The Last Bridge Home

“Maybe you should go over there and bring them back here.”

“Here? To my place? Are you nuts?”

“Regardless of the particulars, regardless of when or why you married her, she’s legally still your wife.”

“What if she’s lying?” he asked, desperate to be free of this problem.

“Wouldn’t that be easy to check?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe she’s only saying this because she remembers me as a soft touch.”

“Zak,” Jilly admonished softly.

“I don’t want to be married, Jilly. Not to anyone, but certainly not to a woman I don’t remember very well who is dying of cancer and wants to give me three kids.” He could hear how shallow and selfish he sounded, but this was his life she was talking about!

“That’s exactly the point. Crystal is dying. She needs you right now. Don’t you think it’s terribly, pathetically sad that she has no one else in the world to turn to but a man she’s not seen since college?”

Put that way, Crystal’s plight looked even worse than it was. And it was bad. “I told her I’d help her. In some way. We can ask at church. Maybe someone will take her in. Maybe someone will want the kids. Or I can hire a nurse to stay with her.”

Jilly put a hand on his arm. “I don’t know, Zak. Something about that seems wrong to me.”

“I can’t move her in here. I don’t even know her. I have a life, too. What are people going to think if I move a strange woman into my house?”

“What about the kids? Where do they go? What happens to them? They can’t care for a dying mother.”

He closed his eyes, blew out another breath. “There’s the kicker. They have no one to turn to and no place to go.”

Jilly bit her bottom lip and he could see the wheels turning inside her head. “Look, all of this has happened too fast. You’re reeling from shock. Maybe you need some time to think it over.”

“I don’t think Crystal has the luxury of time.”

“Oh, Zak.” She swallowed, pretty face tragic. Jilly was a woman with a heart as big and warm as the sun. She took in all kinds of strays and rejected animals, nursed them to health and found them homes when she could. But three children weren’t puppies she could fatten up and farm out. “She’s in a desperate situation.”

So was he. “I know.”

“Can you live with yourself if you don’t do something?”

He wished the answer was different but admitted, “I don’t know. Probably not. God help me.” And he meant that voiced prayer with every cell in his weak brain.

“She’s dying, Zak. She must be scared. For herself. For her kids.” She squeezed the back of his hand. “I can’t imagine how terrible her life must be right now.”

“You’re killing me.”

“I’m trying to put myself in her position. What would I do? What would I need? How hard would it be to ask a near stranger for charity? You can’t turn your back. Even if the marriage is on paper only, the two of you are connected. You made a vow to her, even if it was ten years ago. You have an obligation, under God and the law.”

Jilly was his best friend. She wouldn’t steer him wrong. She wanted the best for him and she wasn’t any happier about this than he was, but her head was clearer. His was as tangled as spaghetti. As a Christian, he wanted to do what was right. As a single man, he wanted to jump in his Titan 4x4 and hit the road.

“I can’t take on three kids. I won’t.”

“It’s a huge decision.”

“Exactly. Those kids need a family. They need someone who wants them and can give them the attention kids deserve. That is not me.”

Jilly patted his shoulder. “You’re a good guy.”

“No, I’m not. I’m struggling.”

“You’ll do the right thing.”

He turned his head to look at her. “Why weren’t you around ten years ago to say that?”

She smiled a funny smile. “I wish I had been.”

Zak figured he should do some serious knee time, but God hadn’t gotten him into this mess in the first place. If he’d been living right back in college, he might have been smarter. Or not. The fact remained, he hadn’t been.

“A motel room is no place for a sick woman and a pack of rug rats,” he conceded.

“She can’t stay there indefinitely, and if she has nowhere to go… You need to find out, Zak. Does she have anywhere else to go?”

“I’ll talk to her again.”

“And then what?”

He sighed, weary and confused, a load of responsibility bearing down with colossal weight. “I don’t know.”

As a Christian, his conscience said he had to help Crystal, even though their relationship ended years ago. If helping meant bringing her into his home where she could be at peace for her remaining days, maybe he could do that. But the arrangement was temporary. Only temporary.

Maybe, just maybe, a miracle would happen and a family would be found for three orphaned children.

Because he couldn’t keep those kids. No matter what.

Chapter Four

Even though Zak spotted Crystal’s battered car parked near one of the tidy, flower-rimmed motel units, he stopped at the office first. Call it stalling, call it cowardice, but he wasn’t ready to talk to Crystal again. His head was still as muddy as the Redemption River on a rainy day.

The little bell tinkled above the door as he stepped into the cool, rose-scented office, nerves jittery. The blond proprietress, Kitty Wainright Carter, came around a souvenir display counter with a cheerful smile.

Zak spoke first. “You’ve changed things in here.”

The office had once been a memorial to her late war-hero husband. Now, the depressing military shrine had been replaced with whimsical souvenirs of the Oklahoma Land Run and the Old West.

“What do you think?”

“Looks good.” A small beagle-type dog came from behind the case to greet him. Zak bent down and scratched the floppy ears. “Hi, Milo.”

“Redecorating is fun,” Kitty said, “though I’m not doing much of it anymore. Harvey and Faye run the desk for me now full-time. I only came in today to put up the schedule and check on things.”

“I heard you were going to sell out.”