by Roger Bruner
“He’s fine, Jo. I already told you that.” I paused
strategically. “He’s better than fine, in fact.”
“Huh? What?”
“Jo, your, uh, friend became a Christian this afternoon. The chaplain apparently found out about it and—for reasons we don’t understand—he isn’t as happy about it as we are.”
There. Close enough to the truth.
“Alfredo became a Christian? You led him to Christ? You should have let me do that!”
Aleesha’s face was clouding up. Each of Jo’s outbursts seemed to darken her frown a bit more. I motioned for Aleesha to stay calm, but she didn’t notice. Either that or she preferred to ignore me.
“You are the most selfish person I’ve ever met,” Aleesha said. “White, black, or plaid.”
Jo looked like somebody had just slapped her.
Aleesha didn’t wait for a response. “Here Alfredo has made a profession of faith—the most important decision in his life—but are you happy about it? No. Any normal person—normal Christian, that is—would be thrilled to hear such good news. But you? Uh-uh! All you seem to care about is who gets the star in her crown for it.”
Dad had excused himself a number of minutes earlier to polish his message for that evening. If only I’d gone with him. Away from these two squabblers.
Rob wasn’t in the room now, either. He’d taken the satellite phone outside. He didn’t have to listen to this, and I envied him.
And Graham was … somewhere. Probably somewhere nice and quiet. I couldn’t help grinning at the thought of that frail-looking old man trying to referee a fight between Jo and Aleesha.
“You’re crazy!” Jo said. That was mild compared to what I’d expected her to say. “If you’d let me go to translate this afternoon, I would have been the one who led him to Christ.”
I hoped Aleesha wasn’t going to waste her breath saying any—.
“I wasn’t the one who stopped you. I told you this afternoon the warden wanted an impartial translator.”
No, girl, don’t pay any attention to that.
“Impartial?” Jo actually quieted down. Instantly. I could almost see the wheels spinning, but I couldn’t tell what gear she was in. “Now I know something strange is going on.”
Duh. You just figured that out, did you? Where were you when Rob asked us to keep an eye on the chaplain’s interaction with the other men? I mentally slapped myself on the mouth for thinking such unkind thoughts.
“So what’s going on?”
Jo wasn’t looking at Aleesha. She was looking at me, and I knew that look. She expected an answer, and she wasn’t going to settle for baloney when she wanted steak.
Although her question was the one I’d hoped most to avoid, I would have done almost anything to keep her from yelling at Aleesha anymore. Or provoking Aleesha to yell back. An online-chat friend in Australia once described people who can’t get along as being like cheese and chalk.
Nothing could have described Jo and Aleesha more perfectly. Thank goodness Aleesha hated violence, and Jo had never been exposed to any.
But, Lord, how do I answer her?
“Something bad is going on at Red Cedar.” As soon as I said that, I knew I’d said too much. I had to keep going, though. “Alfredo isn’t guilty of any wrongdoing. He’s one of the victims. One of possibly many victims. The warden asked me to talk with him and—”
“Alfredo asked to speak with you,” Jo said. “Remember? I’m the one who told you.”
She might as well have accused me of lying. I’d never
known her to act so irrational. I still needed to corner her and find out what was going on with her parents. Especially if it was affecting her like this.
“The warden wanted me to find out if Alfredo was a victim or not.”
Jo still didn’t look satisfied, but at least she didn’t argue. And she shocked me by not asking what he was a victim of.
“He brought your Bible to our meeting. He’s read the whole New Testament. That led him to ask how to become a Christian.”
I glanced over at Aleesha. I could almost see her biting her tongue to keep from saying, “Why didn’t he ask you that, Jo? Didn’t he think you knew?” As much as I didn’t want her to provoke Jo further, I couldn’t have blamed Aleesha.
“Oh.”
Jo sometimes took longer than Aleesha and me to catch on to something, but she was no dummy. Based on experience from our long friendship, I knew she was processing this information to see whether it fit with her concept of the truth.
“Hello, girls,” Rob said when he came back inside. His cheeks were a nice rosy red. So was his bald spot.
“Cold outside, Mr. Rob?” Aleesha said.
He nodded.
“It’s been hot in here.”
“I could tell. Girls, we need to pray for tonight’s service. Then it’ll be time to leave.”
Rob went to get Dad. We formed a circle, but when Jo discovered she’d have to hold hands with Aleesha, she changed positions and got between Dad and Rob. Our prayer time was quite intense as we prayed around the circle. Whether Jo had gotten over not being the one to lead Alfredo to Christ, I couldn’t say, but she was eloquent in praising God that it had happened.
We were putting our coats on when Graham came through the front door. He handed the satellite phone to Rob. What a shock. I couldn’t imagine Graham knowing somebody’s phone number, much less calling it. But that wasn’t any of my business.
Graham shocked me even more when he got in the van with us. He hadn’t gone to any of our services before, and I couldn’t imagine why he’d chosen to attend now. I thought it strange he hadn’t brought one of his many Bibles with him, though. He seemed like the type of Christian who would.
His failure to come to the service seemed even stranger. I couldn’t imagine where he’d been. Although he was waiting for us at the van when it was time to leave, I couldn’t believe he’d spent the last two hours there.
But what had he been doing?
chapter forty-nine
Jo, we need to talk,” I said. She and I were doing some outside painting, and no one else was close by.
“Did you hear me?”
She started crying silently. I set my brush across the top of a paint can and approached her.
“You haven’t been yourself the whole time we’ve been here,” I said as gently as I knew how. “I don’t mean that critically.”
I could see from her pained expression that talking about her problem would be excruciating. I considered telling her about my guilt problem first, the way I’d originally planned to do.
But now wasn’t the time for that.
After another sniffle, she managed to start talking. Just a word or two at a time at first, but then she picked up speed. She seemed to realize she’d been holding this in way too long.
“Kim, I’m so sorry. It’s just …”
Please help her, Lord. Let her know how much I love her. How much I care.
“My parents are getting a divorce.”
The look I pictured myself wearing now couldn’t have begun to express the shock I felt inside. Jo took my hands in hers. I looked into her eyes, and we both broke out crying.
“I didn’t think your parents were getting along well, but I had no idea things had gotten this bad.”
“They have.”
“Are they going to counseling?”
“My mother moved out, and she’s living with some
twenty-five-year-old guy.”
No nightmare this time, Dad. This one’s real, and it’s not mine.
“When … when did you find out?”
“On the phone that night after our first visit to the prison.” “No!”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”
I couldn’t imagine anything worse, but I was wrong.
“Papa and I found out at the exact same time.”
The horror I felt was so indescribable I could only respond with tears. “He and I w
ere talking on the phone that night. Mama came in the room and told him everything. Since she hadn’t noticed that he was on the phone, she didn’t realize I could hear everything she was saying, too. Can you disown a mother?”
I couldn’t tell if she was trying to be cute or not … trying to cover up her grief with a bit of whimsy. But whether she had been or not, I snorted once, and soon we were both laughing as if we’d been in the world’s greatest mood.
It didn’t last.
“What …?” I had a million questions, and I didn’t know which one to ask first. And which ones not to ask at all.
“So that’s why I’ve been playing the female-dog part all week.”
The female …? Oh.
That also helped to explain why she’d been so quick to latch on to Alfredo. She was desperate to grab hold of some sympathetic male while she was so far away from her papa, and Alfredo had been in the right place at the right time. I wondered if she’d told him about her mama and papa.
“Don’t tell Aleesha, though. I hate her.”
Could this soap opera get any worse?
“She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t understand me. She doesn’t respect me.”
“You don’t think she’d be more sympathetic if she knew the truth?” A long shot, but what else could I say?
“Ha! She’d probably accuse me of driving my mama away.”
Whoa there, girl. What are you really trying to say? What Aleesha might accuse you of or what you’re accusing yourself of? This was starting to sound familiar.
“It’s not your fault, Jo. Every kid whose parents split up thinks it is, but it’s not. It never is.” I knew that was true. Everyone knows it’s true. Everyone but the kids.
The half-painted exterior wall paid as much attention to my statement as Jo did. “I could have been a better daughter. I could have been less demanding. I could have been more obedient.”
And I could have avoided calling Mom when I knew she was driving in bad weather.
“Jo, you wouldn’t feel this way if you’d been at home when you found out. She would have told you in a nicer—at least a gentler—way, don’t you think?”
Mom would have been nice about forgiving me. That hit me in a way I hadn’t thought about before. I’d been despondent because she couldn’t forgive me, but I hadn’t given her credit for what she would have done if she’d been able to. When had Mom ever failed to forgive me for anything?
She loved me with all her heart, and people who love forgive. But what about Dad?
Could he forgive me for what I’d done to Mom? Did he love me that much now?
Now? What am I talking about? He’s always loved me that much. He just hasn’t been good at showing it until recently. Oh, man. He and I need to talk.
Jo remained silent while God inserted that realization into my brain like coins into a drink machine. She somehow sensed that she shouldn’t interrupt. How thankful I was for that.
“You okay, Kim?” she asked. Her voice sounded steadier than before.
“Better than okay.” I started crying again. But from joy. And relief.
“You asked if Mama would have been nicer in person?” I nodded. “I have to believe so. She’s still my mama.”
And I had to hope Dad’s forgiveness would come unhesitatingly if I ever dared to tell him. He was still my daddy.
“Are you better now?” I asked Jo.
She smiled.
“Can you excuse me for a few minutes? I need to talk to
Dad.”
But I still couldn’t tell him everything.
chapter fifty
Jo asked me not to say anything to Aleesha about her parents’ marital problems, and I honored her request, even though it made—or should I say it kept?—things unnecessarily tense. I explained to Aleesha that Jo’s problems were so serious we should ignore the way she’d been acting, but that didn’t seem to lessen her hostility any.
The two of them didn’t talk in the van going to that evening’s service. They walked through the door to the Administration Building at the same time—as far apart as the width of the doorway allowed; neither was willing to yield to the other. I followed several feet behind, shaking my head at their childish stubbornness.
Although Alfredo appeared to be as thrilled to see Jo again as she was to see him, all he could talk about was his conversion to Christianity, which he obviously found even more thrilling than he did Jo’s company. She didn’t seem to mind, though, until he turned most of his attention to the two other Latino guys he’d brought from his cell block.
Their conversation was lively. Y tan rápido. And so fast. Even if I’d been perfectly fluent in Spanish, I couldn’t have followed it. Judging from Alfredo’s animated look, his friends must have asked why he’d start acting so different after a single two-hour visit to the infirmary.
Although Jo looked mildly jealous when he sat between his two buddies rather than beside her, she couldn’t have missed seeing his newfound joy or criticized him for wanting to share it with friends. I don’t know whether seeing him witnessing to
those other two guys made the trip to California worthwhile for her, but it did for me.
I was in an exceptionally worshipful mood that evening. Probably more than at any time since Santa María. The singing buoyed my spirits higher than ever, and the songs reminded me what an awesome God I served; the prayers reminded me that God was truly in our midst, and the message spoke to my needs in a special way. How could Dad have known what I needed to hear? Only the Holy Spirit could have arranged a “coincidence” like that.
Yet a shadow seemed to hang over the other worshippers. The insiders knew we’d be leaving on Monday. Maybe they were already grieving our absence the way the villagers of Santa María had done when we were preparing to go home. Yet I didn’t think our departure would be a problem for these guys. They were probably more accustomed to people coming and going than I would ever be.
I’d never asked Warden Jenkins whether Chappy held services for the men, and I couldn’t imagine what they would have been like. He seemed like the sort of man who’d purposely pick all unfamiliar hymns and preach the longest, dullest sermon possible. No way he could have drawn these men out the way the Holy Spirit had done through us. Not unless he’d been a more … righteous and caring person.
Maybe his presence was part of the problem that evening. Brother Larry probably hadn’t told him tonight would be the last of our services he’d attend. Chappy called the men out one at a time just like before. And he had the nerve to smile at me every time he did. Like he’d won a major battle and wanted to rub my nose in his victory.
No wonder our team shared a concern that our leaving probably meant handing the lambs back over to the wolf. Such precious lambs, and such a very big, very mean, very greedy wolf.
No one asked to talk with me one-on-one that evening. If I knew Chappy half as well as I thought I did—if he was like one of the bad guys on TV—I wasn’t the only person he’d tried to intimidate. He must have done an effective job of it, too. His very presence was enough to put all of the men in an “or else” silence.
Thank goodness, we wouldn’t have to deal with him the last two nights.
On Saturday, we finished everything that needed doing at Welcoming Arms, although I doubted that any of us felt the same sense of success and completeness about our prison ministry.
“Get in or walk,” Jo said to Aleesha when she slowed down to fasten her coat.
“What?” Aleesha said. “You can’t wait another few seconds to see him again?”
“Get lost,” Jo said. What kind of snake could have acted more deliberately venomous?
“Children, children.” They stared at me as if I had three eyes.
Aleesha’s attitude toward Jo really disappointed me. I’d always admired her ability to charm her way through any circumstances, but Jo seemed to bring out the worst in her. And vice versa.
But I still loved both of them oodles and bunches. And I pray
ed that—someday—they’d come to love each other just as much.
Everyone was unusually quiet when we got into the van for our next-to-the-last drive up Red Cedar Lane. I didn’t know why Jo, Rob, Aleesha, Dad, and Graham were so silent, but I was too caught up in prayer to waste words on small talk. We didn’t have much time left to finish disposing of an unworthy chaplain, and our hope of succeeding shrunk more with each passing second.
Although Chappy’s absence from the service would promote a more positive atmosphere than the night before, I didn’t have much hope that anyone would talk with me tonight. How I prayed I was wrong. I didn’t want to leave our new friends in worse condition than when we came.
Nobody had spoken during the ride to the prison. As we got out, Graham leaned over and whispered something in a voice I could barely hear. “No worry. Almost over.” I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. Maybe just his way of saying we’d soon go home and put the Red Cedar experience behind us.
As if I could have done that.
As soon as we walked in, I could sense that something special was going on. The excitement stopped just short of exuberance. The insiders seemed to expect something. They reminded me of little kids on Christmas Eve.
Then I noticed Warden Jenkins waiting for us. He’d never come to one of our services. He probably didn’t want his position to interfere with our interaction with the insiders. The men acted glad to see him, though. They shook his hand as if he’d become their hero, and Rock shocked the daylights out of him with a huge brotherly hug. Unlike the last time I’d seen Warden Jenkins, he was smiling … and laughing.
What in the world had happened?
“Before these good folks lead us in worship tonight,” he said to the little congregation that had grown to nearly forty, “I need to address an issue I’ve been concerned about since I first learned of it.”
I looked around. Sure enough, the chaplain wasn’t there. I was dying to cheer about that.
He grinned at his audience. “The Red Cedar grapevine is the most efficient one of its kind in the world. It could easily replace the Internet.” I heard several chuckles. A number of
