Prayers of a Stranger: A Christmas Story Read online

  “My father is a pastor.”

  “Where were you raised?”

  “St. Louis until I was ten. Then he accepted a pulpit in Kansas City.”

  “Did you rebel against your faith?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t . . .” She swiped at her face, an impatient gesture. “I never really gave it much thought. I just assumed I could, you know, make it on my own.”

  “You’re strong, you’re intelligent, you’re independent, you have a lot going for you.”

  “And every step I took seems to be the wrong one.” She stared at the fountain, and Chris had a sudden impression that she let the fountain cry for her. “My life is such a mess. I’ve become a pro at ignoring just how unhappy I am. And then I started asking about you. I assumed it was a joke at first. That’s how I treated it. A joke. And then I learned about your work with the church. Your stable family. Your community service with the group out of Kissimmee. Everywhere I asked, I heard people talk about how good you were.” She struggled to open her purse and extracted a tissue. “And the way you handled yourself upstairs. I could just hear my father tell me this is what a man of faith can be inside the business world. This is what I walked away from.”

  Chris waited long enough to be certain she was finished, then replied, “It’s never too late.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start, unraveling all the mistakes.”

  “I can tell you that much.” For the first time since he arrived, he felt light. Freed from his burdens. Because he knew with all his heart that his stumbling plea had been heard. And answered. “Would you like to pray with me?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Nechama’s family was incredibly kind and the dinner superb. They started with a variety of fresh Mediterranean delicacies, a salad of chopped coriander and mint, stuffed vine leaves, grilled peppers and eggplant drizzled in oil, on and on the dishes came. Afterward there was roast lamb spiced in a manner that left Amanda feeling as though she had been transported back to some ancient world. When she said as much, Nechama’s husband nodded approval while his wife deposited yet more food upon her plate.

  Nechama was, in fact, married to one of the attorneys she had mentioned, and another was her eldest son. Both men were tall and slender, with scraggly beards and skullcaps and starched white shirts and black pants and lace-up shoes. Nechama chided them constantly through the meal, filling their plates and waving the serving spoon like she was scolding two children. There was another son who lived in Tel Aviv and visited far too rarely, the one point Nechama and her husband agreed upon. Their daughter was married to a biochemist who was completing his doctorate in London. The son at dinner had a wife and three children, but they were off on a seaside holiday with the wife’s parents. Which was why the son was here, he explained, winking at Amanda, being talked to like he was still nine years old.

  The apartment was on a hilltop looking back toward the Old City and the Jaffa Gate. They took coffee on the terrace, where they insisted that Amanda recount the entire experience with Rochele, starting with the Wailing Wall and ending with the hospital doctor bowing over her hand.

  When Amanda had thanked them and said her farewells, Nechama saw her downstairs. “Your flight home is when?”

  “Tomorrow evening at nine.”

  “My son has business in Tel Aviv. He will drive you to the airport.”

  Amanda’s protests went nowhere, so she accepted the inevitable with, “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You have heard the expression, next year in Jerusalem? So. Next year you will return. With your husband. I forget, his name again is what?”

  “Chris. Christopher.”

  “You and Christopher. You come and stay with us. My husband agrees.”

  Amanda gaped. “We wouldn’t want to be any trouble.”

  “What is trouble? The children are gone. We have too many empty rooms. Your husband, he is as nice as you?”

  “Chris is wonderful,” she replied, missing him intensely.

  “Then it is settled.” She embraced Amanda, her grip as fierce and impatient as the rest of her. “So. Next year in Jerusalem. You will not forget.”

  After breakfast, Amanda walked through the grand plaza fronting the Jaffa Gate and selected a street at random. Stallholders called to her and children followed and chattered. All around her, tourists walked in tired clumps, sweltering in the desert heat. The stones already shimmered in the morning sunlight, and shadows from the high walls cut jagged edges across her path. The heat was very different from Florida, free as it was of humidity and compressed with all the odors of a cramped and vibrant city. Soon enough she left the crowds behind. The people of Jerusalem’s old town glanced at her, then away. Unless they were selling something, theirs was a closed world, segmented by history and conflict and what she could only imagine was a hard life.

  She entered a plaza filled with food stalls and bought a cup of pomegranate juice. She took a seat in the sunlight and fingered the two slips of paper in her pocket, the prayer from Chris and another she had written out that morning. Her own prayer was a repetition of Mary’s words. I am the Lord’s servant. May it be according to your word. She had no idea whether she possessed the strength to actually deal with whatever was to come next. But Mary’s example was something she wanted to carry back with her.

  Miriam was there waiting for her on the bench outside the Wall’s barriers, and they greeted each other warmly. As they passed through the security checkpoint and started down the hall leading to the women’s section, Amanda was filled with a sudden restless hunger. She positively ached to hold Chris again. And yet even stronger than the longing she felt for her husband was the desire to hold fast to the miracles she had experienced since her arrival.

  Amanda helped Miriam seat herself on a bench facing the Wall. The old woman shifted her cane to the other arm and reached into her voluminous purse. She took her time drawing out a pen and piece of paper. “Tell me how I can pray for you.”

  Amanda lowered herself down to the stone seat. “Excuse me?”

  “There is little an old woman in a poor village can do for a stranger visiting from America,” Miriam told her. “But this I can offer. Nu. So give me the words you would like me to offer up each day.”

  Amanda hesitated, then confessed, “I want to take back with me all that I have learned here in your land.”

  “Your heart is good, child. I am honored by your words. And God, he is pleased.” She bent over the paper, writing with painful and determined effort. Then she rolled up the paper like a tiny scroll and handed it over. “Go and add my prayers with your own.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Emily was so quiet during the journey from the airport, Chris assumed she had dozed off. But as he took the Melbourne exit from I-95, she asked, “Do you want to tell me what’s troubling you?”

  “I’m not even sure how to put it all into words.”

  She hesitated, then asked, “Is it Frank?”

  “Not at all. Don’t think about that for an instant.” It was his turn to pause and collect himself. “Actually, it’s work. And I’d rather not talk about it because I haven’t told Amanda yet.”

  “All right.” She rubbed her face. “Do you mind if we stop by the hospital on our way?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I don’t mind having to come home early. I wish I had been home when he fell. But it sounds like everything went as well as it possibly could have.”

  “It did, and he’s fine.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for taking care of him like you did.”

  “I enjoyed doing it.”

  “With everything you’ve had going on, it must have been a strain.”

  “It’s been good to have something that pulls me out of myself. I know that sounds crazy but it’s true.”

  She studied the sunlight and the road and the palms. “I’m afraid of losing it, Chris.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “The feelin
g I had in Israel. The sense of God’s closeness. The answer to prayers. I want to bring the miracle home with me.” She looked over. “Now who sounds crazy.”

  Chris pulled into the hospital’s parking garage, found a space, and cut the motor, taking his time. “How is Amanda?”

  “Exactly like you’ve heard.” Emily reached for the door handle. “I suspect she is hoping for the same thing I am.”

  Chris moved beside her, their footsteps echoing through the concrete chamber. “I’m glad you asked her to go.”

  “Not nearly as glad as I am. We left for Israel as good neighbors. We’re returning as best friends.”

  In the elevator Chris started to explain that Frank had been moved to the sixth floor, which was great news, because it was the ward for people well on their way to full healing. And that he’d spoken the day before with Frank’s physical therapist, a no-nonsense woman with the manner of a polite drill sergeant, and she’d said that Frank was making enormous progress for a man of any age, much less one of his years. But as Chris started to speak, he saw that Emily’s eyes were clenched shut and her shoulders were hunched, and he realized that the woman was praying. He hesitated, then placed his hand on her shoulder.

  Then the doors opened and he led Emily down the hall to Frank’s room. Emily froze in the doorway and started weeping at the sight of their pregnant daughter seated beside her husband’s bed, the two of them holding hands.

  Chris walked away, glad for such a wonderful reason to smile. And to hope.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The flight left on time and flew west into the night. Amanda slept most of the way to London and woke with the dawn. She walked the endless hallway to the Heathrow Airport transfer desk, took the bus to Terminal Three, and located her departure gate. She bought a coffee and phoned Chris. Amanda knew he was holding something back. She suspected it was more bad news about his company and ached for them both. He deserved better.

  It all came back to that.

  She boarded the plane for Orlando and settled into another airplane seat. She ate another airplane meal, then tried to watch an in-flight movie and found it only made her eyes hurt. She shut off the screen and thought about what awaited her upon arrival. She wanted to return home and give to Chris the comfort and the love and the joy he deserved. Whatever happened in the world beyond their door, she wanted him to know that she waited for him with open heart and arms. That she was there to give him everything she was, everything she had, everything God had entrusted to her.

  And she wanted to return to nursing. The decision came to her full blown. She wanted to be there for the next little Rochele who arrived with her own desperate need. Amanda knew there were any number of nurses as well qualified as herself. If she had anything special to give it was her ability to love and cherish and pray. She wanted this. What was more, she was ready.

  Amanda walked down the aisle and asked the hostess for a glass of water. As she drank, her eyes fell upon a newspaper tucked into the magazine rack. She had not read a paper since leaving Florida. She pulled it out and scanned the headlines. When her gaze fell upon one story, suddenly she was no longer sleepy.

  The headline read First Storm of Season Wreaks Havoc Along Eastern Seaboard. There was a photograph of the Washington airport blanketed in snow, with a plane slipped off the runway and trapped in a gully. Amanda read how the early snowstorm had blanketed Washington, DC, Virginia, and the Carolinas that very morning. And how another was due to strike in six days, threatening to disrupt the holidays.

  This meant they couldn’t travel to Virginia for Christmas. Chris surely wanted to go, yet she knew he would be willing to do whatever she wanted. All she needed was a reason not to go, and here it was, in full-color display. But Amanda felt no relief over being spared the prospect of a massive family gathering. Which was very odd, since if she had been asked about it before traveling to Israel, she would have said a chance to avoid the memories of what had happened the previous year was a genuine Christmas gift. Instead, she felt as though she was missing something important.

  She fell asleep again, still mulling over what could possibly be the benefit of fighting their way north for a holiday on ice.

  This time Amanda knew where she was, flying at forty thousand feet, the muffled roar of the engines filling the space beyond her closed eyelids. She drifted away, then back, each time returning to the same vague hope. That she would return with the lessons gained, her healing intact.

  The journey and the jet lag gave her a sense of disembodiment, as though she was tied to the world by the lightest of strings. She slept and she dreamed, and was aware that she was dreaming. She saw herself rise from a cool stone bench. She crossed a floor of close-cut stone, and now instead of the engine’s sibilant rush she heard the chorus of many women’s voices, all rising together in a soft union of prayer and psalms. Amanda watched herself fit the prayer into the crack in the stone, one slip of paper among hundreds, thousands. She rested her fingers on the cool, dry surface.

  Then she opened her eyes.

  The light beyond the window was brilliant. Amanda leaned over and studied the scene below. There was not a cloud in the sky. They flew over a burnished snowscape. The world was flat and white and frozen. She studied the scene for a very long while, then leaned back and closed her eyes once more. But she did not sleep. She planned.

  Amanda knew exactly what she needed to do.

  Chris put as much of himself as he possibly could into that first embrace. He had not missed Amanda nearly so much that entire week as he did in this first instant of seeing her. He felt surrounded not only by her arms but also by the simple goodness of her. He could smell the vague odor of the long flight in her hair. He tasted the dryness of her lips. And as he looked into her eyes and saw the love, the calm acceptance of who he was, he knew he had no choice but to tell her everything.

  He apologized three times, or perhaps four, in the telling. His apologies were not over what he said. It was in having taken so long to open up. He would have said it again but Amanda told him to stop. He talked through the drive down the emerald-clad Beachline Expressway and onto the I-95 corridor. He talked them off the highway and down the main thoroughfare leading to the hospital.

  He paused then, long enough to ask if she wanted to see Frank.

  “I can’t, not with the new administrator and everything I’ll have waiting for me,” she replied. “Frank will understand. Emily will make sure of that.”

  He used a stoplight as an opportunity to glance over. She looked so calm, so steady. “Emily says you’ve become good friends.”

  “We’ve shared miracles,” Amanda said. “Now tell me the rest.”

  So he did. About the Brazilian and the news about the company and the offer. He was still talking as they pulled into the drive. Amanda made no move to get out. “Is that all?”

  “Yes. Well, no,” he decided, and told her about Jane Sayer, the young executive who had met with him by the fountain. He described how they had prayed together, and then how he had phoned Jackie, the pastor who had brought Frank and his daughter together.

  “I’m proud of you,” Amanda said.

  “It was really nice, having that sense of affirmation,” he agreed. “And then seeing Emily yesterday, I wish you could have been there. Frank and Emily and their daughter, all together in the hospital room. I’ve carried those images with me.”

  “How are things with Claire?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Is she worried about the weather?”

  “Borderline frantic is the better way to describe it.” Now that she had accepted that Chris was not coming, Claire was using him as a sounding board, someone she could turn to with all her worries. Chris had found himself looking forward to the talks and the way he felt connected to the holiday gathering he would miss. “Wouldn’t you rather wait and talk about this after you’ve rested?”

  “We can’t wait. This has to be done now.”

  “What does?�
�

  “I want to call and invite her down.”

  Chris needed a few moments to shape one word. “What?”

  “Claire and all the family. Tell them to come have Christmas with us.”

  “Honey, do you have any idea . . . There are nineteen of them.”

  “Twenty-one, counting us. If they all come. Which I assume they will. So the kids can camp out on the patio. And Emily and Frank can put up others. They’ve got three spare bedrooms, or two, if Lucy decides to have Christmas with them.”

  “Don’t you need to ask them first?”

  “I phoned Emily from the terminal before I came out to meet you. Their other three children are doing Christmas with the in-laws. Emily was thrilled with the idea of filling up her home. Frank was over the moon. He says nothing would make him get well faster than a house full of laughter.” Amanda smiled. “What do you think?”

  “I think . . . It’s great. Claire will be thrilled and worried and she’ll want to take over your kitchen.”

  “Then let her.”

  Chris studied his wife. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Yes, Christopher. I’m sure.” Then she was reaching out and over, the light there in her eyes, warm and soft and so full of love he could dive in and lose himself. “It’s so good to be home.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Amanda stood on her front lawn and watched the Christmas Eve sunset unfold.

  The border between their yard and their neighbor’s to the west was fashioned from bougainvillea and palm trees. Bougainvillea were odd plants, both hearty and temperamental. They would grow in sandy soil a block off the ocean, and their leaves rarely showed burn from salt or wind. But unless they were fed regularly, they stubbornly refused to bloom. Chris fertilized them in the fall and the spring. The result was a crimson and violet wall over eight feet high. The palms stood like calm sentinels against this riot of color.

  The afternoon shadows shielded her from view. Amanda watched children race from her front door to the Wrights, chattering happily with Lucy, who managed quite a clip despite her distended belly. Emily and Frank had opened their extra bedrooms to two of the visiting families. All nineteen of Amanda’s guests were here, filling the cul de sac with laughter. Frank’s roar rose from the backyard. There was an instant’s silence, then half a dozen kids roared back. As far as they were concerned they had arrived in Florida and adopted a new granddad.