Brother Word (29 page)

His knees were beginning to hurt from being in a kneeling position for so long, so he took a seat on the grass next to her headstone.

“I can’t believe it’s already been two years. I mean, it just feels like yesterday when we were still waking up together. I remember how sometimes, when you woke up first, you would lie across from me and just watch me sleep. I never told you this, but a couple of times, I’d actually be awake, and through the slits of my eyes I would watch you watching me. I saw how you were praying over me and whispering aloud how much you loved me. That encouraged me so much, to know that you loved me like that.

“Everyone’s telling me that I’ve had my time to grieve, and now it’s time to move on with my life. But they weren’t riding on buses and trains for the last two years, hiding and sleeping outdoors like a fugitive trapped in my own worst nightmare. I
couldn’t
grieve over you, because I spent half the time
defending
myself against people who thought it was my fault you died.

“But I kept remembering the way you were looking at me that night in Lake Charles . . . how much you believed you were going to be healed the moment I laid hands on you. If
anybody
had faith for divine healing, it was you. And it was your faith that stirred me to get in the Word and discover for myself what God says about divine healing.

“I know that you’re in heaven right now, with no more cancer and no more pain. And I know you’ve seen how God has healed people through my hands, just like you said. You always . . .
sensed
what God had in store for my life, even when I couldn’t see it myself.”

With his hand, he traced the etched outline of her name in the marble, hoping this action would cause him to feel something. But that notion was hopelessly nostalgic—he felt only cold, hard rock.

“Good-bye, Nina,” he said, standing. “Love you . . . always.”

Chapter Fifty-one

I
N ADDITION TO FIVE DAUNTING PILES
of paper arranged neatly on her desk, fifteen voice mails and thirty e-mails awaited Lynn when she returned to Faith Community the next day. The papers were either outreach-related expense reports she needed to sign off on or proposals needing her approval or rejection. Under normal circumstances, she would’ve been able to delegate most of the paperwork during a scheduled vacation break. However, her time in Louisiana had been both unscheduled and, due to her hospital stay, prolonged. And most of the members of her team who might’ve otherwise handled her paperwork had been so inundated with healing crusade calls that the paperwork accumulated even faster.

She quickly went through the paperwork, multitasking duties by both listening to her voice mails and periodically scanning her e-mails. By midday, the stack of papers had been cut in half, and Lynn was ready for a break. She stretched her neck, her fingers, and her back and went down the hall to Sister Arlene’s office.

“You want to grab a bite to eat?” she asked, lightly knocking on the door. Arlene was always good company for a lunch break.

Arlene nodded, still looking at her computer screen. “Just give me a minute. I’m putting the last touches on the fall choral concert.”

“Take your time, girl. I’ve been drowning in paperwork all morning—it’s been a tremendous blessing what the Lord is doing with the outreach effort, but that means double the work for us.”

“Amen. But thank God for grace and the anointing.”

“Mm-hmm.” Lynn’s eyes fell upon a folded copy of the
State
lying on Arlene’s desk. “Is that yesterday’s paper?” she asked.

“Yes. Sister Lynn, that article with the mystery man’s statement was
nothing
but God. That reporter must have had a Damascus road experience, because
this
article was written for the glory of God.”

Lynn picked up the newspaper. Not only hadn’t she told anyone that Travis really had no choice but to write Chance’s statement verbatim, but she’d also been so busy that she hadn’t had time to read the article.

Travis had chronicled how he’d traveled to Louisiana and finally met the mystery man. He included a partial sidebar on Chance’s history, not going into detail about his wife’s death but explaining that her passing had sent Chance into a life on the road. During various stops in cities dotting the Deep South, he wrote, Chance apparently discovered God had given him a gift of healing. Travis ended the article with Chance’s unedited statement, which no doubt had now been read by the 100,000-plus subscribers, since it was on the front page.

Glory to God
, Lynn thought, setting down the paper. A better outreach tool
couldn’t
have been created for any Christian in the area who was serious about evangelism and seeing the manifested power of God in this generation.

“Arlene, I’ll meet you in ten minutes out front,” she said, setting the paper back on the desk. “There’s something I need to do.”

Back at her desk, she quickly accessed the
State’s
Web site and searched for the advertising contacts. She’d have to run the idea through Pastor Gentry, of course, but they both shared the same aggressive, yet practical view of evangelism. After a powerful front-page story like that, Faith Community needed to be buying advertising space to maximize this opportunity. Lynn knew that it was just as the Bible said—
“he who wins souls is wise.”

Her attitude concerning evangelism had always been based on a principle she felt most churches didn’t quite grasp. The masses don’t come to the church. It was the
church’s
commission to go to the masses.

CHANCE’S LOWER BACK
beat like a slow drum, awakening him with a jolt and causing him to grit his teeth in pain. Grimacing, he made his way to the dresser and popped in one of the pain pills Dr. Peterson had prescribed for him. He washed it down with a glass of water, pondering the dilemma of being unable to get rid of his present physical condition, despite his healing gift.

Two bullets, plus a slight concussion . . . what’d you expect?

He took another drink of water, and as he set the water glass down he noticed an envelope bearing his name lying on the dresser. He hadn’t seen it before, although the previous evening another one of Dr. Peterson’s pills had put him right to bed after Lynn had gone to the airport. It was a get-well Hallmark card Lynn had apparently left for him.

To Chance:

It’s my prayer that God grant you not only a speedy recovery, but also the desires of your heart. I know it’s difficult for you to think that way now, but remember that weeping only endures for the night. Joy comes in the morning. You’ve been a blessing to my life, and you’ve opened my eyes in more ways than just the obvious. Know that you’ll always have a friend in South Carolina not only praying for you, but also thinking about you.

Many blessings, Lynn

“She left that card for you yesterday,” Pop said. Chance turned and saw his father leaning against his doorjamb. “Must’ve had it for a while, ’cause I didn’t see her go to no store.”

“The hospital had a gift shop,” Chance said. “She probably got it there.”

Pop hobbled into the room. “I ain’t never been one to tell you how to live your life, and I know how hard it’s been for you to get over Nina, but it’s been two years. And I
guarantee
you ain’t never gon’ meet someone like this Lynn gal for the rest of your lifetime.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Is you blind or something? Boy, that girl dived in the water
twice
, tryin’ to save your life! I saw the whole thing. And she wasn’t playing when she said she was afraid to put her head underwater—her face was white as a ghost when she first got up on the rail of the boat. But she jumped in anyway. It don’t take a rocket scientist to see that Lynn cares a whole lot about you. And you can’t tell me she ain’t pretty—she’s a spittin’ image of Nina.”

“It’s not about her being pretty . . . or even looking like Nina.”

“What’s it about, then?”

Among other things,
it
was the uncertainty of moving beyond the familiar and the fear of giving his heart away again to a woman, only to have it broken again. But Chance wasn’t about to tell Pop that.

He finally shrugged. “I don’t know, Pop.”

“Well, you better figure it out soon. If you don’t, you gon’ live to regret it.”

“Live to
regret
it? Who are you to tell me about regrets?” The words erupted from Chance’s mouth before he had a moment to really think about what he was saying. Maybe it was a side effect from the medication he was taking, or the fact that Nina was gone forever and Lynn Harper might possibly take her place in his heart. More likely, it was all the years of watching Pop drink himself into an early grave.

“Now . . . you watch what you saying, Chance,” Pop responded, steadying himself on his cane. “You probably ain’t thinking straight and all . . . them painkillers done gone straight to your head. I’m gon’ act like I didn’t hear that.”

“Then maybe I should say it again—who are you to talk to me about regret? If anyone’s living in regret, it’s you. You’ve been drinking your life away ever since Mom passed. Seems like you can’t move past Mom’s death any more than I could move past losing Nina.”

“Chance, now that’s enough outta you.” Pop pointed a trembling finger at his son. “You talkin’ about things you don’t know nothing about. I ain’t drinking ’cause Jacqueline died. Dying’s a part of life—I’ve been over that for years.”

“Yeah? Then why are you drinking, Pop? Why are you killing yourself?”

Bennett Howard fell back against the doorway. He looked away from his son as tears began welling up in the corners of his eyes.

“Killing myself?” He shook his head now as the tears began rolling down his face. “I ain’t killing myself—I’ve been dead since ’69, Chance.”

“ ’69?”

“The year they shipped me to ’Nam.” Pop buried his face in his hands as he began weeping loudly. His shoulders shook so violently that Chance feared he was in danger of hurting himself.

“I was jus’ a kid, Chance. Didn’t know nothin’ about no Vietcong or what the government was tryin’ to do over there. I had never been outside Louisiana, and here they were sending me to Fort Bragg and then over the ocean in the biggest airplane I’d ever seen.”

“Pop, I—”

“No—this is your time for listenin’ to what I got to say. You wanted to know why I drown my sorrows in the bottle, then you gon’ know. I was eighteen, Chance.
Eighteen
. And I saw things . . . I did things . . .” His voice trailed off, creating a silence that lasted several moments.

“. . . And then I came back home from that never-endin’ nightmare, and I’m disrespected by everyone for going over there in the first place. It ain’t like I had a choice—I was
drafted
.

“So, you happy now, Chance? You satisfied? You understand why I drink? I drink to forget the worst time of my life.”

Chance wiped the tears that were now streaming down his face. Pop had never before spoken of Vietnam, never before spoken of the horrors he’d faced over there. And how was Chance supposed to respond to that? Closing his eyes to stem the flow of tears, he silently began praying. He prayed for the words that would reach that eighteen-year-old kid who’d been dropped off in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam and somehow reassure him that hope still remained for his life.

“Pop, I just want to say . . .” Chance began, opening his eyes. But Pop had left the room.

Chapter Fifty-two

T
HE NEXT DAY, THE HOUSE
was quiet when Chance finally rolled out of bed and slowly made his way down the hallway. He assumed Pop had gone to the lake, or at least he hoped so. Pop’s disability check had come in the mail yesterday, and his old man was good for spending most of it down at the liquor store.

With his injuries, it took Chance almost an hour to wash and dress. After dumping some cereal into a bowl and pouring a tall glass of orange juice, he walked outside onto the front porch. The ten acres of land his house sat on, passed down from Jacqueline, was privately nestled not far from the Arkansas state line. Chance had always relished the stillness and quiet of the land; the closest neighbors lived two miles away. It was a throwback to the post-Louisiana Purchase days, when folks settled on large property tracts and lived off the fruit of their land.

That’s all I wanted to do, God . . . raise my family here and live out the rest of my days in peace and quiet . . .

A spiraling plume of dust caught his attention then, rising skyward just beyond a cluster of trees to his right. The dust meant a vehicle had turned off the road and was now headed his way. Chance hoped it might be Pop, and when the car came into the clearing and he saw the rooftop police lights, he was almost sure it was a police officer escorting his drunken father home.

But when the police car came closer, Chance recognized the driver to be Sergeant Boudreaux, one of the officers who’d been assigned the Jucinda Harris case. Boudreaux had twice visited Chance in the hospital, updating him on how the case was progressing.

“G’morning, Chance,” Boudreaux said, stepping out of the car. He stretched his lanky, six-foot-four frame briefly, then made his way up the porch’s steps.

“Good morning, Sergeant. Drove all the way from Shreveport, huh? If I’d known you were coming, I’d have fixed you one of my famous omelets.”

Boudreaux shook his head and sat down in the chair beside Chance. “No need for all that trouble. I was just in the area, doing some more work on the case, and I’d thought I’d drop by. How ya feeling?”

“A little better. More good days than bad. Dr. Peterson says I’ll be back to my old self in no time at all.”

“Glad to hear that. Most cases like yours—taking two 9 mm shots to the body, then nearly splitting your head open on a rock—don’t wind up with happy endings. Speakin’ of happy endings, I got some good news on the case.”

“Yeah?”

Boudreaux nodded. “Looks like Ms. Harris’s lawyer is going to take the DA’s plea bargain. Really didn’t have a choice. The evidence against her is too strong—they’ve recovered the gun with her fingerprints all over it, plus the gun residue on her hands and the five eyewitnesses that saw her pull the trigger. It’s pretty much open-and-shut.”