by Roger Bruner
When we reached the next decision point, we climbed up on a rock to rest.
“So tell me about the life of a famous actress-to-be,” I said.
“They say actor now regardless of gender. And since I’ve already done some acting, the ‘to-be’ part doesn’t fit, either. I do have a life, though, but you need to tell me about the life of a middle-class Juliet first.”
We chattered on like a couple of squirrels for thirty or forty minutes. We did some deep sharing. Sharing and bonding like we’d never done before. And we prayed together again.
“We really need to find the next part of the way down,” Aleesha said. “It’s mid-afternoon now. I wouldn’t want to be up here after dark.”
“I see one possibility.” Pointing to my left, I said, “There.”
Aleesha pointed the opposite way. “There’s another.” Everything else in sight was clearly too steep or too rocky to climb down.
We scrambled down from our perch and moved carefully
to the first small opening. Pulling several branches aside, we found ourselves gaping at a steep drop just a few feet from where we were standing. I inhaled a nervous gasp as Aleesha pulled me away from the bush and let the branches snap back into place.
“We would have been on an undesirably fast track down if the ground had given way while we were standing so close to the edge,” Aleesha said. The perspiration on her face glittered in the sunlight.
I don’t know when I’d ever breathed so hard. Although I hadn’t come anywhere close to falling over the edge, I’d never been in such a dangerous position. How could I have been … the way my overprotective mother had always treated me? The same mother who had just deserted my father and me to go live with a younger man.
“Maybe the other one …?”
We hadn’t moved two feet when Aleesha held her arm out to stop me. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“Be quiet for a minute.”
I listened hard. I finally heard it. A rustling sound. Moving. Coming closer.
“Kim? Mr. Scott?” Aleesha’s voice came out just above a frightened whisper. Nobody responded. The noise stopped for a few seconds, but then it resumed.
“Come on, Kim,” I said. My voice was so shaky I hoped I could be understood. “Trying to scare us isn’t very nice.” We heard a slight movement in the underbrush several feet from where we were standing. Was the wind blowing some branches or …?
“Are there any bears up here?” I said. “Or wildcats?”
I wondered how my mom would react to the news that a wild animal had eaten me while I was out mountain climbing,
but my thoughts focused more on how painful being eaten alive would feel. I fell to my knees and barfed. Big-time.
Aleesha and I raced to see who could scramble back up the rock first. I wished I’d had an eye in the back of my head so I could guard my back. I half expected an elephant to tiptoe through the bushes. “Do you suppose we’ll be safe here?” I asked while we scooted as far back on the rock as we could.
“I don’t know.”
“What if”—I shuddered at the thought of our unknown adversary—”what if it can jump this high?”
“Or climb.” I threw my hand over my mouth. “That’s how we got up here. We’ll be goners.”
The branches parted slightly. I couldn’t hear Aleesha’s screams. I was too busy screaming my own head off—at the first sight of a pair of furry black feet.
chapter fifty-seven
Miss Kim,” Graham said while waiting for me to catch my breath. We were almost a third of the way up, and my feet, legs, and back were killing me. If I had any new blisters, I couldn’t feel them over my variety of other aches and pains. “Your guilt. Okay now?”
“Yes, thanks. I had a great talk with my dad. Seems we both felt responsible for my mom’s death this past August, but everything turned out okay. He learned she wasn’t listening to either of our voice messages when she lost control of the car.”
He gave me the strangest look. I should have realized he wasn’t a cell phone kind of guy. Not that my response would’ve made sense anyhow.
“My guilt,” he said. “Not okay.”
Huh? I had to think for a few seconds about what he was trying to say. That’s right. He’d said something to me last week about guilt. His and mine, but he hadn’t said anything else since.
Sure, Graham was on the odd side, and he was a bit somber even for someone who must have lived a mighty tough life, but what could that harmless old man possibly feel so guilty about? And how was I supposed to answer him? What did he want me to say? Lord?
“Not okay. Not now. Not ever.”
“God can forgive anything,” I said. After just four months of anguishing over unnecessary guilt, did I really think I could make Graham feel better with four simple words? He was a Christian—probably had been one a lot longer than I had—and
apparently quite a student of the Bible. He already knew about God’s willingness to forgive. And His desire to.
Then, too, I was comparing grapes and grapefruit. I’d finally learned I hadn’t done anything I needed forgiveness for. If not for that, my guilt would still be plaguing me, and I might have ended up feeling as hopeless as Graham. While I couldn’t imagine Graham doing anything terrible, he might have earned his guilt. And he might have suffered with it a lot longer than four months.
“God forgives. Dead person no.”
Piecing those words into something coherent took only a few seconds, but I wasn’t sure I’d done it correctly. “God can’t forgive a dead person?”
He shook his head no. His mouth tightened in frustration—like a non-English-speaking immigrant who’s desperate for help and can’t make himself understood.
“God can forgive, but a dead person can’t?”
He nodded.
The pain on his face kept me from laughing at the obvious truth of his statement. Besides, I thought I understood what he meant. I’d recently wanted—I’d needed—my mom’s forgiveness, but she was no longer able to give it to me. Was that where Graham was coming from?
“Somebody has died, and you need his forgiveness?” The mist in his eyes answered my question. “I don’t get it. Did you have a falling-out with someone who died before you could ask his forgiveness?”
He looked away. I hoped my bluntness hadn’t scared him into silence, but he was the one who’d started this conversation. And he’d chosen the topic. Did he want me to listen to a confession of some kind? Graham, I can’t forgive you for something you did to someone else. But I can still listen. I have two ears.
Using the same prompt Aleesha once used on me—the one I’d recently used on Jo—I said, “The time you don’t feel like talking about something is probably the time you most need to.” That sounded … it had felt like the right thing to say.
Graham turned to face me, although he didn’t look me in the eyes. “Miss Kimmy. You safe.”
“Of course I am, Graham. I’m with you, and you know this mountain forward and backward, top to bottom. I couldn’t feel safer if I were sitting on your living room couch.”
“Not hurt. You.”
“No, I’m not hurting.” I stretched and purposely let out a painful moan. “Except for a body full of worn-out muscles, I couldn’t feel better.”
“No. Not hurt you.”
“Oh, you’re not going to hurt me? I wouldn’t think so.” I thought for a moment. I’d been dying to tell him this, but I’d been too much of a coward. Maybe the time had come. “Graham, I’m—I hope you don’t mind—I’m adopting you as my grandfather. I never knew my own granddad. I need one sometimes, and you’re the one I’ve picked.”
The hardness on his face softened, and he wiped his eyes on his coat sleeve.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I’ll send you birthday and Christmas presents. I’ll—”
“Hurt someone. Old.” I must have looked confused. “Old hurt.”
Why was he ignoring what I’d just
said? My words had obviously moved him.
“You hurt somebody else?” Although I was getting better at understanding him, I couldn’t imagine where he was going with this.
He hung his head. I could barely hear him say, “Kill.” “What? You killed somebody? Like in a war? You were
a soldier?” You’re too old for Iraq or Afghanistan. Vietnam, maybe? I read about that war in school. He shook his head.
“In an accident? You killed someone in an auto crash?”
He shook his head again. I’d never seen such tension in one man’s face. He finally got it said, though—”Killed. Anger.”
I hope my mouth didn’t fly open as far as I’m afraid it did. “You killed someone in anger?”
“Prison. Thirty-five years.”
You were incarcerated for thirty-five years? No wonder you treasure every sunrise now. “You’ve been out six months?” He nodded. “Six. Maybe seven.”
The pieces were falling into place now. He’d remained in the area because he didn’t have a family or a home to return to, although I was just guessing at that. Maybe he didn’t have enough money to go elsewhere. I couldn’t imagine he’d be eligible for Social Security, since he hadn’t worked in thirty-five years. Getting a non-strenuous job that provided a place to live must have been a real blessing.
Who could blame him for staying away from our services? What man in his right mind would want to set foot in that place again after such a lengthy incarceration?
But if that was true, why had he come with us in the van those two times? What did he do the first time while we were worshipping? He hadn’t stayed in the van; we saw him get out. And why attend last night’s service after avoiding all of the ones that preceded it? Or should I have been wondering why he didn’t come to the earlier ones?
If questions had been pizza, I couldn’t have forced down one more bite. Yet I had little hope of getting answers.
Graham looked at me with eyes that begged for attention. I hugged him, and he hugged me back. When we broke apart,
I looked in his face. “Graham, I still love you, no matter what you’ve done or why. I always will.”
We fell into one another’s arms then, and the tears fell like a cleansing spring shower.
We continued talking as we resumed our search for Aleesha and Jo. I learned—a few words at a time—that Graham had been one of ex-Chaplain Thomas’s intended victims. One of the few who hadn’t caved in to his threats.
Graham’s integrity had cost him dearly, though. When he was eligible for parole fifteen years earlier, Thomas waged a dirty campaign to keep him behind bars. Telling one lie after another, Thomas insisted that Graham was still very much a threat to society, and the parole board bought it. Every single incredibly false word of it.
Graham didn’t blame them, though. After all, who would have questioned the integrity of a highly respected professional like Chaplain Thomas? Fine, moral, upstanding man that he was …. Despite his broken manner of speaking, Graham’s sarcasm shone through clearly.
At the time of Graham’s release, he wanted to go straight to Warden Jenkins. But he’d become friends with Alfredo, and Thomas threatened to keep Alfredo in jail forever if Graham squealed on him. Graham was a faithful friend. For Alfredo’s sake, he pretended to remain silent.
But just before leaving, he managed to smuggle an anonymous note to the warden on a paper napkin. When he learned through us that the warden was looking into the matter, he experienced an exuberant sense of relief. He liked and trusted the warden and knew he would do the right thing.
Only when Graham learned that the warden needed corroborating testimony to put Thomas away did he feel safe coming forward. He didn’t realize Alfredo’s testimony was what he’d corroborate. It turned out that Graham had first
ridden with us so he could meet secretly with Larry Jenkins.
“You two must have had quite a talk,” I told him. He actually laughed. Silently.
But then his face fell again. He described his problem with guilt. It reminded me of mine, though mine was minor in comparison. Bad enough over the years, it intensified at the time of his release.
He was a completely different person from the man who’d entered prison thirty-five years earlier. He’d accepted Christ and received God’s forgiveness early in his incarceration.
He started building the library of Bibles, commentaries, and good fiction we’d seen on his bookcase, using every scrap of money that came his way. Money Thomas did his best to take away from him. He read and studied everything he could get his hands on. He might have had difficulty communicating verbally, but he was literate and quite intelligent.
Only at the time of his release did he realize he’d felt good about being in jail; he’d deserved that punishment. But his newfound freedom felt undeserved. After all, he’d deprived his victim of his earthly freedom—permanently. And because his victim had been a non-Christian, Graham had cut him off from all chance of becoming one. He’d not only killed the man but also sent him to hell. And that’s what he’d been struggling with.
I was beyond hopeless about how to help. His heavy-duty sin had grown an unhealthy crop of heavy-duty guilt. Even though his body no longer suffered the restraints of a physical prison, he was still a prisoner of the consequences of his sin and the horrible feelings associated with it. Would he have to endure them forever as part of his punishment?
I had to say something, but what? Lord? “Graham, I can’t say I know how you feel. I thought my guilt over my mother’s death was bad, but it was nothing compared to yours. And mine went away when I found out I hadn’t done anything to
feel guilty about. But yours …” I couldn’t find a way to say it diplomatically. “I think I understand why you feel the way you do.”
His chin dropped to his chest. I’d never seen anyone look more like giving up.
Then that still, small voice whispered to my soul. Thank You, Lord! “Are you familiar with 1 Corinthians 13?”
“‘Tongues men, angels. No love, no good.’”
“That’s it. Do you remember one of those verses talks about love not keeping a record of wrongdoing?”
He nodded.
“You believe God loves you, don’t you?”
His eyes were already misting. “Yes.”
“And you’ve asked God’s forgiveness for your sins, haven’t you? Even the murder?”
He nodded again. “Asked. Begged. Received.”
“So don’t you think He’s forgotten all about your sin? I mean, He’s got the most perfect love possible, and elsewhere in the Bible God says He puts the memory of our sins as far as the east is from the west.”
He nodded. He looked at me as if his future depended on my words. If I’d thought I could help him on my own, I would’ve been seriously wrong. But these words were God’s, and they clearly applied to him.
“So how do you think you make God feel by continuing to remind Him of your sin? Don’t you do that by dwelling on your guilt?”
“Not good.”
“So how can you please Him?”
“Forget. Forgive self.” He stopped. He could barely speak when he continued. “Can’t.” “Do you want to, though?”
“Yes.”
This conversation seemed more important—or at least more intense—than any I’d ever been part of. I didn’t know what God would do with the words He’d given me, but I’d obeyed Him, and that was the most I could hope to do.
“Let’s stop and pray.” I pulled off one glove and held out my hand.
He looked at it a minute before taking it.
“Do you want me to start?”
He turned his eyes upward in affirmation.
“Then you can pray, too, if you want to.”
I’d just closed my eyes when I heard the sound of singing. Loud singing. “Victory in Jesus.” Aleesha was belting out the old hymn, but … wasn’t that Jo singing with her?
They didn’t sound that far away.
chapter
fifty-eight
The singing stopped. “Jo? Aleesha? Where are you?” I probably yelled loud enough to be heard all over Tabletop Mountain and across the way at Red Cedar as well. Maybe I should’ve tried that when we first started searching. Aleesha could’ve sung loud enough to answer back.
“We don’t know,” Jo said in a pitiful voice. “Where are you?” Aleesha sounded more upbeat. Almost brave. Or was it just her well-practiced bravado?
“Graham and I are on our way. Stay where you are. Keep singing, and we’ll find you.”
“Be careful, Kim,” Jo said. “Several wild animals have cornered us. We’re up on a rock where they can’t reach us.”
“At least we hope they can’t,” Aleesha added. She didn’t sound quite as brave as she had a moment earlier.
Before Aleesha could finish speaking, Graham—he really did know that mountain from top to bottom—was speeding toward the sound of their voices.
“Sing,” he said. They started singing “It Is Well with My Soul.” I wasn’t so sure they meant it.
“Wait for me, Graham.” I’d felt brave enough when we were walking side by side or one in front of the other, but watching him disappear in the undergrowth left me feeling fearfully inadequate. I could just see myself getting lost while he finished finding Aleesha and Jo. What a horrible new meaning that would give to the concept of “left behind.”
He stopped and waited for me to catch up. I brushed on by him.
“Careful,” he said. “Wild animals.”
Whoops. I’d already forgotten about Jo’s warning. I waited for Graham to get ahead of me again.
“It is well … it is well … with my soul …” Aleesha and Jo sang. Jo’s alto couldn’t have sounded sweeter if she hadn’t been terrified. I’d have to tell those two how harmonious they sounded despite their mutual hostility.
Five minutes later, Graham stopped and turned to me. “Bushes. Other side.”
“Kim,” Aleesha said, “we’re trying to scare them off, but these beasties aren’t moving.”
“I think they like us,” Jo said. No matter how calm her voice had sounded while singing, it was quivering now. And not with the vibrato of her singing voice.
