Forgiven (37 page)

For the first few days, he answered the phone when they called.

“Have you made the decision yet about your donation? About how much you’d like to give?” It was another teacher, one of the suited guys from his visit before the Bloomington trip. “I think we talked about passing through half the spiritual laws, you know, being free of the materialism and wealth of this world. Detaching from all impure thoughts.”

Dayne stopped at a light and tapped his steering wheel. He wasn’t sure what it was about Kabbalah. The teachers who called weren’t saying anything different, but ever since talking to Katy, he heard it with flesh ears. Detaching from impure thoughts by writing a check? He wasn’t ready to chuck the entire thing, but he had doubts now—doubts where before he’d had only a strong desire to follow.

What was that? How did something like that change?

The light turned green, and he made a quick start. There were no paparazzi behind him now. In fact, they seemed to have laid off some, one of those things that went in spurts. He was still a major player in the gossip rags, but other scandals—a major Hollywood couple on the outs and a pregnant former teenage pop queen who’d left her unemployed husband. Yes, the magazines would always have something to write about.

When he left home this afternoon, a guy in a Volkswagen had been parked outside his house. He followed Dayne for five blocks, but Dayne had lost him on the freeway. It felt good to be

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alone. The guy never would’ve known what he wanted to see at his storage unit, but he didn’t want anyone speculating.

Traffic was busy on Ventura Boulevard, and Dayne was glad for his black-tinted windows. It gave him the peace he was always looking for, even for only a few minutes, because the public couldn’t climb in the SUV and read his thoughts or decide where he wanted to drive. They could know where he lived and whom he dated. Or worse, whom he couldn’t. But they would have to leave him alone in his black Escalade.

Another red light. Dayne flipped the radio off nothing but commercials. Ahead was a billboard with Kelly Parker’s face twenty feet high. She was the new spokeswoman for a cosmetic company, a deal that doubled her income overnight. He looked at the ad and smiled. He was glad for her. She seemed more confident these days, less bothered with the press, less worried about what they thought.

She wasn’t starving herself like before, either. Another sign she was doing well.

But life with her was emptier than ever. He noticed a pack of gum on the console; and he slid a piece from it, opening it and popping it in his mouth in a single movement. He was pretty sure she was seeing Hawk Daniels on the side.

The chemistry he and Kelly had to work at on camera seemed to come easily for Kelly and Hawk.

She’d spent the previous night at a friend’s house, one of many recent girls’

nights out. Dayne leaned on his armrest and stared straight ahead. He didn’t care; she could do what she wanted. They were almost done shooting the movie, and then

they could make decisions about the future.

Or at least about their future.

His future—as well as his past—well, he’d never had much say in that. Not about who his parents were or how they’d raised him. Acting was something he’d chosen, but he hadn’t planned on the public responsibility that went with it.

His life was planned out for him by his agent and directors, the studios and 308

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marketing departments. He couldn’t cut ties and move to Bloomington. He couldn’t convince Katy that they might have a chance together someday. He definitely couldn’t make contact with the Baxter family.

But he could leave Kelly Parker, and someday soon he would; He’d stayed with her because it was easier, better than a breakup in the middle of filming. A breakup like that would put him back on the front page, where he’d been last July after the arrest of the stalking fan. Wait and do it after, and it would be relegated to an inside story, half a page at the most.

He laughed, but the sound was tired and defeated. See how he! was? Measuring his time and days, his decisions in relationships by the response the tabloids would have to it. The situation was ridiculous, but he knew no other way.

The storage place was just ahead, and he turned left into the parking lot. He had a key, so no need to mess with the front desk. or any other person on-site.

He pulled his vehicle up to the door of his own unit and cut the engine.

Maybe that’s why he was here today. What had Katy said about the photograph of Elizabeth Baxter? That the way back has to start somewhere for everyone, right?

He worked his gum as he climbed out and walked to the storage door. Nothing else in his personal life was working, so why not?

He unlocked the door, went inside, and spotted the box right off. It was still in the middle of the unit, where he’d left it last time he’d been here, more than a year ago. He went to it and pulled up another box for a chair. Then he opened the one with the adoption documents inside, and there on top was her picture.

She looked sweet and gentle, the same as she’d looked in the hospital that evening in Bloomington. He lifted the wooden frame carefully, as if it contained something of the woman herself. He rested it on his knees and studied her image.

Bits of his conversation with her came back. When she’d understood who 309

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he was, she apologized to him. There, in the stuffy quiet, he could hear her voice as fragile and shaky as it had been that night.

“We missed you …. You belonged with us …. I never stopped missing you, never stopped loving you.”

When she had hugged him, he felt whole in her arms, all the questions answered, all the pieces in place. She’d told him that she’d tried to find him, and he’d explained about the private investigator he’d hired. One of the best parts was that she didn’t know about his fame. He was just a guy who walked into her hospital room until he told her he was her son. Then that was the only part that mattered. She asked about his job, and she seemed happy that he was an actor.

But not because she recognized him or knew him for his public persona.

But those parts of the conversation weren’t the most distinct now. It was the last part, when she’d looked deep into his eyes and told him to find God. The same God who had taken so much from him. There she was, this woman who would’ve raised him if she’d had the chance, telling him basically the same thing Katy had told him: “Find God. Find your faith.”

He held the photo closer, trying to remember every word. They’d spent an hour together, and she had talked about God from the beginning. Apparently she’d been praying every day for a miracle, that God would bring him to her. Her voice played again in his soul.

“Things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to; we couldn’t all be together here. But in heaven we can all spend eternity together.”

Dayne closed his eyes. What he would have given for more time with Elizabeth Baxter. She had loved him all her life; he believed that. Every birthday and Christmas and milestone, she’d thought about him and wondered about him. Same with her husband, John.

Then there was the part he remembered more often than the rest, especially since his talk with Katy at the lake. Elizabeth had 310

been grateful that her prayers were answered, that she could see..iI him before she died. But when she learned that he didn’t share her strong faith, she’d grown misty-eyed, i “I thought I wanted to see you because I needed to tell you I never! forgot about you, never stopped loving you, But maybe it was so you could find a heavenly father in God.” He opened his eyes. There it was again, the same message. The hope that he might take his anger and confusion and frus tration, his lack of privacy and lack of free will, and turn it into a search for God.

Dayne set the photo back on his knees and exhaled hard. “I’m not sure I’m ready,” he whispered. “I’m not even sure it’s what I want.” While he was speaking, he was turning the frame over, sliding his fingers beneath the metal fasteners at the back, working slowly since the frame was old and the back hadn’t been re moved for decades. Finally, the black backing shifted and he eased it off the wooden frame. He set it on the box beside him, and suddenly there it was. Elizabeth had indeed written a note to him, in faded blue cursive, on the back of the photograph. His heart slipped into a rhythm he didn’t recognize, and he wiped his palms on his jeans. With great care, he lifted the photo out and ran his fingers over the lines on the back. Her handwriting was familiar to him in a way that didn’t make sense. He read it as easily as he read his own.

ear 01”1,

I don’t know where you’ll be when you read this or if you ever will. You are hours old as I pen these words, wrapped in my arms the way I want you to stay forever. If you do find this, I hope you know that we wanted to keep you. You are a part of us, and you always will be.

Dayne’s eyes blurred with tears. He blinked and found his place again.

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Your father and I made a mistake, but you, Son, are not a mistake. We have been forgiven, and wherever you are, I pray you, too, have been forgiven. Everyone needs forgiveness, and only Jesus can take care of that. If you find Him, Son, then one day you will find us too. Here or in heaven, it won’t matter. Then we’ll be together forever, just the way we are right now. And we’ll never have to say goodbye. I love you always. Mommy It was the last part, the last word that seized Dayne’s heart and broke loose a wave of sorrow. She had been his mommy, and someone had taken him away. Yes, his adoptive parents had been wonderful, but he never saw them enough, never felt like he was part of a family with them. Elizabeth, though, had wanted him all the days of his life—wishing for him, hoping for him, searching for him.

And now it came down to this sweet, simple message.

He read it again, and something began coming to life within him. When he was at boarding school in Indonesia, he and his friends would play basketball, sometimes when the rest of the students were sound asleep. One of the boys had a copy of the key, so they’d slip inside and turn on the lights. But then they’d sit there in the semidarkness waiting, because the gym lights didn’t come on quickly or instantly. They took time warming up, bit by gradual bit, until finally the room was fully lit. That’s the way he felt now, sitting in the storage unit.

The words his mother had for him contained something he hadn’t considered before. He had been to the Kabbalah Center a number of times and heard teachers talk about impure thoughts and spiritual laws and having oneness with God. They talked a lot about reaching the upper world.

But they never talked about forgiveness.

His birth parents had obviously done something they were ashamed of. They had been a couple of innocent kids, madly in

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love, and intent on avoiding a sexual relationship until were married. His private investigator’s research had told that much. But they’d made a mistake, allowed themselves opportunity, and Elizabeth had gotten pregnant.

In her world, there had been consequences for that kind of problem, and so Elizabeth had been sent away. But here was the thing, the part that was still coming to light in his heart: Elizabeth wasn’t consumed with her parents’ role in what happened She wasn’t caught up in anger and condemnation toward them even though she could’ve been.

She was more interested in being forgiven herself. Forgiven’ for going against what she knew to be real and true and right.

He looked up at the white metal ceiling and saw her face again in his mind, the way she had looked in the hospital bed. Yes, she was sad and full of regret. She wanted more time with him, a chance to introduce him to the rest of the Baxter family. But she had an unwavering peace.

In the face of death and sorrow and loss, she had a peace that he had searched for all his life. He looked at the back of the photo and read the letter once more. The lights were fully on now. Elizabeth had peace not because she had found oneness with God. Not because she’d written a check or dodged the impure thoughts.

She had peace because she was forgiven.

Dayne examined his life, the life he’d lived since his adoptive parents were killed in the plane crash. He’d gone to UCLA and studied drama, but his choices had been far different than they’d been at the boarding school. He had girls staying the night in his dorm from midway through his freshman year on.

There weren’t enough hours left in the day to go through the list of people he’d used and walked on, the people he’d cheated or betrayed. Even now he was living a lie, sharing a bed with Kelly Parker when his heart and soul and mind were never anywhere near her.

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He’d lived a life contrary to everything his missionary parents had stood for, everything they’d lived and died for. He’d slept with married women and—in his early days—certain female casting directors just to get the edge on a part. Of course he didn’t have peace. Deep in his soul he’d always known that he was living wrong. But in his circle it was the way of life, a normal condition of Hollywood stardom.

It was hot in the storage unit, and a drop of sweat slid down the side of his face. Whether he could live a life for God or find God, the way Katy and Elizabeth Baxter had talked about, he wasn’t sure. But in that moment he was convinced of a few things. He was done with Kabbalah. When he got home he would pack up everything he’d gotten from the center and toss it in the trash. There could be no oneness with God, no upper world, without forgiveness. He could see that now.

That wasn’t all. When he got home he would tell Kelly as gently as possible that it was over. He would remain her friend, the way people did after a Hollywood breakup, but nothing more. She was one of the few people he could still seek forgiveness from, and he’d do it before the day was over.

But the most important thing was this: he knew he wouldn’t have the peace he was looking for until he had complete forgiveness. Forgiveness for every wrong choice he’d ever made. He couldn’t go back and find all the people he’d hurt, all the women he’d used, and all the people he’d stepped on over the years. The only way to find forgiveness was to take it from the only one offering it.