Though None Go with Me Page 14

  “I know, I mean, yes, tell us when he gets home and when he might receive people.”

  “You want to see him then?”

  “I, uh—certainly. Yes, of course.”

  To Elisabeth’s horror, Will pulled in the drive, slowing nearly to a stop when passing the Phillipses’ car. With his suit jacket draped over his arm he shook Mr. Phillips’s hand as the man stepped out. She could only imagine the conversation.

  “We’ll let you know, then, if you’re sure,” Mrs. Phillips said as she left. Elisabeth could think of no proper response.

  Benjy called for his mother. Betty cried in frustration just trying to breathe. Something was boiling over in the kitchen. Will came in studying the lay of the land. He gave Benjy a cracker and soothed the baby as he followed Elisabeth to the stove.

  “Elspeth, I’m—I’m speechless.”

  “Will,” she said, “I can’t even eat now.” And suddenly she was crying, worried what Will would think of her reaction, yet having no control over it.

  “Go up and lie down,” he said. “I’ll feed the kids and we can talk.”

  Elisabeth lay rocking in her bed, hearing Will inexplicably patient with the kids while he did her work and his, got the kids to bed, and even did the dishes. He joined her in bed two hours later.

  “I didn’t know what to say to his mother,” Elisabeth said. “And I don’t know what to say to you.”

  “I’m as stunned as you are, Elspeth. I’m glad he’s alive. I hope he recovers and becomes the man he was meant to be. I don’t know any other way to respond. Did his mother expect that you would be waiting for him?”

  Elisabeth shrugged.

  “Does she want you to leave me and give him a reason to get better?”

  “Don’t, Will.”

  “How old is he by now?”

  “Five years older than we are.”

  “Twenty-nine or so then. A lot of life ahead. He can still go to seminary, become a pastor, whatever he wants.”

  Elisabeth turned her back to Will and curled up. “He might have been better off dead. Who knows what he looks like, how much of his body he can use? How much of his mind is left? Can he think? Study? Speak?”

  Will turned out the light and draped his arm over her. “Did you introduce his mother to Ben’s namesake?”

  “It never crossed my mind. Did you mention Benjy to them?”

  “I didn’t think of it either. I was just too—”

  Betty wailed. Elisabeth sighed and began to get up. “Let me,” Will said.

  Elisabeth was too tired even to thank him. She covered her ears and breathed a prayer of thanks for her husband. As he moved past the door and headed downstairs with the baby, Elisabeth suddenly sat up. “Will?” she called out. “Something else I forgot. I’m due again.”

  He returned and sat beside her on the bed, Betty whimpering in his arms. “When?”

  “Late May,” she mumbled. “Maybe early June.”

  “I won’t ask if you’re as excited as I am.”

  “Thank you,” she said, drifting off.

  Over the next several months, Will and Elisabeth received letters and newspaper clippings about the return to Grand Rapids of Ben Phillips. “His motor skills and speech have improved remarkably,” his mother wrote. “He has asked about you but does not want you to see him until he is out of the hospital. I have not told him of your situation for fear of a setback. He is expected to be able to come home in the fall.”

  Elisabeth wrote back with her best wishes and the news that it would be unlikely she could get away until sometime early in 1926, given that she would soon be the mother of three. Soon the letters from Grand Rapids stopped. “Whenever you want,” Will told her, “you should plan to go see him.”

  “I’ll have to tell him.”

  “The truth never hurt anyone.”

  “I couldn’t tell him the whole truth.”

  “That you would not likely have married him anyway? He doesn’t need to know that. But he can’t blame you for getting on with your life.”

  Bruce James Bishop was born Monday, June 1, 1925, named after Robert Bruce—a favorite historical character of Elisabeth’s—and, of course, after her father. Exhausted and guilty about not sharing Will’s enthusiasm over another baby, still she was taken with Bruce from his first squall. A healthy, beautiful boy, he had olive skin, large dark eyes, and a full head of hair. The first time she cradled him to her breast he seemed to look deep into her eyes. She experienced a feeling similar to that strange day when she felt she had been granted a glimpse of her future with Will.

  It was as if she could see Bruce as a compliant, obedient, bright child. She discounted it as wishful thinking, but the image would not leave her. Every time she held the newborn, she ascribed to him wonderful character traits like patience, honesty, and kindness. She had a feeling he would be curious and fun-loving. She prayed he would be a man after God’s own heart.

  Elisabeth was deeply grateful he was physically perfect. She felt sorry for Betty and the malady that would dog her her whole life. She also enjoyed that the new baby seemed more of a cuddler than the other two, never pulling away but rather seeming calmed by nuzzling Elisabeth, the closer the better.

  Her premonitions proved accurate. Bruce made parenting a pleasure. As the older two became more difficult, Elisabeth looked forward to interacting with her youngest. He loved to be held; he cooed and tried to talk to her from the first, smiled earlier, crawled earlier, even seemed to understand the word no.

  Will told Elisabeth he noticed that she had more energy and was quickly back to her old self. “We should think about another child,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We shouldn’t press our luck.”

  In the fall of 1926 a letter arrived from Ben Phillips addressed to Mrs. Will Bishop. So he knew.

  “Dear Elisabeth,” it read, “I trust you and Will are doing well and prospering in the Lord. I hear wonderful things about you and him and your family.

  “Put to rest any fear you may have about my reaction to your marriage. Clearly God was in this, and while I don’t understand my loss of so many years, I continue to rest in him. I will finally be going to seminary this fall with only a slight limp and scars visible only in the neck area. I may never know how I survived, but I am grateful for a second chance and feel much like Lazarus must have felt. My goal is still to preach, and I feel gratitude beyond measure that God has restored my memory and my mental faculties (such as they are!).

  “My warmest greetings to Will. (You’re a lucky man, friend.) I would love to see you both when it’s convenient and you feel it appropriate. It might be awkward for us all, but my wish is that we might be friends and fellowship together as brothers and sister in Christ.”

  The letter made Elisabeth cry. Will shook his head. “That’s about as big a man as I ever hope to meet.”

  Will’s work and his involvement both on the school board and the city traffic commission, not to mention church activities, kept him busy nearly every night of the week. He often told Elisabeth he hated to go out after dinner and leave her and the children again. But she was proud of him. He was a leader in the community and had recently been promoted to comptroller of the company, the youngest senior manager by fifteen years. Some saw him as the eventual president of Fairbanks-Morse.

  Elisabeth felt as if each day was a long week, highlighted only by the time she spent with Bruce, and she collapsed into bed every night, waiting for Will to get home. To his credit, he still was first to rise when one of the children needed something in the night.

  They wrote Ben and arranged to see him as soon as his school year was over in the summer of 1927. Elisabeth included pictures of the children, and Ben wrote back exulting over the one named for him.

  Despite her fatigue, Elisabeth was delighted with her family as the time drew near for the big visit. She loved Will more every day, the depth of his character showing in so many ways that she wondered if she would ever be abl
e to fathom it.

  She worried about Benjy, now almost seven. His first grade teacher threatened to make him repeat the grade, then insisted on passing him so she would not have to deal with him anymore. He was not below average in intelligence but seemed incapable of sitting still, following rules, or being quiet.

  Poor Betty was another matter. Barely three, she was miserable, unable to understand why merely breathing had to be so difficult. She had been to specialists and was on so much medication that Elisabeth wondered if she wouldn’t be better off in a sanitarium or a different climate. She could not be cheered, nor be made to smile. She lacked interest in much of anything and sat sucking her fingers, her nose and eyes running.

  Bruce was wonderful. He greeted his mother with a smile every time he saw her, reached to be hugged or carried, kissed her without being coerced. He seemed to see each day, indeed each room, person, or new situation as an adventure. His very countenance seemed to ask, “What’s next, what’s fun for us now?”

  He talked in sentences by his second birthday and loved being the center of attention. He was the favorite of the young people at church, and teenagers competed to hold him and interact with him. Few babysat him a second time, however, because Benjy and Betty came with the package. Elisabeth grew desperate about them, praying she would not fail them. Bruce was easy.

  Pastor Hill’s wife, now in her sixties, agreed to move into the Bishop home and watch the children the weekend Elisabeth and Will went to Grand Rapids. Will had volunteered to let Elisabeth go alone. “I trust you,” he said, smiling.

  “I don’t trust you,” she said. “Imagine this place when I got back.” He feigned offense. “There is no way I could see Ben without you, Will. I don’t know what I might do or say. I haven’t seen him in more than nine years.”

  They followed Ben’s directions to a small apartment complex near the seminary on the east side of Grand Rapids. Elisabeth could barely breathe, imagining Ben watching from the window. “You look wonderful,” Will said as he walked her to the door. “He’ll be thrilled to see you.”

  “That’s the last thing on my mind.”

  When Ben opened the door, the years evaporated for Elisabeth. He smiled and shook their hands warmly. His hair was thin and gray, way too early for a thirty-two-year-old. He was only slightly smaller than she had remembered him, and his limp was more pronounced than she expected. His voice did not have the timbre it had when he was younger, but he said it was improving.

  “It’s been so long!” he said. “How remarkable to see you both!”

  Will seemed bemused. Elisabeth didn’t know what to say. “It’s as if you’re back from the grave,” she tried. “Well, I guess you are.”

  “I knew this would be awkward,” Ben said. “I don’t know what else it could be. But tell me about yourselves.”

  Elisabeth was glad for the diversion. She bragged on Will, fearing she sounded as if she were trying to justify her choice. But she was proud of him and often spoke of him this way.

  “God has blessed you,” Ben said. “He has blessed me too. I’m doing well in school, getting opportunities to speak. Many churches are looking for pastors, so I should have little trouble finding a place to serve.”

  “You’ll do well,” Will said. “I still remember your messages at camp.”

  “How kind of you. Maybe someday I’ll remember them!”

  Ben and Will laughed, but the enormity of what Ben had endured washed over Elisabeth. The tension of seeing him again pushed her past the brink. She didn’t want to sob in front of him, and she pulled a handkerchief from her handbag just in time to bury her face in it.

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I didn’t mean to treat this lightly.”

  Elisabeth collected herself. “Forgive me,” she said. “This is all just so bizarre. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you.”

  “In some respects I’m thankful for the amnesia so I can’t imagine it either.”

  “You never resented it, wished you had died?”

  “I was confused and frustrated for so many years, I didn’t know what to think. When my memory began returning, it was as if I was living my life over again. I couldn’t wait to contact my loved ones, to climb all the way back. It still seems to have happened quickly.”

  The scar that ran from the nape of Ben’s neck to his Adam’s apple was high-ridged and deep red. He said doctors concluded it had resulted from the bite of a large sea creature. “I won’t show you the other scars,” Ben said. “I can hardly stand to look at them myself.”

  At the end of the evening, Ben walked them to the door. “Your pastor there in Three Rivers—Hill, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand he may be moving on.”

  Elisabeth flinched. Pastor Hill had been there since before she was born. She couldn’t imagine the place without him. “He’s not mentioned that.”

  “I may be mistaken,” Ben said. “But at the seminary we were looking at a list of the pastors in this region who may soon start moving south or phasing out. We do that just to consider opportunities.”

  Elisabeth shot a glance at Will, who appeared nonplussed.

  “Oh, don’t give it another thought,” Ben said. “I would never see myself as a candidate for that pulpit anyway.”

  “Why not?” Elisabeth said, relieved but curious.

  “I can’t imagine serving the church where my former fiancée and her family attend. Too distracting. For me and the congregation.”

  “Probably so.”

  “Anyway, a church that size would probably be too selective to consider me.”

  “I think you’d have your choice,” Will said. “Once a church has heard you.”

  “That’s kind, but older, more established congregations almost always insist on a family man, at least a married man.”

  “Well, you’re still young. There’s plenty of time for that.”

  Ben smiled and shook his head as he ushered them out. “Oh, no, that’s not in my future. No, sir. Anyone other than who I had would never compare.”

  Elisabeth sat silent for several miles. “How was that supposed to make me feel?” she said finally.

  “Since you brought it up,” Will said, “all things considered, he spoiled a perfectly cordial reunion.”

  “So my marrying ruined his life.”

  “He just might feel that way.”

  “But it was the war! How long was I supposed to wait? Would he like to know that I would not likely have married him anyway?”

  “You’re overreacting,” Will said, checking the rearview mirror.

  “But what an awful thing for him to say.”

  “How do you think it made me feel?“

  “I can only imagine, darling. You stole his fiancée and since no one else will ever do, he’ll be a lonely cripple the rest of his life.”

  “We’re being a little hard on him,” Will said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to marry anyone but you either.”

  When they neared home Elisabeth reconsidered her reaction to Ben’s comment. “I should be flattered, I suppose. It wasn’t as if he planned to say it. Any number of women would find him a worthy husband.”

  “You almost did.”

  “Almost.”

  At home Elisabeth detected relief in Mrs. Hill’s eyes. “How were they?” she asked.

  “A challenge. But that little one! He dropped off God’s own tree, didn’t he? I’ll take him home with me any day of the week.”

  “No you won’t,” Elisabeth said. “He’s all mine.”

  “Say, Mrs. Hill,” Will said, hanging their jackets, “I trust Pastor knows how much he’s appreciated. Does he?”

  “Oh, I think so. People are mostly kind. There will always be critics. It comes with the territory, as they say.”

  “I just hope he’s planning to stay with us a long, long time.”

  Mrs. Hill’s eyes darted. “There are days when we tire of the flooding, the snow, the cold. And this is a long t
ime to have stayed in one church. But I think Jack has a few more years in him.”

  A week to the day after their visit, a letter arrived from Ben. Elisabeth opened it nervously. It read, “Dear Elisabeth and Will, I laid awake for hours after your visit, thrilled how God has blessed you. The insensitivity of my last remark crushes my conscience, and I beg your forgiveness for implying that losing you had irreparably damaged me. While it’s true I cannot imagine sharing my life with another, blurting that was crass and the wrong way to end a wonderful evening. If you can find it in your hearts to forgive, I would like to put it behind us. In Christ, Ben.”

  They agreed that Will should respond with a simple note of thanks for the evening and an assurance that Ben should not give his parting comment another thought. They would watch his career with interest, trusting God to put him into a pastorate that complemented his many gifts.

  Elisabeth thought often of Ben and the odyssey of their relationship, but she never again mentioned his name to Will. She tucked the memories in a deep corner of her mind and heart, assuming she would never see him again and deciding that that was best.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Depression hit Three Rivers in 1929 like a Michigan tornado. The neighbors on both sides of Elisabeth moved away in the night within weeks of each other, rumors saying both men had lost fortunes in the stock market. Elisabeth’s only hint had come when the wife to her west said, “I suppose your husband’s company will save you from losing your house.”

  Elisabeth was so unversed in the issue that she didn’t even respond. Within days, the woman and her husband had disappeared, and a holding company had come in to secure what was left of the home.

  Fairbanks-Morse took a tremendous hit, sales dropping every month. Will came home more haggard every night. Barely twenty-nine, he looked ten years older.

  “We laid off more men,” he said one night. “Nearly a hundred.”

  “For how long this time?” Elisabeth said.

  He hung his head and pressed his lips together, appearing to fight tears. “There’s no plan to bring them back. I don’t know what they’re going to do.”