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What could it hurt? she decided as she started back.
In their little house, Clara fried up some chicken. As a nurse, she knew oven-baking some skinless breasts or thighs made a better choice. But she used her grandmother’s recipe—rest in peace—and Sam just loved it.
So did she.
They’d both put in a long day, her at the hospital, Sam at the nursing home. They deserved it.
She’d fry up some potatoes, too. Why not go for the gold?
She’d start them both off with a cup of tomato soup—with just a drizzle or so of what Sam sometimes called the magic juice.
Though she’d been on her feet all day, she felt only contentment as she cooked for her man.
To think she’d given up on having a man after her husband died, more than twelve years before. God had called him home, and she’d learned to be content with that, too.
He’d been a good man, Rufus had. A good man, a hard worker. Though she didn’t hesitate to admit he hadn’t lit her up in bed the way Sam did.
God had called him home because it was meant. He’d been meant to fall off that ladder on that windy Sunday afternoon.
Meant to fracture his skull, break his back, bust up his leg.
They’d lost him on the table twice, and brought him back.
A strong man, he’d lingered for days and days, nights and nights on the machine that did the breathing for him, kept his heart beating.
And she’d had to make the choice, and she chose to send him home to God because she understood he was meant to go. And she’d come to understand the machines were wrong, against what was meant.
Machines pitted man’s will against the Almighty’s.
Sinful.
She’d come to understandshewas meant to make that choice for others. To send them back, send them home.
Their blood wasn’t magic—that was just Sam making jokes. But it was holy. It was blessed.
And taking it into themselves, a kind of communion. A way to bring them both strength to do what they were called to do. A way to add those lives, sent home, into their own.
She fried the chicken to a turn, if she said so herself. Then called Sam to wash up.
“I tell you, babe, this day about wore me to the bone.”
“You work so hard.”
“So do you.”
“Well, we’re going to have a fine meal, and I’m going to tell you about the one who came into my mind today. How I think it’s time to start tracking him. He’s a year out, but he’s the one who came to my mind.”
“You know best. I swear, Clara, that chicken looks like heaven.”
“A little soup first. For strength and purpose.”
She poured from pot to cups.
They sat, tapped the cups together, and drank.
After the meal, she put her feet up because Sam did the dishes and pots. (Her doll!)
They sat together at the computer and started the real research on Arthur Rigsby, age fifty-six, a dentist in Cumberland, Maryland, who’d been brought back after a car accident and collapsed lungs.