Piercing the Darkness (56 page)

Claire sighed and rested her chin in her hand. “Maybe they will be, I don’t know. I don’t control such things.”

“So, when is that hearing?”

“Nine o’clock Monday morning.”

Jon cursed. “We should have known by now! There are other forces working on Roe’s behalf, directly opposing us. I can feel it. No doubt they’re working against this lawsuit as well. We could get a wrong ruling.”

Claire was about to disagree, but then decided she couldn’t. “I believe that is a possibility.”

Jon stopped to give Claire a good look in the eye. “If we lose in this
hearing, and they can put Amber on the stand, or even depose her . . .”

Claire agreed. “I’ll call the others.”

“And Hemphile too. I want her in on this. We have to hit that church!”

“We already have . . .”

“I mean hit them harder! Something right up front!”

Claire stood, her finger to her lips. “Someone might hear you.”

He tried to quiet himself. They could hear a LifeCircle yoga class going on upstairs, right above their heads.

Claire had another caution. “You know that with any overt action we’ll be risking exposure . . .”

Jon chuckled at that. “Come on. They’re old-fashioned, fringe, fanatic Christians. Who’s going to believe them?”

She acquiesced. “All right.”

“We’ll curse the church, and we’ll curse Sally Roe. Can we get anything she owns?”

“Well, I guess the rental house still has all her belongings in it.”

“Anything alive?”

Claire thought for a moment. “Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, I think she did have some animals.”

Jon smiled and calmed a bit. “Good. Good.”

CHAPTER 30

IT WAS QUIET
at Floyd and Sara Barker’s after dinner. Floyd and Sara were settling into the couch downstairs for some reading; Michelle, the young college girl, was in her room studying; Suzanne, a young attorney just new in town, was out meeting a prospective partner.

Sally was fed, bathed, warm, and secure in her little corner bedroom, snuggled in the soft bed under one of Sara’s handmade comforters, her back supported by an ample supply of large pillows.

For the first time in so many years Sally had trouble calculating the number—she finally figured it had to be about twenty-five—she held in her hands a volume she had blamed for the world’s woes, belittled as an overrated anthology of myths, resented for its narrow views of morality, condemned as oppressive and authoritarian, and ignored as an outmoded, stagnating lead weight around the intellectual ankle of mankind.

It was one of Sara Barker’s Bibles.

She found the book of Psalms immediately. It was in the middle of the Bible.

“Just open your Bibles right to the middle,” came a voice from her past. “Psalms is right there in the middle.”

What was that woman’s name? Oh, Mrs. Gunderson, that’s right. She was an older lady. She was old as long as Sally ever knew her, as if she’d hit a peak in years and just stayed there. Every Sunday morning,
Sally would clump down the church stairs with all the other seven-and eight-year-olds and gather in Mrs. Gunderson’s Sunday school class in that cold church basement, in that small, echoing classroom with the hard wooden chairs and the chalkboard that still bore the unerasable traces of lessons from weeks ago.

Then Mrs. Gunderson would tell them a story, placing paper Bible characters on the same green-grass-and-blue-sky flannel background. Even now, as Sally lay in the bed with the Bible in her lap, she could remember those stories: the wee little man who climbed the sycamore tree, the fishermen who fished all night but caught no fish, the disciple—she thought it was Peter—who walked on the water to meet Jesus, the man named Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead, Moses, Noah, and of course Jonah who was swallowed by the fish.

Strange. She’d put those stories out of her mind as far back as junior high school, but now, at thirty-six, she remembered not only those stories, but also the deep feelings of conviction and morality she always had after every Sunday school: I want to be good. I want to do good things and love God. I want Jesus to come into my heart.

Such old memories, such long ago feelings. But the memories were pleasant, and the feelings they evoked were warm and comforting, which caused her to pause and reflect. How many pleasant memories did she really have? Not too many. Maybe these, some of her oldest, were her happiest.

Psalm 119. Hmm. It was a long chapter. She read the first verse.

“Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord.”

That first verse was enough to grab her attention, and she read on.

Verse 3 said, “They do nothing wrong; they walk in his ways.”

Verses 4, 5, and 6 continued the same theme: “You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.”

How did that pastor know? She’d asked him the toughest question she could think of, but he came back with the answer she needed, the one perfect for her situation, right here and now, the very next step in her musings.

She continued to read, and the words spoke to her over and over
again about something she’d fled from for years, denied, fought against, and finally lost . . . but perhaps needed most of all.

Absolutes. A genuine right and a genuine wrong. A fence, a point of reference, a way to know something for sure.

She couldn’t let these ideas get away from her. She hopped out of bed and hurried to the closet for her duffel bag. The few clothes she had were in the laundry at the moment, so the bag was a lot emptier, containing a still frightening amount of freshly minted cash, her notebook, which she set aside, and . . . the rosters from Professor Lynch’s office.

She felt sick at the sight of them, as if there was an evil attached to them, as if an invisible, poisonous stowaway had come along to haunt her. They frightened her; they gave her the same stomach-turning fear and disgust one feels while waiting for something horrible to jump out in a late-night horror movie.

UNSEEN BY SALLY,
though she could sense them, the same little quartet of demons still lurked about, watching her, looking for opportunities. They had followed her everywhere she went, and could pass through any angelic hedge because she carried them with her. Despair was enjoying his job less and less; the more Sally continued in her quest, the less of his poison he could sow in her mind. Fear had had much to do and a lot of fun doing it, and was glad to have those rosters along, but Death and Insanity were getting frustrated. Sally had found some new purpose somewhere; Death was no longer welcome in her thoughts, and her thoughts were becoming too clear and rational for Insanity to scramble.

All four reached out for her, but at the moment there was nothing to grab.

SALLY CLOSED THE
duffel bag, leaving the rosters hidden and confined.
Not now, rosters; I’ll deal with you later. I don’t want to feel sick, I don’t want to struggle. Just give me a break. Let me rest awhile.

THE DEMONS SLINKED
away to wait.

SHE GRABBED UP
her notebook and pen, and hopped into the bed again.

Good feelings, don’t go away. Let me meet with you awhile, study you, figure you out; let me think things through.

She began another letter to Tom Harris.

I’m working my way through Psalm 119, and if I understand the message correctly, there are at least two absolutes being presented, two things I can know for sure:

1) There is a right: to obey God’s laws and follow His ways.

2) There is a wrong: to disobey God’s laws and not follow His ways.

How am I doing so far? I hope you’re keeping up, because now it’s going to get tougher.

Psalm 119 also talks about two human conditions that are the direct result of the two absolutes:

1) Do what is right, and you’ll be happy and blessed.

2) Do what is wrong, and you’ll be put to shame.

Now is that simple or what? Too simple, I suppose; too basic to be believed and accepted by people like me who insist there is no reality higher than themselves.

But, Tom, I do believe I have been put to shame. Even the vicious, cutting remarks of an enemy, Professor Lynch, make that clear to me. He was trying to destroy me, I know, but there was nothing he said that wasn’t true. I couldn’t argue with him. The truth is, my life is in ruins.

But can I accept the Bible’s explanation for it? Dare I trust this Book? If the Bible is trustworthy, and if I did choose to believe it, then I could, once and for all, determine who and where I am: in the wrong, outside of God’s favor, put to shame.

Not a comfortable thought, but at least I would have an immovable rock under my feet.