The Sacrifice (40 page)

“So, are you ready for the trial?”

“Not yet. Mr. Humphrey says a lawyer is never totally prepared; he just runs out of time to do anything else. It's like life. You can't anticipate everything.”

“That's the truth.”

They ate in silence for a minute.

“I had two messages on my answering machine when I got home from school,” Kay said. “The first was from my lawyer. My divorce hearing has been moved to Monday at nine-thirty. The second call was from Jake. He's getting married next weekend.”

Scott was about to take a bite of pizza and stopped in midair. He couldn't believe it. It was like something from an afternoon soap opera.

Kay continued, “I'd been holding out a tiny hope until tonight. Jake left a message the other day apologizing for the way he acted the night of the football game. I'd thought maybe he realized his mistake. Now this.”

Scott looked at Kay. There was nothing he'd seen in Kay's personality or conduct since he walked into her classroom that justified this level of rejection and abuse.

“Forget him,” Scott said. “He's a fool. If he—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I'm not trying to get you to react.”

“I'm entitled to my opinion. If he had any sense, he'd crawl on his knees from Virginia and beg you to take him back. You don't deserve getting dumped for someone else. You're beautiful, smart, fun to be with—” He stopped.

Kay's eyes were watering. She wiped them with her napkin.

“I was feeling worthless when I called you,” she said. “I was hoping you'd make me laugh.”

“Instead, I made you cry.”

“That's what I need to do, but it seems like every other time we're together, I'm an emotional mess.”

In a few seconds, Kay's napkin was soggy history. Scott went into the bathroom and returned with a box of tissues. He sat still at the table beside her. Untouched, his pizza grew cold.

After a few moments, he spoke slowly. “What I said was the truth. You're beautiful, smart, fun to be with, and”—he paused—“very vulnerable. I don't want to take advantage of that vulnerability.”

This caused a fresh torrent of tears, and Scott sat silently. The lack of selfishness he felt toward Kay was a surprise to him.

“Thank you,” she said simply. “For now, that's all I can manage.”

Nicky ran up to Kay and stood up with his paws on her leg. He had his stuffed hedgehog in his mouth. Kay wiped her eyes one more time and patted his head.

“What's that?”

Scott looked over the corner of the table.

“Before Nicky chewed off one of its legs and both eyes, it was a healthy hedgehog. He wants you to throw it so he can run after it. It's his way of cheering you up.”

Kay took the slightly moist animal from Nicky's mouth and threw it out of the dining room and across the foyer. It slid across the floor and under Scott's chair in the living room. Nicky took off at top speed, retrieved it, then trotted back and held it up to Kay. She threw it again. This time, the little dog took the stuffed animal into the foyer where he lay down on the area rug in front of the door and began to chew vigorously on one of the remaining legs.

“Isn't he going to bring it back?” Kay asked.

“Not necessarily. Nicky plays by his own rules. You can't always predict what he's going to do with something when he catches it.”

They spent the next hour looking at photographs. Scott pulled out two boxes of pictures that chronicled his life from high-school graduation through the present. Included were shots from army days, summer vacations, scenes from California that were familiar to Kay, life in college, and several girlfriends. Kay asked about the women who had floated through Scott's life. Without feeling awkward, he gave an honest, uncritical assessment and an abbreviated, sanitized version of their relationships. The last woman in line was a girl he met in law school. Her hair was as dark as Kay's was blond.

“She's an attorney in Washington, D.C.,” Scott said. “We spent a lot of time together our last year in law school after her fiancé broke off their engagement. She decided to take a job with a big government agency. I didn't want to live in the D.C. area and haven't seen her since graduation.”

“That sounds analytical.”

“What do you mean?”

“What did you feel for her? You describe the end of your relationship as if you were moving your money from one mutual fund to another.”

“Okay, I'll tell you. It hurt then. It hurts now.”

Scott didn't reveal how the pain of the breakup had been a restraint on releasing his heart toward Kay. He didn't want another rebound relationship that was quickly discarded when someone else came along.

“Did you ask her to consider living in North Carolina?” Kay asked.

“No, she made her plans before I talked with Mr. Humphrey about a job.”

Kay studied the picture for a few seconds. The woman was sitting on a big rock on the Wake Forest campus looking down at Scott.

“If you had,” Kay said, “she would have said ‘yes.'”

Startled, Scott leaned closer to the picture. “How can you tell that from a photo?”

“The way she's focused on you. It's an ‘I'll follow this man to the ends of the earth' look.”

“No way.”

“I'll prove it to you,” Kay challenged. “Did she ever look at you like this?”

Kay met Scott's gaze and held it for a few seconds. It wasn't a come-hither look, but a more serious invitation to commitment. Scott had to admit he'd seen that look in his girlfriend's eyes.

“Uh, yes,” he said.

They finished the second box of photos. Nicky was fast asleep on the rug with the hedgehog between his front paws.

“I've kept Nicky up past his bedtime,” Kay said. “I'd better be going.”

Scott glanced at his pet. “He's had a fun evening.”

“Will I see you at the courthouse on Monday?” she asked.

“Probably not. I'll be in the big courtroom in the older part of the building. The domestic hearings are in a smaller courtroom in the new wing. They herd folks through like cattle.”

“For the slaughter of marriages.” Kay shook her head.

“I'm sorry—,” Scott began.

“I'm all right,” she said. “I needed tonight. You've helped me more than you know.”

“We'll talk on Tuesday,” Scott said as he walked her to the front door.

“Call me after the trial is over. And I'll be praying for you and Lester. I've been doing a lot of praying about everything recently.”

The words
prayer
and
Lester Garrison
hadn't appeared in the same paragraph in Scott's mind. After Kay left, Scott held the picture of his former girlfriend down so Nicky could see it.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Would you like to meet her?”

The dog sniffed the picture, grabbed his hedgehog, and trotted back to his cage.

At the end of the school day that Friday, Janie Collins had stopped Frank in the hallway near the front door of the high school and asked if he was going to the big game against Maiden that night.

“No, I haven't been to a football game since I was a freshman.”

“I'm going,” she said.

Frank looked at his mock trial partner with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. He'd been around her enough to know that she wasn't a fake, but he considered her kindhearted sincerity a form of weakness.

“Have a good time,” he responded.

“Would you like to sit with me and a few of my friends?” Janie persisted.

“Who are they?”

Janie mentioned several students. Frank didn't know any of them except as faces in class. However, sitting with Janie wouldn't be the worst way to spend an evening. A crack opened in his armor.

“Why are you inviting me?” he asked.

“Because it will be fun. You can meet my friends, and maybe some of your friends will be there, too.”

Frank didn't have any close friends. His acerbic tongue was a lash that kept him isolated.

“I don't know,” he said. “I'm going to be busy.”

“Doing what? It's Friday night.”

“A project I'm working on.”

“Take a break and join us. We'll be sitting in the south bleachers near the twenty-yard line.”

“I'll think about it.”

“I'll get there about fifteen minutes before the game starts to make sure there are enough seats.”

Frank's father wasn't home, and he fixed a sandwich for supper. The atrium near the kitchen was empty. His mother had taken the bird with her before Frank could complete the animal's obscenity training. He thought again about Janie's invitation and made up his mind. He would go to the game and see what happened.

It was a couple of hours before he needed to leave. He went upstairs, put on his headphones, and turned on the computer. When he entered the game, he found an intriguing scenario. Someone new had arrived. Frank quickly saw that the newcomer was a more formidable foe than the other warriors. A glint came into his eye as he gripped the mouse and stared into the screen. When he looked up, it was almost 9 P.M. He'd lost track of time. The football game usually ended around 10 P.M. Frank turned back to the screen as one of his favorite music cuts came through the headphones.

31

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no
bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

H
EBREWS 12:15

K
ay spent the day cleaning her apartment from top to bottom. It kept her busy, and by late afternoon, the kitchen floor shone and there wasn't a stray blond hair anywhere in the bathroom. In the midst of her activity, she accumulated a few items to give Jake on Monday: two books on golf, a white T-shirt, a pair of brown socks, and a garish tie his mother had given him for his birthday. When she finished, the apartment was as cleansed from outward signs of Jake Wilson's presence as the home of an Orthodox Jewish housewife in preparation for Passover.

Pouring a glass of water, she sat in a padded chair on her balcony with a notebook and a pen. Instead of writing, she watched the activity in the parking lot beneath her. Groups of people came and went. A husband and wife with a baby in a stroller crossed the parking lot and drove away in a minivan. Birds darted through the trees. No one looked up. Kay was invisible in her isolation. A person alone is acutely aware of separation from others while the rest of the world passes by without taking notice. She went to bed early.

The following day her disposition stayed dark even though the morning sun shone into her bedroom. She thought about hiding under the covers until noon but decided to go to church instead.

Janie's little brother saw her as soon as she walked through the door of the gym and he waved to her. There were a few more people present in the congregation than the first time Kay had visited. As soon as Kay was in her seat, the guitar-playing song leader stepped to the front, and the words to a song appeared on the screen. Kay didn't watch what other people were doing. She immediately joined in herself. In a few minutes she was in the place of praise, love, and adoration where the music took her. The heaviness resting in her heart rolled away like a hidden stone. She closed her eyes and lifted her hands as her spirit was replenished with living water. She could face tomorrow.

After the last note faded away, Linda Whitmire came forward and welcomed everyone to the church. Ben followed her to the front and silently watched his wife walk back to her seat.

“Isn't she beautiful?” he asked in a voice that left no doubt as to his sincerity.

His wife smiled. Linda's face was wrinkled, her hair snow white, and she carried at least thirty-five pounds more than she should on her small frame, but Kay knew that to Ben Whitmire his wife was beautiful. She was slightly jealous with wonder.

“Do you know why?” Ben continued.

Kay waited.

Ben looked across the congregation. “Linda is so beautiful on the inside that it can't be hidden from the outside. That's what I want to talk about this morning—the beauty of our inner person. This beauty doesn't apply only to women.” Ben rubbed his hand across his balding head. “You know, God thinks I'm beautiful, too.”

A few people laughed, and for the next thirty minutes Ben explained the process of inner transformation under the loving hand of an almighty God. Kay listened. To her, the events of life seemed haphazard—more like random marks on a page than notes that created a symphony. Ben had another perspective. He believed that everything—including a difficult relationship—was a golden opportunity for change.

“In one of the first churches I served,” he said, “there were three women who didn't like me. They'd loved the previous pastor and resented it when I came to serve their church. Of course, I didn't know how they felt at first, but Linda picked up on it and told me I was in for a hard time at their hands. ‘Hard' was an understatement.