Make Haste Slowly

by Amy K Rognlie

  “Brandon is going to show me how to do Twitterface next, aren’t you, Brandon?”

  I pressed my lips together for a second, not daring to meet Brandon’s eyes until I got my composure. “Facebook, Auntie,” I said, conscious of the smell of his aftershave lingering on my hand.

  “Isn’t that what I said?” She patted her laptop. “Now all I need is one of those intelligent phones like you all have and I’ll be all set.”

  Set for what?

  I raised my eyebrows at Brandon.

  He shrugged. “Why not? Lots of people her age know how to text.”

  “And Harry even knows how to do that gram thing,” Aunt Dot said proudly.

  Harry was on Instagram? Even I didn’t bother with Instagram.

  “Who would you call on your smartphone, Aunt Dot?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you, Callie?” Aunt Dot tossed Brandon a smile. “An old woman can still have some secrets.”

  Wow. Okay, then. Something was definitely going on here. “What—”

  “So when are you going to go out with me?”

  What? The man sure wasn’t shy.

  “I, um…I’m super busy this weekend.” And I hadn’t been on a date in years. I looked at Aunt Dot, but I wasn’t going to get any help from that direction.

  “No worries. Let’s plan for next week. Do you like Chinese?”

  I still wasn’t quite sure how it happened or how I felt about it, but there it was.

  “Somehow, I have a date with Brandon next weekend. At Shanghai Gardens,” I told Mona the next day when she popped into my shop.

  “What?” Mona made a face. “What about Todd?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not like we’re in a relationship or anything.” I picked at the moss on one of Jenna’s table decorations.

  “But…Brandon?”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s not your type, Callie.” She pulled her hand through her spiky hair, and I noticed her fingernails were painted in pink and black checks today. “And I don’t think he’s a believer.”

  I frowned. “Aunt Dot would never encourage me to get involved with someone who—”

  “Callie, your aunt is eighty years old. Brandon tells her what she wants to hear.”

  I didn’t like what she was insinuating. “But—”

  She held up her hand to stop me. “All I’m saying is that I don’t trust him. Never have. And why are you so willing to go out on a date now? I mean, I know I told you to start letting people in. But not someone like him.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I do miss having someone to be with.”

  My phone dinged and I glanced at it to see a text from Todd. Good timing.

  “Callie, did you read yesterday’s newspaper?” I read the text out loud. “If not, you might want to.”

  “Ooh, that was romantic. Is that the kind of texts you usually get from Todd?” Mona gave me a sassy grin. “No wonder you’re willing to go out with Brandon.”

  I rolled my eyes. “This is why I don’t tell you things.”

  She smirked at me, but folded her hands in her lap. “I’ll be good. Why does he want you to read the paper?”

  “Maybe there’s some kind of development with the case.”

  But why would information about the case come out in the newspaper before I had heard about it? Aren’t the people involved in a murder case told about these things before the details are released to the public?

  I texted Todd back: “I haven’t, but I will. Thanks!”

  I usually read the newspaper in the evening when I got home from the shop, but I hadn’t had time to last night, and now I was curious. “Mona, pull up the Star website for me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She whipped out her enormous phone. “Yesterday’s news, Todd said?”

  “Yep.” I leaned over her shoulder. “Do you see anything about it?”

  She scrolled through. “Hmm, let’s see. The Lutheran church will be having their monthly senior adult soup supper tonight. Maybe he’s subtly asking you on a date. Ha ha.”

  Oh, puh-leeze. “Mona—”

  “Here’s the police report. Hmm. Nothing there about your case. Wait. Oh my gosh, Callie!”

  “What?”

  She held up her phone about an inch from my face. “Is this Dot? Your Dot?”

  I took the phone and zoomed in. Aunt Dot in the newspaper? I scrolled down. Of all the crazy things—

  “I think we discovered Aunt Dot’s secret,” I told Mona. I handed the phone back to her.

  “What?” She looked at the screen and then at me. “‘Just Ask Dot’? What is that?”

  “I believe my aunt is the new advice columnist for the newspaper.” I sank down onto my stool. “So that’s what she’s been doing all of this time on her laptop. And learning to email and everything.”

  “Like the person people write to for advice when they’re super mad that their daughter-in-law doesn’t clean her bathroom as often as she should?”

  “I think so. Read that one under the headline that says ‘Cat Owner in a Conundrum’.”

  Mona fingered her pink hooped earring. “Girlfriend, I don’t even know what a conundrum is.”

  Well, I do. And I had a feeling that the one I was in was about to get worse.

  Chapter Nine

  I was right.

  First, I went to get my hair trimmed and came back home looking like I had gotten in a fight with Fluffers.

  Then, I attended the sex trafficking seminar at church, and God broke my heart. Right there, as I sat weeping next to Todd, I had a suspicion of what was going on with Sherm’s granddaughter. The last speaker, a woman whose daughter had been trapped into a sex trafficking ring right here in Central Texas, had given me a new perspective.

  I had known, vaguely, that the pimps often used drugs to keep the girls in their control. I had understood that sex trafficking was not a far-away thing that was happening only in third-world countries. But until tonight, I hadn’t encountered the personal pain of a family right here in my backyard who had lived the nightmare. The frantic calls in the night for a parent to come rescue. The threats to the family from the pimp. The pregnancy—

  Dear God. I didn’t know. I sat there in the pew, remembering Nicole’s conversation I had overheard on the night of the Fourth of July, how I had felt in my spirit that something was terribly wrong. She had been pleading with someone for a little more time. And I hadn’t done anything about it. Not even whispered a prayer for her.

  Maybe I was jumping to conclusions, but I knew I had to do something.

  “Can you stay afterward for a few minutes?” I whispered to Todd.

  He nodded and squeezed my hand for a second.

  I’m sure my elderly neighbor didn’t have any idea of the life his granddaughter might be leading. And I, a mind-my-own-business and stay-at-a-distance Christian, had never even gone out of my way to pay attention to what was going on right next door to me. I had excused myself for too long. I dropped my head into my hands.

  In all fairness, I had gone through more than one traumatic event in my life. I had needed time to heal and to regain my shaken faith. I had had to wrestle with everything I had ever believed about God and His Word, until I came out of the tunnel on the other side. But I had left the tunnel long ago, and what I had excused as “time to heal” had begun to turn into…apathy? No, that wasn’t the right word. It was self-centeredness, if I was brutally honest.

  Clearly, God was prodding me to leave my comfort zone and get busy doing Kingdom work again. I knew the prompting of the Holy Spirit and to ignore Him would be disobedience. I sighed. Long ago, I had learned that I might as well surrender at the get-go to, as Elizabeth Goudge called it, “the extraordinary contrariness of God’s will.” Contrary to my lazy human flesh. Contrary to my introverted comfort zone. Contrary to the illusion that I, and not God, am in control of my own life.

  To argue was futile and only prolonged the inevitable. Wh
at would You have me do, Lord? I surrender myself again to Your will, Your calling—

  “Callie?” Todd laid a hand on my shoulder.

  I lifted my head, realizing that everyone else was leaving the sanctuary. It was strikingly quiet; the congregation seemingly sobered into silence.

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  He shook his head. “It’s sickening, isn’t it?”

  “Can you come back to the house for a few minutes?” I asked. “I need to tell you something.” Normally, I wouldn’t have been so forward, but I had to confide in someone about Nicole, and I knew Todd would understand.

  He glanced at his watch, then nodded. “I’ll follow you home so I can leave from there,” he said. “I’ve got to pick Luke up at ten.”

  He followed me as I stopped to say goodbye to Mona, and she pulled me into a silent hug, the handle of her umbrella jabbing into my stomach. “We’ve got to do something, Callie,” she whispered.

  I drew back to look into her eyes. Was she feeling what I was? “Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”

  Todd and I edged out of the crowded church into the humid night. It had been raining when I entered the church, but now it was only a light, warm drizzle.

  I shivered, and Todd squeezed me in a quick side hug.

  We walked across the parking lot in silence, then paused as one to look at the night sky. I still consciously delighted in living out here in the country, where I could see more stars than I ever knew existed. And God had lovingly created and named each one.

  Exactly like He knew and loved each one of those precious girls who were trapped in—

  “I hope your battery isn’t dead.” Todd strode toward my van. “Looks like your interior light was left on somehow.”

  I turned to look at the same time Todd yelled.

  “Watch out!”

  I jumped and kind of fell sideways into the rear end of someone’s car, then knocked my head on the bumper on my way down. I landed hard on the pavement. What was going on?

  “Callie.” Todd’s whisper came from my left a few seconds later. “Are you okay?”

  I smelled the cinnamon on his breath before I opened my eyes to find him crouched next to me. How had he gotten there without me hearing him? “What happened?”

  “Shh.” He shook his head. “Someone had been messing with your van. When I got close to it, I heard a gun cock. Thought someone was going to try to take a shot at you.”

  I stared at him from where I lay frozen to the pavement. Why was he still whispering? Were we in danger?

  “Who was it? Is he gone?”

  “I don’t know. I called Earl.”

  A lot of good that would do. I’d rather go home and have a cup of tea than talk to Sheriff Earl again. “Can I get up now?”

  He glanced around. “Yes, but stay low. We’re relatively hidden between these two vehicles and—”

  “Callie? Is that you? What are y’all doing under the truck?”

  Mona’s face appeared in my line of vision, her yellow smiley-face earrings oddly out of place in my world at the moment.

  “Shh! Someone was breaking into my van and—”

  She straightened up and held her oversized umbrella in attack mode. “Where? I don’t see anyone. And where is that lazy sheriff when somebody needs him? Did you call him, Todd?” She peered down at us again.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “But—”

  “Well, here he is. Better late than never. I have a few things to say to that man. All of this crime happening right here in Short Creek, and he’s not doing a thing about it that I can tell.” She stomped toward the patrol car, heedless of the puddles.

  Todd helped me to my feet, but I was glad to hang onto his arm for a minute. My legs wouldn’t stop shaking.

  An hour later, Todd sat across from me at my tiny kitchen table. Intarsia snuggled on my lap while I nursed a mug of tea.

  “I think you need to start at the beginning, Callie.”

  I wrapped my hands around my mug. I couldn’t seem to get warm, even though it was a hot night in July. “I don’t think you have enough time in your life for me to start at the beginning.”

  He smiled at me. “You don’t have to cover it all tonight. We have time.”

  We? I liked the sound of that. I also liked the sound of his voice, and the thick dark lashes around his blue eyes—

  “Callie?”

  He was smiling again at me, and it was making me feel lightheaded, apparently. Or maybe it was because I had smacked my head on the back of Sister Erma’s Buick. I hoped the bump on my forehead didn’t look as big as it felt.

  Get a grip, Callie.

  “I can’t think of anything that I’ve done that would cause someone to try to harm me.”

  Couldn’t I? Yes, actually I could. But so much time had passed. Why would—

  “But clearly, someone has something against you.”

  “Either that or it’s a whole string of unrelated incidents.” One could always hope, right?

  “No way.” Todd had his cop face on now.

  I blew out my breath. This was so hard. “You know I moved here from Ohio.”

  He nodded.

  “Okay. Here’s the short version. My husband, after suffering from ALS for a couple of years, was killed in a car accident five years ago. His brother was severely injured in the crash and is partially paralyzed.” I stroked Intarsia’s silky head. “I was too much of a wreck to go back to my job as a school social worker right away, you know?”

  He nodded again. “It’s a tough profession.”

  That was an understatement. “So, I got my Preschool Director’s Certification. I figured it was still along the lines of my experience, only from a different angle.”

  “I can definitely see you as a social worker.” He took a sip of his iced tea, then set the glass down. “But you don’t strike me as a preschool teacher type.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, well. Like I said, I was kind of a mess. One of my friends suggested it, and it sounded like something doable at the time.”

  “But?”

  But.

  But it was harder than I thought. But I should have told. But I waited too long. But I am responsible for a little girl’s death. But…God.

  Every situation in my life came down to that one thing. But God.

  I should be lost and without hope. But God.

  I should be destitute. But God.

  I should be in the nuthouse. But God.

  I should be on my way to hell. But God.

  I should be…but God. But God.

  My life. I owed Him my life.

  I heard the air conditioner kick on while I fingered Intarsia’s velvety ears.

  “Callie?” Todd’s voice was soft, encouraging.

  A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down. It would be good for me to tell the story. It had been so long since I’d let myself open up to another person besides Aunt Dot.

  “There was a little girl at our preschool named Marleigh. She was a beautiful child, Todd. Not just outwardly beautiful, but she had a gentle, loving little spirit.”

  I bit my lip, waiting until I could speak again. “I often thought that if I ever had a little girl, I’d want her to be like Marleigh.”

  Todd scooted his chair around close to mine and took my hand.

  I leaned my head against his shoulder, thankful that he cared enough to share in my pain. “As you well know, a preschool director is a mandatory reporter.”

  I felt him stiffen, and I knew he had guessed the rest of my story. “It was Marleigh’s birth father. He…he still had rights to see her for a few hours every week. I started to suspect, but I didn’t have proof. I thought I should have proof before I got involved in other people’s lives.”

  I groaned out loud, the grief and the horror flooding over me again. “I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can.” He took my chin in his hand and lifted my face until I looked in his eyes. “Get it out in the light, honey.”

  I
took a deep breath. “He murdered her. He took her and…and…I could have saved her life! I knew in my heart that he was doing terrible things, but I didn’t say anything. And then I was the one who f-found her. Oh, God—”

  I doubled over, wailing. Like I did on that day so long ago. I couldn’t help it. It was like the grief needed to be expressed through this horrible noise forcing itself out of my mouth. It had been a long time since I had floundered under the waves of despair like I was now. “Oh, God, help me. I should have—”

  Todd laid a hand on my shoulder, but I jerked away and stood, bracing myself on the edge of the kitchen counter, my back to him. I stared into the darkness outside my kitchen window. Jesus?

  I am here.

  Jesus. Jesus. I pictured myself wrapped in His arms, my head against His chest. It was enough.

  No. He was enough.

  I drew my finger through a cool drop of water on the counter, not ready to look into someone else’s eyes yet. “I didn’t say anything because I was afraid. I had finally made up my mind to tell, but then…he—I—it was too late. And it’s my fault! Because I was afraid. God, have mercy on me! God, have mercy—”

  “No.” Todd turned me around and gathered me to his chest.

  I didn’t have the strength to push away, but I knew I didn’t deserve any comfort.

  He held me tight while he whispered against my hair. “You cannot take the blame for what this monster did to his child.”

  I shook my head. “But I—”

  “God saw it all.” Todd smoothed my hair down my back. “And one day, He will right all of the wrongs.”

  “I know. But if I hadn’t waited that extra day. If I would have been braver…”

  “Listen to me.” He pushed me away from him so he could look me in the eye. “Did you do what you knew to do at the time? Did you do your best?”

  Did I? I think I did.

  I hugged Marleigh often and told her how much I loved her and God loved her. I talked to the other teachers and told them to watch over her and let me know if they saw anything. I talked to Marleigh’s mom, but she couldn’t—or wouldn’t tell me the truth. I talked to Marleigh’s grandparents.