A Wish for Christmas (30 page)

All the customers in the diner were soon up and out of their seats and crowding around Trudy. Some asked to see the note. Others asked to see the car. Trudy went out to open it up and proudly showed it off.

“Hey, what’s going on here? Don’t you want your food anybody?” Charlie chased after the crowd, carrying cheeseburger specials in each hand.

He carried the dishes all the way to the open door but couldn’t lure his customers back inside. The place had emptied out, except for Reverend Ben, Grace, and Digger.

Ben stood by their table, looking out the window. “The Secret Santa strikes again. Never seen anything like it,” he murmured.

“Yes, he did.” Digger nodded heartily. “You never know when it’s going to happen. You never know to who . . . But we don’t want any thanks. That would ruin it.”

“What are you talking about, Dad?” Grace countered, quickly trying to cover up for him. She hoped Reverend Ben hadn’t been listening to her father’s rambling confession. The Reverend looked deep in thought, staring at the blue car and the crowd outside. She couldn’t tell for sure if he had heard or not. She cast Ben a helpless glance. “I don’t think he should have waited so long for his lunch. He seems a bit light-headed.”

Reverend Ben suddenly looked back at her. “What was that, Grace? Digger not feeling well today?”

“He’ll be okay.” Grace smiled and rose, urging her father to do the same. “We’ll just get something to eat at home, Dad. I have to open the shop.”

“The shop. Right. We have to open the shop,” he said to Reverend Ben. He stuck out his hand and Ben shook it. “You have a good day, Reverend. You know what I told that waitress when I came in here? I told her, good things can happen on a Monday, too. Luck doesn’t follow no calendar.”

“That’s very true,” Ben agreed, looking a bit puzzled.

“You’re darned right it is. The proof is in the pudding,” he said, pointing outside to the car. “The proof is in the pudding.”

Grace tugged on her father’s arm and finally led him out the door. They could have crossed the street, but Grace could not resist walking past Trudy’s new car. The proud new owner still sat behind the wheel surrounded by a circle of admirers, asking her questions. A young man stood on the sidewalk, taking a photograph with a professional-looking camera. He looked like he was from the village newspaper, the
Cape Light Messenger
, Grace thought. Someone must have called them.

Grace twined her arm in her father’s as they strolled past and headed back to the Bramble.

“I’d call that a productive morning, Dad.”

“I’ll say it was. And we haven’t even opened the store yet.” He glanced at her and winked.

Quite out of character, Grace winked back.

ON SUNDAY, EZRA HAD BEEN MOVED FROM THE ICU TO A REGULAR room. Lillian had argued for a private room and even offered to pay the extra cost if his insurance didn’t cover it. Ezra had laughed at her. “Why must I have a private room, Lillian? Will it speed my recovery in any way?”

“Of course it will. It’s more comfortable. More civilized.”

He laughed again. “Oh, now I get it. I think the privacy angle is more for your benefit than mine.”

“Nonsense,” she snapped. “You’ve just had a heart attack. You need your rest—peace and quiet—not extra germs from some stranger.”

But he knew her well. Too well, it seemed at times. She abhorred sitting at a hospital bedside, and hated it even more when the person she was visiting shared the cramped quarters with some awful roommate and a huge, noisy family who paraded in and out, bringing in all kinds of germs, and pulling all the sitting chairs to their side.

If
she
was going to endure during this crisis, Ezra had to have a private room. Lillian was glad she had won the debate, too. Ezra had only been in the hospital since Saturday night, but she had gone to visit him faithfully. By Monday afternoon, she was feeling a bit worn out and welcomed the quiet in his room. She sat by the window and worked on her embroidery in the last of the winter sunlight while Ezra took a nap.

He had been taking a lot of those the last few days. His energy was low. It worried her. But he looked and sounded far better than he had when he had come in, so that was encouraging. The doctor would be by soon, she expected. He did his rounds just before dinnertime. Ezra was hoping Dr. Bourghard would say he could go home. She was not nearly as sure that he was ready.

Oh, he had given her a scare. She would never forgive him. She told him that, too. Of course, he just laughed at her. “You can’t be mad at a person for having a heart attack, Lily,” he said.

“Why not?” she wanted to know.

“You just can’t. That’s all there is to it. It’s just not done,” he added, mimicking her. He had found the debate quite amusing, though someone else might have taken offense, she realized. But that was Ezra. He argued and haggled with her, talked to her as frankly as anyone she had ever known. But he rarely took offense at anything she said. More likely, he found her most outrageous pronouncements entertaining.

That was why they had gotten along so well all these years, she knew. He was the only one who could put up with her—cheerfully, as if he actually enjoyed it. Her daughters put up with her, of course, but not happily. Not the way Ezra did.

She heard his breath deepen for a moment, sounding more labored. She quickly put down her sewing to check on him. He sighed and rolled to one side. It was nothing, she realized. He was still sleeping peacefully.

She returned to her chair and watched out the window. The sun was low in the sky, beams shooting out from between the clouds, turning the horizon peach and gold, blue-gray, and lavender. She hoped Ezra would wake up soon and watch this sunset with her.

“That’s God in the sky,” Emily had once said when she was a little girl. She had pointed to rays of sunlight, breaking through the clouds. Lillian had not contradicted her. It did seem that way sometimes, didn’t it?

She had said a lot of prayers the last few days. More than her usual, by far. Not that she didn’t pray. But these prayers were not the rote, routine variety. They had been more like . . . conversations. Desperate conversations sometimes, she had to admit.

Contemplating life without Ezra was very bleak. She did not want to lose him. She hadn’t thought much about it before, she realized. Ezra had always been there. She had taken him for granted. But she thanked God for His mercy now, for sparing her dear friend’s life. For His mercy on her, as well. For sparing her the pain of that loss when she, in her long life, had already lost so many.

No need to dwell on it, she reminded herself. Ezra was on the mend. He had passed all the prodding and poking and every possible test in the hospital with flying colors. There would be no operations. The doctor was very positive about his prognosis.

Just a scare, she reminded herself. She felt her eyes growing watery and pulled a tissue from the pocket of her cardigan. She didn’t want him to see her crying. She was just tired, that’s all. It had been quite stressful, these last three days. Quite stressful for her. Distracting, too. She had hardly given a thought to her own crisis, her battle with Emily and Jessica to stay in her house. Perhaps that was why she had thrown herself into the crisis so wholeheartedly. It had been the perfect distraction.

But no, she knew that wasn’t the reason she remained at Ezra’s bedside. She was here because . . . because . . . because it all boiled down now to just the two of them. They had to stick together now. Reduced by age, two halves that made a whole.

If such a thing had happened to her, he would have done no less. She was sure of it.

Ezra stirred and blinked his eyes open. He stared at her, looking a bit confused.

“Ezra, are you all right?”

He nodded, pushing himself up in the bed. “I didn’t recognize you for a moment, Lily.”

“You didn’t?” She began to worry again. Was he really well enough to come home?

“I knew it was you, don’t misunderstand. But with the light coming from behind you like that, you didn’t look any different than you did the day I met you, all those years ago.”

Lillian shook her head and gave him a doubtful look. “Ezra, please. It must be the medication.”

“Not at all, not at all. I promise you, Lillian. That’s what I saw.”

“I’ll show you something. Look at this sunset.” She stepped aside so he could see it. The sun hovered over the horizon, a glowing orange orb sinking into purple and lavender-blue clouds.

“My, my. That is something. Quite beautiful tonight, isn’t it?”

“Yes, quite.” Lillian agreed.

They watched it silently for a few moments, the room growing dimmer. Lillian felt a deep peace. And a flutter of hopefulness. Uncommon feelings for her anxious heart.

She glanced at Ezra, wondering if he felt it, too. She couldn’t find the words to ask him though. Some emotions were too subtle, too fragile to be expressed in words.

Finally, when the light was nearly entirely gone, she heard him let out a long sigh and she knew he had felt the same as she did.

“I’m glad I woke up in time to watch that with you, Lily,” he said quietly.

“I’m glad you did, too, Ezra. I was hoping you wouldn’t miss it.”

She turned to him and graced him with a rare smile. She was so glad in her heart he hadn’t missed it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

D
AVID TOLD HIS FATHER HE NEEDED TO BE AT PHYSICAL therapy a little earlier than usual on Tuesday. He said that Gena had moved up his appointment. His father had not questioned this change in the routine. Why would he, David reasoned.

But after being dropped off at the PT unit, David walked to a different building on the hospital grounds, the department of neurology, where a special test on the nerves in his injured foot was scheduled for ten o’clock that morning.

He had undergone the test once before, right after his second hip operation, when the numbness in his foot had first occurred.

Gena suggested that he take it again—maybe because he had graduated to the cane? He certainly hadn’t felt anything in that area of his leg. For some reason, though, she thought it was time to see what was going on with those muscles and nerves. It was scary to ask the question. One part of him didn’t want to know. The chance was fifty-fifty he would get bad news. But after thinking it over for a few days, David realized he was ready to find out—whatever the answer might be.

The test did not take long. There were some electrodes attached to his skin, and a machine recorded the information. The doctor read it immediately, and David was soon sitting in his office while he reviewed a long printout.

“The results are not conclusive,” the specialist told David. “Your nerves are healthy, undamaged. So that’s good. We can see some activity, more than in the prior test, but not at the level yet where you might feel sensation or have more muscle control.”

“I understand that part. What about it getting better? How can I make the feeling come back—more exercise or something?”

The doctor sat back. “Unfortunately, that’s the part that we don’t know. Exercise plays a role but it’s not the whole story, or the sensation would have returned by now.”

The doctor took an X-ray out of David’s file and put it up on a light box behind his desk. “See that? It’s scar tissue from your surgeries, built up around these nerves here.” He pointed with a pencil. “That could be the cause of the problem, what’s causing the nerves to shut down.”

The news was not encouraging. “So, there’s nothing that can be done?”

The doctor turned to him again. “There is an operation we’ve been trying that’s successful in some cases. It’s exploratory. We don’t know what we’re going to find until we get in there. The results are not immediate, either. Once you have the surgery, it takes time to find out if it’s worked.”

Successful in some cases. Exploratory. Time to find out if it worked. This doc was certainly hedging his bets.