“It’s not?” She read the number off again.
“Still not working, I’m sorry. Do you want to cancel the reservation or try another card?”
Savannah huffed in frustration. “Try another card.” She dug out the card she rarely used and read off the number.
“That worked. Thank you.”
She finished making the reservation, then hung up and stared at her credit card. “That’s just not right,” she muttered. She dialed Shaun’s number but got his voicemail. “It’s me,” she said. “I just tried to use the Visa and it wouldn’t go through. Any idea what that’s about? Did you cancel it for some reason? Let me know.”
She’d never had a card denied before. Certainly it was a mistake of some kind. Perhaps Shaun had lost his card and had to cancel them, and had just forgotten to tell her.
She nodded to herself. Yes, that made sense. He probably didn’t think she’d need to use the card on the trip, so he hadn’t bothered to let her know. That must be it.
Unless it’s maxed out.
The thought almost made her laugh aloud. Almost. They had a ridiculously high credit limit on it, there was no way they’d reached it.
Right?
CHAPTER 12
SAVANNAH CHECKED THE ADDRESS ONCE MORE BEFORE PULLING to the curb. Lori’s house matched the tone of her voice: small, sweet, and tidy. The suburban Kansas street was lined with tall oaks and prim houses in pastel colors that reminded Savannah of Easter eggs. She had a feeling Lori was either a preschool teacher or a librarian.
She sat in the rental and psyched herself up for the act. Just keep the conversation on her brother – on Charlie – and off your ministry. You can do this. It’s just for a couple hours. She let herself through the white picket gate and rang the bell. When Lori answered the door, Savannah was overcome with a sense of warmth and affection that melted her apprehension and compelled her to hug the small woman. “It is so wonderful to meet you. Thank you so much for letting me come over.”
“Oh of course, of course!” the woman said as she welcomed Savannah in. “I’m so happy you got my note – and that you didn’t think I was a loon. I was afraid it would get screened out by an assistant or something and you’d never even see it.”
Savannah chuckled. “Actually, my assistant was the one that gave it to me.” And now she knew why.
Lori ushered her into a tiny living room with a flower print love-seat and a coffee table set with a tray of cookies and slices of lemon cake. She brought Savannah a mug of coffee, then sat down in a slipcovered chair across from her. “I just can’t believe Savannah Trover is sitting in my living room. The ladies at church will never believe me.”
The irritation Savannah expected to feel at the comment was nowhere to be found. Instead, she felt a sense of graciousness that she hadn’t experienced in a long time. “I’m no one special, believe me. But thank you for thinking I am.” She pulled the corner off her slice of bread. “This is really awkward, but I want to say how sorry I am that you lost your brother. Obviously I am tremendously grateful for his willingness to be an organ donor, but as a recipient it’s grieving to know you’re alive because of someone else’s loss.”
Lori nodded, her long, mousy brown hair waving over her shoulders. “I can imagine it would be. As Christians, we have such a different understanding of that concept, though, don’t we? We are who we are because someone else died so we could live.”
Savannah found it easier to fake her agreement with Lori than it had been with anyone else. “That’s true. And at least you know you’ll see Charlie in heaven.” She might not believe in it anymore, but certainly it was what Lori wanted to hear.
But Lori’s countenance fell a bit at the comment. “Actually, I don’t believe I will. Charlie was an atheist.”
Savannah felt like Dorothy opening her front door when she first arrived in Oz. The whole world suddenly looked very different. “Really? Would you mind telling me about him?”
Some of the sun came back into Lori’s face. “I’d love to. Charlie was the only family I had left, and we were very close. I miss him, but it helps to talk about him.” She settled back with her coffee, but Savannah found herself on the edge of her seat.
“I think I mentioned in my letter that I’d prayed Charlie’s life would be somewhat redeemed by his organ donations. I prayed the night I got the call that the people receiving them would go on to do great things for God’s kingdom. He was a very wounded person, but never did anything to deal with those wounds, so his life just kept taking more and more tragic turns.
“Our father left us when I was eight and Charlie was four. I was old enough that I had plenty of memories to remind me of why it was good that he was gone, but Charlie didn’t. We both suffered for the lack of a father, but Charlie even more so. He sought him out twice, once when he was sixteen, and again when he was twenty-four Both times our father turned him away, and that made it all the more painful for him.
“Our mom was wounded, too, but she did as best she could by Charlie and me. She was gone a lot, though, working, so Charlie and I grew pretty close from depending on each other so much. He was my best friend until I met my husband. Oh!” Lori stood and crossed the room to the small brick fireplace framed in white wood. She picked up a picture frame from the mantle and handed it to Savannah. “This is him, two years ago on his birthday.”
Savannah found herself looking at a man she would have sworn she’d met before. Perhaps it was because of how much he looked like Lori – the same green eyes, the same round face and brown hair. His mouth was different, though, and his expression, despite the happy occasion, looked guarded, even though he was smiling for the camera.
“While we were growing up, we had neighbors that were Christians,” Lori continued as she went back to her seat. “Kirk became like a second father to Charlie. They’d go fishing, work on cars together-Kirk fixed up old Mustangs and the like, and Charlie loved to tinker with stuff like that. His wife Pauline was sweet, too, and would let me help her bake. She taught me to sew, too. But Charlie and Kirk were far closer than she and I were, I think because Kirk lost his father when he was young, so he knew how Charlie felt and how badly he needed a strong male role model.
“They’d invite us to church, though Mom wouldn’t let us go, and Pauline always had Christian music playing in the house. When I was sixteen she led me to the Lord. Charlie and Kirk didn’t talk about faith as much, but I talked with Charlie about it, and when he was about eighteen he started getting real curious and asking me more questions. I really thought he was going to cross the line at one point, but he kept backing away.”
Savanna stared at the picture as Lori told her story. She felt a connection with the man in the picture, like they’d spent time together or at least met in person. She’d never actively tried to visualize her donor, yet a mental image had coalesced over time, and it was eerily similar to this.
“But then one day Charlie went over to their house and then came right back. He was absolutely seething. He’d always struggled with anger, but Kirk’s easy-going nature had helped him to learn how to calm some of that down. This was the most angry I’d seen him in a long time. He told me that Pauline had answered the door and told him she’d kicked Kirk out. She’d caught him cheating on her. They ended up getting a divorce a couple months later. Kirk never came back, never saw Charlie – the last time Charlie had been there they’d been planning another fishing trip.” She shook her head and sipped her coffee again, and Savannah could feel the anger and sadness and betrayal as keenly as though it had happened to her.
“That was it for Charlie, as far as God was concerned. It pushed him over the edge. Between our father abandoning us and Kirk essentially doing the same thing, he was convinced any idea of a Heavenly Father was garbage. For a couple years we didn’t speak much – he didn’t like that I was a Christian. But our Mom died about eight years ago, and that brought us back together-we were all either of us had. We’d gotten really close again over the last couple years.
“I kept holding out hope that he’d turn to the Lord,” she said with a sigh. “He claimed to be an atheist, said God didn’t exist, but then other times he’d talk about how much he hated God. I’d point out the irony in hating
