Far Country (26 page)

           
Steve nodded slowly, wondering where the pastor was taking this. “I think so.
She looked pretty healthy, anyway.”

           
“Okay, did she seem happy?”

           
Again Steve nodded his agreement.

           
“Was she afraid of Mrs. Bolton? Did she cringe or hesitate about taking her
grandmother’s hand?”

           
Steve rolled his eyes, losing patience with Pastor Graham’s meandering and
pointless questions. “Of course not. Mrs. Bolton was a great mom. I loved being
at their house when we were kids. I know that Gracie is well taken care of with
them.”

           
Reverend Graham asked one more question. “So she is safe?”

           
“Yeah, I guess she is,” Steve agreed, still irritated.

           
“Steve, for Gracie’s sake, you need to leave well enough alone, then. At least,
for a little while.”

           
Steve exploded out of the chair. “I don’t believe this!” He raged. “I find my
daughter and you tell me to ‘leave her alone’? You must be crazy!”

           
Reverend Graham voice remained calm and reasonable. “You need to stop thinking
of you and what you want, Steve.  The question should be ‘What does Gracie
need?’”

           
“She needs her father in her life!” Steve shot back heatedly, storming around
the office.

           
“Yes, but maybe not like this.”

           
Reverend Graham’s words slowly sank through Steve’s anger and frustration. He
glared at his pastor.  “What are you trying to say?”

           
“My point is, Steve, if she IS your daughter, do you want her to love you for
enriching her life, or hate you for destroying the only safe and happy home she
has ever known? What do you think is going to happen if you charge over to the
Bolton’s house right now and demand your rights as a parent? How will Lee Ann
and Richard react?  At this age, Gracie takes all her cues from how her
grandparents see life. Destroy them and you destroy any chance you might have
of a loving relationship with your daughter.”

           
For the first time since seeing Gracie, Steve paused to imagine the scene if he
should confront the Bolton’s about Gracie’s birth. He remembered the look of
fear in Lee Ann’s face when she recognized him. He remembered the silence that
had greeted his every request to visit Sarah after the accident. The truth cut
deeply.  If they had hated him for his part in what happened to Sarah, how
much more would they hate him if he tried to take Gracie?

           
Steve’s shoulders slumped forward. He let out a sigh of despair.  “She
would hate me, wouldn’t she?”

           
“If you are right about Gracie, Lee Ann and Richard have gone to great lengths
to hide the truth. Not just from you, but from your parents, and all of their
friends.   It must have been shocking to be left with a half dead
shell of their daughter and then discover that she was going to bear a child to
the boy whom they felt had destroyed her.”

           
The old self hate surged through Steve. He gave a bitter laugh.  “When you
put it like that, I’d hide her from me too.”  Steve shut his eyes in
remembered pain. “They hated me,” he whispered hollowly. “They wouldn’t even
let me see her in the hospital. They never let me see Sarah again, even five
years after the accident.”  He let out a shaky breath and stared
hopelessly at Reverend Graham.  “They won’t ever let me see Gracie, will
they?”         

           
Reverend Graham shrugged.  “Probably not today,” he said truthfully. “Many
things will have to change.”

           
“Now that’s an understatement. It will take an act of God.”

           
Reverend Graham allowed a twinkle to enter his eye. “Then it’s our business to
expect God to Act.”

           
Bitter disappointment dragged at Steve’s heart. He could see no way to claim
his rights as Gracie’s father that wouldn’t end up destroying any hope he could
have of a loving relationship with his daughter.  Lee Ann and Richard
would fight him, and they would see to it that Gracie would grow up hating the
man who was trying to steal her from her loving grandparents. He had no choice
but to leave it in God’s hands, but at the moment, acknowledging that truth
felt more like failure than victory.

           
“I know that God can choose to act at any time, but is it blasphemous to
request an early resolution?”  He said dully.

           
Reverend Graham laughed mirthlessly. “Let me teach you a
greek
word. KAIROS. It means ‘when God’s time has been fulfilled.’ You can ask God
for anything, just know that it will happen when HE decides it is time.”

           
“God’s time.” Steve said flatly.

           
“
Kairos
.” Reverend Graham affirmed.

           
“What do I do in the meantime?”

           
“Wait. Pray. Trust. Pray some more. And believe. Believe that He
will
act.”

           
Steve sat quietly with his head bowed for some time.  Reverend Graham
waited silently. He had the impression that Steve was gathering his strength
for the coming trial, and he knew that Steve would need every bit of strength
he could gain. Of all God’s tests, doing nothing was among the hardest to obey.

           
At last Steve raised his head and looked at his mentor.  Reverend Graham
saw a resolve in Steve’s eyes that surprised him. Steve smiled bleakly. 

           
“Okay then. Pray and wait. God’s time. Expect victory.” He exhaled
noisily.  “I got the message.” He smiled wanly at Pastor Graham. 
“Thanks for talking me through this. You are right, I don’t like this, but I
don’t see that I have any other choice. Not if I love her.” 

           
The two men stood, and Reverend Graham hugged Steve with great affection.
“God’s already done great things to get your attention, Steve, so keep your
eyes open.  I don’t think He’s anywhere near finished with you yet.”

           
“Maybe I should be praying that He doesn’t wait another five years for the next
hurdle,” Steve quipped, trying to sound more positive than he felt at the
moment.

           
For a long time after Steve had left, Robert Graham pondered the things that
Steve had told him.  He suspected that Steve had it right, and that their
one moment of indiscretion had also been a moment of wondrous creation.

           
Imagining the bittersweet moment of being handed a living breathing miniature
replica of the daughter who could never again speak or laugh or even know that
she had born a child, Reverend Graham sank to his knees at the
alter
in praise of the One who had saved a small life to
bring hope and a second chance to Sarah’s brokenhearted parents, and perhaps, a
sense of purpose to a New Believer...

           
He wondered if the Bolton’s could ever find it in their hearts to acknowledge
Steve as Gracie’s father. Could they learn to forgive and love Steve as they
once had loved him? Privately, Reverend Graham thought that five more years
might be cutting things a bit tight.

           
Robert also gave thought to the story that the Bolton’s had put out about
Gracie’s parentage and the mysterious cousin in Memphis. He wondered whom he
could contact there to check on the facts of the story.  There had to be
some way to verify the birth…

           
Suddenly, he smacked himself on the forehead.  Idiot!  If
Sarah
Bolton
had given birth to a daughter in
Wilmington,
then it would be
a matter of public record! He supposed that he could take a drive down to
Wilmington sometime this week and do some poking around without raising any red
flags.  He would bring Hester.  She always enjoyed walking through
the shops downtown…

Ch 22  

Love Letters

           
Steve held the composition book in his lap, unsure of how to begin. He was sitting
on the beach at Topsail Island, their destination on the night of the accident
that had taken Sarah away from him forever. For some reason, this felt like the
right place to come today.

           
Steve watched the waves crash in lazy slow motion on the beach, and gloried in
the feel of the salty breeze and blazing sun. He wanted to remember this day
forever. In some strange way, he felt that he was beginning his life again.

           
He had just left Reverend Graham’s office, where his pastor had given him the
news. There was a record of a birth on file in Wilmington. Sarah had given
birth to a child –
their child!
- On February 5
^th
.

           
When Robert Graham had told him the news, Steve had collapsed in the chair and
cried, huge wracking sobs. Tears of great sadness for Sarah and for the child
she never knew she had given birth to, but mostly of thanksgiving, that there
was still, miraculously, a small part of Sarah in the world, living and
laughing and wonderfully alive and perfect..

           
I have a daughter!  Sarah and I have a daughter!
He could barely
contain the joy he felt in his heart each time he said those words. And for now
at least, that knowledge was going to have to be enough.

           
Steve knew Reverend Graham was right. As much as he wanted to get to know
Gracie, it was more important that Gracie was safe and happy now.  He had
to believe that his chance would come one day. 
Please
God, let
it be sooner than later!

           
What would Gracie think, though, when
she found out that her father lived only a few blocks away, maybe even remember
speaking to him once, but that he had never been involved in her life? Would
the Bolton’s tell her the truth about him, or would she think that he had never
wanted his daughter?

           
There would come a time when Gracie would want to know who her father was,
though, and her grandparents would not be able to stop her from searching for
him. He wanted her to know that he loved her, loved her enough to stay away
from her. So he had bought this notebook. He could write her, at least, and
when the day came, she would know that she had been in his heart from the day
he had first heard her name.

           
He bent over the notebook, the pen clenched firmly in his hand.

        
Dear Gracie…

           
May faded into June, and the warm North Carolina spring sank into the
sweltering heat of July.  Steve’s knee steadily improved under a regime of
indoor exercise and diving trips with Beth.  Steve did not forget
Deborah’s warnings about the blonde nurse, but nothing Beth said or did seemed
to have an ulterior motive. Still, the thought that David and Beth MAY have
been together at one point was enough to cool any romantic ideas he might have
had about her. Besides, as he had told Chuck, why complicate things, when he
expected to return to Hanging Rock in a few more months?

           
In the meantime, Steve had been fortunate to fill a temporary  position at
Hammock’s Beach State Park, a few miles away in the town of Swansboro. There,
he manned the office, did lots of paperwork, issued camping permits for Bear
Island, and conducted summer classes for  youth groups. It was pretty tame
by his standards, but the sunsets were still spectacular, especially when he
watched them from a kayak on the inter-coastal waterway.

           
Now when he watched the red orange ball drop toward the horizon in its bed of
purple and gold clouds, he thanked God for the moment that filled his soul with
peace, and prayed that soon he would be able to share the moment with Gracie.

           
“In your time, Lord,” he prayed grimly, willing himself to stay away from the
little girl and allow the Lord to have control of his future. In the long days
since the first week of June, Steve’s journal to Gracie had grown by many
pages.

           
Now, late in July, Steve waited on the dock at Hammocks Beach, preparing to
greet and escort the latest group of children from the ‘Summer Fun’ program. It
was the third group this week, and the youngest.  Steve was hoping that
this younger group would prove an easier group to work with.  The 10 to 12
year olds had proven pretty rowdy. By the end of the three hour trip, their
counselors were looking frazzled and exhausted.  The pre-teen bunch had
been a handful too.  Steve had even had to break up a hot and heavy
make-out session behind the snack bar between a young couple who didn’t appear
to be more than thirteen years old!

           
As the white activity bus pulled up and began unloading its contents, Steve’s
eyes widened slightly. The children were so small, many literally had to jump
from the bottom step of the bus to the ground.  He consulted his
clipboard. “Chipmunks,” he muttered. 
First and second graders, then.
 
At least, he observed, they appeared to be more obedient than yesterday’s
pre-adolescent hooligans!