Rachel's Hope

Marlene reached over and squeezed Rachel’s hand. Her round, doughy face held a beatific shine. “Remember, gal, there’s no problem too big for God. When my Harry died, I felt like I hit rock bottom. That’s when I knew Christ was real. He took me by the hand and said, ‘Honey, it’s all right. You’re going to be okay. Just walk with Me.’”

Rachel grimaced. “Might as well have asked you to walk on water or something.”

“No, Rachel, even losing weight I don’t imagine I could walk on water. But walking with Him is possible.”

Rachel looked away. “I try to live my faith, Marlene, I really do. But lately it’s hard enough just plodding through each day.”

“Maybe you’re trying too hard,” said Marlene. “Following Jesus is so simple, so beautiful. Are you still digging into God’s Word every day? And letting the Holy Spirit get hold of your life?”

“I try, but…” Rachel’s words drifted off.

“Well, stop trying, gal,” Marlene boomed, loud enough for everyone to hear, “and let God do it. Put your burdens on Him. His Son is a real person. Not just a man in history. We’re not talking pie-in-the-sky religion here.”

“Maybe we should talk about it later,” Rachel suggested. She realized she was still holding the forms the receptionist had given her. She searched her purse for a pen and scribbled into the blank spaces the information requested. Name. Address. Telephone number. Insurance. She couldn’t remember whether their insurance covered pregnancy. She would have to check with David. No, she would call the insurance company instead.

She laid the forms aside and glanced at her reflection in the oval mirror on the opposite wall, noting with relief that, in spite of her discomfiture, she looked intact, perhaps even attractive. Her makeup was correct. She had good eyes, she was confident of that. Clear cerulean blue, thickly lashed. Her brows were a trifle too arched and her mouth perhaps too full and wide to be pretty. But her medium-length honey brown hair had been done that morning. Jenny from the Carousel Beauty Salon did her hair each week, making the thick, tawny curls fall softly onto Rachel’s forehead and caress her high cheekbones.

Even if she wasn’t a classic beauty, David considered her pretty. And she was still young—wasn’t she? Surely thirty-two couldn’t be old—not these days when women even in their fifties were having babies. Long ago, when she and David were dating, he had told her she had the grace of a Madonna. He said no one walked with as much grace as she.

Rachel smiled inadvertently. Did David really say things like that once? It must have been some other lifetime, some other Rachel—the old Rachel. The girl she was when they were first married. The high school girl who could hardly wait for graduation, who less than two weeks later became Mrs. David Webber in one of those gaudy little wedding chapels in Las Vegas. That naive girl in rose-colored glasses had been gone for a long time, Rachel acknowledged mordantly.

Rachel shifted in her chair. Waiting for the nurse to call her name was a royal pain. What was there to do but to think and remember? Or talk to Marlene. But Marlene had her nose buried in another magazine. With a sigh of resignation Rachel sat back and permitted the reels of memory to spin through her mind like old film clips.

She thought of Brian. What would he think about a baby? He was an awkward thirteen, a loner. He would be fourteen when the baby came—if a baby came. Hard to imagine that it was thirteen years since Brian had been born. Had it really been that long? She and David had been married only a year, and David had still had another year before he would receive his engineering degree from California State University at Long Beach. Rachel had had to give up her typing job and her cherished drama courses to take care of Brian, and David had taken a part-time job at night to pay the rent on their small Long Beach apartment.

“It’s never been easy,” Rachel murmured. She didn’t realize she’d said the words aloud until Marlene looked up and asked what she had just said.

“Nothing important. Just thinking out loud.”

“So tell me.”

Rachel shrugged. “To be honest, I was thinking how pleasant life was before Brian was born. David and I had so much fun our first year together—art lectures and films at the university, pizza parties with other students, drives to Solvang or San Diego. I remember our long walks around Knott’s Berry Farm, munching popcorn as we peered in the windows of that old ghost town.”

“Sounds very romantic,” Marlene mused. “But a baby does change things.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Marlene. We wanted Brian. We really did. But David and I rarely saw each other after his birth. David was in class all day or at the library studying. He’d come home for dinner before rushing off to his job at the garage, or grab a sandwich somewhere. I wouldn’t see him until he collapsed into bed beside me long after midnight.”

“And you think it’ll be that way again, with a new baby?”

“Won’t it? I don’t think I could do it again, Marlene. I remember how tired I was—and depressed. Brian was a fussy, demanding baby. He kept me constantly on the run. He fretted when he was alone and was always into things. He screamed so much when I put him in the playpen I could barely take a shower or make a phone call.”

“Didn’t David help? Share some of the work?”

“David was always busy, preoccupied with his studies or work. On weekends he parked himself in front of the TV, watching football or baseball, or caught up on his sleep. He worked so hard all week, I guess I felt he had the right to do as he pleased on the weekend. I had to chase after Brian to keep him from disturbing his father.”

“Surely things improved after David graduated,” said Marlene.

“Yes, for a while. David landed a great engineering position in the aerospace industry and quit his evening job. He had regular hours and spent more time at home. Brian was older and more settled. And he sure loved to roughhouse with his dad.”

“Wasn’t Brian about three when you moved into the condo next door?”

Rachel nodded. “David was so excited when he found that condo. We had finally saved enough money for a down payment on a house, but he wanted that flashy condo.” Rachel sighed, remembering the brochure David had brought home. The development had been advertised as one of Southern California’s most luxurious complexes, surrounded by palm trees, tropical shrubs and lush, blood red bougainvillea. It had the usual swimming pool, of course, and colored lights everywhere.

From the start Rachel had reservations about the condo. It wasn’t suited to a growing family. The place gave off an artificial impression of opulence, but it wasn’t practical or comfortable. Rachel would have preferred buying a larger but less ostentatious house—maybe a roomy old Victorian fixer-upper with a large yard and a picket fence in a settled section of Long Beach. But why mention it again? Marlene had heard it all before. A house would have provided room to stretch and grow, where Brian could play ball and fly kites, where they could plant a vegetable garden and rosebushes, and raise collie puppies and maybe even a couple of Angora kittens.

But David had a thousand reasons why the condo was a better buy. It was new and impressive and practically maintenance free. It was in an upper-scale neighborhood and yet close to the freeway, and it wouldn’t depreciate as quickly as an old house in a declining neighborhood. And the condo would be easier to unload if the economy took another downturn, he told her, in case they were forced to relocate out of state. His firm relied on government contracts to survive, and David worried constantly about losing a job if the news reported the slightest dip in the economy. “In this life it’s best to remain flexible,” David told her time and again. “Travel light Don’t carry too much baggage. Be ready to pull up stakes, if necessary. Don’t sink your roots in too deeply or you’ll find yourself stuck in a rut.”

Well, for all David’s platitudes, she felt as if they were most definitely stuck in a rut. They had lived in the same condo for ten years now. Sometimes, particularly on Sunday afternoons, they would go for a drive and stop to look at model homes. They would walk through the professionally decorated rooms, praising a painting or commenting on the rich teal green of the carpet or the exquisite pattern of the wallpaper. They would survey the fine assortment of family rooms and dens, playrooms and bonus rooms that many of the homes boasted. It was at such model homes that Rachel had seen the large walk-in closets—nearly as large as this very office—and the master bedrooms that were practically a home in themselves. On such excursions, David would remark, “One of these days we’ll have a house like this, big and fancy as a palace…” Silently she would muse that she’d be happy with one of those old Victorian fixer-uppers or even an old farmhouse in the country. But lately, she realized, David had stopped talking about buying another home.

In fact, lately David seemed to be pulling away from Brian and her. She hated to admit it—wouldn’t breathe a word of it to Marlene—but David’s life was increasingly disconnected from theirs. Of course, they had gone their separate ways for years. But this was something else, something more.

Again the suspicions nagged her. What about David? What was he doing? What was going on? Or was she being crazy to wonder about him when there was really no reason? What was wrong with her that she doubted her own husband? God forgive my suspicions! she silently prayed.

But no matter what the problems now, Rachel reminded herself, once her marriage had been good. At least, until—when was it? When did she and David really begin to grow apart?

There was only one answer to that question, and she felt guilty even thinking it. It was after she met Marlene. When was that? Five, six years ago? Yes. Brian was nearly eight. Marlene moved into the condo next door, alone. Her husband had died of a heart attack several years before. They had no children.

In spite of her loss, Marlene was a generous, funny, wonderfully open person. She had a quality of love and warmth about her that drew Rachel. In this one plain, lovely, outspoken woman Rachel found the sympathetic understanding of a mother, big sister and friend.

It hadn’t taken Rachel long to discover that Marlene had fascinating and deeply entrenched opinions about many things—what it meant to be a woman, a Christian woman; what her responsibilities were to herself and to others; what her relationship ought to be to God. Marlene had related her opinions one afternoon while they had coffee in Rachel’s apartment

Even now, sitting stiffly, impatiently in Dr. Oberg’s waiting room, Rachel recalled Marlene’s words—the quiet, direct way she’d spoken of Jesus Christ and His resurrection and His desire to live in a person’s heart.

Rachel’s amazement had turned to curiosity, then to hunger. Here was Christianity as she had never heard it before—beautiful, powerful, capable of giving life a meaning she had always wished for but never dreamed possible. It involved so many things she was familiar with—Jesus of Nazareth, Christmas and Easter. Things everyone knew about. But then, why hadn’t anyone told her that religion was just the periphery, that the center of it all was Christ?

“Rachel, honey, Jesus got off that cross a long time ago,” Marlene had assured her. “He’s not lying in that tomb anymore. He’s alive, He’s God and He loves you.”

Marlene had prayed with Rachel that day and led her like a child to Christ. For a long while after that, Rachel had felt the wonder of innocence and the amazement of childhood in her blood again. She was free, clean. Even her daily routine took on purpose. It had all been so good.

It was still good, Rachel noted silently, but things were different now. She couldn’t deny that some of the sparkle was gone. The sheen of her brand-new faith had worn thin and faded with the passing of months and years.

It wasn’t entirely Rachel’s fault. If only her faith hadn’t become a wedge in her marriage. If only David shared her faith instead of resenting it. If only he would encourage Brian’s faith by attending church with them occasionally, things would be so different.

And now, in recent weeks, there were other things—vague, disturbing things Rachel hardly dared put into words: David’s preoccupation, his aura of secretiveness when she questioned him about his activities. He inevitably brushed her off with an excuse that he worried about work.

But was it the truth? Or was her marriage in even deeper trouble than she suspected? Could it be that David had found a new interest…someone else? Until now Rachel hadn’t dared to put the thought into words.

She chastened herself for harboring such suspicions. But the nagging questions could not be erased. Rachel’s mind wavered between two poles—the agony that her suspicions might be correct and a gnawing guilt over the fact that she did not trust her husband.

Was it any wonder she didn’t want to face a pregnancy now? Marlene just didn’t understand. How could Rachel bring another life into the tangled web of her marriage? It was all she could do to cope with David and Brian. And lately, she was hardly able to cope with anyone—or anything—at all.

“Mrs. Webber? Mrs. Webber! The doctor will see you now.”

Rachel frowned, attempting to swing her thoughts back to the present, struggling to recognize the voice that spoke her name. Who called her? But of course—the nurse.

Marlene gave her a nudge. “That’s you, gal.”

Rachel tried to rise casually, but she felt herself on the verge of leaping from her chair. The rotund lady seated across the room glanced up momentarily from her book, a flicker of interest lighting behind her eyes. The two teenagers offered curious stares, and Rachel felt an inexplicable impulse to apologize for something, to say, at least, “Excuse me.”