Overcomer

by Chris Fabry

  In late July, as the enrollment period was coming to an end, a woman named Shelly Hundley left a message. She said she was in the financial office of Brookshire Christian School and wanted to speak about Hannah. On her break at work, Barbara returned the call.

  “Thank you for calling me back, Ms. Scott. I was told you were interested in Hannah attending here?” The woman spoke in crisp tones. She sounded like she had her life together. Not a care in the world.

  “I did inquire there, but when I heard the cost, I knew I couldn’t make it work. But thank you for—”

  “I understand, Ms. Scott. And you’re right—Brookshire isn’t cheap. But we think our school is worth the investment. There are some great people here who really care about our students.”

  Barbara couldn’t believe the sales pitch. “I’m sure they do, ma’am. But I can’t afford it.”

  “I understand. But there may still be a way,” Shelly said quickly, before Barbara could hang up.

  “What way is that?”

  “Why don’t you and Hannah come by the office tomorrow afternoon?”

  Barbara wanted to say, What’s the point? Instead, she said, “I work until six.”

  “How about in the morning, before you go to work?”

  “I work two jobs to make ends meet. I start at five tomorrow morning and I’m not done until six in the evening.”

  “I see,” Shelly said, pausing. “What if we met tomorrow night at seven thirty? That would give you time to get home, have dinner with your granddaughter, and then bring her here.”

  Barbara shook her head. This woman wasn’t giving up. And how did she know Hannah was her granddaughter? All of that swirled in her brain until Barbara had enough. “Look, I appreciate you offering to stay late, but I don’t see a reason to trouble you. Even if you cut the rate in half, I can’t afford it.”

  “Please. Just bring Hannah to the school tomorrow evening. I promise it will be worth the effort.”

  Barbara reluctantly agreed, though she doubted the woman’s words. Everybody had an angle. Everybody was looking for something from somebody and if you trusted them, at best you’d get hurt and at worst you’d have your heart broken. Many times over, as Barbara had learned. What if she took Hannah there and she actually liked this school? Why get the child’s hopes up when there was no chance?

  But Barbara had exhausted every other option already. And a hopeless possibility was still better than no possibility at all. The next evening, after a quick dinner, Barbara and Hannah headed to Brookshire.

  “I don’t understand why we’re going there if we can’t afford it,” Hannah said.

  “You and me both, baby. Somebody wants you to see the school. And I’m guessing they want you to see it and like it enough to get me to pay. It’s not gonna happen. Not in a million years. But at least we can hear the woman out.”

  Hannah put her earbuds in and Barbara motioned for her to wait. “Don’t get too attached to this place. Act coy. Do you know what coy is?”

  “Not really.”

  “It means . . . don’t get excited. And if you do, don’t let her know. Play it cool.”

  “Okay.”

  Barbara hated to admit that every time she looked at Hannah, her stomach churned. Every time she saw those deep-brown eyes, she saw her daughter’s face. She saw the way Janet had squandered her life. She saw Hannah making bad choices and mistakes that would follow her, maybe for the rest of her life. Hannah was running for something just out of her reach.

  The problem, Barbara knew, was that when she looked at Hannah and saw Janet, she also saw herself. Three generations along the very same path, though making very different kinds of mistakes along the way. Life for Barbara had become a nonstop loop where she worked all day and came home to her little house by the bend in the river. She had scraped up the down payment and moved in only to be too tired to enjoy the accomplishment. On so many levels her life was one step forward and one step back down a flight of stairs. Here she was again at the bottom landing trying to pick herself up.

  Her marriage had been like that. She’d found a man she thought could make her happy. The outcome wasn’t good. At first, the marriage had gone well. Everything seemed fine. She called him “honey” and he called her “love.” The trouble came when she discovered she wasn’t his only love.

  Barbara had inklings something wasn’t right from their first date. He made her feel warm and cherished and cared for, unlike other men who didn’t open car doors or act gentlemanly. But something was off. Something didn’t quite fit. It was just a hint of a question mark, a twinge of doubt, that Barbara pushed down. Strangely, the doubt about him became a doubt about herself. Every time she had the feeling that something was off, she kicked herself and heard an accusing voice: What are you thinking? He’s a good man. He’ll be a good provider. A real catch. Why are you sabotaging your chance at a good marriage?

  She heard that in her head as she walked the aisle and said, “I do.” And she did. She pushed all the questions and doubt away and plunged in.

  And then, one summer day five years after the wedding, things fell apart. It happened, strangely enough, with the idea of cleaning her house, top to bottom. While Janet was content in her playpen, Barbara rolled up her sleeves and chose to start with the spare room upstairs. She opened the closet and removed clothes she didn’t even know she had. In ten minutes she had her first load ready for Goodwill and felt she was making progress.

  She took everything from the shelf above the clothes—photo albums, magazines, a strongbox with birth certificates and important papers, and mementos collected from their honeymoon. With everything clear, she noticed a square piece of wood in the ceiling slightly askew, probably the entry to the attic crawl space. The panel sat funny, revealing a hole, like it had been recently moved. She tried to reach it, but even on tiptoes she couldn’t. She carried the crooked, paint-scarred stepladder from the garage, checking on Janet. She climbed the ladder and pushed at the board, but instead of aligning it, she became curious. What was up there? She took another step up and peeked over the edge of the opening.

  What Barbara saw sent her life into a spiral. Videos. Magazines. Those were bad enough. What took her breath away were pictures in a plastic bag. She opened them and looked through them. These were not old pictures but recent. As she stared at them, all the doubt she had felt while dating and in the last five years rose like a mushroom cloud. The man she thought she had married, the one who called her “love,” was not who she thought he was. He wore a mask. And the pictures showed the face behind it.

  Standing on that ladder, seeing the truth, had crushed Barbara. But she also resolved then and there that she would never be taken in by anyone. She would never let someone convince her they were something they weren’t. She had learned the hard way you couldn’t trust anybody. If you did, they’d let you down.

  Now, driving to Brookshire, seeing Hannah in her peripheral vision, she felt like she was on some rickety ladder. She had gone through unimaginable hurt and pain with Janet, who sneaked around with T-bone, who lied about where she was going and what she was doing. All she had left of her daughter was a photo album and a gravestone.

  The summer sun was still up when they arrived at Brookshire. The school grounds were immaculately trimmed.

  “Sure looks different than Franklin High,” Hannah said.

  Shelly met them at the front door and insisted on giving a guided tour. They walked through the halls and into the gymnasium. She showed them the track and other athletic fields. Sports seemed to be a big deal, though the recent closing of the steel plant had caused a diaspora.

  That’s it, Barbara thought. Enrollment is down and the school is desperate to get new students.

  Shelly took them to a beautiful library, a media center, the cafeteria, and an auditorium that looked amazing. Barbara wanted the tour to stop, but she followed the woman through the halls. After a half hour, Shelly led them to her office. The room was furnished nicely but wasn
’t over-the-top.

  “So what did you think, Hannah?” Shelly said, smiling and folding her hands on her desk.

  Hannah glanced at Barbara, then back at the woman. “It’s nice.”

  “How would you like to go to school here?”

  Barbara leaned forward. “Ma’am, I told you there is no way I can afford—”

  Shelly raised a hand and opened a folder on the desk. “There’s a friend of the school who heard of Hannah’s situation and wanted to help.”

  “Friend?” Barbara said. “Who?”

  “A person who wishes to remain anonymous,” Shelly said. “Hannah’s tuition has been paid. For the entire year.”

  “What?” Hannah said, glancing at Barbara with eyes as wide as saucers. She put a hand over her mouth as she stared at her grandmother.

  Barbara’s jaw dropped, too. Tears came to her eyes. Who would do such a thing?

  “I don’t know what to say,” Barbara finally said.

  Shelly looked at the folder. “Now, there is the situation of the expulsions at the former schools. There’s a code of conduct we ask our students and their parents or guardians to sign. You’ll see the dress code, as well. I have a welcome packet that explains all of that. So if you agree, you simply sign the forms and return them.”

  “We can sign that now,” Barbara said quickly.

  Shelly smiled. “It’s another month before school starts. Take the packet, read it carefully so you know the rules and what’s acceptable and not acceptable.”

  “I can assure you Hannah will abide by all the rules,” Barbara said. “That trouble she had, that’s over and done with. Right, Hannah?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hannah said, her voice a little too soft for Barbara’s liking.

  “We are grateful for this opportunity, Ms. Hundley. And you can trust that Hannah will be on her best behavior.”

  Shelly looked at Hannah. “I think you’re going to find the teachers and staff here warm and welcoming. The students all want to learn. We have a great athletic program, though to be honest, we’re not sure which sports will be available in the fall. What are your interests outside of the classroom?”

  Hannah seemed confused by the question.

  “She ran track last year,” Barbara said.

  “Cross-country,” Hannah said, correcting her.

  Shelly nodded. “That’s great. You should go out for the team.”

  As they left, Barbara paused in front of the school and studied the list of names on a plaque. That’s when it came together. That’s when she realized what had happened.

  In the car, Hannah stared out the windshield, dumbfounded. “Did that really happen?”

  “I can hardly believe it myself, but it really did, baby.”

  “I wonder who gave the scholarship.”

  Barbara swallowed hard and stared at the road. “That’s not important. What is important is for you to study hard, work hard, and avoid any of the trouble you got into at Franklin High. You understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Barbara drove toward home and a memory jumped out of nowhere. She and her daughter would celebrate when something positive happened. If Barbara got a raise or if Janet got a good grade on a test or a part in the school play, Janet would pull out the same song and play it over and over. At home, she turned up the speakers and danced around the house. The memory made Barbara smile. Instead of turning left as they neared their house, she took a right.

  “Where are you going?” Hannah said.

  “‘Celebrate good times, come on,’” Barbara sang, dipping her head and snapping her fingers.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s something your mother used to sing. Anything good happened and she’d play that song and dance. And we’d go to Anna Banana for ice cream.”

  Hannah smiled and seemed to enjoy the sight of her grandmother singing and dancing behind the wheel. Barbara thought it was a breakthrough. Things were beginning to turn around.

  CHAPTER 5

  After a long day of prep and planning at school, John stopped at a bakery and bought a dozen cinnamon rolls, a store specialty. Tonight was their first small group study since summer break and he was looking forward to connecting with people they had met with for five years.

  Ethan and Will shot baskets in the driveway until John asked for help straightening the house for company. The boys obliged. Amy was busy with dinner, though she had spent the day planning for the start of the school year as well. John felt like they were in constant motion, from one event to the next. Life was a treadmill and their lives were little boxes on a calendar filled in by someone else—duties as assigned. Once school started, the treadmill would accelerate. This weekly gathering had become an oasis, a chance to connect with others and step away from the rat race, if only for a couple of hours.

  The group had morphed over the years but now they were five couples and Larry, which sounded like a musical group from the 1960s. Larry was single and took care of his aging mother. He’d been in the military and something had happened between basic training and a deployment. Most nights he kept quiet, unless someone asked his opinion. Amy said Larry was deep water.

  Tough times in the group forced their roots deeper and drew them closer. A cancer diagnosis was thankfully caught early, and a couple going through infertility brought news of a pregnancy, then a miscarriage. Instead of creating distance and isolation, the highs and lows bonded them in a way John couldn’t explain or fully understand. God had used the broken places to help them grow.

  By the time John showered and came downstairs, Bill and Peggy Henderson had arrived. Bill and Peggy were anchors in the group and the church. Bill and their pastor, Mark Latimer, visited the hospital and nursing homes together. He worked for a concrete company, doing mostly flat work for new construction. He’d poured the concrete for John and Amy’s driveway. The two sat in the kitchen, not touching the cinnamon rolls. That was a clue something was wrong. Nobody said no to those rolls.

  “I thought we could survive with repair jobs and such, but the owner told me today he’s closing,” Bill said. “New construction’s dead. It’ll be a long time before it picks up, if it ever does. He’s taking the business out of state.”

  “Feels early to close shop, doesn’t it?” John said. “Things could turn around.”

  Bill rubbed his rough hands. “Seems drastic, but I understand the decision. It’s bad, John.”

  “What will you do?” Amy said, putting a hand on Peggy’s shoulder.

  “We’re not sure,” Peggy said. “I’m trying to stay strong. You know, trusting God in the dark. I’m just not there yet.”

  Bill stared at his coffee. “We wanted you to know before we got started tonight. We have some hard decisions to make.”

  “When one hurts, we all hurt,” John said.

  There were tears and a lot of prayer that night. People shared their fears. Larry read something from a journal he’d kept, prayers they had prayed in the group a few months earlier. Prayers they had forgotten, some they hadn’t even noticed God had answered. Amy was right about the deep water.

  It was John’s nature to fix things, but he was learning to hold back. It was enough to hear the pain and struggle of his friends and simply listen to the doubts and disappointments. He also held back from sharing his own questions and fears. And he could feel them floating, right under the surface of his life.

  CHAPTER 6

  Hannah was equally nervous and excited about Brookshire. She welcomed a fresh start at a place where other students knew nothing about her past. Her grandmother kept talking about what a great opportunity Hannah had with a “clean slate.” A fresh start, like the new clothes she’d been given to start the year.

  Her grandmother’s expectations made her nervous. What if she messed up this opportunity? And how would the other students treat her? After all, it was a Christian school and they would expect her to obey all the rules. She assumed the school would have people who
watched you like a hawk to see if you were doing anything wrong.

  Hannah considered herself a Christian, of course. Her grandmother had taken her to church and she’d gone to Sunday school classes. She had even occasionally tried to pay attention to sermons, even when they went on and on and she nodded off. These days, her grandmother worked so hard all week that by Sunday she was exhausted. It was easier for both of them to stay in a warm bed on Sunday mornings.

  Hannah finished her day at the Y and headed home. She’d picked out her favorite shirt that morning, the one that said, Hello Weekend. There was something about wearing a shirt you liked that made the day seem more bearable. The Hello Weekend shirt was like putting on short-sleeved hope.

  Instead of heading straight home, Hannah walked toward Webb Park. It was a peaceful place with playgrounds and fields surrounded by woods. There was a bench by a little pond where geese landed and honked and she liked to imagine them having conversations. Even geese seemed to have one bird who was on the outside, a misfit. Hannah wished she could be a bird and reach out and make friends. Maybe give it a bit of hope.

  She sat on the bench a few minutes, listening to kids on the swings, the squeak-squeak of metal on metal, the back and forth, legs pumping, striving to go higher. When the geese didn’t come, she headed toward a knoll that led to the apartments near her house. She would cut through there to get home.

  There were people at the tennis courts and bikes propped against fences, and nearby some guys played three-on-three basketball, celebrating each shot made, each pass intercepted. It was the sound of summer ending on every court in the country where kids dreamed of being special. She looked for the boy who seemed like he didn’t belong. There was usually one who didn’t quite fit, slower or shorter or without the same hand-eye coordination. A kid who didn’t have the swagger, the mojo. But the six seemed evenly matched. The tall ones hung around the basket. The shorter ones dribbled low and cut toward the lane and then passed to the open player.