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Chapter Six
(in which love extends through years and absence)
“Ohmygoodness.”Helenstood from her seat in the waiting room. “How did you know to come?”
Aided by a cane, Elizabeth Clayton made her way across the sterile space, her posture as erect as ever, her mouth set determinedly, kindness in her eyes. “Jacob called me. Of course, I came.”
The moment those thin arms gathered her close, Helen rested her head against Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Oh, Beth,” she whispered, “why do we keep meeting in a waiting room?”
“Sweet girl.” Elizabeth leaned back and cupped Helen’s cheek. “Life is but a waiting room, isn’t it?”
Helen blinked against tears. “I’m not ready . . .”
“No. But Kevin is much more ready now than he was so many years ago. That is a comfort.”
Pursing her quivering lips, Helen nodded.
“And anyway, the prospect of ‘goodbye for now’ is much less than it was yesterday, right?”
“It is.” Perhaps one less familiar with Elizabeth Clayton would think her words were cold or insensitive. They were not, however, and Helen knew it.
This woman who had acted as a mother to both Kevin and her at a time when Kevin had no parents and hers had turned away, had borne her own griefs. Elizabeth Clayton did not offer rosy encouragement out of ignorance but held out true hope from a heart that had gone through the waters of heartache and found that, as Isaiah 43 had promised, the Lord had been with her.
As He would be with Helen come what may.
Helen looped an arm through the crook of Elizabeth’s elbow, and side by side the pair stepped back to the chairs. As they sat down, a gentle quiet settled with them—Elizabeth had never been one for too many words—and Helen allowed her memory to travel back.
The phone call came from George. “Helen, I know it’s late and the kids are in bed. But we need your prayers.”
Over the past ten years, Kevin and Helen had met often with the Claytons. The couple, and Dave, had taken them into their hearts as family. Asking for prayer was not unusual. But a phone call at nearly ten at night asking for such was.
“Should I get Kevin?”
“You can pass it along. I need to go. Dave—” George’s voice broke, and Helen’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Dave has been in an accident.”
Knocked breathless, Helen dropped onto a chair at the kitchen table. “Oh no.”
“He’s being life-flighted out to a bigger hospital.” Again, George paused to draw in a shuddering breath. “It doesn’t look good, Helen.”
“I’ll pray. I’ll tell Kevin, and we’ll both pray.” That ended the call. Helen told Kevin, as well as called her mom, who had come around to trusting Kevin as a sober man by then. As soon as Mom arrived to stay with the boys—six of them at that time—she and Kevin left. It took three hours to get to the hospital.
Dave was already gone by the time they met George and Elizabeth in the waiting room.
“What happened?” Helen whispered.
Through tear-laden eyes, Elizabeth looked at Kevin cautiously. As if she didn’t want to say it for fear that Kevin’s heart might shatter.Leave it to the woman to worry about Kevin’s heart when hers was broken.
George stared at his feet and shook his head. “Head-on collision. Hit by a . . . a drunk driver.”
The impact of the horrible irony was immediate, and Kevin nearly collapsed with the weight of it. Nearly, but for George, whose ready arms caught him and held him fast, and the pair sobbed.
It was an awful day. One of the worst Kevin and Helen had ever known. Certainlytheworst for George and Elizabeth Clayton.
Helen waited in that very hospital now. And no, Elizabeth’s wise, hopeful words weren’t the stilted pie-in-the-sky sort. She was truly one who could say, with Horatio Spafford in the midst of heartbreak,It is well, it is well, with my soul.
And having her there as Helen waited for news of Kevin’s surgery, aged hand holding hers, lent great strength. Enough for Helen to murmur those gut-twisting words of that powerful old hymn. “Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say . . .”
The hand that held hers squeezed, and Elizabeth added her gentle voice to Helen’s weak one. “It is well, it is well, with my soul.”
