A Kingsbury Collection

by Karen Kingsbury

  And thanks to the Skyview basketball team, for always giving me a reason to cheer, even on deadline.

  THE DESCENT

  Weeping may endure for a night,

  but joy comes in the morning.

  PSALM 30:5, NKJV

  PROLOGUE

  Six days had passed since Laura Thompson’s job as a mother had officially ended.

  The wedding had gone off without a hitch, and the last of Laura’s four babies was out of the house, ready—like his siblings—to build a life of his own. She would always be their mom, of course, and in time she and Larry would welcome grand-babies and opportunities to visit with their grown children.

  But for all intents and purposes, Laura was out of a job—and that was the primary reason for today’s meeting.

  She let her gaze fall on the circle of women gathered that Friday morning at Cleveland Community Church—women she’d known most of her life—and she was struck by the realization that they’d arrived at this place together. Houses quiet, children gone, grandchildren still years away …

  Only their Friday morning Bible study remained the same.

  The chattering among the women diminished and Emma Lou, women’s president for the past year cast a tender smile their way. “Pastor gave me the names this morning.”

  A hush of expectancy settled over the group, and several of the women crossed their legs or tilted their heads, shifting their attention to the bowl in Emma Lou’s hand. Inside were the names of younger women, women who felt the need for prayer, women who were diapering babies and solving multiplication problems over dinner dishes and wondering how to make laughter and love last even in a Christian marriage.

  Laura swallowed hard, surprised to feel tears in her eyes. Women like she and her friends once had been.

  “Before we open our Bibles, let’s everyone draw a name. And remember, these are women who want your prayer and support, possibly even your mentoring. We may be finished raising our families, but these young gals are just starting out.” Emma Lou’s eyes shone with the memories of days gone by. “Draw a name, keep it confidential, and take the responsibility of praying for that one as seriously as you once took the job of mothering. I believe the Lord would find our work in this task every bit as important.”

  Laura dabbed at a tear and sucked in a quick breath. She wouldn’t cry, not here, not now. She had a wonderful family and a million happy memories. There was nothing she could do to change the fact that her family was grown. But this—this role of praying for a young mother in their church fellowship—was something she could do today. Something that would give her life purpose, meaning, and direction.

  Laura intended to carry out the assignment with all her heart.

  The bowl was passed around the circle, and when it came to her she reached in, moving her fingers through the papers. Who, Lord? Who would You have me pray for?

  She clasped a small slip and plucked it from the others. Would it be a mother overwrought with financial challenges? One burdened with the daily demands of mothering? Or perhaps a sweet daughter of the Lord whose husband didn’t share her faith? Whoever she was, Laura knew the power of lifting a sister directly to the throne room of God. She could hardly imagine the results of praying for such a one over time.

  Laura waited until Emma Lou asked them to read the names they had drawn, then her eyes fell to her hands as she unfolded the piece of paper and saw the bold writing inside. For a moment, a sharp pang of disappointment stabbed at her. What’s this? I must have grabbed the wrong slip.

  Maggie Stovall?

  Of all the women in the church, God wanted her to pray for Maggie Stovall? What special needs could an exemplary woman like Maggie possibly have? How could she require daily prayer? Surely there was someone who needed her support more than Maggie Stovall.

  Laura settled back in her chair, surprised Maggie had even gone to the trouble of requesting prayer. The young woman was a regular at church. Each week without exception, she and her husband volunteered in the Sunday school wing to lead the children in song. As far as Laura knew, Maggie was a successful newspaper columnist, her husband an established attorney. For the past few years, they’d even opened their home to foster children.

  In need of prayer? The Stovalls were part of the blessed crowd—popular, well-liked people who cast a favorable impression on the entire church body, people the pastor and elders were proud to have in their midst.

  Never, not even once, had Laura seen Maggie Stovall look anything but radiantly happy and perfectly put together.

  Maggie Stovall? Am I hearing you right, Lord?

  The answer was clear and quick: Pray, dear one. Maggie needs prayer.

  Immediately an image filled Laura’s mind. The image of a woman wearing a mask.

  Laura couldn’t make out the woman’s features, nor were the details of the mask clear. Still the image remained, and though Laura had no idea what to make of the mental picture she was instantly seized with remorse. I’m sorry, Lord. Really. I’ll pray … maybe there’s something I don’t know about Maggie.

  Laura ran her finger gently over the young woman’s name, then folded the slip of paper and tucked it inside her Bible.

  The vision of the masked woman came to mind again, and a sadness covered Laura’s heart. Was it Maggie? Was there something she was hiding? What is it, Lord? Tell me?

  Silence.

  Laura sighed and her resolve grew. She might no longer be needed in the daily tasks of mothering, but clearly she was needed in this. God had spoken that much to her months ago when she had first suggested the idea of praying for the young women in their midst. And if this woman was the one she was to pray for, so be it.

  She would pray for Maggie Stovall as though it were the most important job in the world.

  And maybe one day God would let her understand.

  1

  The moments of lucidity were few and far between anymore. Thankfully, this was one of them. Aware of the fact, Maggie Stovall worked her fingers over the computer keyboard as though they might somehow propel her ahead of the darkness, keep her inches in front of whatever it was that hungered after her mind, her sanity.

  Despite all that was uncertain that fall, Maggie was absolutely sure of one thing: She was losing it. And the little blond girl—whoever she might be—was only partly to blame.

  Maggie’s desk in the newsroom of the Cleveland Gazette was one of the remaining places where, most of the time, she still felt normal. The twenty or forty minutes a day she spent there were an oasis of peace and clarity bordered by a desert of hours, all dark, barren, and borderline crazy. The newsroom deadlines and demands left no room for fear and trembling, no time for worrying whether the darkness was about to consume her.

  Maggie drew a steadying breath, glanced around the newsroom, and saw that the office was full of more reporters than usual for a Wednesday. Slow news day. Great. When news was slow her column got front-page billing, and the one she was writing for tomorrow’s paper was bound to gain attention: “The Real Abuse of Abused Children.” She let her eyes run down the page. This column would be clipped out of papers round the city, tacked to office walls, and mailed to the Social Services department by irate citizens. She would receive dozens of letters, and the paper would receive more, but none of that bothered Maggie.

  She’d gotten the job at the Gazette more man two years earlier and she’d been churning out her column, “Maggie’s Mind,” five days a week since. She’d developed a reputation, a persona, that a segment of the public hated and a greater segment couldn’t seem to get enough of. People said she put words to the thoughts and conversations that took place in a majority of homes in their area and around the country. The conservative homes. The people who voted against tax hikes and partial-birth abortions; people who wanted tougher prisons and longer sentences, and prayer in public schools. The segment of the population who wanted a return to family-friendly governing.

  For those people, she was a welcome voice. The voi
ce of morality in a time and place where few in the paper, or anywhere in the media for that matter, seemed committed to speaking on their behalf. Most Gazette readers loved Maggie. From the beginning they had applauded her, and a few months after starting at the paper the editorial staff had been forced to hire an assistant simply to weed through the mail generated by Maggie’s efforts.

  “You know, Maggie girl, I think you’ve really got something with that column of yours,” her editor had told her more than once. “It’s disconcerting, really. Like the rest of us are writing for some small special interest group, but you … ah, Maggie, you’re writing for them. The moral majority.”

  Maggie knew the paper’s editorial board was glad to have her on staff, even if many of her peers disagreed with her political views. But no one was more proud than her husband, Ben, an assistant district attorney who was also president of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. After nearly seven years of marriage, Ben was still in love with her; she had no doubts. Even now, when they had to search awkwardly for things to talk about and her attitude toward him was vastly different than a year ago, he would still walk over burning coals to prove his love.

  Because he doesn’t know the truth.

  No. Not now, Maggie thought. Not with a column to finish.

  Among the silent voices that taunted her these days was her own, and at times like this she was her worst enemy. If Ben knew the truth about her past, if he knew the real person he’d married, he would do what Joseph set out to do to Mary two thousand years ago: divorce her quietly and leave town on the first passing donkey.

  “How’s it coming, Mag?” It was Ron Kendall, managing editor, and he shouted the question from twenty feet away where the editors’ desks formed an imposing island in the middle of the newsroom.

  “Fine. I’ll file in ten minutes.”

  “I might need it for page one. Give me a liner.” Ron leaned back in his chair for a clearer view of Maggie’s face.

  She glanced at her screen and summed up her column. “Woman’s lawsuit demands changes in the way abused children are handled by Social Services.”

  “Good. Got it.” Ron returned to the task at hand—planning the paper’s front page.

  There were those at the paper who disliked Ron, but Maggie wasn’t among them. Built like a linebacker with a mass of unkempt white hair and a perpetual two-day beard, the man’s voice rang through the newsroom whenever a deadline was missed or an untruth reported in print. But deep down, beneath his work face, Ron Kendall was the last of a dying breed of editors, a churchgoing conservative who cherished his role in shaping and reporting the news of Cleveland.

  Once Maggie ran into Ron at a dinner raising money for the city’s rescue mission. Near the end of the evening, he pulled her aside.

  “Someday you’re going to get offers to leave us.” The flint was missing from his eyes and in its place was a sparkle that couldn’t be contrived. “Just remember this: Losing you would be like losing one of my arms.” He patted her shoulder. “Don’t ever leave us, Maggie. We need you.”

  That was a year ago, and Maggie was surprised to find Ron had been right. Offers had come from Los Angeles, Dallas, even New York. Editors might have enjoyed staffing their papers with liberal-minded news seekers, but nothing met the readers’ appetite like a conservative columnist—and those who were well liked were in high demand.

  Maggie had done what Ron asked and stayed. She liked Cleveland and their church friends at Cleveland Community. Besides, Ben’s job was there.

  If they knew the truth about me … Maggie closed her eyes. They’d fire me in a heartbeat. I’d have no marriage, no column …

  Stop it! Stay focused! That was seven years ago, Maggie.

  But Maggie knew it didn’t matter how many years had slipped by. She would never get past the truth. And there would never be any way she could tell Ben.

  Let no falsehood come from your mouth, but only that which is …

  There it was again. The familiar calm, still voice … and with it a strange feeling of impending doom so great Maggie had to fight the urge to take cover. Her eyes flew open and she moved her hands into position at her keyboard. “Let’s get this thing done,” she hissed through clenched teeth. This was no time for strange, scriptural warnings about lie telling. She had a deadline to meet.

  What was done was done.

  Help me concentrate, God. Help me forget about what’s behind; help me look ahead without this … whatever it is that wants to consume me.

  Her head cleared, and she studied her computer screen once more.

  Her column that day was based on a lawsuit filed against the city’s Social Services department by a Cleveland woman contesting that the department was to blame for destroying her son. She’d adopted the boy when he was five years old. Over the next four years he’d been diagnosed with a host of disorders all attesting to the fact that he was unmanageable, unable to attach emotionally, and inappropriately aggressive toward her other children. Finally, the woman felt forced to turn the then nine-year-old back over to Social Services.

  The lawsuit shone a flashlight of concern on the Social Services department, which still held to the notion that children should be raised by their parents whenever possible, regardless of the situation in the home. The woman contended that if Social Services had removed the boy from his birth mother sooner, he wouldn’t have been so badly scarred emotionally.

  Maggie’s heart ached with understanding.

  She and Ben were foster parents, currently of seven-year-old twin boys. Their mother was an alcoholic, their father dangerously violent. Still, Maggie knew that one day, long after the boys had bonded with her and Ben, they would be returned to their birth mother. Stories like the one she was writing about were tragically common, and Maggie hoped her words might touch a nerve across the city. Perhaps if enough people demanded change …

  She scanned what she’d just written.

  The way the department operates today, a child may be kept hostage in closets while Mom sells herself for drugs; he can be beaten, mocked, and left to sleep in urine-soaked rags, yet that type of home life is deemed best for the child. The solution is obvious. We must fight to see the system changed and demand that such children be removed from the home the first time harmful circumstances come to light—while the child is still young enough to find an adoption placement.

  The statistics tell the story. With each passing year, the odds of a troubled child finding an adoptive home diminish by 20 percent. In the first year, the chances of adoption are brilliantly high. Even at age two most children will find permanent, loving homes. But many children removed from abusive homes are not released for adoption until age five, and often much later. What happens to these children?

  Too often they are left to squander their baby years in abusive situations and temporary foster homes, moving every few months while Mom and Dad dry out or serve jail time. In the process, they become emotionally “damaged goods”: children too old and too jaded ever to fit into a loving, adoptive family. In cases like these, we have only one place to point the finger for the tragic consequences: The archaic rules of the Social Services department.

  I thank God for people like Mrs. Werdemeir, whose lawsuit finally exposes the type of tragedy that has gone on far too long. The tragedy of thinking that no matter the situation, a child belongs with his mother.

  Tonight when you kneel beside the bed of your little one, remember those babies out there sleeping in closets. And pray that God will change the minds of those who might make a difference.

  Suddenly Maggie’s mind drifted, and her eyes jumped back a sentence: Your little ones … little ones … little ones … kneel beside the bed of your little ones …

  Her eyes grew wet and the words faded. What about us, Lord? Where are the little ones we’ve prayed for? Haven’t we tried? Haven’t we? She remembered the testing, the experimental procedures they’d participated in, the drug therapy and nutrition programs that were supposed to help
her get pregnant. A single tear slid down her cheek into her mouth. It tasted bitter, like it had come from some place deep and forbidden in her soul, and she wiped at it in frustration.

  Nothing had worked.

  Even now her arms ached for the children they didn’t have. Foster kids, yes … but no babies to pray over, no little ones to be thankful for. Why Lord? It’s been seven years …

  You had your chance. You don’t deserve a child of your own.

  The truth hit hard, and her breath caught in her throat.

  Maggie blinked twice, and the taunting voice faded. She quickly included a footnote at the bottom of her column advising readers that there would be more information in the coming weeks and months on the issue of abused and forgotten children in the Social Services system. She saved her changes and sent the file to Ron’s computer.

  “It’s in.” She spoke loudly, and when she saw her editor nod, she turned her attention back to the now blank computer screen. Seconds passed, and a face began taking shape. The newsroom noise faded as the picture on the screen grew clearer, and suddenly Maggie could make out the girl’s features … her pretty, innocent face; her lovely, questioning eyes.

  Do you know where my mama is? the girl seemed to ask.

  Maggie wanted to shout at the image, but she blinked twice and before her mind could give her mouth permission to speak, the girl disappeared.

  It was her of course—the same girl every time, every day. She saw the child everywhere, even in her dreams.

  The girl’s presence had been a constant for nearly a year, making it difficult for Maggie to think of anything else. As a result, the days were no longer consumed with her work as a columnist, her role as a foster mother, or her duties as the wife of an important lawyer and civic leader. No, each day had become consumed with the idea that one day—perhaps not too far off—the little girl would not fade into air.