Sleigh Bell Dreams (Mistletoe Meadows Sweet Christmas #1)

Chapter 12

“How’s she doing?” Terry asked, taking a breath and bracing herself.

“She’s actually still in Richmond. They admitted her to the hospital last night. Just... Low numbers and not what they want to see. She insisted I come home and go to church with the kids and try to keep things as normal as possible, but someone’s going to need to tell them.”

“Or prepare them.” She did know that they didn’t necessarily need to know that Sally was dying, although, maybe. Did a person ever really get prepared for that kind of thing?

“Do you think it would be better to just spring it on them?”

“I think they probably know it’s serious. But I don’t know. That’s not really something I’m trained for as a doctor, but I guess I would say, lots of times you get things sprung on you, car accidents, and those types of things, where you just have to deal. And there’s a possibility that she could pull through. I guess I wouldn’t be all gloom and doom.”

“I try not to be, but it’s been discouraging, because we’ve had nothing but bad news.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, linking her arm through his as they walked through the vestibule and into the sanctuary.

“Don’t be sorry. I know God has this for a reason. He has us walking through these hard things and gives them to us because He thinks we can handle them and that they will make us better and that will bring glory to Him, but that doesn’t mean they’re not hard.”

It sounded like her brother had all the right ideas. And she didn’t have any better ideas than what he had, and she didn’t know what to do to help him.

“Just because I’m not living with you doesn’t mean I won’t drop everything I have and come help you if I need to. You just say the word, okay?”

“Yeah. I know I can count on you. And it is kind of reassuring to have a doctor in the family.”

“Not that I have any experience with oncology.” Other than a little stint in residency, which was more depressing than she wanted to admit.

There was some interesting research coming out, but they were years away from anything resembling a one-hundred-percent cure or even something that would help most of the time. Chemo was so terrible.

Speaking of chemo, she saw Dr. Vivik and his wife off to the side, moving slowly to their seats. She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d come back, and after saying a few more words to Gilbert, she hurried to greet the doctor.

He had built a practice over thirty years in her hometown. He had been her doctor when she had been little. And she had great admiration and respect for him. He’d known how to handle the small-town people because he was one himself. He’d known what they liked and didn’t like, and he did his best to try to keep them as healthy as he could.

He’d shared with her that he had ups and downs, but that it had been more than worth it.

However, with the physical issues of his wife, he looked older and tired and so different from the last time she’d seen him, which had been less than a month ago.

“Dr. Vivik, Mrs. Vivik,” she said as she stepped out of the aisle, slightly in front of their pew so they could see her.

“Terry! I’ve been thinking about you,” Doc said, glancing at his wife, who was smiling up at her. She had been active in the community, especially with children. She’d been the librarian for a while and a nurse in his practice as well.

Terry remembered her from both roles.

“I meant to tell you that there are decorations in the closet, and you can help yourself. My wife and I discussed it, and we took everything that we wanted, just a few personal pictures and my books from the office. Although, I suppose I could have left them there for you. It’s not that I’m going to need them in retirement.”

“If you want to bring them back, that’s fine, or keep them. I’m fine with either one.” Most of the information in his books would have been obsolete, but they might have been interesting to look at now or in the future. Just to see how things had changed. Doctors were constantly finding new things out, new research was being uncovered, and best practices today would be worse practices ten years from now.

“I’ll think about it. Maybe if I get around to it. We’ve been pretty busy with treatments and stuff, but Peggy is doing well,” he said, looking lovingly at his wife, but there was no hiding the worry in his eyes. “I definitely prefer to be on your side of the lab coat. Being the patient stinks.”

“Having a doctor for a husband is not exactly a walk in the park either, especially when you’re going through something like this. He is constantly telling me what I should or shouldn’t be doing.”

“It might be the husband in him more than the doctor,” Terry said fondly.

“You could be right,” Mrs. Vivik said, giving her husband an affectionate glance.

She was obviously wearing a wig, but her brown eyes still twinkled, and while the red on her cheeks and lips were because of the makeup she applied, and her cheekbones stood out starkly where they never used to, there was an indomitable spirit about her that made Terry think that if someone could beat this, she could.

“Cancer is such an epidemic in our country. If I had to go back and do things again, I almost wish I could have studied it, to try to come up with some kind of cure.”

“Seems like prevention is the best cure,” Terry said, even though she knew that that was not true one hundred percent of the time. There were people who did everything right and still got cancer. Children who ended up with a dread disease. How did one prevent that type of cancer? “I have to admit that the research part interests me as well, but I love working with people, and I don’t think I would have been happy in a lab.”

“No, unless I felt like I was doing good for the world,” Doc said, and she supposed she could agree with that. Even though she loved seeing people all day long, if she had to choose between that and being able to figure out a cure for cancer, she’d choose the cure. And give up what she felt like she needed in order to survive—contact with everyone.

“We have a week off from treatments, so if you want to give me a call, you can.”

“Unless we need to make an emergency trip to Richmond, which we needed to do a couple of weeks ago,” Mrs. Vivik said.

The pianist started to play a Christmas carol, and Terry looked around at the church which was almost full.

“I better go find a seat,” she said as she saw her sister waving at her before the pew filled up with her other sister and brother, and there was not any room left for her.

“Looks like we’re full, or I’d invite you to sit with us,” Doc said.

“You’ve already been so good to me,” she said, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. Doc was a good man. Unselfish, and not after money, but truly interested in how he could help people. It was the kind of person she wanted to be, and she hoped it was the kind of person she was.

“My patients couldn’t have a more deserving person take over. I wouldn’t have guessed when you were a little kid in pigtails that you’d grow up to take the practice over from me, but I’m proud of you,” he said, and that warmed her heart, to know that what she had done had pleased him.

She gave a wave and looked around the church, trying to figure out where she could sit. She didn’t have to sit with someone she knew, but she’d been going to church by herself and sitting alone for so long that she kind of wanted to.

The only place she could find, though, was in the back, where there was a half empty pew after a family had sat there for a while then left. She decided that she might as well slip in and vowed to be more organized next week, specifically asking someone to sit with her. Or save her a seat. Amy would have if she would have said something.

Regardless, she settled down, her Bible on her lap, her heart eager to hear and see the message that the pastor had planned. She heard they were always very good.

Just as the pianist stopped playing and the song leader stepped to the pulpit, someone slipped in beside her, and she glanced up, already moving over.

She almost froze when she saw Judd.

Of course, he would come in late, having to take care of his horses and wagon, probably giving them water, feed, and maybe loosening their lines? She wasn’t sure what exactly went into taking care of horses, but she supposed that she shouldn’t have been surprised.

She gave him a smile and slid over.

He sat down, and maybe it was the church, or maybe it was the good lighting, but she felt like he was much bigger today than he had been last night at supper. Which was not necessarily a bad thing. She just...felt protected. Of course, it sparked that feeling in her heart, whether it was attraction or just the way someone felt when they were with a good friend.

Or maybe it was a mix of both.

Which was completely ludicrous, since he wasn’t a good friend. She’d just met him less than a week ago and she had spent exactly one meal chatting with him, and half of that conversation had been as awkward as a conversation could possibly be.

Regardless, she was pleasantly surprised as they stood singing the first hymn when his voice blended with hers, a rich tenor that made her want to sing even more from her heart. The song service was almost always her favorite part, since she loved the hymns and enjoyed harmony, but she never enjoyed it quite like she did while sitting beside Judd.

The sermon was excellent, and the service was over before she knew it. Judd had slipped out early, and she assumed it was so that he could get his horses and wagon ready to give rides to the children.

She was a little bit jealous when she saw Amy slipping out as well, which was ridiculous but maybe a little understandable. Amy was going to get to work with Judd and the kids.

And she hadn’t considered it before, but Amy and Judd...they were very similar ages. Terry was just two years older than Amy, and Judd must have been very close to that since they were in the same grade. They would be perfect together. Judd enjoyed horses, and he’d been brought up on a farm, and Amy had never met an animal that she didn’t love.

Terry had nothing to do with animals and only loved them because her sister did for the most part, and she wasn’t nearly as good with children as Amy was—maybe she was good at keeping them well and entertaining them for a couple of minutes in an exam room, but she couldn’t keep an entire wagonload of kids singing songs and playing games and enjoying a wagon ride while not fighting or trying to jump off. But Amy had kept everything together, and it was one of her strengths.

Terry knew this, but still, the idea that Amy was with Judd gave her a feeling that she didn’t like. Although, whether it was the feeling she didn’t like or the fact that she felt it, she wasn’t sure.