A Seahorse in the Thames Read Online Free PDF Page A

of sorrows,” he said, never taking his eyes off me. “I can see that you miss your family, the one you lost when your sister had her accident. I can see that you are still hurting over what you lost. But I can see that you still have hope. You’re not bitter. That’s usually the evidence of the grace of God in someone’s life.”
    I could only look at him in speechless confusion.
    He downed the rest of the lemonade and rose from the table. “I didn’t mean to pry. Thanks for the drink and the Tylenol,” he said. “I am feeling better already.”
    He went out the back door and I watched him go, utterly silent, in my chair.
    Thinking of it again now makes me tremble.
    This, then, is that quality in Stephen that beckons me, this quality he has that no other man I have known has had.
    Stephen cares for my very soul.
    The one thing I have not given away.

Three
    I awaken on Friday morning to the sound of the morning commute and the cry of sea gulls looking for breakfast. There is no pounding of hammers or screech of saws this morning. Stephen is not outside beginning his fifth day of repair work to the triplex. I rise from my bed and stretch carefully, mindful of my incision. My doctor wants to check it this morning since it has been a full week since the tumor was removed. This will technically be my last day of sick leave. I am scheduled to return to work on Monday and I am suddenly wishing I had asked for two weeks off instead of one.
    I bathe, wary of getting the bandage under my arm wet and I wash my hair in the crazy way I concocted on Sunday, the day after I got home from what was supposed to have been same-day surgery; the anesthesia made me so nauseous I had to stay overnight. I tip my head back, off to the left, and dump a mega-Slurpee cup full of water over my head. Half the water seems to pool in my right ear. Washing my hair with one hand also has its limitations but I get through it.
    I dry off, towel dry my hair and slip on a cotton sundress with a button-up front, figuring I won’t have to completely undress if I can slip out of the bodice when my doctor checks the incision. My stroll outside to get the paper seems uneventful. For the past four mornings, Stephen had been there to greet me.
    Four days ago, when my incision was just three days’ old, I tentatively made the same short trek outside in just my robe. I’d forgotten Rose had hired someone to fix the sagging porch on my side of the triplex as well as replace the roof along the entire length. I was also dizzy with pain and I am sure I made quite a few ugly faces as I tottered out to fetch the San Diego Union Tribune .
    That’s how I looked when Stephen first saw me.
    “Need some help?” a voice said.
    The voice startled me, I flinched, and a throbbing jet of pain coursed through my upper body. I made a noise. The kind of noise someone makes when they’ve been stung by a couple of angry wasps.
    Stephen was at my side in an instant.
    And that’s how I first saw him.
    Tall, muscular, tanned and he smelled nice. When he ran to me, his tool belt made all kinds of deep, manly noises.
    “Are you okay?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
    I had stopped mid-stride, intent on not screaming out a word unfit to be heard on a sun-drenched residential street. I looked down at my feet.
    “Y-yes,” I mumbled, wanting to look up at him, but knowing I must look like a hag. I hadn’t even run a brush through my hair.
    He started to reach for my right arm, to support me I guess, and I turned away, releasing another arrow of pain through my torso. I bit my lip and swallowed the yelp that begged to jump out of my mouth.
    “I had some minor surgery on Friday,” I mumbled. “Under my arm. Haven’t taken my pain medication this morning.” Which was true, I hadn’t. The following morning I did take it before going out to get the paper, then promptly fainted. “Just want to get my paper.”
    That was when I looked up. I couldn’t believe what I had just