Cheryl Wolverton - Home To You

The pictures on the walls had once been of oceans but his mom had talked so much about the prairie that for a Christmas present about four years ago, he’d bought her three new pictures. One was of a wooden fence and a windmill at sunset with only the flat plain behind it. The second was of an old ranch house and a horse grazing in the front yard. The third was the picture of a Native American on a horse, both drooping wearily.

The dining room had not changed, with the same side table and dining table as well as the cupboard. The dishes were the only thing different. In the kitchen, however, there were all new appliances.

Suddenly he realized that despite the changes he’d made, the house was still basically the same. “I guess I don’t see much reason to alter things,” Dakota murmured.

“Which is why you’re still here in town when many of us left and made the few hours’ bus ride to FortWorth.”

Dakota admitted he was right. He liked things to stay the same. He’d slipped easily into the role of pastor in town after he’d gotten back from his training. The entire time he’d been gone had seemed to be a waste. Now he wondered if that emotion hadn’t simply been his desire to be back home.

“So, what are you going to do about her?” Chase motioned toward the woman on the sofa.

She shifted onto her side, moving to get comfortable but not waking up.

“I guess we’ll wait until the doctor gets here and then decide.”

Chase nodded. “I should go. My mother-in-law is with Sarah and I promised to get back. She’s headed back to Dallas tomorrow.”

Dakota wasn’t sure what to say, not wanting to be left alone with a woman in his house. He was saved by the doctor pulling up outside. With a silent prayer of thanks, Dakota nodded. “It was great seeing you again, Chase. I’m only sorry our day turned out this way.”

“Hey, bud.” Chase shrugged. “How could you know this was going to happen?”

Dakota walked to the door and pulled it open.

“Call me if you need anything else.” With a look at the woman on the sofa, Chase headed out and down the stairs just as Dr. Joshua Meadows climbed them.

“So, what’s this about an inebriated woman, Dakota?”

Dakota stepped back and motioned to the sofa. “She was on my doorstep when I got home, Josh. I really would appreciate it if you’d examine her and make sure she’s okay. Frankly, I’m not sure what to do with her.”

Josh lifted an eyebrow and grinned. With dark brown hair and a sense of humor, Josh was a good doctor. Tall and athletic, he enjoyed basketball and lifting weights. Dakota sometimes worked out with him. “Well, let’s do one thing at a time. Can you call Mary and have her come over here to witness while I examine the woman?”

Dakota felt relief now that Josh was here. They’d been friends since Dakota had first taken over pastoring Shenandoah Family Church. When he’d been unsure about pastoring the same people he’d grown up with, Josh, new in town, had been a friend he could confide in. Their paths often crossed in professional ways, which had helped develop their friendship.

Law wasn’t something Dakota thought about much, but it was something Josh did consider. And Dakota was glad. He didn’t like to think about how it might be with him alone in the house. The brown eyes of the doctor, however, were sharp and full of implication.

Going to the phone, he called Mary and asked her if she’d mind helping the doctor. Then he returned to Josh’s side.

“What can you tell me about her?” Josh asked now, setting down his black bag and pulling out a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff.

“I came home. She had a bottle of whiskey in her hands. She took a drink, tossed the bottle, stumbled and passed out.”

Josh nodded. “And you don’t want to call the police…”

“She hasn’t done anything. If she’s come to me for help—which I think she has—then jail isn’t the place for her. I can’t send her to a homeless shelter like this. The closest shelter is about two hours away! But I can’t toss her out.”

As Dakota explained the situation, his own situation became clear. He couldn’t very well keep the woman here. He didn’t know anything about her. But he couldn’t put her out either.

But he could not keep her here.

Oh boy, he thought dismally, not sure what he was going to do.

Mary arrived. He went to the door and let her in just as the phone rang. Crossing the living room to the table next to the love seat, he answered, leaving Josh and Mary to the patient. “Hello?”

“Dakota honey?”

How did she always know? Dakota wondered. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“I have good news. I’m booked on a flight back to Shenandoah at 5:00 p.m. tonight and wondered if you would be able to pick me up at the airport.” His mom’s voice was so matter-of-fact—as if it was normal for her to call unexpectedly when his life was suddenly upside down, only to announce she was coming home.

“I thought you were planning on staying at least another month to help Susan with the twins.” Suspicious, he fished for something to tell him what his mother knew. Small towns, he thought, almost certain someone had called her about the woman on his steps.

“I’ve been here three months already, honey.” That much was true.

Glancing over to the sofa, he saw Mary, hands clasped, looking overly innocent and wide eyed as she stared at him.

He had his answer.

“I see.”

“I’m sure you do,” his mother said wisely.

“I’ll be glad to make sure someone is there to pick you up at the airport, Mom. However, I have company, so I won’t be able to make it myself.”

He waited for a response. A question. Something. When it came, it was simple. “That’s fine. See you around five-thirty. Bye, son.”

“Goodbye, Mom.”

He hung up the phone.

“Who was that?”

Dakota turned to Mary and gave her one of his you’ve-been-meddling-again looks. Then he turned to Josh. “That was Mom. She’s on her way home.”

“Word travels fast.”

“Uh-huh.” He shot a look at Mary, who would have been whistling if she knew how. In all the years he’d known her, he knew that whistling had been a bone of contention between the two sisters. Margaret could whistle. Mary could not.

“What about our patient?” he asked, changing the subject. It wouldn’t do any good to get onto Mary for calling his mom. She watched out for him whether he wanted it or not. And if she felt his mom would be a help here—which, he had to admit, she would since he couldn’t very well throw an unconscious woman out on the street—then Mary and Margaret would call his mom.

Thirty-two years old and they still treated him as if he were twelve.

“Blood pressure is okay. So are her heart and lungs, pupils. I’d say she’s going to be fine. She just needs to sleep it off. You won’t get any answers out of her today, I’m afraid.”

Dakota nodded. “I guess that’s that then.”

“Want me to put her in the spare room?”

Dakota hesitated.

Mary piped up, “It wouldn’t be right for you to be alone here. I’ll be glad to stay with you. Besides, you promised me over a month ago to help me with that puzzle I’m working. I’ll call Margaret and have her bring it over and we can finish it together.”

Great. An afternoon with Margaret and Mary.

But at least the woman would feel safe when she woke and found herself in his house—and he’d feel safe, too, when he faced his congregation.

It seemed the best choice. “That sounds great, Mary.”

Josh shifted the woman on the sofa and lifted her. “Lead the way.”

Dark shadows surrounded her and she knew the dream was starting again. No amount of liquor could keep the demons at bay. And as the deep dark recesses parted and the fog swirled away from around her, she knew what was coming. As a spectator in a theater seat, she watched the past play out before her once again.

It started out the same every time. She was falling down the set of stairs, falling, grasping for the handrail. She’d been fine, laughing with her friend, and then had simply missed a step. Or she’d thought that was it.

Shouts sounded and people came running. One of her co-workers helped her up. But she couldn’t stand. She must have hurt her leg.

Her boss gave her the rest of the day off.

She went home and took a hot bath.

She’d thought a hot bath would help her pain, ease the aches of the fall, but it hadn’t.

Instead of getting better, she found she couldn’t get out of the tub.

Panic ensued. But in the dream the water was drowning her, pulling her down below the rim, in the tub, alone, with no help.

The water had eventually chilled and slowly her leg had started working; gradually the water released its death hold on her.

Trembling, she’d pulled herself out of the tub and managed to get to her bed.

Falling onto the soft white sheets, she thought to sleep off the scare. Of course, the dream didn’t end. Instead, she saw herself decide to get up and go to work. It was unexplainably day again. Birds were singing. A soft breeze blew in the curtained window.

Mists swirled in around her, trying to block her vision of the deceptively beautiful day. As she was back at work, jokes floated off the tongues of her friends, silly jokes about her being a klutz. Her leg had gotten better and she was back, but this day, not even a month later according to the calendar on her desk, her hand was going numb.

Her boss, Rob, was standing there, waiting on a report, saying it was about time she got some rest, when he noticed she’d stopped typing.

Her arm burned, burned from shoulder to elbow, and her fingers didn’t want to work. Flames were leaping from her arm.

Cold crept up her spine, extinguishing the flames, but not before her boss saw them.

He insisted she take the day off and go to the doctor. That was it. He didn’t try to put the flames out or comment on them, just told her to go see a physician.

He forced her toward the door, grabbing her arm, shoving at her. She stepped toward his office and right into the ER.

The three days of testing played like a video on fast-forward. And they were very true to what had really happened.

There was the doctor. Then radiology.

A spinal tap.

There were machines hooked up to her that made her muscles jump and dance. Her arms and legs looked like a caricature of Pinocchio when he danced.

And then she was sitting in the doctor’s office, those strings still on her, moving her arms and legs…until he told her the diagnosis.

The verdict.

The strings fell off.

Shock stunned her speechless.

Her grandmother appeared, in her wheelchair next to her, her voice like the teacher’s on Charlie Brown, there but indistinguishable. The only sound she could make out was that of her grandmother’s anger as she swung a stick at her and then cackled with glee.

It wasn’t thought to be hereditary, the doctor had told her—but then he didn’t know about her grandmother. He couldn’t see her grandmother laughing at her.

Why couldn’t he?

She looked from him to her grandmother and back.

They didn’t know what caused it.

She felt hysterical laughter bubbling up in her.

He asked her if she was okay then told her they needed to talk about the next steps.

But she knew there was no treatment. Just look at her horrible grandmother!

Her hateful, wheelchair-bound grandmother who loved to hit her with a stick and who taunted and tormented her mother and father until Daddy had left and Mother had finally moved to the city to try to make enough money for them to survive.