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  In front of the dying fire, they sat at opposite ends of the sofa, Claire’s stockinged feet curled up beneath her. She asked Michael about the conference.

  “It was interesting,” he told her. “I think I learned some very helpful things.”

  He was silent then and she sensed his thoughts were distracted.

  “Anything wrong?” she ventured, not wanting to lose him to the silence.

  “Huh?” He brought his eyes into focus on her face, seeming almost surprised to see her there. “I’m sorry, Claire. I was just thinking about some problems at work. I have a situation I’m not sure how to deal with and…” His voice trailed off, the sentence unfinished.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Claire prodded.

  He seemed to weigh his options but finally told her, “Thanks for asking, but it’s really not something I can discuss right now. I’m sorry.” He formed his hand into a Boy Scout’s pledge of honor. “I promise I’ll put it out of my mind for the rest of the evening.”

  Claire laughed and was relieved when he changed the subject and became lighthearted again. They joked and laughed together for an hour, but when the subject drifted to their high school days, Michael became serious again, making a reference to his rebellious teenage years.

  “Were you really that rebellious, Michael? The more I get to know you the more that wild image just doesn’t fit the person I know as Michael Meredith.”

  “Claire, let’s just say that if any child of mine ever gives me as much trouble as I gave Mom and Dad, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

  Claire thought perhaps he was trying to make light of the subject, but one glance at his face told her that he was very serious, even emotional. “I started drinking my sophomore year in high school,” he went on hesitantly, “and within a few months I was running around with the ‘druggies.’ It’s a miracle I didn’t get killed—or kill somebody—while I was doing drugs. Even though I don’t actually remember it because I was so strung out most of the time, my friends told me that I could be pretty mean. I guess I punched a couple of guys out for no good reason.”

  “Why?” she ventured. “The whole rebellion, I mean. Was it just to fit in, or do you think you were having some sort of identity crisis?”

  “Probably a little of both. I just felt so rejected, Claire. By everyone. Even as much as Mom and Dad loved me—and I see now how very much they did love me—but back then all I could see was that they couldn’t possibly love me as much as they loved their ‘real’ kids. I didn’t like myself a whole lot. I know the drugs were partly just to escape that. I don’t have much memory about things that happened while I was on drugs. Maybe that was the point—to just forget everything for a while.”

  “I sometimes wonder what kept me away from all that.” Claire shrugged. “I guess I was in my own little world of denial, so maybe I didn’t need drugs or alcohol to ‘forget.’ I never thought that much about it when I was growing up. I think maybe we all take the family we get for granted . . . and assume that everyone else’s family is like our own. But I know now that I grew up in a rather strange family.”

  He gave her a questioning look, but one that held not a trace of judgment.

  “I suppose we were what nowadays they would call a dysfunctional family.” She gave a wry smile. “It was Nana who helped life finally make sense to me. I would never have done anything to disappoint her.”

  “Grandparents. What a gift from God.” There was awe in his voice. “It was my grandparents who helped me to finally realize that I was worthy of having anyone love me. I remember my grandpa came and got me at a party one night. I was so drunk I couldn’t even walk, but he carried me to the car and put me to bed that night. And believe me, that was no small task. I was almost as big as I am now, and Grandpa probably didn’t weigh a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet. I remember he sat on the side of my bed and prayed for me. I could just cry when I think about that, Claire. That he would love me that much, that he would be so . . . so patient and compassionate toward the jerk that I was back then.” Michael shook his head in apparent disgust at the memory.

  Claire sat in silence, waiting for him to go on.

  “Claire, my childhood was not a very pretty picture. A lot of it was spent in the inner city of St. Louis. When I look back, I truly wonder how some of the homes I lived in were ever approved to take in foster children. Oh, sure, there were some good ones. But even though I’m sure I’ve suppressed a lot of the memories, I do remember being beaten until I was bruised. And being locked in a room without food or water. I think one of the things that hurt the most…” He had been recounting his story rather matter-of-factly, as though he'd told it many times before, but now he swallowed hard and his voice rose as though his disbelief was fresh again. “I was called some of the vilest names imaginable. I think that was the hardest, being ridiculed for things I… I didn’t even know that I’d done! But for some reason, I believed the things they said. I truly thought I was worthless and lazy and whatever else they called me. In one place the other kids in the family were fed at the table, and I was allowed whatever might be left over. It seems impossible when I think about it that such things could go on here in America. But I was there, Claire. It happens. It happened to me. . . .”

  His voice had dropped to a whisper, and Claire sat spellbound, horrified by the things he was telling her, not knowing quite how to respond.

  “Anyway,” he continued with an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, “it took me a while to believe it, but Mom and Dad were different. I’d been rejected so many times it was hard to trust anyone. But they weren’t giving up on me no matter what. It seemed like every time I did some stupid, hateful thing, they just loved me all the more. And believe me, I put them to the test. Oh, they disciplined me, too, but it was their love that finally won me over. I finally came to realize that the God to whom they'd entrusted me was real, and that He loved me enough to die for me.”

  His voice was ragged, but he cleared his throat and continued. “Claire, I don’t have any way to prove it, but I know without a doubt, that a miracle—a real miracle—happened when God’s love was able to break through all the armor I had put on. I can still remember the very minute it happened.”

  Claire didn’t want to spoil the beauty of his testimony with words, so she simply reached out and touched his arm, encouraging him to go on.

  “It was during Christmas, my senior year in high school…” He gazed into the smoldering fire. “We were all sitting around the living room opening presents. Grandma and Grandpa were there, the whole family together. And all of a sudden, I could feel the love. I could just feel that I belonged to these people. I hadn’t even known what that felt like before—to belong. But somehow I recognized it immediately.”

  Michael had been staring into the fading embers as he spoke, but now he turned and looked at her. “I guess it doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but it changed my life. Not instantly, of course. It was a rough year of disentangling myself from a lot of bad friendships and situations. But if I ever, ever doubt God’s hand on my life, all I have to do is look back to that one moment and I’m blessed and reassured all over again.”

  She just looked into his eyes, enthralled with his story.

  “You know,” he went on, “statistically I should be in prison or strung out on drugs… or dead. I know I still carry some scars, Claire, from all the rejection of my childhood—those first years without any real guidance or any love. But I consider myself a walking miracle. Wounded maybe, but a miracle nonetheless.”

  “Oh, Michael, you don’t have to convince me. Your life is the proof. You are the proof. I can scarcely believe that the little boy you keep talking about is the same man who’s sitting beside me tonight telling me this story. It had to be a miracle.”

  He reached for her hand and took it between his large, warm hands. “Thank you for understanding, Claire. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  He squeez
ed her hand and leaned across the sofa and kissed her gently. A thrill went through her and she shivered involuntarily, wondering at these feelings that were so new to her.

  He stood up. “It’s getting late, Claire, and we both have to work tomorrow. I’d better get out of here,” he said quietly. He reached again for her hand and pulled her up beside him. “This was a wonderful evening. It’s good to be back.”

  The smile he gave her melted her heart. She started for the closet to get his coat, then remembering the pie she’d wrapped for him to take home, she went to the kitchen first.

  Back in the living room, he put on his coat in silence, but in the dim light of the entryway, their eyes locked and he took her by the shoulders and kissed her again, his lips soft and warm on hers. Then he took the still-warm package from her hands and was gone.

  At the office the following day, Michael told Vera about his encounter with Gerald Stoddard in Joplin.

  She expressed surprise that Stoddard was doing consulting work. “I understood that he had retired.”

  “Apparently not.” Without mentioning Stoddard’s accusations about Riverview’s board of directors, Michael relayed the former administrator’s comments about Cynthia Harper. “Do you see Harper as strange?” he asked.

  Vera sighed heavily and seemed hesitant to answer, then plunged in, prefacing her remarks with, “The last thing I want to do is spread gossip, Michael. And I truly hope I’m not imposing my own prejudices on this, but. . .”

  He waited.

  “What do you know about Cynthia Harper?” she finally blurted.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Well, there’s certainly no law against being . . . well, different. But if you ever spent much time around her, I think you’d find that she holds some rather strange ideas about life.”

  An alarm went off in his head as he heard Vera echo Stoddard’s comments almost verbatim. “Can you give me an example?” he asked, struggling to keep the edge from his voice.

  “That’s just it. It’s nothing I can really put my finger on. She’s just . . . very different.” She thought for a moment. “This might sound silly—and really, it has nothing whatsoever to do with her nursing skills—but for instance, she doesn’t believe in banks.”

  He looked at her askance. “Banks? You mean as in First National?”

  “Yes. She cashes her paycheck at the grocery store and pays for everything with cash.”

  “She told you that?”

  “It’s common knowledge.”

  He shrugged. “That is rather unusual. But then, a lot of people don’t trust banks. Most just don’t go so far as to act on their distrust. So do you think she has a mattress stuffed with cash at home?” he asked, attempting to inject some levity into the conversation, though inwardly he was disturbed that Vera seemed to be confirming Stoddard’s assessment of Cynthia Harper.

  Vera didn’t smile. “I know that must sound petty and irrelevant to you, Michael. But it’s a lot of little things like that which make me wonder.” She threw up her hands in frustration. “I admit I am operating almost solely on intuition or . . . whatever you want to call it. But I can’t help—”

  “No, Vera,” he interrupted, sorry he'd made light of her comments. “I trust your judgment. You couldn’t have held this position for as long as you have if you weren’t a good judge of character. But you know as well as I do that we can’t very well let an employee go on the basis of somebody’s intuition.”

  “I know. I probably should never have even brought it up. You’re right, it’s not relevant.” Again Vera hesitated.

  “What is it, Vera? Please speak freely.”

  She sighed and plunged in. “This will probably sound like sour grapes, but when Cynthia applied for this job several years ago, Gerald hired her against my recommendation. At the time, I just did not feel she had the stability nursing requires. She was newly widowed then and, in my opinion, seemed not to be handling her grief well. And frankly, her references from hospice tended to back up my judgment.”

  “Why do you think Stoddard was so insistent on hiring Cynthia?” He didn’t mean to bait Vera, but he was curious.

  “Well… As long as we’re being very frank, Michael, I’ll just tell you that I’ve always thought it was a bit of a power play. Gerald tended to enjoy throwing his weight around. And I think you could find more than one employee here who would back me up on that.” Vera shook her head scornfully, remembering. “He didn’t take kindly to being disagreed with, and I was pretty adamant in expressing my reservations about hiring Cynthia. It was a very unpleasant scene.”

  Her answer surprised him. Michael thought for a minute. Should he tell her about Stoddard’s implication of the board? He felt strongly that he could trust his director of nursing, but he was hesitant to draw her needlessly into the controversy.

  Finally he asked, “Vera, just how strong are your feelings about this whole situation?” He took a deep breath, feeling as if he were about to walk through a door through which he might never return. “Does this have any reflection on the situation that made you suspicious in the first place, Vera? On Frederick Halloran’s death? If there’s a possibility we are talking neglect or foul play, or if you believe there might have been something suspicious about Frederick Halloran’s death after all, I need to know why.”

  Vera rubbed her hands together, her distress obvious. “I don’t know, Michael. I have nothing concrete to go on whatsoever. It was a gut feeling. Maybe I was wrong to even question things. I can’t deny that Cynthia has turned out to be a very capable nurse. She is extremely compassionate. And very efficient. I can’t fault her nursing skills at all. And that is what she was hired to do here.”

  “That’s a good point.” He told her then of Stoddard’s claim that he'd been pressured by the board to hire Harper against Vera’s objections.

  Vera shook her head. “I had no idea Cynthia was a niece of Nita Dalhardt.”

  “She’s never mentioned it. I guess I was so angry with Gerald for what I thought was another instance of throwing his weight around that I didn’t think about any other possibilities. I never dreamed he might be getting pressure from the board. It just doesn’t make sense. None of this does. I know most of the board members personally, Michael. Maybe I’m too naive, but I simply can’t believe they could be bought like that.”

  Michael raked a hand through his hair. “I honestly can’t put much stock in anything Stoddard said that day. He was far from sober.”

  Vera raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Gerald was drunk? Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like him, Michael. I admit I didn’t care much for the man, but he was always pretty straight and narrow.”

  Michael assured her that there was no doubt that Stoddard had been intoxicated that night.

  Vera shook her head in disbelief, but she agreed with Michael that Stoddard wouldn’t have had any reason to make up such a story. But even if the things Stoddard had said were true, it didn’t negate the fact that Cynthia Harper had turned out to be a capable and caring nurse. The alleged incident with the board had not happened on Michael’s watch. The monies for the senior center had come through on schedule, and if there had been strings attached to the donation, Cynthia Harper had apparently upheld her end of the bargain. There seemed to be no reason to dredge up the past. And for that, Michael was grateful.

  He stood and turned toward the door. “I almost hate to ask, but did anything happen around here while we were gone that I should know about?”

  “Nothing earth-shattering. It looks like we’re starting our winter plague of pneumonia. Helga Schultz on North died Sunday morning, and they took Ben Watson to the hospital last night with the same thing. I doubt he’ll be coming back.”

  “I’ll be glad when spring gets here,” he sighed.

  “You and me both.”

  Chapter 13

  Claire went through the next week in a kind of stupor. While teaching long division in the morning, and mindlessly reading a
book aloud to her class late in the afternoon, she relived the evening with Michael and every word of their conversation over and over again.

  She didn’t dare voice it, but she thought perhaps she was in love. Michael Meredith was becoming very dear and special to her. And she felt certain he was beginning to feel the same about her.

  “Oh, thank you, Lord. Thank you,” she whispered into the silence of her car on the way home that night. A veil of wet snowflakes had begun to cloak the streets. Ordinarily, Claire would have been depressed at the deepening of winter. But now the heavy flakes seemed to dance with a joy that matched her own.

  So this was how it felt to fall in love, to have someone in your life who was the most special person on earth—and to whom you were most special. Oh, what a wonderful idea romance was! The thought had sounded sappy to her before, but suddenly she understood how love prompted symphonies to be composed and poetry to be written.

  She and Michael talked on the phone every night that week, sharing the simplest events of their days, laughing together over almost nothing, taking joy in the very sound of each other’s voice.

  Saturday morning, the first day of March, the trill of her phone woke her before nine o’clock. She rolled over and groped for her phone on the nightstand. Michael’s name brought a smile. She unplugged her phone from the charger and tested her voice before she answered. But it still came out in a croak. “Hello.”

  “Hey, sleepyhead. Wake up.”

  “Aargh!” she groaned, blinking against the glare of sun filtering through the curtains at her bedroom window. “What time is it anyway?” she asked sleepily.

  “Time to get up.”

  “Michael, don’t you know it’s Saturday?” she whined.

  “Look out the window.”

  “What?”

  “Get your lazy bones out of bed and look out the window.”

  She sat up in bed, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and parted the curtains from the window by her bed. The ground outside her window was thick with snow, and a few gentle flakes were still floating down. “Wow!” she whispered into the phone.