“Umm… That might not…”
“It’s a great story!” interjected Jenna. “Mom and Dad couldn’t have been more different. Well, at least that’s what I had originally thought. Turns out that they had more common background than I knew about.” Turning to her mom, she said, “Isn’t that right, Mom?”
Tara closed her eyes, smiled, and shook her head. “My lovely daughter recently found out some details about her dad’s and my relationship that came as a bit of a shock.” Looking at Donna she suggested, “Maybe this story would be more appropriate for another time.”
Donna was having none of that. “Tara Lawton, don’t hold back on me. Give me all the mushy details!”
Jenna grinned from ear to ear as she shifted her attention to her mom.
“I’m not sure how much ‘mushy’ there will be, but there certainly was a lot of mess.”
Tara guarded much of the information from the past that took place between Brent and her. Internally she cringed at some of the things she had done back then to try to destroy him. While the story was abbreviated, it did contain more details than Jenna had previously been privy to. A good twenty minutes later, she wrapped up the tale.
Donna just stared, mouth slightly agape. Finding her voice, she remarked, “I must admit, I didn’t see any of that coming.”
Tara’s lips pulled into a slightly embarrassed smile and said, “Not exactly a made-for-the-movies romance, huh? But all of that stuff definitely melded us together.”
“You two are like blue monkeys in a brown-monkey world,” came Donna’s response. “I am so far removed from any of your experiences that I hardly know what to say.”
“I like that,” laughed Jenna. “Blue monkeys! I’m going to have to think up some nicknames for Mom and Dad, now.”
Tara’s eyes and head swung up to the left comprising an Oh brother moment.
“All of what you said, it really is true?” inquired Donna.
Tara didn’t blame her for her skepticism. “Every last evil manipulation, and every last profoundly-God work of redemption.”
“I think I told you that I’m not the religious type. I’ve never heard anything like that before.” Donna appeared to become momentarily introspective. “I’m not saying that I believe everything you’ve said, but there were definitely some impact moments for me in your story.”
“Like what?” wondered Jenna.
“Jenna, be polite,” Tara quickly asserted.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Donna said with a smile. “You described how you had a very emotional experience while traveling home from your backpacking trip. That’s really what did it for you? I mean, your life up to that point was really … umm unusual … to say the least. It sounds like you were really angry and had a lot of hate. I just find it hard to believe that a single emotional experience would cause everything to just turn around to make you who you are today.”
“If it were just emotion, I would agree with you.”
The three talked for another fifteen minutes or so regarding the dramatic life changes that took place in Tara’s life. Tara felt like Donna was starting to understand, while also failing to fully believe, the impact God had in her life.
Tara had just asked Donna whether she had any religious upbringing when she felt a chill that startled her. Her initial response was to consider whether the air conditioning had suddenly kicked on. As a matter of reflex she looked at the ceiling for a vent, but even before her eyes had reached the plaster, she remembered that all of the house’s vents were built into the floor.
“Mom?”
Tara looked at Jenna.
“Mom, do you feel that?”
“The cold?”
“I feel it, too,” Donna added.
“Yes, I feel it,” Tara responded.
“What is it?” Jenna’s eyes began darting around looking for an answer.
Tara stood up and walked around the coffee table into the center of the living room. Her hands were vigorously rubbing her exposed arms.
“I don’t…” She stopped. It wasn’t just cold. There was a presence. She turned back to the couch. Both Jenna and Donna had begun to visibly shiver.
“Mom!” Jenna demanded her attention.
Tara stared, transfixed, as her daughter’s shivering became uncontrollable.
Donna stood, wrapping her arms around herself. Tension and fear were evident in her eyes, and it became obvious that she was on the verge of panic. “W-what-t-tss hap-p-pening?” she managed to get out, her teeth beginning to chatter. Her lips were already beginning to turn blue.
“J-Jee-Jeesusss!” Jenna called out in desperation. Her abdomen had begun spasming, forcing her to double over on the couch.
Donna was dropped to her knees. “Oh God, oh G-God-d-d!” Her right knee clipped the corner of the coffee table, tearing open a nasty gash in her skin. She hit the ground hard.
Tara’s body was on the verge of the same sort of spasmodic fit. She wanted to wretch. It seemed impossible how compressed her chest and stomach felt.
She took her daughter’s lead. “F-f-fath-ther, help! B-bind y-you … Je…” Before she could get the Lord’s name out of her mouth her throat constricted, forcing her to stop speaking. She, too, fell to her knees landing forward on her left hand, her right grabbing for her throat.
Tara couldn’t breathe. Panic was setting in.
In the back of her senses somewhere, she could hear Donna gasping for air.
Tara had the presence of mind that could only come from being a mother, to look at her daughter struggling desperately on the couch. Her eyes were open wide with terror; her face beet-red from her desperate need to exhale.
Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Help us! Open my mouth, Tara pleaded silently.
Tara tried once again to squeeze air through her voice box. “Jees-us … name!”
Instantly the air that had been trapped in her lungs made a forceful exit; the pressure from her diaphragm caused her to also vomit onto the carpet. She inhaled a ragged breath and immediately let loose a single sentence in the form of a scream.
“I bind you all in the name of Jesus!”
Donna began to gasp for air. She continued to tremble uncontrollably. Blood was fast creating a pool on the carpet below her right knee.
As quickly as she was able, Tara stood. Grasping her belly, she rushed to her daughter.
“Jenna! Jenna!”
But Jenna’s struggle to breathe had not ended. Tara knew she was on the verge of passing out, her eyes pleading to her mom for help; tears streaming down her face.
Tara’s hands found Jenna’s and took them into a tight grip. “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth! Let go of my daughter!” The words cut her throat like a razor, but they were out, and they were obeyed.
Jenna collapsed forward into her mother as she forcibly exhaled. Tara let go of Jenna’s hands and wrapped her arms around her daughter, quickly rubbing her back with a rapid hand motion, creating friction and warmth.
“Jenna…” Tara kissed the top of her daughter’s head. “Lord Jesus, take care of my baby.”
“Mommy…” Jenna began to cry, but Tara could tell she was all right.
Tara heard Donna groan. She didn’t want to, but she had to let go of her daughter.
“Honey, I’ll be right back.”
“No! Don’t go!” Jenna pleaded.
Tara ignored the plea, even as it tore at her heart. She quickly went to Donna’s side. The woman had pulled herself into a fetal position. Her breathing was faster than normal, yet now unrestricted. But there was fear coursing through Donna, unlike anything Tara had experienced. At least not since the time that she, herself, had been brutalized by a demonic force in her college dorm room two and a half decades before.
She placed her hands on Donna’s forehead and abdomen. “In the name of Jesus I speak peace over you, Donna. Peace, be still, in the name of Jesus!”
A thump on the ceiling above the dining room!
No, not on the ceiling …
the bedroom floor! Her bedroom floor!
“Brent?!”
She let go of Donna and made her way to the steps leading upstairs. She took two steps at a time, tripping once and falling to her hands as she made for her husband.
She heard Jenna beg for her to return.
At the top of the stairs she turned right to head to their master bedroom at the back of the house. She began to pass the doorway to Amy’s room when she heard a groan.
“Oh, God … not my baby!”
She was frozen … She didn’t know … Brent?!
She rushed into Amy’s room. Amy was in her bed whimpering. Tossing and turning.
A nightmare, Tara realized. She wanted to…
She heard gagging. Then the sound of someone else running up the stairs.
She quickly turned from Amy’s bed and ran back into the hallway. She had to find out what was happening to Brent!
Jenna reached the top of the stairs and nearly collided with her. Jenna was terrified.
“Mommy? What…”
“Amy! Help Amy!” With those words she bounded into her own bedroom.
She couldn’t see. Light switch! She had to force her brain to cooperate with her need. She found the switch and illuminated the room. She looked toward the bed, but Brent wasn’t there!
Tara rushed to the other side and found him on his back on the floor. Spittle was foam in the corners of his mouth, his hands near his throat, but he wasn’t struggling. A horrible realization struck her. He’s not breathing!
“Brent!” she screamed. “Breeennt!” Tears were making it near impossible to see now. She started to shake him. What do I do? What do I need to do?!
It finally occurred to her that she needed to call on the Lord again. “Jesus! Help Brent! In Jesus’ name, help Brent!”
His breathing … it wasn’t being restored! “In Jesus’ name! Let him go!” she pleaded. Tears were pouring from her eyes now. Her fear was full-blown panic.
Her throat was already raw, but she still let loose. “BRENT!” The scream felt like razor blades tearing through her air passage. Again she screamed, unintelligibly.
Someone came running into the room. Tara was forcefully pulled backward off of her husband and began to tremble with uncontrollable anxiety as Donna McNeill rushed to Brent’s side.
Tara watched; her arms tightly wrapped around herself in a vain attempt to create even a small measure of comfort.
Donna leaned her left ear over Brent’s mouth while at the same time doing a quick check for a pulse. Finding neither pulse nor breathing, she began chest compressions. They were hard and deep. Tara thought she heard a snap! emit from Brent’s torso.
His ribs?
“God … save him!” She began to weep as she watched Donna’s heroic effort proceed.
“…7…8…9…10…11…12…” Donna counted to herself just above a whisper with each rapid compression.
Blow in his mouth! Aren’t you supposed to blow in his mouth?
“Mooommm!”
Jenna!
Tara’s own heart seized! She turned her head toward the doorway, then back to Donna. Her emotions were making it impossible to process correctly what needed to be done.
“…15…16…17…” Donna called over her shoulder, “Go! I’ve got this! …20…21…”
Tara was on her feet immediately! She ran into the hallway and into Amy’s room.
Empty!
“Mommeeee!”
It came from Jamie’s room! “Jesus, please!” she pleaded as she ran down to the other end of the hallway and into his room.
Amy was standing just inside the doorway crying as she watched with horror what was happening on her brother’s bed.
Tara had the restored presence of mind to say to her, “Pray, Amy. Pray to Jesus … to Aslan.” Then she rushed to Jamie’s bedside where Jenna was pleading with Jesus for her brother’s life.
“Move out of the way, Jenna. I’m here!”
Jenna backed away, her hands coming to her mouth, unable to control a sob.
Tara looked at Jamie, he was hyperventilating; his stomach making mad contractions that shouldn’t have been possible. His eyes were wide open, but focused on nothing. He looked catatonic—completely oblivious to his surroundings.
Tara leaned over her boy and placed a hand on his chest. She would apply the same remedy to this situation. “In the name of Jesus, I bind every demonic spirit over Jamie! In the name of Jesus!” she proclaimed loudly. “I plead the blood of Jesus around him. Father set a hedge, a barrier, of protection around him, in the name of Jesus!”
Her intercession had the hoped-for affect. His breathing began to slow. The stomach contortions ceased. She placed a hand on her son’s sweaty forehead and brushed away the wet hair.
A pair of little hands wrapped around Tara’s waist from behind, and she felt the chest movement of a little girl who was stricken with fear.
Looking at her son she said, “Jamie, honey. Can you hear me?”
His breathing was still faster than she would have liked, but continuing to slow. His eyes moved her direction and locked onto her own. Fear was present in them. He didn’t speak, but he gave a shaky nod of his head, answering her question.
“Thank God,” she whispered and leaned to place a kiss on his forehead.
Brent! The thought struck her with the force of a wrecking ball. She had to get back to him.
She turned around and grabbed Amy into her arms.
“It’s going to be okay, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
Tara walked up to Jenna who had retreated to a far wall to watch her mom deal with her brother.
“Jenna, take Amy. I’ve got to go back to your dad.” She looked directly into her oldest child’s eyes and said, “Stay in here. Do not follow me.”
Fear, mixed with the onset of deep sorrow, filled Jenna’s face; pools of tears forming. All she could do was nod her head that she understood what her mom was conveying.
Having transferred Amy into Jenna’s arms, Tara ran back down the hallway and back into her—into their—bedroom.
She heard groaning.
Groaning!
An unprepared-for hope caused her to gasp in anticipation as she ran to the other side of the bed.
She looked down to see Donna holding Brent’s wrist as she looked at her wristwatch.
A pulse! He’s got a pulse!
Donna looked back at her and nodded with a half-smile. “He’s okay.”
Tara was struck with a feeling of such intense euphoria that she wasn’t sure she’d make it the three additional feet to her husband. But she did. She fell to her knees, and she fell on him, and she was determined to never, ever let him go again!
Brent tried not to hold his rib cage too hard; walking out of the ER was painful enough.
Heading for the minivan in the parking lot, he was flanked on both sides by his family and Donna. Ironically, the boredom of the waiting room seemed to do a lot to still nerves and reduce blood pressure in the group. They had probably been the only ones in it who sat receiving a psychological and emotional break.
Still, the mental reality of the night’s experiences would be triggered again, very shortly after leaving the hospital. Fears, real and imagined, would not be easily squelched again this night.
“What, no cast?” asked Jamie, lifting up his father’s T-shirt.
“Not how they treat rib injuries, Jamie,” Brent replied.
“But that’s just tape!”
Brent had four strips of two-inch-wide adhesive tape wrapped from sternum to spine on his left side. The X-ray indicated that his costal cartilage, the cartilage that secured the bone of the ribs to the sternum, was fractured in two places. The tape was supposed to secure the ribs and reduce pain.
Yeah, right.
“I know that, son. It’s the best that can be done, though.”
“Are you going to need me to remind you to cough?” This from his smirking wife.
“Do you think I need to
be reminded?”
She laughed. “I think you need to be prodded.”
This was the worst part of Brent’s treatment. The ER doc told him to make sure to cough … often. The idea sounded simply stupid! But, he didn’t want pneumonia added to the list of less-than-wonderful things that had taken place in the past couple of hours. Apparently coughing would prevent the formation of phlegm and mucus in his lungs.
“Hmm?” she prodded.
“Wow, you are persistent! And a bit of a pest, too!” remarked Brent.
“Yes, I am. Now cough.”
Brent decided to “man up” in front of his kids and cough. He stopped walking, closed his eyes, and cringed with the effort.
“That’s my man,” said Tara with a sympathetic smile.
Donna, though, wasn’t wearing a smile. The look on her face was apologetic, mixed with a hint of ‘What happened tonight?’
“I’m sorry for the broken ribs, Brent,” she offered.
“Don’t worry. You’re protected by Ohio’s Good Samaritan Law. I’m an official law-enforcement officer and know these things.” He winked at Donna. “I’m sorry about having a coffee table with sharp corners.”
Donna’s right knee had required seven stitches. Sporting a pair of Tara’s jean shorts, she now walked with a little bit of a limp.
“Okay, let’s just mutually agree not to sue each other,” she quipped.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Jenna-Girl?”
“Can we…” She hesitated. “Can we not go back home right away?”
She could hardly be blamed for the question. There was surely not one of the six that wanted to go back into that environment any time soon. He looked at his watch and thought for a moment.
“Well, until the Aleve that they just gave me kicks in, I’m not likely to be able to fall back to sleep. Even when it does I’m not sure I’ll be able to. Regardless, I think that we’ve all got a lot to talk about; a lot of questions to ask.” He stopped as they approached the minivan. “How about we go to Eat’n Park for an early breakfast?”
“Donna?” Tara asked. “Is that okay with you?”
“A large part of me wants to just go home,” she began. “But I live alone and…” she took in and let out a deep breath. “I’m scared. I don’t understand what happened or why, and you seem to have some of the answers that I’m going to need to my questions.”
When Darkness Comes Page 19
