8

 

“It started around six months ago. Before then everything had been terrific. I had a loving wife, a wonderful daughter, a great business partner and friend, and our company was reaching new heights each day while breaking sales records. Not only was I on the top of the world, I was the top of the world.”

Teddy fidgeted, unable to find that comfortable place on the bale that would ease his aches and pains. “Then on June tenth, I received a telephone call that began what some call a deep depression—I don’t know exactly how deep it goes or if that’s even a relative term, but it is certainly dark. I’ll never forget that call as long as I live. The caller identified himself as the sheriff from the county where my parents live… uh, lived. He said that my mom and dad had been killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver.” A baseball-sized lump formed in his throat, making swallowing difficult. He sniffed, but didn’t worry about shedding any tears since he’d been unable to cry.

Pain from the memory lingered. Never in his life had he considered himself a weak man, but this darkness proved—at least to him—his lack of strength. He’d studied the grieving process in college and knew negotiation was a stage of healing, but how many times in the past six months had he started a sentence with, “If I could only have one more day with them…” He wasn’t the first child to lose parents and he wouldn’t be the last. But they were his parents, not someone else’s. The implication of being a weak man overwhelmed him, embarrassed him. Teddy shifted his eyes away from Christy, trying to hide for a moment. He wanted to be by himself to grieve in his own way. But now was not the time. Her presence obliterated that opportunity.

He glanced at her. Her understanding eyes seemed to dissect him, listening to his deepest thoughts and emotions. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Teddy inhaled a deep breath before continuing, “Their neighbors told the deputy that they were on their way to church. They always attended the Wednesday night prayer meeting.” His chin quivered. Teddy shifted his eyes to the ceiling of the box car, trying to regain his composure. This was hard.

His voice cracked. “The sheriff said that my dad was killed instantly.” The methodical beat of the train moving along the rails filled his ears. Nothing else stirred. Christy even sat motionless. The world outside the boxcar ceased to exist, leaving him to relive the trauma of his parents’ deaths.

“The deputy said that my mom was still alive when he arrived on the scene. She was in bad shape and covered in blood. He couldn’t distinguish if the blood was hers or Dad’s. He tried to comfort her—I’m extremely grateful for that—and told her they would do everything they could to get her out—but she waved him off. She actually waved him away! She told him since she didn’t have long she wanted to spend her last minutes on this earth holding my dad’s hand. According to the deputy there wasn’t much hope in getting her free before she died anyway, so he did what he could to make her remaining time happy. Her last words were a prayer for the drunk driver—the man who caused their deaths.” Teddy wiped his dry eyes with the heel of his hand, smearing blood and dirt on his cheeks. He didn’t know why he wiped them. His tears had been missing in action for months. Once the day arrived when his tears flowed again, they would come in waves—with whitecaps. “How could she pray for the man who killed them? What was she thinking?”

Christy hadn’t moved a muscle as she listened. She leaned forward to touch his knee. “They are in a much better place now.”

“How do you know?” he blurted. “How can you be so certain that heaven even exists? How wonderful can eternal life be when God doesn’t even protect those who follow His path? God could have saved them from that drunken driver if He wanted.” Teddy waved his hand. “I don’t want to get into that. It’s pointless.”

“It is not pointless if this is the reason you have become depressed. Your mother had a servant’s heart. To be praying for the man who was responsible for their deaths shows unconditional love. There is none greater. You should not be angry at the man. You should pray for his tormented soul. He, too, has problems if he sought comfort from a bottle.”

“Me pray for him? Are you nuts? I wouldn’t give him a sip of water if he was dying of thirst!” He glared at her. Tension built in the muscles of his face, and he was sure the prominent vein in his forehead now stood out. Jane had always teased him about that vein.

“Love,” Christy said. “Not just love for your family and friends, but love for all mankind is the greatest lesson you can learn. Love of this magnitude will plant your feet on solid ground.”

“No! I refuse.” He punched the hay bale. “He’s responsible for killing my parents and he must pay. I want him to suffer.”

With a soft voice Christy said, “Where would mankind be if Jesus had the same attitude just before He died on the cross? Do you think God would have hesitated to send His angels if Jesus had asked? How about redemption? Would there even be such a thing if Jesus had decided to not die on that cross?”

She stood, placing a tiny hand on his shoulder. “Listen to me, Teddy. What happened to your parents was terrible, I agree. But you need to get past this anger or it will tear you apart. Is it possible that your parents died so you may live?”

“Died so I can live? How is that possible? We were at least fifty miles from each other that night.”

“Everything is relative. Their deaths caused you to become angry—angry at the man driving while intoxicated, angry at the world. Angry at God. This anger planted a dark seed within you and gave an opening for depression to enter. With this depression everything around you seemed to take a turn for the worse. Your life became ruined in your eyes. You determined that the only way out was to escape the pain and the torment. And by escape I mean your attempt at killing yourself. Blinded by the hurt, you cannot see the beauty and the blessings around you. Because of your running, your life has become so vile that I have been sent to help. How is your life any different than the man whose car struck your parents?”

Teddy burst off the bale. “What? I can’t believe you’re actually comparing my life to his?” When she tried to touch him, he stepped away. “No! Don’t touch me!” He moved from one wall of the car to the other before saying, “Where do you get off comparing my life to his?” He spat the last word.

“Do you not think that this man is in agony after what he did? He must live the rest of his life knowing he killed two people. He will remember his mistake forever.”

“Good.”

“How can you judge? You do not know what he has been through. You do not know what drove him to drink that night.”

“No, I don’t. But that doesn’t lessen how I feel.”

“Let us try a new approach. How do you think Jane and Mandy feel about you being gone? How much do you think they miss you after only one day? Now multiply that by twenty-five years for that is how long this man will serve in prison for his mistake.”

Teddy crossed his arms over his chest. “That will not work on me. I know that my wife left me for my best friend, and all Mandy is concerned with is when she’ll get her next high.”

“So, if Mandy continues on her current path, you will not be concerned if she one day kills another human being while driving stoned?”

Just when he thought he had her line of thinking figured, she turned it around. “Of course I’ll be concerned. I don’t want Mandy to have to go through that misery.”

Christy stepped closer to him. “And this man’s Father feels the same. This man is also depressed—like you. He has had thoughts of killing himself—like you. He needs help—like you. All fathers do not want their children to suffer. So what makes you so different from him?”

Teddy hadn’t considered the man’s father. On some level he did feel sorry for the man’s family. He felt sure they hadn’t raised him to drink and drive. And they surely hadn’t asked him to kill anyone.

“I can see we have a lot of work ahead of us,” Christy said. “Your parents’ deaths were not in vain. They died to give you life. Without their dying, you still would have succumbed to depression—just not one as dark. Without their deaths, you would never have been on this train. You would have never asked Father for help, and we would have never met. And without this help you will never live the life you are capable of living.”

Prickles of sweat erupted on his head and tickled his scalp. His eyes narrowed. “That’s very interesting how you manipulated the facts to suit your agenda. If that’s the case, we can probably bend and twist all the facts of history into what we want.” He wiped the perspiration from his forehead as he turned away. His mind whirled around the possibility of his being in this boxcar as a result of his parents’ deaths. Not a direct correlation, but Christy’s point had its merits. He faced her again. “OK, for argument’s sake, let’s say you’re correct. How do you know that my parents gave their lives for me?”

“I know because I have faith.”

Not knowing how to counter her statement, Teddy shrugged.

“I know the deaths of your parents hurt you terribly and I am sorry. There is not anything I can do to change the past. I also suspect that their deaths were the distinguishing event that began your depression.”

Teddy snickered. “Yeah, that was the beginning. But all the other negative things that happened after their deaths contributed in their own way to make me the broken man you now see.”

Christy looked at him. Her stare prompted him to continue.

He cleared his throat. “After the…um, crash….Mandy—say, how do you know Mandy’s and Jane’s names?”

“I know many things.”

“Or someone coached you well.” When she tried to reply, he waved his hand. “Never mind.

“As I was saying, Mandy started getting into trouble at school. Stupid things like skipping class, smoking in the restroom, sassing her teachers, and such. She knew better. She wasn’t raised like that. At an early age she was taught to uphold her responsibilities and to respect others.

“We traced her trouble at school back to the same time she became rebellious at home. Not acting like herself. Never had she been disrespectful to Jane and me, but she started calling us names and yelling at us. Her room—usually pristine—became a pigsty.”

Teddy dropped his head and turned away as he said in a whisper, “She lost her way.” Memories of his daughter laughing as she modeled her fifth birthday party dress complete with the scuffed, pink cowboy boots she wore everyday appeared in his mind’s eye. Images of her playing catch in the front yard with a glove that seemed to swallow her tiny hand, her spinning with arms extended from her sides while she tilted her head back to admire the blue sky until she became dizzy, and her running toward him on short legs while wearing her favorite canary and white dress induced a smile.

After a long moment reminiscing, he turned to Christy. “Four months ago, Mandy confessed to us that she’d gotten mixed in with the wrong crowd at school. Even though they were cheerleaders and the popular girls in school, these girls had done things that would make most people feel ashamed. I believe the police would categorize their little esoteric deeds as crimes—including some felonies that could result in prison time. They thought Mandy was too goody-goody and didn’t want her hanging around them. But, for some reason, Mandy saw them as cool. She wanted to be their friend so badly she started emulating their behavior. Smoking—and not just cigarettes—shoplifting, riding in stolen cars, tagging private property, and drinking.” Teddy dropped his head. “I hate to think what else might have happened.” He shook his head before looking at Christy.

“She started wearing dark makeup and only black clothes. She used to love wearing bright colors. More than once she sneaked out in the middle of the night to attend prescription pill parties. You know, where the kids drop and mix all the prescription pills they’d stolen in a large bowl and each kid grabs a handful—not knowing what the pills had been prescribed for—and swallow them. It didn’t take long for Mandy—my little girl—to become addicted to pain killers. She became lazy, wanting to sleep all day and stay up all night. It became a battle just to get her to shower. She didn’t care how she looked—except when she went somewhere her new friends might be. Then she had to have the right jeans, the right shirt, and, of course, the right shoes. And she started using profanity—some words I didn’t know even existed. I thank God the mixture of pills she ingested didn’t kill her. By what I understand, it’s sort of like Russian Roulette with pills.” He slumped, his chin lolling to his chest. Demanding and tasking, the emotional pain chipped at him, inch by excruciating inch.

Without raising his head, he added, “I know what you’re thinking. The same question everyone has asked. With such drastic change, how was it possible that Jane and I didn’t suspect something was going on? The simple answer is Jane and I trusted her. Like most parents, we thought she wouldn’t be involved in the things other kids were doing. She knew right from wrong. She was our daughter and our daughter wouldn’t do those things. I’m sure all parents of first-time juvenile delinquents have thought the same.”

He raised his head, but closed his eyes. “My thoughts were self-centered and my actions anti-ascetic. We were naïve.” He opened his eyes. Christy watched him. “Perhaps Mandy is a master of diversion. Or maybe manipulation. I don’t know. Regardless, Mandy’s behavior changed and she dispelled any notion that anything was amiss. She vindicated herself of all suspicion with thought-out, rehearsed answers.” The baseball lump in his throat grew into a cantaloupe. He tried swallowing around it.

“You are close with her, are you not?”

Not trusting his voice, he nodded.

Again Christy waited until he continued.

“She and I have—had—a special relationship. When she was younger and while most of her friends were either shopping or baking with their mothers, Mandy wanted to hang out with me. I didn’t know why then and it still puzzles me to this day. But we had fun.” He chuckled. “We played catch in the park, worked on the cars, mowed and raked the lawn; you know, things a father might do with a son. But Mandy didn’t care; she liked spending time with me. She still enjoyed wearing pretty dresses and getting her hair and nails made up like other girls, but the best times I remember were the ones when she wore her grungy clothes and we played hard. We sang and laughed until we cried.” The pace of his words quickened with the excitement of the memory.

“We raced each other down the street, played basketball, and even went fishing.” He stopped smiling as he glanced around the dingy boxcar, reminded that he was years away from that wheat field playing hide-n-seek with a young Mandy. His shoulders slumped. With a trembling voice, he said, “She was my little girl.”

“She is still your girl.”

He shook his head. “No. I lost her a long time ago. We quit doing the things we enjoyed as she got older. We hardly even spoke to each other after the crash. It was like…we were strangers.” The imaginary cloak that had kept him down for many months grew stronger. His chin fell to his chest from the weight of his burdens. Defeat knew him and called his name.

“Please continue.” Christy prompted.

Teddy glared at her. He resented her for making him remember. He mumbled, “I don’t know if I can go on—”

“I know you can. Now continue.”

Teddy walked to the door, looking outside. Dawn was still hours away. If he could only put up with Christy until then, he’d run and not have to listen to her ever again. He’d flee without looking back.

As he turned toward her, he realized he couldn’t resist her. Those eyes full of compassion and love, but yet mysteriously filled with knowledge and understanding held him captive much like the evil fog and cloak.

“OK.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you another one.”

He returned to what he now thought of as his hay bale, sitting close to her. Christy’s eyes followed him, waiting. “About the same time that Mandy changed, the bottom dropped out of my business. In college, I developed a software program that would assist law enforcement with tracking vehicles. It’s similar to a program the military uses when a soldier ‘paints’ a target for bombers to destroy. It involves laser technology and the use of a small satellite. The laser is manufactured to ‘paint’ a vehicle without endangering an officer by having him exposed by manually planting a tracking transmitter on the suspect’s vehicle. The laser is shot with a special, non-lethal rifle onto the target vehicle and locked in place. The element that makes this system unique is that there isn’t any tale-tell signs to alert the vehicle’s owner that his car has been tagged. Wherever the car goes, the marking lock will follow. The lock lasts up to two weeks before it terminates the contact, unless reapplied. By use of the satellite and computer software, my program keeps the officers advised of the vehicle’s location, direction, speed, and—by using a special algorithm—it can determine if any additional weight—such as passengers, weapons or drugs—has been added to the base weight of the car. An additional component of the software can short-circuit the car’s electrical system, essentially shutting it down and eliminating the potential for a high-speed pursuit.”

Teddy straightened, stretching his back, before continuing, “My best friend in college, Frank Bethel, majored in business so it was a no-brainer when we became partners. Who could ask for a better partner than a man’s best friend, right? Working long days and many nights, one better be able to tolerate his partner, at least. Before we knew it we were managing five hundred employees and manufacturing the software and lasers. Law Enforcement Assistance Proprioceptors, Incorporated—or LEAP for short—filled requests from all the major police departments and federal agencies in North America, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. Business was booming.”

His shoulders squared, and he sat more erect. “Things were great for several years until the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case based on the arrest of a drug kingpin in Omaha. The Omaha police had purchased our program and used it to track this dealer’s car. After he loaded his vehicle with over two hundred pounds of marijuana, methamphetamine, and cocaine, in addition to twenty or so automatic weapons, his car was stopped and he was arrested. In court the kingpin claimed my laser program was an invasion of his privacy and the evidence found in his car should be excluded as ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’ The justices ruled in his favor. They said his privacy had been violated, probable cause had not been properly obtained, and the conviction was overturned.

“Because of the court’s decision—even though the appeals are still ongoing—the business failed almost overnight. We were forced to lock the doors and refund millions of dollars, bankrupting us.” His head dropped. He sat still for several moments.

“Why are you doing this to me?” He didn’t raise his head or look at her. Instead, he stared at the loose straw on the boxcar floor next to his feet.

“What am I doing, Teddy?”

“You’re beating me down. I can’t continue to remember these things. They hurt too much.” He shuffled his feet.

Christy scooted closer to him. “It is not my intention to do you harm. To be healed of your depression, you must first know what caused it. The only tool we have at our disposal to uncover the reason is your memory.”

He nodded while pursing his lips.

“Please continue.”

He inhaled a deep breath through his nose. “Frank had wisely made other investments so his financial situation didn’t look as bleak as mine. All of my money had been reinvested into the business. I was ruined. I couldn’t make the mortgage payments on my home and I couldn’t pay the utility bills. After several months, the sheriff started foreclosure proceedings.

“I resorted to searching the sofa for change for Mandy’s school lunches. I wasn’t able to keep my wife in the life that she’d grown accustomed. My wife and I—whom I also met in college—started drifting apart. I don’t imagine it was a hard decision for her to run into Frank’s arms after…well, you know.”

“Are you sure she left you?”

Teddy closed his eyes, fighting the images of his past. “I saw it with my own eyes. Saw all the signs. She’d grown secretive. Used to be we shared all the details of our days around the dinner table. Before I left we didn’t even talk—not even to say good morning. I noticed her talking more on her telephone and she began leaving the room when it rang—even if I was the only person in the room. Do you know how that made me feel?” Teddy searched Christy’s eyes for empathy. “It made me feel like a second-class citizen. In my own home! I had become the person who least mattered in my wife’s life. I even heard Jane laugh—the same special laugh she used with me when we dated. That tore me up. I remember that laugh as the one she’d used when flirting. I’m not proud to admit that I followed her on several occasions and she always went to Frank’s home. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. The morning I—” he almost said tried to kill myself, but stopped. “—left, I watched her pack several bags. She and Mandy got into her car and left. That was the worst day of my life and the day she left me for him.”

“That must have been very painful for you.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees while cradling his head with his palms. “You don’t know the half of it. Losing everything is a big hardship, but that can be overcome. Losing my wife and daughter…I don’t know how I can ever come back from that. I could’ve started over, but without my family by my side, what’s the point? Losing Jane and Mandy hurt me the most.”

“So why are you here? Why are you not at home fighting for them?” Christy leaned toward him.

“When I watched them drive away, I felt—” His chin vibrated. His grandfather always told him that a man should never cry—it was a sign of weakness—and he’d lived his life with that as his motto. Lately that had been a problem. He displayed every sign of an emotional breakdown sans the tears. His emotion choked his words. “—a sense of finality.”

“So, Teddy, is it safe to say that you will do anything to get them back?”

He could only nod. He didn’t trust his voice to speak. All the signs of an emotional collapse were present and the tears had to flow sometime. Didn’t they?

When would the pangs stop? He’d grown weary of feeling this way, of being in a dark place. Of being alone. Of feeling worthless.

“Even if that means doing what I ask you?”

Again, he gave a nod.

“OK, but you have to trust me. You will essentially be starting over. Back to the basics. My job is to show you those basics of life so you can enjoy the enrichments with which you have been blessed. Your life can be rewarding again. You will laugh. You will be happy.” She smiled. “You will be taught faith, hope, and love for these are from which happiness is born. You will be given the tools to make your life complete and have the strength to combat the darkness. You do not need money, a large house, a flashy car, and the most up-to-date electronics to be successful. Learn these simple lessons of life and everything else will fall into place.”

He raised his head to look at her, even at the risk of seeing into her powerful eyes. How could faith, hope, and love restore what he had lost? How would the basics of life battle the dominant cloak of depression? And the thick fog of confusion? These questions and more welled in his mind.

But, what choice did he have? Who else had come forward to help? Without Christy to guide him, what were his chances of beating the darkness and regaining his wife and daughter?

“One other thing, Teddy. You also must forgive the man who took your parents’ lives.”

His head shot up. “What? No!” He stood. “I can’t.”

“You must.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you will not receive my help. You will not conquer your depression. And you will never see your family again.”

Teddy rubbed the side of his forehead. If he apologized, he would be able to return to his family—the one thing that really mattered. However, if he refused to forgive, he’d be destined to walk this world without them, never to see them again. Always wondering what they were doing and if they were OK. Was his anger worth the loss? “I don’t know where he is. How can I forgive if I can’t find him?”

“You must forgive in your heart. The rest will take care of itself.”

He paced as he said, “This is hard for me.” He stalked from one wall to the other before continuing. “A mistake—to drive intoxicated—was made and that mistake took my parents’ lives. I never considered that this man’s life could be worse than mine until you mentioned that he had turned to finding peace from a bottle. After what I’ve been through I understand the strong desire for peace. We are two men in search of the same quarry. We’ve just traveled different roads. He chose the quick way of numbing his pain by alcohol and I tried to take the permanent route of death.” There it was. He admitted he’d tried to commit suicide. No taking it back now. With his confession, tension lifted from his shoulders, making them feel lighter than normal. He turned his head from side to side, enjoying the new freedom. “Neither path is the way to peace and happiness.”

He faced her. “If the lessons you’re speaking of take me to a fuller life, then I guess I owe the man some gratitude. I know that sounds weird—me thanking him for killing my mom and dad—but that’s not what I mean. I mean without their accident, I would still be fumbling around in depression without any end in sight. And that is not a good place to live.”

Christy smiled as she nodded and pointed to his bale. “Come. Sit.”

Once he had seated himself, she continued, “To keep you focused on the tasks, there will be a time limit.” She paused as her eyes met his.

“If by Christmas Day—seven days from now—you cannot prove that you have applied these basic elements to your life, you will never see Jane or Mandy again. If by Christmas morning you have not completed these lessons, you will die.”