Hannah's Gift Read Online Free PDF Page A

before she wakes up.”
    She smiled sympathetically.
    “She’s in good hands. It’ll be okay,” she said softly before walking away.
    Claude and I were led to a curtained alcove in the family waiting area. There was no room in that tiny space for anything but two chairs and the truth.
    The first hour we sobbed uncontrollably in each other’s arms. When there were no tears left, we began to talk. For years, I had loved Claude as deeply and imperfectly as I was able. From the moment we met, I had been drawn to him like a little boy’s finger to the tip of a flame. He had seemed wise and mature compared with the other men/boys I knew. He was earnest, hardworking, and handsome. He also seemed deeply hurt and unusually angry sometimes. I was, too. There had been something about our mutual hopes and hurts that had brought us together. We had married while I was still in college, when he was twenty-five and I was twenty.
    As we clung to each other and waited for news from the surgeon, Claude and I knew one thing: Our children were more important than anything else either of us would ever do. They were the reason we were together, and we wanted to have more. It was a truth so deep that it cut cleanly through any doubts or fears we might otherwise have had.
    “Let’s get pregnant again as soon as we can,” Claude said. With my face buried in his shoulder, I nodded.

A Mustard Seed
    LAURAJANE, THE NEW PASTOR OF OUR SMALL METHODIST church, was standing across from me on the other side of Hannah’s bed. She didn’t look like any church leader I had ever seen. She was thirty-one, the same age as me, with a short, thick body and a head of wiry red curls that refused to be tamed. She wore a long, green velvet dress, and a gold cross hung from a chain around her neck. She clutched a wad of tissue in her hand, because her eyes kept filling with tears.
    Two days before, surgeons had lifted a tumor the size of a small soccer ball from Hannah’s abdomen. Now she was lying on the bed, tethered to a respirator and heavily sedated. Plastic tubes and the tips of her red shoes emerged from the edges of her pink blanket. Monitors with zigzagging green lines hung from the ceiling above the bed. The only sounds in the room were an occasional beep and a periodic whoosh from the respirator.
    Laurajane bowed her head and started to pray. I closed my eyes and tried to quiet my mind. It was doing crazy things. In one moment it was a model of efficiency, deciphering the whooshes, clicks, and beeps of the various machines so quickly that they no longer frightened me. In the next, I couldn’t even remember when I had last eaten.
    I desperately needed someone to take care of me. Since Hannah’s surgery, I hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time, and yesterday my body had given up the tiny form of our dead baby. I knew that I couldn’t depend on Claude to do any more. After five days of juggling work, errands, phone calls, visiting me and Hannah, and shuttling Will between the hospital, play dates, and home, he was as exhausted as I was.
    At least my mother was now here. She and Will were moving into the Ronald McDonald House, a beautiful facility with lots of toys and activities to keep Will busy, across the street from the hospital. Claude would continue to sleep at home. It was probably just as well; he and my mother had, over the years, only barely managed to get along, and these days I couldn’t handle being a referee.
    One of the monitors began to beep. I realized my mind had been wandering. The beeping stopped. I tried once again to concentrate on Laurajane’s words. It was too late.
    “Amen,” Laurajane said.
    I opened my eyes. Tears were streaming down Laurajane’s cheeks and dripping off her chin. She was looking at me as if she was about to say something; I didn’t yetknow her well enough to imagine what it might be. For days, people had been telling me, “God only gives us what we can handle.” I hoped Laurajane wasn’t