A Scarlet Cord

by Deborah Raney

  Her brother’s words cut deeply. Tears pricked her eyes, and she couldn’t keep them from falling.

  “C’mon, Mel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” His voice softened, and he leaned across the table to swab clumsily at her cheeks with his dinner napkin. “I know it was hard for you to see him like that. It’s just … This is so unlike you. You’ve always been so strong. You’ve always been such a good judge of character. I don’t understand why you can’t see what is so obvious to everyone else.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head at him, begging him silently not to push her further.

  The waiter brought their food. Matthew ate while Melanie picked at her salad, scarcely eating anything.

  Once their meal was done, they walked back to Port Authority and stood on line for their bus, still not speaking, her long-anticipated day in the city ruined.

  At the bus stop back in Bergen County, Karly met them with the family minivan, kids in tow. “Hi, guys! Did you have a good time?” she chirped.

  Melanie didn’t miss the warning glance Matthew shot his wife. Karly looked at Melanie and back to her husband. “Is everything okay?”

  Matthew tipped his head pointedly to the backseat where the boys were buckled in. “Later.”

  Karly threw Melanie one last questioning glance, but Melanie could only give her a tight-lipped smile in return.

  When they got back to the house, Karly sent the boys outdoors to play and came into the living room where Matt was poking at the logs he’d put in the fireplace. Melanie was huddled on the sofa, her legs curled underneath her.

  “So what happened? You guys look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Well put,” Matthew said dryly.

  “Matt …” Melanie chided.

  “Melanie saw Joel in New York,” he explained to his wife.

  “What? Joel Ellington? Are you serious?”

  Melanie told Karly the whole story then.

  But her friend seemed as skeptical as Matthew was. “Mel, I know you want to believe the best of Joel. And I love you for that, I really do. But you’ve got to think about what’s best for Jerica now … what’s best for you. A lot of time has passed. If Joel ever intended to offer an explanation for what he did, it would have happened by now. He knew where you were. He could have called—or written. He didn’t do that, Mel. And he didn’t stop … today.”

  The humiliation of that fact washed over her again. Melanie sat silently, feeling like a chastened child.

  “You’ve seen him now,” Karly went on. “You know he’s all right physically. Maybe this was what you needed … to have some closure on this whole thing. Maybe this is a sign that it’s time to put it all in the past and move on.”

  That night in bed, Melanie mulled over the things Karly and Matt had said. She could admit that they were right on some accounts. Joel could have at least let her know that he was all right.

  Most important, they had a point about her needing to think of what was best for Jerica now. Maybe, as Karly said, it was significant that God had allowed her to see Joel one last time. Maybe she should choose to view this as the finale to a very sad chapter of her life.

  Twenty-Two

  Joel Ellington guardedly scanned both ends of the street before he locked the door to his apartment. The brisk November breeze caught the wind chimes that hung on his porch and set them jangling. Adjusting his backpack over one shoulder, he tucked his keys into his pocket and set out on the twelve-block walk to the school where he taught.

  The last of autumn’s leaves swirled along the sidewalks and crunched beneath his boots. Ducking his head against the icy air, he pulled his jacket tighter around his waist.

  Three days had passed since the shock of seeing Melanie again. Those seventy-two hours had seemed interminable. He would never forget the startled expression that had come to her beautiful face when she recognized him, nor could he erase the vision of the pain that etched her brow as he’d turned away from her. That image had been his constant companion since the moment he’d stared out at her from the window of the cab in front of Port Authority.

  That, and the vision of Melanie in the arms of another man.

  Although he was no freer to be with her now than he had been the day he left Silver Creek, it hurt deeply to realize that Melanie perhaps had found love again, that she was free to make a new life for herself, to have another chance at love. He felt a fresh stab of pain at having seen her in the playful embrace of the tall, dark-haired man. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the man’s face, but he’d carried himself with the suave assurance of a successful businessman. Probably someone she met through By Design. It must be serious if she’d traveled to New York with the guy. A startling thought pierced his heart—maybe Melanie was married. Now that he thought about it, her manner with the man had seemed like the easy and familiar playfulness of a happily married couple. And why wouldn’t Melanie be married? She was young and attractive. He’d been out of her life for many months now. He’d left her with no hope whatsoever for a future with him. Why would he dare to think that she might wait for him?

  He shook away the feelings of guilt and jealousy and loneliness for the hundredth time, and forced himself to pray that she was happy. It seemed the only prayers he prayed these days were out of obligation. But he did pray that the man he had seen her with was a good and decent person, that he truly loved Melanie, and that he would give Jerica the love and devotion the little girl deserved.

  He ached with longing, thinking of Melanie and of Jerica. But he could never hope to be a part of their lives again. It was too late for that.

  Help me, God—but the prayer caught in his throat before it could be given voice. Truth was, he had put his faith on a shelf since leaving Silver Creek. He wondered how many times a man could do that and get away with it—do that, and still have the option of returning to God.

  He thought of his parents and Tori and the part they had played in the strong faith he’d once known. Their deaths had nearly ripped the last threads of faith from the fabric of his young life. But his brother had pleaded with Joel not to let their parents’ death cause him to become bitter. Joel had taken his brother’s pleas to heart and had begun to live out his faith in a way he never had before. And he’d thought Melanie had been the reward for his faithfulness. That God would allow her to be taken from him too had brought him to his breaking point. He’d felt yanked about like a puppet on a string, and now the knowledge that Melanie had gone on to find happiness without him threatened to snap that string completely. He could never deny God’s existence, but was this how a loving God treated his children?

  He rubbed his hands together and pushed the dark thoughts from his mind. Turning onto the street where the school was, he focused on the bright young students he was privileged to teach. His accelerated English classes were beginning an important literature unit, and they needed to stay on schedule in order to finish it before semester finals.

  King’s Collegiate was a small prep school that catered to academically talented low-income students. Though many of them suffered significant family hardships and dysfunction, the kids in this school were mostly dependent on scholarships and grants and therefore highly motivated to stay in school. It made his job a breeze. In the advanced classes he taught, especially, these were kids who wanted to be here, wanted to excel, to make something of their lives.

  He was grateful for the job, grateful to be teaching again. This private school had few connections to the teachers’ unions and national organizations that might have made him vulnerable to scrutiny, so he’d convinced Toliver to approve the position. He had despised living on WITSEC money anyway. It was good to be earning an honest living again.

  In the three months since he had come to the school, he’d found a measure of contentment in his work. For that, he was truly grateful; not everyone in his circumstances had an opportunity to work at something they loved. When Joel stood before a classroom of eager, gifted students and helped
open up the world of literature for them, he did feel that he was doing what he had been created to do. He was determined to put the past behind him, make up for all of it somehow, and pour his passions into his calling as a teacher

  It wasn’t easy. Melanie LaSalle had never been far from his thoughts. But Joel had resigned himself many months ago to the realization that he would probably never be free to love again. And now, with the trial finally imminent, it seemed that even if everything went exactly right and he gained his freedom, it wouldn’t matter. He no longer held a claim to Melanie’s heart.

  A light mist began to fall. He shivered and turned up the collar on his jacket. He should have worn a heavier coat. It seemed winter had arrived in earnest in New York. It would be a long one. He kicked at a stone on the sidewalk, faintly aware that his jaw had tightened and his fists were clenched. Just get through another day. Just dwell on the good things. Find some small happiness, and be grateful for that …

  “Let’s go make art, Mommy.”

  Jerica slid off her chair, grabbed her mother’s hand, and tugged her toward the sun porch.

  “Hang on, sweetie,” she laughed. “At least let me put the leftovers away.”

  On this cold January night, she’d come home late from a meeting at the office. She wanted nothing more than to take a long bath and fall into bed. But she knew it was more important than ever that she spend time with her daughter.

  While she cleared the table, she heard Jerica rummaging through the markers and crayons in her art kit, then tearing off a new sheet of drawing paper. Melanie had returned from her visit with Matthew and Karly determined to move forward and make a new start for herself and for Jerica. She’d enrolled Jerica in art classes and had taken up a brush and palette herself. She had loved painting when she was in college, but except for an occasional design job, her artwork had fallen by the wayside after she married Rick, and even more so after Jerica had come along. But now she had set up an easel for each of them on the enclosed sun porch off the kitchen, and she was trying her hand with watercolors—rather successfully, if she did say so herself. Her renewed pastime offered a brief escape from the dark thoughts that had threatened since her encounter with Joel Ellington in New York.

  She covered the fruit salad from supper and put the bowl in the refrigerator, then went to join Jerica. As they worked side by side, she couldn’t help but smile. The little girl traced the line of her paintbrush with her tongue. Her intense concentration was apparent in the set of her brow. “What are you working on there, squirt?”

  “A picture.”

  “Well, I guessed that, silly. A picture of what?” she asked, going behind Jerica’s easel to look at the colorful rendering.

  “A family,” Jerica said without looking up. She turned her brush expertly and pointed with the handle. “There’s the mommy and there’s the daddy and that’s me.” She turned the brush again and dabbed the bristles in bright turquoise paint.

  Melanie cleared her throat. How should she respond? It had been several weeks since Jerica had asked about Joel. It was difficult to know if this was prompted by the whole situation with him, or if this was one of those things that would have come regardless of Joel’s impact on their lives.

  She decided to treat it as the latter. “It’s a beautiful painting, honey. You know, I bet your daddy is looking down from heaven right now thinking the same thing.”

  “This daddy’s not in heaven.” Jerica continued to apply strokes of paint to the heavy paper.

  “Oh? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Melanie bit her lip. “Do you know his name?”

  Jerica looked up at her, eyes luminous, paintbrush poised. “Just Daddy.” She swept a streak of pale coral across the sky above her little family, turning from Melanie’s gaze.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Kneeling beside the miniature easel, Melanie brushed a wayward curl off her daughter’s forehead. “I know you miss Joel. I … I miss him too. But I don’t think he’s coming back, Jer. We need to get used to that, you know?”

  “I’m just drawin’ a picture, Mommy.”

  “Okay … okay …” She let out a sigh.

  She took up her own paints, and they worked together in silence. She knew how Jerica felt. It didn’t matter how much time they spent with friends, how full they filled their calendars, how many paintings they rendered. Each of these could only postpone that moment at the end of each day when she crawled under the blankets and tried to shut out the thoughts of Joel that were always just a blink away.

  Involuntarily, she sighed again with exhaustion. “Time to put our paints away and get ready for bed, sweetie.” As she helped Jerica clean up their brushes, then get ready for bed, the vague thought crossed through her mind that maybe for once sleep would come easily tonight.

  But an hour later, she lay under the quilts staring at the ceiling. Even as she grew drowsy, she found herself hoping that she would dream of Joel. In the early weeks after he left, she had shut out the unbearable reality by reliving through her dreams—both waking and sleeping—every moment she had ever spent with Joel. It was an unhealthy fantasy life, and she knew it was wrong to continue to seek such an escape from reality. But even now—in spite of his betrayal—dreams of Joel were sweet dreams for her.

  She resisted the desire to feed the fantasy, praying silently. Lord, take away this awful pining I have to live in the past. Fill my mind and my heart with your thoughts.

  In spite of her prayer, Joel’s face appeared in that hazy state between awareness and sleep. Her memory was stirred as if by an unseen hand, and an image floated to the surface. It was the day they’d gone to the carnival when Tim was in Silver Creek. The scene played like a movie behind her closed eyes. The four of them were having a wonderful time, laughing, soaking up the sun, walking down the midway. Jerica was starving, so they headed for the food pavilion. Joel bought hot dogs and Cokes for all of them. But when they sat down, he realized the vendor had given him back too much change. He dug two dollars from his pocket, and Melanie and Tim sat watching him weave his way through the crowd toward the hot dog stand.

  Melanie sat up abruptly, the memory strikingly vivid in her mind. She rubbed her eyes, struggling to recall every detail. She could see Joel’s back as he stood in line for the second time that day, to make things right with the cashier. Tim’s voice echoed in her mind: “That’s Joel for you. Honest as the day is long.” It wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory. The incident had actually happened that day at the carnival. She had completely forgotten it until now.

  She lay beneath the quilts, contemplating what this could mean. Troubled, she reached up and flipped the switch on her bedside lamp. Sliding the drawer of her nightstand open, she reached into the back and withdrew the envelope—the one that held Joel’s last words to her.

  She slowly lifted the flap and let the braided satin cord spill onto her lap. A red satin cord. Why had this been so important to Joel? What had it meant to him? She could only guess that he had left it with her as a token of comfort. After all, the only hint he had revealed to her was that the cord reminded him of a scripture that comforted him. But what was the scripture? If it was just a generic verse offering reassurance, why would he have been reluctant to share it with her?

  She picked up her Bible from the nightstand. A red ribbon marked the place she’d been reading. She was struck by the similarity between the ribbon attached to her Bible and the one Joel had given her. Was it possible Joel’s cord had once served to mark a certain passage in his own Bible? Was that what he meant about it reminding him of a scripture that comforted him? She leafed through the New Testament, not having the slightest idea what she was looking for, merely seeking consolation herself. When nothing stood out at her she flipped to the concordance in the back. On a whim, she turned to the word ribbon. Nothing. She paged back to see if there was an entry for cord. She ran her finger down the column.

  Two words stood out as though they were printed in iridescent
ink: scarlet cord. She looked at the cord in her hand. A scarlet cord. Her heart pounding, she turned to Joshua 2:18, the reference given. She leafed back a page to the beginning of the chapter and began to read. The passage told the story of a prostitute named Rahab. The account was vaguely familiar to Melanie, though her excitement waned as she realized that it was unlikely Joel’s scarlet cord had any relationship to a story about a prostitute. At least she certainly hoped it hadn’t.

  The verses told of Joshua, who sent spies to scout out the occupied land near Jericho, which God had promised to give to the Israelites. Rahab gave shelter to the spies, acknowledging that she recognized Joshua’s God as “God in heaven above and on the earth below.” She begged the spies to show kindness to her and her family, and to spare their lives when Jericho was inevitably conquered. The men swore they would do so, but only if she tied a scarlet cord in her window as a sign.

  Intrigued, Melanie scanned the annotation at the bottom of the page. One commentator compared the scarlet cord in the window to the lambs’ blood the Israelites were instructed to put on their doorposts during the plagues of Egypt. According to the footnote, the blood-colored cord could be seen as a representation of Christ’s atonement.

  Melanie ran the thin rope through her fingers again and again. Had that been its meaning for Joel? Simply a symbol that reminded him of his own salvation? That would certainly have been a comfort to him. But what possible reason could he have had for being unwilling to share that with her? He had spoken freely of his conversion as a young boy, won to Christ by his missionary parents, then recommitted after a time of doubt when those parents were killed. No, there had to be something more.

  Returning to the commentary, she noticed a cross reference that pointed to the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. She paged forward until she found chapter 11. Rahab’s name appeared again in verse 31. Again Melanie had to go to the beginning of the chapter to understand the context of the passage. The writer was citing Old Testament heroes who had exhibited remarkable faith. It seemed odd. Here was a prostitute who had lied to her country’s leaders to protect a couple of spies whom she knew planned to ravage her homeland. And yet she was deemed worthy to go down in history as a woman of great faith. Why was that?