Reach for Tomorrow (12 page)

“Guys eventually grow up and act mature,” Katie said. “Someday you’ll meet someone who will appreciate you just the way you are.”

Sarah shook her head. “Maybe that happens in romance books. But not in real life. No, Katie, you’re very lucky to have a guy like Josh. Hang on to him.”

Long after Sarah was gone, Katie thought about her and the things she’d said. Poor Sarah! Would she ever feel normal? Katie hoped so.

When Josh returned to his room, he was so tired he didn’t even want to eat his lunch, though Katie offered to feed it to him.

“I hate feeling so helpless,” he said. “I can’t even move my hands.” He looked up at Katie with soulful, pleading eyes. “And, Katie, I didn’t want to say anything this morning when you first came, but I can’t feel my legs. They’re numb. I can’t feel them at all.”

“W
hen Josh said that, I almost lost it in front of him.” Katie was telling her closest friends about her visit to the hospital that morning. She’d returned to the camp only long enough to check on her responsibilities and to give Josh a chance to recuperate from his CAT scan. At camp things were running smoothly, although everyone asked her about Josh and when he might return.

“He still doesn’t know anything about the seriousness of his fall?” Chelsea asked.

“He doesn’t know the full potential of his injury yet,” Katie said. “But he’s catching on that it’s nothing that’s going to go away after a little bed rest.”

“Have
you
talked to his neurosurgeon?” Lacey asked.

“No. I’d like to, but I don’t know if he’d tell me anything or not.”

“If he won’t talk to you, I’m sure he’s talking to Mr. Holloway,” Meg said knowingly. “After all, he’s the person in charge of Josh.”

It irked Katie that she wasn’t eligible to receive information firsthand about Josh, but she didn’t let on. She did say, “I’ve gone to the hospital library and done some reading about spinal cord injury. Most times it’s kids and teens who get injured—in car and motorcycle accidents, or in diving accidents, or playing sports. According to most articles, a lot of the accidents are because of just plain stupidity—driving drunk, or diving into shallow water. That’s what makes it so hard to accept what happened to Josh. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was trying to help somebody. It isn’t fair he should be hurt this way.”

“True,” Lacey said. “Those two boys he set out to rescue are really upset. Both of them are nuts about Josh. They realize that if they hadn’t been doing something wrong, he wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“They should have thought of that before they sneaked off,” Katie said, feeling bitter.

“No one can foresee the future, Katie,” Meg said. “The boys meant no harm. It was just a terrible accident.”

Katie knew that what Meg said was true, but still she wanted to blame somebody. It had to be
somebody’s
fault. She grabbed up her purse and Lacey’s car keys. “I’m going back to the hospital. The least I can do is keep Josh company. He’s just miserable lying there all day long without being able to move.”

Later that afternoon, she sat in Josh’s room as he drifted in and out of drug-induced sleep. It was after dark and visiting hours were over when she kissed his forehead and promised to return the next morning.

“Thank you, Katie,” Josh whispered. “Thank you for being here for me.”

A fine red stubble grew on his face and felt rough against her hand when she stroked his cheek. “You were there for me,” she reminded him. “I won’t desert you, Josh.”

Out in the hall, she ran into Mr. Holloway. He invited her down to the coffee shop and bought her a cup of coffee, getting coffee and a slice of pie for himself. When he’d settled into a chair across from her in the brightly lit room, he said, “I talked to Dr. Benson this afternoon.”

The coffee turned bitter in Katie’s mouth, and she set down the cup. “Are you going to give me bad news?”

“Actually, there’s a little bit of encouraging
news,” Mr. Holloway said. “Josh’s score is rising on the motor function index.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a testing method for measuring how well a patient’s motor skills are doing. A healthy person scores a hundred percent—there’s no impairment of his motor skills. When Josh was brought in, his was at zero, which meant he couldn’t even breathe on his own, but over the past two days his scores have risen.”

“That’s wonderful.” She felt encouraged.

“Yes, but he’s not out of the woods yet. According to Dr. Benson, the treatment they’re giving Josh includes some experimental drugs, which, although they’ve proved effective in the lab, have a so-so track record with people. You see, the problem with the spinal cord is that after a severe trauma the nerve cells begin to die. Scientists have discovered that if they can stop this process, if they can keep the nerve cells alive, the victim has a better chance of avoiding paralysis. Or at least limiting it to perhaps only the lower part of his body.”

Katie’s eyes misted as the reality of Josh’s situation sank in. “I just can’t imagine Josh having to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.”

“While it’s true that half of these injuries lead to
paralysis, half of them don’t. That’s what you have to focus on. You’re his encouragement, Katie. You help him keep a positive attitude, and no matter what the outcome, he’s going to look to you to help him through this ordeal.”

Katie dropped her gaze and stared into the cream-colored depths of her coffee cup. “We—We were closer once. I should have never cut myself off from him. Especially after all he did for me. If it weren’t for his brother’s heart, I wouldn’t even be alive.”

“You have a right to explore the possibilities for your own life. You have a right to discover who you are and what you want, Katie.”

She looked up into Mr. Holloway’s kind blue eyes. “I feel bad about the way I’ve treated him during the past year. I should have been nicer. Going away to college was so important to me this time last year. Right now it hardly seems important at all.”

“You’re a bright girl. Josh wouldn’t want anybody who wasn’t absolutely sure of what she wanted. When Jenny was alive, she was so much more positive about wanting me than I was about wanting her.”

“Do you still miss her?”

“I’ll always miss her. But I’ve had to go on with my life. I couldn’t let all that she suffered count for
nothing. Jenny House is her legacy. That’s why I’m rebuilding, why I’ve fought so hard to keep her grandmother’s dream alive. It’s all I can do for them.”

Katie understood what he was telling her. “When I was recovering from my transplant, when I wanted to run again but hardly had the strength to stand up, Josh took me on as his personal project. He never let me quit.”

“That was then, this is now,” Mr. Holloway said. “All that’s behind you. You can’t have a future if you can’t let go of your past. Being there for Josh now shouldn’t be out of gratitude for what he did for you. It should be out of what you feel for him in your heart.”

Katie saw the subtle difference between the two things. Could she love Josh if he was trapped in a wheelchair? She didn’t know the answer because she didn’t know exactly what she felt for him. Pity? Yes. But pity couldn’t carry her through the rest of her life. She couldn’t be bound to someone because she felt sorry for him.

Mr. Holloway pushed away from the table. “It’s late. We both should get back to camp.”

“I have Lacey’s car,” Katie said. “I’ll be coming soon. First I have a stop to make.”

*  *  *

The full moon lit the construction site with a silvery glow. Katie parked and weaved her way through the well-trampled trail to the chapel. Much progress had been made since the first day of camp. She saw the shape of the building more clearly now. The building started low in the back, then rose higher in the front like the curving bow of a great boat. A partial roof was in place, but toward the front, where the altar and stained-glass window would be, the roof was still unfinished, and moonlight streamed through the opening. She stood in the moonlight, looking upward.

Tree frogs and katydids filled the air with their music; otherwise there was silence. Katie was alone. Utterly alone.

“Hello, God,” she whispered. “It’s me, Katie O’Roark.” It had been so long since she’d prayed that she felt it necessary to reintroduce herself to the Creator.

“I—I need a favor.” She stopped, collecting her thoughts. “It’s not for me, you understand, but for Josh. You know he’s hurt. He’s hurt pretty bad. But I know you can fix him. With just a single word, you can make him well.”

She remembered enough from her days in Sunday school to know that miracles happened. And that God was in charge of miracles. If he could raise
Lazarus from the dead and his son from a grave, then he could heal Josh’s spinal cord.

She took a deep breath. She could make God a lot of promises, but she knew that would be futile. In the first place, even if she swore she’d be “good” for the rest of her life, she knew she couldn’t keep such a vow. And God might not want her to swear such a thing. How could her being “good” possibly help Josh? No, she just needed to ask God outright to heal Josh.

An owl called from atop a nearby tree.

“Please make Josh all right,” Katie pleaded, looking up at the sky. “Please, let him walk again. Not for me, but for himself. And if he has to be in a wheelchair, then help me to help him accept it. Give me the courage to stand by him the way he stood by me when I needed him.”

She stopped. By now tears had filled her eyes and her heart felt as if it might break. She truly believed that God had heard her prayer. What she did not know was whether or not he would grant her request. Against great odds, God had given her a new heart when she’d desperately needed one. And he had brought Josh into her life as well. She believed that with all her heart and soul. Now there was nothing more she could do except wait. And have faith. Faith in God to hurry Josh’s recovery. Faith in
Josh’s ability to live bound to a wheelchair if he had to. Either way, Josh’s fate was in God’s hands, in God’s mercy.

Katie lifted her arms in the moonlight in supplication to the heavens.

“H
ow’s the horse doing?” Meg leaned over the half door of the stable to ask Morgan her question. She had walked down to the barn to visit him while the campers were having their weekly popcorn and movie night in the rec center.

Morgan, who was checking the horse’s leg, stood up and came to the door. “He’s still a little swollen around the knee, but the vet says he’ll be okay.”

“Good. I know how much these horses mean to you.”

Morgan let himself out of the stall. “Any good word about Josh yet?” It had been three days since Josh’s accident.

“Still waiting. Right after supper Katie headed straight back to the hospital. She says his doctor feels hopeful because Josh’s X rays show no broken vertebrae or crushed discs. That means he won’t
have to undergo any surgery. He can still heal spontaneously.”

Morgan picked up brushes from where he had been grooming the horses and motioned for Meg to follow him to the tack room. “Josh is tough, and … well, there are worse things than being paralyzed.”

His comment surprised Meg, and she told him so. “I figured that as much as you like being outdoors and riding, you’d think being paralyzed would be one of the worst things in the world.”

“I’ve seen wheelchair-bound athletes on TV. They move pretty good, and they look fit and tough to me. And just because you can’t walk doesn’t mean you can’t ride.”

His attitude continued to surprise her. She hadn’t expected him to be so cavalier. “Well, I know I’d sure hate not being able to walk,” she said.

His expression clouded and he got a faraway look in his eye. She couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind. Was there someone in his life who was paralyzed? “Do you know anybody who—”

“Look, Meg, can we just drop it? I really don’t want to talk about it.”

She stepped back, shocked by his reaction. Why had he become defensive? He could be so moody. “I
guess it was a mistake for me to come down here,” she said quietly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”