by Roger Bruner
“What, Kim? I thought you loved little kids because you’re so much like one.”
“Sometimes,” I said. I didn’t use that pensive tone of voice very often. “Not always, though. Peter Pan didn’t want to grow up, but I do—most of the time. Then I get into an adult situation and I’m petrified. Given the opportunity, I’d stick one foot in adulthood and keep the other in the territory I’m comfortable in.”
“The best of both worlds …?”
I nodded.
I started thinking about Dad. I’d probably spent too much time lamenting his resemblance to a charred steak to try finding out how tender he was inside. Maybe he’d grown up too much. I’d never considered the possibility before.
“I didn’t want to grow up,” Rob said. “I had more fun being a kid, but circumstances deflated my little-kid spirit. When I graduated from college, married my childhood sweetheart, and started a career, I became an adult against my will. I kicked and screamed the whole way, but there was no turning back.”
“Oh, my.” Are you trying to predict my future by describing your past? Please, no. I can’t take it. “Anyhow, count me in on babysitting or material handling or anything else you need me to do. I can be as flexible as God wants when I have a mind to be, and He’s been doing some mind surgery on me the past twenty-four hours.”
“Glad to hear that. Speaking of minds—or should I say ‘If you don’t mind … ‘?—may I talk with you about something else I’ve been thinking about since yesterday?”
“I’m listening.”
I wished talking with my parents was this easy—especially Dad—but maybe that would come when they grew more mature. I giggled to myself.
Mom was great most of the time. Dad was probably an okay guy, but—as much as I loved him—I couldn’t imagine talking like this with him. If I didn’t understand him—if I couldn’t see past the overdone exterior—he must have felt the same about me. How could he possibly understand someone who seemed so underdone?
Then again, I was still a teenager, and nobody understands teens. Not even other teens.
I guess nobody understands parents, either. Not until becoming one, that is.
“I notice you have a cell phone with you. Most teens have them now …?”
“Many. Maybe not quite most. When I got up today, I discovered that mine doesn’t work in Santa María.” I twisted my mouth in a make-believe pout.
“Ah? But it’ll work in San Diego, won’t it?”
“It should. It had a fresh charge when I left home, and I haven’t used it since then.”
“So it would’ve worked yesterday at DFW or in San Diego—if you’d tried using it?”
“Yes, it … Rob, no! I haven’t called my parents to give them an update. They don’t have any idea where I am. They get upset whenever I change plans without letting them know. They’ll have a cow over this. I’ll call from San Diego. I promise.”
“Good idea. But let me update you. Charlie called your folks when you didn’t show up in San Diego at the expected time. They were worried, of course, but they assured him you’d left Atlanta on schedule. They tried calling you but couldn’t get any answer ….”
“I didn’t have it on me at DFW, and I didn’t think you’d appreciate my digging through my luggage to get it out in San Diego.”
Rob shook his head and grinned.
“Okay, smarty-pants!” I said with a single giggle. “I admit it. I forgot to get it out.”
“Your dad called to verify that you made it to DFW, though. He sounded frantic about what might have happened after that.”
Dad was frantic enough to check on me? He always has Mom make his calls when he can get away with it.
“Once your folks discovered you were booked on a later flight, they tried calling Charlie back. They got me instead. I told your dad about the change in plans. That’s when Charlie and I decided we’d better wait for you. Especially since we’d planned to emphasize flexibility at orientation. We couldn’t let you come this far without having a welcoming committee—or maybe a lynch mob.”
He looked like a big kid when he grinned like that.
“No, Rob! That’s why you waited? I should’ve called my parents collect from Texas and had them call you. What else could I have done wrong yesterday?”
I was so animated I bashed my arm against the window and started whimpering and crying again. The first eighteen years of my life hadn’t seen me cry as much as the past twenty-four hours.
“Be careful, little gal,” Rob responded. The kindness in his voice made me stop sniffling. “You’re my new daughter now, and I don’t want you suffering needlessly—not physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Yesterday is over. It won’t haunt you any longer than it takes to forgive yourself.”
I wriggled out of my seat again and threw my good arm around Rob’s neck in a tight hug, making him swerve slightly. I cried from joy, relief, and gratitude this time. Not pain and regret. This mission trip would be a success—at least in God’s eyes.
We didn’t talk much for the rest of the drive to San Diego. We didn’t need to.
I thought a lot about the remarkable relationship we’d established. My rapport with Rob was as unique and wonderful as my friendship with Aleesha. What a super Christian this man was.
I wanted to be more like him.
Yesterday’s four-plus-hour trip took only two-and-three-quarters hours today. The tractor trailers had smoothed out the ruts so much we seemed to be on a different road from last evening. Now that we were on blacktop, we felt like we were flying.
The border guards glanced at my swollen arm, the empty bus and luggage compartment, and our passports, and flagged us through.
“Take care of yourself, young lady.”
Even these men, who had no reason to care about me, expressed more sympathy than the kids on the team.
Oh, no! Team 8 will be one member short. Frank was angry enough about being stuck with me before. But how will he feel about me being so useless?
Although my arm bothered me, the acetaminophen helped.
I suffered more from worrying about my incident’s effect on today’s work. Charlie would keep things moving the best he could, but he’d admitted he didn’t have Rob’s experience. I dreaded becoming an object of greater contempt once we got back to Santa María.
By then everyone would be raging fiercely about how much my accident messed up today’s work by taking Rob off the job. No one would care that Charlie offered to drive me so Rob wouldn’t have to.
Or that Rob had insisted on doing it himself.
So one frazzled project leader and a hundred forty-two frustrated team members—Aleesha would be the one exception—were probably already blasting me behind my back. Plus the eighteen villagers who were helping and the twenty who couldn’t.
Forgiveness wasn’t likely to be the word of the day in anyone’s vocabulary, English or Spanish.
chapter twenty-four
After getting me checked in at the emergency room, Rob said he had some errands to run.
“I’ve always wanted a satellite phone. They’re usable anywhere in the world, even where regular cell phones don’t work. I can rationalize that purchase now because of your accident and my responsibility for the whole group. Same for a quality GPS. I might need it to find my way back to the hospital.” He laughed.
I didn’t realize how clever he’d been finding his way back to San Diego without a GPS. Although the price of electronic devices tends to go down, those two items could still be pretty pricey. I’d often admired them when I was techno-windowshopping. Maturing sporadically into young womanhood hadn’t lessened a lifelong fascination with electronic gadgetry.
The doctor, nurses, and x-ray technicians at the emergency room were as sympathetic and pleasant as the ones back home. The break—as Rob had said initially—was clean, and I chose an eerie shade of purple for the cast. I wondered if it glowed in the dark but didn’t ask for fear of sounding too childish.
Since the emergency room team took me almost upon arrival, I had to postpone making the call to my parents. Once they finished, that call became my top priority.
Although I didn’t think about the time difference between San Diego and Georgia, that worked to my advantage. Mom and Dad were eating supper when I called, and they offered to poke a broiled lamb chop through the phone. They were thrilled to hear my voice. Especially my dad. He asked several times if I was “really okay” and offered to fly out and help me if I wasn’t up to traveling home by myself.
I must have shocked the daylights out of him when I said I wasn’t coming home and didn’t need pampering.
“In that case,” he said, “give us your address, and we’ll overnight some proper work clothes to you.”
“That’s really sweet of you, but I don’t think FedEx, UPS, DHL, or any of those other companies with familiar initials make deliveries to tiny Santa María. Our bus driver had to use a GPS to locate the village. Even that wouldn’t have worked if he hadn’t had the coordinates. That’s how far off the beaten track it is. Now, you might be able to get something to me by carrier buzzard, but I’m not sure which companies use them. Thanks again, but I’ll make do with what I have. All you have to do is replace what I ruin in Santa María.”
“We’ll gladly do that, Kim,” Dad said.
I could tell he was smiling. Not laughing at me, but smiling—like he’d actually been glad to talk with me. He barely let me talk to Mom at all. I couldn’t believe how nice talking with him had been.
Then Mom and Dad gave me a simple message from Betsy Jo, one that made less than no sense. “I hope you’re not too disappointed with your Bible.”
How could a person be disappointed with a Bible? A Bible is a Bible.
Although I felt greatly relieved having my parents’ amazing forgiveness for failing to call the day before, they told me something so revolting that even the thought of returning to Santa María nauseated me.
chapter twenty-five
Rob’s willingness to forgive me had helped to establish our great new relationship, but this news would turn him against me forever. Would he put me off the bus and make me walk—not to Santa María, but back to Georgia? If our roles had been reversed, I’d insist on it.
I’d rather sleep blanketless on a billion pebbles for the rest of my earthly life than confess a sin of such indescribably gross omission to Rob.
“Kim, girl, you okay now? You look a little spacey.”
“Sure enough, Rob. I have enough codeine in me to kill the pain for hours. It hasn’t dimmed my appetite, though.”
I hoped he’d take the hint. Although I was starving by then, I was more concerned about making him pull off somewhere than about eating. I didn’t want to make my confession while he was driving. He might throw me off the bus. Without stopping. Then again, maybe I deserved to break all my bones this time.
“Taco Bell okay?” he asked, laughing. “Uh, how about something non-Mexican while we’re on this side of the border?”
“Sure. Not that you’re going to get anything Mexican in Santa María.”
Without seeking further input from me, Rob pulled into a Pizza Hut parking lot. I dared not tell him I’d eaten pizza twice at DFW yesterday and my anxiety had churned it up so grotesquely that I literally grew sick of pizza for the first time in my life.
At least waiting for a pizza to bake would give me enough time to spill my guts before Rob did.
But as circumstances would have it—maybe Satan planned it this way—this Pizza Hut had a buffet that was still open. Nothing would keep us from getting our food immediately. I quickly did some mulling over the upcoming conversation as we sat down with our plates fully loaded. Never before had I piled a plate higher with salad than with pizza. I didn’t even use a tomato-based dressing.
“You want to say the blessing, Kim?”
“Next time, if you don’t mind.”
I was fighting to keep the codeine from knocking me out completely before I ate and made my ultimate confession—my final words. I might have fallen asleep during my own blessing.
Better to doze during Rob’s. I’d discovered during the past twenty-four hours that his prayers weren’t always the shortest.
“Rob (yawn), I called my parents like I promised,” I said four minutes later at the conclusion of his blessing. He apparently had to say amen more than once to wake me up.
“Good, Kim. They glad to hear from you?”
“Yes, and they were (yawn) amazingly understanding (yawn).” I started perking up a little after that. “You didn’t tell me you called them when I reached San Diego. You assumed I was too scatterbrained to?”
Rob gave me the strangest look.
“No, Mom and Dad didn’t say that. But were you expecting me to be blond or something?”
“Or something, yes. Go on, please.” He was staring at me.
The harder he stared, the more terrified I felt. “I …”
How could I tell him? I was a deer on the highway, blinded by the lights of oncoming traffic. No matter what I did, no matter which way I moved, a car was going to smush me.
“Kim?”
“Rob,”—I breathed a quick prayer before spitting out my confession—“my parents looked on the computer after talking with Charlie yesterday and found the missing messages. They were sitting there healthy and unread. All seven of them. They must have been in my inbox all along. I’m awful about checking e-mail, but I didn’t expect to get any messages about the mission trip. Honestly, I thought I checked my e-mail several days before leaving. Obviously I didn’t.”
Rob didn’t say a word. He stared at his plate now and not at me.
I learned then what watching a dangerous storm brew felt like—and knowing I had no chance of moving out of its path.
“Betsy Jo kept me informed about the trip. But she was no longer on the mailing list, so she didn’t receive the message. You’ve forgiven me for how I acted yesterday, but can you ever forgive me for being so careless and stupid?”
His look softened. “Forgive you, Kim?”
Are you surprised that I’d dare to ask your forgiveness? “Yes, I want you to. I desperately need you to.”
“But forgive you for what, Kim?”
Huh?“For what …?” Is that a yes or a no, Rob?
“God has been teaching me a little trick, Kim. Old dog, old trick. But even after years of practicing, I don’t always do a great job of it. Yesterday at orientation is proof of that.”
“Ah?”
I didn’t realize I’d begun holding my breath expectantly until I suddenly gasped for air.
“Once we seek God’s forgiveness,” Rob said, “He puts our sins out of His mind as far as the east is from the west. He wants His children to do the same thing. But we can’t forgive someone seventy-times-seven times unless we forget each instance once it’s over with. Make sense? So, what did you say you needed forgiveness for?”
I scooted my chair out so fast I almost knocked it over. I threw my arms around Rob—I think I hit him with my cast—and wept aloud for what seemed like hours.
I didn’t know exactly how the woman caught in adultery felt after Jesus forgave her, but at least I had an inkling. Rob would never cast the first stone except on rare occasions like orientation.
I didn’t care what anyone else in that Pizza Hut thought of my behavior. The joy of forgiveness had exhilarated me just as much the second time around.
We turned out to be the only ones in the dining room. The other diners had left before we started talking, and none of the employees were in sight. So our entire “public conversation,” complete with mutual tears, remained private.
Rob sent me to the bus while he waited for the cashier to return, and I must’ve fallen asleep before he got there, for the next thing I remember was the sound of Aleesha’s voice at dawn the next day.
chapter twenty-six
Day 3
Wake up, princess. No peas for you last night.”
/> Huh? What are you talking about? Would you quit shaking me? I might wake up, and I don’t want to.
“Oh, no you don’t … no more sleep for you. And no more codeine for a while, either.”
I don’t know how she did it, but Aleesha got me up and dressed and kept me upright while I stumbled my way to the mess tent for breakfast.
My parents were my age or younger when The Twilight Zone was a popular TV program, but they told me all about it. Although cable networks still showed reruns and stores carried each year’s episodes on DVD, I’d never seen one.
But when Aleesha and I entered the mess tent for breakfast a few minutes later, I felt like I’d either fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice or wandered into The Twilight Zone. Maybe both.
“How are you today, Kim?”
“I’m so sorry about your arm! Does it hurt much?”
“Can I do anything to help you, Kim?”
“Oh, wow! What a horrible thing to happen on your first day here, Kim.”
“May I sign your cast? Please? I want to put an encouraging scripture verse on it.”
“I’m so glad you stayed, Kim.”
“I’m looking forward to getting to know you better these two weeks. Let’s eat together sometime, okay?”
“I’ve got some extra work clothes. They might be a little baggy on you, but they’ll be clean—at least starting out—and you’re welcome to them if you like. I have some safety pins if you need ‘em.”
“Was it scary missing your flight day before yesterday? I wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to figure out what to do next. But I’m blond, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“So what’s it like living in Georgia?”
“Your dad is really a college English professor?”
“How do you get your hair so shiny?”
“What a fabulous tan! You aren’t really Hispanic, are you? That’s what some of the girls have been saying. We all think you look so terrific. Especially the boys.”
“You’re so petite! I’ll never lose enough weight to wear clothes like yours and look good in them.”
