The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [146]
“Look at all that hair!” Janine’s mother said.
The baby definitely had Paula’s black hair, Janine thought, but she was certain his nose and lips were Sophie’s.
Sophie stood in front of Joe. “He’s so little!” she said. “Can I hold him, Dad?”
“Very soon,” Joe said.
There were a few more comments about the baby’s good color, his tiny fists, his peaceful slumber. Then, for a moment, no one spoke.
Joe finally broke the silence. “We’re naming him Luke,” he said, his gaze still on his new son.
The name was no surprise to Janine; Paula had told her weeks ago that if the baby was a boy, they would name him after Lucas. But Lucas hadn’t known, and Janine felt the emotion in his grip on her hand.
She and Sophie had moved in with Lucas in February, when the remodeling on his rambler had been completed. They’d built a second story, adding bedrooms that looked into the trees. The green-and-salmon-colored seed pods on the tulip poplars were now in bloom, and Janine could see them through the bedroom windows each morning when she awakened. There was a second tulip poplar outside Sophie’s bedroom window, as well.
The night before Sophie had the surgery to remove the catheter, Lucas and Janine had gone into her room to tell her goodnight. They’d expected her to be a bit anxious over the procedure she’d be having the next day, and Lucas had fretted over the fact that the seed pods were not yet out on the tulip poplars and he had nothing to offer Sophie to tuck under her pillow.
As Janine stood in the doorway, Lucas sat on the edge of Sophie’s bed and told her that she no longer needed a bloom from the courage tree beneath her pillow, since she now lived in a house virtually surrounded by the trees.
“I don’t believe in the courage tree anymore,” Sophie had said, and Janine had felt the tiniest jolt of disappointment at her daughter’s words.
“You don’t?” Lucas asked.
“No,” Sophie said. “There’s no such thing as magic. The courage tree just makes you think you’re getting courage from it, but really, the courage is inside you all the time.”
Lucas had smiled and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “What a wise, wise girl you are,” he’d said.
None of them liked to remember the previous June, when their lives had been filled with fear and worry and too many secrets. Only Sophie seemed to have emerged unscathed from the experience. The annual Scouting trip to Camp Kochaben was coming up again in a couple of weeks, and to everyone’s surprise, Sophie wanted to go. She talked about getting a new sleeping bag and being able to swim in the lake this time, as though no one would hesitate about her making the trip. Joe had given his permission, but Janine had held back.
Now, as she watched her daughter, her entire family, looking through the nursery window to embrace this new life, she knew she had to let Sophie go. And she vowed to reach deep enough inside herself to find the courage that had been there all the time.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped me in the creation of The Courage Tree. I spoke with search-and-rescue experts, medical personnel, renal patients and their families, and fellow writers who kept me on track. I would like to thank Ann Allman, Tim Arthur, Mary Alice Kruesi, Gretchen Lacharite, Kathleen Lawton, Char LeFleur, John Nelson, Alice Soto and Monica Walton for generously sharing their expertise and knowledge with me.
I am especially grateful to my editor, Amy Moore-Benson, for her incredible patience; to readers Beth Joyce and Esther Jagielski, who created a one-of-a-kind basket for me in gratitude for my previous books, as well as to encourage my future efforts, and to Craig MacBean, for helping me thrive in the midst of chaos.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Janine carried