But you don’t understand,” Erik Connors told his sister and her husband. “Cheryl Fairchild is, in my opinion, suicidal. No doctor in his right mind should have released her, even if her physical wounds were healed.”
“Erik, it isn’t your concern,” his sister Christy offered. “If the doctors okayed her release, then you can’t interfere with that. Besides, Cheryl allowed herself to be mixed up with Grant Burks, and now she’s paying the piper. Don’t forget, she was the ‘other woman’ in our little sister’s short married life.”
Erik nodded, knowing full well that their sister had suffered greatly because of Grant’s infidelity. Candy had barely been old enough to marry when she’d fallen in love with Grant Burks, and in spite of both Christy and Erik’s misgivings, she had married him and found herself almost immediately pregnant.
“But, Christy, Cheryl didn’t know he was married to Candy. She had no way of knowing that he had a wife and baby on the way. To my way of thinking, she was just as duped as Candy was.”
Curt O’Sullivan nodded. “I think that’s true in many senses.” He exchanged a brief apologetic smile with his wife. “I don’t think that it makes what happened justified or right, however. Cheryl has always lived life in the fast lane. Her father taught her that, and he lived the example right up until the end. It was one of the biggest reasons I had to cut off my engagement with Cheryl.”
“Good thing, too,” Christy said with a loving smile.
“Well, despite her fast-lane approach to life,” Erik said seriously, “she deserves forgiveness for her mistakes. God isn’t going to hold a grudge against her, and I don’t see where we have the right to, if God Himself doesn’t plan to.”
“She has to want to be forgiven,” Curt interrupted. “She has to seek repentance, recognizing that she was wrong in the first place. So far, I don’t see that Cheryl feels she has anything to confess.”
“But given all that she’s just come through, she’s got to be doing a great deal of soul-searching.”
“Erik, that is a matter of opinion, and not only that,” Curt added, “but what makes you think Cheryl’s brand of soul-searching includes wanting to hear about God from a complete stranger?”
“Who better? I don’t hold anything against her, so it isn’t like you or CJ going to see her. Cheryl has no past with me through which she might just feel even more ashamed, and she knows me from the hospital.”
“I can’t help but think she’s going to feel a very strong past with you,” Christy interjected, “even if you don’t want her to feel that way. Once you explain the connection and she realizes that you’re Candy’s brother, she won’t want anything else to do with you.”
“Christy’s probably right,” Curt replied.
From upstairs came the cry of a baby. “Well, that will be Sarah expecting to be fed,” said Christy, getting to her feet. Sarah, the baby Candy had given birth to shortly before succumbing to a brain tumor, had come into Christy’s life much in the same way her husband Curt had. Most unexpectedly, yet most welcomed. Erik knew his sister held a deep abiding love for both of them, and he’d never seen her happier.
“Does she pack it away like her daddy?” Erik asked, noting Curt’s second helping of barbecued ribs.
“She’s worse,” Curt said, grinning. “At least I don’t cry at the top of my lungs.”
Christy laughed. “I’d say it’s debatable as to who makes more noise. It just depends on the day.”
Erik smiled, while Curt ignored this comment and dug into his food. With Christy gone, Erik felt like he could get more personal about Cheryl.
“Look, Curt, I know Cheryl Fairchild is a sore subject, but I’m hoping that at least you will try to understand my thinking in this. I feel led to go to her. I’ve prayed all of this through, and count it a ‘holy mission’ or whatever else you want to call it, but I feel somehow responsible to extend Christian charity and love to that woman.”
“Cheryl will never take it,” Curt replied. “Mark my words. She’ll have you thrown from the house faster than you can say, ‘Jesus saves.’”
“But she talked to me in the hospital. I used to have to draw blood from her on my morning collection rounds. I sympathized with her situation and commented on her recovery, and she always seemed to respond.”
“Throwing a pitcher of water at you can hardly be deemed a positive response.”
Erik laughed. “Yes, but it was only that one time. After that, I made sure things were kept out of reach when I came into the room. Besides, she threw things at everybody.”
Curt leaned forward and put down his fork. “Look, Erik, I know you have a big heart, and I’m certainly not trying to tell you to disregard something God has directed you to do—if, indeed, God has directed you to minister to Cheryl. I’m simply saying that once Cheryl finds out how you are related to Grant, she’ll have nothing more to do with you.”
“But like I said, Curt,” Erik began again, “she was duped by Grant, and she has to know that we don’t hate her for it. She must be feeling fifteen kinds of fool for her involvement with him. Just imagine all the rhetoric and lies he must have told her to get her to surrender to his charms. Even you said that Cheryl wasn’t the kind of person to go from man to man and that she was most likely pure when she came to Grant.”
“But what if she doesn’t feel like a fool? You are presuming that Cheryl sees the error of her ways, and I’m telling you that the Cheryl Fairchild I know may well think herself completely in the right. She probably believes that she and Grant were the victims in this mess and that the rest of us are unfeeling liars who planted evidence and strung up the wrong man.”
“But you said that once everything sunk in—”
“I remember what I said.” Curt sighed. “Once she allows everything to sink in, she’ll see the truth of the matter for herself. And when she does that, she’s going to feel worse yet. Seeing how stupid you were and being smacked in the face with your mistaken judgment and actions is not something that anyone handles well. Cheryl will be especially hard to deal with in this area, mainly because as far as she’s concerned, she’s never been wrong about anything.”
“So you think I should stay away from her because she’ll never believe me, is that it?” Erik questioned honestly.
“That and the fact that I also don’t want my investigation messed up because you interfered in a matter you should have stayed completely out of.”
Erik looked at his brother-in-law and tried to figure out how to present his case in such a way that Curt might better respect his plan. Ever since he’d learned of Cheryl Fairchild’s plight and misguided involvement with Grant Burks, Erik had felt a strange concern for her. The more he learned about her, the more he found himself wanting to help.
“She’s gone through so much.” Erik tried another approach. “The surgeries, losing the baby, recovering from severe intestinal damage—all of it took its toll. She was lucky to only have to endure a temporary colostomy instead of a permanent one, ‘cause I can tell you from firsthand knowledge, the initial opinions on her condition weren’t that great. The surgeon thought that if she lived through the operation, she’d be permanently disabled in one way or another.”
“I know all of this, Erik. And now that her physical injuries are healed and she’s nearly the same old Cheryl in body that she was before, she’s more messed up inside than a simple visit and ‘Hey, I’m praying for you, kid,’ is going to fix.”
Erik felt suddenly put off by Curt’s attitude. “I’m not suggesting that I’m going to drop in and perform a miracle. You make it sound like I think that I alone can put her on the road to spiritual healing. Like I expect to walk on water. It isn’t that at all.”
“Then what is it?” Curt asked, eyeing him seriously.
“I’m the only one who’s offering to help,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I don’t see anyone else going the distance with her.”
“My sister tried,” Curt said softly. “That’s why I know Cheryl won’t take kindly to any kind of spiritual lecturing or pat, formula responses. I know this lady well enough to say this.” He paused as if trying to word what he would say in a precise and exact manner. “If Cheryl is determined to kill herself, you won’t stop her. She doesn’t do things by halves, and she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about her. The only person in the world she really cared about was her father, and he’s dead. Next in line was probably Grant Burks, and he’s dead, too. So you see, I have very serious doubts that anything you say or do will be the slightest bit positive.”
“I have to try, Curt,” Erik said, getting up from the table.
“Try what?” Christy asked as she returned to the room, balancing five-month-old Sarah against her shoulder.
“Your brother believes he has a mission to witness to Cheryl Fair-child, and even though I’ve tried to dissuade him, Erik feels he has to reach her.”
Christy frowned. “To what purpose, Erik?”
“To the purpose of helping her find salvation,” Erik replied. “You may not think her reachable, but I believe there is a great need inside that woman. I don’t intend for her to slip away without at least offering her the means to find her way back to God.”
He left the room, feeling for all the world as though a huge weight had fallen upon his shoulders. For all his time working in the hospital and on the mission field during his summer vacations, Erik had never before had a case present itself in such a way that it demanded his complete attention. But Cheryl Fairchild had stirred up a consciousness inside him that he couldn’t ignore. She was needy and hurting, but then, so were many others he’d seen in his twenty-five years. What exactly made Cheryl different was a mystery to Erik.
Sliding into his aged Chevy pickup, Erik turned the key and listened to the engine roar to life. She might not be much to look at, but even when the windchill registered twenty below zero, this truck would start as smooth and easy as if it were a summer’s day. And with a four-speed transmission and a four-bolt main for an engine, Erik could compete with the newest four-wheelers in exploring the mountainous back roads.
“They just don’t understand,” he said as though the truck were a living companion. “If I don’t at least try to reach her, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”