A Secret Between Them
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Donna Gartshore
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Chapter One
John Bishop had traveled extensively and done everything from balance on the edge of a cliff to swim with sharks, all to capture the perfect photo. So it was more than a little humiliating to be brought down by a child’s skipping rope.
He didn’t know that kids still jumped rope, or maybe they just did things like that in places like Living Skies, Saskatchewan, a place with the kind of homespun charm that could make you believe that life was all about jumping rope, singing songs in church and baking apple pies.
Of course, John knew from experience that not everything in Living Skies was picture-perfect.
The pain that ripped through him when he tried to shift to a more comfortable position wasn’t just from his badly sprained ankle.
John suppressed a moan, but the receptionist at the front counter of the Elmview Physical Therapy Clinic still looked up with a sympathetic smile.
“The physical therapist is almost finished with her current client,” she said encouragingly. “She’ll be with you soon.”
John nodded, stoic again.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” the receptionist continued, clearly now in the mood for friendly chitchat, which John was definitely not in the mood for. She tapped her name tag with a long manicured fingernail. “I’m Renee.”
She appeared to be in her early twenties and had short red hair so bright that it couldn’t be natural, two piercings in each ear and brown eyes staring out through oversize glasses. “You going to be here long or just passing through?”
If he had his way, he would have never set foot in Living Skies again. He’d only spent a few years here, part of the stream of events that took his father and him from one place to another with the ever-dwindling hope that his father would finally find that one place, that one job, that one reason to sober up. John, who’d been in his last few years of high school at the time, had longed for the kind of home he used to have before his mother left when John was eight, taking his little brother with her.
There were things that could hurt more than a sprained ankle or any broken bone or disease. There was a pain so raw and excruciating that the only way to survive it was to shove it way deep down and let scar tissue grow over it.
“I’m just here for a short time.” He didn’t want to be rude, but he didn’t want to encourage conversation or add that this ankle business was going to make his stay longer than he’d hoped it would be.
Apparently, it didn’t take much to encourage her, because she settled her elbows comfortably on the counter, intertwined her fingers and flexed them a bit, clearly gearing up for a good long chat.
“Who are you visiting?” she asked. “Do you have family here? I probably know them.”
John swallowed. It was such a simple question for most, but to him, it was impossible to answer.
Yes, my father lives here. No, we’re not family.
“I’m here to check things out at The Chronicle,” he said, naming the town’s newspaper.
It was true that the newspaper needed a new editor, but the chances of him taking the job were slim to none. He couldn’t wait to get out of this place. But Stew Wagner, the retired editor of the paper, the man who had given a scared, bitter young man the chance to find his passion and prove himself, had asked him to at least come and check things out.
“Oh, that’s cool,” Renee said. “But now you’ve gone and injured yourself. How’d you manage that?” John was saved from the embarrassment of that explanation when an office door opened and a woman who looked to be a few years younger than his thirty-five—attractive in an easy, no-fuss kind of way—stepped out. She had an athletic build, intelligent green eyes and dark blond hair pulled off her face into a ponytail. She cupped her hand under the elbow of the elderly man with her and spoke to him with a gentle expression.
After she and the client reached the door and said their goodbyes, she turned toward the almost empty waiting room, a gentle expression giving way to one of expectation. “Who’s next?”
“This guy.” Renee pointed at John. It didn’t seem that formalities were a big thing here.
Renee swiveled her chair, picked up a file and extended it to the PT. “Doctor sent this over.”
The PT took it and flipped it open briefly. “I’m Grace Severight. Come on, I’ll help you into my office.”
John wanted to protest and say that he could manage a few steps by himself, but he was smart enough to know when to accept help. The crutches he’d been using weren’t cutting it.
He had heard once that medical professionals were discouraged from wearing strong scents because of the emotional impact it could have on patients. When Grace Severight came close to him, he could smell nothing but clean skin and the lingering trace of light soap, but his heart still slammed in his chest.
Somehow, it was a scent more powerful and personal than if she’d been doused in expensive perfume.
Grace was all professional efficiency, maneuvering herself into the best position to support him. He was glad that the distance to her office was short because of his injured foot and the strange reaction he was having to her closeness.
Her office was reasonably sized and displayed her educational credentials and a couple of pictures of scenic views. He glanced at the photos with a critical eye as he sat on the edge of the examination table. She didn’t appear to be much of one for frippery.
She studied his file for a moment in silence and then glanced up. “So, this happened when you tripped over a skipping rope?” To her credit, she didn’t make the cause of his injury sound nearly as ridiculous as she could have.
A simple nod would be enough of a response, but something in her calm, waiting expression made him want to volunteer more information. “It happened a few days ago. I was checking a message on my phone and not paying attention. I don’t have a doctor here so I saw one at a walk-in clinic. They took X-rays and then referred me to you.”
Grace nodded. “Yes, phones can be bad that way. They can really distract a person.”
Distract was one word—dismay and anger were others.
The message that had distracted him had been yet another from his father, who swore he was sober now and wanted to make amends. The only reason he had John’s number in the first place was that, despite everything, John couldn’t quite bring himself to be unreachable in the case of an emergency. But that didn’t include sitting down and making nice like the man hadn’t inflicted years and a world of hurt upon him.
Not a chance.
“Is everything okay?” the PT asked.
John suspected she might be asking about more than his ankle. He had better reel in his emotions and fast.
“Yes, all good. So what’s the fastest way to heal this thing?”
His list of objectives was short and to the point: heal the ankle, make a cursory check on the status of the newspaper, give some reason why he couldn’t accept the job as editor and get on the road again.
He always wanted—needed—to be the one who left first.
“How about we start by having a look at it?” Grace said in an unruffled way.
She wheeled her chair over to the examination table where he sat.
“Let’s see,” she murmured as she rolled up his pant leg. It was late August, no longer quite warm enough for shorts, especially as the evenings tended to cool down considerably here.
Her touch was practiced and careful. Nevertheless, John flinched when her fingers explored the swelling around his ankle. He noticed that unlike the talons of the office receptionist, Grace’s nails were clipped short and were clean and free of polish.
“That hurts.” It wasn’t a question. She stopped her probing, which he was more relieved about than he wanted to say, and wheeled back to the file on her desk to make a note.
Okay, so it hurt. He was still going to do whatever it took to get himself out of this town and on the road as fast as possible.
“Okay,” Grace said efficiently. “I want you to try something for me. Try moving your ankle like you’re writing out the letters of the alphabet.”
“The alphabet?” John repeated.
“Yes, please. Try to move it in the shape of each of the letters.”
The degrees on the wall, which John noted she’d received with great distinction, told him that this woman was supposed to know what she was doing.
A. He gritted his teeth.
B. His nostrils pinched together in a sharp intake of breath.
C. Sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Okay, that’s good for now,” Grace said and jotted another note.
“I can keep going,” John said, sure he would sound much more convincing as soon as he caught his breath.
“No, it will cause more damage if we push things,” Grace said. “We’d better go at this more slowly.”
Slowly was definitely not a word he wanted to hear.
“Look,” he said, employing his best reasonable tone, “I’m a photojournalist. I travel for a living, and I need to get back to work.”
“I get that,” Grace said in an equally reasonable tone. “But if we don’t go about this the right way, you might not be traveling at all for a very long time.”
“I only tripped over a kid’s skipping rope.” He shook his head at the absurdity of it all.
“And you did some pretty good damage to some ligaments. Now, here’s what I want you to try before I see you again tomorrow.”
John forced himself to listen to her instructions on leg elevation, compresses and ice packs, all while his mind frantically sought escape routes.
“Are you getting this?” Grace asked. “Because we have to be partners in your healing, otherwise it’s not going to work.”
“Got it,” John said, wondering how he could ask exactly how slow more slowly would be. “It’s just that I have jobs lined up for some major magazines.”
Grace snapped the folder shut, looking unimpressed. “I’ll get Renee to write out the instructions for you, and I’m going to count on you to follow them.”
John nodded, not feeling very encouraged by the visit.
“You’re not planning to be a difficult patient, are you, Mr. Bishop?” Grace asked with humor, but there was also a challenge in her voice.
“Nope, I’m going to do whatever gets me out of here the fastest.”
A note of puzzlement crossed the PT’s face, but she quickly regained her professional demeanor and didn’t ask any questions.
When they exited her office, there was a middle-aged woman in the waiting room with a small boy who looked to be about five years old.
“I hope we haven’t come too early,” the woman said.
“Not at all. Your timing is perfect,” Grace said. “Thank you so much for picking Toby up at the daycare. Hi, sweetheart, how was your day?”
There was something so vulnerable and delicately hopeful, like a slowly unfolding rose, in Grace’s expression when she spoke to the boy that John suddenly longed to have his camera in his hand to capture the moment.
That thought was chased away when the boy lifted his face to her.
John hadn’t set eyes on his little brother, Simon, in decades, not since he was eight years old and Simon was five. Grace’s son, or whoever he was to her, fit so readily into the picture of Simon that John carried in his heart, that it took his breath away.
Each day, as many times as she needed to, Grace Severight told herself, Today, I will not have a drink. On particularly trying days, it was sometimes, I won’t have a drink this hour, or even, I won’t have a drink for the next five minutes.
She had been sober for ten years, and she thanked the Lord for each and every one of those days, because she knew she wouldn’t have been able to do it on her own strength.
She wasn’t at all the stereotypical drunk that people pictured when they thought about alcoholics. At the weekly meetings she attended—far enough from Living Skies for her to keep her secret from most everyone she had grown up with—she had learned that there really was no such thing as a typical drunk. They could be businessmen and women, housewives, pastors, daycare workers, athletes, poets—all with nothing more in common than their battle with alcohol.
Granted, some alcoholics could pinpoint horrible triggers—abuse, neglect and devastating tragedies—in their lives. But many of them, like Grace, had simply slipped into the addiction as easily as turning onto a winding path without knowing that somewhere along the road, they were going to skid out of control.
Grace was the only child of parents whose main rule in life seemed to be to not make a fuss or cause unnecessary trouble for anyone. When she told them of her struggles with drinking and her efforts to quit, they had only asked that she not shame them or make it more their concern than it had to be.
It had become something that she couldn’t share.
Of course, she’d had to be honest in her application to foster Toby Bower, who had been with her since last Christmas. She had just about gnawed her fingernails down to the nail beds waiting for the Department of Social Services’ response. Toby had been removed from a home where his young mother battled depression and substance abuse. Luckily, Grace’s years of sobriety, combined with faithful meeting attendance, as well as her professional designation as a physical therapist and good reputation in the community, had turned things in her favor.
Still, it was something Grace never wanted to take for granted.
Along with being a physical therapist, Grace also did volunteer work, leading a regular health and wellness program that people could attend.
Lately, she had the goal of expanding those programs to include a variety of new learning opportunities—anything from artistic and creative endeavors to Bible studies and learning how to polka. She was always on the lookout for instructors. She wanted to bring the best people in the community to help her send out the message that no one is alone and that everyone can live their best life.
Right now, though, that lofty goal had faded in comparison to the goal of getting Toby Bower to open up to her about his day.
Grace thought about how Toby had come into her life. Her best friend, Jenny Hart, was married to David Hart, who was a family counselor. David had made some visits to Toby’s home, where he lived with his mother, Tiffany, and had come to the sad conclusion that Tiffany was currently incapable of caring for her son.
She understood that her role was to provide safety, support and sustenance for Toby. The hope was that his mother would put enough effort into her own recovery to make a suitable parent for him. She knew that the goal was always to have the child raised by their birth parent. But in the deepest part of her giving heart, Grace wondered what it would take to adopt Toby and be his mother forever.
Grace unlocked the door of her two-bedroom bungalow, chatting casually the whole time just like Toby’s social worker, Blanche Collins, had recommended. Much as Toby needed and undoubtedly craved attention, he could be easily overwhelmed by too much of it.
“I hope you had a good day,” Grace said. “I had a pretty busy day. On my lunch break, I picked up some books from the library I think you might like. We can look at those after supper and your bath if you want.”
Grace’s home was much like her office: clean, organized and efficient. She favored earth tones with some brightly hued throw pillows to add pops of color.
“Guess what’s for supper?” She continued chatting to the still-taciturn Toby as she led him into her kitchen. The walls there were light green, and there was a small table in the center with a couple of stools. Prior to Toby, Grace had most often sat at the kitchen counter for a quick bite, but now she used the table.
She put her keys and purse down on the counter and looked down at Toby. Her heart lurched. He was still so pale, so unhappy.
Panic infused her like an unwanted drug. He’d been with her now for a while. What if she simply couldn’t make a breakthrough with him and it was decided he was better off elsewhere?
“Don’t you want to guess?” She forced cheerfulness into her voice. The last thing Toby needed was for her to wallow in her fear of failure. This was about his needs, not her fears.
“I’ll give you a hint. It’s your favorite.”
“Mac and cheese?” Toby ventured in his surprisingly deep voice.
Happiness and relief washed away the stains of doubt, but she resisted the urge to hug him. It was that paradox again—the more starved someone was for physical touch, the more likely they were to reject it.
Instead of a hug, she held her fist out for him to bump with his and said, “You’re right! How’d you get so smart?”
Toby’s smile was shy as he cautiously bumped fists with her.
“Why don’t you go wash your hands,” Grace suggested. “Then you can help me.”
She tried to engage Toby as much as she could with the things she did. She hoped it would encourage him to learn, and more importantly, she hoped it would build trust between them. She wanted him to feel that they were a team and to know she wasn’t going anywhere.
Of course, she knew that he could be taken from her one day, but she had to believe that if that happened, it would be for a good reason, like his mother being well enough to care for him.
Toby returned from washing his hands, and Grace helped him onto a kitchen chair to stand beside her at the counter. She put lettuce in the spinner and slid it over to him.
“Like this.” She showed him how to turn the handle.
When he was busy with the lettuce, she allowed herself to think about the things she needed to do once he was tucked in bed. Most of them involved organizing the upcoming activities at the center.
She also found herself thinking about John Bishop. He was going to be a challenge. She could tell that after just the first appointment. There was nothing worse than a patient who was in a hurry, and she had a feeling that he was used to getting his own way.
There was something about him that said he was prepared to do the things he had to do to get the results that he wanted. Whether that would work for her or against her during his treatment remained to be seen.
Toby turned to give the salad spinner back to her, and his feet in socks skidded on the chair.
“Whoa there, bud.” Grace put a steadying arm around him while she scolded herself for letting her mind wander. Toby needed and deserved better than that.
For a moment, he leaned into her, and she could feel his heart beat like the quick flutter of a sparrow’s wing. Then he pulled away and carefully got down.
At the kitchen table, Grace encouraged him with some prompting to say the blessing she had taught him and then served them both some mac and cheese and salad.
The rest of the evening passed too quickly, as it always did. After a cursory kitchen cleanup, Grace ran Toby’s bath and laid out his pajamas.
“Any stories from your day?” she tried again as she scrubbed the back of his thin neck.
He shook his head vigorously.
She suppressed a sigh. “Okay then.” She lifted him out of the tub and helped him dry off.
“Go get your pajamas on and pick out one of the library books. I’ll be in right away to read to you and tuck you in.”
The book he chose was one with few words, but it had glorious colored photographs of nature.
Grace slowly turned the pages, and she and Toby both pointed at things they especially liked. Toby giggled at a picture of a frog with its throat bulged out, and the sound warmed her heart.
After bedtime prayers and a kiss on her own fingertip that she then lightly tapped on his nose, Grace took the book downstairs with her. There was something soothing about the pictures. It was a reminder that there was a Creator in charge of things who cared about Toby and about her.
With Toby tucked in bed, she had time to look over her notes on the possible activities and consider who could lead them. It wasn’t easy attempting to coordinate such an undertaking, but it suited Grace’s organizational skills. Concentrating on the work also helped keep self-doubts that could gallop like wild horses somewhat safely corralled.
She made herself a cup of chamomile tea and settled into her favorite armchair. Its blue-flowered pattern was starting to fade, but the back of it hugged her spine just right.
John Bishop said he was a photographer. She should check out those magazines he mentioned he worked with.
No, she shook her head. He was her client. The only thing that should matter was his injury and her treatment plan.
She couldn’t ignore that he was attractive in the way that didn’t come from expensive clothes and grooming products. His mere size was more than a bit intimidating, and his brown hair could use a good trim. There was something both intense and vulnerable in his blue-green eyes that made her wonder what his story was.
But her job was to deal with his injured ankle. She really had no reason to be thinking of him now.
No reason at all.
She was almost relieved when the phone rang, even though she generally disliked it when it interrupted her evenings. She hurried to pick it up, not wanting the ringing to wake up Toby.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Grace?”
“Yes, speaking.” She immediately recognized the clear but slightly nasal voice of Bethany Hoover, the director of Child’s Garden Daycare, and her throat suddenly went dry.
She swallowed.
“I’m so sorry to call you at home,” Bethany continued, “but you weren’t the one who picked Toby up today. We need to make a plan to get together to chat and see if we can work something out about Toby.”
“Work something out?” Grace repeated, and the wild horses broke out of their corral.
There was a slight pause. “I’m so sorry to tell you that Toby just isn’t doing well at the daycare,” Bethany said. “And if we can’t find a way to work together to improve things, I’m afraid we might not be able to keep him in our program.”
After they ended the call, Grace sat holding her phone and considered the repercussions. If she couldn’t find a safe place for Toby while she worked, Social Services might reconsider her fostering him, especially since she was already doing this alone.
No, she reminded herself, she wasn’t alone. God was with her and she would have to trust He would provide her with an answer.
