Banana Split

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Pastor Darryl inclined his head. “It’s common for recovering addicts to confront what sent them to their addiction in the first place once they find themselves in a safe place. She’d had a lot of feelings coming up and was struggling to cope with them appropriately.”

  “Appropriately?”

  “She was used to turning to drugs or alcohol to numb those feelings, and now she was trying to sort them out, to deal with the pain, forgive, and learn from past mistakes and traumas she hadn’t faced before.”

  “You sound like a psychiatrist,” Sadie said.

  “Just a spokesperson of God’s love who believes in Christ’s promise to bear our burdens, if we ask.”

  Sadie nodded. “Did it help? Talking to you?”

  “I think so. Or at least I thought so. One day she’d seem fine, and the next day she was sullen. As reuniting with Charlie drew closer, she seemed to be more and more connected to everything that had happened that took him from her in the first place. It’s a difficult process.”

  “You last saw her at the social Thursday night, right? How was she?”

  He pondered and let out a breath. “She was upset.”

  “About what?”

  “She was working toward getting Charlie back, but the state’s requirements were difficult for her to meet. She’d been looking for an apartment but couldn’t find anything she could afford. The state wouldn’t let her have a roommate, and she had to avoid certain areas that had a bad reputation. She felt as though she wouldn’t be able to do it.” Pastor Darryl looked at the floor. “The last thing she said to me that night was that she didn’t know if it was worth it. She felt like she was working so hard only to have to keep working even harder. She’d need two jobs to pay for her own place, which meant she’d never see Charlie anyway.”

  “She said it wasn’t worth it?” Sadie’s heart sank. It was getting harder and harder to be optimistic that something else had happened other than the former junkie using again.

  “She said maybe he was better off where he was.”

  It broke Sadie’s heart to hear that, and she hoped Charlie would never know his mother had said it. “What did you say?”

  “I assured her that God had chosen her to be Charlie’s mother for a reason and that she owed it to both of them to fight for that role. I told her God would help her if she did everything she could do first. She needed to have faith.”

  “And then she was gone.”

  Pastor Darryl nodded. “Don’t misunderstand me when I say that I believe what I said to her, Sister Sadie. I believe God creates a way for us, but He is not a God of force. He couldn’t make Noelani have faith in Him or herself. She had to have that, and sadly she was struggling to believe it. When we parted that night, I made her promise to call me if she needed to talk, any time. I never spoke to her again.” He looked over Sadie’s head. “After she was found and the police began investigating her death, they told me she’d called my phone, but I wasn’t available, and she didn’t leave a message.”

  “But she tried to call you,” Sadie said. That felt like hope.

  “She tried,” he repeated. “I admit I feel guilty for not being there for her. I wonder what I could have changed if I’d been there to answer her call.” He looked at a clock mounted above the door. “I’m afraid I’m about out of time, Sister Sadie.”

  “Me too,” she said automatically, trying to process everything he’d said. “Thank you for talking with me.”

  “Sure thing,” Pastor Darryl said as they stood. He placed his hand on the small of her back as they walked toward the door that led to the hall instead of the chapel. She tried to walk faster, so that his hand would fall away, but he kept pace with her. He really did seem like a kind man, but his constant physicality, if not conscious, still seemed to be inviting something—some kind of connection that Sadie wasn’t sure was right. That thought reminded her of something else.

  He pulled open his office door, and Sadie turned toward him, stepping away so he couldn’t put his hand on her shoulder or arm. “Was Noelani seeing anyone?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “She was cautious with men. I think that made it hard for her to open up to me right away. When we spoke about such things, she said she didn’t plan on being in a relationship for a long time—the only men she had room for in her life right then were God and Charlie.”

  Sadie smiled. She liked that thought very much. “What can you tell me about Jim Bartley?”

  Pastor Darryl’s smile fell. “Have you spoken to him already?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “What did he tell you that has you asking me about him?”

  “He doesn’t seem to think very highly of you,” she said, then cringed because she hadn’t planned on saying something so negative.

  Pastor Darryl’s jaw tightened. “Believe it or not, we were friends once. We worked together with the same outreach program Noelani came through. The Sand and Sea employed some of the people who chose to attend my congregation; we had a very symbiotic relationship.”

  “That is hard to believe,” Sadie said carefully. “What happened?”

  “His wife left him and took her boys from her previous marriage with her when she went,” Pastor Darryl said, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Jim hasn’t been the same since. He quit the outreach, cut all ties to us, and stopped hiring members of the congregation.”

  “But he hired Noelani,” Sadie said.

  “Yes,” Pastor Darryl agreed. “He did. I’d hoped that perhaps that meant there would be some healing between us, maybe the start of working together again, but it hasn’t come to that.”

  “What about Bets?” Sadie asked. “Has she maintained a . . . friendship with Jim?”

  “Bets is friends with everyone,” Pastor Darryl said, but Sadie didn’t think his smile was entirely sincere. “I’m afraid I’m out of time, Sister Sadie. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Sadie hurried to assure him, hating the change of mood. “Thank you for your time.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “I hope you find some peace about Noelani. Though her death is tragic, I’ve no doubt she is in a place of comfort and love now.”

  Sadie nodded. “I believe that too.”

  Pastor Darryl smiled. “Thank you for your faith, Sister Sadie,” he said. “Metetaloko.”

  He shut the office door, him on the inside, her on the outside. Sadie shook her head, questioning the wisdom of having confronted him like that. She walked down the hallway until she reached the foyer she’d been in last night when she’d come in with Bets. The phone on the wall reminded her that she’d come to the church in order to call Pete. And Gayle, who would be here soon. Should she also call Mr. Olie and tell him about having seen Charlie?

  Thinking of Charlie made her remember the strange action she’d seen at the cross—the disappearing note. Rather than picking up the phone, she followed the curving hallway until she reached the chapel doors on the other side. Surely it would only take a minute to figure it out.

  Chapter 30

  The chapel was empty, and Sadie hurried down the aisle and onto the stage, her eyes trained on the cross on the wall. She scanned the area as she got closer, looking for the note in case Charlie had just dropped it. When she was about a foot or so away from the wall, she stopped and leaned forward, staring at the very bottom of the cross, where the edge of the black wood met up with the stark white walls. She reached forward and felt with her fingers the slot she wasn’t sure her eyes were really seeing. It was the same width as the cross and therefore perfectly hidden beneath it. Her fingers probed the smooth edges of the cut in the wall, and she wondered what it was for. She knelt in front of it and tried to look into the opening, but it was too dark on the other side. What was it here for? Where did it go?

  She stood up and stared at the wall itself. What was behind it? She’d been in Pastor Darryl’s office, but that was to the right side of the chapel, not the back. There must be a room behind this wall. Sh
e hurried back down the aisle and exited the doors into the white marble foyer. The hallway that ran parallel to the chapel ended at a door, and Sadie felt her heart rate increasing. Pastor Darryl’s office didn’t have a door at the back of it, so this must be the way in. It was the only explanation she could think of—that the paper Charlie had put into the slot went into this room somehow.

  There was a light switch to the right of the door, and Sadie flipped it, watching the gap beneath the door illuminate, proving the switch controlled the light within the room. She reached for the doorknob, hoping against hope that it would be unlocked, then frowned when the knob didn’t turn in her hand. But the knob had a keyhole. Probably a basic five tumbler residential lock that would keep most people out. Sadie, however, was not most people and simple interior door locks were her specialty. She’d picked her own at home a hundred times during her training, which was self-taught, mostly, with some help from YouTube.

  If only she’d brought her pick set. A paper clip or a bobby pin could torque the plug, and another one could push on the pins until they reached the shear line. But she didn’t have a paper clip or a bobby pin. She’d need to find something else.

  She looked around and listened to the silence of the church. Would someone find her trying to break into this room? Was it fair to put her curiosity ahead of her responsibility to call Mr. Olie about Charlie, or her need to get Pete’s advice, or tell Gayle where she was? But she didn’t know if she’d get this opportunity again. Certainly she wasn’t the only one who knew about the slot and this room. If she didn’t get to it first, she might never know what it was Charlie had put in there.

  She hurried to the kitchen and began going through drawers, keeping an open mind as she looked for the tools she’d need to get past the lock. Her search yielded a wire whisk and an ice pick. The ice pick could brace the plug, and if she could detach the wires of the whisk, they could possibly fit into the lock and push up against the pins. Whether it would be strong enough to lift the pins up to the shear line, she couldn’t be certain, but it was worth a try, and she didn’t have any other ideas. Pete had once called this type of improvising “a kitchen hack.” She’d never actually done it and was a little excited by the prospect.

  She hated breaking a perfectly sound cooking utensil, but she had thrown out enough whisks in her day to know how easily the wires were to pull out of the casing. She wrapped her hand in the skirt of her muumuu for friction purposes; all it took was a good yank to pull out one of the wires. She followed the wire to the other end, yanked, and it too came right out. She did it again, so that she had two curved wires for her purposes, just in case.

  She put the now-disabled whisk back in the drawer, making a note to replace it as soon as she could, then she opened the door slowly and peeked down the hall toward Pastor Darryl’s office. She couldn’t tell if he was still in there, so she hurried back to the locked door on the opposite side of the church while straightening out the wires and holding the ice pick under her arm.

  When she arrived at the locked door, she flipped on the light switch to ensure the interior would be illuminated once she got in. She squinted at the keyhole before holding the wires in her teeth so she could manipulate the ice pick. She wanted to hold the plug still, but with enough tension so she could turn it. Once she felt she had sufficient tension, she removed one of the wires from her teeth and slid it into the lock with her free hand, twisting the pick and prodding with the wire until she felt the first pin shift, then, nearly a minute later, the second.

  While she’d watched videos of people who could pick a lock in fifteen seconds or less—there were actually competitions held all over the world—she always took a long time. But she was patient, and after two full minutes of shifting and pushing, sweat trickling down her back from the constant pressure she had to keep on the plug, she finally felt the plug shift. She quickly turned the knob and pulled the door open. She was in—but she only allowed herself to enjoy the triumph for a moment. There was work to do.

  The narrow room was storage of some kind, stacked to the ceiling with cardboard and Rubbermaid boxes. Thick black marker labeled the boxes with notes like The Creation and Nativity. The boxes were stacked along the walls, allowing a walkway between them that turned to the right about six feet in.

  Sadie put her tools on the floor and closed the door most of the way behind her. She didn’t want it gaping open in case someone came by, but she didn’t like the idea of closing herself in either. She moved forward and was instantly confronted with thick musty heat; this room wasn’t well ventilated.

  At the bend at the back of the narrow room, Sadie leaned forward to peer around the corner. There were more boxes and an artificial Christmas tree—did they do Christmas trees on the islands? The room was only about six feet wide and darker in the back. If there was a light fixture for this area, the bulb had either burnt out or there was another switch Sadie couldn’t find. She could see, however, thanks to a very small ray of light toward the end of the back corridor that she followed as though it were the northern star. Her skin prickled with sweat. Possibly from her growing anticipation as well as the heat, she couldn’t be sure.

  As she continued forward from the bend in the room, five feet, then ten, the stacks of boxes became shorter—less convenient to get out of the room, she assumed—until she reached the last ten feet of the room. It was empty except for a blue Rubbermaid tub with no lid pushed up against the wall beneath the narrow cut that let in the tiny slice of light.

  Sadie felt her excitement rise as she reached the box and looked inside it, counting at least a dozen notes scattered along the bottom of the plastic bin. A few were sealed inside of envelopes, but the rest were folded-over papers. Sadie knelt next to the box, wondering what the notes were for. She reached in for a paper that was on top of the rest; maybe that meant it was the most recent. She unfolded the plain white paper but had to lean over the box and hold the note next to the light to see what it said. As soon as she opened it, she knew it was an adult’s handwriting—not Charlie’s—but she read it anyway.

  Please bless that my sister’s psoriasis might be healed.

  Your child,

  D. Halakimaki Koto

  Sadie refolded the letter and put it on the floor beside her. Was this some kind of prayer box? She’d known people to write out their prayers and bury them or burn them, and she’d read a book where people stuck the papers into a wall in their garden, kind of like the Wailing Wall. The next note, also written by an adult, had a much more disturbing prayer.

  Please bless him to know how much I love him and that leaving his wife is not a sin when she’s already been untrue to their vows. I feel that you’ve led me to him. Help him see that.

  In faith,

  ACR

  It took some . . . gumption to pray for something like that. Sadie set the note with the first one, feeling guilty for reading people’s prayers that were certainly meant to be private. She wondered what happened to the notes once they came through the wall. Did Pastor Darryl read them?

  She reached in again and, this time, looked for the clues that might point out Charlie’s note to her. One note wasn’t folded perfectly, and it was written on the same newsprint paper as the list he’d left at Sadie’s house. A bead of sweat began trailing down the side of her face, and she wiped it away before reaching into the tub for the note.

  She unfolded it and had to squint due to the fact that it was written in pencil, like the list of questions.

  Dear God,

  Mom says you can help make stuff come tru. Help me find my mom and make her not to do drugs.

  Charlie Pouhu

  Sadie’s breath caught, and she read it again, holding back the emotion that was close to the surface. While there was nothing earth-shattering in the note, there was a quality of desperation that worried Sadie. Charlie was reaching out to anyone he thought could possibly help him. What if he decided no one would? Would he take it on his own shoulders to find a woman who c
ouldn’t be found?

  After reading the prayer the second time, she folded it back up, then folded it one more time and tucked it into the only pocket she had—her bra. It was trashy, she knew that, but she needed to keep it safe. It was time to call Mr. Olie, but as she turned, she saw the prayers she’d left out of the box. She picked them up and threw them back in the bin. After cleaning up her mess, she hurried toward the door, hoping she wouldn’t end up having to leave another message for Mr. Olie. She should have asked him for his direct number last night.

  She was almost to the bend in the room when the room went black. She stumbled to a stop in the near-darkness, blinking quickly before rushing toward the doorway.