Travis takes off his Grandon Parks Department hat and wipes his forehead. “Thanks!”
“When is Lauren due?”
“In December.”
Robert nods, smiling. “A baby for Christmas. Fantastic! Is Lauren doing well? If I get home this evening and Kate learns that I’ve neglected to ask all the pertinent questions, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Travis chuckles. “She’s doing great. She’s taking time to do some decorating in the house and get the room ready for the baby and is learning to cook.” A thought strikes him, and he interrupts Robert as he’s about to ask another question. “Hey, Robert! You don’t happen to know a farmer named Bud, do you?”
Robert shields his eyes from the sun as he looks at him. “Bud Waters?”
Travis’s eyes light up. “Really? There is a farmer named Bud?”
Robert nods. “A dairy farmer.” Travis beams at the words. “He sold the farm fifteen or twenty years ago.”
The smile leaves Travis’s face. “Do you know where he lives now?”
Robert looks up to the sky, thinking. “Drake County, I think. It’s been a lot of years to remember. Why?”
“Lauren really wants to find him. Hoping he can help her find somebody else.”
“Well, let me poke around. If I find him, I’ll let you know ASAP.”
“That’s great, Robert! Thanks. What can we do for you for helping us?”
“Name the baby after me,” Robert says, walking toward his office. Travis laughs, but as he starts the leaf blower again, he looks at Robert’s back as he walks away, wondering if he was serious.
NINETEEN
October 1972
Joan sits in one of the chairs in the chemo room at the cancer clinic as the chemo drips through the IV line and into her arm. There are two other chairs inside this room; the chair next to her is empty, but the one near the door is taken. A young man around twenty or so sits in the chair, and a woman who Joan believes is his mother sits next to him; her hand is on his arm, and Joan thinks of her own mom at home with Gigi and Christopher.
Joan’s father brought her to the clinic today so John would not miss another day of work. On her insistence, her dad has gone to find a bowl of soup in the cafeteria for her. If they don’t have broccoli cheese—and she knows the cafeteria will not—she has instructed him where a nearby café that makes it is located. She has sent her father on a scavenger hunt of sorts because he is never able to hide his concern, and Joan knows it is best if she receives the chemo alone. As the cancer killer drips through the IV, Joan whispers again, “Today’s the day. I may not see it, but God is at work.” Her mind wanders ahead to Halloween, and she wonders if she’ll be up for walking Gigi and Christopher around the neighborhood. Her mom found a lion costume a couple of months ago at a sale for Christopher, complete with a golden, bushy mane to frame his face. Gigi has said she wants to be Big Bird from Sesame Street, but Joan questions whether she can make the costume. She closes her eyes to rest and seems to be drifting toward sleep when she hears “Today’s the day. God is working. I just know it.”
Joan flashes her eyes open and looks at the mother and her son, but they aren’t in conversation. The young man’s eyes are closed, and the mother is reading. “Did you say something?” Joan asks, keeping her voice low.
The woman, who looks to be in her late forties, with short blond hair and a stout figure, turns to see Joan. “I’m so sorry,” she says, whispering. “I didn’t mean to say it out loud.”
Joan lifts her head from the back of the chair, wanting to come out of it altogether. “What did you say?” Her voice is earnest, almost pleading.
The woman looks at her son and gets up from her chair, stepping gingerly to Joan and whispers, “I said, today’s the day.”
“You did say it!” Joan puts a hand to her head and looks at the chair next to her. “Could you sit down?” The woman does and Joan gropes for words. “Why did you say that?”
The woman shrugs, her eyes lighting up as she talks. “Bruce was diagnosed with cancer two months ago. For some reason, on the day he was diagnosed, I said, ‘Today’s the day. God is working.’”
Joan looks at her, puzzled. “What did you mean by that?”
“I knew that we could be scared to death and start wringing our hands or we could pound our stake firmly into the ground and believe that God is at work, not tomorrow or the next day, but today, right now.”
Joan feels tears begin to swell and she shakes her head to keep them from falling. “My husband has been saying those same words to me.” The woman’s eyes open wide as she listens. “And now you. The same words! Isn’t that strange?”
The woman smiles. “Do you think it’s coincidence?”
Joan looks into the woman’s blue eyes; they aren’t condescending but are full of kindness. “Part of me thinks that it is, but another part wonders.”
“Wonders what?”
Joan looks up at the ceiling and back at the woman. “If God is trying to get my attention? I thought that if He did that it’d be something bigger like a meteor shower, not something like a sentence my husband is saying. Or the word ‘wind’ in a recipe!” The woman looks confused. “You had to be there.” The woman laughs, understanding exactly
