Song of the Brokenhearted (32 page)

It was one of many reasons she'd never brought her children to see her father. Her father's choices sent him to prison, while her children were innocent and needed protection. This was her reasoning. And so she'd stayed away.

Dane had come a few times. First to ask her father's permission to marry Ava, and then again within the first year after both Sienna and Jason were born. He brought pictures and shared the details, giving excuses as to why Ava couldn't come herself.

And so quickly the years had passed. Ava hadn't planned to stay away. She sent him a box of goodies every Christmas and on his birthdays. For several years she'd helped his prison get new books in their library. Yet now more than thirty years stretched out since she'd seen her father face-to-face.

Clancy pulled into the parking lot, and Ava stared at the same towering building that hadn't changed in the years between. Her mouth went dry, and she couldn't quite process the reality that her father had been right here all this time while she'd been out in the world, going to college, meeting Dane and getting married, having her children, watching them grow up, traveling on vacations, celebrating holidays and birthdays. He'd been in this prison since she was seventeen years old.

“I'll keep the little one here,” Clancy said as he turned off the engine.

“You're not coming with me?” Ava said, her heart rate rising.

“Can, but seems best not to take the baby.”

Ava nodded, relieved and panicked at the same time.

“Tell him I'll see him Saturday. It'd be better for you to talk to Daddy that way.”

Ava nodded, staring up at the ominous razor wire that surrounded the prison. “I won't be long.”

“Take your time. I can manage. You've got the thermos to make formula in there, and I'm good with kids apparently.”

Ava forced a smile. “Okay. Here I go.”

She went through the security checks, filling out papers, checking in her purse, walking through the X-ray machine. She joined a few other women and an elderly man separated from the other visitors who were going to the main visitation area. They were going to the prison hospital area. Ten minutes later, a buzzer sounded and they were escorted into the visitation room.

I can do this
, she told herself again and again. She tasted blood from biting her lip. Then she prayed,
God, help me to do this right. I want to run out of here, but you brought me to this doorway. Guide me through it
.

Ava didn't recognize him, and she was already assuming he'd be considerably changed. It was something in his walk that returned her attention to the small silver-headed man who gazed around the room searching for someone other than her.

The Reverend Daniel Henderson was an old man.

His age wasn't just in his hair and wrinkles as he squinted, searching the room for his visitor. It was in his movements and the defeat in his shoulders.

He met her eyes and recognition lit his face. Ava walked toward him. They were nearly the same size now.

“I can't believe my eyes. I would not have guessed this,” he said, pressing down his stick gray hair. He didn't try to hug her, and Ava wondered if that was because of prison rules or choice or respect for her.

He stood with several feet between them. “You look so . . .”

“Old?” she said with a laugh.

He took her in, as if trying to memorize every detail. “Beautiful.”

Ava took a surprised step back. She couldn't remember her father ever saying she was beautiful. He was good at instructing and giving approval for accomplishments, a verse memorized, or a song sung at church. But approval was different from a genuine compliment. She knew he believed this was protecting her from vanity, never understanding that a girl didn't grow vain from her daddy's love.

The look in his eyes and that singular word from her father—
beautiful
—shook her emotions from unsteady to critical instability.

She cleared her throat. “Um, it's good to see you.”

He laughed and she noticed his teeth, or rather the lack of several. They were black gaping holes that made him appear even older than he was.

“Can't say that I look beautiful, that's for sure. So your brother told you.” He pulled out a chair with a loud screech along the floor, motioning her to sit down before he sat in the chair beside her.

“Yes,” she said, settling uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair.

“And you came to wish me good-bye and good blessings on the journey over?” he said with a wink and set both hands palms down on the table in a gesture so familiar that it took her back to his preaching days.

“No, that's not it.” Ava wanted to explain everything in a nice, clean package. But the truth was, she had come because he was dying. “I suppose, in a way.”

“All right then. Before all that good-bye nonsense, lemme hear about you and yours. I have many years to get caught up on. Your brother tells me you do a lot of ministry work in your church. Your Christmas letters don't tell me squat really.”

She nodded, but couldn't get any words out. How did she fill in all the spaces between them?

“You're part of one of those mega-churches?” he prodded as if helping her grasp something to steady her emotions.

“No, it's large. But not as large as a lot of the churches in Dallas.”

“Anything over a few hundred is pretty mega to me.”

Ava didn't know what to say to that. He'd been a preacher with a rabid following. Now he was a felon preparing to die.

“What ministering do you do?” he asked.

Ava inhaled deeply. “I teach a Bible study on Thursdays. And I'm part of a ministry that helps people in tragic or crisis situations.”

“That must be a busy ministry.”

Ava breathed in and out again, feeling her head clear and the sense of being overwhelmed soften. “Getting busier and busier.”

“And my grandson plays football, I'd love to have seen that. And my granddaughter is getting married?”

“No, she's now going to travel in Asia.” Ava wondered how he'd take that.

He frowned a moment, staring at his hands. Then nodded slowly. “Asia? She's got to be careful. But good for her. I should have traveled more away from Texas.”

“Where would you have gone?” Ava never considered that her father had dreams outside of his congregation, though he'd had an entire life she knew nothing about.

“Israel would have been first choice. To see where the Lord Jesus walked and everything else way back to Moses, and Joshua's days. But other places too. I once read a book about those Terra Cotta Warriors they dug up in China. I'd have liked to seen that and could've ministered there as well.”

Ava felt a sense of bewilderment that through everything her daddy still had a passion for God.

“You don't come see me. I ain't never seen my grandbabies. But I guess I understand. Prolly would've done the same.”

When had her father start using
ain't
? In their other life, he would have whipped them for using slang like that, saying it was akin to profanity.

“Profanity of the English language,” Ava muttered without meaning to.

“That'd be correct. Too many years inside. I've lived a third of my life in here now, did you know that?”

Ava counted the years and realized he was close to her age when he was arrested.

“I'll bring your grandchildren to see you. They're grown now, and it should have happened before. I know that now.”

“I'd 'preciate that. Gotta protect kids from places like this when they're young. This is a very bad place. For a long while I thought I was like Joseph. Kept expectin' to start understanding dreams or what not. But now I'll be freed, though not in the way I expected.”

“Daddy, I'm sorry I didn't come see you.” Ava knew her excuses had some validity. Without putting the past behind her, she might not have been the functioning adult she'd been. She could've easily turned out like the rest of the family, stuffed in together at her grandmother's farm. It had taken hard work to not settle for what she'd grown up with.

“If we let it, life can easily get measured by what we should have done, instead of what good we did. I hope you can remember some good memories.”

Ava nodded and reached for hands worn thin by age and illness. “I remember, Daddy. I really do.” Then Ava realized he might need to hear some of it.

“I remember picnics down at the river beneath the willow trees. In fact, I had a willow tree in my backyard in Dallas just to remember the good times. I love the Bible because of your Bible, and I'll always listen to the sound of people turning the pages. I memorize Scripture even today because of that habit you gave me, and those verses come to mind when I need them, which is all the time. I'll always remember you baptizing people, how happy they were rising from the water all fresh and new.”

Daddy covered his face with his hands as tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Thank you, Father God,” he murmured.

Ava felt tears on her cheeks as well as she continued, “When Sienna was little, I couldn't fix her hair without thinking of how hard you tried to get the tangles out of my hair and make me look presentable. She was just like me, fighting against the hairbrush, and I thought I was getting my due after all the grief I gave you.”

He wiped his face as he chuckled.

“You were a little hellion when it came to getting your hair fixed.”

Ava smiled and cleared the teardrops from her cheeks. Daddy sighed deeply and reached for her hands once again.

“My little firefly, it makes my heart glad to know I gave you something good for all the pain. I hope you will forgive me. I did lots more sins than I let myself see for a long while. Joseph fled from temptation, but I didn't have the strength. And all the while, I loved Jesus. I hope you know that. The Bible is full of fallen men, so maybe that helped me excuse myself, or I thought it didn't count when I did it. It caught up to me all right.”

Ava squeezed his hands, aware of their fragility.

“But you done well for yourself and your children. I'm proud of that. Anyway, I made that whole cancer thing up to get you here,” he said with a chuckle, and for a second she nearly believed him.

“Clancy said you didn't want me to know about it. Why not?”

He pursed his lips as if considering what to say. “Guess part of me wanted you to remember how I was, looking all young and dapper. I've been writing down some things for him to give you. Seems nowadays I'm better with a pen than my words. My mouth has gotten me in a heap of trouble over the years.”

Ava nearly agreed, but remained silent.

“I still minister to people here and through letters outside. But time in here has softened an old codger like me into a real kind of humility. Not the humility I thought I had back in the day.”

Ava understood what he meant. He'd been a showman, shouting and pointing his finger about the dangers of pride, talking about humility as if he owned it, working with the poor and “people of color” as his acts of helping the less fortunate. But in all of that humility was his pride.

“Your mama really loved you.”

Ava released his hands, surprised that he'd brought up Mama.

“You were her joy for a really long time,” he said, and she waited, holding her breath. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, “But I'm getting tired now. I think it's time I return to the infirmary.”

“Of course. Are you getting good care?”

“Yes, very good care. And it's almost worth the cancer to be staying in the infirmary,” he said with a chuckle. He pushed himself up to stand, stopping partway to study her again. “You look like her. In the eyes and that little chin. Your mama believed in happy endings. I always believed in God's judgment.”

“What do you believe now?”

He chuckled as if she'd told a joke. “I guess somethun' in between the two. Most people don't have a happy ending here on this ole earth, but we can get us one on the other side. At least, that's what I'm hoping. Then yer mama, and me, too, I suppose, could have our happy ending.”

“I do believe it, Daddy. I love you,” she whispered, reaching out to hug him. He sighed as if he'd longed for such words. Ava could feel the outline of his bones beneath his jumpsuit. He didn't smell of aftershave like he always had, but of age and sickness. And yet Ava treasured the feel of his arms around her, patting her back and whispering his love back to her.

“My firefly,” he said, kissing her cheek. “You know, God is much more than I realized before.”

Ava considered the words. She knew what he meant, but it had always hung off the edges of her busy life. The past week opened this up like clouds parting to rays of sunlight. She taught Bible study every week, quoted Scripture, and lived a Christian life. Yet God was more, much more than she could grasp, and her father knew it too.