Serendipity by Cathy Marie Hake

Author:Cathy Marie Hake
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781441211873
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2010-11-26T20:00:00+00:00

Helga sat in her wheelchair and looked out the window the next afternoon. When Todd looked up, she made it a point to wave. Ja – that went along with her telling him how she needed to be able to sit by the window in her chair.

When Magpie hung the dividing curtain yesterday, Helga felt closed in. By getting her son to promise her the window side, then insisting she’d be too cold at night with her bed directly against the glass, she got her own little reception area. A caller could pay her a visit and sit with her by the window. Coming and going at will, Todd and Maggie didn’t need much room. Stuck inside like this, Helga deserved more space.

Magpie didn’t see it that way, though. While oatmeal cooked this morning, she’d put photographs of her family on the dresser! Wasn’t it enough that Helga’s dresser had five drawers and she’d only kept two for herself? The space should be hers, alone, so she insisted Magpie put her things atop the washstand. After all, it was on her side of the house.

Tight-lipped, Magpie then went about the cabin, hanging pictures. Without asking, she hung two samplers and a mirror in Helga’s space. Samplers – a reminder that she couldn’t read or stitch anymore. That doctor showed off yesterday, but whipping out a few simple stitches with both hands didn’t compare with the tiny, precise stitches required in needlework. And the mirror? With Helga’s face now drooping, having her image reflected back mocked her. That was so cruel, she’d burst into tears. Magpie took down the mirror and hung it up elsewhere – but that didn’t lift the sadness weighing on Helga’s heart.

This wasn’t the woman for her son. Uncouth and uneducated, Magpie certainly wasn’t the mother for his children. The hillbilly wasn’t simply thoughtless – she was mean. She ordered her husband around, telling him to fetch jam or the Bible. Had she baked anything in the dish from last night’s supper and arranged for it to be returned to that nice woman? Etiquette dictated a dish never be returned empty. Heathenish girl probably didn’t know that.

If only I could write! It is hard for me to remember so many things at once. It never was before. But these are all things I should fix, or she will disgrace the family. Speaking aloud to the empty cabin, she declared, “It is my fault for getting sick. So it is my responsibility to fix the problems I cause.”

Helga stared at her left hand. Useless thing. Come, now. Move. Open just a little. Or my fingers. If I can wiggle them . . . Nothing happened. Why not? Why couldn’t God heal her? Hadn’t she been serving Him? With that left hand there, had she not crocheted and quilted blankets for orphans? Following the doctor’s suggestion, Maggie unearthed a canvas and yarn so Helga could do some crewel stitching. But Helga knew she’d never manage.

What good was she without her hands? She couldn’t roll out pie dough or make noodles.

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