by Mark Goodwin
“He warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit. He handed us the Word of God and asked us to live by it, but they ate the fruit, and we have all been derelict in fulfilling our mission to live according to His Word.
“Romans 6:23, the wages of sin is death. We’ve all put in a hard day’s work at sinning away, then when we get our paycheck, we don’t want it. If you look at it from God’s point of view, that’s not His problem. He warned us, but we do it anyway. His hands are clean. But what did he do?”
Ava knew exactly where this was going, but to answer the question truthfully meant she’d have to let go of her anger toward God. She took the milk out of the refrigerator and filled her bowl rather than say it out loud.
When Ava began eating, Charity answered for her. “He sent His Son, His only Son, who never did anything wrong, to earth. He asked Him to give up everything to come down here, be ridiculed, mocked, beaten, and stapled to a cross. If He’s just out to get you, to make your life miserable, why would He do that?”
The lump in Ava’s throat swelled to the point that she could no longer eat her cereal. She dropped the spoon into her bowl and started to bawl.
Charity came over to the counter and sat down beside her. She put her arm around Ava. “Why did He do it, Ava?”
Between the sobs, Ava said, “So I could live, so I don’t have to go to hell for being an active participant in the fall. So I can see my mom again, and so I can live with Him for eternity.”
“Do you want to apologize for being angry at Him? At the only person who could bail you, or me, or anyone else out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves in?”
Ava dried her eyes and cried out to God. “I’m sorry, God. Thank you for Jesus. I do believe. Help me to believe more.”
Charity hugged her. “That’s a good prayer. We all need to believe more. If we really believe we’re only here for a hundred years or less, then have eternity in Heaven, we shouldn’t be so caught up in what goes on here. We should be focused on the other side. And I know it’s easier said than done. What you’ve been through is no joke, but this ain’t Heaven, and we shouldn’t expect it to be.
“But don’t let the enemy convince you that this is all God’s fault, and please don’t let him trick you into throwing away your reward in Heaven. If you can’t get your head around eternity, just think about the first 150 million years in Heaven. Of course, that won’t even scratch the surface of forever, but it’s a tangible number. Thinking of it in those terms helps me have perspective when I have to make decisions that affect the other side.”
Ava continued crying and hugged her friend who was giving her some much needed tough love.
Charity held her for twenty minutes, until she received a text alert on her phone. “It’s James. We’re going to pick up a shotgun that he ordered last week. I’ve got to text him back. Besides, your cereal is getting soggy.”
Ava laughed. “That’s going in the garbage.”
Buckley’s eyes lit up when he saw Ava bend low with the bowl of soggy cereal near the trash can.
“Seriously? You want this?” Ava crinkled her nose.
“Waste not, want not.” Charity finished her text.
Ava put the bowl on the floor and Buckley lapped it up.
“I’m sure it’s better ingredients than whatever is in that dog food you’re giving him.” Charity slipped on her sneakers and grabbed her purse. “Why don’t you walk Buckley, and come with us to the gun store?”
“No thanks. I’m going by my mom’s grave. Think I’ll stop by both. Maybe get some flowers.”
“Okay, but you’re coming with us tomorrow, right?”
“To that church down in Buda?”
“Yeah.”
Ava considered what Charity had said about backsliding prior to the close call with Chip. “Yeah, I’ll come check it out.”
After a long shower, a second pot of coffee, and a bowl of oatmeal instead of Captain Crunch, Ava stopped by the florist on her way to the cemetery. She bought two bouquets of yellow Gerbera Daisies. Ava’s first stop was to her adoptive mother’s grave. She placed one of the bouquets on the bare mounded earth below the headstone. Ava considered how hard her mother had worked to bring her up right, to teach her to love God, obey His Word, and to be a responsible adult.
For the most part, she felt she’d lived up to those expectations—barring last evening’s momentary lapse of reason, that is.
Ava prayed out loud. “God, you gave me the best mom I could have ever asked for. And you let me keep her all the way through childhood and my young adult life. I’m a woman now—I’ll be thirty soon. I should be able to take care of myself. With your help, I promise I’ll try to make better decisions, to honor my mom and You.”
After several more minutes of reflection, Ava continued her walk through the cemetery to place the other bouquet on her biological mother’s grave.
Once there, she knelt beside the stone. She placed the daisies at the base and ran her fingers across the weathered inscription of her mother’s name. “Kimberly Schaffer. I wish I had gotten a chance to know you. But thank you for the sacrifices you made while you carried me. And thank you for giving your life so I could be born. Who knows? You probably could have had an abortion and saved your own life. People may have even told you to do that.”
Ava cried some more as she wondered who this woman was. But even though she’d never met her, Ava loved the woman for giving her life.
Ava’s feeling of melancholy was interrupted by the eerie sense that someone was watching her. She turned to see a man coming her way. He had a confused look on his face, which frightened her. One of his eyes was staring her down, and the other seemed to be pointed in another direction. He was older, sixty perhaps. He was clean with a white button-down shirt, khaki slacks, and had graying hair. Yet a long scar ran from his lower lip down the right side of his throat, giving him a menacing look.
The crazy expression, the scar, and the deviating eye gave Ava reason enough to be frightened. She looked around, but no one else was anywhere nearby. If she were to scream, no one would hear except the man.
She reached for her purse, feeling the weight, or lack thereof, which reminded her that she’d left her Glock in the glove compartment. “Never again,” she whispered to herself.
The man was still coming toward her, still looking crazy, and had picked up his pace. She casually put her hand on the tombstone and used it to help her spring to her feet and run as fast as she could. Ava was a runner, so unless this guy trained daily, he’d never catch her. Even so, she didn’t slow down until she reached her Jeep. Once inside, she locked the door, retrieved the pistol from the glove box and looked to see if he was still following. Confirming that he was no longer around, she started the engine and sped away.
CHAPTER 15
God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.
Psalm 68:6
Three weeks passed since the episode with Chip. Ava returned to the office early from lunch on Thursday.
“Did you get your license yet?” she asked Charity who was typing away at the keyboard.
Charity glanced up, then looked back at the computer screen. “It’s only been four weeks since we took the class and mailed in our paperwork. The instructor said not to expect it in less than six; but eight is more likely because of all the people trying to get their license at the same time.”
“I don’t know.” Ava smiled cryptically.
“Why? Did you get yours?”
Ava lifted the bottom of her scrubs top just enough to reveal the butt of the slim Glock pistol tucked neatly in the low-profile holster at her waist.
“Really!”
“It was in the mail when I got home yesterday.”
“Does Dr. Hodge know you’re strapped?”
“Strapped? What, are you talking like Snoop Dog now?”
Charity rolled her eyes. “Packing, whatever.”
&nbs
p; “No one is supposed to know. That’s why it’s called concealed carry, remember?”
“Then you probably shouldn’t have shown me.” Charity grinned sarcastically.
“But who would turn me on to all the hip gangsta lingo if I didn’t show you?”
Charity shook her head. “Whatever. You have a patient in ten minutes. You better get your exam room ready.”
Ava stuck two fingers in the air as she walked away with an over-exaggerated strut. “Peace out, yo!”
She prepped her work area, then went to the break table near the back office for a sparkling water while she waited for her next patient. Before returning to the exam room, she checked the back computer to see if the patient was due for new x-rays.
She read the name out loud. “Foley Mitchem?” She shook her head and mumbled to herself, “This better not be the Foley I think it is, but what are the odds someone else has that same first name?”
Ava walked like a cat up to the exam room door, then quickened her step as she walked by. She needed only a passing glance to confirm what she already knew. Indeed, it was the infamous Mr. Foley from Faith Chapel, and she knew exactly who to blame for his presence in her exam room chair. Ava’s light-footed sprint became a full-fledged, infuriated stomp by the time she’d reached the front office. She glared at Charity. “I thought I asked you to stay out of my business when it comes to men.”
“Excuse me?” Charity appeared incensed.
Ava flipped her hair as she looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. “Oh, come on. Like you don’t know who is sitting in my exam room and you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ava.” Charity pushed her chair out from her desk. “Who, pray tell, is in there?”
Ava could see it in Charity’s eyes. She’d had nothing to do with the scheme. “Foley.”
“Oh!” Charity’s face brightened. “Maybe he made an appointment and requested you.”
“He doesn’t know where I work.” She snapped her attention back to Charity’s eyes and resumed the inquisition. “Unless you told him.”
Charity held her hands up. “I haven’t spoken to him since the night of the attacks.” Charity turned to the receptionist. “Linda, the guy that’s in Exam Room 3, did he request Ava?”
Linda looked over the sign-in sheet. “Foley Mitchem? Nope.”
“What’s all the ruckus about?” Raquel walked in. She had one of the sugar-free lollipops the office gave to children; she twirled it in her mouth.
Charity provided a brief synopsis of the situation.
Raquel glanced back toward the exam room like a spider, and seductively pulled the lollipop from her lips. “I’ll take him. He’s cute!”
Ava began putting on her nitrile exam gloves. “Thanks anyway. I don’t want to owe you any favors.”
“I’d owe you.” Raquel licked her lips like a lioness about to pounce on an unsuspecting zebra. “I was just about to take lunch. You don’t even have to switch patients with me. Take my lunch break.”
“I just took lunch.”
“So, take another lunch. Go shopping, read a book, whatever. You can stay on the clock, and I’ll clock out. And trust me, you’re still doing me a favor.”
Ava could feel her blood boiling higher over Raquel’s proposition than when she thought Charity had set this whole thing up. But, she couldn’t let it be seen. “He’s my patient, he’s in my exam room, so I’m going to take him. I appreciate the offer.”
“What’s your deal?” Raquel snarled, pointing the lollipop at Ava like a knife. “Are you jealous? All you have to say is that you like him, and I’ll back off. But if not, what’s the problem? Does it make you feel better to see everyone else miserable too? You want everyone to be lonely—like you?”
“Leave her be.” Charity stood up from her chair and escorted Raquel out of the office.
Raquel made one final protest as she left the room. “You don’t have to be happy, Ava, but don’t try to spoil it for everyone else.”
Ava stood tight-lipped by the desk, looking at the sign-in sheet. Then, Charity gently put her hand on Ava’s back and began pushing her out the door. “You had your chance to get out of it, but now he’s your patient. And he’s been waiting long enough. You know how Dr. Hodge feels about that.”
Ava steeled herself for the encounter while she made her way back down the hall. She took several deep breaths, pacing her steps to proceed leisurely. She walked in the room. “Good afternoon.”
“Hi.” Foley glanced up to see Ava standing over him.
“Oh, look who it is!” A counterfeit look of surprise veiled her face.
Foley’s expression of shock couldn’t have been more genuine. He sat up in the chair with his eyes opened more widely than his mouth. He stumbled for words and began to get up out of the chair. “You . . . I didn’t know . . . I’m not stalking you or anything. I can ask the front desk to give me someone else.”
“Why would you do that?”
He lifted his shoulders. “In case you feel uncomfortable . . . you know, cleaning my teeth.”
“I don’t feel uncomfortable.”
Foley looked down at the floor, then scanned the room as if he were assessing possible escape routes. “Or—in case I feel uncomfortable.”
Suddenly, Ava remembered that she’d been much less hospitable the last time she’d spoken to Foley. She gently closed the door in an effort to keep eavesdroppers from listening in. “Maybe I wasn’t being myself. In my defense, it was sort of a hostile situation. I’m sorry if I allowed it to affect the way I treated you. And I should have been more grateful. So, thank you for everything you did for me and Charity. We probably owe you our lives.”
Foley looked at the door that had just been closed as if his options for retreat had been greatly diminished. “I appreciate your gratitude, and I accept your apology, but I still feel like I must have done or said something to offend you. So, really, if you’d rather not take care of me, I don’t mind waiting for someone else.”
“The other girl just went to lunch. And it might take you months to reschedule. Why don’t you sit back down in the chair and let me have a look? You didn’t offend me. Like I said, it was just a stressful situation and I let it get to me.”
“Months to reschedule? When I called, the office was able to fit me right in.” Foley cautiously returned to the chair.
Ava shook her head as she arranged her instruments on the tray. “Lucky you. Since the market tanked, people have been fighting to get on the schedule. I guess they’re afraid they’ll get laid off and lose their dental insurance. Who knows?”
Foley still seemed tense but leaned back in the chair. “Your patients, they told you that?”
“Not expressly.”
“Oh, because people, or civilians at least, typically don’t plan that far in advance.”
Ava could feel that she was painting herself into a corner, so she switched lanes. “Where were you going before? Your dentist, I mean.”
“Dr. Cohen’s, downtown. Antifa torched the place. They lost everything. I think Dr. Cohen is just going to retire rather than open another office.”
“Oh, that’s terrible.” Ava thought hard for a better subject to change to since this line of inquiry had already been satisfied. “What did you think about President Higgins getting impeached?”
“It’s crazy!”
“I know, right? I didn’t feel like they were able to prove he’d done anything wrong in the Senate hearings.”
“It was an absolute witch hunt.” Foley shook his head in disgust.
“Yeah, a total kangaroo court. It was like the popular kids in the lunchroom banning the freckle-faced kid from eating in the cafeteria. The whole thing was based on nothing but party politics.”
“That’s one of the inherent problems with democracy. It’s essentially three cheetahs and a gazelle voting on what to eat for dinner.”
Ava chuckled at the clever analogy. “Yeah.
People like George Szabos have steered public school curriculum through his Just Society Foundation and basically brainwashed an entire generation of Americans into being cheetahs.”
Foley nodded. “Plus, you have all the social media tech giants pushing the fake news spewed by the mainstream media and burying the real stories from alternative media sites. You hit the nail on the head. Through brainwashing, they’ve pulled off a full-scale communist revolution without firing a shot.”
“Almost,” Ava corrected. “There were plenty of shots fired when Antifa attacked Faith Chapel. I consider that part of the revolution.”
Foley sat up in the chair. “Some conservative media sites are referring to the incident at Faith Chapel as our Fort-Sumter moment.”
Ava thought about all the people who lost their lives during the four long years of the Civil War. “I hope not. I don’t think America could survive another internal conflict like that. Famine and disease killed almost as many people as the fighting.”
“People were tougher back then. That’s for sure. Anyway, I think the Democrats may have shot themselves in the foot. Have you seen Ross’ poll numbers since the impeachment?”
“I saw them, but I don’t trust those numbers. Higgins was down by double digits through most of the campaign eight years ago. But on election day, he pulled it off. Still, it’s encouraging that Ross is moving up against Markovich.”
“I’m glad we’re rooting for the same guy.” Foley smiled at her.
Ava’s heart fluttered for a brief moment. It was nice to talk to a guy who was on the same page politically. “What you said about the left shooting themselves in the foot; now that Ross has been sworn in to replace Higgins, he has experience in the Oval Office. He’s now addressed as Mr. President. I don’t think they fully analyzed what kind of effect that would have. They may have given the administration and the party a black eye, but Ross might still come out ahead from this move.”
“I couldn’t agree more. And on top of everything, the impeachment has infuriated Higgins’ base who voted him into office. They saw the kangaroo court, as you so eloquently put it, and they feel like this was a personal attack on them. The ones who perhaps were going to stay home on election day, forget it. They wouldn’t skip voting now if you offered them a million dollars.”
