Amid the Shadows (16 page)

30

Rand opened the front door
and quietly stepped out onto the front deck.
 
Christine was sitting in one of the chairs, her hands propped up on her
knees and covering her mouth.
 

She said she needed to be
alone for a little while, so Rand was careful to keep his distance.
 
He stopped several feet behind her.
 
There were no sounds around them except for
the breeze moving through the trees.
 

“As you can probably guess,
I’m a little freaked out right now,”
 
she
said without turning around.

Rand said nothing.

After another long silence,
she lowered her face into her hands and shook her head.
 
“Why would he do this to us?”
 
She stood up and looked at Rand then turned
and looked in through the kitchen window.
 
She could see Avery and Sarah sitting across from each other in the
small living room.
 
Sarah was watching
the board very carefully while Avery taught her how to play checkers.
 
“What god would do this to
her
?”

Again he said nothing.

“What god would put her
through this…horror?
 
Why would he
surround that perfect little girl with nothing but death and destruction?
 
Why would he kill her mother right in front
of her?”
 
She shook her head.
 
“What kind of god is
that
?”

Rand took a deep breath.
 
“It can be hard to understand.”

“Oh please!” she
snapped.
 
“Spare me the
God works in
mysterious
ways
dribble!
 
I’ve
seen my share of cruelty from the same god who supposedly loves his children!”

Rand looked at her curiously.

“That’s right,” she
said.
 
“I went to church, I know the
scripture.
 
He loved us so much that he
put us here to prove ourselves, by worshiping him.
 
What kind of free choice is that?”
  
She looked at Rand accusingly.
 
“Tell me, who creates a universe, an insanely
complex planet, and then the human race and everything else, just so he can
watch them spend their tiny lives worshipping him?
 
I mean how much more ridiculous could an
explanation be?”

“It’s not that easy,” Rand
replied quietly.

“Not that easy?” she
scoffed.
 
“Not that easy but still easy
enough to put an unimaginable gift into a beautiful little girl and torment her
at every turn.
 
What a wonderful test of
our faith!”

Rand shrugged.
 
“Well, that’s one belief.”

“Yeah, well I DON’T believe
it!”

“I can see that.”

“And then-” Christine said.
 
“And then he picks someone like me.
 
Of all the people in the world, he picks
me
.”

“I think he made a good
choice.”

“He couldn’t have made a
worse choice!” she said angrily.
 
“Geez,
you could throw a dart blindfolded and hit someone better.”
 
She turned and looked back out at the trees.

Rand frowned.
 
“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true!” she
cried.
 
“Sarah’s not alive because of me,
she’s alive
in spite
of me.
 
I’m
not a fighter.
 
I’m not tough.
 
I can’t protect her like you.”

“She responds to you,” Rand
said.
 
“She needs someone like you,
someone not just to protect her body, but someone who can help protect her
heart.
 
To make sure she comes out of
this okay.”

It was then that Christine
began to cry.
 
She wiped the tears away
as they ran down her cheeks.
 
“You don’t
know what you’re saying.”

“Look at me, Christine,” Rand
said.
 
“This is not some joke, or some
twisted irony, and God does not look down from a pearly throne deciding who to
bless each day.
 
Nor does he guide every
step and every decision that we make.
 
He
gives us what he can and has faith in
us
just as we have faith in him.”

“What does that mean?” she
sniffed.

“What I’m saying is, this is
not about the things people wish they had and then pray for, or about helping a
friend who might be down on their luck.
 
This is a
fight
!
 
God
created a place of hope in a sea of darkness and evil, and he is locked in a
struggle for every second of every day.
 
He fights endlessly for this world he created and the survival of his
children living upon it, against forces that want nothing more than to destroy
it all.”
 
He glared at her.
 
“He chose
you
to help him.”

Christine looked
dumbstruck.
 
“Why didn’t he pick someone
better?”

Rand’s expression showed her
he didn’t understand her question.

“I told you; I used
 
to believe,” she said.
 
“And I was devout.
 
But he destroyed it all and left me to pick
up the pieces.
 
God
showed me just
how cruel he could be.”

Rand watched as Christine
began to walk away and then turned around to face him.

“I was sixteen.”
 
She closed her eyes for a moment and took a
deep breath.
 
“God, I was so young and so
stupid.”
 
Her eyes were quickly welling
up.
 
“One night I asked my parents to
drive me over to the house where my friend was babysitting so I could help
her.
 
But they couldn’t because they were
both sick.
 
So I begged my dad to take me
over.
 
I kept begging him.
 
And even though he felt terrible, he finally
agreed to drive me.”

Tears began running down
Christine’s face.
 
“But I lied to
him.
 
We were babysitting, but we were
doing it so some boys could come over to meet us. And my dad, as sick as he
was, drove me all the way across town.
 
Not knowing that I was lying to him the whole time.”
 
Her voice began to shudder.
 
“I remember how hard he was coughing while he
drove me.
 
And on his way home… he was
killed in a car accident!”
 
Christine
lost control and started sobbing.
 

Rand took a step closer but
didn’t speak..

Christine shook her head and
backed up.
 
The sobs kept her from
speaking.
 
She quickly pushed past him,
ran down the wooden steps, and headed for the trees.
 

He watched her run to a giant
pine tree and rest her head against the trunk, crying into it.

Christine slowly began to
regain her emotions when she heard Rand’s footsteps in the grass behind
her.
 
She sniffed and wiped her eyes
before turning around.

“I killed my father,” she
said, her voice still trembling. “And the guilt has haunted me every day
since.
 
Every single day.
 
I not only lost my father, but I
widowed
my mother.
 
And you know what?
 
Those boys never even showed up.”
 
Her voice began to quiver again, but she
forced it back.
 
She took a deep breath
and looked up at the tree above her.
 
“I
must have cried for a whole year.
 
The
guilt was so bad I couldn’t even go on a date without breaking down.
 
Even in my late twenties, when I was finally
in a relationship, I would cry constantly.
 
And children,” she said rolling her tear filled eyes.
 
“Every time I saw a child, I saw my dad, sick
but with a glint of pride in his eyes…for his daughter, the babysitter.”
 
She looked directly at Rand.
 
“Now do you see what a terrible choice he
made?
 
Why would God do that to poor
Sarah?
 
Why would he give her someone
like me?”

Rand thought about her
question.
 
“Sometimes we don’t need to
understand, we just need to believe.”

She looked past him.
 
“You know I’ve never told that to
anyone.
 
I can’t believe I told you.”

Rand was quiet for a long
time before speaking.
 
“You were supposed
to.”

“What?”

She gave him a puzzled look,
and Rand cleared his throat.
 
“Listen to
me,” he said.
 
“Since I was born, I knew
what I was here to do.
 
From my earliest
memories I knew who I was.
 
I knew I
would find Sarah, and I spent my whole life preparing for it, and training,
every single day.
 
Constantly doing
another new exercise to get stronger.
 
Nothing else mattered to me.
 
And
nothing else matters now.”
 
He took a
step closer.
 
“All that time I knew
things.
 
Not everything, but some.
 
Who I was, who God was.”
 
He frowned at that.
 
“Not what the churches preach today, but who
he
really
is.
 
I also knew what
Sarah looked like and where I would find her.”

Rand looked into Christine’s
eyes as she sniffed and wiped her nose.

“But there was something else
that I knew, one piece of information I never understood.
 
I never knew why I was supposed to know
it.
 
It never made any sense.
 
Until right now.”

She tilted her head,
curiously.

“Christine.
 
You did not kill your father.”

She was suddenly startled,
trying to understand if she heard him right.
 
“What?!”

“You did not kill your
father.”
 

Her expression changed to
bewilderment.
 
“Wh-why are you
saying-”
 
She took a step back as Rand
moved toward her.
 
“What are you doing?”

He looked at her sternly and
followed her as she backed up even farther.
 
“Listen to me, Christine.
 
Even
without that accident, your father would have died less than five months
later.
 
He would have died of a
heart
attack
.”

Christine gasped.
 
She just stared at him, shocked and unable to
breathe.
  

Rand did not stop.
 
“Your father’s name was Louis Richard Rose,
wasn’t it?”
 
She didn’t answer.
 
“Wasn’t it?” he repeated.
 
“He was born in October of 1935.”
 
Christine began sobbing again.
 
“He was a craftsman, and he loved you.
 
He loved you, but there was nothing you could
have done to save him.
 
He was going home,
with or without that accident.”

Christine looked up at
Rand.
 
Tears were streaming down her
face.
 
“No, it was me, it was because of
me!”

Rand grabbed her
shoulders.
 
“No, it wasn’t.
 
That accident was bad luck.
 
God cannot control
everything
.
 
It was just bad luck!”

Christine’s wobbling legs
gave out, and she fell just an inch before Rand grabbed her and held her up
with his own arms.
 
She finally let her
head fall forward into his chest and continued to sob uncontrollably.

It took almost twenty minutes
for Christine to cry it out.
 
Exhausted,
she leaned her head back and looked at him, her face covered in tears.
 
“Are you…sure?”

Rand nodded.
 
“I’m sure.
 
It was not your fault, and none of that guilt belonged to you.
 
I was meant to tell you this.
 
You must believe me.”

She closed her eyes and let
her head fall softly back against his chest.
 
“All that time…and all that guilt.”

“It never belonged to you,”
he whispered.