Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
HANNAH
I was in a dream, but every time I tried to wake myself, I couldn’t. It was Christmas Eve and I was out on the dock of Willow Lake. A light snow fell down, and I peered out at the man ice fishing off the dock.
“Hello.” I went up to him. “I’m dreaming.” I’d always had a keen sense of when I was dreaming, and even as a child, I was able to wake myself up if it got too scary.
“Is it a nice dream?” the old man asked. He looked to be in his seventies and was a little unkempt, but nice.
“I think so.” I looked out at the bright, sunny day and nodded.
He patted the spot next to him and I sat down, taking the extra fishing pole he offered. Why not? I wasn’t doing anything else.
The lake was completely frozen over, but a twelve-inch hole had been cut out. People in Willow Harbor loved their fishing year-round.
“I’m Pete,” the man said.
“Hello, Pete. I’m Hannah. Are you dreaming too?”
He chuckled. “Kind of. Do you remember what happened before your dream?”
I sighed, thinking deeply about that. A flash of memory did come back to me and a frown pulled at my lips.
Jack. Seattle. The semi-truck. I dropped the fishing pole and hugged my arms, suddenly cold.
“You’re going to be okay,” Pete whispered.
I looked over at him with a renewed interest. Long beard, kind eyes that looked right into my soul.
“I am?” I asked, suddenly unsure if this was a dream.
A little boy’s laughter filled the space and we both turned to look out over the ice. He was about five years old and ice skating with a man who had his back to us. The man was holding the boy’s hands and twirling him around, causing the boy to cackle in laughter. His laugh somehow reached the very center of my heart, and I dropped my arms, feeling warm again.
“That’s Noah,” Pete said. “Your son.”
Surprise and confusion washed over me. “I don’t have a son,” I said, watching the man with the little boy.
There was something about the man that was familiar to me. His build, the back of his head, his dark hair.
“Well, this is a dream, remember?” Pete told me. “That’s your future son. You haven’t met him yet.”
My heart beat frantically in my chest. This was certainly a wild dream.
“And who’s the man?” I asked because he still hadn’t turned, but something about him nagged at me.
As if he’d heard what I said, the man turned.
Jack.
He looked older and had a full beard. He broke into a handsome grin when he saw me. “Hi, Pete!” He waved.
“He can’t see you,” Pete told me, waving back at Jack. “But that’s Noah’s father.”
Noah’s father. Jack was Noah’s father. My future son was…
“Do I marry Jack?” I looked at Pete, bewildered but also filled with excitement.
“What do you think?” Pete asked me.
I peered at Jack as he played with the boy again. Now Jack was laughing, a deep carefree laugh that made my heart grow wings.
“I…would love for that to be true, but he’s not a believer.”
“Isn’t he?” Pete said. “Would he be here if he wasn’t?”
I frowned. “But…this is just a dream.”
“Is it?” Pete asked, and now he was smiling and it took twenty years off his life.
There was something familiar about him. “Hey, do I know you?”
He was speaking in riddles, and I was starting to feel cold again. The sun was setting.
Reaching out, he stroked my cheek and a deep warmth filled my body. “You do.”
Who was he? It was on the tip of my tongue, but there was still a layer of confusion over my mind. I felt like I had drugs in my system or something. This reminded me of the time I’d tried to take a sleeping pill.
Bad idea.
“Will I remember this?” I asked, looking back at Jack, who had picked up the little boy Noah and was now carrying him to a beautiful white house perched on the water.
“I sure hope so,” Pete said.
A woman came out of the house and the boy ran to her. As she picked him up and peppered his face with kisses, a tear slid down my cheek.
It was me. She was older, but…it was me.
I turned to Pete, tears streaming down my face. “I know who you are,” I whimpered and bowed my head in reverence. He was an angel of God.
He tipped my chin up to meet his face. “I have a message for you. For I know the plansI have for you, plans to prosperyou and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Tears of joy flowed down my cheeks as I smiled, and then the dream fell away from me as I tried to hold on to it.
I gasped, coughing and sputtering as something scratchy was ripped from my throat. My eyelids flew open and a man in doctor’s scrubs loomed over me.
“Hannah?” He flashed a light in my eyes.
I squinted, trying to hold on to the dream. “Pete. Jack. Noah,” I muttered, but the words were a croak on my parched lips.
“I’m glad to hear you can speak. Do you know what year it is?” he asked.
He then asked me over half a dozen questions about who the president was and when my birthday was, which I answered.
“You were in an accident. You’ve been in a medically induced coma for a week,” the man told me.
“What?” A week? I frantically peered around the room. I was in a hospital.
“Honey!”
I heard her voice before seeing her.
My mother ran into the room and fell at my bedside, grasping for my hands. “Oh thank you, God.” She pressed my hand into her forehead.
“Mom,” I croaked, trying to sit up but wincing at the pain in my abdomen.
A female nurse walked in. “Hi, Hannah. How are you feeling?”
I squinted because the lights were too bright. “Like I need a hot shower,” I said. I felt disgusting. I looked down at my mom. “Are you okay, Mom?”
She was just sitting there with silent tears streaming down her face as she nodded.
“I see no problem with a shower,” the doctor said. “I want her vitals every thirty minutes.”
“Yes, Doctor,” the nurse said. Then she looked at my mom. “You can wait out here. I’ll get her cleaned up.”
“Okay,” my mom said before kissing the top of my hand and then clasping her own in prayer.
The woman hooked me under the armpits and slowly hauled me up into a standing position. Dizziness washed over me, which she told me was normal. She helped me grasp a walker and I fought through the pain as I shuffled to the bathroom.
Then I suddenly remembered my dream. “Mom. Don’t let me forget. Pete, Noah, Jack.”
My mom frowned. “Okay, honey, but there’s something you should know about Jack…”
She stopped talking because we were in the bathroom now and the nurse had shut the door.
“You can visit with her once you clean up,” she told me, and I nodded.
I really did smell and feel awful. There was a white plastic chair in the shower that I sat in as the woman assisted me in undressing, washing up, and brushing my teeth. Halfway through the shower, I made the mistake of looking down at my stomach and promptly fell into sobs. There was a network of bruises and stitches all over my abdomen. The nurse was kind and told me it would heal but that I’d lost some vital organs in the accident and even needed a kidney transplant.
A kidney transplant? My mind spun.
Once I was all cleaned, the woman braided my long hair down my back and put some leggings and a T-shirt on me. “Hey, these are mine,” I said.
“Your mom brought them. She’s been here every day during visiting hours. Doesn’t leave your side. Neither did your husband right up until the surgery.”
I frowned. Husband? She was obviously mistaken. “I’m not married.”
She winced. “Oh, my bad. The guy gave you his kidney, so I assumed he was more than a friend.”
I froze, looking at her. “He what? Who?”
Someone gave me their kidney!
She swallowed hard. “Jack something? Super rich guy who flew out a specialist from Scottsdale. He was a perfect match for you, but they found out he had an known bleeding disorder, so his surgery was complicated and he bled out?—”
Panic seized me as I grabbed the walker and yanked the bathroom door open, cutting the nurse off mid-sentence.
When I stepped into the space, my mom was there.
“Where’s Jack?” My throat tightened.
Of course he had given me a kidney. He was the most generous person I knew. That was so Jack, but if he was hurt or…worse, I’d never forgive myself.
The nurse took her cue and left us alone, leaving the door open.
My mom looked concerned. “Honey, he’s had a rough recovery. They found out he had a bleeding disorder, and during your surgery, he lost a lot of blood.”
“Mom, is he alive?” My throat was so tight I didn’t even recognize my own voice.
I remembered the dream then—Pete, Jack, Noah. I wanted that. Whatever future I’d seen with the little boy ice skating, I wanted that.
“Hannah.” His deep voice came from the open doorway.
I snapped my head in that direction. He wore a medical gown and tall socks and shuffled towards me with a huge grin on his face, which I matched.
“I’ll go get some food.” My mom cleared her throat and left, shutting the door behind her.
I hobbled across the distance between us and then set the walker aside as I stepped into his open arms. I ached for him like we’d been kept apart for years.
He gently wrapped his arms around me, and I rested my head on his chest and breathed in his scent.
Jack. A man I felt like I’d known my whole life. I was safe in these arms, and I didn’t know why it had taken me so long to find my way into them. But now, I didn’t want him to ever let go.
We just stood there, holding each other as so many unsaid things passed between us. Things we could only feel. A small tear slipped down my face, and I wiped it away, finally pulling back.
“You gave me a kidney?” I asked.
He just nodded, watching me as if he were afraid I would disappear if he blinked. “I’d give you my heart if you needed it.”
I did need his heart, but not in that way. Where did I begin? There was so much I needed to say. I swallowed hard. The Bible, the note—he must never have gotten them.
His hand slipped in mine then, and his thumb stroked my palm. “I got your note,” he said as if reading my mind, “and, Hannah, I want you to know that everything is on the menu. I want it all with you. I want to be the man who earns the right to call you mine today, tomorrow, and for every moment after.”
Something in him had changed. I could see it. There was a lightness there. The heavy burden he’d carried since I met him had been released.
I grinned up at him. “Jack, you seem different.”
Please, God, let it be what I think it is.
He tilted my chin up so that I could look into his bright, blue eyes and grinned. “He found me, Hannah. God pulled me up out of the water like you said He would.”
My heart burst with joy, and I knew I shouldn’t have doubted God’s plan for me, for Jack, for us. He’d put us together for a reason.
I traced the stitches over my shirt where his kidney was inside my body, keeping me alive. “You saved my life,” I told him.
He shook his head. “No, Hannah. You saved mine.”
He leaned in then and captured my mouth in a kiss as butterflies took flight in my stomach. The road we’d traveled to get here might not have been straight. Okay, it’d been windy and broken and filled with potholes, but we’d made it out to the other side and I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.
Jack was my person, the one God intended for me to spend the rest of my life with. I had no doubt that the dream I’d had when I was…asleep was a vision from God.
Jack, Noah, the white house on the lake. That was God’s plan for me, and I would welcome it with open arms.
Because Jack and I, we matched in more ways than one.