Betwixt Two Hearts (Crossroads Collection)

by Amanda Tru

  Another noisy sniff. Drisklay glowered at the Kleenex box, which Misty hadn’t touched.

  “I’m the one who convinced her to go on with it,” the young woman blubbered. “I said if it was meant to be then everything would work out perfectly. And now she’s dead.”

  “Now she’s dead,” Drisklay muttered to himself. He’d give the girl another minute to pull herself together, then it was time to wrap this interview up.

  A minute later, fresh Kleenex in hand, an eager Alexi appeared to escort Misty down the hallway. Drisklay gave her a polite nod. “Thank you, Misty. You’ve been very helpful. That’s all I’ll be needing from you today.”

  It was almost midnight in Seoul by the time Caroline closed her Bible. She couldn’t remember the last time God had spoken to her with such clarity. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe all the stress of living with Calvin was harming her relationship with Christ. Maybe this separation from him was really what her soul needed.

  It wouldn’t be easy. Especially since even as a young believer Caroline had seen the way certain Christians would shun divorcées. With Calvin out of her life, Caroline would be permanently branded.

  The woman whose husband left her.

  The woman who gave up on her marriage.

  The woman who disappointed God.

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried. God knew better than anyone how much time and energy and prayers she’d put into saving her marriage. Maybe that was one of the reasons God told her to come here to Seoul. Maybe it wasn’t just because Mrs. Cho needed so much help in her orphanage. Maybe God knew that Caroline needed this time away from the drama.

  Time away from Calvin.

  The thought was encouraging. Yet, nagging in the back of her mind remained doubts. Probably there would always be doubts. Could she have done something more to make things work out? Could she have been a more faithful witness? Should she have asked to pray with him more consistently? Invited him to church more faithfully? Spoken to God about him more boldly? Or maybe the opposite. Maybe she should have kept her faith less visible so it wouldn’t make him so upset. Push him away.

  These were answers she might never know, and questions she didn’t want to dwell on. She was here in Seoul to do God’s work. Wasn’t that why he’d given her that dream in the first place? Mrs. Cho needed help in her orphanage. A woman at that age, she couldn’t be expected to look after all those children without outside help. If Calvin was hard-hearted enough that he’d destroy their marriage because Caroline decided to obey God and spent a few weeks on the mission field serving him, their marriage wasn’t worth saving anyway.

  Was it?

  She stared at her Bible on the pillow beside her, wondering what happened to the peace she’d felt just moments earlier. If her husband wanted out of their relationship, there obviously wasn’t anything she could do to change his mind.

  So why did she still feel so guilty? So unresolved?

  She picked up her Bible one last time. “Okay, God,” she prayed. “I really need a sign from you. Am I giving up on my marriage too easily? Or is this separation your way of protecting me from putting myself through more and more pain?”

  She’d already given Calvin the best years of her life. With any other man, she might have been a mother. Maybe even a grandma by now if they’d adopted young enough. But her husband wouldn’t hear of it, and Caroline didn’t want to pick a fight. Not another one.

  She’d stuck with him through all his career advancements and discouragements, all the unsolved cases that left him bitter, grumpy, and cynical. She’d thrown away her dreams of motherhood, of family. And for what? For a man who despised her the moment she became a Christian.

  It wasn’t as if she’d committed a crime. She hadn’t gone out behind his back and gotten involved in some torrid affair, even though his emotional distance could have made that look like a tempting offer. She wasn’t stealing money out of his account or gambling away their savings or slipping oleander powder into his food like that black widow killer he’d put behind bars a few years ago.

  “God, none of this makes sense. None of this feels fair.” She realized how silly the words sounded as soon as she prayed them. Since when did God promise to make her life easy and fair? But still, after all she’d been through, was it that wrong for her to grumble every now and then? Who wouldn’t in her situation?

  “All right, Lord. I know I’m not supposed to complain. And I really appreciate all the encouragement you gave me from your Word. But I need more, Lord. I need something I can really hold onto. I need something to carry me through whatever happens between Calvin and me, whether it’s good or bad. Please, just show me what you want me to hear.”

  She opened up her Bible to a random page. It probably wasn’t the most effective way to listen to God, but right now she didn’t have the energy or will to dig through her concordance searching for the right verse on her own. If the Lord had something he wanted to say to her, he could show her this way.

  She was somewhere in Ezekiel, one of the Old Testament books she’d never read before. Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember hearing it mentioned on any of her podcasts or any of Pastor Carl’s sermons either. She shrugged, about to reopen the Bible to something more familiar when a single word on the page caught her eye.

  Heart.

  She read the entire verse.

  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

  A wave of warmth, love, and regret crashed over her at once. It was impossible to differentiate a single emotion from the others. She was overcome with a sense of God’s presence in a way she hadn’t experienced since her first Sunday at church with Sandy.

  “Daughter,” a heavenly voice seemed to whisper, “have you forgotten that I’m right here with you?”

  Yes, she had forgotten. She’d turned to Scripture for encouragement, but what she’d really been longing for wasn’t just God’s Word but Jesus himself, the outpouring of his Holy Spirit, filling her soul until she was certain her mortal body couldn’t contain so much of the divine.

  He was here. She realized now he always had been. Why had she ever doubted?

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Lord,” she whispered.

  Through blurry eyes, she read the verse again. How could she have been a Christian for three full years and never come across this passage in all her studying?

  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

  A heart of flesh. That one phrase kept pulsing through her soul like a fire.

  I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

  Then Caroline understood. She’d spent years praying against her husband’s hardness of heart, years praying for God to soften his spirit so he could sense the love Jesus had for him.

  She’d longed for God to remove Calvin’s bitterness, his cynicism, his antagonism to anything relating to Caroline’s faith.

  But that wasn’t what this verse was talking about. Not in this case. Not right now.

  The heart of stone wasn’t her husband’s. In fact, Calvin had nothing to do with this passage, at least not the way God opened her eyes to see it.

  The person who needed a new heart, the person who’d become so hardened and calloused and so desperately in need of God’s divine touch, wasn’t her husband after all.

  The verse wasn’t a promise about Calvin’s salvation or a declaration that God was planning to restore their relationship.

  The verse was talking about Caroline and nobody else.

  The hardened heart was her own. She’d carried it like a chain around her neck for years. Bitterness, frustration, anger that her husband hadn’t accepted the gospel with the same enthusiasm she had.

  The heart of stone belonged to her and no one else. But now, as tears of repentance rushed down her cheeks, the Lord replaced
it with a heart of flesh.

  Drisklay tossed his Styrofoam cup into the trash. Another late night. Not that he had any reason to rush home.

  Alexi had left early. Something about an appointment for his mom. Family business, not Drisklay’s. The smell of cheap street tacos wafted toward his desk, and he opened his box of Danishes.

  Empty.

  Oh, well. He had a few boxes of Cracker Jacks in his bottom drawer. He’d pull them out later. For now, he could get by on the coffee. Alexi always warned him that so much caffeine couldn’t be healthy, but it had to beat the five extra shots of corn syrup and artificial flavoring in those frou-frou drinks Alexi carried around.

  Disgusting.

  Drisklay popped a cough drop into his mouth and held it between his teeth while he sipped at his lukewarm coffee. He’d spent several hours in interviews today. Tonight, he’d go over the files again and tomorrow probably have to hit the streets if he didn’t find any more leads by then.

  He chomped down on his cough drop then cleared his throat. He wanted to research that pastor’s family again. The Harrisons. What was it about them that piqued his interest? Was his gut leading him in the right direction, or was he just out of any other good ideas? Intuition had solved its fair number of cases, and Drisklay was hopeful that this one would prove no exception.

  If his intuition was correct, the answer lay somewhere with the pastor.

  He typed Rebekah Harrison’s name into the computer, finding nothing. Just like the fifteen or twenty other times he’d pulled up the search. No criminal record, not even a speeding ticket. She had an older brother, a senior at a Christian college down in Florida. Jeremiah Harrison. Tiny run-in with the Boston police several years earlier for underage drinking. Nothing else after that. But still, it was enough to prove that this family wasn’t as squeaky clean as they wanted everyone to believe.

  “Are you just saying that because they’re Christians?” Great. Caroline was thousands of miles away on some sort of errand of mercy, saving orphanages on the Korean Peninsula, but it was still her nagging voice ringing between his ears.

  When would enough be enough?

  Still, he was certain that was what Caroline would say if she were here. Which she never would be. His work was his work, just like her classroom full of snot-nosed kids was hers. He never told her how to teach a class of kindergartners, and she didn’t tell him how to solve cases.

  Still, the fact that he could hear her voice so clearly irked him. She’d been a drag ever since she got caught up with those church folks. Religious fools going from door to door peddling Bibles and salvation to poor souls terrified of eternal damnation. He’d tried to warn her. The minute she said she was going to an Easter service with one of her student’s families, he could clearly see the start of their marriage’s doom. Things had been fine between them for years. No, in fact, things had been great. They hardly ever argued, they’d managed to pay off their mortgage a few years early and weren’t so worried anymore about pinching pennies. Now that he thought about it, that was probably why that pastor and his family targeted her to begin with. Dual-income family, no kids, no mortgage. Nothing like a fat bank account for greedy Christians to suck dry.

  He scowled as he typed the father’s name on his keyboard. The pastor didn’t have a criminal record, but what did that prove? All clergymen were crooks. It was just that most of them were slick enough to get away with it.

  The wife’s background was the only one that held even a hint of interest. Apparently, Mrs. Harrison had been married and divorced in her early twenties after filing several domestic violence charges and eventually a restraining order against her ex. Could he possibly be involved? A vengeful lover returning from the shadows of a murky history?

  More clicks. More names typed into the police database.

  Sadly, no. The ex had died four years ago. The obituary said colon cancer.

  Poor fool.

  But that couldn’t be everything. There had to be more, and Drisklay would find it. He pulled up Google and looked up the name of Pastor Harrison’s church. Maybe he’d find some clues there.

  The answer was getting closer. Drisklay stared at his empty Styrofoam cup lying in the trash.

  Time for more coffee.

  Caroline woke up, her cheeks wet with tears. As the vestiges of her dream faded away, she tried desperately to clutch at the disappearing remnants.

  Come back, she wanted to shout. She wanted to scream.

  Come back!

  But it was gone, not just the dream itself, but her conscious memory of it. All that remained was a quickly disappearing essence, fragments of an echo, half an aura of memory.

  Come back. She was crying again, but these tears were different. What had she been dreaming about? Everything would make sense if she could only force herself to remember, but the more conscious energy she channeled into summoning her dream, the more thoroughly it eluded her grasp, slipping through the crevices of her mind, fading away into nothing.

  Then it was gone.

  She wiped her cheeks dry, uncertain now why she’d been crying to begin with. Then she looked at her hotel clock.

  Oh, no.

  She jumped out of bed. How could she have slept in so late? Her pajamas clung to her chest and back, soaked through with sweat, but whether that was from Seoul’s humidity or the forgotten stress of her dream, she couldn’t have guessed. Nor did she have the time to spare wondering.

  She threw on the first clothes she could yank out of her bag, stuffed her toiletries and dirty laundry into her suitcase, and rushed down the hallway. God, she prayed, please don’t let me be late.

  What she most wanted out of her day was to make a good impression on Mrs. Cho. She’d spoken by phone several times with the old woman, who struck her as warm, compassionate, and gentle-hearted, the kind of gracious soul that made Caroline wish all other believers could be so refined and mature.

  She had no reason to expect that Mrs. Cho would be angry or irritated if Caroline ended up being late, but as she wheeled her suitcase into the hotel elevator, panting slightly from her recent aerobics, she found herself praying even harder that God would allow her to reach the orphanage on time.

  Maybe it was because Mrs. Cho was the first Christian that Caroline was close to who didn’t belong to Pastor Carl and Sandy’s church. Who didn’t know about her failing marriage, her spiritual mismatch? This summer in Seoul would be the first time that Caroline would be recognized first and foremost as a dedicated believer. The distinction between Christians who simply showed up to church on Sunday and Christians who traveled overseas on short-term mission trips might seem subtle to some, but to Caroline, the distance between the two may as well have been as far as Boston was from Seoul.

  The elevator doors opened to the lobby, and Caroline rushed out, nearly plowing into a Korean businessman adjusting his tie with one hand and swiping the screen of his smartphone with the other. She muttered a hasty apology and hurried outside. She was momentarily disoriented before she could force her still sleepy brain to remember which way she was supposed to go. She seized onto her bearings as soon as they flashed into her head and dashed toward the subway station. At least, she was pretty certain it was the right way to the subway station.

  Please don’t let me be late, she prayed again, envying Jesus and his companions. Were they ever in a hurry? In a society and culture that wasn’t bound to digital clocks whose seconds were all in perfect sync, would Peter, James, or John have worried about arriving at their destination ten or fifteen minutes after their expected time?

  She made some mental estimates. If she got lucky and didn’t have to wait for her train, she might not be late at all. Caroline wondered if Korean culture was similar to America if being even two or three minutes late could cause a major inconvenience. Maybe Seoul was more laid-back than that. She certainly hoped so.

  When she pulled her suitcase into the subway station, she was struck by two simultaneous discoveries. The South Korean su
bway stations were just as clean as all the tourist blogs made them out to be, and there wasn’t a single escalator in sight. There had to be a handicap ramp or some other way to get down without having to lug her nearly-fifty-pound bag behind her, but she didn’t have time to run to the other entrances to check.

  Down the stairs it was.

  Clunk, clunk, clunk.

  If she hadn’t been sweating before, she certainly was now, but strangely she welcomed the exertion. First of all, she couldn’t complain anymore about feeling groggy. The adrenaline rush required to keep her and her suitcase from tumbling down a cement staircase was enough to match a pot of Calvin’s strong black coffee. She also felt fiercely independent. Here she was, a middle-aged woman, traveling alone on the other side of the world. She’d managed to not only locate the subway station, but now she was hefting an extra 48.7 pounds behind her, and she was doing that while racing to catch her train.

  Peter, James, and John could walk twenty miles a day through desert roads wearing sandals centuries before the invention of arch supports, but Caroline could get her suitcase to her train and still make it to Mrs. Cho’s orphanage on time.

  She hoped.

  The train pulled up. Perfect timing.

  Maybe it wasn’t the same thing as running to keep up with a chariot like Phillip did in the book of Acts. Maybe it wasn’t the same thing as stepping out of a boat in the middle of a storm and walking on top of the waves. But Caroline felt both thankful and triumphant when she wheeled her suitcase onto the train car, found her seat, and let out her breath.

  She had made it. Now she just had to sit back, try to stop panting so hard, and let the subway whisk her off to where she needed to be.

  Drisklay adjusted his headphones and reached for more coffee. Empty. Figured.

  “Alexi,” he shouted, holding out the pot.

  Alexi hurried over. “How’s it going, boss?” He glanced at the computer screen where Drisklay had been researching Harrison’s church.