| |
Nora
Nora woke up in her chair with the Bible on her lap. Her cheeks were chapped from her tears. She reached up to touch them as if to make sure her face was still there. She was living in a waking nightmare. She didn’t know if she would survive it.
She looked down at the pages on her lap. She had to survive it. She had to survive this so that she could make sure Levi survived it. She checked her phone for messages, but there weren’t any. Her social media post was garnering lots of supporting comments and shares, but no useful information.
She had to use the bathroom. How annoying that amid such giant problems she would still have to deal with trivial things like a bladder. She picked up the Bible and went to set it on the chair beside her, still open, as if she were afraid to lose the page. She caught herself doing this and wondered why? She couldn’t even remember where she’s been reading. Why was she trying to save her place? As she closed the book, she was filled with disgust. She’d spent most of the night reading the Bible and praying, and Levi was still gone. Fat load of good that did.
She went down the hallway, used the bathroom, splashed some cold water on her face, and then as she brushed her teeth, her eyes landed on Levi’s toothbrush, and something in her broke.
She dropped her toothbrush in the sink and sank to the floor, sobbing. His toothbrush. He was away from home, and he didn’t have his toothbrush. She tipped over and lay her cheek on the cold linoleum. And she cried. One after another, sobs wracked her body with enough force to hurt. But this pain brought her comfort—she deserved to suffer, didn’t she? She’d lost her son. She’d done such a bad job of mothering that she’d lost her son. And now she didn’t know if he was dead. Would she ever know? She would rather he be dead than suffer this not knowing. No, she corrected herself. That wasn’t true. She’d rather suffer every moment for eternity than have her son be dead.
Knocking.
She stopped sobbing and listened.
It came again.
She picked her head up and wiped her face on her sleeve.
Again.
It occurred to her that it might the police, and she hurriedly pulled herself to her feet. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—what a fright. She didn’t even look like herself. She couldn’t answer the door like this. Levi would be so embarrassed. She grabbed a washcloth and quickly washed her face and then tried to gather her hair up into a bun on her way to the door.
She slightly lifted a living room curtain and peeked outside.
It wasn’t the police.
It was Jason DeGrave. What was he doing here? Maybe he’d heard something! She hurried to the door and ripped it open.
“Morning,” Jason said somberly. “I just wanted to check in, see if you’d heard from Levi?”
Her heart sank. She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
Jason nodded. “All right.” He looked over his shoulder at the street. “This may seem kind of weird, but would you like to go to my church? I was thinking we could pray for Levi.”
She sneered. “Pray for Levi? Yeah. Go ahead. You pray your heads off. I, on the other hand, am going to go looking for him. Again.” She slammed the door shut. Then she turned and leaned against it. Seconds later she heard Jason walking away and felt guilty. He was a good kid, and he’d been trying to be nice. But that was ridiculous. She didn’t have time to go to church. Why hadn’t he offered to help instead of offering to pray? Praying wasn’t going to do anything. Obviously.
She stood up. She needed to get a move on. It was daylight, and she needed to get back to looking. She grabbed her sneakers and sat to lace them up. Sunlight spilled in through the window, bright as hope. At least the rain had stopped.
For now. She stood and looked out the window. The bare branches of fall were whipping to-and-fro. It was still windy out. It wasn’t warm. As she stepped back from the window, she noticed that the Bible on the chair was open again. How had that happened? She’d shut it—she knew she had. She turned and looked at the door. Had the wind blown it open? Probably. She reached down to shut it again and saw that one of the verses on the page had been highlighted.
Her heart ached. Her father. She reached down and touched the yellow. She’d read dozens of verses the night before and hadn’t encountered a single one that had been highlighted. Many had been underlined in pencil, but she hadn’t seen any yellow. Did this mean something, or had he not been able to find a pencil that day?
She fell to her knees to read the verse that her father had found so exciting, and she saw that he’d written something in the margin beside the verse. Not being able to quite make it out, she rotated the Bible. It looked like “Ready. Daily.” Or maybe that was “Read. Daily.” Her eyes slid to the verse: And these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, receiving the word with all readiness of mind, daily searching the scriptures if these things were so.
What? What on earth did that mean? Her eyes scanned the chapter, desperate for context. Her tired brain tried to process. This Paul guy went to some Jews and was using the scriptures to reason with them. This surprised her a little, as she didn’t think the Bible had anything to do with reason. Anyway ... she forced herself to focus. So some believed and joined Paul’s little cult, but others got jealous and got a riot going. Sounded about right. Not much about human behavior had changed in the last two thousand years. But Paul and Silas sneaked off to somewhere called Berea. She stopped reading. So what? She looked at her father’s note again. Ready. Daily. She went back to the verse. These people from Berea received the word with readiness of mind and searched the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was legit. That made sense, but she didn’t know why it would be significant to her father. Something stabbed at her heart. How she wished she could just ask him. How much she wished he were here for this crisis. He might not be able to fix it, but he would be able to comfort her.
She grabbed the Bible and turned around so she could sit on the floor. Then she read the verse again. And again. She knew she should get up and go look for her son, but there was something oddly comforting in this small mystery she’d found.
Her father had written, “Ready. Daily.”
It hit her like a bolt of electricity. Be ready. Every day. That’s what he was saying. Receive God’s words daily and then search the scriptures daily. Yes, that was it! That’s why he liked this verse. He wanted to be like those people from Berea. Knowing the version of her father who had existed at the end of his life, this made perfect sense.
Her heart sank a little. She’d listened to God for one night and then gotten angry that he hadn’t answered. Apparently she was supposed to be doing this every day. She sighed and closed the Bible. She had to go look for Levi, but she didn’t put the Bible down. She didn’t know why, it didn’t feel rational, but she didn’t want to let go of it. She grabbed her coat, purse, and keys and then she stepped outside, her right hand tightly clutching the leather-covered book in her hand.
