If You Really Knew Me (Anyone Who Believes Book 1)

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  Anna understood the reason for the party, but she also understood something that no one had spoken. She suddenly knew why Maggie was going to walk away from all this. She knew Maggie had seen the whole price and didn't want to be so close to suffering again. And she knew that, while Maggie didn't get to choose the sacrifice of being robbed of a loved one this time, she would checkout before there was a next time.

  After absorbing this revelation, Anna looked at Beau. “I know things. Like what you told me about yourself, and the others.”

  Beau smiled, that proud father look returning. “You're one of the family now.”

  Two weeks later, after Beau returned with his family from a teary and inspiring retreat to their cabin in the Sierra Nevada, he sat in his Land Rover thinking about all the grace he had seen in his life. His car was parked on a quiet commercial street, just off the main thoroughfare in Parkerville, where he had met with some old friends for the last time. When he turned the key in the ignition something sounded strangled. The always-reliable vehicle failed to start.

  He looked up and noticed a man walking toward him, down the street, looking like he knew him and wanted to talk. Lost in wondering who the man was, Beau tried the ignition again. And suddenly he knew why the car wasn't starting.

  Darryl Sampras had heard that Beau Dupere was in town, visiting someone just down the street. Two women gossiped about it in the drug store where Darryl was picking up a prescription. Since his resignation from the church, and the tense and gray days following, Darryl had grown thankful that Beau had been an unknowing catalyst in his liberation from a religion that was smothering his soul.

  He paid for his daughter’s medicine and headed out the door, hoping to briefly introduce himself, and to thank, the famous man. Using an overheard conversation as his direction seemed a tenuous plan, but Darryl felt driven to see Beau in person. Though he told himself this urge was to thank him, part of him doubted that was the whole reason for his desire to see Beau.

  From more than a block away, Darryl saw a man who looked just like he imagined Beau Dupere would look in person. He had walked out of the café to which Darryl was headed and climbed into a dark green Land Rover. Darryl stopped at the corner to allow a compact car to buzz past and then sped his pace toward Beau’s car, hoping he could get the driver’s attention before he drove off. The sound of a failing ignition nudged a bit of added hope into Darryl’s heart as he increased his step to meet the man that he now saw clearly through the windshield of the Rover.

  As Beau let go of the key after his second try, he simultaneously lifted one hand toward the man approaching, who stopped dead still as if frozen to the cement. At the same time, the world around Beau lit up white and orange and blue all at once. And his faithful old ride exploded around him, transporting him to another world, like Elijah in his fiery chariot.

  At about fifty feet from the car, just when Darryl was beginning to raise his free hand to flag down Beau Dupere, he noticed a disturbed look overtake Beau’s face. Then Beau looked squarely at Darryl and quickly raised a hand toward him, as if to bar him from coming closer. And it seemed to work. Darryl felt his feet anchored to the ground, though he wasn’t sure whether it was the natural reaction to Beau looking at him and putting up his hand, or some supernatural brake applied to his feet. Before he could even finish that question, however, the Land Rover lit up. A ball of orange flame enveloped the top half of the vehicle. Beau Dupere disappeared. And the entire car leapt two feet off the ground.

  Darryl heard glass breaking all around him and felt the push of a vicious wind knock him over backward. He tried to catch himself with both hands, his white paper bag from the drug store flying behind him. He managed to keep his head from slamming into the pavement, pain instead shooting up both arms and into his shoulders and neck. When his head did land on the asphalt, its impact had been moderated by the sacrifice paid by wrists and elbows.

  As he lay there looking up at the pure, blue California sky, the world seemed to go silent, except for a ringing, like a church bell that wouldn’t stop. And Darryl collected one thought from the shock of what had just happened.

  “They really killed him this time,” he said to himself before blacking out.

  Passing it On

  People of a certain mindset like to insist that their funeral should be a celebration. Beau Dupere had never said anything like that, as far as anyone could remember. He knew that his death would not cost him anything and would benefit him eternally. But he also knew that his death would cost a lot of people more than they would like to pay.

  None of the churches in Malibu were big enough for the funeral. Jack Williams figured this out with Justine and the others, and found a suitable venue in Los Angeles, a colossal church with a long history. That church had hosted Beau and his healing ministry several times over the previous ten years, and Jack was well acquainted with the senior pastor.

  At one point in his sermon, Jack commented, “Of course, if we wanted to have Beau’s funeral in a building that would accommodate everyone he impacted deeply, with some life-changing healing, we would be disappointed. No building in all the earth would accommodate that many people.” Though Jack was an aficionado of such details, he didn’t even try to speculate about the exact number.

  When a religious leader dies of cancer, or in a plane crash, or from old age, those that he touched are saddened. But when a man like Beau Dupere is assassinated, his name becomes associated with martyrdom; and his friends and followers, who don’t surrender to anger, see in that death a call to push forward all the harder.

  The FBI found evidence from the bomb site that pointed to the same sort of domestic terrorist groups they had been tracking since before the first assassination and the fire-bombing of the house. That this was the work of more than just one disturbed individual was undeniable, given the video footage of the man who shot Beau, the body of one of the firebombers, and several men and women whom the Feds had brought in for questioning, as persons of interest. But no clear suspect emerged in the first few weeks of the bombing investigation.

  Darryl Sampras recovered from his injuries, and from a brief stint as the lead suspect for the bombing. This latter connection ran through Dixon Claiborne’s church, of course, but failed to produce any solid evidence. The bomb blast did no lasting damage to Darryl’s body, which didn’t suffer any broken bones and only a temporary loss of hearing. But he did discover something about that day which changed his life even more than the trauma of watching a man murdered in a flaming explosion.

  Not finding new employment as a pastor, Darryl had settled into a job in a cell phone store at the mall. Even with overtime, he and Susan relied on relatives to help meet their financial obligations. Their one-year-old, Betsy, could stay out of daycare as long as those relatives helped and Karen could stay home with the baby. Karen did earn a little money, buying things at garage sales and selling them via the Internet, but that barely paid for Betsy’s diapers and baby food.

  Counting their coins as usual, Darryl and Karen debated whether to take Betsy to the doctor over a runny nose she had suffered for about a week. Their health insurance was affordable because of its high deductible, which made these small medical decisions much more monetary in nature than the conscientious parents would have liked. It was really out of frustration one night that Darryl put his hand on Betsy’s warm and damp little head and prayed. “O God, please, we need your help. Please heal Betsy, so we don’t have to spend the money on a doctor.” And then he backed down a bit. “At least let us know whether we really need to go to the doctor.”

  The next morning, Darryl rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock; 7:17 it said. Karen greeted Darryl with a relieved smile, up already and bouncing Betsy in her arms. She spoke in the high-pitched voice she used to channel what she was sure her little daughter would like to say.

  “Hey, Daddy, you need to get up and play with me, ‘cuz I’m feeling all better now,” Karen said,

  Darryl looked
at Betsy for a moment before he registered what Karen had just said. “Wait, she’s feeling better?”

  “She’s feeling completely better,” Karen said in her own voice. “She just fed more than she has in over a week. I’m thinking it’s about time to increase her solid food intake.”

  “No more cold?”

  “No sir,” Karen said, sitting on the bed and handing Betsy to Darryl. “I’m feeling full of spunk this morning,” she said, speaking for Betsy again. And Betsy confirmed that assessment with a laugh at her dad holding her in the air. She pulled her fist out of her mouth and just missed him with a string of drool. Her full-faced grin made Darryl laugh as he settled Betsy into the crook of his neck.

  “You think it mattered that I prayed last night?”

  Karen rolled her eyes. “Why else do you think she’s suddenly all better?”

  Darryl looked at Karen and squinted slightly, trying to decide how much to make of the coincidence. Then he made a surprising connection. Before his mind’s eye he saw the moment that Beau Dupere reached his hand toward him, as Darryl stood frozen to the ground. This time, however, that memory wasn’t about reliving the trauma of seeing a man trapped in an exploding vehicle. This time, Darryl saw the power in that hand, the power that stopped him from getting any closer before that bomb ignited.

  Though Darryl couldn’t say it aloud to Karen just then, he suddenly knew that Beau Dupere had left something with him before he took off. And, because of that hasty departure, Beau wasn’t able to do more than just leave a piece of himself to a stranger, a stranger who would be forever grateful.

  Trying to Walk on Water?

  After Beau died, no one moved out of the house immediately. They all stayed together. They all needed each other.

  When Tammy, Adam’s mother, received divorce papers from her husband, she was glad that she already had a new life and new props to hold her up. She worried about her kids, however, when this second strike hit them, a second loss of a father.

  Working as a legal aid most of her adult life, Tammy had worked to live, and had lived primarily for her kids, until her husband left her for a woman from his real estate firm. Then her kids were the only thing keeping Tammy from ending her life.

  In that condition, she attended an evening service at the church in Malibu where Beau, Justine and the whole family attended when not travelling. Olivia approached Tammy during the worship music and invited her to come and sit with the family, a strange invitation, but one that Tammy had no reason to refuse. That she had returned to church after her husband, the deacon, had betrayed her, witnessed to her desperation. She hoped to find someone to help her hang on to life, like a woman fallen overboard, clinging to whatever buoyant flotsam she could reach. But Olivia, and her extraordinary family, offered more than a slippery bit of floating junk, as Tammy could tell immediately.

  Later, Justine and Olivia would confide to Tammy that they both worried that she would not survive through that Sunday night, if they didn’t scoop her into their orbit of peace and hope. When they met Adam and Emma as well, later that week, the family knew they had found more of their members, if only temporarily.

  Tammy cried uncontrollably when she saw how Beau wrapped his smile, and a strong arm, around Adam. Her own longing for a father’s love had multiplied her desire for her children to find a dependable and loving father figure. Only when she later discovered the intimate connection between Beau’s family and their father in Heaven, did Tammy find what she had really been seeking.

  For his part, Adam had found a role model as influential as a father and as awe-inspiring as any man he had ever heard of. Better still, Adam discovered the gateway into the purpose for his life. He attached himself to Beau as a disciple in healing, but he also stretched beyond Beau to the God who gave him power. Adam’s first night sleeping in the Dupere house, he had run down the hallway shouting for Beau, who had just begun to get ready for bed himself.

  “What is it, Adam?” Beau said, though something in the level set of his eyes alerted the boy to the possibility that this miracle man already knew what he had seen.

  “I saw shadows on my wall, shadows shaped like angels,” he said, breathless from the fright more than from the running.

  Beau gripped his shoulders, leaning down to look into Adam’s eyes. He was looking for the effect of the visitation, not for signs that the boy had been dreaming. “They’re there to welcome you to this house, and to protect you for the work God has for you.” He said this in the same tone of voice other men would use to explain a thermostat or hot water faucet to a visiting foreigner. His excitement rose only to the height of Adam’s, and his satisfaction grew to greet the boy’s apparent insight into the world that remains unseen to most of the people in the technologically advanced world.

  Where Adam and Emma excelled at spiritual sight, Emma excelled even more at faith. She accepted what Justine or Maggie told her about God’s love and his purpose for her and the people she met. And she spread that faith with her sincere prayers for family, friends and strangers alike.

  Even as her children embraced the supernatural lifestyle of their new family, Tammy considered herself too old for such mystical belief, and focused on getting her heart healed from the wounds of a fifteen year marriage and its tectonic fracture. For a time, she had lashed her gasping soul to the hope of becoming part of Beau’s family as Olivia and Dianna had, but Justine and Beau recognized her unhealthy desperation, and resisted any movement in that direction.

  Tammy discovered the boundaries carefully constructed by Beau and his covenanted, if not licensed, wives. She found that a strict understanding ruled the borders around the unusual four-fold spousal unit. And she learned that the rumors about open marriage, and Beau’s acquisitive ways with women, were exaggerated. But she knew she needed more healing for her heart before she could pursue any sort of new romance, anyway.

  Over the two years since moving into the Dupere house, Tammy had settled into the hum and rhythm of her temporary home, which felt more homey than any she had lived in permanently. She adjusted to having Beau Dupere act as surrogate father to Adam and Emma, and as master artisan to Adam’s apprenticeship in “the things of the Spirit,” as they used to say in her old church. And she adjusted to the nurture and practical training of both Justine and Beau.

  Her biggest adjustment, however, was watching her little boy approach adolescence with a full-grown faith in the supernatural world of the Bible and of Beau Dupere. She ricocheted from fascination to fright within a single conversation, many times each week, as she listed to Adam’s dreams about angels, nighttime struggles against attacking demons, and experiences of healing people of major illnesses, both with and without the help of Beau. In her heart, Tammy looked up to Adam as a sort of spiritual prodigy that she could only admire from a distance, though externally she maintained her motherly role in his life.

  After Beau’s death, and a few days after she had met with her lawyer about the final settlement of her divorce, Tammy spied Adam out in the Pacific, a dozen yards off the beach, up to his waist in cold water. She ran down to rescue him as fast as she dared, down the steep wooden stairway to the sand.

  Adam heard the panic in his mother’s voice as quickly as it registered that his mother was calling to him. He watched as she huffed and puffed down the stairs, careful of her footing and glancing at him as she called. The cold water had already made its point, that he was not welcomed there, and Adam was nearly out of the water when his mother reached the driftwood-strewn sand.

  “What were you doing out there?” Tammy said, grabbing a towel that Adam had left lying on the beach.

  Adam finished his assent out of the water and wrapped his arms around himself, his long-sleeved red t-shirt like a second skin now. Salt water dripped from the teal, knee-length swimsuit that Beau had bought for Adam on his last trip to do healing meetings in Hawaii. Adam’s teeth began to chatter, as if in answer to his mother’s inquiry. But he knew that she wanted more. “I didn�
��t mean to make you worry,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady and submissive amidst the shivering.

  “Well, I think I’ll worry anyway, young man.”

  Adam nodded, as he leaned into the welcomed wrap, and rapidly rubbing hands, of his mother. He had chosen this navy blue towel for its volume and warmth, even though he had hoped not to need it.

  “I was just trying something,” he said, his youthful optimism about avoiding full disclosure still intact.

  Tammy tightened her arms around him and drew his head up under her chin. “Trying what? To freeze to death?”

  “I was hoping not to get wet,” he said, hearing how silly it sounded even as he said it.

  “Not to get wet? Walking out into the ocean?”

  Adam hunkered into his mother’s embrace and silently prayed for wisdom. “I thought I could do it,” he said, his voice smaller and lower.

  “Do what?” His mother asked, even though she was beginning to suspect she knew the answer to that question.

  Adam looked up at her and knew that she had guessed. He just nodded his confession.

  Standing on the slim strip of beach, Tammy pulled back and stared at Adam, as if searching for other symptoms that the dual traumas of Beau’s death and her husband’s divorce had shattered her son’s sanity. Adam smiled at her, recognizing her worried mother look, her light blue eyes turning darker, her thin red eyebrows pulling together, and her freckled forehead bunching up.

  “Beau came to me in a dream,” Adam said. “He was walking on the water, out there.” He pointed a shivering hand toward Catalina Island. “He said I could go out and join him when I was ready.” Adam looked at Tammy, to check how she was taking this. “It wasn’t scary, or anything, not about me dying. It was just him telling me what he always did, that I could do whatever God asked me to do, even the things that Jesus did.”