A Soldier's Heart

“Grandpa says the ball set is ours, but we should leave it here to play with when we’re here,” Michael said, with his typical determination to do everything according to the rules. “They’re our Grandpa’s house toys.”

“That’s a good idea.” She ruffled his red curls. “I’m going in the house with Grammy. You two stay right in the yard, okay? If you hit the ball outside, you come and tell me. Don’t go after it yourselves.”

“We know, Mom.” Shawna gave an exaggerated sigh.

Was she being overprotective? Maybe that was inevitable. She’d learned that disaster could strike just when everything seemed fine.

She went back into the kitchen, to find her mother pouring glasses of iced tea. She handed one to Mary Kate. “It’s so warm for the first of May that I thought I’d make iced tea. So, tell me. How did it go with Luke? Did he actually let you in the house?”

“Not exactly let me in. I’m afraid I barged in.”

Her mother’s brow wrinkled. “Brendan thought we should respect his wish to be left alone.”

“Brendan doesn’t know everything, even if he is a minister.” After having been raised with her cousin Brendan, she didn’t have quite the same reverent attitude toward their minister that the rest of the congregation did. “Anyway, this was business.”

“Poor Luke.” Her mother’s fund of sympathy was unending. “How did he take it?”

“Not well.” She still trembled inside when she thought about that encounter. Had she handled it the right way? Someone with more experience might have done it differently, but at least she’d gotten results. “He finally agreed to the therapy. But he put some conditions on it.”

“Conditions?”

She swallowed, trying to ease the tension that tightened her throat. “He’ll go through with the therapy, but he insists on home visits. And he’ll only do it if I’m his therapist.”

Her mother clasped her hand. “That’s fine, Mary Kate. You’re a good therapist. He couldn’t be in better hands.”

“I’m not sure Mr. Dickson will agree with that.” She gave a wry smile.

“Then you’ll just show him how good you are.” Siobhan always had high expectations of her kids, and more often than not, they managed to meet them, maybe feeling they couldn’t let her down.

“I hope so, but—”

The back door flew open to allow Shawna and Michael to surge through. “Is it almost time for supper?” Shawna surprised Mary Kate by diving into her arms, face lighting up with a smile. “We’re starving!”

“In a minute.” Mary Kate hugged her and then opened her arms to include Michael. “Group hug, please.”

The feel of those two warm, squirming bodies against hers chased away the doubt she’d been about to express. Of course she could succeed. Fueled by the fierce love she had for her children, she could do anything.

Chapter Two

The silence stretched in the clinic director’s office when Mary Kate finished describing her visit with Luke—stretched just like her nerves. She fixed her gaze on Carl Dickson’s face, determined not to look at the floor like a kid called into the principal’s office.

Dickson had a smooth, expressionless face, rather like an egg. It was the perfect mask for a bureaucrat, impossible to read. Why would someone go into physical therapy, the essence of hands-on helping, and then choose to be an administrator?

He cleared his throat. “Well, Mary Kate, you’ve brought us to a difficult place.”

Her heart sank. He was reacting negatively, probably thinking that she was trying to use her one-time friendship with Luke to grab extra hours of work.

“I don’t see what else—” she began, but the telephone rang.

Dickson held up his hand in a stop signal. “One moment, Mary Kate. I should take this.”

She subsided. That was another, separate annoyance—Dickson’s use of her first name. It had been made clear that he was Mr. Dickson to her, and the inequality irked. He was probably about her age, but he was already running the clinic.

He’d also shown that he didn’t consider her age an advantage. Most of the other therapists were a good ten years younger than she was. She’d started late, and whether she’d catch up was still up in the air.

She surveyed Dickson’s degrees, framed and hung on the wall behind his desk, trying to ignore his phone conversation. The glowing recommendations from the instructors of the refresher courses she’d taken had made him willing to give her the part-time position. If she did well, he’d implied that she’d be considered for a full-time job opening up in September. If not…

Given his reaction to the way she’d handled Luke Marino, that had begun to look doubtful. Tension tightened her hands on the arms of the chair. She had to provide for the children. Kenny hadn’t carried much life insurance—after all, the only way he’d ever thought he’d go was fighting fire, in which case there was a department policy.

Her family wouldn’t let them be in need, but providing for her children was her job. She couldn’t be a burden to her parents or brothers or sister. As for Kenny’s elderly, ailing parents—they must never imagine that Kenny hadn’t left her well-provided-for.

Dickson hung up and turned back to her, so she focused on him, steeling herself. But he looked ever so slightly more approachable.

“Well, as I was saying, this is not quite the result I expected, but perhaps we can make it work.”

She blinked, sure that was not at all what he’d intended to say. “I tried to convince Mr. Marino that the equipment here would be far better than anything I could provide for home therapy.”

“Let’s not worry about that. We’ll arrange for rental of any necessary equipment and we can spare you to work with him at home as much as needed.”

Granted, she was the most expendable of the staff, but still—“Will the army cover the cost of rented equipment?”

“Perhaps, but under the circumstances we don’t have to rely totally on the army.” He nodded toward the telephone. “That was Marino’s father on the line. We’ve been talking about the situation for several days. He’s offered to pick up the tab for anything his son needs that the army won’t cover.”

That startled her into silence. Certainly Phillip Marino could afford it. Several businesses in Suffolk carried the Marino name, including the largest auto dealership. But his estrangement from his former wife and the son of that marriage was almost as well-known as his car ads.

“I don’t know that Luke would agree to that,” she said slowly. “He and his father—well, they’ve never seen much of each other.”

“That’s hardly our concern.” Dickson’s voice sharpened. “Our focus must be on what’s best for the patient, not on the source of our payment.”

He was only too pleased at the prospect of collecting from both the army contract and Phillip Marino. She closed her lips firmly. It was not her place to criticize his decisions. At least this meant that she had a job to do and a chance to prove herself.

Dickson rose, signaling the end of the conversation. “Meet with the senior therapist and draw up a treatment program and a list of the necessary equipment. You have my authorization to put in whatever extra hours are needed. All right?”

She stood, as well. “Of course.”

What else could she say? But she was uneasily aware that she was being manipulated from both sides.

Dickson thought he could use her to collect from both the army and Luke’s father. And Luke thought he could use her to skate through the mandated therapy with as little effort as possible.

She wasn’t sure which she disliked more.

“That’s as far as it will go.” Luke managed the words through gritted teeth, trying not to sound like a wimp.

Mary Kate, kneeling on the living-room floor next to his mat, just shook her head and continued to press his leg up with both hands. Those small hands of hers were a lot stronger than he’d have expected. The dead weight of his leg had to be a strain, but she hadn’t lost that serene expression throughout the whole torturous hour.

He clenched his fists against the mat. “I can’t do it.”

“Sure you can.” Her tone was as gentle and reassuring as if he were a preschooler learning how to tie his shoes. “Just try a little more. We have to do better than yesterday.”

“We?” He grunted the word. “I’m the one doing all the work.”

That wasn’t true. He knew it, but he wasn’t about to admit that she’d been struggling as hard as he was to shove him through the exercises, with him arguing all the way.

Well, he had a right to complain. He hadn’t asked for this. He didn’t want it. Mary Kate would have to accept the bad temper that went with forcing a man to do something he didn’t want to do.

Something that hurt. His leg, protesting, stretched a bit farther and he couldn’t control the groan that escaped.

“Very good.” Mary Kate eased off immediately, bringing his leg back down and massaging it with long, smooth strokes that soothed away the pain. “You went a good half inch farther today than yesterday.”

He lay back on the mat Mary Kate had brought with her. Three times they’d done this, and three times she’d pushed him more than he’d have thought possible. Maybe he’d been wrong about Mary Kate being easier to manipulate than the staff at the army hospital. She was quieter, but there was iron beneath her soft exterior. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected of a grown-up Mary Kate, but she certainly wasn’t the gentle girl she’d been.

He turned his head far enough to look at the waiting wheelchair. It might as well be forty feet high, for the effort it would take to get back into it.

“Quite a climb,” she said, guessing his thoughts with uncanny accuracy.

He grunted in agreement. “Hard to believe I used to climb mountains for fun.”

He’d loved the adrenaline rush of pushing his body to the utmost as he scaled a sheer rock face, the euphoria of reaching the top and knowing he’d conquered it. Now he couldn’t even get himself into a chair.

“Just rest a few minutes.” Mary Kate sat back on her heels as if she could use the rest, too. Her hair clung in damp ringlets to her neck, and while he watched she stretched her arms overhead as if trying to relieve taut muscles.

Her willingness to wait for him made him perversely eager to get back into the chair. “Let’s do it.” He shoved himself up onto his elbows. “No sense in wasting the day lying around.”

“Eager to get back to daytime television?” She maneuvered the chair into position and locked the brake before squatting down next to him.

“Not much else to do.” He’d been mildly embarrassed when she’d come in and found him watching reruns of sixties comedies.

“Let your friends come by and see you,” she said promptly. “Check some books out of the library. Take up a hobby.”

“Stamp collecting?” He let her pull his arm across her shoulders. Once he’d have enjoyed being that close to her. Now it just reminded him of his own helplessness.

“You still have a woodworking shop in the room behind the kitchen. I notice your mother never cleared that out.”

“No, thanks.”

It had been his father’s shop originally, not his. He’d hung around, watching, until his father finally saw his interest and showed him how to cut a curve and sand down an edge. After his dad left, he’d kept up with it for a while, maybe out of some stupid belief that his dad would come back and be proud of what he’d made. He’d learned, eventually. He hadn’t bothered with it in years.

Mary Kate double-checked the chair’s position, and he felt her muscles tighten. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Together they managed to haul his useless body into the chair, but by the time he was settled they were both breathless.

“Good work,” she said.

He shoved her hands away, hating that he had to rely on her strength instead of his own. “Don’t patronize me. I’m not one of your kids.”

A flicker of anger touched her eyes and was gone. “I don’t patronize my kids.”

So he could hurt her. Disgust filled him. What kind of a man was he? He didn’t want her pity, but he also didn’t like feeling that she was unaffected. So he sniped at her. Not very pretty, was it?

Mary Kate straightened, seeming to throw off her reactions. “Let’s talk about where we’re going to put all the equipment that’s coming on Saturday.”

He shrugged. “I don’t care. You decide.”

She walked through the archway to the dining room. “I was thinking we might use this room. All we’d have to move out are the chairs and table. The sideboard wouldn’t be in the way.”

He wheeled after her into the room, his attention caught in spite of himself. “I guess that would work. I’m not likely to be hosting any dinners for eight.”

“Or even one, judging by the condition of your refrigerator.”

“Just stay out of my refrigerator,” he said, knowing she was right. He was subsisting on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for the most part.

“Where do you plan to put the table and chairs?” He wouldn’t sell the dining-room furniture his mother had kept polished and shining.

Mary Kate touched the smooth surface. “I think it’ll be okay in the garage.”

“How do you plan to get it there?” He slapped the arms of the wheelchair. “I’m not exactly in shape to move furniture.”

“My brothers offered to—”

“No.” He cut her off before she could finish the offer of charity. “Hire someone to do it. I’ll pay.”

He felt her gaze on him, but refused to return it. He wasn’t going to have guys he’d played football and basketball with coming in here, trying to make polite conversation and avoid looking at his wheelchair. Or worse, telling him how sorry they were while they stood there on two good feet.

“Fine.” She gave in quickly.

He glanced around the room, picturing it filled with exercise equipment. “Are you sure this equipment rental is going to be covered? I don’t want to be presented with a big bill for stuff I didn’t want to begin with.”

She turned away, seeming to mentally measure the room for the equipment. “It’ll be covered,” she said shortly. “One thing—we might have to let your car sit out once we put the furniture in the garage.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I ought to sell it, anyway. I won’t be driving again.”

“You don’t know that.” She swung toward him, her eyes darkening with concern. “Luke, you can’t just give up on things. Nobody can tell how much you’re going to recover.”

“Nobody?” Anger surged through him suddenly—at her, at God, at himself for surviving. “I can, Mary Kate. I can tell you exactly how much I’m going to recover. Do you want to know?”

She took a step back, as if alarmed by his anger. He should stop, but he couldn’t.

“I’m going to be in this chair forever, and nothing you or anyone else does is going to change that.”

What was she going to do about Luke? The question revolved in Mary Kate’s mind like a hamster on a wheel as she cleaned up the kitchen that evening after supper. The children’s voices rose and fell from the living room, where they were engaged in a board game. A game that seemed to involve argument, by the sound of things.

She frowned at the raspberry jelly that had dried on the bottom rung of one of the pine kitchen chairs. It was beyond her understanding how the three of them could make such a mess in the house when they were gone most of the day. It would be summer vacation in a month, and how she’d manage then, she couldn’t imagine.

Just like she couldn’t see what to do about Luke. The depth of his bitterness continued to shock her. She knew as well as anyone the important role played by the patient’s attitude in healing. Luke’s anger and isolation would poison any chance of wholeness if someone didn’t do something to change it.

And, it seemed, either through chance or perhaps through God’s working, that she was the one who was in a position to change that.

Did You put me in this situation? You must have a reason, but I don’t see it. Seems to me I’m that last person who can help him deal with loss. I’m still struggling with that myself.

She wouldn’t change Luke by encouraging him with words. His irritation when he felt she spoke to him as she’d speak to her children was proof of that.

And speaking of her children, the noise level in the other room had risen dramatically, followed by the clatter of a game board being upset. She tossed the dishcloth into the sink and stalked into the living room, trying to get a handle on her impatience.

“Hey, what’s going on in here? Who threw the checkerboard?”

She knew the answer to that without asking. Shawna, who never lost control, looked smug, while Michael’s eyes were suspiciously bright. He folded his arms across his chest, his lower lip jutting out.

This didn’t look like the right time for scolding. In fact, this wasn’t usually her time at all. Kenny had always taken the evening chores with the kids when he’d been off duty. This had been his time to play with them, roughhousing on the carpet despite her protests and supervising baths and bedtime.

She’d scolded him once, when the roughhousing had led to a broken lamp and Michael was in tears over her reaction.

“Let it go.” She could almost hear Kenny’s voice, soft and steady. “A broken heart is worth crying about, M.K. Not a broken lamp.”

Now she had the broken heart, too, but she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of the children. Their world had been torn apart by their father’s death. She didn’t want to make them afraid by letting them see fear or grief in her.

She sat down on the rug, pulling them close to her. “Forget about the game. Tell me about school today. How was it?”

She happened to be looking at Shawna’s face when she asked the question, and she saw the quick flicker of hurt in her eyes. She blinked, and it was gone. She stroked the red curls away from her daughter’s heart-shaped face.

“Shawnie? Is anything wrong?”

“Everything’s okay, Mom.”

Michael wiggled, as if he’d say something, but Shawna shot him a look and he stopped.

“Are you sure?” She didn’t want to give her children the third degree, but something had dimmed Shawna’s brightness for a moment.

“I’m sure.” She smiled. “I got a perfect score on my spelling test.”

“That’s great.” She hugged her, storing away the sense of something wrong to think about later. “What did you do at Grammy and Grandpa’s?”

“We had a snack,” Michael said. “And then we played outside, and Grandpa played ball with us for a while and then we practiced riding our bikes.”

“Did you stay right where Grandpa told you to?”

“Yes, Mommy.” That was accompanied by a huge sigh. “We always do.”

Ridiculous, to worry about them when they were in Mom and Dad’s care. And that neighborhood was certainly safe enough—still the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else and looked out for them. Even so, she couldn’t seem to stop.

Don’t worry. Pray. Mom had a small plaque with those words hanging in her bedroom. With six kids to raise, she’d probably done plenty of both.

“Well, shall we read a couple of chapters in our book?” They’d been working their way through some of the children’s classics, and even Shawna, already reading well, seemed to enjoy being read to.

“Not now, Mommy. Now we want to hear about the soldier.” Michael snuggled against her.

“Soldier?” she repeated blankly. “Do we have a book about a soldier?”

“Lieutenant Marino,” Shawna corrected. “We want to hear about him. Did you know that he’s on our bulletin board at school? And that he got medals?”

She should have realized. The children’s elementary school had taken on a project of supporting local people who were serving in the military. Naturally Luke would be included.

Her heart clutched as she thought about Luke now, in a wheelchair. How did you tell children about the terrible cost of war?

“He wrote a letter to me,” Michael said.

“He did not!” Shawna, who’d been leaning against Mary Kate, shot upright. “That’s a big fib.”

“It is not. He did write to me. He wrote a letter and it said ‘To Ms. Sumter’s boys and girls.’ And I’m one of Ms. Sumter’s boys, so he wrote to me.” His face was very red.

“Of course,” she soothed. “He meant his letter for each one of you.”

“Well, I don’t think—” Shawna began, but subsided at a glance from her mother. “We want to know about him. Is he very hurt?”

She’d always tried to tell them the truth, even when she had to simplify it for them. “He was hurt when a bomb went off near where he was working. It hurt his legs badly.”

“Did they have to cut them off?” Michael asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

She squeezed him, wondering where some of his ideas came from. “No, they didn’t, but his legs don’t work very well yet. That’s why I have to help him, to teach his legs how to work again.”

“But what if they don’t get better?” His little face puckered up.

“They will.” She said it with all the sureness she could muster. If I can help it, they will.

Maybe it was time for a distraction. She tickled Michael’s chin, and he giggled. “You didn’t tell me what you did in school today.”

He shrugged, turning away, the laughter vanishing. “We worked on the model town today, that’s all.”

“I see.”

She saw only too well. The model of the city of Suffolk was a tradition for the first-grade classes and the children worked on it all year. When Shawna had been in first grade, Kenny had helped her make a model car for the display. Michael had been so excited about it that Kenny had started one with him. Shortly after that, Kenny was diagnosed.

Two months later he’d been gone. How could it happen that fast? Somehow one always thought of cancer as a long, slow battle. Not this time. They’d never finished the car.

She hugged him. “Listen, would you like me to help you make something for the display?” Her carpentry talents were limited, but maybe she could get a kit.

“No, thank you, Mommy.” His politeness was heartbreaking. “Do you think we could go with you someday and meet the soldier?”

“I’m afraid not, honey. He’s been sick and he doesn’t want any company.”

“Maybe when he’s better,” he said.

“Maybe.” She could just imagine Luke’s reaction if she turned up one day with her children in tow.

Still, seeing someone besides her might be a good idea. Not the children—that was too chancy. But if the idea that was flickering at the back of her mind worked out, maybe she could push Luke into seeing a couple of his old friends, whether he thought he wanted to or not.

Chapter Three

Luke shoved the pillow out of the way and levered himself onto his elbows to look at the bedside clock. Nearly nine. He had to get up. Today the exercise equipment was arriving, along with Mary Kate and some helpers to move the dining-room furniture. It would be the busiest time this place had seen since he’d come home, thanks to Mary Kate’s persistence.

Of course, he could try hiding in his bedroom until they’d been and gone. Let M.K. take care of all of it. But if he did, it would be like her to barge into his bedroom and find him in his pajamas, unshaven. He hadn’t let her catch him looking that bad since the first day. He had a little pride, after all. He’d get up.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, helping them with his hands, and pulled the wheelchair closer. Mary Kate probably wouldn’t be fazed at all by finding him in bed. After all, her specialty had always been helping every lame duck who crossed her path.

And now he was the lame duck, wasn’t he? Gritting his teeth, he maneuvered the switch from bed to chair, faintly surprised that it seemed a little easier than it had a few days ago.

That warm, nurturing spirit of Mary Kate’s had probably been come by naturally. From what he remembered, her mother was exactly the same. And Mary Kate, the oldest of the Flanagan brood, had mothered the rest of them unmercifully.