Showers in Season (8 page)

“It’s my child, too,” Barry said.

“No, it isn’t.” She slammed her hand on the dashboard. “Not if you could do this. Not if you could even suggest it. It’s not a choice, Barry, it’s a sin. A heinous, horrible sin. The worst one I can think of.”

“There are times when we have to sin,” he said. “I would steal bread to feed my children. And in a way, that’s what I’m doing now.”

“Stealing bread to feed your children?” she repeated, incredulous. “You can turn this into some noble thing that you’re doing for our family?”

“You don’t understand! You’re not even trying to understand. I’ve been there; I know what it’s like. You don’t.”

“So I don’t,” she said. “So what? Your mother had never done it before Nathan came along.”

“You’re not up to this, Tory. I know you.”

“And I know me, too,” she said. “I know that I’m selfish and resentful and I know that sometimes I put other things ahead of my family. I know that I want to be a writer. I know
all
that! But I’ll have to work on this, I’ll have to change, and maybe God gave us this baby so I would. Maybe he did so
you
would. Maybe there’s good to be seen here somewhere. We can’t just assume there’s not!”

He started driving, silent as he navigated the streets home. She was silent, too, except for the sound of her crying. When they pulled into Cedar Circle and into their own driveway, they sat there for a moment before going in.

“Tory, I know what a shock it’s been for you to hear me say this tonight,” he said. “All I ask is that you give it a few days and consider it—”

“No,” she said. “I won’t.”

“I’m the leader of this family,” he said. “I’m responsible for it, I have to protect it, and I have to support it. You have to at least consider my wishes.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “So you’re using the submission card? Barry, I’ll submit to you on everything except things that go against God’s will. I will
not
do something that is heinous and awful. If I did this I could never live with myself. It would ruin my life, just like I believe it ruins the life of every woman who does it. I’m gonna follow God instead of you.”

“How do you know that I’m not listening to God, too?” he yelled. “How do you
know
that I haven’t talked to him about this, that this isn’t
exactly
the answer he gave me?”

“Because the answers God gives never include sin. And if you can convince yourself that abortion is not a sin, then you’re not the man I thought you were at all.” With that, she got out of the car and stormed across the yard, unwilling to face Annie’s teenaged chatter or the kids who might still be up. Barry would have to do that, she thought. Let him explain why their mother was distraught.

She went to the swing in the back of their yard, sat down, and doubled over, pressing her hands against her face. As softly as she could, she sobbed into them, all the injustice and crushing disappointment of her husband’s answer to this crisis falling over her like an avalanche.

The woman who had run into the school barefoot and covered with mud was hysterical, shouting and wailing out rapid-fire Spanish too fast for Sylvia to understand. Harry ran from the room he’d set up as an examining room and called across the noisy gymnasium for Jim.

The bilingual pastor broke free of the people he was attending to and hurried to the woman’s side. He barked out Spanish to her, but didn’t get much out before she began to rant and rave again, pointing to the door and toward the Cerro Negro volcano whose mud slides had brought hundreds of people here for help.

Jim looked weary from all the work so far. They had been taking people in and trying to feed them and find places for them to sleep, while the hurricane grew closer.

She saw Jim’s face twist with emotion, and he turned back to them. “She says she sent her oldest child to get an elderly neighbor to come ride the storm out with them, but he never
came back. She decided to leave her four other children and go looking for him, but…” His voice broke off, and the woman began chattering again. “She…says a mud slide buried her house while she was gone. Her four children…” He rubbed his mouth. “She’s been trying to get to them, but some of the rescue workers pulled her away and brought her here.”

Sylvia reached for the mud-covered woman and pulled her into her arms. The woman wept and wailed against her, clinging as if she knew instinctively that this was another mother who would know the pain.

“The child she went looking for?” Harry asked Jim.

Jim shook his head. “She hasn’t found him, either. Harry, he was probably buried before she went looking for him. That volcano is nothing but sand. When it rains like this…”

“Well…should we go there and try to dig them out? See if there’s some way they lived?”

“There’s no possible way,” he said. “Besides, there’ll be more mud slides as the hurricane gets closer. Even after it’s gone. We can’t go near it.”

The woman cried and groaned in agony, stomping her foot and pulling at her mud-caked hair.

Dear God, how do I comfort her?
Sylvia prayed. It was too much. She couldn’t do it.

She took the woman to a cot and sat down with her. She and Harry prayed over her while she wept and moaned. When they had finished, Harry gave her a sedative, and eventually, the woman lost her fight and lay back on the cot, still weeping softly. Sylvia didn’t leave her until she was asleep.

She got up, feeling shell-shocked, and not even noticing the mud covering her own clothes, looked for someone else who needed her help. She could hear the wind tearing at the walls of this weak structure, pulling off pieces of the roof. Something crashed on the side of the building, and she met Harry’s concerned eyes across the room. It was a tree, she thought, or a piece of someone’s house. She wondered how long these walls would remain standing. What would they do if their own roof flew off?

She looked helplessly around her. Families were huddled side by side and on top of each other in the smelly gym. Children cried at the sounds around them. Some of the men stood at the doors, watching through the windows that hadn’t shattered yet. Mothers tried to keep the children occupied and distracted. Spanish was spoken all around her, but even without understanding their words, she knew how to attend to their needs.

But this was only the beginning. After the hurricane, diseases would be rampant because of the corpses of animals lying around. Those who didn’t have their property ravaged by flood may well be those who lost everything to the mud slides. Tornadoes would take what floods and mud slides didn’t. It was as if God’s wrath was beating down on this country…but if so, it was beating down on others, as well. There had been too many hurricanes in too many places this year. Three had already threatened the East Coast of the States. One had ravaged the Florida coast.

She couldn’t believe that, just yesterday, she had felt sorry for herself because she lacked purpose.

She wished she could call the neighbors on Cedar Circle and tell them to pray without stopping. She wished she could talk to her children, Sarah and Jeff. If she could just hear those voices, maybe she could forget the anguished cries of that mother who’d lost everyone she loved in one moment. But there wasn’t time to make calls, even if the phone lines worked. There was too much to do.

She prayed she would have the energy to do it.

Brenda read the clipped e-mail Sylvia had sent during the night, and tears came to her eyes at what her friend was experiencing. She went to the television and turned on the Weather Channel to see if the hurricane showed any sign of leaving Nicaragua. But it seemed parked there, intent on ravaging the small country that wasn’t equipped to endure it.

“Lord, please keep her safe,” she whispered under her breath. “Protect her so she can help those people.”

The door of her little computer room opened, and David stepped inside. He was a large, ruddy, red-haired man who seemed to have aged years in the last few months. “Are you finished with the computer?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She sighed. “I was just checking my mail from Sylvia.”

“Everything all right?”

She shook her head. “The hurricane sounds bad.” She got up and offered David the computer chair.

“How’s it feel to have a night off?” he asked.

She smiled. “Thank the Lord for Saturdays. David, the kids are all in bed. I’m going to walk outside for a little bit. I need to think.”

“And pray?”

She breathed a laugh. “Yeah, actually. How’d you know?”

He took the seat she had occupied and pulled up his money program on the computer. “You know, you don’t have to say ‘think’ if you mean ‘pray.’ I won’t be offended.”

“It’s just that I know you don’t see any value in that.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” he said. “There must be some. We have Joseph to prove it.”

Something in her heart swelled. Maybe her prayers for David were being answered. “We sure do.” She leaned over and hugged him from behind.

The money program came up full-blown on the screen, and David clicked a few keys and waited for the bottom line. “How’s it looking?” she asked.

He got that look on his face that he got each time he examined their finances. “Well, when you get paid, we’ll almost be okay. I was thinking of taking on some extra work, doing it at night after the kids go to bed.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want the kids in here alone. Maybe I could find something I could do during the day. Typing or something.”

“You can’t take on any kind of daytime commitment when Joseph has to see the doctor so often. With the biopsies and the echocardiograms and the meetings with the transplant teams, they take half a day, at least, every week. And if anything ever even looks like it’s going wrong, they’ll have him back in the hospital so fast we won’t know what hit us. You can’t hold a daytime job and handle that. Besides, you’ll be exhausted. It isn’t worth it.”

“To make sure we can keep paying for Joseph’s medical bills, I’ll do whatever I have to do,” she declared.

He looked up at her. “I hate it. I hate having you out at night. I hate that the kids don’t have you here when they go to bed. I hate going to bed without you.”

“But look how blessed we are,” she said. “I still get to have supper with the family. It’s almost time for the kids to go to bed by the time I leave. They hardly even know I’m gone. And I’m able to be home with Joseph during the day…”

“But the kids miss homeschooling. They miss you.”

“It’s only for a little while.” But the truth was, she didn’t see an end to it. “This is really not a terrible thing,” she said. “We could be going through a hurricane. Our children could be threatened. We could have tornadoes and floods and mud slides. Those poor people.” She sighed. “I’m gonna go pray.” She kissed his cheek, then straightened. “I’ll be outside, honey.”

The night wind was brisk, cool, and smelled of chimney smoke. It was often windy at night here, but tonight it was especially so, as if the winds from Nicaragua swept all the way across the world to Tennessee, offering that small connection that would remind her how seriously Sylvia needed prayer. She sat on her porch for a moment, swinging back and forth in the wind, praying to the Lord who she knew heard her, that the hurricane would pass quickly, that Sylvia would know how to do the work she needed to do, that she’d have the resources she needed, that no more people would be killed or injured, that the mud slides would cease and the flood waters would recede. As she prayed, a sound on the wind distracted her, and she looked up for a moment and listened. It sounded like weeping from somewhere nearby, but whether it came from another mountain across the valley, swept here by the wind, or somewhere right within reach, she wasn’t sure.

She heard a door close and saw Cathy coming out of her home and crossing the street.

Had Cathy been crying? she wondered, getting to her feet. But when Cathy reached her she could see that her eyes were dry. “Brenda, I just called and David said you were out here,” Cathy said. “Did you get Sylvia’s e-mail?”

“Yeah, I was just praying for her.”

“Me, too,” Cathy said. “Man, I miss her. And talk about bad luck. Getting there and having a hurricane hit you before you’ve even had time to settle in.”

But Brenda wasn’t listening. She still heard that sound of weeping on the wind. It wasn’t loud, not wailing at all, just the muffled, occasional sound of someone in great pain. “Listen,” she whispered. “Do you hear that?”

Cathy got quiet. “Someone crying?”

Brenda shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“It sounds like it’s coming from Tory’s,” Cathy said. She frowned. “Have you heard anything from her?”

“No. She still won’t return my calls. I’m getting worried.”

“Do you think she’s embarrassed about throwing up or something?”

“Of course not. Besides, it’s been almost three weeks.”

“Well, you know how she is. Everything has to be perfect. Her image is pretty important to her. But it’s not like she did it in front of us. There’s really nothing to be embarrassed about, even for Tory.”

“Three weeks is a long time,” Brenda said. “Almost like she’s hiding out. Avoiding us.”

“It’s enough to give you a complex,” Cathy agreed.

Again, they heard the weeping, blown up by the wind.

“Come on,” Brenda said, stepping off her porch. “That’s got to be her.” They took off across the empty lot between Brenda’s and Tory’s homes, and the weeping grew clearer as they reached Tory’s yard. They followed the sound into the back. Tory was sitting on the swing at the back of her yard, under a cluster of trees. She had her face in her hands and was weeping her heart out. Brenda started running before Cathy had even seen hen

“Tory!” Brenda fell to her knees in front of her neighbor. “What’s the matter, honey?” Tory went into Brenda’s arms. “What is it?”

Cathy sat down next to Tory and stroked her back as Tory wept onto Brenda’s shoulder.

“Tory, tell us,” Cathy whispered. “What is it?”

Tory managed to pull herself together enough to pull back from Brenda. She took a deep breath and tried to speak. “I’m…pregnant,” she choked out.

“Pregnant!” Brenda whispered. “Well, Tory, that’s wonderful. No wonder you were sick. But…why the tears?”

“Is it the writing?” Cathy asked, trying to get to the bottom of her grief. “That you’ll have to slow down?”

“No!” Tory cried. “I’m not
that
shallow.”

“Then what?”

Tory looked up into the star-sprinkled sky, shaking her head. “My baby…has Down’s Syndrome.”

Brenda and Cathy were both stunned to silence as they stared at Tory’s wet face in the darkness. “Are you sure?” Brenda asked.

“Oh, yeah. We found out a couple of days ago.” She sucked in a breath. “I know I should have called. I should have told you, but when I first knew I was pregnant, I had this…sense…that I didn’t need to tell anyone until I’d been to the doctor. And then he wanted the tests, so I waited for the results. I was just so stunned, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to say the words until I could get it out without crying, because I feel so guilty. This is my baby girl—”

Brenda and Cathy looked at each other, stricken. “You have nothing to feel guilty about,” Brenda said.

“No,” Cathy told her. “Why would you feel guilty for being sad that something’s wrong with your baby?”

“I should be happy that a new person is coming into our family. I should be able to handle this.” She wiped her eyes. “If it were you, Brenda, you could handle it. You’d look at it so positively. You’d be dancing around, and it would be almost like you’d ordered a child with Down’s Syndrome.”

“Tory, you give me entirely too much credit.”

“Wouldn’t she, Cathy?” Tory asked.

Cathy sighed. “Well, it does sometimes look like you can handle anything, Brenda. Even this job of yours. I’d be whining to anybody who’d listen. She’s working nights, Tory. Seven to twelve. And does she complain? Nope.”

“And she wouldn’t complain if she were in my shoes, but I’ve just been so miserable…”

“You two have a lot to learn about me.” Brenda reached up and stroked Tory’s hair out of her eyes. “I’d be upset, too, Tory. But it’s gonna be all right.”

“That’s not all,” Tory said. “It’s not just the Down’s Syndrome. I mean, it’s been a couple of days, and I’m over the shock. I was planning to tell both of you tomorrow, and e-mail Sylvia. Barry’s been real quiet about it. We’ve hardly talked about it at all. And then tonight Annie baby-sat and we went out to dinner.”

“Yeah,” Cathy said. “I was hurt that you were talking to my daughter and not me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just couldn’t yet.”

“Did you have a nice time?” Brenda asked, her voice still sympathetic.

Tory breathed a mirthless laugh. “It wasn’t exactly a romantic evening out.”

“Of course not,” Cathy said. “You’re still getting over the shock. You don’t need to expect that much of yourselves right now. It’s going to take some time to get used to this.”

“Barry doesn’t want to get used to the idea,” she said.

Brenda frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the doctor gave us
options.
” Her lips curled with the words.

Brenda’s face changed. She knew what those options were. Cathy seemed to understand, as well. Brenda just pulled Tory back into a hug.

After a moment, she whispered, “He’s upset, Tory. He probably doesn’t even know what he’s thinking. Just give him some time, be patient with him. It’s harder for him. He’s not carrying the baby. He doesn’t have all those maternal hormones pulsing through him.”

“He wants me to get an abortion.” Tory said the words on a rush of anguish, as if to make sure they understood.

“He may think he wants that,” Brenda said, “but he’ll change his mind. Like I said, just give him time.”

Tory shook her head. “I don’t know what disappoints me more,” she said. “The knowledge that this baby isn’t anything
like I thought she would be, or the knowledge that my husband isn’t who I thought he was.”

“Who did you think he was?” Cathy asked.

Tory looked over at her. “I thought he was someone who believed in life. Every life. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even believe in the life of our child. See, he has this brother—”

“Barry has a brother?” Brenda asked. “I didn’t know that. I thought he was an only child.”

“No,” she said. “He has a brother who’s autistic. He doesn’t communicate with anyone, and he’s in a wheelchair. The only thing he does is whistle. Whatever song he heard last, he whistles it. That whistling goes on day and night until he falls asleep. Then you know when he wakes up in the mornings, because he starts whistling again. But he’s never been able to look anyone in the eye, or take care of his bodily functions, or feed himself, or anything. His parents have kept him home all his life, but his father died, and his mother is still caring for him. Barry has this fear of repeating that in our family.”

“That’s understandable,” Cathy said. “Tory, I hope you understand that he’s not some kind of monster. A lot of parents might feel the way he does.”

“Not if he believes what he claims he believes,” Tory bit out. “This man, who has written letters to congressmen, gone to prayer rallies to pray for legislation to prevent abortion. If he doesn’t really believe it now, then what else did he claim to believe that isn’t true?”

“I don’t think it’s not true,” Brenda said. “He’s just confused.”

“And I’m not?” she asked. “The only thing I know for sure is that I’m carrying a baby with Down’s Syndrome. But she’s my baby, and God gave her to me.”

“He’ll come around, Tory,” Cathy said. “He’s a wonderful dad. I envy you all the time. And he’s a strong Christian man.”

“He just doesn’t know what he wants right now,” Brenda added. “He just needs to have your love and support while he thinks this through, and he’ll make the right decision. I know he will.”

Tears filled Tory’s eyes again, and she slumped forward. “I’m just so disappointed in him.”

“I know you are,” Brenda said, rising up and sitting next to Tory on the bench. “I don’t blame you. But things are not always as they seem, and they don’t always end up the way they start out.”

Cathy nudged Tory. “She’s starting to sound like Sylvia.”

“Speaking of Sylvia,” Brenda said, “she’s been worried about you, too. Did you get her latest e-mail?”

Tory leaned her head back on the swing. “No, I haven’t been near the computer in days.”

“They’re going through a hurricane as we speak.”

“Is it bad?”

“Terrible. A lot have already died in floods and mud slides. She’s huddled in a shelter trying to ride it out.”

“How did she e-mail?”

“Apparently the phone lines aren’t down yet, at least where she is. But that could change.”

“She’s worried about you,” Cathy said. “We kind of told her we couldn’t get in touch with you, that you’d been sick.”

Tory swallowed. “I should have told her. I should have told both of you. It was too much to carry.”

“You don’t have to bear these things alone.”

“I know,” she said. “I just didn’t think I’d ever have to bear anything like this at all. Normally my life is so simple, and I find so many things to complain about, anyway.”

Cathy and Brenda laughed softly.

“You’ll get through this,” Cathy said.

But as the wind whipped up harder from the valley and blew the hair back from Tory’s face, Brenda knew that she didn’t see the pain ending anytime soon.