he left the room to seek sanctuary in the too bright hall.
He imagined he appeared to be a grieving father, leaning outside her room, industrial bulbs highlighting him like a halo. Only he knew, he was a man afraid of the darkness in himself, of that tiny part glad this happened. Wicked, evil relief that the path to his own desires, his own will, had suddenly become clearer.
A nurse passed by with a squeaky cart and Mark wanted to hush her. To tell her people were sleeping, and could she keep that racket down? He glared after her, following the squishy steps until his gaze stopped abruptly on an incongruous sight.
James Montclair, his tie askew, drinking coffee in the waiting room. He must have sensed Mark’s stare as he looked up from the magazine in front of him and put the drink down.
Standing frozen, Mark watched as his best friend, his mentor, his enemy, stood to meet him. The stifling atmosphere of the hospital unable to contain the glory of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church’s senior pastor.
Mark thought at that moment he might truly hate James Montclair for coming here, now.
“Hey, buddy,” James called out, striding forward. A nurse’s aide watched with appreciation as he passed her desk.
“Hey.” Mark felt like he’d been run under the tires of an eighteen-wheeler for about four months now, and couldn’t help but feel James had done the driving.
“How is she?” An ID tag dangled from James’s neck. The caption, printed under his photo, stated LIVING IN GOD’S GRACE.
“Not good,” Mark said. “What’re you doing here?”
“Hospital rounds. You know, the usual. Saw your name on the board, thought I’d wait. They wouldn’t tell me anything. What’s going on?”
Mark didn’t even try to pretend. “She lost it.”
“I’m sorry.” James lifted an awkward hand, as if to pull Mark for a hug, but patted his shoulder instead.
“It’s okay.” Mark shrugged away. “God’s will and all that.” Punishing himself with the words. He looked at James. “Frankly, I’ve got no idea what God wants. From me or anybody else.”
To his credit, James didn’t appear shocked. “I know how you feel.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, a study in rumpled elegance.
Mark raised a brow at him.
“Sarah lost one, three years ago.”
“I didn’t know.” You never said.
“Yeah, it was pretty rough. On everyone.”
They sat in silence a few minutes, contemplating the name board on the wall. So many people, in little rooms. Bright pink ribbons with bears dangled on some doors. Mylar balloons proclaiming IT’S A BOY! on others. And a few plain, like Amanda’s, where no tiny cries echoed inside. Just pain-a silent flood, building, threatening to spill out onto the antiseptic hall and over the joy of the surrounding patients.
“Hey, I’ve got something for you.” James withdrew his wallet. He produced a folded piece of paper, upon which his neat handwriting spelled out a name and number.
“‘Ervin Plumley’?” Mark read it aloud.
“Old friend of mine. Played ball for him in college. He’s running a church in the Panhandle. Small, community-type. Needs an associate, and I told him about you. You might give him a call.” James gestured toward Mandy’s door. “When you’re ready.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready,” Mark admitted. “I’m thinking about getting out of the ministry altogether.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” James said.
Mark fiddled with the note in his hands. He looked at James. “Does he know?” He indicated the paper. “Did you tell him about the baby?”
“That’s not my place. Just think about it.”
Mark put the number in his suit pocket.
“Listen,” James said. “Can your former pastor give you one last bit of advice?”
Mark nodded.
“About God’s will. It’s as much a mystery to me as anybody else. But I can tell you this …” James looked Mark full in the eye. “God knows what it is to have a child die.” He paused, giving weight to his words. “And I don’t believe he’d wish that on anyone.”
James Montclair did pull Mark into a hug then. The preacher gone and the mentor’s arms around Mark, his friend. “Take care, buddy. Take care.”
IN THE THOMPSON garage, Ben Thompson, immense gut hanging over faded Levi’s with the loops popped off, stirred the boiling pot like a tobacco-chewing wizard. Flames from the outdoor cooker, a wrought-iron instrument attached to a propane tank, cast a rosy glow to his complexion. “Come here, Mark. Need your help. It’s time for the malt.”
Mark rose from his position on the dusty Coleman cooler. Amanda slept inside, Dragonlady hovering over her, with the men relegated to the outdoors. Or the garage anyway.
Obedient, Mark got the big plastic spoon, and stood at attention next to Ben.
“Now stir fast, try not to let any stick to the bottom. It’ll burn if it gets stuck. Don’t want a charcoal taste.” Ben poured the thick caramel-colored liquid into the unfurling steam. “Smooth and steady, there you go.”
Malt dissipated in the water, making a rich brown liquid. “Smell that?” Ben sniffed theatrically, the aroma like hot, sweet cereal. “Amber ale. Gonna be a good one. Ready in time for the season opener. Nothing better than a cool one and a kickoff.”
Mark murmured his agreement, still stirring.
Ben shuffled over to the garage refrigerator, a nonreturnable olive green that Katy had deemed “horrid” upon delivery, according to family lore. The door opened with a shlooping sound when the airtight seal popped, and refrigeration poured out like fairy frost. Bottles tinkled in a mismatched melody as Amanda’s dad dug for a specified brew.
Back at the pot with two bottles, Ben used his key chain to pry off the lids then handed one to Mark. He paused to take a deep sip and Mark did the same.
“How’s the job search?” The folding chair groaned under Ben’s weight.
“I’ve got a few more interviews lined up next week. Katy’s been a big help,” Mark said.
“I bet. Her web knits far and wide through the greater Houston area.” Ben gestured with his drink, arcing from corner to corner, invoking a horizon image.
“I wouldn’t have these contacts without her. My résumé doesn’t exactly scream ad exec.”
“You know”—Ben stared into the bubbling pot-“you don’t have to go where she tells you.”
Mark bristled. “I’m not. I think the agencies would be a good start for me. And when Amanda gets well, maybe she can go back full-time.”
“What about that job in the Panhandle? With Ervin whatshis-name?”
“Plumley. Ervin Plumley. In Potter Springs.”
“That’s the one. Ever call him?”
“Just to check it out.”
“Nice guy?”
“Ervin? Yeah. Seems like it anyway. Retired coach, real enthusiastic. Said he needs somebody pretty soon. Before the board changes their mind about the position.”
“How’s the pay?”
“Okay. But they’d give us a house, and the cost of living’s low.”
“Sounds like a pretty good deal.” Ben accentuated this observation with a hearty belch.
“Maybe. But it’s too far. And Mandy…” Mark looked at the house, his wife hidden inside like some sort of a wounded Rapunzel. “Like I said, I’m making a change.”
“I don’t know about you,” Ben said. “But me, I’d take my bride and get the heck out of Dodge. Make a real change. Start your own lives. Away from”—he stared at the screen door-“outside influences.”
Mark thought of Amanda, ensconced inside her pink ruffled room, Katy running interference and keeping him at bay. He wondered when he’d get to bring his wife back home. The tiny apartment they could no longer afford as his severance dried up like rain in the Houston heat. “You trying to get rid of me?” Mark took another drink.
“No, son. Trying to help you. Besides, aren’t you from the Panhandle? Lubbock, right?”
Not technically the Panhandle, but close enough. “Yep.”
“So, in a way, it’d be like going home.”
Home. To windswept plains and broad fields of dancing yellow grass. Sky wrapped around the earth like a quilt, thin and high. Weather riding up like a herd of horses, clouds thundering in, seeing lightning from forty miles away. A land where sunsets were gifts brought from afar in colorful and glorious splendor.
No city smog, no traffic, no mother-in-law or failed ministry. A new start.
With no history. No credentials.
Mark shook his head, the idea too overwhelming to be tempting. “I can’t think about moving right now. I’ve got enough on my plate getting Mandy better. Finding a job.”
“In advertising.”
“Yes.”
“Sales and things.”
“Along those lines.”
“Sounds fulfilling.” Ben revealed no hint of sarcasm. “Really working with people.”
Mark’s heart twitched. A whisper of the call tickled his spine. He felt no call at all to advertising amongst the slick and shiny. But maybe that’s what he’d been doing all along.
He sighed. “Enough already. I’ll call Ervin, see if the job’s still open. But I’m not promising anything.”
“I’m not the one you owe your promises.” Ben creaked out of the chair to check the simmering brew. “She’s inside. And she needs you now more than ever.”