Eli (6 page)

The nurse shook her head, then looked at her quizzically.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

The nurse rose and rounded the counter to join her. She was a plump woman, several years older than Julia. “Here, let me show you.”

The room directly across from the station had the number eight painted in the upper right corner of the glass.

“You say you’re his daughter?” the nurse asked as they started down the row, passing room seven.

“Yes. I just flew in from Atlanta this morning.”

“I met your mother earlier. A charming lady.”

There was room six.

“Well actually, she’s not, uh—” The place seemed to be growing warmer, Julia’s head much lighter. “She’s not my mother.”

“Of course, I understand.” Again she felt the nurse looking at her. “Are you certain you’re all right?”

Room five. It wasn’t intentional, but Julia’s pace was slowing, her legs growing heavier.

“Yes, I’m just a little . . .” The door to room number four came into view. “I didn’t have anything to eat on the plane, and—” There was the foot of the bed,
his
bed. Then the form under the blanket, then the stainless steel IV stands. “—and my head’s a little . . .” Then she saw a pale arm taped with tubes and wires, and finally she saw the face. But it wasn’t a face, not really—just a mass of bandages with plastic tubes and hoses and wires and—

Julia’s legs turned to rubber, but she barely felt it. All she was aware of were the bandages and the tubes in the nose and hoses down the throat and the wires and more bandages and the
hiss-click
of the respirator and the—

“Ma’am, here, let me get you a chair.” The voice sounded far away.

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“No, that’s okay,” she heard herself say. “I’m just a little

. . .”

No way could that be her father.

“Here, take my arm.”

He was so strong, so vital.

“Ma’am, take my arm.” The command was firm but growing more distant. “Take my arm.”

And now, now he looked so lifeless, so—

Her legs gave out.

“Whoa, hang on,” the distant voice cried.

She heard the faint scraping of metal legs across linoleum, felt the woman gripping both arms—“Just ease back now”—

until she was sitting in a chair . . . a chair not three feet away from a mass of bandages, wires, tubes, and hoses that was supposed to be her father.

v

“The Kingdom of Heaven is more than just some place you go when you die. It’s a way of life. It’s the way God had intended life to be lived. And the good news is, you can become citizens of that life right now, while you’re still on earth.”

Conrad discovered himself standing amidst a small crowd in the parking lot of a community baseball field. It felt like summer, maybe late spring, with just the slightest trace of a breeze to keep things cooled. Once again, Ned Burton was at his side with his eye to the camera viewfinder. Beside him stood Mike Horton, the same sound man as before. To their immediate right lay a baseball diamond with a sagging backstop in need of repair. The infield grass could have used more water, and the outfield was encircled by a shoulder-high fence displaying several sponsors’ names—Pizza Hut, Barton Auto Repair, Blue Bird Cafe—some recently painted, most in various stages of fading and peeling. Beyond the fence stretched flat farmland where, off in the distance, a cloud of dust rolled across a field behind a tractor. As before, everything seemed strikingly real. As real as the world Conrad had left behind.

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“This earthly kingdom has one way of doing things, but it’s all backwards, it’s all upside down.”

Conrad focused his attention upon the speaker. He was a young man, just under six foot, late twenties, maybe early thirties, Mediterranean look, possibly Jewish, and not a bad build. In fact, his features were much like those of the youth who had been baptized back at the river, whenever that had been. He stood on the rear bumper of a beat-up, gray and white RV, speaking pleasantly but loud enough for everyone to hear. The audience of a hundred or so were dressed casually—cutoffs, shorts, tank tops, mostly families, moms, dads, kids. Several of the men and children carried gloves, making it clear that an informal softball game was soon to begin.

“In
this
kingdom, if you want, you take. If you want to be great, you conquer people. But in the Kingdom of Heaven, it’s just the opposite. If you want, you give; if you want to rule, you serve.”

“So how do we enter this other Kingdom?” a heavyset, middle-aged man shouted, then added with humor, “I mean without dying?”

The group chuckled. So did the young man. It was interesting that he wasn’t haranguing the crowd or preaching at them, as the man back at the river had. Instead, he appeared to be enjoying the easy, give-and-take banter. “That’s a good question, and you may not like my answer.” He grew more earnest, carefully looking over the audience. “You do have to die.”

The crowd began to react, but he continued. “Not physically, no, I’m not saying that. But in order to enter the Kingdom of God you have to die spiritually. You have to die to yourself and come alive in me.”

The stirring increased, and he held out his hands good-naturedly.

“I know, I know, to most of you that sounds incredibly egotistical and arrogant. And I’m sorry, I can’t do much about that. But what I can do is tell you the truth, and this is truth: hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 39

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I am the way to that Kingdom. I am the door.” More folks shifted and exchanged glances. But he continued. “There’s no other entrance, there’s absolutely no other way to reach God and His Kingdom, but through me.”

The restlessness grew. A few began to murmur.

“I know,” the young man nodded in agreement. “I told you you wouldn’t like the answer. But if you stay open, if you drop your pride and humble your hearts, I guarantee you my words will take root inside you and bear fruit.” He paused a moment, looking at the ballfield, then lifted his eyes and seemed to be gazing beyond, at the distant tractor kicking up dust. When he turned back to the group, he had a mischievous smile. “I think I feel another story coming on.”

“Oh, no,” the middle-aged man teased, “another one.”

A few chuckled. An old-timer called out, “Tell us your story, son, tell your story.”

The young man grinned and prepared to start. He seemed to genuinely enjoy the crowd, and Conrad could tell that, despite his off-the-wall claims, they enjoyed him.

Conrad glanced at Ned, who was looking back at him with his free eye. Unsure what to do or even where he was, Conrad nodded to him, indicating that he should continue tap-ing. Ned repositioned himself, relayed the nod to Horton, and zoomed in.

The young man began. “A farmer went out to plant seed.

When he was near the road, some of that seed blew onto the pavement. What do you suppose happened to it?”

“It got squished by a semi!” a boy volunteered.

The group chuckled quietly.

“All right,” the young man smiled, “that’s one possibility.

Any others?”

“Maybe some animals ate it,” the child’s father offered.

“Or the birds got it,” another added.

The young man nodded. “Good. Now other seed fell, but it landed off to the side where the soil was thin and rocky.

What would happen to it?”

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The group gave no response.

“Come on,” the young man encouraged, “one or two of you are farmers—what happens when seed lands in thin soil?”

“It still germinates,” a heavy woman ventured. “It still grows.”

The young man nodded. “At first, yes. But what happens when the days get hot, when August rolls around and the sun begins beating down on it?”

The old-timer spoke up. “The plant shrivels and dies.”

“It has no roots,” the woman agreed.

“Exactly.” The young man stooped down closer to the audience, growing more intimate. He seemed to enjoy prodding and urging them to think. “Other seed fell along the roadside where the weeds and thistles grew. What do you suppose—”

“You can kiss them goodbye,” a good-looking father in his thirties called from the back.

“Why?” The young man rose to his feet to better see him.

“The weeds are going to steal the nutrients. They’re going to choke out the seeds before they ever get started.”

The young man slowly nodded as he surveyed the crowd.

“Yes . . .” And then, for the first time, his eyes connected with Conrad’s. They seemed to sparkle, yet were filled with compassion. Though the two of them were nearly fifty feet apart, the experience left Conrad a little disarmed. It was as if he was an old friend who knew exactly what Conrad was thinking.

“What about the good seed?” someone shouted.

The young man turned from him to face the question, and Conrad felt a slight wave of relief. “That, my friend,” the young man grinned, “is the good news. Unlike the seed that lands on hearts of hard pavement where the enemy quickly snatches it away, or on the thin soil where it sprouts until the hot sun of hard times dries it up, or in the weeds of riches and worries that choke it with concern . . . the seed that lands in soft, fertile hearts will yield an incredible harvest, a crop a hundred times greater than what was originally planted.”

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He said no more but watched in silence as the audience slowly digested the story, several beginning to nod in understanding. Conrad looked on, marveling at the man’s ability to weave a story so simple, yet so full of meaning that it held everyone’s attention. And his style—Conrad could think of no other description except
casual dignity.
He obviously had the crowd’s respect, but at the same time he was totally accessible.

“Now I don’t know about you folks”—the young man grinned—“but I came to watch a ball game.” The group voiced their approval, and he hopped down from the vehicle’s dented bumper. “Jake?” he shouted.

A burly moose of a man who had already started for the ballfield turned. “Yeah?”

“Thanks for the use of the RV.”

“No prob,” he replied, then turned and continued toward the field.

Those who weren’t playing started toward their cars or walked to the shaded picnic tables or the bleachers. Unsure what to do next, Conrad glanced back to his cameraman. “Uh, Ned . . .”

“I know, I know,” Ned sighed. “Get cutaways of him interacting with the crowd.”

It sounded like a good idea and Conrad nodded. “Go to it.”

The man shrugged, nodded to Horton, and the two moved into the group.

“Connie? Connie, is that you?”

Conrad turned to see Suzanne approaching through the crowd. As always, she was all grace and smiles. Granted, there were a few more lines around the mouth than he had remembered and her eyes looked a touch sadder, but it was still the same smile that had captured his heart so many years earlier. The same smile that he had turned to tears more times than he cared to remember.

“Suzanne . . .”

They embraced. She felt warm and good. Most important, she felt real. He held her longer than he should, but he needed to. She’d always been an anchor for him, even after the hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 42

42 divorce. And now, wherever he was, whatever he was going through, he needed to feel her support, he needed to feel the familiarity of her presence.

When they finally separated, the words tumbled out before he could stop them. It was one thing to exercise restraint around Ned and Horton, but this was Suzanne.

Despite the years, there was still a connection. There would always be some part of them that others could not share.

“Where are we?” he blurted. “Do you know what’s going on?”

She tilted her head at him quizzically. “What?”

“All of this . . . it all seems so . . . real!”

She continued looking at him, still not understanding.

He swallowed and regrouped, trying to explain. “What about the hospital? What about my accident?”

Her expression clouded. “You were in an accident?”

“Well, yeah . . . I mean . . .”

“Were you hurt?”

“I, uh . . .” His hand shot self-consciously to his face, feeling for wounds, for stitches, for some evidence of the exploding windshield, the rock, the crushing metal. But of course there was nothing. At least not in this whatever or wherever he was.

Suzanne continued searching him. “Connie . . . are you all right?”

He took a deep breath. How could he explain it, what he suspected? How could he explain to someone that they may be only his hallucination? Or that he really wasn’t a part of their world? How could he explain that he was just dropping in from one of a million different realities that were almost like theirs but not quite?

“If there are eyewitnesses to such universes they would be
locked up in insane asylums . . .”

He opened his mouth, but there were no words. He looked at her, seeing her concern. How could he tell her?
What
could he tell her? How could he explain something he didn’t understand? He couldn’t. No, right now, he needed the reality of hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 43

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who she was. Hallucination or not. Parallel world or not. He needed the simple assurance of her presence.

“Connie?”

It took more effort than he anticipated, but somehow he managed to force a smile, then give a shrugging answer. “It’s a long story.”

She didn’t buy it, not entirely. She continued searching his face. “But you’re okay now?”

He nodded and turned up the smile. “Yeah, better than ever.” And it wasn’t a lie. Because whatever reality he was experiencing, for however long he would experience it, whether it was real or not, had to be better than the one he’d left behind.

Suzanne’s expression relaxed, but only slightly. “You sure?”

He nodded.

She seemed a bit more convinced as she pushed the graying hair behind her ears. The woman was in her late forties now, but underneath, she was still that same sensitive and compassionate eighteen-year-old he’d run off with so many lifetimes before.