“Well, it seems to me that it’s Mom he’s disgraced more than anybody,” Rick said quietly. “I mean, the policeman came to tell her about it when she was at her own wedding shower. All the people who know him mostly are from Breezewood instead of Knoxville. A lot of people don’t even know he has anything to do with you. But Mom hasn’t turned her back on him.”
Jerry turned around and gazed at Rick. “So what’s it like in there? What are the other prisoners like? Are they a bunch of hoods from the ghetto or something?”
“Actually they’re all pretty straight right now,” Rick said. “When they’re not on drugs they’re pretty decent people. They all look clean-cut right now, except for those silly suits they make them wear. I think the whole experience has made Mark stronger. He’s found out there are consequences to his actions and that those consequences can change his life. And he’s learned about people of all different kinds and how to get along with them. Plus he’s working in the cafeteria and studying, because they have classes during the day.”
Jerry flipped the steaks over and stared down at them for a moment. Rick thought he was going to ask more about the prison, or maybe even about Mark. Instead, he said, “Go in and ask Sandra for the pepper, would you?”
Let down, Rick took that as a dismissal of the conversation, and he knew his father wasn’t going to engage any more. Well, Rick had said his piece, given his dad all the information he needed, even made a plea for Jerry to go visit Mark. But there was nothing more that he could do without straining his own relationship with his dad, and he wasn’t sure that would accomplish anything.
“Yeah,” he said, finally. “I’ll get it.” And as he did, he said a silent prayer that God would take care of the rest.
CHAPTER
Eighty
Cathy and Steve spent the first day of their honeymoon lounging around the condo in Gatlinburg, and the next day they went rock climbing in Pigeon Forge. The day after that they traveled to North Carolina to a place called Horse Pasture Creek and spent the day playing in waterfalls that took their breath away.
Each night they ate in charming little restaurants and had romantic evenings in their condo. Cathy couldn’t believe how blessed she was, how covered with God’s grace, as she got used to Steve being her husband.
Steve and Tracy moved into the house the day they arrived back in Breezewood. Tracy seemed a little moody and emotional about all the changes in their life. Steve’s parents helped them move in, and Cathy allowed his mother to help Tracy organize her room.
That night, when everything was in the house but not yet put away, and the grandparents had gone home, and everyone was exhausted, Cathy went to put Tracy to bed. She found her curled up on her new bedspread, leaned back against the wall, with tears rolling down her face.
“Oh, honey,” Cathy said, and sat next to her on the bed. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Have we been ignoring you?”
“No, ma’am,” she said.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at the little girl and realized that, for the past few days, she’d been without her father. That, in itself, could have been slightly traumatic, especially since she anticipated so many changes coming upon their lives. Even though Tracy had wanted it, had looked forward to moving into her new room and having Cathy as her new mother, the whole thing was probably a little overwhelming.
“Do you want me to put you to bed?” she asked.
Tracy shrugged. “Where’s Daddy?”
Cathy started to tell her that Daddy was busy hanging pictures in their room. But then she realized that Tracy wasn’t ready to switch gears on her parent just yet.
“I’ll go get him,” she said. “Maybe you and Daddy need to spend a little time together, just the two of you. What do you think?”
Tracy’s eyes lit up. Cathy reached down and hugged the little girl, then went back out and found Steve in the new master bedroom.
“How do you like this picture here?” he asked with a nail between his teeth.
She smiled. “It’s perfect. But why don’t you do it later?”
He turned back to her and grinned. “What have you got in mind?”
“Tracy,” she said. “She needs a little time alone with her daddy. I think all the moving and all the changes are getting to her, and she’s sitting in there in a new room feeling a little overwhelmed.”
Concern instantly filled his eyes, and he took the nail out of his mouth. “Well, thanks,” he said. “I needed to know that. I’ve been so busy I haven’t paid attention.”
“Just go in there and read her a story or something, lie down with her until she goes to sleep. I can take it from here.”
He gave Cathy a sweet kiss, then headed back to the bedroom to be with his daughter. Cathy had plenty to keep her busy.
After a while, Cathy drifted back to Tracy’s bedroom and saw the father and child lying together on the bed. He was reading to her from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, making funny voices and talking in a British accent.
Tracy’s tears had dried and all was well. Her eyes followed the words as he read. Cathy wished she had a camera ready to take a picture of that, but she wouldn’t have interrupted it for the world. Her heart swelled to the point of bursting at the love that had been brought into this home.
If they were careful, if they nurtured it, if they did things right and didn’t push too hard, some day the family would be one instead of two fractured pieces. Some day, with God’s help, maybe they would all be comfortable and used to each other and think of each other as siblings and parents instead of steps. But she didn’t want to hope for too much too soon. There were limitations, and she had to be aware of them and work around them. But those limitations weren’t as great as the potential benefits. She couldn’t be more thrilled with the new arrangement.
She only wished her children could have grown up with a father like Steve instead of a father like Jerry, but she supposed there was nothing she could do about it now. All they could do was pick up from this point and move on the best way they could.
CHAPTER
Eighty-One
By the grace of God, Mark’s incarceration went by more quickly than they could have expected. Though Jerry still kept his distance from Mark, Steve continued to disciple Mark through the mail and in his visits to River Ranch. As Cathy and Steve settled into their marriage, they saw a genuine maturity developing in Mark. Winter passed, then spring. As summer approached, Cathy began to look forward to Mark’s homecoming with joy and almost painful anticipation. By the time June came and his sentence had ended, she had come to see the year of his incarceration as a blessing instead of a crisis. Never before had Mark been such a willing subject, listening to the things she wanted to teach him, puzzling over them, studying them, digging for them, and understanding.
Just last week, he had sent her a letter with a Scripture passage in it, and she had wept at the depth of his understanding. It was Proverbs 2:1-5. Mark had written, “Mom, look what the Lord showed me today.” Then he’d quoted the verses: “My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.”
“It works, Mom,” he wrote. “I tried to tell Lazzo. I think he’s listening lately.”
Just weeks before his release date, Steve had come up with an idea. “You remember the first letter I sent Mark with the Bible study in it, the one about the Prodigal Son?”
“How could I forget?” Cathy asked. “It wound up making such a difference in his life.”
“Well, when he called me that night to tell me that he’d accepted Christ, he talked about the robe and ring. And I’ve just been thinking. What if we threw him
a celebration when he gets out? We could do it here, in the house, and invite everybody we know, show him that we’re not disgraced, that we’re as proud of him as we can be.”
Cathy threw her hands over her heart. “Oh, Steve, that’s a fabulous idea. We could have a sport coat made for him, sort of like the robe the father gave to his son. And we could make him a ring.”
“And that picture he drew for you. The one with the father’s head and the son’s head inside it? Maybe we could have it duplicated for some kind of insignia to put on the pocket and on the ring. He’d always remember what it meant.”
“Yes! It could be even bigger than Annie’s party. We could call it his Prodigal Son Celebration.”
She threw her arms around her husband and almost danced a jig. “I’ll get started on it right away. Boy, is Mark going to have something to come home to.”
CHAPTER
Eighty-Two
Not everyone was as excited about the Prodigal Son Celebration as Cathy was. A phone call from Jerry the night before Mark’s release told her that he was anything but thrilled.
“What’s this Rick tells me about some big party you’re having?” he asked.
Cathy’s hackles came up as she got ready to defend herself. “I’m throwing my son a party to welcome him home. We’re calling it our Prodigal Son Celebration. Do you have a problem with that, Jerry?”
“Well, I have a problem with Steve doing it. He’s not his father.”
“And neither are you, last I heard,” she threw back. “You haven’t visited Mark one time in a year. He’s given up looking for you. Steve has been there at least once a week, sometimes twice. He’s discipled him with Bible studies and patience. He’s taught him things that will benefit him in life. What have you done, Jerry?” The passion in her words surprised her, and she realized that she hadn’t dealt very well with the anger she had toward him.
“I don’t care what you say,” he told her. “I am still Mark’s father, and I’m not going to have a party thrown where Steve steps into my shoes and pretends he’s the conquering dad.”
“Well, would you like to do it, instead?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think we should throw a party for a kid who’s spent the last year in prison. Welcome him home, Cathy, but for Pete’s sake, he doesn’t deserve a party.”
“Well, he’s changed, Jerry. You’d know that if you had visited him. And I’m throwing the party whether you like it or not. You’re welcome to come if you want, but I’m not going to tell Steve to stay away from him. He’s been too big a part of Mark’s life in the last year. He’s made a difference, and I’m grateful to him. Mark needed a positive male role model.”
“Oh, thanks a lot,” Jerry said. “Like I’m not one?”
“Figure it out for yourself, Jerry,” she said. “Positive role models are there where people can look at them and imitate them. There’s nothing that Mark’s been able to imitate in you.”
“I’m just saying that I don’t think we should call more attention to the fact that he’s been in prison. It just disgraces the family more.”
“Not my family,” Cathy said. “I’m proud of Mark. I’m proud of how far he’s come. And you’re missing it all, Jerry, every bit of it. Your occasional weekends with Rick aren’t making up for what you’re missing in their lives. They’re all changing and growing and becoming adults. If you want to be part of their lives, if you want a say in what goes on around them, then you have to be there.”
She hung up the phone and sat there beside it, realizing that forgiveness was much harder than she thought. How did one forgive someone who was so unrepentant? Still, she got down on her knees and turned it over to God, asking him to work in Jerry’s heart for the good of her children. And she begged him to work in her own heart to help her forgive.
CHAPTER
Eighty-Three
The long year was nearing its end, and Annie knew that it was time for her to go home. She had known it as soon as her mother told her about the Prodigal Son Celebration. But it would not be easy to leave the children she had come to think of as her own family.
Sylvia hadn’t been feeling well and had been growing tired a lot more quickly than before. Dr. Harry was worried about her, Annie could tell, and arranged for Sylvia to accompany Annie home so that she could see a doctor in the States. Annie worried too, but Sylvia didn’t have time to worry. She just tried to work around the fatigue and her limitations.
The day they were to head to the airport in Managua, Annie wept her heart out and said good-bye to each child individually, both the ones in the orphanage and the ones from the community who hung around waiting for handouts. She would come back and visit them someday, she promised, and when she did, she would bring them goodies from America. She would also see to it that others from Breezewood kept sending money so that the work could continue.
She wept throughout the flight home, but just as the plane landed in Houston, her heart began to lift. It was time to move ahead with her life, to make plans for her own future. Her time with Sylvia and Harry had given her a hunger for the Word, and now she realized that she wanted to major in Bible at a Christian college, then head to seminary. Someday, she hoped to return to the mission field. Whatever God’s plan for her was, she wanted to make a difference. She didn’t think she could ever return to a mundane, fruitless lifestyle again.
As they boarded the plane from Houston to Breezewood, Sylvia grew faint and had to sit down in the jet bridge. She lowered her head, and a flight attendant got her some water. Annie tried to fan her off.
After a moment, Sylvia had gotten slowly back to her feet and boarded the plane. Annie prayed all the way home that the doctors would be able to quickly find whatever was wrong with Sylvia and cure it. There was so much work to be done. Maybe Sylvia just needed a rest. In a way, Annie was thankful that their house hadn’t sold yet. Sylvia would be able to sleep in her own bedroom on her own mattress with her own linens, surrounded by her own things, with her neighbors fussing over her. Maybe within a week she’d be back to normal.
It had been good of Sylvia to come home to celebrate with Mark. Annie hoped that, when she got married and had a family of her own, she’d live in a neighborhood with friends who loved her and cared for her and celebrated her triumphs with her.
Yes, life held so much. Annie couldn’t wait for whatever came next.
CHAPTER
Eighty-Four
Mark woke up on the day of his release and realized that everything was different. Even before he climbed out of his bunk, he already felt free—and with a sudden grin he remembered how much he had to look forward to. When he’d first been told of the Prodigal Son party that his family had planned for him, he’d had to go into the bathroom to hide his weeping. He had immediately begun working on the speech his mother had asked him to give. He must have written it a hundred times in the days since then, adding things, deleting those things that sounded lame. He’d tried to organize it the way Brenda had taught him to write papers. He wanted everyone at the party to see that he had changed, that the experience of being in jail had not hardened him. Instead, he was a stronger person for it, a man of integrity and purpose.
But as he dressed that morning, Mark felt a sharp regret for leaving his prison friends behind. He went around to each of them, shaking hands and saying good-bye. He saved Lazzo till last. The boy couldn’t meet his eyes as Mark shook his hand, and Mark knew that Lazzo was sorry to see him go.
“You’ll come back and visit once in a while, won’t you, man?” Lazzo asked, picking at a piece of lint on his blanket.
“Sure I will,” Mark said.
Lazzo shook his head. “People say that all the time. They say they’ll do it and then they don’t.”
“No, man. I’ll really do it. And I was thinking I might write to you.”
“Write to me?” Lazzo asked. “Yeah, right, like you’re going to have time to sit around writing letters to your old pals in jail.”
“No
kidding. I will.” He went to his locker, opened it, and pulled out all the papers Steve had sent him, with all the Bible studies and all of Mark’s notes. He handed them to Lazzo. “You can have these, if you want them. They’re pretty cool, if you do them.”
“That Bible study?” Lazzo asked.
“Yeah. If you don’t want to do them, I’ll take them, but if you want them—”
Lazzo took them out of his hands. “I’ll take ‘em,” he said. “Might fill up some time.”
“Worked for me.” He cleared his throat and took in a deep breath. “You know, if you ever wanted to do more, well, uh…I could send you stuff…or bring it by.”
“Yeah, man. Thanks.”
He packed the few things that he had been allowed to keep and dressed in a new pair of khakis and a button-down shirt that his mother had brought him. Then he met her in the visitation room where they’d talked across the table so many times before. She wept as soon as she saw him come through the door.
Though he had seen her twice a week for the past year, he held her in a crushing embrace, a hello hug. But he couldn’t help looking over her shoulder to see if his father had come. There was no one there, but Mark wasn’t surprised. He had grown numb to that kind of disappointment months ago. At least, he told himself he had.
“So what time does the party start?” he asked his mother.
She wiped her face. “We’re going straight there,” she said. “I hope you’re ready.”
He nodded. “So who’s going to be there?”
“Everybody.”
She smiled and began to roll his suitcase toward the front door. He took it out of her hands and carried it as he walked out the door, an inmate no longer.
“Just brace yourself,” she said as they drove home. “You’re not going to believe this party.”
Times and Seasons Page 30
