The Trouble with Angels (Angels Everywhere #2)(54)

"No, I guess we won’t,” Bethany admitted reluctantly. "Have you told Dad you’re leaving yet?”

"No. He’s disappeared again. Mrs. Johnson said he left shortly after lunch and didn’t say where he was going. He’ll be back before dinner. Annie and I’ll tell him then.”

Paul hated the smell of a hospital. It was sickness and death and hopelessness and pain all mingled with disinfectant and medications. Even when Barbara was home for brief periods, the scent had never left her skin and hair.

It assaulted him when he walked into the Westside Medical Hospital like a wave of August heat. He stopped in the foyer, uncertain for a moment if he could continue.

By the sheer force of his guilt and shame, he made his way toward the elevator and Madge Bartelli’s room. He expected to find Bernard either in the waiting room reserved for families or at Madge’s bedside, but Madge’s husband was neither place.

Madge must have heard him enter the room because her head rolled across the pillow toward Paul. Even in her agony she offered him a weak smile. "Hello, Pastor.”

"Hello, Madge.” At her bedside was the worn leather volume of Psalms he’d lent her. Barbara had read it often in those final weeks. When the pain was the worst, he’d read the words of comfort to her, but he’d found little solace himself.

"How nice of you to come.”

He should have been to visit her much sooner and far more often. "Joe’s home.” That was the only excuse he could think to offer, weak as it was. He wanted to beg her to forgive his weakness, but he didn’t come to burden her with his guilt.

"I understand he’s marrying.” Her words were so weak, they were barely audible.

"This summer, it seems.”

"Ah,” she said, and closed her eyes, "I’ll miss the wedding.”

After all his years of schooling, after all his years of counseling and training, Paul discovered he hadn’t an answer to that.

"Give him and his bride-to-be my love.”

"I will.”

How frail she was, Paul noted, and sinking more each day. He wondered if her children would arrive in time and prayed they would.

Prayer.

He had done precious little of that in the last few weeks. He discovered he couldn’t talk to God the way he had before Barbara’s death. He had a chip on his shoulder, he guessed, although a pastor generally wasn’t supposed to possess negative feelings. After all, what possible good would it do to be angry with almighty God?

"Where’s Bernard?” Paul asked, afraid if he waited much longer she’d slip into a state of semiconsciousness.

"Chapel, I think. Talk to him, will you, Pastor? He’s having a difficult time letting me go, and he must.”

"Sleep now,” Paul whispered. He claimed the fragile hand in his own and patted it. He couldn’t tell this sweet, godly woman that he hadn’t been able to relinquish his wife yet. Barbara was two years in the ground, and he clung to each memory of his wife until his life was so filled with stumbling blocks, he was no earthly good to anyone.

How long he sat at Madge’s bedside he didn’t know. Time lost meaning. He might even have slept some, he didn’t know. But when he next looked up, Paul discovered Bernard standing across from him. The older man’s shoulders were slumped forward as if standing upright were almost more than he could manage.

"She’s resting comfortably now,” Paul whispered.

Bernard nodded and sank onto the chair on the opposite side of the hospital bed.

Paul wondered when Bernard had last eaten. Or slept a full night through. He hadn’t, Paul recalled. Not for weeks on end. He’d survived on bitter coffee out of a machine and stale sandwiches.

Paul came around to where Bernard was sitting. He didn’t ask how the other man was holding up; he knew. He didn’t ask about Madge’s condition; he knew that, too.

"Let me buy you something to eat,” he offered.

Bernard shook his head. "I’m not hungry.”

Paul wrapped his arms around Bernard and gently pulled his head to his shoulder as if he were cradling a child.

A sob came from deep inside the older man’s chest. It took some time to work its way up his parched throat, and when it was released it sounded like the cry of a wounded animal. One sob followed another and then another, until Bernard’s shoulders heaved with emotion.

"I’ve loved Madge for nearly fifty years,” he wailed.

"I know,” Paul said soothingly.

"How will I ever live without her?”

"You’ll learn,” Paul assured him. His only hope was that his friend would learn better than he had.

"She’s ready,” Bernard said again, sobbing stronger now. "But I’m not. I can’t let her go. God help me, I can’t let her go.”

"I know all about that, too,” Paul whispered brokenly.

12

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Joy had made her decision about Ted and stuck to it in spite of his persuasive arguments.

After he’d left her, she’d expected a feeling of elation. A sense of well-being all the self-help books described when one responded with emotional maturity.

Joy had taken care of her inner child, seen to her own emotional needs without surrendering to the risky desires of her insecurities. It wasn’t necessary for anyone to tell her Ted was the type who’d only hurt her in the end. That much was obvious from the moment she’d seen him walk out the door with Blythe Holmes on his arm.