The Atonement Child

by Francine Rivers

  When she lost their first baby, the rough, vibrant weave of their relationship began to unravel. In a moment of weakness and grieving, she came clean and told Douglas about the other child, Jerry’s child. Douglas held her and cried with her, and she thought he understood. He did in his head, but his heart was haunted by her relationship with another man. Her despair reminded him piercingly that she had loved someone else, loved him enough to go that far. What if she’d loved this other man more? What if she still loved him?

  He struggled to get past it all. He worked through it intellectually, reasoning and justifying and excusing. But logic didn’t dissolve his feelings of hurt and betrayal. It wasn’t rational. He admitted to her he knew it wasn’t. Not in today’s world, where anything goes and there is no black and white or right and wrong. But there it was, like a wound he couldn’t stop tearing open. It would begin to heal, and he’d rip away the scab. Someone else had been in her life, and that someone had taken her innocence and destroyed her ability to trust. And poor Douglas was stuck with what was left. Oh, he forgave her. Countless times. Or so he told her. But after a while, she just stopped believing him. Forgiveness meant forgetting, didn’t it? But she’d see that look in his eyes, and the monster would come to dwell in their living room again. Even when they pretended it wasn’t there, it was there. Silent. Putrid. Corrupting. Destroying.

  Paradoxically, Douglas hated Jerry. He even said to her once that he’d like to find him and beat the living daylights out of him for what he had done to her. It didn’t seem to occur to Douglas that had things been different, had Jerry been different, she would never have met him on the bus and married him.

  But then maybe that was part of it too. Or so she thought in her own confusion and pain and self-recrimination. Maybe Douglas wished things had happened differently so he wouldn’t have to suffer with her for something she had done before she ever knew him.

  All of it haunted Hannah.

  And drove her.

  After losing their second child, she and Douglas went to church. It was an act of desperation. “We’ve tried everything else. We might as well try God,” he said that morning when they backed out of the garage. On the way home, Douglas said he knew what had been missing in their marriage: Jesus. That’s what they needed to fix themselves. So they began going to church regularly. They joined a Bible study. They joined the choir. Their relationship improved, but the ghosts were still there, occupying the house. Occupying their lives.

  Then everything changed for Douglas. After one private meeting with the pastor, he never mentioned Jerry or the lost child again. Even when she brought it up, Douglas refused to discuss it. “All that’s over and done with, Hannah. What happened then has nothing to do with you and me. I love you. That’s all that matters.”

  The words were meant to comfort, but they didn’t. It wasn’t finished for her. Swallowing her shame enough to ask questions, she learned from her doctor that abortions sometimes did cause problems in later pregnancies. And then he said the abortifacients her general practitioner had prescribed, and which she had taken for seven years, might also have compounded the difficulties she was having in conceiving and carrying a child to term. She had never heard the word before that day. Abortifacient. He had to explain that the birth control pills she had been using weren’t made to prevent conception but to abort early pregnancies.

  And then she knew.

  God hated her for what she had done.

  There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord among brothers.

  Hadn’t she done all of that? She had been too proud to seek help. She had sought a way out, any way out, and then had lied to get the money for an abortion, sacrificing her unborn child. And since then, she had lied to herself and others. She could remember saying in countless office conversations that she thought women should have the right to have an abortion, even while her heart cried out against it. Oh, she had been politically correct. That was so important these days. She had been astute, glib, tolerant in the world’s eyes. Sowing seeds of destruction.

  Why had she done it? To hide her shame? To pretend the past couldn’t harm her? To avoid condemnation?

  And what had she accomplished? She was ashamed, hurting, and condemned anyway. She could make a hundred excuses for herself—and did—but none mattered. None helped heal the secret pain within her because her own blood cried out against her.

  You can’t run away from God!

  Jonah had tried, and look how far he got.

  It was there, always there, staring her in the face. Trumpets on the walls of the holy city. She was on the outside looking up at the stones that protected those inside.

  God was punishing her.

  And why shouldn’t He? She had taken from Him, and now He would take back from her. How many before the score is even? How many, Lord?

  Mea culpa. Mea culpa!

  Finally, in desperation, she went before the Lord and gave herself to Him to do with as He wanted, promising that whatever issued from her womb would belong to Him. If God would grant her a child, she promised to raise up him or her to love Jesus above all else.

  And Dynah was born. Blessed Dynah, the joy of her life. She could finally breathe again. She could kneel and drink the living water beside the streams. She could slake her desert thirst. Praise God! She was forgiven.

  At least, that was what she’d thought. Until now. Now it seemed God had just been biding His time until He found a more painful way of punishing her.

  If this is the way it has to be, Lord, so be it.

  Hannah leaned her head back and looked up through eyes blurred with tears at the stained-glass window of a dove flying above a turbulent sea. Oh, Lord, will I never be at peace? Better I had never tasted the joy of redemption than to have it stripped from me like this.

  She was going to have to walk the sorrow road with Dynah and go through it all over again. All she could see ahead were the women in Ramah weeping for their children because they were no more.

  “Smells good,” Ethan said, taking the chair near the window and stretching his long legs out beneath the small kitchenette table.

  Joe put a plate with eight strips of crispy bacon on the table. Turning back to the stove, he removed the frying pan and scraped scrambled eggs onto two plates. He set one down in front of Ethan. Before sitting down himself, he ran water into the frying pan. “You want some coffee?”

  “Yeah. Why not? I could use a jolt of caffeine this morning to get going.”

  Joe took another mug from the cabinet.

  “I’ll do the honors,” Ethan said when Joe joined him.

  Joe bowed his head and listened to his roommate’s fulsome eloquence. His words dripped with sincerity, adoration, and gratitude.

  “Did you call Dynah yet?”

  The muscles tightened on Ethan’s face, and his eyes flickered to Joe briefly before he picked up his fork. “I called her.”

  Joe raised his brows slightly.

  Ethan ate two bites of egg before saying more. “Okay. I said I was sorry about how things turned out. I wished her well.”

  “That’s it? She went home. So you can write her off?”

  His head came up again, blue eyes flashing with anger. “That’s a lousy way of putting it!”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” Joe said, hanging on to his cool with difficulty.

  “What was I supposed to do? Chase after her? Beg her to come back? Dean Abernathy’s the one who gave her the options, not me! Blame him.”

  “What options?” Joe shot back.

  Ethan’s face reddened. “Look! She gave the ring back. I didn’t ask for it.”

  “Didn’t you? Seems to me you asked for more than you got.”

  “And you’d like to give me what I deserve, right? Well, go ahead. Take your best shot!” He scraped his chair ba
ck and stood.

  Leaning back in his chair, Joe considered it, but one long, hard look at his friend’s face erased the anger. Ethan knew only too well what part he’d played in Dynah’s flight. Joe didn’t say anything more. He’d said more than enough already. Who did he think he was to judge and condemn?

  Ethan sat down slowly. “It’s over, Joe. Leave well enough alone.”

  Joe knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t over. Never would be. Ethan was going to remember every time he faced a similar situation. And, as a pastor, he was going to face things like this time and again over the years to come.

  “You weren’t there,” Ethan said quietly. “You didn’t see the look on her face. You didn’t hear her voice.”

  “She’s hurt.”

  “And you think I’m not? It doesn’t do any good to mourn over what might have been.”

  They ate breakfast in silence. When they finished, Ethan took Joe’s plate and stacked it on his own. “I’ll wash.” He stood and went to the sink, putting in the plug and running hot water.

  Joe sat staring at his coffee mug. He read the inscription emblazoned in red: Seize the Day. Everything clicked. Like a light going on in his head. “I’ve decided against taking the job in Chicago.”

  “Get a better offer?”

  “No. I think it’s time I do what I’ve been talking about for the past four years. Round out my education.” He smiled faintly. Fool! Fool! What chance do you have? “I got the okay from Cal a month ago.” Divine providence? “I’ve held off making a decision.” Wishful thinking.

  “Cal Berkeley?” Ethan put the dishes in the frying pan and ran water over them. “That’ll be culture shock.”

  “Yeah,” Joe said, holding his mug up. “This Galilean is heading for Corinth to do a little fishing.”

  It didn’t hurt that Berkeley was just across the bay from San Francisco.

  Douglas arrived at SFO at 3:40. He’d learned long ago to carry his luggage on board rather than tempt the fates or baggage handlers. He walked down the long corridor among the throng of passengers deplaning or rushing for their flights. Passing the security station, he took the stairs. Some of the passengers who had hurried off the aircraft ahead of him were crowding around the turnstiles. All their rushing was for naught. He’d be in his car and out of the parking garage before the metal monster started moving and vomiting their luggage.

  Slowing his pace, Douglas stepped onto the moving walkway. He set his rolling suitcase to one side so others in a hurry could walk past it without difficulty. He stood thinking over his past few days in Los Angeles, mentally checking off what he’d been sent to accomplish. He couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. He’d made all his contacts, presented the proposal. The amended, signed contract was in his briefcase. There’d be a bonus coming from it. So why this premonition of disaster?

  He hadn’t slept well last night. Something had been eating at him, rousing the old dreams of mayhem. Why?

  His jaw stiffened. Why? He knew why. He just didn’t want to go through it again.

  He’d called Hannah as he always did when he was away. Every evening like clockwork. He liked hearing the sound of her voice just before turning in for the night. She used to accuse him of checking up on her. In the beginning, when they were mired in problems, that might have been partly true. He’d needed to know she was there waiting for him. He’d wanted to remind her he loved her more than anyone else. More than that other guy who’d used and abandoned her.

  But that reason had been set aside long ago. They’d rebuilt the foundations and remodeled the dwelling of their relationship. They trusted one another now.

  Or so he thought.

  They’d been married twenty-seven years. She ought to be secure by now. So should he.

  His heart still did a flip when he looked at her. The curve of her body, her eyes, the way she moved. There were times when he’d get the same jolt he did the first time he saw her running to catch the city bus. Yet, even after twenty-seven years, there were times when he wondered if she loved him, really loved him. Or if she’d just made do.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe it was how much he loved her that left him feeling vulnerable, out in the open with the guns raised and taking aim.

  Most of the time, he knew she loved him. She did everything right to prove she did. She’d shown him in a hundred different little ways. Then there would be a flicker of doubt raised by something inconsequential. Something indefinable. He’d feel it in something she’d say, or her tone, see it in a look in her eyes, sense it in the distance she put between them, a stretch of no-man’s-land he had never quite been able to cross. Life with Hannah was a minefield.

  Like last night.

  They’d talked, but they hadn’t said anything. She was distracted.

  And he knew. She was thinking about it again.

  It had been so long, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be shut out.

  The punch. The shock. The fear-arousing anger. His heart was already pumping with it. He had to push it down, reason it out of existence. Pastor Dan had said to leave it alone. To forget the past. Forgiveness meant never bringing the issue up again. Not even thinking about it. It meant burying what happened so deep it was gone.

  Jesus, I’ve tried. I’ve really tried.

  What’s more, he thought he’d done it. Now, here it was again, like cracked macadam, the weeds coming up fast and furious, breaking through to the surface.

  Picking up his suitcase, Douglas strode along the walkway, stepped off the end, and headed for the elevators. He was in a hurry to get home.

  His car was parked on the third level. Pressing the small remote, he shut off the car alarm, opened the trunk, and deposited his suitcase and briefcase. Slamming it, he thumbed the remote to unlock his car door.

  What had been going on at home while he was in Los Angeles? Had she been watching some depressing movie that reminded her of the past? Had a friend cried on her shoulder? Had the issue come up in another sermon? Why couldn’t people stop talking about abortion? Why did it have to be in the papers every other day? Why couldn’t everyone shut up about it?

  But he knew well enough any number of things could have roused the old pain in her.

  He drove up to the pay booth and handed the attendant the parking stub. His stomach clenched with impatience; his fingers drummed the steering wheel. Three days equals sixty bucks, he wanted to say, but the man still had to punch the numbers into the computer and wait for the screen to flash. When it did, Doug was ready with a hundred-dollar bill. It would’ve been cheaper to take a taxi to the airport, but he’d been in a hurry. He got forty in change and a receipt for tax purposes. Tossing both onto the passenger seat, he drove beneath the rising steel arm that had blocked his exit and gunned it down the ramp.

  Weaving his car into the traffic leaving the airport, he reached the right lane. As soon as he was on the freeway heading north to San Francisco, he picked up speed, turned on the radio, opened the console, and fed a CD into the player.

  Sixties music blasted. “Come on, baby, light my fire. . . .”

  Hannah had lost her taste for it years ago, preferring Christian contemporary, classical, and a host of other music styles, including the New Age instrumentals. He liked Elvis, Ricky Nelson, the Doors, the Eagles, and a dozen others from the same era. He knew every song by heart and loved them all. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe they reminded him of a more innocent time in his life, a time before reality took hold. Or maybe they reminded him of the things he’d survived. Drinking and partying in high school. Joining the Marines as soon as he turned eighteen. Going to Vietnam. Seeing friends die. Coming back to flag burnings and accusations. It still ate at him. All of it.

  He veered away from those thoughts. He’d schooled himself to stay clear of them, clear of the bitterness they roused. Still, like thousands of other men who’d fought to save something they couldn’t put words around, he’d felt cheated.

  Life hadn’t made sense in those days.

&n
bsp; It had all made sense when he saw Hannah. Not once in the early hiatus days had he suspected the battle fatigue she suffered. With a frustrated sigh, he pushed the thoughts of the past away. He stared out the car window, seeking a distraction. Nineteenth Avenue traffic was backed up.

  He turned the volume down on the radio and let his mind mull over business transactions and possibilities. It was a habit of long practice, a survival technique. When emotions got too high, better to pour them into something where they were useful. Channel the energy into business, and something productive might develop; pour emotions into a relationship, and you got a range fire.

  He’d worked out his next week’s schedule by the time he got home.

  Tapping the remote to open the garage door, he noticed the Toyota parked in front of the house, NLC sticker in the window. Dynah! Joy swept over him. His little princess was home. And then it hit him, a tidal wave of cold misgiving.

  Oh, Jesus.

  She wasn’t due home for another week. Something was wrong.

  Hannah was in the kitchen cutting up peeled potatoes and putting them in a pot to boil. She smiled, picking up a towel to dry her hands as she came to him. “Welcome home,” she said, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “You look tired.”

  “I didn’t sleep well last night.” He put his things down by the back door, then moved to her. Slipping his hand beneath her hair, he tipped her chin. “I don’t sleep well when you’re not next to me.” He kissed her full on the mouth.

  She broke off the kiss and smiled at him. “I was just getting dinner started,” she said, withdrawing. “You must be hungry.”

  The kitchen was small enough that she couldn’t go far. Douglas slid his hand down her hip. “Starving.” She moved slightly, a small hitch of tension that told him to back off. Annoyed and covering it, he leaned his hip against the kitchen counter. “I saw Dynah’s car out front. Where is she?”

  “Sleeping. She arrived yesterday afternoon, exhausted. She went to bed and hasn’t gotten up yet. I thought it best to let her sleep as long as she needs.”