Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness

by Kevin Mark Smith

  Chapter 45

  God’s Will Defined

  They walked from the courthouse to Charles’s SUV in silence, with the two couples holding hands despite the anger the women felt toward the men (even toward Max, who had not been in on Robert’s and Charles’s plans). Robert walked closely behind his parents and grandparents. They were silent, with a latent sniffle every now and then, as they walked. Charles and Robert were afraid to say the first word, confident that it would set off a firestorm of yells and screams from Jessie and Nancy. Max wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but did know that Robert and Charles knew exactly what transpired and that there was probably a good reason for it. Jessie wanted to say something, to ask Robert what he had been thinking. Actually, she wanted to tear his hair out. Deep inside yet bubbling up to the surface, she was sure, was rage. She loved her baby boy, but felt nonetheless betrayed. To make matters worse, as they were approaching the SUV, Pastor Rick yelled from behind, “hold up,” and caught up to Robert.

  As soon as he made it to Robert’s side, Nancy spun around and said, “That was a pretty clever thing you four pulled in there.”

  They stopped walking. The three rows they’d been walking in now broke down into two, Nancy and Jessie on one side and the men on the other. All the men but Max looked down to the ground.

  Robert then looked up and said, “Don’t blame Dad. He didn’t know.”

  Max put his arm around Robert’s shoulder.

  Jessie pressed on, the partner to Nancy and her tag team. “Can you please tell me what happened?”

  Robert looked at her. Pastor Rick and Charles kept staring at the ground. Pastor Rick said nothing while Charles fumbled with his keys. They were no more than five feet from each other as they faced off. Nancy backed off a foot or so. She was beginning to understand that Robert had his reasons. He was, after all, the one who almost died.

  “I had to do it,” he said, tears starting to form in his eyes. “For me to get on with my life I had to forgive him. If I would’ve asked the judge to put him away forever, I would have always wondered if that’s what Christ would have wanted me to do.”

  “What about me?” Jessie demanded, more out of rage than compassion. “Do you think I could’ve gotten on with my life if the judge would’ve listened to that garbage you spewed?” She looked over at Pastor Rick. “And you,” she almost screamed. “How could you?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Charles, who was standing next to Max, asked.

  Jessie smirked and huffed. “Don’t bank on it. I knew you had something to do with it. I just wish someone would tell me why?”

  Pastor Rick couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Jessie, Robert did what he had to do, what I believe God led him to do. I can’t say much else, only that I am very proud that Robert, as young as he is, sought God’s direction throughout this ordeal. Do you want to know why he didn’t tell you and Nancy?”

  She nodded yes, stifling the urge to cry.

  “He knew you’d react just as you are. He knew that if he told you before the sentencing that you and Nancy would stand up and say something to dilute whatever forgiveness took place in there. Would you want to take part in that? Would you want to play a part in permanently damaging the spiritual well-being of your son?”

  “No.”

  “Think about it this way. What if Jesus’s disciples had pulled him down from the cross before he completed his mission? That’s why Robert didn’t tell you. He had to know that his forgiveness meant something. Try to understand that and don’t judge him. He did what he had to do, and he prayed about it before he decided anything.”

  Robert spread his arms out, inviting a hug from his mom. Her eyes moistened and her heart softened toward the boy she almost lost just six months before. She rushed to his arms and they embraced as only a mother and child full of love for each other can. Tears flowed, and hearts and bad feelings healed. As she melted into his arms, she felt the same forgiveness that her son felt for the first time since their ordeal had begun.

  It was time to move on, to count their blessings.

  They released each other and Robert looked into his mom’s eyes. “It was meant to happen, Mom.”

  “Excuse me?” she replied.

  “The accident,” he answered. “It was meant to happen. It was a wakeup call. I had no idea what God wanted me to do with my life, but now I do.”

  The warm feelings were still there, the feelings of forgiveness and healing, so she didn’t do what her mind told her to do: lash out and ask her boy what in the world possessed him to say such a stupid thing. Instead, she replied, “And now you do?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What?”

  Robert looked over at Charles, who was smiling broadly. Several cars had passed them by then. They were still standing behind Charles’s SUV in the parking lot. A couple of police cars had slowed down and honked, the officers apparently wondering why six people were lingering in the lot for several minutes with no apparent place to go. If it wasn’t in front of a courthouse, they might’ve thought a drug deal was going down.

  “Criminal Defense,” Robert replied with a wide smile on his face, which looked out of place given the tears that were still sliding down both cheeks.

  Her jaw dropped as did everyone else’s, except, of course, Charles, Robert, and Pastor Rick.

  Charles knew that whatever good feelings the healing hug had created would soon wash away, so he pushed the unlock button on his key fob’s remote. The medium-volume “beep, beep” told them that the doors could be opened and, as an unintended side effect, interrupted the tension Robert’s revelation had birthed. No one said a word as all but Pastor Rick piled into the SUV to leave Darkwell for hopefully the last time.

  As Charles pulled out of the parking lot, Jessie, sitting in the middle bench seat next to Max, asked over her shoulder toward Robert, who was sitting in the third row, “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes, absolutely sure.”

  “Okay. Just promise me one thing.”

  “Of course.”

  “If you wake up one morning and realize that you’re wrong, that God wants you to do something else with your life, do it before you have to have another bad accident to make you.” She smiled at him, which softened the sarcasm in her words.

  “I promise.”

  Charles accelerated out of the parking lot onto Main Street. He smiled as he listened to the conversation in the back seat. He had always hoped that his children would follow in his footsteps one day. His only biological child’s decision to become a nun had made that hope a distant memory. But now hope was back. He and Robert would someday practice law side-by-side, and do it for the glory of the Lord.

  As he approached the highway entrance ramp, his thoughts were bombarded with the logistics of his new practice model. How would he bring God into his conversations with drunks, drug addicts, rapists, murderers, and whatever other depraved individual he consulted as an evangelical criminal defense attorney? He chuckled silently as he contemplated how long such idealism would last. Not long, he suspected.

  The conversation in the back seat died down. Robert leaned his head back and fell asleep just after realizing that the rest of his Thanksgiving vacation would be best spent catching up on that sleep. The trials of the past six months had taken their toll, regardless of whether they led him to discover God’s will in his life. He needed sleep; lots of it. On the ride home to Stonelee, he dreamed of Janie, the family they would have together, and his future life as an evangelical criminal defense attorney—it was the first time his dreams didn’t involve baseball, and it felt oddly refreshing.

  Back in Texas Janie was also napping, though she was in her parents’ large ranch-style home, enjoying the life of a college student on Thanksgiving break. She was in the bedroom she’d slept in every night up until she went off to college. It was still decorated as it was when she was a little girl, with Barbie dolls scattered on various bookshelves and very pink, girly
wallpaper and linens. She was curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed, dreaming of Robert and the family she prayed they would someday make together.

  They sensed each other’s dreams and smiled.