Page 118 of Steinbeck
Then he leaned down and lifted the oxygen cannula off her nose.
“I might suffocate.”
“I’ll bring you back to life.I know mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
And then he proved it.Slowly, perfectly, and exactly, and indeed, she was very, very much alive.
* * *
And he was back to chopping wood.
Steinbeck brought the axe down on the perched log, and it splintered down the middle.He set down the axe and ripped the rest of the log in half with his gloved hands.
The sun baked his skin, splinters on his ratty flannel shirt, but somehow the action, the focus, had settled him.
They were safe.Shewas safe.
“We have a splitter.”
He glanced over and spotted Jack emerging from the garage.He wore his greasy overalls, working on one of the UTVs that had died this week.
That wasn’t all that had died.Steinbeck had returned to a different Jack.A Jack he thought had been beaten, now skulking back.
He’d asked Doyle about it as they sat on the porch last night at the Norbert.Emberly had sat tucked against him on the porch swing, a blanket over her, healing.
“Dunno,” Doyle had said.“He came home from Harper’s house a few days ago, slammed his door, and emerged later as The Beast.”
Interesting.
But Stein understood the frustration of loving a stubborn woman.Emberly was an impossible patient, refusing to stay in bed since they’d arrived from New York City.Two days they’d been here, after four days in the hospital, and yesterday he’d found her in the kitchen of the King’s Inn, albeit on a high-top stool, watching his mother roll out pie dough.
And last night, she’d walked out to the dock, sitting on the end, soaking in the sunset.Such a normal, benign thing, but the simplicity of it had trumpeted into his heart.
Oh, he loved her.He’d joined her, folded her hand into his, watching the sunset as his frustration died a little.
So maybe she was mending.Earlier today, she’d insisted on going to church with the family.He’d sat in the pew, listening to the sermon on Isaiah 30, on the rebellion of Israel.
And for some reason, the words about faithfulness had sunk in, embedded in his soul.“Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”
He’d glanced at Emberly, and she’d met his eyes and smiled at him, and never had he felt more sure about anything.
Yes,he was still on mission.
“I like the sweat,” Steinbeck said now to Jack.
“Suit yourself.”Jack picked up a few of the fallen logs and set them on the woodpile.
Steinbeck did the same.“You all right?”
Jack glanced at him.“Why?”
“Bad Jack is back.”
“I was never Bad Jack.”
Steinbeck raised an eyebrow.
Jack shook his head, picked up a couple more logs.“If you’re looking for something to do, the front garden needs weeding.”
