Chapter 2

When Clint arrived at the correct section, he found a dark-haired woman pacing the hallway nervously, and a young boy of about eight, who was sitting on one of the hard hospital chairs, his feet dangling just a little bit above the floor. As soon as the woman heard footsteps, she looked up expectantly, but her face fell when she saw Clint, and she continued pacing.

"Mrs. Peterson?" Clint asked. The brunette's head shot up.

"That's me," she answered, although she eyed him wearily.

"I'm doctor Clint Cassidy, Ma'am. Doctor Crane is currently unavailable, so I'm filling in for him until he returns," Clint explained, holding his hand out in greeting. For a moment, Mrs. Peterson eyed the man standing before her, but returned the greeting.

"Do you know anything else about my husband's condition, doctor Cassidy?" she asked. The boy, who had at first sat listlessly watching, had now slipped off the chair, and stood next to the woman. He looked up at Clint expectantly.

"As far as I've heard, your husband was involved in a car accident, where another driver's brakes malfunctioned, and hit your husband's car," Clint explained. "Your husband is still in surgery at the moment, but as soon as he's out, we'll be brought up to speed as to your husband's condition."

Mrs. Peterson sighed, nodded, and started to pace again. The boy continued to stand next to Clint, looking straight at him. Clint nodded at him. "Hey there."

"Hi," the boy replied.

"I'm doctor Cassidy. What's your name?"

"I'm Luke," the boy replied.

"Nice to meet you, Luke. How about we sit down?"

"Ok," the boy said, returning to the chair he'd previously been sitting on. Clint sat down next to him.

"Are you going to make my father better?" Luke asked after a few seconds.

"Well Luke, I'm going to try my best, but let's first see what the other doctor says, ok?" Clint said. Luke nodded. Just then the surgeon arrived. He nodded at Clint, recognising the doctor, then turned to Mrs. Peterson.

"Mrs. Peterson?" The woman nodded. "I'm doctor Wolkin; I've been taking care of your husband."

"Is he going to be ok?" Luke piped up, and his mother shushed him, although she kept her gaze fixed at the doctor. "As you know, your husband was in a car accident. He has a few broken ribs, which will heal nicely. There was a little bit of internal bleeding, but we managed to stop that. However, your husband also hit his head quite hard, and I'm afraid he slipped into a coma."

Mrs. Peterson swallowed, and she felt Luke's hand grasp hers. "W… will he wake up?"

Doctor Wolkin was silent for a moment. "At this point, we can't say much about that yet. We will first have to wait. He's being transferred to ICU at the moment. I will send a nurse to bring you there, or," he looked at Clint, "perhaps doctor Cassidy could escort you?" Clint nodded. "If you have further questions, please ask." His beeper went off. "I'm afraid I'll have to leave you for now, but I will see you around."

The doctor hurried off, and Clint indicated the direction of the ICU. For a moment, Mrs. Peterson was quiet, but as they approached the ICU, she started flooding Clint with questions, which he patiently answered as best as he could. As they arrived, Clint quickly inquired after Mr. Peterson, and was directed towards one of the rooms. As soon as they entered, Mrs. Peterson hurried to her husband's side, carefully taking in the various machines and tubes, before pulling up a chair. Luke also approached, but much slower. After a few moments, he slipped onto his mother's lap. Clint decided he should give them a little privacy, so he walked out of the room. After a short moment of reflection, he came to a decision, and went to give Nancy a call to say it could take a while. She made him promise to give her a call when he went home, no matter what the time. They talked for a little more, then Clint hung up.

After a while, he checked up on Mrs. Peterson and her son, and he noticed that Luke was starting to get fidgety. Clint looked at his watch, and asked if they wanted to get something to eat. Mrs. Peterson declined, but agreed that Luke should get something to eat. That's how the two ended up in the cafeteria. They talked a little on random topics, when Luke suddenly asked, "Why do you wear a necklace?"

Clint smiled. "It's not just a necklace. It's got a cross attached too, see?"

Again, the boy nodded. "Yes. But why do you wear it?"

"Well," Clint explained, "It's to remind me that God is always with me."

For a moment, Luke was quiet. Then he questioned, "So are you a 'Christian'?"

"Yes, I am," the country doctor agreed. He tipped his head slightly, and asked, "What about you?"

"I don't really know what that means." A frown appeared on his brow. "I know that it means you believes in God…"

Clint nodded. "That's right. And we believe in Jesus."

The boy's face lit up. "That's God's Son, right?"

"Exactly."

Luke seemed to be thinking hard on something, so Clint decided to wait till he was ready to continue talking. Meanwhile, he continued eating. Sure, he'd had supper earlier, but he could eat anytime of the day.

"What does the cross have to do with God?" Luke asked. "I know that churches have crosses, but why?"

Clint sat back a little. "I'll try and explain. Just ask if you don't understand, ok?" At the boy's nod, Clint continued. "You know how we sometimes do things we're not supposed to do?"

Luke looked at him curiously, as if debating if he should trust the man to not tell on him if he admitted to that, but decided that, as men amongst each other, he would be able to trust him. So he nodded.

"And deep inside, you know that it's wrong, right? That you deserve punishment when you still do it?" The nod came a little more hesitantly, but he nodded nonetheless.

"Well, God loves us very much, but He gets sad when we do something like that. He knows that we deserve to be punished, but He also would hate to see us punished. So you know what He did? … He sent His Son, Jesus, to the Earth, and Jesus took all our punishment for us, - "

Luke's eyes widened and interrupted, "For everyone?"

"Yes."

"So no one is punished?"

"Well, there's a problem. You do have to believe in Him. And then you are forgiven, and you don't have to be punished anymore."

That was a difficult idea, and Luke needed to think about that more. But first he wanted to know where the cross came in.

"So Jesus took our punishment, which was death… and Jesus died in our place, on a cross."

Luke fell silent. That was quite a big thing. "Did this really happen? I mean, people die for other people in movies all the time, but that's not real."

"Yes this happened for real," Clint said. "Some don't believe it did, but I do. And you know what's even greater? Jesus didn't just die. He also rose again after three days. He conquered death, and that's why we are all saved if we believe in Him."

Luke was in awe, but still a whole bunch of questions whirled through his head, and he continued asking questions. When they eventually were approaching ICU again, Luke had already learnt a lot. But then he frowned. "But Doc Cassidy? My mother doesn't believe in God."

"Yeah, unfortunately that happens quite a lot. But it's important that first you believe, and then you can pray for other people, like your mother and your father."

The boy shook his head. "That's not necessary. Dad does believe in God, but Mom doesn't, so she always tells him to not talk about that. And when he does, then she gets mad." He frowned again. "Dad isn't stupid, but Mom is really smart too. But they can't both be right, can they?"

Then another thought struck him. "But, if God loves us so much, why did Dad get in an accident?"

"Believing in God doesn't mean that bad things will never happen again. Sometimes things happen for reasons we don't know yet. But if you have given your heart to Jesus, then you can be sure that, no matter what happens, He'll be there for you, and take care of you."

The words made impact on the boy, and as they turned the corner, he mulled over everything he'd learnt. That's when he saw his mother, and he shook off his thoughts for a moment, running into her arms. "Hi Mom! How's Dad? Did he wake up yet?"

"No sweetie, he hasn't woken up yet. But we need to go home and get some sleep." She looked up, and gave Clint a strange look. "Can you go get your coat, and say goodnight to your father? I need to ask doctor Cassidy something."

"OK. He's very good with answering questions. I had lots of questions, and he's been answering a lot too." With those words, he walked towards the room where his father lay.

Clint waited for the woman to speak, and when she did, he was taken aback by the force with which she looked at him. "I don't care what you believe in, but I heard what you were saying when you walked up here, and from what Luke just said, I guess you've been feeding him all that nonsense. As I said, I don't care what you believe, but you'd better keep your beliefs to yourself. I don't want you talking about them to my son. I will not tolerate it."

"Ma'am, I didn't mean to impose my beliefs on your son, but he has a lot of questions, and all I did was answering them to the best of my knowledge."

Mrs. Peterson huffed, and stared at him. "When is doctor Crane back?"

"I believe he will be back tomorrow."

"Good, then you don't need to be near my son again. Thank you for being here and answering our questions about my husband, but you won't need to be back for us."

With those words, she turned around and intercepted Luke, who was on his way back to the two adults. Luke waved. "Bye Doc Cassidy!"

Clint nodded, and gave the boy a smile, before they disappeared around the corner. With a sigh, he left as well. Glancing at his watch, he called Nancy.

"Hey," she greeted him through the phone.

"Hey Nance. Just wanted to let you know I'm coming home now. Are you still up?"

"Yeah, I'm still up. Want to swing by?" The smile was almost audible, as she added, "I can make it more tempting by offering hot chocolate…"

Clint chuckled, his mood lifting – not because of the hot chocolate, but because he loved this woman so much. "I'll be there soon."

"Ok," Nancy smiled. "Be careful."

TBC