Unfailing Love Read online

  “I’m okay Mom,” he said, trying to reassure her. But was he? He didn’t even know the extent of his own injuries.

  Paul looked to Kenneth at the end of the bed. He knew he would get a straight answer from him. “Kenneth, how bad is it?”

  Kenneth smiled half-heartedly, trying to keep Paul’s spirit light. “Well,” he said, “you have a broken foot, a broken arm, and a pretty bad torn muscle in your thigh. The docs said you’ll be in a cast for at least two weeks.”

  Paul closed his eyes, wondering how he could rescue Tracy if he was immobilized.

  “But,” Kenneth continued. “At least you’re out of the coma, buddy.”

  Coma? Paul’s head spun. He had been in a coma? “How long?” Paul asked, fearful for Tracy’s well-being. She was in such bad shape when he had left her. If he had been in a coma for any length of time ... He couldn’t let his mind go there.

  “The scorpion got you pretty good,” Kenneth said, nodding in the direction of Paul’s other arm.

  Paul looked down and saw the bright red welt the scorpion had left when it bit him. The raised lump was crusted over with puss and glistened with ointment.

  “The antibiotic is helping,” Kenneth said, pointing to the IV running from Paul’s hand. “But the poison sent you into a coma for two days. We’re just glad you’re out of it.”

  “Paul,” said Courtney, not willing to wait any longer. “Where is Tracy? Can you remember anything? We searched the whole island? Where is she, Paul?”

  Paul let the words sink in. Two days. He had been in a coma for two days. He quickly calculated the amount of food and water he had left for Tracy. But his memory was going in and out. Had he left enough water for two days? Had he left enough food? What about the fire? He couldn’t remember.

  “She’s in a cave,” he finally said, his memory allowing bits and pieces of the past.

  “She’s pretty banged up, but she’ll survive if ...” he inhaled deeply before continuing. The room was silent and hung on every word. He had been gone two days. He didn’t know how much worse Tracy’s condition was. He didn’t know how much longer she had or if ... if she had survived at all. But he couldn’t tell them that. He tried to sit up but quickly collapsed back into the bed. “We need to get her to a hospital quickly. She has a punctured lung, some scrapes and she’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Courtney’s head dropped into Paul’s lap as she broke down in tears.

  “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll get her honey,” Kenneth said as he came around the bed and put his arms around Courtney. “We’ll send people out right now.”

  Randall and Howard came in just in time to hear about Tracy’s condition. “Let’s go!” Randall said, unwilling to leave his daughter another moment.

  “You need a helicopter,” said Paul. “The cave is at the bottom of a cliff. The Jeep went off the road.”

  “What?” Randall said. “We searched everywhere? What cliff?”

  Courtney and Kenneth looked up at Paul. “How did you get to the road?” Kenneth asked.

  “I climbed. But I couldn’t move Tracy. She’s still there.” Courtney looked at Paul, unsure whether to thank him for climbing to safety or beat him for leaving her sister.

  “Can you do that?” Randall asked Howard, knowing he had the means to get a helicopter in the air immediately.

  Howard began punching numbers in his cell phone. “Already on it,” he said.

  Randall walked over to Paul and put his arm around Courtney. “Hey,” he said to his daughter. “We’ll get her. And don’t be mad at Paul. If it weren’t for him,” he said, nodding in the direction of Paul, “we’d still be at square one.”

  Courtney lifted her tear-stained face to her father. “I know, you’re right.”

  She turned and looked at Paul again. “I’m sorry,” she said as she cried. “I’m so sorry Paul. I’m so glad you’re alive and that you tried to get help. It’s just that ...” the tears overcame her, and she broke down again.

  Randall pulled her up from the bed and walked her out of the room. As he left, he shot a hostile look toward Kenneth. Randall was disappointed that Kenneth hadn’t comforted Courtney. After all, he was going to be her husband. It was his responsibility to take care of her now. If he couldn’t even support her in this time of need, how could Randall be sure Kenneth would be there for his daughter in the future.

  “Look at you, hero!” Kenneth said to Paul, referring to his climb up the mountain.

  Courtney heard Kenneth’s remark and spun around as she reached the door of the hospital room.

  “This is no time for jokes! My sister is in danger, and we need to get her now!” Courtney scolded Kenneth. She stomped out of the room with her father in tow, followed by Randall.

  Kenneth looked at Paul and rolled his eyes. “Oh boy. She’s always so serious. I mean, it’s not like Tracy’s gonna die or anything.” He patted Paul on the shoulder and said, “Glad you’re okay, bro.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Paul said as Kenneth turned to leave the room. “You tell them to discharge me right now. I need to go find her.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Margo, who was still standing by her son’s side. “You’re not going anywhere. You only have a temporary cast. They’re putting the permanent one on you later today. And you still need the antibiotic to counteract the scorpion poison.”

  “Mom,” Paul said, looking his mother in the eye. “I have to go. I promised Tracy that I would come back for her. And you taught us to never break our promises.” Paul smiled as his mother teared up again.

  Margo knew she couldn’t stop her son. If he set his mind to do something, he was going to do it. No injury, cast or antibiotic could stop him.

  “I know, I did teach you to never break a promise,” Margo said reluctantly.

  “Especially a promise to someone we love,” Paul said.

  Margo’s eyes flickered with approval. Paul’s words confirmed what Margo had been thinking all along. She knew now that Paul still loved Tracy. Even though this woman had broken her dear son’s heart, Tracy was the one his heart wanted. And if the woman was the only one that could make her son happy, she would give the couple her blessings. Although Margo was worried for her son, she was genuinely happy for him.

  “Okay,” she said. “But you are not going alone!”

  Paul smiled, lifted his mother’s hand to his and kissed it. “Kenneth, tell them to hold that chopper!”

  “You got it brother, no problem.” Kenneth smiled and then walked out the door.

  Margo leaned in and kissed Paul on the head. “Be careful,” she said.

  “I will, Mom,” said Paul as he watched his mother leave the room.

  He laid there alone, trying to recall the events of the last few days. He remembered being in the Jeep and not being able to reach Kenneth and Courtney on the cell phone. Then he saw an image of the map flying out of the Jeep. Then everything went blank. The next thing he could recall was the cave. He saw images of the fire, the food, the coconuts and ... Tracy.

  Paul’s heart began to race as the memories came flooding back. Tracy was lying in a dark, cold cave with a badly broken leg, a head wound and at least one punctured lung. Paul then saw the scorpion and the other animals he encountered on the island. He prayed to God that none of them had gotten in the cave and to Tracy. All she had to defend herself was the stick he had left her.

  Paul looked at the tubing coming out of his body. He had an IV running from his hand to a pole. He had leads on his chest monitoring his heart rate. He had a clamp on his finger measuring his blood oxygen level. And the bandages. He pulled his sheet off his chest and saw several bright white gauze bandages taped to his chest, leg and arm. He was quite a mess. But not so bad that he couldn’t move.

  What was it Kenneth had said? Paul tried to remember. Had he said his leg was broken or his foot? Paul focused all his energy on remembering the words exchanged in the hospital room. But the coma and the medication were making his memory fuzzy. One
thing he recalled clearly was Courtney’s outburst. Paul remembered how upset she was, not knowing whether her sister was dead or alive. Paul sympathized with that. He would be just as worried and upset if his brother were missing. But something about the way Kenneth reacted bothered Paul.

  Paul thought about that as he closed his eyes and waited for his family to return with his clothes and discharge paperwork. If Tracy had been that upset about something so serious, Paul would have done everything to calm her down and reassure her. He would never have made a joke about it or been so callous with his words. Why had Kenneth? he wondered. As Paul lay there thinking about the whole scene in the hospital room, a feeling of discomfort began to settle in the pit of his stomach.

  Chapter 6

  Tracy awoke to the warmth of the sun on her dirty face. Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted, trying to gauge her surroundings. I’m on the ground, she thought. She smelled burning wood and remembered that she was at the bottom of the leaf pile. The burning wood must have been coming from the fire Dad always liked to start on cool fall days. She smiled as she took in the comforting smell. She wiggled her hands in the dirt, feeling for the cool leaves that weren’t there.

  Maybe I’m not in the leaf pile, she thought, looking around. The walls of the cave were dappled with shadows that looked like tree branches. That’s odd, Tracy thought. Maybe I’m in the tree.

  Tracy tried to sit up and felt the daggers of pain shoot through every part of her body. Her scream echoed out of the cave as tears burst from her eyes. “Daddy!” she called out to the empty cave.

  After a few moments of lying in pain, Tracy caught her breath and started to remember where she was. She was in a cave. Paul was there. But she couldn’t see him. Maybe he was outside, getting food again.

  “Paul!” she cried softly, trying not to rouse the pain in her burning lungs. “Paul!” Tracy had no way of knowing, but her cry was barely a whisper. Even if anyone had been passing by on the rocky beach, they never would have heard her over the crash of the waves.

  Tracy tried to piece her thoughts together into some sensible order, but she couldn’t. Memories of hiking with Paul, images of the leaf pile beneath the tree and bonfires on the beach all ran together creating messy patchwork that confused Tracy even more. She was sure Paul had to be there. There was no way she would have gone hiking by herself, at least not overnight. And she had obviously stayed overnight because she was lying down in a cave.

  As the sun warmed her face, her memory cleared. She looked outside and saw the palm trees and rocks. Then she remembered it all at once. Panic rose in her as she recalled the car accident, the rain, the snake. She remembered Paul being there and having to leave to get help. She remembered him telling her to breathe slowly and not move her leg.

  Her leg! Tracy tried to sit up and look at it, but the pain of her broken rib shot through her, stealing her breath away in one excruciating gasp. When she could muster the energy, she pushed herself up a little and looked down at her leg. The towels that Paul had wrapped it in were stained dark brown with dried blood. Tracy wondered if that was a good sign – if no fresh blood meant the wound had finally clotted. She couldn’t be sure. After all, Paul was the paramedic, not her.

  She tried to reach for her leg to lift the towel and saw her hand shake violently as she put it out in front of her. The movement made her weak, and she fell back against the makeshift bed.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “Just calm down. It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be alright,” she said to herself, not believing a word of it. “Paul’s going to get help and bring it back, and everything will be just fine.”

  Tracy’s stomach rumbled loudly as she spoke. She turned her shaking head slightly and saw the coconut and water bottle. She guessed she had enough water to get through another day or two. Reaching her shaking hand over, she grabbed for the water bottle but knocked it over completely, spilling all of its precious contents on the dirt floor.

  Fresh tears ran down her face leaving clean streaks on her earth-powdered cheeks. She closed her eyes and wept, letting the shaking take over. Tracy breathed in and out in short gasps, knowing full well that she could hyperventilate, but not caring. She was tired. She was cold. She was thirsty. She was alone. And she was scared.

  “Why? Why are you letting this happen to me?” Tracy screamed out and heard her words repeated back in an echo. It was as if God were mocking her.

  “I don’t want to die, God! I’m not ready to die!” Tracy cried hard in rapid bursts while she fought to keep a coughing fit at bay.

  “I want to live. I want to get married, have a family, teach my kids.” Tracy laughed in the midst of her pleas. She wanted to get married? Just a few days ago, she wasn’t sure she could even face Paul and now, here she was, saying she wanted to get married.

  “I love Paul, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I want to marry him, have babies with him and grow old with him.” Tracy let the words fall out of her like her tears. She listened as nobody responded and thought about Paul. Was he safe? Had he made it to the road? Was he injured? Was he alive?

  Tracy thought about what she was saying. Everything she had asked for was for her. She wanted God to spare her so that she could get married, so that she could have children, so that she could live happily ever after. She wanted to be rescued so that she could heal and live the life she wanted. It was all for her. She realized how selfish she was being. She realized that perhaps she had always been this selfish.

  Images of Paul floated in front of her. She saw him the first day they met, standing in Esther’s apartment. She remembered how handsome she thought he was when she flirted with him outside of the emergency room. Then the proposal; how she wasn’t sure she wanted to get married. But rather than being honest, she chose to be selfish with the truth and say yes to Paul. Even the church they picked had been her idea.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Tracy cried. “I have been so selfish. Everything I’ve asked you for is for me! For my own wants, my desires, my needs. I have not asked for someone else. It’s all been about me.”

  Tracy breathed in and out slowly, recalling all of the events in the past four years. “Even Courtney’s wedding. I didn’t want her to marry Kenneth because I didn’t want to be uncomfortable. I didn’t want to come here because I didn’t want to be stuck on an island with Paul for days.” She laughed thinking about what had happened. “Now look at me, I’m stuck in a cave with him, instead.”

  The reality of Paul’s absence began to sneak into her mind, bringing a mountain of fear with it. She had been stuck in a cave with Paul. But now he was gone, and she was alone.

  “God, I’m sorry. Please forgive me for my selfish ways. Please forgive me for wishing Courtney and Kenneth wouldn’t get married. For wishing that Paul wouldn’t come to the wedding. For wishing I didn’t have to face Margo and Howard. God, please forgive me for Joseph.”

  Tracy’s heart skipped a beat when the thought of Joseph entered her mind. She had been gone for ... she didn’t even know how long she had been gone. And she hadn’t contacted Joseph once. He had to be worried about her. And when she did contact him, what would she say? She didn’t love him. She had never really loved him. She had just used him to satisfy her own need for companionship.

  “God, please forgive me for how I have strung Joseph along and played with his tender emotions. He’s a nice guy. I should have never stayed with him this long. He deserves better. He deserves someone who truly loves him and wants to spend the rest of their life with him. He deserves someone other than me.”

  Tracy rested, tired from her cries, tired from the painful journey of self-discovery. Before she closed her eyes, she prayed one more time.

  “God, please keep Paul safe. Not for me, not for my safety, but for his!”

  She laid there, spent from her words and tears. She was too tired to try to drink the water from the coconut. She was in too much pain to reach for the remaining berries. All she could do wa
s sleep.

  As the evening came, Tracy found it harder to stay conscious. Her body felt like a slab of meat in the refrigerator, and the night brought hallucinations from her childhood.

  When she awoke the next morning, Tracy had no idea what day it was or how long she had been alone in the cave.

  Hymns from her youth crept into her mind, and she began singing them inside her head. She remembered all of the words as if she had just sung them yesterday. But it had been years since she had been in church singing any of the old classics. She let the words fill her spirit and lift her up. When she ran out of songs, she prayed.

  “God, I know you’re here,” a clear minded Tracy spoke. The sun was high, and she was able to recall where she was and the gravity of her situation. “I know I am not alone. I can feel you. Even though I don’t know what is going to happen, I trust you. I just want to make sure that I have repented for everything I’ve done. I want to be forgiven. I need to be forgiven.”

  Tracy began talking about all of the bad things she had done in her life. There weren’t many, but there were things that she felt guilty about. She watched her life play out in her mind like a long movie, each year being accounted for. As she saw areas that she was ashamed of or regretted, she brought those before God and asked forgiveness.

  She went as far back as she could remember, starting with the time she stole the last piece of pie and never told anyone. Tracy repented for gossip, for mean thoughts she had about others, for real transgressions and imagined hurts. She asked forgiveness for all of the ill feelings she had toward her mother. She wasn’t sure why, didn’t remember the hallucination, but for some reason, she had a new sense of compassion for her mother. She lifted her mother up to God and asked Him to watch over her and bring her peace.

  Tracy asked God to bless Courtney and Kenneth’s wedding. Even though she wasn’t sure that Kenneth and Courtney were getting married for the right reasons, they seemed to genuinely love each other, and she wanted God to bless that union. She also asked God to show Courtney that no matter how much Kenneth loved her, the only true love that she could always count on would be the love of God.