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“Come on, Kitty. Just another two sips, ok? Two sips and we can be done.”
Susannah wiped her forehead. It was thirty-one degrees outside, but her pits were slimy with sweat.
She raised the formula bottle to her sister’s lips. “Just a little more. You can do it.”
Kitty made a move like she was about to gag.
“None of that now.” Susannah sounded sterner than she intended. She wiped some of the dribbled formula off her sister’s chin, trying to maintain a gentle touch that would conceal her impatience and irritation.
God, I know that in the grand scheme of things it really shouldn’t matter whether it takes her ten minutes or an hour to drink this bottle, but can you please help her get through it a little faster?
The worst part was that Susannah’s hurry was completely unfounded. It wasn’t like she had anywhere to go. Derek would stop by later with a few bags of groceries, Susannah would try to offer him twenty or forty dollars which he’d refuse, and that would be the extent of her interactions today with anyone else besides her sister.
Would things be different if she hadn’t cut off all communication with Scott? Maybe. In the short term, it would be nice to have someone to talk to about her day. Another sound to listen to at night besides her sister’s gurgled snoring.
But in the end, it was best to call things off when she did. With his heart on the mission field and Susannah stuck here in Orchard Grove, there was no way to pretend it was possible for them to forge a future together.
Better to cut him off now. Let the pain of losing him merge and morph into the grief over Mom’s death. Like getting all four wisdom teeth pulled on the same day instead of dragging it out one or two at a time.
She and Scott could never be together. Their fate was sealed the moment Mom left home to buy that friendship bread starter. Even if Susannah hadn’t broken up with him, even if they’d kept on talking for months or even years, it would only make their inevitable separation that much more unbearable.
God, I’m so glad you didn’t allow us to meet face to face. All those disappointments where I couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t let us come together when we wanted ... I’m sorry I didn’t thank you for those things at the time. I see now that you were being gracious to us all along. That you were protecting me from falling even more in love with him because you knew it would make things that much harder now.
“Come on, Kitty,” Susannah whined and tried to coax one more sip out of her sister. “You’ve got to drink a little more to stay strong and healthy.”
If Susannah had inherited anything negative from her mother, it was her propensity to worry. Cold and flu season was the worst. Last spring, a lingering cough threatened to develop into pneumonia, and Kitty still hadn’t recovered by the time Susannah was supposed to start her internship with Kingdom Builders.
Another example of God’s intervention on her behalf.
Of course, she and Scott were already intimate at that point. Already talking about love and romance and an eventual engagement in spite of all of her mother’s admonitions to take things slowly. Susannah had been disappointed when she couldn’t spend the summer overseas like she planned. Still, through it all, she had smiled, thanked God she was able to spend extra time with her sister, whose strength returned steadily day by day, and she’d sent Scott emails each evening to fill him in on Kitty’s improving health.
There was no rush. She and Scott had all the time in the world. At least that’s the lie she believed when life felt so full, the future so promising.
“Ok, last sip.” She held the bottle up but didn’t recognize Kitty’s pre-gag warning signs in time to move out of the way. She tried not to grimace when hot formula and stomach acid spilled onto her arm.
“It’s ok,” she said, even though she was sure Kitty was paying more attention to her incriminating body language than her actual words. “It’s ok,” she repeated. “Let’s get you cleaned up and go listen to an Odyssey together.”
Susannah turned her back to her sister, forced down the annoying lump in her throat, and stifled a silent cry of frustration.