New Heart Church

by Jim Barringer

  Chapter Three

  The house was eerily quiet till later that night. I knew that my parents would come back at some point, and that we’d have to talk to each other again. I had absolutely no clue what to do when that time came up, if I should raise the topic again and try for some closure or if I should just smile and nod and pretend nothing had happened.

  The question was partially decided by my mother, who cracked open my door to let the smell of pork chops, my favorite, waft in. “Mind if I come in?”

  “Yeah, sure.” There was nothing else in the room to sit on, so I pushed my Bible to the side and made room for her on the bed.

  She came and sat down, heavily, troubled. “You don’t know how many years I’ve wanted to say that to your father.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, son. I’ve felt the same thing for decades.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say something? To him, or to me? Why did you just let him keep being that way?”

  She stared at the ceiling. “It’s not that simple. You saw how he reacted.”

  “Yeah, but…I mean, it’s your marriage. You spend every day with the guy. How could you live like that?”

  Mom chewed on her lip. “I guess I forgot it was supposed to be any better. Maybe I should have said something, for you, if not for myself.”

  “Well, I forgive you for that too.”

  A weak smile was the only response; I got the impression that if she tried to say anything else, she might have burst into tears.

  Feeling bold, I added, “Let me tell you why I thought it was so important to come back and talk about this stuff with you and dad.”

  So I did. I filled her in on everything that had happened to me since I’d moved to Texas, all the friends I’d made, all my encounters with God that ultimately made me decide to follow him. Mom listened, though I had no idea whether any of it stuck with her. Honestly, it seemed as if her mind was somewhere else, perhaps understandably so.

  I wanted to give her a Bible, just in case she had some desire to read it, but the only one I had with me was Danny’s well-loved and marked-up copy. I didn’t know if he’d get upset if I gave it away. I took the chance, though, and with a quiet goodbye, mom left the room, Bible in hand.

  Dinner was ready in half an hour, but it probed new and untold boundaries of awkwardness. Dad seemed to have taken my earlier words as a mortal insult, and he glowered at me over pork chops and mashed potatoes before finally speaking his mind.

  “I don’t know who those people are that you’re friends with down in that place, but you’re going to stop hanging out with them. You will not talk to me the way you did, and you owe me an apology.”

  I threw my fork on my plate. “Talk to you how, dad? Tell you that I forgive you for any mistakes you may have made as a parent? How can you possibly be offended at that?”

  “I told you, there is nothing to forgive me for. I did the best I could. I raised you. I fed you. I provided for you. And you repay me by talking about my mistakes.”

  “All I’m saying is that we could have had a stronger friendship than what we have. Are we friends, dad? When was the last time you called me just to talk?”

  “I’m not a woman, son. I don’t talk, and I don’t know why you feel like I need to.”

  “Once again, you’ve completely missed the point. I’m saying that I want to be friends with you. I want to know that you love me and that you’re proud of me.”

  “You think I don’t love you?” roared my father, pushing himself up, trying to tower over me. Very calmly I stood as well, while he ranted on. “How dare you accuse me of that? I gave everything for you. You think I work forty hours a week at that plant just for the hell of it? I just enjoy standing on a factory line, is that what you think? I fed and clothed you for twenty years. How dare you talk like that in my house?”

  I met his eyes, watched his nostrils flaring. Once again, with him, it all came back to money. Softly, trying to deflect his anger, I asked, “If you really love me that much, would it have killed you to say it once in a while?”

  “Get out of my house!” he bellowed. To my shock, he grabbed me by the shoulders and bodily shoved me toward the door.

  “Be reasonable,” pleaded my mother, trying to get between us, but we were well past that point already.

  Dad pushed me to within arm’s reach of the front door, and then stopped. I turned to face him. “I need to get my things from my room.”

  “Get out of here.” He turned and went back to the kitchen while I, still stunned, went to my room and packed my things back into my duffel bag.

  Was this really happening? Not even twenty-four hours after arriving home for Christmas break, I was being shunted back out the door the day before Christmas eve. With more calm than I was really feeling, I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and headed out to the living room where my mom was still waiting.

  I embraced her, and softly said, “I love you.” I realized as I did that I was, in more ways than I knew, my father’s son. I’d just finished scolding him for never saying those words out loud, but I couldn’t remember ever saying them to my mom.

  “I know you do,” she said. “I’ve never doubted it.”

  “I don’t think I’ve said it often enough. Forgive me?”

  “Of course.”

  I pulled away and stepped into the kitchen once more. “I love you, dad. Please forgive me.”

  “Go away,” he grunted, taking another bite of the pork chops that mom had made because they were my favorite.

  Maybe I should have stayed; maybe he wasn’t serious when he told me to leave. I was just on autopilot, so hurt and so confused that I didn’t know what else to do. In the quiet cold, I crunched across the frozen ground to my truck, where through the curtains I could see mom sitting on the bed, face in her hands.

  Love and forgiveness weren’t supposed to work that way, I thought, slamming the Tahoe into gear and roaring out onto the street. What had gone wrong? Was it me?

  It probably was. I’d been too quick, had jumped straight to the meat of the conversation without building rapport first. I’d been silly and naïve to think that my father would respond to something like that. I was so stupid, so –

  Those thoughts swirled around my head for the half an hour it took me to make it back to the interstate, and about the time I got up to cruising speed, something brought them to a crashing halt.

  “The Lord is my shepherd,” I told myself. “He leads me by still waters.” Then, by myself in the truck, I sang the psalm to the tune I’d written for it. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

  I wasn’t stupid, wasn’t silly or naïve. Those thoughts weren’t from God, and they weren’t my true identity. That wasn’t to say I’d handled the situation as well as I could have, but making a mistake didn’t mean I was worthless. I’d said what I came to say. I’d reconciled with mom, at least. Time would tell if we could build the friendship we could have had all along.

  But even if I’d messed things up beyond recognition, even if I hadn’t reconciled with either parent, I was still God’s beloved child. That was true, and would keep being true no matter what, because it was built on his own steadfast love – I’d read about that in the psalms – and not on my own strength. And that’s what I had to lean on, what I had to tell my own head when it kept trying to tell me other things.

  I almost turned around, maybe half a dozen times, but I felt something stopping me each time, a subtle feeling that I’d said what I came to say and the rest was in God’s hands. I didn’t know what that meant, and I wondered what exactly God was up to, but he’d brought me this far and I imagined he was going to keep providing.

  I ended up driving for a while before spending the night in a crummy motel in an even crummier town in Illinois, only because it was way too cold to sleep in
the back of the truck. The next morning, bleary-eyed and still heavy-hearted, I pointed the truck toward Fort Worth.