Brady was the one who helped Liz up the stairs to her bedroom that night, who listened outside her door to make sure she didn’t fall in the bathroom, and who brought her up a cup of tea and her pain medication before she turned in for the night.
As I knelt to offer my prayers before I also went to bed, I asked God to help orchestrate meaningful conversations between my brother and me so that I could continue to fix what was broken between us. It seemed to me that with Liz there, the likelihood of having those conversations had been greatly diminished. If God didn’t intercede, I didn’t see how I could change anything.
Then again, I realized, perhaps Liz, too, was among the list of people with whom God wanted me to find peace and reconciliation. If so, then I prayed He would give me clarity when dealing with her—and when it came time to talk to my father as well. The hunch that my dad was wrestling with regret after all these years had been confirmed by Liz. I searched my heart for pockets of bitterness or lingering resentment toward him, but I didn’t find any. What I sensed instead was something closer to what I was already feeling. Restlessness. My inner being was not at peace. I was dangling between two worlds, and the plain truth was that nobody could be at peace if their feet were not planted on solid ground.
Finally, I prayed that God would watch over Rachel and not let me destroy something meant to last. If it was meant to last.
I was the first one awake the next morning, Liz’s first full day home. After my devotions, I took Frisco out for a daybreak walk and then returned to the house to find Brady helping Liz maneuver down the stairs. She appeared to be in greater pain today. We had decided to leave one crutch upstairs and one crutch down, so at the bottom of the staircase, Brady handed her the downstairs crutch and helped tuck it safely under her arm.
“Want any coffee, Liz?” I asked as I watched her grimace.
“Yes, please.” She made her way slowly to the couch, Brady trailing her with her iPad and cell phone. I followed them and turned into the kitchen.
“Can I make you some breakfast, Brady?” I poured coffee for Liz and turned to my brother. “Scrambled eggs or an omelet? My omelets aren’t pretty but they are tasty.”
“Nah, I’m good,” he answered without looking at me.
“I’ll take an omelet,” Liz said. “What have you got to put in one?”
I opened the fridge. “Mushrooms, asparagus, and some kind of cheese.”
“Sounds wonderful to me,” Liz called out.
Brady turned to face me. “I guess I’ll have one, then.”
“Coming right up.”
While I made breakfast, Brady took a chair at the kitchen table and tapped at the screen on his cell phone. Liz turned on the morning news, which seemed to be one story of conflict and chaos after another.
It was a beautiful November morning, unseasonably warm, even for just a few minutes after seven. When the omelets were ready—they actually didn’t look too bad—I suggested we eat breakfast on the patio. It was my way of unplugging from the TV and its doom and Brady’s cell phone. But Brady said he didn’t have enough time before his ride came, and Liz said it was too chilly to eat outside.
We remained where we were and ate, each one of us in relative solitude.
Liz’s appointment for her new cast was at ten. On the drive there, I asked her how she became interested in overseas humanitarian work.
“How could I not be? There is so much need out there. So many hurting and sick people, especially children. Thousands die needlessly every day. Nothing will change for them if people like us don’t step in. I’m lucky I can take time off from work to do it. I would have done it long before this if we weren’t always moving.”
“So what do you do when you go?”
“Everything. On this trip we were conducting immunization clinics and diabetes management training. Last year when I went to Guatemala, I assisted two doctors who performed clef palate repairs to fifteen kids who had literally no future without surgery. The year before that we were in Haiti. And before that, in the Dominican Republic removing benign-but-life-threatening tumors and growths.”
“Must be hard to see so much suffering.”
“Oh, it would be far more difficult to look away from it, I think. I couldn’t live with myself if I did nothing in spite of having the means and opportunity to do something.”
Liz began to share with me some of the amazing stories from her past trips, and I found my admiration and respect for her growing. In all the years she had been my stepmother, I hadn’t known that she, like Rachel, was very much moved by compassion to do something when a need arose.
“I feel like I am just beginning to know you, Liz, after all these years,” I said as I turned into the parking lot of the hospital where she worked. “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you at arm’s length. I didn’t mean to.”