I was going to pray about it, I really was. But instead the meds kicked in and I fell asleep.
Trisha was there when I woke up. Her eyes were red, and she stood looking out the window by my bed, unaware that I was awake. I remembered a time when we were in junior high and Mr. Blackwell, the football coach who doubled as our world geography teacher, yelled at her for turning in her research paper on the Galapagos Islands a day late. He’d scared her so bad she’d cried then, too, and tried to cover it up by saying the blowing dust was bothering her allergies.
“I told you Tony didn’t do it,” I said. Croaked, actually. I should have cleared my throat before I tried to speak.
I sat up and did so, giving Trish a chance to wipe her eyes and gather her composure.
She shook her head. “You must have an instinct or something,” she said.
“Or something,” I said. “Is the dust blowing outside? I feel my allergies acting up.”
“Me too,” she said. She handed me the box of tissues on the rolling table and sat in the chair by my bed. “So he was innocent after all.”
“That’s right. And he’s agreed to let you interview him first, as a personal favor to me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Sure. If you hadn’t given me the tip about Ricky Barlow, I wouldn’t have cracked the case.” I wrinkled my nose. “How very Nancy Drew of me. Bobby would have figured it out eventually, but it does my pride some good that I was the one to steer him in the right direction.”
“I hope this has taken him down a notch or two. He’s as in love with himself as he ever was. Remember when you had that huge crush on him? Rode by his house on your bike five times a day –”
“Of course, I remember. I wrote Salem Sloan on everything I owned.”
“You still have a thing for him, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “I can’t decide. I mean, he’s still hot and there’s just no getting around that.”
“True.”
“I don’t know if I’m just reacting to his good looks, or if a part of me still carries a little torch. Not that it matters. I found out this week that I’m a married woman.”
Trisha’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
I shook my head. “Apparently, Tony and I weren’t as divorced as I thought we were.”
“Un-freaking-believable.” She shook her head again. “This would only happen with you, you know, Salem.”
She laughed, and for a second it was just like old times, the two of us giggling and talking about guys.
We got quiet, and she blinked a couple of times. “I have this bizarre urge to thank you for not having slept with Scott.”
“I know. For some reason, I want to feel proud of myself, too. As if I have this wealth of new-found virtue I never knew about.” I shifted in the bed and gave her a smile I hoped would tell her everything was okay. “We both keep the bar set pretty low where I’m concerned.”
She dropped her gaze for a second then bit the inside of her lip. “Look, I don’t really know what to say. I feel like I should apologize for doubting you were sincere when you said you were sorry, that you had –”
“You were never the one who needed to apologize,” I said softly but firmly.
“Yeah, well, if you knew all the horrible things I was thinking about you, you might disagree. I wanted you to be wrong. I wanted to see you fail.” She gave a short, humorless laugh and shook her head. “I acted like a complete witch at the restaurant the other night. I’ve been embarrassed about it ever since.”
“Trisha, I’m telling you, you don’t have to apologize. Your actions have been totally understandable.”
“Yes, well…” She sighed and blinked fast. “For the past five years, I’ve told myself that I’d forgiven Scott. I saw just how phony that forgiveness was when I realized I didn’t need it anymore.”
I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Don’t beat yourself up for being human, Trish. It’s over. No, it’s better than over; it never happened in the first place. And I think you can safely comfort yourself with the knowledge that you will never have to worry about that issue with Scott.”
She stood and picked up her purse. “I’m glad you’re okay, Salem. And I’m glad you’ve straightened up your act. I wish you all the best. And thanks for getting me the interview with Tony.” She turned and headed for the door, then turned back. “Listen, I wasn’t kidding about having a friends-join-free coupon for Fat Fighters. If you’re interested,” she quirked an eyebrow and flourished a hand along her side. “I could stand to lose a couple pounds.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Let me see how much all these stitches are going to cost and I’ll let you know.”
Chapter Seventeen
The doctor said I could go home later that afternoon. Les picked me and my box of random crap up at the hospital portico. Even after less than a full day in the hospital, the outside world seemed overly bright and unnecessarily loud, and I felt disoriented and a little loopy.
Feeling loopy reminded me of one thing I wanted to talk to Les about. “Did you hear about my blood alcohol level?” I asked when I was all buckled in.
He nodded and started the engine, pulling carefully out of the lot.
“I didn’t drink. I mean, I did, obviously, but it wasn’t my choice. Sylvia wanted to make it look like I was driving drunk, so she poured tequila into me while Thomas and Rey held me down.” I had no reason to feel guilty. And I didn’t, I supposed. But I did feel soiled, in a way. Like I’d worked really hard to keep the floor clean, and then someone else came along and tracked mud all over it. Except it was me, not the floor.
Les didn’t say anything. Just nodded.
“I’m serious, Les. You can ask Viv.”
“She already told me.” He rolled his bottom lip through his teeth. “I’m glad you brought it up, though. I confess that when I heard you’d been drinking, I was disappointed.”
“Yeah, well, that’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not okay for me to be disappointed when you fall. Because we all fall. It’s my job to be there to help pick you back up; it’s not now and never will be my place to judge you – not the kind of judgments I made when I heard.”
“So what is it you’re always telling me? Confess and believe God when He says you’re forgiven? Practice what you preach, Preacher Man.”
He smiled, and either because I was feeling a little sentimental toward Les just then, or because the drugs were clouding my rational thinking, I decided to broach the subject that had been bugging me. “Can we talk about that?”
“About the drinking?”
“No, about the forgiveness part. You remember when I told you about that friend of mine, the one who was mad at me because I slept with her fiancée?”
He nodded as he turned onto the loop. “Sure, I remember.”
“It turns out, I didn’t. I thought I’d slept with him, and so did he, and so did she, obviously. But that guy Rick, the one in the car with us last night? He was the one who’d set that whole thing up to begin with. He told me that nothing had happened between Scott and me.”
Les gave me a brow-raised look.
“It was supposed to be a prank on Scott and Trisha. Come to think of it, it was probably less of a prank and more like a mean-spirited trick against Trisha, because Rick didn’t like her and didn’t want Scott to marry her. In any event, he stuck us in bed together and let us all think we’d betrayed Trisha. But we just passed out and nothing really happened.”
“That is low.”
“I know.” I had to remind myself that in the first place, it wasn’t my duty to judge Rick or anyone else. I’d certainly made enough mistakes, so I could understand the need for grace. And in the second place, he had brought Stump to me last night and stayed with us to help explain everything to the police. I think with his new marriage and family he’d made every effort to clean up his act, and I could easily empathize with someone who needed all the support they c
ould get in that arena.
“But at least it’s nice to know what really happened.”
“Oh, man, I can’t tell you what a relief it is. I even called Scott and Trisha and told them because they’ve had to go through all this process of forgiveness and working everything out. They were ecstatic.”
“You did the right thing to tell them.”
“Thanks. But here’s the thing that’s bugging me.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I’m serious. In fact, this has kind of been bugging me for a while now. You know how you’re always talking about the spirit of God and how he filled your heart with joy, and you’re always walking in love and peace and all that stuff? How come that’s not happening with me? How come I prayed for forgiveness for doing that to Trisha, but I didn’t feel any real peace until I found out it never happened? What am I doing wrong?”
“I don’t know. What do you think you’re doing wrong?”
“Huh-uh, nope, you’re not doing that this time. I have a real question, and I want a real answer. You’re the one who brought me into this following Christ thing. You’re the one who made all the promises to me and told me how great it was going to be. I want to know what I’m doing wrong. How come my heart isn’t full of joy? How come I’m not so full of love for God I’m doing the dance of joy everywhere I go? How come I still feel like a loser ninety percent of the time?” I was getting wound up. I’d just meant to talk to him about the thing with Trisha and Scott, but in typical fashion, once my mouth got going, it didn’t want to stop. “What did you do that I didn’t do? Did I not say something right, not say the right prayer?”
“You said the right prayer, Salem. I was there. God’s not so much into semantics as He is into an honest heart. Did you have an honest heart when you prayed?”
“I meant it with everything in me.” That much I knew for sure.
“Then you’ve got it. You’ve got the peace, you’ve got the joy, you’ve got the forgiveness.”
I would have pounded my head against the dashboard if it wouldn’t have hurt so much. “But I don’t! I don’t feel joy! I don’t feel peace! Most of the time I walk around feeling like a big neurotic mess!”
We were pulling into Trailertopia now and I wanted to cry. Probably it was a combination of everything – the frustration I felt with God and with Les and the aftermath of almost being killed all coming together – but in any case I didn’t want to start bawling because then I’d never get out what needed to be said. I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak clearly. “I’m serious. What you promised me, what you have, hasn’t happened in my life. I would say it was because you are a more mature Christian than I am, but I know that’s not it because you’ve told me you felt different from the moment you said the prayer.”
He pulled in front of my trailer, killed the motor, and turned to me. “That’s right. I did.”
“You know what I felt? I felt fear. I felt worried that I was going to screw this up, too. I wanted to be happy, I wanted to feel something. But I have to tell you, Les, what was supposed to be the brightest moment in my life – and certainly in my Christian life – at this point it just feels like the moment when I first drank the Koolaid and tried to convince myself it was magic elixir.”
I turned toward him in my seat, leaning my head against the headrest. I waited for him to say something, but he just sat silently, looking like he was mulling it over.
“I mean, if I could see something in my life, some kind of sign that there really is – is some kind of power there, maybe I’d be more encouraged. This week has been so awful, and I prayed and prayed for some way to make things better. And each time I prayed, it was like, instead of getting a miracle, I was faced with another horrible thing I’d done, thrown in my face. Like Trisha. Like Tony. Then I almost got killed? What good is the power of the Holy Spirit if it can’t shield me from painful stuff like that?”
“And why do you think all these past mistakes came back up this week? Just the fickle finger of fate?”
I thought for a second. “Come to think of it, it feels more like the middle finger of fate.”
He mashed his lips together in the way that I’d come to recognize was him trying not to smile. “Salem, remember the story of Peter and Jesus on the shore after the resurrection? When Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him?”
“You know I do,” I said softly. That story was probably my least favorite story ever. There was Peter, feeling battered and beaten after the crucifixion, knowing he’d screwed up, knowing he’d betrayed Jesus when he denied knowing him three times.
So here comes Jesus, asking him three times if he really loved him. As if he was telling Peter, “I know what you did. You said you’d never abandon me, but then first chance you get, you deny me three times.” Like a bully, poking a stick at someone who was already on the ground. When Peter was at his lowest moment, Jesus stood in front of everyone and made sure all the disciples knew what had happened.
“I know how you feel about that story. But Salem, what if Jesus wasn’t doing that to rub Peter’s nose in his own mistakes? What if he did that because that was the only way Peter’s wound would ever heal?”
I wasn’t buying that, but since I couldn’t think of a clear reason why not, I just shrugged.
“Salem, you know the kind of things that grow in the dark. More dark things. Secrets, shames. Those kinds of things can’t survive in the light. You take a shame out into the light of truth, and it shrivels up. Jesus knew that. He knew he could have kept quiet, and the shame of Peter’s betrayal would have hung like a stone around his neck for the rest of his life. He knew how awful Peter felt, and he knew the truth of what Peter really was. Each time he asked Peter, ‘Do you love me?’ he was saying to Peter, ‘I know who you really are. I know you were scared, I know you panicked. I know you made a mistake. But I know what kind of man you really are.’ He wasn’t punishing Peter. He was holding up a mirror to show Peter his own true self. He was giving him a do-over.”
I blinked, feeling off-kilter. I felt the urge to hold on to my grudge against Jesus for this scene from the Bible, even as I recognized that it didn’t exactly serve me to do so. “You think that’s what this whole week has been about?” I asked. “A do-over, for me?”
Les shrugged. “Could be. Sometimes you gotta rip it off like a Band-Aid.”
I stewed about that for a while. I couldn’t really wrap my mind around it all. It had been so hard, facing all those awful memories. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. I just wish I could feel some of that joy you’re feeling –”
“You know what your problem is, Salem? You’re spoiled rotten.”
I don’t know what I had expected him to say. But it sure as heck wasn’t that.
“And you’re lazy.”
“I – I am?”
“Absolutely. You expect God to do all the work.”
That couldn’t be true. And yet… “But isn’t He supposed to? I thought it was through his grace that I was saved –”
“By grace, through faith. His grace, your faith. Your faith in his grace. That’s where it’s falling apart for you. You’re not showing any faith. You want God to not just turn your life around, give you an eternity in His presence and a life with meaning and hope, but you want Him to come down and put a warm fuzzy in your heart so you can feel good, too.”
“But – but –”
He was mad. He didn’t sound mad. His voice was calm. But his eyes flashed and the more he spoke, the thinner his lips got. In the year I’d known Les, I’d said and done a lot of things that would have made most people mad, and he’d rocked along with that same steady smile and unflappable attitude. Apparently I’d hit his pet peeve: people who want a warm fuzzy from God.
“I could sit here for the next hour and tell you all the things God has done for you. I could list for you all the blessings you have. But for you it wouldn’t make any difference, would it? Because you’re still sitting safely in your chair, refusing t
o stake anything, refusing to believe.”
“I do believe –”
“What do you believe, Salem? That He’s there? So what! ‘You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.’”
He was quoting scripture. I knew that, because he got his I’m-quoting-scripture voice on.
“It’s not that –”
But he was on a roll now. “What you don’t believe is that he loves you. Despite the dozens of times in the Bible he’s told you he loves you, despite all the times I’ve told you he loves you, you refuse to believe.”
“I believe it, Les, I do. I just don’t feel it.”
“Big freaking deal!”
I’d never heard Les yell before. I almost swallowed my own tongue.
“So you don’t feel it. What difference does that make? Salem, only an idiot would prove things by what they feel. Remember how you used to feel like you could handle your alcohol? And remember how you used to feel better after you drank? Like you were more in control, like things were getting better? People feel things all the time. It’s a feeling, Salem. It’s not a fact. God’s love is a fact. And when you’re ready to quit playing it safe and believe that, despite what you feel, you’ll get what you’re looking for.”
He turned and jerked open the car door and got out. He reached in the back seat and tugged out the box of pictures and junk and stomped up the steps of my trailer’s front deck, dropping it by my front door.
I got out. I didn’t know what else to do. Obviously he was done with me. I wondered if I should apologize. But to tell the truth, I didn’t feel like it.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said as I passed him on the deck. “I appreciate all you do for me. I mean that, Les. I really do.”
I took the box inside and set it by the door of my prayer room. It took a good two hours for me to get over my mad at Les for being so rude to me. I didn’t even try to figure out if he had a point or not, I just railed inwardly about how unfair he’d treated me and how a person would never grow into a mature Christian if he was going to be their role model and bite their heads off whenever they had a question. I felt good and sorry for myself for as long as I could.
The Middle Finger of Fate (A Trailer Park Princess Cozy Mystery Book 1) Page 31
