Season of Blessing Page 16

“What if I don’t think things are wrong?” she threw back.

  He got quiet then. “Look what we’re doing to each other.”

  “What?” she snapped.

  “We’re turning on each other, all because of the children. All that premarital counseling, and we thought we could beat those blended family problems they warned us about. But we haven’t. They’re sucking us under, too.”

  “You’re changing the subject.” Cathy looked out the window. “I want to buy Mark the car.”

  He leaned his head back on the headrest. “Then go for it.”

  “I will.”

  They didn’t say another word for the rest of the way home.

  When he went into the house she got behind the wheel, backed out of the driveway, and headed back to the car lot to make a deal on the car.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty-Eight

  Cathy surprised Mark with the car the next day before he went to GED class. Steve had made himself scarce since he’d come home from work, and now he busied himself washing his truck. He’d hardly said a word to her since the night before, and each of the children had noticed and mentioned it at least once. The house was tense, for all of the kids had noticed the strain between them.

  When she blindfolded Mark and led him out to the driveway, Steve looked at her across the roof of his truck. His eyes accused, indicted, punished. But they did not convict her.

  Mark’s excitement shivered through him. “Can I open my eyes now?”

  “Just a minute.” She positioned him in front of the new car. Annie and Tracy came out behind him and gasped at the sight of the car in the driveway.

  “Open your eyes,” she ordered.

  Mark’s eyes opened, and for a moment he stared at the car as if he didn’t quite understand.

  “It’s for you,” Cathy said. “I bought it last night.”

  Mark gaped at her. “The car? The whole thing?”

  “No, Bozo.” Annie shoved him. “Just the steering wheel.”

  “I don’t believe it. Mom, I love it!” He laughed and threw his arms around his mother, then danced to the car and opened the door. “It’s beautiful. I never expected anything so nice. I figured you’d get me a clunker like you did Annie and Rick.”

  Annie turned on her. “Yeah, Mom. What’s up with that?”

  Steve shot her another look and went to turn off the hose.

  “Well, I figured you deserved a nice car. I wanted you to have something reliable.”

  “Mom, it’s fantastic.” He got behind the wheel and cranked it up, listened to the engine. “Listen to it purr,” he said. “It’s beautiful. Look, and it’s got a CD player. Oh, man.”

  “Way to go, Mom.” Annie gave her a high five.

  Tracy jumped up and down and ran around to get in the passenger’s side. “Take me for a ride, Mark!”

  Drying his hands off, Steve came around the truck. “Not yet, Tracy. Let’s let Mark get a little more practice under his belt before he starts taking passengers.”

  “I’m a good driver,” Mark said. “You should see me.”

  “I know, but I just prefer that Tracy didn’t ride with you for a while.”

  “Well, he can take me, can’t he?” Annie said. “I’m a licensed driver. I can correct him when he messes up.”

  “I’m not going to mess up,” Mark said. “It’s like I’ve been driving for years. I can parallel park and everything, can’t I, Mom?”

  Cathy smiled. “He did a knock-up job at the driver’s test. The instructor was sure impressed.”

  Steve didn’t say anything. He turned back to the truck and began drying it off.

  When Mark drove off with Annie, and Tracy had gone back into the house, Cathy stood in the driveway and regarded her husband across the truck. He seemed to be intent on polishing it to perfection. The silence screamed at her, and she hated it. She’d hated it last night when he’d gone to bed without a word, and she’d stared at his back all night. Several times she had almost touched him and tried to make up. But to do that, she would have had to give in to him, and Mark wouldn’t have gotten his car.

  But now that the deed was done, she didn’t feel as thrilled as she thought she would. If she could consider today a victory, it was a hollow one. Mark was happy, but she was left feeling alone and shut out.

  She watched Steve drying his truck, and wondered if he hated the silence as much as she did.

  “Can we be friends again?” she asked him.

  He breathed a laugh. “We’re friends, Cathy. We’re husband and wife.”

  “But you’re not real happy about it right now.”

  He just kept drying.

  She went around the truck. He was bent down now, drying the lower part.

  “Honey, I’m sorry for all this,” she said to his back. “I still don’t agree with you. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, but I don’t like us being mad at each other.”

  He straightened. “I don’t like it either, Cathy, but your attitude the last couple of days has been really hurtful. You’ve accused me of being mean to your children, of not wanting them to have things, of standing in your way of parenting them. And you’ve tried to take back your part of our money, separating it out like I have nothing to do with it. That really hurt, Cathy, because when we got married I thought we were two becoming one. You said we were joined at the heart. But it doesn’t feel like we’re very joined at all right now, and I don’t know what to think about that.”

  She took the wet towel out of his hands and slid her arms around him. “I love you, Steve. I didn’t want to make you mad. I’m just a mother bear trying to protect her cubs.”

  “I’m not a threat to your cubs, Cathy.”

  “I know, but I want so much for Mark right now. I want to encourage him. I want to give him things to give him a head start. I don’t want him suffering anymore. It’s done now. Can we get past it?”

  “Is that how it’s always going to be? You’re just going to do it and then I’m going to have to accept it?”

  “No.” She pulled back. “I’ll try to be more sensitive to your feelings from now on. Please. I love you. I don’t want us to be mad at each other. It’s hard on the kids and it’s especially hard on me.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. Finally, his expression softened. “I’ll try to get over it, Cathy. I don’t want to be mad, either, but it doesn’t go away just like that. It’s hard to shake off the things you said. Once they’re out of your mouth, you can’t really take them back.”

  “But can’t I be forgiven?”

  “Sure you can be forgiven,” he said, “but I just don’t think you’re very sorry.”

  She backed away, crossing her arms. “What do you want me to do, Steve? Get down on my knees and beg?”

  “No.”

  “Well, do you want me to snatch the car back out from under Mark and take it back to the dealership and tell him that I was wrong, that I don’t want it?”

  “Oh, that would really make me look like a hero,” Steve said. “I’ve tried to be a good stepfather, and somehow I’ve wound up being the bad guy. It didn’t start out that way.”

  He was right. Cathy dropped her arms and looked down at the water under the car. “No, it didn’t,” she said. “You don’t deserve that.”

  “Well, thank you for that.”

  She looked up at him and saw the love in his weary eyes. He reached out for her. She went willingly into his arms and held him, thankful that his love was strong enough to survive these storms. But in her heart she knew that he wasn’t completely over it.

  That evening when they went to bed, she could tell that he was still tense, still upset about the things that had occurred between them, and she wasn’t sure that she could make it right. She couldn’t undo what had been done. Mark had the car now, and Steve didn’t want to be the bad guy by making him give it up.

  And after all was said and done, she still didn’t feel she’d been wrong.

  With that hoveri
ng in her consciousness, she fell into a deep sleep…but the space between Steve and her on the king-size bed seemed wider than it ever had before.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty-Nine

  The drugstore was crowded, full of shoppers with coupons, and the line at the photo counter was almost as long as the line at the pharmacy. Brenda fidgeted as she waited to talk to the pharmacy’s cashier. While she did, her mind clicked through calculations of her checking account balance, the checks about to clear, and the cost of Joseph’s medication. Getting the medicine was critical. Transplant patients couldn’t do without it. But how would she pay this time?

  She went through this every month, when she came to get his drugs refilled. Sometimes David’s work had netted enough to pay outright. Those were the good months. But other months she juggled between paying by credit card or adding to her store account. This month both were almost maxed out.

  She got up to the cashier, said Joseph’s name, and the woman scurried away and came back with a bag of medicine. She scanned each bag. “That’ll be $553. Cash or credit card?”

  Brenda’s hands trembled as she fumbled with her checkbook. “Uh, is there any possible way you could put this on my account? I know I already owe a lot, but…”

  The woman punched her up on the computer, studied the account like a million-dollar banker disgusted with the riffraff. “Can you pay any of it at all?”

  Brenda wondered why they kept it so hot in here. “I can pay $300 if you could put $200 on my account.”

  “Okay, we could do that,” the woman said, “but you really need to make a payment pretty soon.”

  Brenda drew in a deep breath and started writing the check. “I know. I will. We don’t have very good insurance because my husband is self-employed.”

  The woman wasn’t interested. Brenda tore out the check and handed it to her. “Thank you so much.”

  “Uh-huh.” The woman chomped her gum and typed into the computer. Then looking past Brenda to the next customer, she asked, “May I help you?”

  Brenda went back to her car and sat behind the wheel, staring at the windshield and trying to decide what she needed to do. She couldn’t go another month like this. At some point the drugstore would insist on being paid for the tab she had run up. She couldn’t take the risk of having them cut off Joseph’s supply of medication.

  Once again, the idea of getting a job loomed in her heart. Not just any job, but a good one, one that had insurance benefits and paid well. Always before when she’d thought of getting a job she had looked for things that were small and insignificant, part-time work that she could squeeze around her home schooling. The job she’d had as a telemarketer at night had been an ordeal and she didn’t relish the idea of repeating it. When she had home schooled Mark, Cathy’s payments had helped with the medication, but even that hadn’t been quite enough.

  Always before, she had found it critical to stay home with her children. But the fact was that Joseph, their youngest, was twelve now, and David was home working in his workshop all day long. It wasn’t like the children would be unattended or unsupervised. She could get a normal job with normal work hours, and give them assignments to do during the day. Then she could home school them at night when she got home.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it was necessary. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made.

  She had never stopped trusting God to provide for her, but she realized that sometimes God provided by leading you to work. Maybe it was time for her to do just that.

  She started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. Her mind drifted to Sylvia’s plight, and she wondered what Sylvia and Harry would have done without adequate insurance. Thankfully, their denomination had offered that when they’d gone to the mission field. What if cancer struck the Dodd family? How would they ever pay? In a family of six, someone would get sick, someone would need surgery. There would be tonsillectomies and appendectomies. She and David could be struck with disease, or there could be an accident. They had to be ready.

  But David would never go for it.

  How would she convince him of the wisdom in her going to work?

  And if she did convince him, would he urge her to put the children back into the school system? They would balk at that for sure. Besides, they’d be bored to death because her schooling had gotten them way ahead in their studies. Rachel and Leah were probably already two years ahead of their counterparts in school, and Daniel probably could have graduated by now and headed off to college. Joseph had almost caught up with Leah and Rachel.

  No, they needed to stay home and keep studying in the way that worked for them. It would just be more challenging now, but they could do it.

  She drove home, holding back the tears in her eyes, trying to psyche herself up for her talk with David. If he saw any trepidation or dread in her face, he would put his foot down and kill himself trying to work even longer hours than he already did. He’d start talking again about going to work for someone else, where there were benefits and a steady income.

  But David loved what he did, and she liked having him home. No, it made more sense for her to work. Somehow she would convince him.

  She got home and took the medicine inside, then stepped out the back and found David in his workshop. She went inside.

  David didn’t hear her. His power saw buzzed through a flat piece of lumber, and Brenda waited until it came to a stop.

  “Hey there,” she said.

  He pulled his safety glasses up to his forehead. “Hey. I thought you were at the drugstore.”

  “I’m back.” She picked up one of the pieces he’d just cut, and blew off the sawdust. “Listen, I need to talk to you.”

  “Shoot.” He pulled the safety glasses completely off. “What is it?”

  “David, I had an epiphany.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  She smiled. “I want to get a job. But not a part-time job like I’ve tried before. Not a night job. I want to work full-time at a place that has benefits.”

  She saw the distress darkening his pale features. “Brenda, we’ve talked about this.”

  She tipped her head to the side and softened her voice. “No, we haven’t. Not really. We’ve never considered a serious job. David, I haven’t had any income since I quit teaching Mark fifteen months ago. There’s no reason I can’t work.”

  “There are four reasons,” he said. “Daniel, Leah, Rachel, and Joseph.” He crossed his arms and sat down on one of his sawhorses. “Brenda, is this about Joseph’s drugs?”

  There was no use denying it. “David, it’s getting harder to pay for them. Even the most affluent family would have a hard time paying a monthly drug bill like ours with no drug coverage.”

  “We could get another credit card,” he said. “Or change drugstores and open a new account somewhere else.”

  “David, we don’t have to go deeper into debt. I could help. I’ve figured it all out. I could give the kids assignments in the mornings, and you could look in on them all during the day. When I get home, I could do the one-on-one teaching. It could work.”

  “The kids would be unsupervised most of the day, Brenda. I’d rather put them back into school than do that.”

  She crossed the room and stood in front of him. “David, they’re good kids. If I gave them enough to keep them busy…”

  “Brenda.” He said it in that tone that brought a halt to the conversation. “I don’t like the idea. It won’t work.”

  She felt tears pushing to her eyes, tightening her throat. Staring down at the floor, she said, “David, I want to do this for Joseph, and for the rest of the family. I need to do this. It can work if we make it work. When have we ever backed down from anything just because it’s hard?”

  He stared at the jigsaw hanging on the wall, his teeth set. “I’ll figure something out, Brenda.”

  She had heard that before, but there wasn’t anything to figure out. The answer was obvious. “Honey, I know that you have a hard time with this. But it’s not your f
ault. You’ve been working out here fourteen hours a day. You’re a wonderful provider. But who could have expected us to have a child who needs hundreds of dollars’ worth of medication to stay alive? You’re not the only one who has to make sacrifices, David. I need to make some of them, too.”

  David set both palms on his worktable and let his head slump down. “You’re great at what you do, Brenda.” His voice was barely audible. “Ours are the luckiest kids in the world. I want you to keep doing what you do best.”

  That did it. The tears rushed her eyes, stung her lids, trembled in her throat. She crossed the room and slid her arms around him.

  “That’s so sweet,” she said. “But they’re older now.”

  “They’re not grown. They still need you.”

  “And I’ll still be here at night and on weekends. And you’ll be here too. We could try it, David. Just to see. If it doesn’t work out, we could find a Plan B.”

  “That is Plan B.”

  “Okay, then, Plan C or D…on down the alphabet. We Dodds can handle a challenge. All of us.”

  David held her, and after a moment, he kissed her hair. “All right, honey. Go ahead and look for a job. It doesn’t hurt to look. We’ll see what comes up.”

  She rose up and kissed him. “Thank you, David.” She touched his face. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

  He nodded silently, then put his safety glasses back on. The saw buzzed behind her as she stepped out of the workshop.

  CHAPTER

  Forty

  Friday afternoon, Cathy was in the middle of administering heartworm medication to one of her regular patients, a German shepherd she’d treated since he was a pup, when her secretary came around the door.

  “You have a phone call from a Harry Bryan.”

  Cathy finished with the dog, then hurried to the phone.

  “Harry?” she asked when she picked it up.

  “Hi, Cathy. I hope I haven’t bothered you.”

  She closed her office door with her foot and sat down. “Is everything all right?”