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“Return to your rest, oh my soul.” The woman spoke so softly Helen could barely make out the verse. “For the Lord has been good to you.”
He’d expected the first face he would encounter when he blinked awake again to be Helen’s. It was not, but this one was nearly as comforting.
“Beth . . .” he rasped.
Though her lips wobbled, the old woman smiled a closed-lip sort of grin. “My dear boy.”
“I thought you might come.”
“Of course I did.” She slipped her hand into his.
Summoning enough strength to do so, Kevin raised that thin hand and pressed it against his cheek. For a long moment, he simply savored the warmth of her skin against his. This motherly touch had been denied him all his childhood but was freely given now, as if a gift of redemption.
“I never told you.” He lifted his eyes to meet hers and found the warm kindness of devotion looking back at him. “But you became the mother to me that I never had. I love you for it.”
Her throat spasmed as she visibly swallowed. She took several moments before she could speak, and when she did, emotion trembled in her voice. “And you became a son of my heart, Kevin. Mine and George’s. And we both have loved you and Helen as if you were our very own.”
She sniffed and straightened her posture. “Now then.”
A slight grin lifted Kevin’s mouth. “Now then. You’re still coming, right?”
The gleam of a conspirator entered her eyes. “It’s still on?”
“Of course it is.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” She squeezed his hand and then slipped it from his. “Have you spoken to the boys?”
“They know.”
“They must do more now than know.” With a firm nod, Elizabeth took charge. “I will call Matthew as soon as I leave this hospital.”
“I can talk to him. We’ll iron it all out.”
“You will not.” Her lifted brow said firmlydo not argue with me. It was a look that apparently all women held in their armory, as he’d witnessed it on his wife’s face more times than he could number. “You have seven capable boys. And you have me.” With one more firm nod, she leaned over the side of the bed and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You rest. Get well. Nothing more. That’s an order.”
A chuckle moved through Kevin’s chest, which was uncomfortable but somehow still lifted his spirit.
Elizabeth stood, her rise slow but certain as she pressed against her cane. “And now that we have straightened that out, I believe your wife is waiting.” Having shuffled a few feet away, the woman stopped and glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’m not sure why she sent me to see you first.”
Kevin smiled, because he could guess—Helen knew the gaping hole not having a mother had left in his heart. God had mended that through Elizabeth Clayton. What better time to remind him of God’s gracious provisions than when he came through the mending of his physical heart?
“Thank you, Beth,” he said.
A lopsided smile lifted her mouth, and then she made her way out of the room.
Chapter Seven
(in which the future must change)
Kevinsatatthekitchen table, slumped in the chair, laptop open in front of him, a pad of graphing paper and a pencil to the right of it. A cup of weak cinnamon and bay-leaf tea sat at his right hand—the kind Helen made for household members who were unwell. He had never been a fan of it and rarely had need to sip the stuff.
He’d been drinking it way too much the past week. It had gotten old real fast.
A growl of impatience nearly rumbled from his throat. Would have if he’d not gulped it back with a mouthful of that steaming bland tea.
He should not be sitting there. This time of day he should be in the shop, should be hammering something or cutting something or doing something useful with his hands. Not sitting there like a useless man taking up space while his wife worked away atherthriving business and his son made sureKevin’sbusiness stayed afloat. Instead, he was reconciling work orders that had apparently already been seen to. He scribbled away on a notepad, doodling a project he wouldn’t be able to see through to the end.
That wasn’t doing the work, and it frustrated Kevin to be sidelined. How was he going to survive the six weeks rest prescribed?
