A Fragile Hope - Cynthia Ruchti

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a good lawyer?

      He wrapped the vile thought in an imaginary paper towel and threw it in the garbage can.

      Driving past the impound where Karin’s car lay in state probably wasn’t the smartest idea in his current string of dumb ideas. The sight crumpled him with creases deeper than those in the mangled steel. Her car looked like a public service announcement for not texting and driving. The driver’s side took the hardest hit. Despite what Wade had done to steal Karin’s heart, no one deserved to be pancaked like that. Josiah’s stomach cramped as he stared, hands gripping the cold wire fencing that kept him from getting closer without permission. He didn’t have to search for someone to blame. Wade had volunteered. Probably driving too fast for conditions. Or in the process of trying to text Josiah. But why? Wade wasn’t the gloating kind on the golf course. Josiah couldn’t see him gloating over this. Probably driving too fast.

      But that didn’t make any more sense than the rest of it. The man single-handedly ran a six-day-a-week delivery service. He’d logged more miles on the road in bad weather conditions than most. How could he have lost control?

      Josiah pushed away from the fence. The same way Wade lost control of his morals, it appeared. The same way he took his hands off of his marriage vows with Leah so he could convince Karin there was something better for her than Josiah. That’s how.

      Leah. Josiah waited, bracing himself now against the roof of his completely intact vehicle while he said a prayer for the woman who’d lost her husband. Had she driven past this mangled steel? What must Leah be going through?

      In professional mode, he would have called and offered to talk her through the early stages of loss. But Leah’s friend and coworker Karin had apparently attempted to run off with her husband. And at the moment Josiah and professional didn’t belong in the same sentence. Who does a marriage counselor call when his own marriage is in shambles?

      No one. He couldn’t let his father be right about him, that Josiah created shambles, not fixed them. That Josiah didn’t measure up as a son worthy of respect, despite his accomplishments. That Josiah was an embarrassment as a man.

      He couldn’t let his father be right.

      Another of Karin’s sins. She’d made Josiah paranoid. As he crawled his way back through the entrance of Woodlands Hospital, tugging a wheeled duffle behind him, he dodged the glances of visitors and medical personnel alike. When had he ever been afraid to look someone in the eye? Did that person know the Chamberlains’ story? How many knew who he was? Did hospital gossip create its own version of why his wife lay broken and pregnant? The radio news reported the fatality and the fact that another injured party remained in critical condition. “No names released until family members are notified.” That must mean Leah hadn’t gotten to the end of her need-to-know call list.

      Hey, Aunt Sally. Yeah, good to hear your voice, too. Just wanted to give you a quick call to let you know that Wade is deader than dead. We’ll send word around when we know details about the funeral. Oh, and can you bring your hot potato salad for the meal after? It’s always a hit at family gatherings. Love to Uncle Ross. Talk to you later.

      Everything about this reeked. It stunk that Leah had to make calls like that—although no doubt with a lot more grace than Josiah’s brain could muster. It reeked that when word got out about Karin’s full story, Josiah’s career might not survive.

      He pushed the Up arrow on the elevator. Twelve times. “Jerk!”

      “The elevator? It’s slow sometimes, but . . .” A woman carrying a rack of lab specimens skirted around him and aimed for the stairwell.

      Not the elevator. Me. I’m the jerk. My first thought wasn’t Karin. Or that innocent baby. Babies in the womb don’t ask to be put there.

      The little thing was fighting to survive. It didn’t deserve his resentment. Its father was somewhere between the morgue and the funeral home. Its mother lay unresponsive, unable to sustain her own breathing, much less its well-being. Someone was going to have to care about that baby. If it survived.

      A shudder thundered through him. Had the little one felt the impact of the accident? It had to, didn’t it?

      The elevator doors opened for him. Its emptiness swallowed him whole. He couldn’t afford the posture externally, but on the inside, he leaned against the wall, slid to the floor, and buried his face in his hands.

      A mid-pitched ding announced his floor, although he couldn’t remember having pressed the button. Look what Karin had done to him! He’d turned judgmental and skeptical and resentful and miserable. With one decision, she’d succeeded in changing his personality. The woman stepped around ants on the sidewalk and insisted he find a “humane” way to rid their basement of mice. How had she kept her ruthless nature hidden, the side of her that could rip a guy’s heart out and rearrange his personality?

      Josiah leaned one shoulder against the tiled wall of the corridor. God, help me. I hate who I am. I hate what she’s done. I hate what it will do to Catherine and Stan when they find out the truth about their daughter.

      As if summoned by the prayer, Stan approached from farther down the corridor. Josiah collected himself from the corners to which the pieces of his life had scattered.

      “Any new word?” he asked as Stan drew near enough for conversation.

      “No. Same. Did you get any rest?”

      “I showered. Took care of a few things. Sandi’s gone.”

      Stan’s face registered an additional concern. “What? Where’d she go?”

      Bad Josiah prepared to tell Stan what a stupid question that was. If he knew where she’d gone, he’d have found her. Good Josiah showed up and replied, “She took off when I let her out. No telling where. I alerted the neighbors.”

      “Oh, son, that’s all you need.”

      Karin’s father had already mastered the art of caring about others when his heart was breaking. How did he do that?

      “Where’s Catherine?”

      Stan nodded toward the ICU beyond the double doors. “She’s in with Karin. I have to pace myself. It’s so hard to see her that way.” His words dissolved into tears. The muscles in his jaw clenched and unclenched as if his python throat worked to swallow an antelope of grief.

      Abandoning his duffle, Josiah closed the narrow gap between them and embraced his father-in-law. “It’s going to be okay. She’ll pull through this.” Lies. All lies. He had no guarantees. And her survival, much as they all prayed for it, would introduce a whole new garbage pail of unpleasantries.

      The men broke their embrace when an overhead speaker paged a code blue to ICU. That didn’t sound good. Karin? How many other patients occupied ICU cells? Why hadn’t he noticed before?

      Stan rubbed his hands on the sides of his thighs. “We should be getting—”

      “Right. Getting back.” Josiah reclaimed his duffle and laptop case and followed Stan through the double doors. The halls had seemed colorless, lifeless in the middle of the night. By the light of day and distanced from the adrenaline overload of the previous hours, they boasted artwork and classy lighting. Yeah, let’s pretend this is a gallery.

      “Nice, huh?”

      “What, Stan?”

      “The art. Kind of nice to see something beautiful in a place where not much else is. Look at that one. Peaceful, isn’t it?”

      Josiah took in the gradient greens of the mountain meadow scene. Wildflowers. A stream so alive with reflective light he could almost hear the water bubble as it leapfrogged over the rocks in its way.

      The

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