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Authors: Beverly LaHaye

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BOOK: Showers in Season
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Annie shoved her brother. “Mark, shut up. You’re making it worse!”

“Yeah,” Rick said. “Go count the dirty socks in your room, before you make her turn on us, too!”

“Turn on you?” Cathy repeated. Then she stopped herself and realized this was going nowhere. “Annie? Do you have homework?”

“None. I did it all at school.”

“How about you, Rick?”

Rick shrugged. “I had three tests today, so we’re starting on new material.”

“Good.” She grabbed the Bible and flipped it open to Philippians 2. “Memorize this, then. Philippians 2 verses 14 through 16. Go upstairs and clean up your rooms, and when you get finished, since you don’t have anything to study, don’t come out of your rooms until you’ve memorized these verses.”

“Mom, that’s impossible!” Annie said. “That’s too long!”

“I can’t remember all that!” Mark moaned.

Rick took the Bible and rolled his eyes at the verses. “Oh, come on, Mom. Is this some kind of joke?”

“Read it out loud, Rick,” she said. “I want to hear you read it.”

He let out a laborious sigh, and began reading. “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.” He looked up at her.

She smiled. “Good. Run along now. And if you don’t memorize it, you’ll be in your room all night.”

“Mom, we’re not gonna go into the ministry just because you forced us to memorize Scripture,” Rick said.

“Maybe not. But it’ll make me feel like I’m doing one positive thing in your upbringing.”

“Yeah, nice positive verse to start with,” Annie said. “Our crooked and depraved generation.”

“Go!
Now!

Huffing and puffing, they all three headed up the stairs. She could hear voices in the hallway up there, and knew they were raking her over the coals, but she didn’t care. The phone rang, and she snatched it up. “Hello?”

“Cathy? Steve. You sound like you’re expecting someone else.”

She tried to breathe out her anxiety. “No, not at all. I was just kind of in the middle of something with the kids.”

“Really? What?”

“Uh…” She glanced toward the stairs. “Bible study.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We were going over Philippians 2.”

“That’s great,” he said. “Did the kids understand it? Were they receptive to it?”

“They’re trying to memorize it before supper,” she evaded.

“No kidding.” He chuckled. “I’m very impressed.”

She fought the urge to burst into tears and tell him everything that had happened that day, from the pictures on the television about the aftermath of the hurricane in Nicaragua, to the poodle that she had on life support, to the marijuana in the bathroom.

“So did you have a good day today?”

She felt the anger seeping out of her, like air out of slashed tires. “I’ve had better.”

“Want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. “Oh, Steve, I’d really like to, but I can’t. Not right now.”

“I was hoping you were up to a pizza. Tracy and I were thinking we might bring a couple over and eat with you and the kids.”

Though it seemed tempting, she knew that one of the kids would give the disaster away. “It’s just not a good idea tonight,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow night. I’m really beat and I don’t think I’d be very good company. Plus I have to run back to the clinic in a little while to check on a poodle who got hit by a car.”

“Well, I understand.” She could hear the disappointment in his voice. “I’ll just call you tomorrow, and if you feel like talking anytime tonight and you get a free minute, give me a call and I’ll be here.”

“Thanks,” she said. She hung up as a tender smile softened her lips. He always did make her feel better. She was just sorry she had misled him into thinking she was having a sweet little family Bible study with her kids. Breathing out a deep sigh, she reached for the phone book, looked up the nearest pizza restaurant, and began to dial.

C
HAPTER
Eighteen

Outside, Joseph Dodd rode his bicycle around the little cul-de-sac as Brenda swept the driveway, fighting the urge to order him off his bike. The idea of her child taking any kind of risk, after the suffering he’d endured just weeks ago, was almost more than she could bear.

But there was something miraculous about seeing him on a bike again, though he didn’t yet ride fast or far, and she didn’t want to spoil it for him. He wouldn’t last long, pedaling around the circle. He was still working on rebuilding his stamina, but he was getting stronger each day. The doctor assured them that by next summer, he might be able to play baseball again. Though he took dozens of pills each day to keep from rejecting the heart, and would for the rest of his life, his recovery had been remarkable.

Leah and Rachel, her eleven-year-old twins, sat at the picnic table doing their homework. Daniel had gone inside to look something up on their computer.

“Mom, this is so boring,” Leah said. “You did this with us two years ago. I told Mrs. Higgins I already knew it, but she said just to do it again.”

“Well, I guess we can’t blame them for going slow,” Brenda said. “When I was homeschooling it was just us. We could go as fast as we wanted.”

“Now we go as slow as the slowest person in the class,” Rachel said. “And in science we’re studying atoms, and I told them we did a science project on that last year and won third place in the state, but the teacher acted like it didn’t count because it was homeschool.”

“Well, she just doesn’t understand. Be patient with her. How could she know?”

“Mom, can’t we start homeschooling again? Joseph’s doing fine, and he wants us back home. We don’t spend enough time with you when you work nights.”

Brenda had given it a lot of thought. She missed her children and wanted to teach them, but she just didn’t think she had the energy to do a good job as long as she was working nights. “I miss being here, too,” she said. “But we’re all doing okay.” She stopped sweeping and smiled as she looked at Joseph. “Just look at him. If I have to work to keep him healthy, then none of us should complain.”

“But Mom,” Leah said. “I’m just stagnating in that school.”

“Stagnating?” Brenda asked, amused. “Is that one of your vocabulary words this week?”

Leah shrugged. “Maybe. But I am.”

“Well, that was a perfect use of it. See? You
are
learning.”

“But not like we learned at home. Mom, if you let us homeschool again, I promise I’ll never complain again about having to read all that historical stuff.”

“Historical stuff? You don’t mean the Federalist Papers, do you? You complained for weeks about that.”

“Mom, they don’t read that in public school until the eleventh grade honors classes, and then they only read pieces of it. You made us read
all
of them in fifth grade.”

“And you understood them. That was the amazing thing.”

Rachel piped in. “I’ll read it all again if you’ll let us come home. Mom, reading things in bits and pieces, learning theories without doing experiments…How can you remember any of it?”

“So what you’re saying is…” Brenda leaned down and rubbed noses with Rachel. “…that there’s method in my madness? Making you read entire original documents isn’t equivalent to child abuse?”

“We promise, Mom. We’ll never complain again.”

She smiled. “I’m thinking about it,” she said. “And so is your dad. But there are problems with homeschooling now. On the days when I have to take Joseph for his biopsies, you’d all be at home wasting time. And it’s very possible that they might occasionally have to put him back into the hospital. I wouldn’t be able to teach you then. Besides, I think going to school might be good for you. You need to see what it’s like, make some new friends, find out how it is to be taught by somebody besides your mom.”

“I like being taught by my mom,” Leah said. “In class, I sit through a whole hour doing math, and I never get called on. We move so slowly. At home, when I’m working with you, I get to answer all of them. And I like having time to really dig into things like you make us do. Not just get the homework done and see what the grade is.”

“Grades are important,” Brenda said.

“I know they are, but it’s not the same. When I make an A at home I know I’ve really done something. And Mom, on the days that you’re at the hospital with Joseph, Daddy will still be here. And you can give us assignments to work on while you’re gone. We won’t waste time.”

“Yeah, and if you have to spend the night in the hospital, we can make our schoolwork up on Saturdays,” Rachel added. “I wouldn’t care.”

Brenda laughed at the drastic compromises they were offering, and messed up her daughter’s hair. “I’ll give it some serious consideration, okay?”

As the girls took their books in, Brenda sat down at the picnic table. Maybe it was time to bring the kids back home, after all. They hadn’t been in public school but two months. It had been a positive experiment, but maybe it wasn’t necessary anymore.

She did miss them, after all, and if she had to work nights, she could get as much out of the days as possible.

Maybe it was time.

C
HAPTER
Nineteen

The baby section at Tory’s favorite bookstore had way too many books on birth defects. She pulled a number of them out and carried them to a table near the stacks, hoping to choose a few before her children emerged from story hour. She could handle this pregnancy, she thought, if she only had enough information. A couple of books to read. A strategy. Information was everything.

But she knew that, no matter what she learned, it wouldn’t change Barry’s mind.

She made three trips with the books to the table, careful not to strain herself She supposed a real miscarriage would be the perfect answer for Barry, and then they could move on with their lives and never look back. But the damage had been done. Barry wasn’t the man she thought he was, and that was all there was to it.

It had broken her heart and made her so bitter.

She began flipping through the pages, searching for something that would ease her worries, help her to organize her
thoughts. She was having trouble sleeping nights, and her nausea was coming more and more frequently. She spent the day walking around like a zombie, her mind on anything but what she was doing.

Funny, she thought, sitting back in her chair and scanning the books stacked around her. Just a couple of weeks ago, she had come in here and lingered at the fiction shelf, once again considering the thought that she might be able to tackle a novel.

Now she wondered if that day would ever come again, when she’d be able to get lost in her thoughts, bask in the silence that fed her creativity. She didn’t know, but some part of her said it didn’t matter, that if God had given her this child to love, then love it she would.

She put her hand over her stomach, as if silently barricading the baby that had caused such a problem in her marriage. She wasn’t the heroic type, nor the stoic kind of mother who sacrificed all things for the good of her children. No, on the scale of motherhood, she supposed she was near the bottom. She loved her children, took care of them, but so often got impatient and frustrated, and selfishly begrudged every hour of time or energy that took her away from her goals. She supposed the Lord was going to have to do a powerful work on her to equip her for this baby.

Defeated, she dropped her forehead into her palm and tried not to cry.

The sound of children’s laughter and chattering came from the back of the bookstore, and she knew that children’s hour was over. Quickly, she made a decision and picked three of the books from the stack in front of her. Before she could put the other ones back, Spencer was at her side.

“Mommy, can I buy a book? They got one about horses.”

“Not today, Spence,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “Mommy’s got to buy some books today.”

“Then a dog book.”

Tory laughed. She knew that Spencer wouldn’t give the book a thought once she got it home. She considered buying it just
to appease him, then bring it back tomorrow, but she knew it wasn’t good for him to get everything he thought he wanted.

“No, we’re not gonna buy a dog book right now.”

He saw the books spread out on the table in front of her. “Then a baby book.”

She frowned. “You want a baby book?”

“Yeah, one of these,” he said.

She breathed a laugh. “Well, as it happens, I was just about to buy a couple of these.”

“Cool,” he said, jumping up and down as Brittany reached them. “Britty, we get a baby book!”

“Me, too?” Brittany asked.

Tory pulled her daughter into a hug. “Yeah, you, too. If you want a book about babies, you got it.”

As she drove home, she listened to them chattering in the backseat about the storyteller’s poofy hair and glittery fingernails, and the way she poked at the air and bared her teeth when she read the part of the monster. Her mind wandered as they went on with the grand story that she supposed bore little resemblance to reality.

She looked down at the bag of books she had bought about Down’s Syndrome. What would Barry think when he saw them?

She jerked her thoughts back. She didn’t care what he thought. She was going to prepare for this baby whether he liked it or not. She glanced in her rearview mirror to her children in the backseat, and wondered when she should break the news to them. Wouldn’t they be thrilled to know that their mother was expecting another baby?

But Barry didn’t want her to tell them, not when he was hoping she would terminate the pregnancy and it would all go away. As she thought that over, she realized how binding it would be to tell the children. If she did, then Barry certainly couldn’t keep pressing for an abortion. He could never explain to his own children what had happened to the baby their mother was carrying.

She glanced in the mirror again. Maybe it was something she should consider. Usurping his timing, and telling the kids
they had a baby sister. She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do. Sylvia would know, she thought as she drove up Survey Mountain to their home. She wished Sylvia were home so she could tell her about Barry’s heartbreaking rejection of this child, and find out what her mentor thought she should do.

She didn’t have Sylvia here, but she did have e-mail.

When they reached home, she sent the children to play in their rooms, and hurried to the computer room. She had to e-mail the neighbor who meant so much to her but lived so far away.

BOOK: Showers in Season
12.57Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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