Sarah’s prayer was instinctive, a hearkening back to a time when she thought God listened.
But her father’s angry focus was on Logan, who was barking directions into his cell phone.
“Logan…” Frank tried to lift his arm, but it fell back to his side.
His speech grew increasingly slurred.
“Never mind him, Dad. Talk to me. Look at me,” she called, trying desperately to get him to even glance her way.
He took a breath and Sarah caught his head as it slumped to the side, turning his face to her. But even as Sarah tried to catch his attention, Frank Westerveld’s entire focus was on Logan Carleton.
And then his eyes fell shut.
“Dad. Talk to me,” she called out.
Chapter Two
The unconscious man lying on the bed wasn’t her father. Frank Westerveld would never have allowed anyone to invade his body this way.
Tubes and drains and electrodes and monitors indicated changes in his breathing and his pulse. An oxygen line hooked over his ears, tiny tubes inserted in his nose.
Ischemic stroke the doctor had called it. Prognosis? Time would tell whether he would gain control of his body, whether he would be able to speak again, walk again.
The hospital in Millars Crossing wasn’t equipped to deal with her father’s condition. As soon as he had come into the Emergency Room there, he had been stabilized and rushed off to Edmonton.
Janie had called the family and by the time Frank had arrived, the uncles and aunts had gathered at the city hospital.
“You’re looking at a long, slow recovery,” Dr. Williamson said, his hands hanging in the pockets of his lab coat. “The CT scan showed a clot as the cause of stroke, which means that the injury sustained did some irreversible damage, the extent of which we can only discover in time.”
“Will he be able to speak at all?” Dot, Sarah’s aunt, asked.
Sarah was thankful for Dot Westerveld’s presence. Other than “why,” Sarah didn’t know what questions to ask.
Her emotions were thrown into turmoil. Too well she remembered another panicked drive to the hospital, her sister’s broken and battered body lying on a bed in the Emergency Room.
But Marilee was already gone by the time she and her father got to the hospital. Her sister’s vital and fragile spark of life had been extinguished sometime between Sarah telling Marilee that she wasn’t going to break curfew to pick her up and the police showing up on her father’s doorstep two hours later.
They never even got to say goodbye.
She wrapped her hands around the rail of her father’s bed, desperately trying to blank the memory from her mind, turning her focus instead to her father now lying helpless but alive.
Marilee was gone and father needed her now.
“He’ll have some type of speech ability, but as to how much, that depends on how he responds to therapy.” Dr. Williamson lifted his shoulder in a vague shrug. “Each stroke patient is different, so I can only give you a vague prognosis.”
The words long and slow resonated in Sarah’s brain.
“How long? Can you tell us anything?” Sarah finally asked.
Dr. Williamson shook his head slowly. “I’d say you’re looking at least three months of therapy, and even then…”
Three months.
In twenty-two days, her friends were meeting her in Toronto to begin the first leg of their trip to South America.
But she was here now. Her father lay silent in the hospital and Sarah had to make a decision. Could she really leave her father here? She balanced that against the trip she had been planning for so long. Would she be able to enjoy it knowing her father wasn’t doing well? Knowing he wanted to say something to her?
Was this their chance for reconciliation?
“And what do you need me to do?” she asked, fighting a mixture of exhausted tears and frustration.
The doctor spoke of the need for stability, the importance of having family close by, reinforcing her vague decision. “Right now your father just needs your presence,” the doctor said.
How odd that now, when he couldn’t speak or act, he needed her. For most of Sarah’s life, he hadn’t seemed to need much from her.
“The stroke…could something stressful have caused it?” Sarah asked.
The doctor shrugged. “There’s a study that has shown that a sudden change in behavior can trigger the stroke. Anger does seem to be a potent trigger for ischemic strokes.”
Anger. Arguing. What if she had gone out before, as she should have, what if Logan hadn’t come back for his gloves, what if…
The words were too familiar. Eight years ago she had spent months going over “what if” scenarios about Marilee. What if she had gone and picked her up? What if she hadn’t tried to do what her father wanted? What if she and Marilee hadn’t had that fight before she left the house? What if Marilee hadn’t gone out with Logan?
“You look exhausted, Sarah.”
Sarah jumped as her aunt’s voice penetrated the memories and regrets burying her.
“Do you want me to take you home?” Aunt Dot continued.
Sarah wanted nothing more than to go home and rest. But concern mixed with guilt kept her standing beside her father in ICU. If she’d gone outside, stopped him from talking to Logan, he might not be lying here.
“I should have gone out,” Sarah whispered to her aunt, still looking at her father, who lay so silent on the bed. “I was waiting for him, so why couldn’t I go out and talk to him? Why did this happen?”
Dot clutched her niece’s arm. “We don’t know why things happen, but you know, I believe it was our heavenly Father’s will that brought you here.”
If this was God’s will, then Sarah was ready to give up on Him completely. Eight years ago, after Marilee’s death, Sarah’s faith in God had taken a severe beating. Nothing she had seen since had reinforced the impression that she needed to spend any time with Him anymore.
Sarah glanced around the ICU ward. Nurses moved about, monitors beeped, and oxygen sighed. The buzzing in her head told her it must be late, but she had no idea of the time. Frank’s brothers, Morris and Ted, had come and stood vigil and were now waiting outside of the ICU, waiting to take their turns to stay by his side. Uncle Sam, who wasn’t feeling well, stayed at the farm.
“He’s okay for now. We’ll come back tomorrow,” Dot assured her. “Uncle Ted is waiting. He’ll watch while you’re gone.”
As the others left the room, Sarah looked down at her father, so helpless now.
Then, miraculously, Sarah saw her father’s head move and his eyes open.
And he was looking directly at her. His one eye widened and one corner of his mouth moved just a fraction. She caught sight of a small movement of his opposite hand, his fingers curling ever so slightly.
She waited but then his face relaxed again and his eyes closed.
Was he trying to talk to her? Trying to tell her something?
Whatever it was, it was again locked behind that immobile face.
Sarah reached out and touched her father’s hand, willing the response to return. But nothing happened.
Finally, after another twenty minutes of waiting, she allowed her aunt to usher her past the nurse’s desk to the waiting room. Uncle Morris, Dot’s husband, and Uncle Ted stood up from the bench and each took a turn giving her a hug.