her neighbors looked and sounded and partied like a biker gang.
When Jerod finished his meal she didn’t take him back to his crib. Instead, still shivering, she climbed back beneath the blankets and drew him in beside her. How much was she willing to sacrifice to make sure Jerod was warm, had clean diapers and had a home to live where the landlord wouldn’t threaten to kick him and his mother into the street?
Monday she would find a pay phone and call that place, Alternative. But she wouldn’t give Jerod to someone else. Who could love him as much as she did?
Clarence sat with his overlapping fat pressed against the handle of the pickup truck door, feeling it dig into his side and hoping the lock was a tough one. Too bad Buck didn’t have a king cab. That would have made this ride a lot more comfortable, and Kendra wouldn’t be squeezed between them like a baby sandwiched between two sumo wrestlers. Okay, maybe a sumo wrestler and Arnold Schwartz-his-name. Still a pretty tight fit. Clarence felt like he was being used as a giant plastic lid stuck over the end of a jar to keep the contents from pouring out. Kendra was pretty special contents.
Why hadn’t he at least thought to bring his sugar-free breath mints? He always carried them because they were the only thing Ivy let him eat. And why hadn’t he taken a shower tonight?
And why, oh, why, had he taken that stupid Lasix? The medicine had kicked up a notch, and it was running water into his bladder like a faucet.
Kendra’s quiet sniffles continued. “Why do you hate me?” she asked, her face highlighted in the glow from the dashboard lights.
“I don’t hate you.” Buck’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.
Clarence wanted to reach down and pat her on the knee and tell her everything would be okay. He wished he could explain to her how much Buck really did love her. Why did women have to talk such a different language from men?
He could tell folks a lot of things they probably didn’t realize. It was a funny thing about people who were average weight and height and didn’t have any disabilities—sometimes they ignored those who were different. They didn’t act that way on purpose, but people said and did things in front of him that they wouldn’t do in front of skinny people. When he retreated inside himself and kept his mouth shut, somehow he seemed to disappear from their sight—which was crazy, of course, big as he was. But maybe his size didn’t count as much as his silence.
Yeah, it was his silence. For two years he hadn’t spoken to anyone but Darlene, and she’d been so busy supporting them that she didn’t have that much time to talk. Ever since last spring, when Lukas and Mercy had barged into his life and turned everything upside down, things were different. And ever since then something had been changing in him. The depression that’d helped land him in this mess in the first place lifted, a little at a time. The talks he and Lukas had about God, about meeting human needs, had touched him and stayed with him. Lukas and Mercy both had a special calling from God to help people. Lukas had talked about that once, and for a long time Clarence hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind. He and his sister were both alive today because Lukas and Mercy had honored that calling.
And as Kendra continued to sniff and Buck continued to grip the steering wheel too hard, it occurred to Clarence that somehow he was still being touched by this calling. Maybe it was contagious—he felt a gentle urge to pass the healing on to others.
He remembered words Lukas had spoken to him only a few weeks ago during one of their talks. He’d said, “Trust me, Clarence, God has something in mind for you, too. I think He’s calling you, and you’re trying to avoid the call because you don’t think God has any use for you. But you’re wrong. Just listen for Him, Clarence. Just be ready.”
And Clarence had made some typically stupid remark like “God doesn’t need any more tubs of lard in His pantry” and the subject had been dropped.
Until now. Lukas and Mercy and Ivy were miles away, but Clarence suddenly realized what Lukas was talking about. And he was suddenly as sure of God’s presence as he was of the fact that if they didn’t stop at a service station soon, he was going to have to ask Buck to pull over alongside the road.
But before he could say anything, the first billboards came into view, and the lights of Springfield burst out over the trees. Kendra covered her face with her hands. Quiet sobs shook her shoulders.
“It’ll be okay, honey,” Buck said, his voice cracking from worry and lack of sleep.
“You don’t know.” She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a shredded tissue to wipe her nose. “You don’t even know what it’s like to feel this way. You save lives and put out fires for a living. Everybody thinks you’re wonderful. They just think I’m useless, like some leech attached to you.”
“You’re the only one who feels that way. I thought we’d settled this a long time ago.” Buck slowed as they drew nearer to the city and more cars appeared on the four-lane highway.
“Why did you even bother to take me out of the car? I’d’ve been out of your way for good then.”
Clarence winced at that and glanced at Buck’s expression in the light from an oncoming car. She’d cut deep on that one. Muscles tensed at Buck’s jaw, and his eyes filled with the quick kind of tears that even the toughest man couldn’t prevent when his heart was being mangled. He didn’t say a word.
Clarence cleared his throat. “Ain’t gonna work, Kendra.”
She sniffed and dabbed her nose and looked at him.
“Nothing’s gonna make Buck stop this truck and turn around and take you home, because then you might try to kill yourself again, just like Dr. Mercy said. And Buck couldn’t stand that. Losing you would tear him up.”
The tears on her cheeks sparkled in the city light.
“Try thinking about how that’d make him feel,” Clarence said, knowing even that would be hard for her right now. A depressed person had trouble thinking about other people.
And then, as he tried to imagine what might be going through her mind right now, another powerful revelation struck him. He was thinking about other people. All those things Lukas told him were true, about loving your neighbor as yourself, about caring for the needs of others, of giving what was in your heart, and how good that could make you feel. Lukas had said living like that was just about the most important thing in life.
Lukas also said there was one thing more important—to love God first. Ivy had said the same thing, and so had Mercy. When you loved God first, everything else fell into place.
And God took your life and made it mean something.
Clarence blinked and looked out his window at the lights of a residential section of the eastern edge of Springfield. The window reflected the outlines of Buck and Kendra and his own dark bulk, as big as both of them put together.
As Buck touched the brake and turned from Highway 60 to Highway 65, Clarence replayed Lukas’s words in his mind. Was God really using him tonight to help Odira and Crystal and Buck and Kendra?
The thought overwhelmed him and brought tears to his eyes.
He sniffed. Kendra turned and looked up at him. Oh, great, here was big, bumbling Clarence crying and getting ready to drip all over the place.
“What’s wrong?” she
