A Kingsbury Collection

by Karen Kingsbury

  “It’s time to break the ties. For me, Maggie. It’s time. Decide who you love more. Come on, it’s time … ”

  Then she looked and saw a thick piece of twine tying her hand to the baby’s. “Somebody stop that awful music!” But no one was listening to her. Before she could stop him, Ben brought the hatchet down on the center of the cord so that the baby and Maggie were no longer tied together. With that, the hatchet became a white dove that flew through an opening in the window.

  The nurse tapped her on the shoulder. “Give her to me. Give her to me. Give her to me … ”

  That’s when Maggie saw it wasn’t a nurse at all, but a machine—an unfeeling, uncaring, cold-blooded machine with glowing electric eyes and a hinged mouth.

  “Don’t do it, Mommy, please!” The infant was speaking again, crying for Maggie to hold on, and she did so with all her strength. But Ben took her arm and began pulling her away.

  “It’s for the best, Maggie. Let her go.” Without waiting for Maggie’s response, he pulled harder. At the same time, the nurse grabbed the baby from her arms and spun in the other direction, moving mechanically toward a narrow door.

  “Wait! Don’t take her from me … ” Maggie began sobbing hysterically, desperate for the feel of the baby in her arms once more. “Bring her back … please!”

  But Ben was relentless. His eyes still glowing with faith and hope and love, his clothing black as the terrors of night, he tightened his grip on her arm and moved her from the room.

  When they walked out the door, there was no longer a floor to step onto, but a sharp cliff leading to a deep, dark, deadly canyon. The music was almost deafening now, and in that instant she and Ben began to fall—

  Maggie awoke with a start, sitting straight up in bed. The sheets were drenched in perspiration and she was trembling violently from the inside out. Where was she? Her eyes darted about the room and her breathing came fast and hard. Where was the baby? The little girl? Ben?

  The fog began to clear and she forced herself to exhale.

  Calm down. It was only a dream. “Dear God, why?” The words escaped from her like the cry of a wounded animal. How could she have done it? Handed her baby over to the state’s foster system all so she could …

  Maggie climbed out of bed as her eyes darted around the room. The red glowing numbers on the clock told her it was five in the morning. Sweat continued to drip from her forehead, and she realized she was in the middle of a panic attack. She needed something, another pill or a doctor. Something.

  Her eyes fell on the Bible sitting in the center of her bedside table. She had noticed it before but had never felt the need to open it. She could talk to God if she needed help. What more could His Word do for her at this point? After all, it hadn’t brought her peace and joy and it hadn’t prevented her from falling apart and being admitted to a mental hospital. No, she didn’t need the Bible. She needed medication.

  Her eyes searched the room again, focusing on a meal tray from last night. It lay on the floor, near her bed. Maggie rushed to it, rifling through the dirty items. Maybe she’d forgotten to take her antianxiety pill. She knocked over a glass of water in her haste and huffed in frustration. There were no pills on the tray. She pushed the nurse’s call button.

  After a beat, Maggie heard the nurse’s voice. “Mrs. Stovall, can I help you?”

  “Yes! I’m … uh, not doing very well here. I think I need … maybe you can get me one of those pills, okay?” Her voice shook from the fear raging through her.

  “Mrs. Stovall, I’m afraid it’s not time for that medication yet. It’s very important that you don’t take too much. Remember, the goal is to help you live without the medication if at all possible.”

  “It isn’t possible!” she screamed. What am I doing? Why can’t I get a grip here, God?

  Joy will come in the morning. My word is a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path …

  The Bible. God wants me to read the Bible. Maggie’s heart rate slowed considerably, and she stared at the intercom in her hand. “Never mind. I think I’ll just … I’m sorry. Never mind.”

  Maggie dropped the device and moved slowly around the bed to the portable table. Was it still true, even after all the ways in which she’d failed everyone who mattered in her life? Could God’s Word still light her path?

  She remembered her father saying if people really wanted a friend in Jesus, they needed to get friendly with the Gospels. Flipping the pages gingerly, Maggie allowed herself to remember the thin, crinkly feel of them between her fingers—and the peace that spending time within them had once brought. She stopped at the book of Matthew and skimmed past the genealogy of Christ. Then she began to read in earnest.

  Her sweating stopped and her trembling body stilled as she drew in the wonder of God’s truth for the first time in months.

  Nine hours later when she sat in Dr. Camas’s office she was convinced there was still power in God’s Word.

  “I’m ready to finish the story.” She sat straighter in the chair and though she had barely been at Orchards a week, Maggie had the faintest feeling that something inside her was learning to cope. If lies were like a wound to the soul, Maggie’s had been festering for more than seven years. Only by exposing them to the light of day could the raw place inside her ever begin to heal.

  Dr. Camas leaned back in his chair and his eyes offered encouragement. “Go ahead, Mrs. Stovall.”

  “Maggie. You can call me Maggie.”

  The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. “Very well. Go ahead, Maggie. Tell me the rest.”

  She closed her eyes, begging God for strength. Then she did what she hadn’t ever wanted to do again. She allowed herself to drift back in time to the spring of 1992, to a place of reckless abandon.

  To the season she dated John McFadden.

  The worst part about dating John was that she’d known from the beginning what he was about, what he stood for. Her mother always said rumors were like smoke, and where there was smoke there was usually a fire or two; and that if it looked like a duck and walked like a duck and quacked like a duck, well, it probably was a duck.

  After the dance—the one Ben couldn’t go to because of Deirdre—John called Maggie several times a week and flirted mercilessly, doing his best to get her out on a date. Maggie enjoyed his attention but refused to take him seriously. Guys like John scared her. They were experienced and worldly and would want from her the one thing she intended to keep intact: her virginity.

  But by the end of the third week, Maggie felt her defenses weakening. Ben hadn’t contacted her once since his devastating phone call, and she figured he and Deirdre were probably spending much of their time together. Forget him, Maggie thought. Let him go; I don’t have to wait around until he’s engaged to have fun. Besides, I’ll be careful …

  Thoughts like that consumed her and they were dangerous, Maggie knew. But she no longer cared. Ben had broken up with her; how could she believe God had a plan for her life?

  With that mind-set, she found herself giggling and blushing whenever John called; and finally, four weeks after the dance when he suggested they see a movie together she agreed to go.

  Maggie remembered her father’s reaction like it was yesterday.

  “I’ve heard about him, Margaret.” Her father only used her given name whenever he was deeply troubled by her actions. “He’s a womanizer … not the kind of young man suitable for a girl like yourself.”

  He was talking about Maggie’s purity, but his upbringing wouldn’t allow him to spell it out for her.

  “Daddy, he’s fun … ” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Instead of outlining the reasons John might be bad for her, Maggie’s father raised his voice to a level he rarely used. “You will not date John McFadden!” He stood tall and stern, his posture symbolic of the way he felt on the issue. Maggie’s mother waited quietly in the background, her head bowed. Clearly she was disgraced that Maggie had even considered dating such a
one. “Hear me clearly on this, Margaret. You will not date him. I absolutely forbid it.”

  Maggie ran to her room and cried herself to sleep and for the first time since she could remember, she refused to pray. There no longer seemed any reason. If God had taken Ben from her, then obviously He didn’t mind whom she dated. There wasn’t one special person for her after all. And the gift she’d once held as precious and worthy only of her husband began to feel more like a burden.

  On June 12 that year Maggie turned twenty-two, and the next week she used all her savings to buy an old Honda. Despite feelings of uncertainty she moved into an apartment with two girlfriends from college. She had secretly hoped her parents might try to stop her, maybe explain to her that God still had a plan for her life and that if only she would wait on Him things would fall into place. But they did nothing of the sort.

  Instead, while Maggie packed her belongings into a borrowed van, her mother mended a pile of clothes and refused even to make eye contact with her. That day, her mother’s single bit of advice to Maggie had been this: “If you must go, do it quickly. And be aware that you’re breaking your father’s heart.”

  Her father clearly disapproved also, but he helped her pack her things and hugged her before she left. “I am letting you go in the grace of God, trusting that by His mercy He will one day bring you safely home.”

  Maggie had always wondered how much her father loved her. He was so analytical in his thinking, so devoted to things of God. Often she figured he couldn’t possibly have time for thoughts of her. But that afternoon, under clear, blue summer skies, she saw tears in her father’s eyes—and every question she’d ever had about his love was answered in a single moment. Her father loved her, and he was willing to let her go so that she might find out for herself the weighty importance of one’s choices in life.

  After that, she and John began dating in earnest. At first it seemed to Maggie that she’d made a wonderful choice. John doted on her, bringing her jewelry and flowers for no reason other than to declare his love for her. Concerns about his character and intentions vanished like fog in the morning sun. But by the end of July, their relationship grew more physical.

  They’d be sitting in the front seat of his car kissing and he’d move his mouth along her neck up toward her ear, begging in raspy whispers to come up to her room for a while, promising her it would be all right. “If you really love me, you’d trust me. I’ll only stay an hour … come on, Maggie.”

  Twice she told him no, but on the third time, Maggie thought about her roommates and knew they wouldn’t mind. They had been casual friends of Maggie’s at Akron University, girls who hung out at beer keg parties while Maggie attended her church’s college group and weekly Bible studies. They were thrilled to see Maggie “loosening up,” as they called it, and Maggie knew they wouldn’t pass judgment if she had John up to her room. Besides, guys had actually spent the night in their rooms several times since Maggie had moved in.

  It was the first week of August and the air was hot and heavy. As she returned John’s kisses in the stuffy car, Maggie finally caught her breath and smiled at him. “All right, come up. But you have to behave yourself.”

  Maggie had a television in her bedroom, and that first night John kept his promise. They talked and laughed and watched late night sports on TV. But two days later the scenario was wildly different. She and John had been talking about her plans for after college when he moved closer and began kissing her. The physical sensation of being close to John, kissing him, was something she had never experienced with Ben. She felt truly alive for the first time.

  That night as their kisses grew more urgent she allowed him to ease her down onto the bed. At first she convinced herself they could stop if they wanted to. But his kisses built a fire in her that grew with each passing minute.

  “Trust me, Maggie. It’s okay … ” His whispered words of reassurance convinced her that she had nothing to lose—nothing of any real value. Instead she might actually gain something: a closer relationship with John, a better understanding of what real love was about.

  And so, with those thoughts in mind, she did the one thing she had promised since junior high never to do.

  The changes in John did not happen overnight as she once had feared they would if she ever gave in to him. Instead, he seemed to love her more than ever. When they spent time together in her room at night, they no longer pretended to be interested in television. Instead they did the thing that made Maggie feel better with John than she’d ever felt with anyone in her life.

  Including Ben.

  Her feelings for John were never the intense longings she had felt for Ben, never the love she had imagined sharing with her husband one day. Rather it was a thrilling sort of sensation, as though she were flying above the masses of regular people and had been let in on a high only a privileged few might ever experience. Later she would remember a pastor telling his congregation that the fruit Eve took from the snake must have been delicious beyond belief because the lure of it was enough to make Eve turn her back on God.

  It had been the same way with John, even if Maggie didn’t recognize it at the time. She thought only about how complete and whole she felt being desired by someone like him, someone who could have had his pick of girls. John filled her senses until she was satisfied beyond anything shed ever felt, and she hoped her days with him would never end.

  As time passed, Maggie had done such a good job of convincing herself what she and John were doing was okay that she rarely suffered twinges of guilt while she lay in his arms. But in the light of day … that was another story. She often had moments of gut-wrenching conviction. From nine to five, Maggie worked at a nearby clothing store so she could pay her share of the rent. Sometimes the voices that haunted her during her shift were so distracting she could barely help the customers.

  Flee immorality … be pure, daughter, as I am pure …

  The memory of those holy warnings snapped Maggie back to the present.

  “Are you okay?” There was concern in Dr. Camas’s voice and he leaned slightly forward, resting his elbows on his oak desk. “Should we take a break, perhaps?”

  Maggie shook her head. “No. I was just remembering something that happened before I came here. I almost … I was nearly arrested for talking to a little girl I didn’t even know. She was … she was blond, and I’ve been seeing her everywhere … at the market, at the park, on my computer screen at work … ” She stared at him and wondered what kind of terrible person he must think her. “It was part of what led up to this, to my coming here, I guess.”

  Dr. Camas cocked his head and frowned, but contrary to Maggie’s fears, there was no contempt in his eyes. “You can’t change the past, Maggie. It happened.”

  “But I lied. I’m the worst possible wife ever!” She choked the words off, aware she was yelling. Taking a breath, she went on, but more calmly. “And what about my column?” Maggie felt tears stinging at her eyes again. “Like I have any room to comment on society … ”

  He waited and after a beat Maggie lifted her head. “Now you see why my marriage is over.”

  “We can talk about that later.”

  “I hate him for making me—”

  “Maggie, try not to blame when you’re talking about yourself.” It was the first time Dr. Camas had given any guidelines to their discussions.

  His comment stung. It is Ben’s fault, all of it. Maggie closed her eyes angrily, and two tears trickled down her cheeks even as the truth trickled into her heart, her mind.

  Much of it may well be Ben’s fault, but her behavior certainly wasn’t. She sucked in a slow breath and stared at the doctor. “You’re right. I have my reasons for hating Ben, but I hate myself more.”

  “Do you want to continue the story?”

  Maggie sighed. “Eventually things changed between me and John … pretty fast, actually.”

  “It usually does.”

  Dr. Camas might not say much, but Maggie had found that
what he did say was generally profound.

  Two weeks after Maggie had given in to John, he called her and told her he’d be gone for a few days. “I’ve got things to do, love.”

  An alarm sounded in Maggie’s gut, but she took him at his word. Five days later he called again. “Hey, Maggie … I’ve been thinking a lot … about us and … well … ”

  Fear coursed through her, and she told herself it wasn’t happening. He wasn’t doing to her what he’d most certainly done to so many other girls. Not when she had trusted him implicitly. “What are you saying?”

  “I guess I’m saying we need time apart. I’m not ready to settle down with just one person yet.” He waited a beat. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”

  She and John spoke just once after that, when Maggie called to tell him she was pregnant. “What do you want me to do about it?” His voice no longer held any pretense. Instead he sounded like a stranger. An angry, agitated stranger.

  “It’s your baby, too.” She held the results of the pregnancy test in her hand, terrified of what they meant to her life and her future. Desperate to think it all a mistake.

  “Can you prove it’s my baby?” His voice was mean, full of disregard for her and the child she carried.

  “Of course it’s your baby. When did I have time to be with anyone else?”

  “Come on, Maggie. You gave up the goods too easy. What’s to say you weren’t doing some other guy at the same time?”

  A flash of terror pierced her heart. Everything her parents had warned her about was true. She’d gone against God’s Word and now she was left holding the apple core of sin. She remained silent, absorbing his callous tone, sorting through her options. Abortion was out of the question. There was no way she could take the tiny life inside her for the mistakes she herself had made. She could have the baby, maybe move into a less expensive apartment somewhere and try to raise the child on her own. That thought caused another flash of terror.