The Sacrifice

by Robert Whitlow

  “If you had,” Kay said, “she would have said ‘yes.’”

  Startled, Scott leaned closer to the picture. “How can you tell that from a photo?”

  “The way she’s focused on you. It’s an ‘I’ll follow this man to the ends of the earth’ look.”

  “No way.”

  “I’ll prove it to you,” Kay challenged. “Did she ever look at you like this?”

  Kay met Scott’s gaze and held it for a few seconds. It wasn’t a come-hither look, but a more serious invitation to commitment. Scott had to admit he’d seen that look in his girlfriend’s eyes.

  “Uh, yes,” he said.

  They finished the second box of photos. Nicky was fast asleep on the rug with the hedgehog between his front paws.

  “I’ve kept Nicky up past his bedtime,” Kay said. “I’d better be going.”

  Scott glanced at his pet. “He’s had a fun evening.”

  “Will I see you at the courthouse on Monday?” she asked.

  “Probably not. I’ll be in the big courtroom in the older part of the building. The domestic hearings are in a smaller courtroom in the new wing. They herd folks through like cattle.”

  “For the slaughter of marriages.” Kay shook her head.

  “I’m sorry—,” Scott began.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “I needed tonight. You’ve helped me more than you know.”

  “We’ll talk on Tuesday,” Scott said as he walked her to the front door.

  “Call me after the trial is over. And I’ll be praying for you and Lester. I’ve been doing a lot of praying about everything recently.”

  The words prayer and Lester Garrison hadn’t appeared in the same paragraph in Scott’s mind. After Kay left, Scott held the picture of his former girlfriend down so Nicky could see it.

  “What do you think?” he asked. “Would you like to meet her?”

  The dog sniffed the picture, grabbed his hedgehog, and trotted back to his cage.

  At the end of the school day that Friday, Janie Collins had stopped Frank in the hallway near the front door of the high school and asked if he was going to the big game against Maiden that night.

  “No, I haven’t been to a football game since I was a freshman.”

  “I’m going,” she said.

  Frank looked at his mock trial partner with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. He’d been around her enough to know that she wasn’t a fake, but he considered her kindhearted sincerity a form of weakness.

  “Have a good time,” he responded.

  “Would you like to sit with me and a few of my friends?” Janie persisted.

  “Who are they?”

  Janie mentioned several students. Frank didn’t know any of them except as faces in class. However, sitting with Janie wouldn’t be the worst way to spend an evening. A crack opened in his armor.

  “Why are you inviting me?” he asked.

  “Because it will be fun. You can meet my friends, and maybe some of your friends will be there, too.”

  Frank didn’t have any close friends. His acerbic tongue was a lash that kept him isolated.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m going to be busy.”

  “Doing what? It’s Friday night.”

  “A project I’m working on.”

  “Take a break and join us. We’ll be sitting in the south bleachers near the twenty-yard line.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll get there about fifteen minutes before the game starts to make sure there are enough seats.”

  Frank’s father wasn’t home, and he fixed a sandwich for supper. The atrium near the kitchen was empty. His mother had taken the bird with her before Frank could complete the animal’s obscenity training. He thought again about Janie’s invitation and made up his mind. He would go to the game and see what happened.

  It was a couple of hours before he needed to leave. He went upstairs, put on his headphones, and turned on the computer. When he entered the game, he found an intriguing scenario. Someone new had arrived. Frank quickly saw that the newcomer was a more formidable foe than the other warriors. A glint came into his eye as he gripped the mouse and stared into the screen. When he looked up, it was almost 9 P.M. He’d lost track of time. The football game usually ended around 10 P.M. Frank turned back to the screen as one of his favorite music cuts came through the headphones.

  31

  See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

  HEBREWS 12:15

  Kay spent the day cleaning her apartment from top to bottom. It kept her busy, and by late afternoon, the kitchen floor shone and there wasn’t a stray blond hair anywhere in the bathroom. In the midst of her activity, she accumulated a few items to give Jake on Monday: two books on golf, a white T-shirt, a pair of brown socks, and a garish tie his mother had given him for his birthday. When she finished, the apartment was as cleansed from outward signs of Jake Wilson’s presence as the home of an Orthodox Jewish housewife in preparation for Passover.

  Pouring a glass of water, she sat in a padded chair on her balcony with a notebook and a pen. Instead of writing, she watched the activity in the parking lot beneath her. Groups of people came and went. A husband and wife with a baby in a stroller crossed the parking lot and drove away in a minivan. Birds darted through the trees. No one looked up. Kay was invisible in her isolation. A person alone is acutely aware of separation from others while the rest of the world passes by without taking notice. She went to bed early.

  The following day her disposition stayed dark even though the morning sun shone into her bedroom. She thought about hiding under the covers until noon but decided to go to church instead.

  Janie’s little brother saw her as soon as she walked through the door of the gym and he waved to her. There were a few more people present in the congregation than the first time Kay had visited. As soon as Kay was in her seat, the guitar-playing song leader stepped to the front, and the words to a song appeared on the screen. Kay didn’t watch what other people were doing. She immediately joined in herself. In a few minutes she was in the place of praise, love, and adoration where the music took her. The heaviness resting in her heart rolled away like a hidden stone. She closed her eyes and lifted her hands as her spirit was replenished with living water. She could face tomorrow.

  After the last note faded away, Linda Whitmire came forward and welcomed everyone to the church. Ben followed her to the front and silently watched his wife walk back to her seat.

  “Isn’t she beautiful?” he asked in a voice that left no doubt as to his sincerity.

  His wife smiled. Linda’s face was wrinkled, her hair snow white, and she carried at least thirty-five pounds more than she should on her small frame, but Kay knew that to Ben Whitmire his wife was beautiful. She was slightly jealous with wonder.

  “Do you know why?” Ben continued.

  Kay waited.

  Ben looked across the congregation. “Linda is so beautiful on the inside that it can’t be hidden from the outside. That’s what I want to talk about this morning—the beauty of our inner person. This beauty doesn’t apply only to women.” Ben rubbed his hand across his balding head. “You know, God thinks I’m beautiful, too.”

  A few people laughed, and for the next thirty minutes Ben explained the process of inner transformation under the loving hand of an almighty God. Kay listened. To her, the events of life seemed haphazard—more like random marks on a page than notes that created a symphony. Ben had another perspective. He believed that everything—including a difficult relationship—was a golden opportunity for change.

  “In one of the first churches I served,” he said, “there were three women who didn’t like me. They’d loved the previous pastor and resented it when I came to serve their church. Of course, I didn’t know how they felt at first, but Linda picked up on it and told me I was in for a hard time at their hands. ‘Hard’ was an understatement.

&nb
sp; “They talked about me behind my back in the church and around town. They criticized what I said, accused me of things I’d never thought of doing, and generally made my life miserable. During my sermons, they would take notes, and later repeat what I said out of context and crucify me over the telephones and in kitchens all over the area. The ringleader of the group was the richest member of the church—her father had started the biggest bank in the area—and no one was willing to take up my case against her. After a year, they convinced my secretary to quit, then wrote letters to denominational leaders asking them to kick me out of the ministry because I couldn’t administer the staff of the church.

  “I didn’t respond very well. I asked God to take them to heaven, which was my religious way of asking him to get them out of my life. That didn’t happen, so I prayed that they would leave the church, the town, and the state. That didn’t happen, either. Week after week, month after month, they came to the services, sat toward the front, and glowered at me. I lost count of the number of ways in which they were able to create problems for me. This went on for two years until I was whipped. They had won, and I began making other plans for the future. I bought a book so I could learn how to sell life insurance when I left the ministry.”

  The preacher paused. “Then one night I had a dream. In the dream I was sitting in the lap of my Heavenly Father. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew who it was because of the love I felt in his presence. There was an open space in front of us containing a large block of beautiful marble.

  “‘Do you know what that is?’ he asked me.

  “Somehow I knew that a block of marble wasn’t the right answer, so I replied, ‘No.’

  “‘That’s you,’ he answered. ‘The person I want you to be is hidden inside.’

  “At that point hands appeared out of the air and began to chip away at the marble. It reminded me of an old Walt Disney movie. The hands were moving almost faster than my eyes could follow, but it wasn’t fast enough for me. I wanted to see the finished product.

  “‘Make them go faster,’ I said.

  “‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  “Not taking my eyes from the scene before me, I cried out, ‘Yes! Faster!’

  “The hands worked at a furious pace. In no time, I could distinguish a body with a head. Then the arms and legs took shape. The rough outlines were refined, and the facial features were revealed from their secret place within the rock. When it was finished, I couldn’t believe the beauty of the new creation. It put Michelangelo to shame.

  “‘Is that me?’ I asked, not fully believing that it could be so.

  “‘Yes,’ he answered.

  “‘Thank you,’ I whispered in awe.

  “‘You’re welcome,’ he answered, then added, ‘but don’t you want to thank my helpers?’

  “I knew he was referring to the hands. ‘Yes! Let me see them!’”

  Ben Whitmire smiled. “I’d never seen an angel before and my anticipation was high. Maybe angels had hands as well as wings. Then from behind the magnificent statue appeared the smiling faces of my tormentors— the three women from the church. They waved to me, and I woke up. God wasn’t using angels to do the work of changing me; he was relying upon my enemies.

  “I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I paced the floor, arguing and debating, until I came to terms with the lesson he wanted me to learn. The difficult people and circumstances in life are often the tools God uses to bring forth the enduring beauty of Christian character. If we want to be transformed, we have to be changed. One of the ways God uses is the challenge of difficult relationships.”

  The minister continued, “You’re probably wondering what happened after I realized the truth. Well, the next Sunday I went up to the women before the service and thanked them for coming. They gave me a strange look and started whispering furiously after I walked away. Nothing changed, the gang of three continued their activities. They gossiped, criticized, and plotted my downfall. But my heart was free. Time after time, I went out of my way to show kindness to them, and when one of them lost a brother to cancer, I drove a hundred miles to attend the funeral. Eventually, she quit the group. The other two never let up and badgered me until I left town for a larger church. But when I packed the moving van and drove down the driveway of our house for the last time, I didn’t take any negative baggage of bitterness with me. Instead, I went to my next church with a few sizable chips knocked off the block of marble that was becoming a person who looked more and more like Jesus.”

  Ben took off his glasses. “Today, I call people like those women ‘grace-growers.’ When I see one coming, I don’t run or fight; I ask God what part of my life is going to be refined and transformed through this person. Do any of you have any grace-growers in your life? They may not be exactly like the ones at my church, but they are God’s instruments for your good.”

  Kay didn’t have to think long.

  From the time he was a little boy, the bomber had never had a normal life. He came from a womb of contention and lived in strife from his earliest years. Environment plays a powerful role in shaping character, and as a product of hate, he bore the imprint of those who molded him. Upon reaching the age of moral accountability, he made the influences of childhood his own. From then on, blame for who he was and what he did could not be shifted entirely to others. It lay at his feet.

  The student sporadically intersected with a basic routine of home and school, but none of his classmates would have characterized him as normal. He was different. He had no friends. No one knew his true thoughts, and he kept hidden from everyone the deepest levels of darkness that had inhabited his soul.

  Recent upheaval in his circumstances could have diverted him from continuing to plan his attack, but they didn’t. His problems reinforced his resolve to go forward. Circumstances caused delays, but he continued to construct a device capable of destroying the main school building.

  In the meantime, no one suspected. No one knew about the coming ball of fire.

  32

  And sheath’d their swords for lack of argument.

  KING HENRY V, ACT 3, SCENE 1

  Scott spent Sunday at the office finishing his trial preparation and then went home to practice his opening statement in front of the long mirror in his bedroom. He paced back and forth, gesturing with his hands and experimenting with different levels of volume in his voice. Nicky served as the lone juror. Eventually, the little dog went to sleep on the floor.

  According to Scott’s calculations, the Garrison trial would last two days. Monday morning would be devoted to selecting the jury, followed by opening statements and at least partial presentation of the state’s case in the afternoon. The rest of the case would take place on Tuesday. Since Lester wouldn’t testify, the defense case would be Scott’s closing argument. He’d written an outline of his jury summation, leaving plenty of blank spaces on the pages to add helpful information that came out during the trial. He hoped there would be tidbits. Mr. Humphrey had assured him that the state’s witnesses never presented a monolithic wall of consistent testimony. There were always cracks and crevices that an attentive lawyer could use to his client’s advantage.

  He’d been over every aspect of the case a hundred times, but there was one thing lacking in Scott’s preparation. Passion. He’d anticipated his first jury trial since the early days of law school. Now that it was at hand, he was having trouble psyching himself up for the battle. It was more difficult than he’d expected to divorce himself from the hate-filled premise of Lester’s beliefs and the unsavory aspects of his client’s character. Intellectually, Scott knew that professionalism prohibited his per- sonal feelings from influencing his obligation to defend his client with a zeal that protected those accused of crimes from arbitrary adjudications of guilt. However, the importance of the Constitution seemed faraway when Scott listened to Lester’s racist venom and considered what Harold Garrison had done to his son. He needed an emotional boost, and despite what he told Kay, feeding his
competitive ego and venting his animosity toward Lynn Davenport weren’t the kind of motivating factors he wanted to rely upon.

  During a fitful night, Scott dreamed about the Garrison case. The images that flashed through his mind were random and disconnected. It wasn’t as if the case began efficiently and moved to an orderly conclusion. It simply spun around like a merry-go-round that never stopped.

  Bleary-eyed, Scott awoke thirty minutes before his customary 6:30 A.M. and fixed a pot of strong coffee. Nicky scratched at the door to his cage, and Scott let him out to run across the dewy grass in the backyard. Sipping his coffee, Scott stood on the back step and watched Nicky’s morning antics. When the little dog saw him, he ran as fast as he could from the back corner of the yard and greeted his master by shaking his entire body. Life wasn’t complicated for Nicky. The only frustrating images in his dreams probably featured fat rabbits who disappeared under fences.

  Scott didn’t eat any breakfast and arrived at the office before 7 A.M. Dressed in his best dark suit with a striped tie, he’d combed his hair in a way he hoped would make him look a little older. Mr. Humphrey wanted to walk over to the courthouse no later than 8:30 A.M. so that he and Scott would have plenty of time to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with as many jurors as possible. The lawyers couldn’t mention the case, but there was no prohibition against being friendly.

  Scott had finished putting all his papers in the appropriate folders when Mr. Humphrey came into his office.

  “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” he boomed.

  Scott hadn’t noticed the weather.

  Mr. Humphrey continued, “Are you ready? I was thinking about the case at breakfast and told my wife I almost wished I could try it myself. You have a great shot at winning this one.”

  “Then why am I feeling so flat?” Scott asked.

  Mr. Humphrey’s right eyebrow shot up. “Ah, pretrial malaise.”

  The older lawyer sat down across from Scott’s desk. “Don’t worry. You only have so much emotional energy at your disposal. The fire will come when the battle really begins. If you waste it anticipating the trial, it won’t be available when it counts—in the courtroom.”