CHAPTER 37
“What did you say to them?”
Barbara put her purse on the kitchen table, still trying to calm her racing heart, and turned to look at Hannah, not believing what she heard. “Are you worried about their feelings? How about worrying about the one that has taken care of you for the last fifteen years?”
Barbara looked closer. Hannah had been crying. Tears streaked her face.
“Hannah, do you think I’m trying to hurt you? I’m trying to protect you!”
Hannah gave her a pained look, like she wanted to say something, wanted to defend her father.
“You don’t know him like I do!” Barbara said. “Having him in your life is pain. And I’ve had enough of that. You should have told me instead of deceiving me.”
Tears ran like a flood down Hannah’s face. She found her voice and said, “You told me he was dead!”
Barbara looked away. She had only said that to protect her. It was easier if Hannah thought he didn’t exist. Easier for them to move on with their lives. And Barbara had assumed he was dead, given the way he had lived.
“I want to know my father,” Hannah said. She said it with everything in her. She said it like it was the most important thing. Then she turned and walked into her room.
Barbara couldn’t believe it. Tears came to her eyes. All the sacrifice and love she had given, and now to be treated this way. Life had never been more unfair. She’d learned her lesson with Janet’s death. Keep everything locked tight. Keep everything safe because if you don’t, it will be ripped from you. So she’d done that, and look where she was. Right back in the middle of the pain. Life was like a lazy Susan. No matter how many times you spun it around, you kept coming back to the same things inside.
Barbara surveyed the kitchen and the living room. Her eyes rested on a picture of her daughter. It was then she knew what she had to do.
Barbara parked the car and stared at the entrance to Franklin General. She’d been here only twice since Janet died. Once to see a friend who’d had surgery—one of the servers at the restaurant—and once when Hannah had an asthma attack. Both times the memories had risen like a flood. Anytime she came this direction, she took the long way around so she wouldn’t even see the hospital.
There had been construction and a new parking lot and brickwork done out front, but no matter how much they changed it, unwelcome memories intruded. Now, here she was, about to face the man she had counted as dead because to her, he was.
She should have moved away. Should have gone to Texas. Her sister lived there and had said she and Hannah could stay with her. There were lots of jobs in Texas and taxes were low, her sister said. But Barbara’s heart was in Franklin, and even if many of the memories were bad, there were good ones, too. She wanted to raise her granddaughter here. She didn’t want to run away like he had run.
T-bone. Thomas Hill.
She shook her head. His name felt like a curse word.
Three times she put the key back in the ignition but she couldn’t drive away. Finally she found the strength to get out. At the welcome desk she asked for the room number of a patient named Hill.
“First name?”
“Thomas.” She closed her eyes and tried to get the bad taste out of her mouth.
The desk worker, an older woman with a kind face, pointed down the hall. “Take the elevator up to the fourth floor. Room 402. If you have any trouble, stop at the nurses’ station.”
“I’ll find it,” Barbara said.
She followed the directions and wound up in the middle of the hall outside room 402. The door was slightly open and she heard music inside. It sounded like the songs they played on the Christian station. Praise and worship and God is good all the time.
That sent her over the edge. Thomas had gotten religion. And religion was supposed to change everything. She was supposed to jump up and down and be thankful that he had walked some aisle or repeated some prayer. She didn’t understand that. As if saying a prayer made everything better. Wiped the slate clean. All you had to do was tell God you were sorry and you got to move on as if nothing had happened. And all the people left in the wake of the tsunami you’d created were supposed to just get over it and move on with life.
She stepped closer and peeked inside. When she saw him, her first thought was How the mighty have fallen. Thomas had been so strong, so full of himself, muscles and speed and that swagger that made him look in control. He drew Janet in like a fly to a spider’s web. And now he was trapped in a hospital bed hooked up to machines. Death warmed over.
Good, she thought. Serves him right. He can rot right here.
She pushed the door open all the way and crept in and stood at the foot of his bed, watching him mouth the words to the song on the CD. His eyes didn’t register, so Hannah was right. He was stone blind. She didn’t feel an ounce of pity. There was nothing he could go through that could compare with her pain. She felt it every night when her head hit the pillow and every morning when she awoke, that dull ache of pain and loss. But there were other moments when she’d see Janet in Hannah’s eyes or some small thing that ambushed her and brought her to her knees.
Barbara controlled her breathing, but Thomas must have sensed her presence. He held out the remote and stopped the CD.
“Is someone there?”
Barbara stared down at him, rage seething inside. She remembered that day he brought Hannah back. The day her world fell apart. The day he ran. And without emotion, without venom, she spoke.
“I won’t let you hurt her.”
She said it evenly, stating the facts. She didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of knowing that he had angered her. She didn’t care for him any more than she would a bug on the sidewalk.
Thomas froze at her voice. His eyes tracked to the ceiling and a look of recognition came over his face.
“I wondered when you might come.”
Immediately the anger rose. “Oh, I didn’t want to come. But Hannah is so determined to learn more about you. And I have told her about what she might find.”
Thomas listened and waited. When she finished, he spoke with resignation and remorse. “You’ve got every right to hate me. I can’t defend the wrongs I’ve done. And I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
Barbara focused on the machines, unable to look at his face. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pull every tube out of him and let him feel some of the pain she had felt. In this hospital, just a few floors below where she stood now, she had stared into the lifeless eyes of her only daughter. And Thomas was the reason that memory was imprinted forever. And there was no erasing that memory with a few words of regret.
Thomas turned his face toward her and there were tears in his eyes. With a trembling voice he said, “But I’m not the man you knew. I only want to love and to help Hannah.”
Barbara wasn’t moved. She didn’t care about his tears, his feelings, or his newfound religion. “Help her? You want to help her? It’s been fifteen years and now you want to help her?”
Barbara didn’t want a back-and-forth yelling match. She wanted to tell him to stay away from Hannah and leave, just like she’d done at the Harrisons’ place. But his words sparked something inside she couldn’t hold back.
“How are you going to help her?” she said, a hand on one hip. “You can’t even help yourself!”
Her words were like darts and she could tell they connected. His face contorted in pain. They had reached deep and hit the mark.
“You want to help Hannah?” she continued, and this was what she had come to say. This was the sword she hoped would pierce him. “Leave her alone.”
She let the words sink in. But she had three more to say.
“Let her go.”
She glared at him, remembering the look on his face when he’d stumbled to his car that long-ago day. He’d run so fast all his life and now she was asking him to keep running. It was the least he could do after the hurt he’d caused.
She turned to leave, her face set toward the elevator. She had said what she wanted to say. But just outside the door she heard it. Like the howl of a wounded animal. She stopped.
“You just gave her to me,” Thomas said.
Barbara took a step back toward the room before she realized he wasn’t talking to her.
Thomas was sobbing. “Give me the chance to love her, Lord. Don’t You leave me here useless.” He gritted his teeth and prayed harder. “Don’t You leave me here useless.”
Barbara’s mouth dropped open as she studied his face. A nurse walked toward her. Barbara turned and quickly went to the elevator, her hand shaking as she reached for the button.
She had walked into the hospital with anger and bitterness. But her resolve was shaken by what she had heard. She didn’t want to admit it, but Thomas looked different. Sounded different. There was no swagger to his voice, just contrition. There was no justifying his behavior or blaming Janet or anyone but himself. He had owned the pain he had caused, and that surprised her.
What was she supposed to do with all of that? She had held on to a desire that Thomas would get a double dose of what he had dished out, that God would punish him and make him pay. Now he was broken and bruised, but somehow, even in a hospital bed, he seemed more alive than she was. He had reached out to God, something she couldn’t do. Something too hard after all the years of pushing Him away.
It was one thing to believe God could forgive a sinner. It was another thing to believe that the sinner could live forgiven.
The restaurant was slow the next day and Barbara felt like she was carrying a table full of dishes on her back. She couldn’t get the sight of Thomas in that bed out of her mind any more than she could get the anger and bitterness and hurt to leave. And his wounded cries cut her heart to the quick. She wanted to keep hating him. As harsh as it sounded, she wanted him just to die and be out of her life and Hannah’s too. That way the problem would end.
“Big, Tall, and Handsome just sat down,” Tiffany said to her.
“And what would I do with somebody like that?” Barbara said.
“Get his food, I guess. He asked for your section.”
Barbara stared at the back of the man’s head. Nicely dressed. Alone. She didn’t recognize him. “My section? Are you sure?”
“Is your name Barbara Scott?”
She moved a little, trying to see his face. Was he a customer from some previous visit?
“He’s got a gold band on his ring finger,” Tiffany said.
Barbara shook her head and chuckled. “Last thing in the world I need right now . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence.
“I got him a cup of coffee and a menu,” Tiffany said. “The rest is up to you.”
Barbara grabbed a coffeepot and refilled a customer’s mug at a nearby table, then walked slowly toward the man. He was African American, broad-shouldered, with neatly trimmed hair and a kind face. He had placed a Bible in the middle of the table in front of him but studied the menu at the moment.
“Are you ready to order?” Barbara said, smiling.
He looked up from the menu. “Well, is there something you would suggest? This is my first time here.”
Barbara pointed out the special of the day and the man said that would be fine. He handed the menu back to her and said, “Thank you, Barbara.”
She put the menu under her arm. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, smiling.
“Well, if this is the first time you’ve been here, how do you know my name?”
“You mean other than the tag you’re wearing?”
Barbara dipped her head. “You asked to sit in my section, right?”
He nodded. “A friend told me you worked here.”
She glanced at his Bible. On the front she read, Rev. Willy Parks.
“You a pastor?”
He nodded.
“And who is this friend of yours?”
“Someone in the area I’m visiting. A member of the flock.”
“Where’s your church?”
He mentioned the name of the church and that it was located in Fairview.
“That’s a long way to go for a visit.”
“It is, but the drive helps me think. Clears my head and my soul. You’d be surprised how many sermons I’ve come up with driving from one place to another. Listening to people’s stories. Listening to the pain.”
“There’s plenty of that to go around,” Barbara said.
He chuckled. “I won’t disagree with you there, Ms. Scott.”
His familiar tone unnerved her. She thought of letting Tiffany take the table, but what would it hurt to hear him out? She turned and said, “I’ll get your order started.”
The man cleared his throat. “My parishioner is in the hospital here. Over at Franklin General.”
Barbara stopped. Without looking at him, she said, “Is that so?”
“Mm-hmm. They had to move him here from Fairview. He’s on dialysis.”
Barbara’s heart fluttered. She stared into his eyes. Of all the nerve, to track her down here.
Barbara gritted her teeth. “Did he send you here?”
The man sipped his coffee and put the mug down. “No, he didn’t. In fact, he’s been adamant that I not reach out to you or your granddaughter.”
“Then why are you here?”
Another flash of teeth. “Well, first of all I’m hungry. Second, I have a long drive ahead of me, so I need the coffee to stay awake.”
“Is there a third reason?”
The man’s voice grew soft. “Barbara, would you sit with me a moment?”
“I’m working, Reverend.”
He glanced at the dining room. “But you’re not busy. It won’t take long. I promise.”
Flustered, she looked at the ticket. “I need to get this to the kitchen if you want food.”
“All right,” he said, taking another sip of coffee.
She put the order into the computer and paced in the prep area. When Tiffany spoke, it startled Barbara.
“What did he want?”
“He wants to talk with me. Wants me to sit down with him. He’s a minister.”
Tiffany seemed full of questions. Instead she said, “I’ll take anybody who comes in next. Go ahead and talk with him.”
“I don’t want to. He has nothing to say that I want to hear.”
“What’s he want to talk about?”
“I don’t know exactly.” Barbara shook her head. “Come rescue me in five minutes, okay?”
“Whatever you say,” Tiffany said.
Barbara freshened the man’s coffee and reluctantly sat across from him. “I only have a couple of minutes.”
“I appreciate you taking the time. I didn’t plan this. I drove by and saw the restaurant name. Your granddaughter mentioned you worked here—”
“You spoke with Hannah?” she said, interrupting him.
“No, I’m sorry. Hannah told Thomas the name of this place. That’s how he knew it. And he mentioned it to me along the way. He told me you visited him.”
“I don’t see how any of this is your business.”
“It’s not. And I may be stepping over a line here—”
“You most certainly are,” Barbara said.
“—but I always try to be obedient.”
Barbara furrowed her brow. “Obedient?”
“As I drove by, something clicked inside. I got the impression that . . .” He paused and folded strong hands on the table. “Do you believe the Lord speaks to people, Ms. Scott?”
“You’re the reverend. You’re asking me?”
He smiled. “I have a hard time with people saying the Lord told them this or that. My conversations are often one-sided. At least they seem that way.”
He held out his mug and steam rose above it as she poured him another cup.
“As I drove by, I felt a strong urge to stop. To see if you were here. Maybe share something from the Word.”
“I thought you were hungry and wanted coffee.”
“I think it’s all three. Thomas didn’t put me up to this. He’s resigned to having you hate him because of what he did.”
“That’s good,” Barbara said, sitting back. “Go on.”
“We were talking this morning. He said it was the guilt that kept him away. The shame. He couldn’t call. Didn’t reach out. He was scared. And since meeting Hannah, he’s grateful he doesn’t have to be held back by the regret and guilt.”
“Bully for him.”
The man nodded as if expecting her sarcasm. “Do you know what he asked me to pray for today?”
“I couldn’t care less.” Barbara stood. “I need to check on your order.”
She walked toward the kitchen. Tiffany was there.
“Why didn’t you come get me?” Barbara said.
“It hasn’t been five minutes yet.”
“Seemed like five hours.”
She toasted the man’s English muffin and buttered it, and the kitchen finished his order. She walked it to his table and paused because the man had his head bowed. His lips moved and she watched. When he looked up, she put the plate in front of him.
“Just like manna,” he said, rubbing his hands.
“Can I get you anything else?” she said.
“Ketchup?”
She retrieved a bottle and put it beside him and placed the check on the table. “There’s no rush on this. I’m just putting it here.”
“I understand, Barbara.” He lowered his voice. “I understand more than you can know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Six years ago I lost someone dear to me. Feels like yesterday.”
Barbara put a hand on her hip. “Who?”
“My son.” He lifted his fork and pointed toward the chair. She looked at it, looked at him, then sat.
“There’s a lake down the road from our house. On my day off I used to take my son fishing. But being a pastor means you’re important. People call at all hours. Sometimes you’re not there when you said you would be.”
The reverend got a far-off look, like he was watching something in the distance, something he didn’t want to see.
“There was a teenage girl who had just gotten her license. She was driving to work. Her first day at her new job. Got distracted. The radio or her phone. Doesn’t matter. By the time she realized she’d run off the road and corrected . . .” His voice trailed. “She thought it was a dog. Heard a thump. But she kept on going because she didn’t want to be late. It was her first day and all.”
Barbara stared at him.
“She didn’t know. Didn’t understand the hurt she’d caused. It took us a day to find him. Tangled in some bushes. He had his rod and reel and the tackle box with him.”
Barbara swallowed hard. “You came here to tell me that? To say you forgave her and everything’s okay?”
He stared at his food. “No. I came here to tell you I think God is on your trail, Barbara. And that He cares more than you know. The hardest thing for me was living every day thinking I could have done something different. If I’d said no to those people who called, I might be fishing with my son right now.”
Barbara studied his face. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He nodded. “I’m not asking you to give Thomas another chance. I’m not even asking you to forgive him. I think the reason God stopped me here was something different.”
“And what was that?”
“I think He brought me here to ask you to open your heart to the possibility that He’s walking with you through all this. Just like He walked with me.”
Barbara stared at his plate. She wanted to tell him his food was getting cold, that he ought to eat it. Instead she said, “What happened to her? The girl who hit your son.”
“She moved away not long after the law got through with her. Her parents tell me she’s struggling. She’s having a hard time putting all of it behind her. I pray for her every day.”
Barbara’s eyes blurred and she felt her chin quiver. “Well, I’m glad for you. I’m glad you’ve been able to get to that place.”
He leaned across the table. “I didn’t get there on my own. I had to lay down the hurt and pain and regret. I poured it out day after day. And I told God He was the one who would have to lift it. That’s when things changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I began to receive the love He wanted to pour out. He wanted me to live fully loved, fully forgiven. He wanted to guide me, instead of me being led around by hate or regret or anything but His kindness.”
Barbara looked out the window. Clouds hovered over the town, but in the distance there was the faintest gleam of sunlight reflecting on edges of the sky.
“For years I’d have this dream. My son’s walking up that road with his fishing pole on his shoulder. Now I have a bigger dream. A bigger hope. Now I see a young girl walking home, out from under the weight of the past. I’m believing God that one day I’m going to look out and see her sitting in my church.”
“And what will you do if that happens?”
“Not if, but when,” he said, smiling. “I’ll stop whatever I’m preaching and I’ll march down those steps and hug her the way I would embrace my son. That’s what I’ll do.”
Barbara nodded. “I believe you, Reverend.”
He put a hand on hers. “I think that’s what God wants to do with you today. He loves you like crazy, Barbara.”
The pastor left a nice tip, as well as his card with a phone number and an e-mail address. There was a verse reference he wrote on the back along with the words I’m praying for you.
At home, Barbara glanced at the picture of Janet in the living room, that smiling face. Then she saw Hannah’s backpack on the hook by the front door. Such a small thing. But big changes started with small ones, didn’t they?
Perhaps people could change.
The pastor’s story had moved her. She believed him when he said Thomas had not asked him to find her. She believed that somehow God had moved the man to reach out and try to give her hope. There was no way to explain what she’d seen in Thomas’s face outside of God doing something miraculous. And as sick and broken as he was, she knew he was in better shape than she was. And in that moment, she felt a strong tug on her soul and she sat at the kitchen table. Thomas had run away and wound up running into the arms of a God who loved him in spite of all he’d done. How could a holy God embrace someone like that? Love like that didn’t make sense.
She caught sight of her reflection in a mirror across the room. She hated the look on her face. She didn’t want to be angry anymore. She didn’t want to carry the weight of hate. But she’d carried it so long it was just part of her now. And she carried it because she had closed the door to God, thinking by doing that she could keep the hurt and the pain and the regret away.
She crossed her arms on the table. Quietly she began the conversation she had avoided for fifteen years.
“Hey, God, it’s me. I haven’t talked to You in a while because I’ve kind of been mad at You.” The emotion came and she felt her chin quiver. “Ever since You took my baby. No parent wants to outlive their kid. Angry. Mad. I’m not like You, God. I don’t know how You do it. I mean, everything they did to Your Son and You just forgive them. You just forgive them. I’m not there yet.”
It was as honest as she could be. And in the process, she was being honest with herself. Tears came and she made no effort to stop them.
“My baby’s gone and now he wants to take Hannah, too? I’m not handling this very well. God, I’m working two jobs, I’m trying to do everything I can do on my own, and it’s not working.”
She heard an echo of a whisper spoken long ago. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Oh, how she wanted rest. She wanted to let go of the burden and the weariness she felt down to her bones. But how?
If God knew everything, she wasn’t telling Him anything He didn’t already perceive about her, but just saying the words made her feel something. The emotion rose, not anger this time, but something that sent a shiver of warmth through her. It was close to the feeling of surrender.
“So look, if You want me to do this forgiveness thing, You’ve got to help me!”
Her voice bubbled with struggle, just like she’d heard in Thomas’s cry to God. She was praying the same prayer but from a different heart. “Don’t You leave me here useless.” The emotion overwhelmed her and she choked out, “Because I can’t do this anymore. I need Your help, God.”
For the first time in fifteen years, she felt heard. She felt like she had broken through the portals of heaven itself. But she knew deep inside God had been there, waiting, ready to listen as she brought her broken heart to Him.
“You’ve got to help me, okay? You’ve got to help me forgive.”