You killed her. Linn’s words echoed in Natalie’s head.
Natalie looked between Linn and Kyle. One looked as sad as the other looked angry. What had gone on in their family? It didn’t seem possible that Kyle could do anything like Linn had said. But then, she hardly knew the man. One thing was clear, looking at Linn’s set jaw and flashing eyes. She believed exactly what she’d said.
“I’ll be going now.” Though Kyle’s tone was calm, the pink flush that climbed from beneath his collar betrayed his emotions. He slipped past them and out the door, stopping for a moment on the door stoop. “You might want to call the sheriff about this vandalism.” With that, he was gone.
Natalie turned her attention to Linn. The girl was as taut as a tug-of-war rope. Natalie put her arm around her. “Let’s go have a soda, OK?”
Linn hesitated, her gaze bouncing off Natalie, as if trying to figure whether or not Natalie deserved her trust.
Natalie went to the back room, where the soda machine was. “What’ll you have?” She dropped in two quarters and waited, hoping against hope Linn wouldn’t leave. It took so much effort to gain these girls’ trust and so little to lose it. She prayed she hadn’t done that today.
“Root beer?” The voice came from the doorway.
Natalie couldn’t keep the relieved smile from forming. “Root beer it is.” She pushed the tab, and the soda can clunked down the machine. She handed it to Linn and selected a Diet Pepsi for herself.
“What happened out there?” Linn asked, pointing to the front of the center.
Natalie knew she’d have to call the sheriff, and she really needed to clean up the mess, but right now, Linn was more important. The rest would have to wait.
“I guess some teenagers had too much time on their hands,” Natalie said.
“I can help you clean it up.”
Natalie stopped in the middle of popping her soda open. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. Besides, I have to do a little research to find out how to get the egg and paint off. I probably won’t get to it until later this morning. What I really want to do right now is talk with you.”
“You should call the cops right away if you want to catch these guys. Otherwise, the crime scene will get messed up.”
Why hadn’t she thought of that? “You’re absolutely right.”
Linn shrugged. “I guess I’ve watched too many CSI episodes.”
“First, let’s talk.” Natalie sat down with Linn in her office. She hated to bring up a sore subject again, but she wanted to be sure Linn understood. “Are we clear about Kyle, then? I don’t want you thinking I’ve betrayed your confidence.”
Immediately, Linn leaned back and looked away. “How do you know him?”
“We had dinner together awhile back.”
“You’re dating him?”
“No. No, we’re not dating at all. He was at my sister’s for a dinner party. That’s all there was to it.” Did Linn believe her? She couldn’t tell by her expression. “I can see there’s a lot of animosity between you two, and I just wanted to make sure you knew you could trust me.”
“Why do you care so much?”
The question took her aback. Why did she care so much? It was hard to put into words.
Linn began biting her nails, and Natalie could see there wasn’t much left to bite.
“To explain that, I have to explain something else. Its kind of like me asking you why you really disliked a teacher. You couldn’t explain that without telling me something about your background with him, right?”
Linn nodded.
“We talked a little about God on your first visit here. Do you remember?”
“Sure,” she said, paying particular attention to her pinky nail.
“Well, when I was a little girl, I decided I wanted a relationship with God. I know that might sound funny, but all my little life, I’d been told how much He loved me. That was easy for me to understand, since my parents loved me, and my life was so good, you know? They told me He loved me more than anyone in the world could love me. It made me feel really special.
“It was easy to believe when everything in life was great, but sometimes in life, things get shaken up. Things go wrong, and all of a sudden your world seems to turn upside down. It’s then that you begin to wonder what’s real. What’s important. I put my trust in a man, a man I thought loved me more than anything, and he failed me. It was then I really started realizing who God was and how much He loved me.
“You asked me why I care, and I don’t know if I can explain this right, but I care because I know how much He loves you. I know how much He loves you because I feel the love He has for me, and I want you to feel it, too. Does that make sense?”
“Kind of.” Linn took a sip of her root beer. “That thing you said about your world turning upside down.” Linn wiped her mouth with her fingers and began twisting the soda tab back and forth. “I feel like that now.”
Natalie felt such a tugging in her heart, she wanted to reach out and make the girl believe in God. But it didn’t work that way. “I know you do, Linn. You’re going through a very difficult time. You have to make a tough decision. When my world turned upside down, the decision was made for me, and there was nothing I could do about it. But you have a choice.”
“You’ve never been in my situation.”
“True.” Sometimes, she realized not having a choice was the easy way out. And it was easy to tell someone else what the right thing to do was when she didn’t have to live with the consequences.
“There are volunteers here who have been, though,” Natalie said. “Some have had abortions, and now they know they made a terrible mistake. But it’s too late for them, so they help other girls make good decisions. Would you like to talk with one of them?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. Maybe later.”
Help me, Jesus, to give this girl what she needs to hear to make the right choice. Help her to do the right thing, no matter how hard it is.
Would you?
The voice whispered into her heart but had the impact of a thunderous boom. Would Natalie do the right thing regardless of the consequences? She feared she’d have to know the consequences before she could make a decision.
And if the consequences were too great?
She had to stop thinking about herself. This was about Linn, not her. And the girl clearly needed her help.
“What can I do for you, Linn? How can I help you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I need to know what my options are. Besides abortion, I mean. If I decide to keep the—the pregnancy, how does all this work?”
Natalie explained how some girls kept their babies and others found good families to love and raise their child. She explained that some birth mothers wanted to be kept updated on the child with pictures and letters and so forth.
Linn’s eyes lit up at that piece of information, and hope sprung in Natalie’s heart. She felt such a connection with Linn, such a need to help her. If she could help it, Linn would not wind up like other girls who lived in anguish over their choice for years. Nor like Dana, who hadn’t lived at all.
“Would you like to come over for dinner one night this week?” As soon as she said it, she cringed. It was the centers policy not to involve the clients in their personal lives. She’d have a fit if one of her volunteers invited a client to her home. And Natalie had already done it once. Still, she felt Linn was so close to making the right decision. And what could it hurt, really?
“Depends what night. I have to work a few nights this week, but I can’t remember my schedule.”
“No problem. If it’s OK, I’ll call you, and we’ll work it out.” Linn seemed open to learning about God. She’d listened intently while Natalie shared her testimony. Wouldn’t God want her to open her life to Linn?
After Linn left, Natalie called Sheriff Whitco to report the vandalism. She’d thought they’d come out and at least look for evidence of some kind, but they only filed a report over the phone.
Even when Natalie reminded the man that she’d received a physical threat from someone, he said the best they could do was tie the two reports together. So much for catching the culprits.
When Sheri, one of the morning volunteers, came in, she commiserated with Natalie over the mess. She recommended a good scrubbing with dish soap for the egg, so Natalie went home to get a bucket and some abrasive sponges.
When she got back, she scrubbed the hardened mess, wishing she knew who had done this so she could put them to work. Despite the attack on her in the parking lot, she still believed this to be the work of some teens, the result of last night’s interview on TV. Someone who was serious enough to attack her wouldn’t resort to a petty act like tossing eggs on the window.
She was almost done, her fingers wrinkly and white, her khakis and shirt splotched with dirty water, when Paula approached.
“Oh, Nat, who did this?”
Somehow seeing her sister, whose station aired the incriminating interview, standing there all impeccable in her Anne Klein pantsuit, irritated Natalie to the bone. She turned back to the window, scrubbing extra hard at the remnants of lacquered egg white. “Well, if I knew that, they’d be cleaning it up, not me.”
The silence was only broken by the squeaking of her sponge on the glass.
“Are you unhappy with the interview Russ did?”
“Which one, the one he did at the center, or the one he aired on TV?”
Paula slid her sunglasses up on her head. “You know that’s the way they do things in the media. I didn’t think the center came across badly.”
“Well, someone obviously did.” Nat tossed the sponge in the soapy water. “And coming on the heels of a physical assault, it’s not very reassuring.”
“Does the sheriff’s office think they’re connected?”
She shrugged. “They said they’d tie the two reports together. It’s all they can do when they don’t have any suspects.”
Paula glanced at the red paint against the beige brick, and her manicured brows drew together.
Natalie looked at the words. Go away liars.
No. She would not go away. They could throw eggs at the building every day and spray anything they wanted on the front of their building, but they would not go away.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Paula said, “they haven’t found who did the bombing at the clinic either.”
Did Paula think she’d be glad about that? That Natalie wanted such a hateful crime to go unpunished? “It doesn’t make me feel better at all, Paula.” She grabbed the bucket and tossed the water onto the grass lining the sidewalk before entering the center.