Whether God chooses to offer His assurance again or not, I will continue to act in faith. Whether I sense His presence or not, I will keep my eye on the rock and trust He is here, leading.
With those decisions made, the confusion, if not clears, at least dissipates for the moment.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Adelia
May 22, 2017
When I wake, sun filtering in through the open shutters, I stretch, grateful for one of the few restful nights I’ve had while here. I roll over and reach for my phone sitting on the nightstand. When I see I have a message, I’m surprised I slept through the ringing of the phone, then I realize the phone is set to vibrate rather than ring. I must have knocked it sometime last evening and accidentally changed the setting.
I open my voice mail and see the message is from Jaylan—the message came in last night. Odd. She knew not to call me here unless necessary. Is something wrong? I quickly press PLAY and lift the phone to my ear.
“Hey, sorry to bother you. Just got a quick question. You looking at your email? I need you to read your email. Something important came your way several days ago. It’s from your friend Willow. You referred her to me. She signed a release so we can talk. Listen, you need to read her email and give her a call, please, regardless of what else is goin’ on there. I mean it.”
I can tell from Jay’s tone that she meant what she said without her telling me so. Willow… I sit up in the bed and rub my hand over my head, then I climb out, pad across the room, and pull my laptop out of my briefcase.
I climb back in bed with the laptop, and once it’s loaded, I go to my inbox and scroll through until I find the email from Willow. I read it, didn’t I?
Hi Deni,
I know you’re traveling or away somewhere, but I was wondering if we could talk? I’ve been seeing your friend Jaylan, and she suggested I email you and tell you I need to talk to you. She said to tell you it’s important and has something to do with whatever you’re doing.
Before signing off, Willow included her phone number. What could Willow possibly have to tell me that has something to do with what I’m doing here? Did she misunderstand Jaylan? Why didn’t I read her email? What is wrong with me? Then I remember why… The email felt intrusive. It pulled my focus elsewhere and… I set the laptop aside and pick up my phone again. I glance back at the number Willow gave me and key it into my phone. Wait, what time is it? I glance at the corner of the screen. Almost 9:00 a.m.? When have I ever slept that late? I press SEND and pray that Willow will answer.
“Hey, it’s me. Leave a message.”
I sigh. “Willow, this is Deni. I just read your email. I’m so sorry. Give me a call. I’m available all day.”
I end the call and toss the phone on the bed. As I begin to berate myself, a sense of peace settles me and quiets the condemning voice within. “All in Your time,” I whisper. I trust God’s perfect timing. I will hear whatever it is Willow needs to talk to me about when the time is right.
In the meantime, I need coffee. As I climb out of bed, my phone rings. I reach across the bed, grab it, and see the number I just called on the screen. I answer the call as I head for the kitchen. “Willow?”
“Yeah, hi. Sorry, I didn’t recognize your number.”
“No, that’s fine. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner. So, you’re seeing Jaylan?”
“Yeah. Thanks for the referral.”
“You’re so welcome. I’m glad it’s working out for you.”
She’s silent for a moment, then finally starts in. “Um, yeah. So I told her…” There’s a tremor in her voice. “I… I mean…” She trails off again, as though nerves have swallowed her words.
“Willow, take a deep breath.”
I hear her take a ragged breath.
“One more.”
I hear her inhale then exhale, more easily this time. “Whatever you have to say, it’s okay. I’m just here to listen.”
“Okay. So I told Jaylan something… and she said it would be good to tell you too—that it was something you needed to know. I mean, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
She stops and starts several times. Then she tells me what it is she shared with Jaylan. What Jaylan knew I needed to hear. I ask few questions, instead letting Willow fill in the blanks. She shares her own history, her pain, and how something that happened recently triggered what she’d gone through before. She unloads the burden she’s carried and gives it to me. A burden Jay is also carrying now.
“I signed a release. Jaylan asked if I’d be willing, you know, to let you two talk.”
“Thank you, Willow. What you’ve done, what you shared, was hard, I know.” I can’t process everything she’s told me now. It will take time. Still, I know I must look at the pieces she’s handed me and see where they fit. As much as I’d like to, I don’t dare tuck them away. “Thank you,” I say again.
I’ve stood in front of the coffeepot as I listened to Willow’s story. Now I fill a mug and take it out to the deck. I drop into one of the chairs and set the mug on the table next to me. I stare out at the river as Willow’s words replay in my mind. I couldn’t let myself feel the impact of her story as I listened to her. I wanted to remain present for her.
But now…
A tornado of thoughts and emotions clouds my mind.
I can’t process what she’s told me. I don’t want to process it. Yet I know I must.
What does it mean? The implications are… staggering.
Images flash.
How…?
Memories play.
How did I not see?
On their own, the flashing images and memories equate nothing. But added to the information Willow shared…
I come up with a disconcerting sum.
But the total, I sense, is larger than I see now. So much larger.
Despite the heat of the morning, I reach for a beach towel draped across the table and wrap it tightly around me. The warmth it offers is womb-like, protective. But it can’t protect me from this… While it chases the chill from my body, it does little to thaw the cold, hard truth Willow offered.
“It’s unimaginable what people do to each other…”
I get up and go back to the kitchen, where I left my phone. As I walk back outside, the towel draped around my shoulders, I open my contacts and call Jay.
Jay, who on some level has always known…
She answers and speaks for me. “You talked with Willow? She told you? Deni…”
“You knew, Jay. You knew.”
“I did not know. I still don’t know anything except that something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.”
“Jay,” I whisper.
“I know, sister, I know. This is a hard pill to swallow.”
“Do you think…? Did Adelia…?
“What? What are you asking? What are you sayin’?
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know. But there’s more to this. So much more.”
That buoy of discomfort that bobbed to the surface of my consciousness when Sonia asked about Adelia is now anchored and demanding attention.
Questions I pushed down, submerged, so long ago, will be ignored no longer.
“Talk to me, Deni. Talk to me.”
Jay and I talked for hours. For the first time ever, I willingly let the reel of memories unspool, and I shared each one with Jay. Some fit a pattern we were beginning to see; others we couldn’t make sense of. But like a movie on a screen, the story began to unfold.
The beach towel hangs across the arm of the chair on the deck where I still sit, discarded as the sun rose high overhead, blazing without mercy. My mug of coffee remains untouched.
As I consider all that was said between us, all the ground we covered in our conversation, and the ground we’ve walked together for so many years, I am more grateful than ever for the friendship woven through good times and bad. If only Adelia were still part of that tapestry.
Adelia…
I sensed our sto
ries would converge in Three Rivers once again, perhaps on the Kaweah even. While I wanted to adopt her name while I was here, to embody her strength, there was another reason I took her name, but it was one I couldn’t explain.
I still can’t explain it.
But I trust understanding will come.
Now there’s one more conversation I need to have. And it needs to happen today, the one day of the week Ride the Kaweah is closed.
I pick up my phone again and call Mick. He will talk to me this time. He has to.
I sit across from Mick on the deck of The Gateway, that place where our conversation, rather than reaching the ears of others, is lost to the thunder of the rapids.
“Listen, I know you’re angry, but”—Mick takes the toothpick out of his mouth—“Brad isn’t a bad guy. A little messed up maybe.” He shrugs. “Yeah, okay, he’s messed up, but he isn’t violent.”
“He isn’t violent?”
“No.”
I take a deep breath. “How can you say that? I’ve experienced his violence firsthand. Have you forgotten that? He attacked me in my mother’s garage. He waited for me around the side of the house, and when I pulled into the garage, he walked in through that open door and hid until I got out of the car. You can’t tell me he wasn’t violent!” A stray tear runs down my cheek, and I swipe it away. “I have the scar to prove it, Mick. Look!” I turn my head and point to the scar lingering under the tattoo. “He was there. I saw him, I heard him, I felt his hands around my neck!”
Mick leans forward. “He didn’t mean to hurt you. He didn’t. He got a little ahead of himself, that’s all. I know him. I’m telling you, I know him. They never found his prints on that baseball bat, did they? And he swears he didn’t mean to hurt you, and he certainly didn’t hit you with a bat. He didn’t. I don’t know what did happen that night, but I know that. He didn’t hit you with that bat.”
I shake my head. “This is ridiculous.”
“You see now why I didn’t want to have this conversation? I knew you wouldn’t listen to me.”
I exhale and put my hands, palms down on the table. “I’m sorry. I will listen. It’s just… I know what he did to me. I have the proof of it right here.”
“What you think he did to you.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really?”
“Just hear me out.”
I raise my hands in surrender and lean back.
“You remember what I did before I bought Ride the Kaweah?”
I search my mind. “No, I don’t.”
“I was a schoolteacher. That’s right, ’ol Mick isn’t as dumb as you think.”
“I’ve never thought you were dumb, Mick.”
“Well, whatever. I may not have as many degrees as you, but I got a master’s in education, got a credential, and then taught for quite a few years right here in Three Rivers. Started with middle school—a tough age for kids.”
I nod. “Yes, it is.”
“Well, Brad was one of my students. He was scrawny for his age, and he got picked on a lot. Didn’t have the best home life either. Lot of the kids who lived in these hills came from bad situations. You know that. Yeah, we’ve got our artists and business owners, but we’ve also got a lot of druggies. As far as I remember, Brad didn’t have much of a family. No mom, and a dad who used. So when he got picked on, or what you doctor types call bullied today, he had no one to stand up for him.
“Sure, the school stepped in, but it didn’t do much good. Kid finally got scared to say anything to me or any other teacher. Anytime we got involved, he’d get harassed, beat up, you name it. And when he got home from school, there was no one there to help him overcome. Know what I mean?”
I know all too well. Mick is describing the kids I’ve worked with, kids I’ve written case statements about, kids I’ve stood up for in every way I can. Kids whose stories not only broke my heart but also kindled my passion.
Kids whom I ultimately wrote a book for.
An image comes to me of Bradley Mathison at Kepler’s Books the first day I noticed him. He stood behind an endcap watching me, my book in his hand. Then later he peered in through the window at me, my book clutched to his chest. Hadn’t I wondered then if my book had meant something to him?
But putting Bradley Mathison into the same category as those to whom I offered not only sympathy but emotional help? I sigh. As a victim of the man we’re talking about, I can’t seem to separate what I know from what I’ve experienced.
“I kept in touch with Brad when he went on to high school, and then afterward. He dropped out. A couple years later I tutored him—helped him get his GED. He finally ended up joining the army, but he washed out there too. He was a troubled young man, is still troubled, but I will tell you this: he wasn’t violent. He didn’t have it in him. Still doesn’t. I’d stake my life on it. Don’t get me wrong though. He’s angry now. Angrier than I’ve ever seen him. Prison changed him, some for the better maybe. He got some help in there. But not all the change is good. He feels like you ruined his life—stole years from him. Maybe that’s a healthy stance, I don’t know. I know he stole a few years from you too. I get that. I do. But even as angry as he is right now, I really believe he won’t hurt you.” He shakes his head. “It just isn’t in his DNA.”
“What about Adelia? She filed a restraining order against Mathison. You don’t do that kind of thing unless you’re afraid of someone.”
Mick leans forward and lowers his voice, and between clenched teeth, he says, “Deni, it wasn’t Bradley Mathison Addie was afraid of.”
I can barely hear what he’s said over the pounding of the rapids, and it takes me a moment to make sense of his words. As I do, the things Willow said rush back at me, as does my conversation with Jay.
“What… what do you mean?” I don’t need affirmation of what I already know, but I ask for it anyway. “She filed a restraining order against him. She must have been afraid of him.” I repeat my statement more to myself than Mick.
“Addie knew he wasn’t dangerous. She understood him, as much as anyone can understand what someone like that’s gone through. She was pressured into filing for that order. It wasn’t her idea.”
Mouth dry, I reach for my water glass and take a sip, then set it back down. “Who… whose idea was it?”
He looks down at his drink on the table and shakes his head. When he looks back at me, I don’t like what I read in his eyes. “You really need to ask that question?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Adelia
May 23, 2017
I sit at the table in the kitchen, the cool air from the vent above rustling the pad of paper in front of me. I smooth the page where I’ve compiled a list, then add one more name. Before we left The Gateway last night, Mick advised me to take today to work through what he’d told me. He said he’d give my run to another guide. When I protested, he held up his hand. “You need the time. Take it.”
This morning I’m grateful for his foresight. I slept little, if at all, last night. It’s no longer a puzzle I’m collecting pieces to complete. Instead, it’s the movie running in my mind. Memories play as reruns, but with them come previews of what’s to come. As more of the story plays out, it includes twists I never could have predicted. Nor would I have wanted to predict them.
The story is more heinous than I could have imagined.
Yet I can’t help chiding myself for not seeing it as it was happening.
How did I miss the signs?
Is it possible that we only see what we want to believe?
Bradley Mathison isn’t without fault—that I know. But it seems he wasn’t the only antagonist in the production.
The list blurs, and I rub my eyes. I am emotionally spent. Exhausted. But I have to carry on. Not only for my sake but for Adelia’s as well. There is new purpose in my presence here.
I reach for my phone.
These calls won’t be easy, but they are necessary.
Absolutely necessary.
&nb
sp; The first call I make is to the president of Pacific Covenant University.
After what feels like hours on the phone explaining, imparting information, advising, asking questions, and mentally filing away details, I have just one call left to make. Though it’s the most important call, I’ve saved it for last. Because it will take everything I have.
As the line rings, I know he’ll answer, because these days he almost always does.
“Hey, I’m surprised you’re calling. How goes it in the legendary Three Rivers?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Where the other conversations were factual, this one dredges the depths of my emotional well.
“Deni?”
“Yes, sorry…” I swallow.
“You okay? You don’t sound okay.”
“I… know. I will be okay.” While my emotional depths may be dredged, I don’t have to hand all that comes up to Keith. Something I learned later. After. “How is he?”
“My buddy, Nicolo?” I hear the smile in his tone. “Little dude is great. Slaying a video game at the moment.”
“A video…” I shake my head, then smile, though the effort is wearing. “I’m glad he’s with you.” And I am. I am always happy to share Nicky with his father. The time they have together offers Nicky the normalcy and fun—oh, so much fun—that I can’t provide. “Can you talk for a few minutes?”
“Yep. He’s already whipped me. I’ll just let him keep racking up points. By the way, he is doing great, but he misses you. He asks about you every day.”
I clear my throat. “I miss him too,” I whisper.
“So what’s up?”
“I need to tell you something, and it’s serious and it’s going to require you to take some precautions. I’m sorry, but—”
“What’s going on? Fill me in.” His tone is serious now.
I close my eyes. How I longed to hear those words from him years ago, yet he couldn’t offer them then. But he has grown. He’s worked hard to grow. We are not the people we were when we married or when we divorced. We are healthier, stronger, wiser. Keith isn’t just Nicky’s father; he is the best father I can imagine for my son. Perhaps with the exception of my own father, there isn’t a better role model I’d choose for Nicky.
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