Fear Has a Name: A Novel (8 page)

11

The air in the large, dimly lit auditorium had grown stagnant. The crowded Sunday morning service was almost over. A thin woman wearing a light green dress two sizes too big gave announcements from the pulpit. Pamela shifted uncomfortably in her theater-style seat.

“Antsy, aren’t you?” Jack whispered.

“I’m
hot
.”

“Reached your limit?”

“My dress is sticking.” Pamela wiggled. “It’s been an hour and a half.”

“Almost over.” Jack linked her arm with his and patted her hand. “Pay attention,” he jested.

She pinched his finger.

“Ouch.” He laughed.

“You better watch it.” She squeezed his wrist.

The big joke between them had long been that Pamela was just like her father, Ben, who couldn’t sit still for more than thirty minutes. On trips she was worse than the kids about pleading in her whiniest voice, “When are we going to get there?”

She opened her journal and turned to the lyrics she’d penned hurriedly a little earlier in the service as a young African-American woman sang.
If all of these trials bring me closer to you,
then I will walk through the fire if you want me to.

Pamela soaked in each word that had maneuvered its way into her heart during the song, whispering peace into the caverns of her being.

It was as if the sermon had been tailored for her as well. She turned another page and meditated on the verse she’d jotted down from Pastor Dan’s sermon:
For
Christ’s
sake
, I
delight
in
weaknesses
, in insults, in
hardships
, in
persecutions
, in
difficulties
. For when I am
weak
, then I am
strong
.

Never had she thrown herself upon God with such abandon as she had since the night at the bridge. Like a beggar snapping up crumbs, she gathered and clung to the words of Scripture. They had become her sustenance. For the first time she understood what Jesus meant when the disciples urged him to eat, but he only replied, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Pamela had left everything she cared about to God’s care: her life and hopes and desires; Jack, Rebecca, and Faye; their home and possessions; their health and safety. She’d left
him
there too, the wicked invader who’d flipped her picture-book world into the air like the spinning house in
The Wizard of Oz
. All of it she had deposited with a great thud of relief into God’s capable hands, where it belonged. She’d dusted off her hands and left it there.

Period.

If she could just
keep
it there; if she could just keep that
mind-set
; if she could just know—really know—that she and her family were safe in God’s hands. And even if he did allow something to happen to them—even something bad, that involved suffering—she could know it was okay, simply because it was the Master’s plan and he did what he wanted.

But once again, the stranger’s words weaved their way into her present tense like prickly little gremlins. They visited her at the oddest times, when her defenses were down, like right there in church, of all places. Without warning they swept back in, vividly, like the wind and rain and gut-twisting terror of that awful night.

Pammy.

It was a nickname she’d been called frequently as a child. She rehashed it all again—when it was that she’d insisted others call her Pamela, or if they must shorten it, simply Pam. When had she declared the moratorium on Pammy? Seventh grade? Eighth?

Had this man known her from back then, when they were children growing up on Cleveland’s upper east side? He’d used her maiden name, Wagner. And he’d said, “I’ve never forgotten you.”

“You’ve got goose bumps.” Jack rubbed her wrist gently. “I thought you were hot.”

She just squeezed his arm hard as the choir started into the last song.

For the umpteenth time she racked her brain, recalling her earliest love interests. Furthest back was Scotty Marmaduke from Mrs. Jones’s fourth-grade class at Hodges Elementary School—but he’d had brown hair and skin the color of an Indian. William Rose and Doug DuCharme were her other “true loves” prior to high school, but neither had the skin, features, or hair coloring of the invader.

The guy had mentioned Rebecca and Faye. How on earth had he known their names? And why? She was sure he’d said something like “I want to take care of you.”

Pamela tried to shake the whole thing from her mind and found herself actually moving her head side to side. It felt as if she’d fallen asleep, nodded, and woke with a start.

“You okay?” Jack’s eyes narrowed.

She nodded.

“Let’s all stand for the benediction.” Pastor Dan’s curly gray hair looked almost blond in the spotlight. He lifted his leathery brown hands and closed his thoughtful eyes behind silver-rimmed glasses. “Now may you go in peace, fully knowing, enjoying, and sharing the love of God, which he shed abroad in our hearts. In your weaknesses, may you be made strong.”

Pamela closed her eyes and made the prayer her own.

“May he guard you, protect you, give you wisdom, and fill you with divine power as you go forth from this place, ministering to a world in need. And may he bring us safely back together again very soon. Amen.”

The lights came up and it was back to reality as voices arose all over the sanctuary. People bent down to pick up bulletins and pens and Bibles, teenagers high-fived and hugged, old people with white hair shuffled out, leaning on walkers and each other.

Jack clasped Pamela’s hand and led her down their row.

A man in the adjoining aisle smiled and nodded. Something about him, the small eyes, perhaps, made her think of the stranger. Clearly, so clearly, she pictured his pasty white skin and recalled the sandpaper-like feeling of his hand nudging her neck and shoulders. She reached behind the base of her neck, rubbed the skin deeply, and dusted off her shoulder several times, as if wiping away the memory.

His filthy, blocky fist had grappled and fumbled and yanked her hair. She patted the top of her head and smoothed her hair all the way to the back, two, three times, as if making sure nothing was in it—a tangle, a fly …
a hand
.

Until the night on the bridge, Pamela had sequestered thoughts of the intruder solely to their home. That’s where he’d broken in, taken things, planted things, parked his junky brown car—at their house. Period. Therefore, she had actually felt safer venturing anywhere away from home, because the house was the only place the predator had dared to meddle.

The night on the bridge changed all that.

Now, she realized, he could be any place, following her—around town, at the grocery, the library, the pool, the mall … who knew?

Jack led her into the vast flow of people. Like cattle they slowly made their way up a carpeted runway toward the many sanctuary exits.

He could be here, lurking among all these bodies.
Watching.

“How ’bout I get Rebecca?” Jack turned to Pamela.

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll get Faye.”

The church had grown immensely during the past decade, with new buildings popping up all over its sprawling campus. Except for two or three, all of the structures attached to one another and could be accessed with a few zigzags via wide, well-lit hallways. Because most of the buildings were three stories, classrooms were everywhere—on the main floor, upstairs, and at the basement level.

“Maybe we’ll grab a pizza on the way home,” Jack said.

“Sounds good. Can we get black olives on our half?”

“Sure. How about sausage?”

“Ehh.” Pamela made a sour face. “Last time it was greasy.”

Jack chuckled. “You are so spoiled.”

As they walked past some offices, Pamela noticed a computer sitting on a desk beyond a glass wall. Its screen saver flashed a Renoir she recognized of people gaily socializing at an outdoor festival. It faded and a golden landscape appeared, by Claude Monet she guessed. That dimmed, and up came
Starry Night
, the beautiful oil by Vincent Van Gogh.

Interesting …

Just the day before, Pamela had Googled
Van Gogh, self-portraits
, because the intruder’s coarse look, his tiny eyes and hooked nose, the thatch of red hair had reminded her of the famous artist. Seeing the very brushstrokes of the Van Gogh self-portraits up close on her computer, in vibrant color—especially the ones that featured him with no beard, pipe, or hat—made Pamela believe that, if a bit of weight could be added to the artist’s face, a few of them would have proven more accurate than the police artist’s rendering of the stalker.

If all of these trials bring me closer to you, then I’ll walk through the fire if you want me to.

Jack and Pamela reached the old sanctuary building.

Jack put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed the back of her neck. “We’ll meet you at the car in a few minutes.”

The girls’ Sunday school rooms were in opposite directions—Rebecca’s to the left on that floor, and Faye’s to the right at the basement level.

“Okay. Don’t forget to get the little Bible homework thingy. Rebecca loves those.”

“Pamela!” Freckled and frizzy-haired Dawn Hoganson was rather a mess, as usual. Her arms were stuffed with various crumpled papers, books, a Walmart bag, and a Cleveland Indians cap. She was hunched over, holding hands with the two youngest of her five children. “I just saw your Bible in the lost and found. My Justin lost his favorite cap, and I saw the Bible when I was digging around in there.”

Pamela stopped.

Dawn’s voice turned to mush in her ears.

Something registered with a
slam
deep and hard in her chest. From the waist up, everything clanged. From the waist down, everything melted.

Jack had heard her too and was already coming back, his mouth open, his eyes burning holes into Dawn. “Are you sure it’s hers?” he said.

“Simon!” She pulled one of her children by the wrist. “Don’t you dare get that blue piece of whatever it is all over that Sunday shirt. Who gave you candy? Why do they do that? What did Mommy tell you?”

“What did it look like?” Jack stuck his face in Dawn’s path.

Dawn drew back, her features scrunching as if she’d just been insulted. “Well, for one thing, it had her name in it. It’s red. Maroon, I guess you’d call it. Big old thing.”

My Bible.
The one the creep had stolen from the house.

That means he had to have been here, at the church.
When?

The girls!

“Jack!”

He was already in motion. “I’ll get Rebecca. You get Faye.” There was a slight tremor in his voice.

Pamela pressed a hand to her temple. She turned her head inquisitively but couldn’t remember where Faye’s room was. Suddenly the church felt like an enormous compound the size of eighteen airports put together, and Pamela felt like a mouse about to get trampled by a gazillion people.

Every gear in her head spun till they rattled. Jack must have noticed a dazed look on her face.

“Pam, go! Faye’s class. Basement.”

The guy could be here, right in this building.

God, please, let the girls be okay …

She slammed the brown metal door open and hit the steps to the basement, each one feeling like a slow-motion moon walk.

Every organ in her pounded in unison as she heaved in an enormous breath and banged open the metal door on the bottom level, mentally preparing to see the intruder.

Faye’s Sunday school classroom was straight ahead about fifty feet, then left another seventy-five. Taking off, her heart drummed harder, more rapidly, rising to the base of her throat.

She cut the corner hard at the ninety-degree turn in the hall, moving too fast to sidestep the couple coming her way. Her left shoulder bashed the man’s chest, and she heard the wind go out of him with an
oomph
.

“I’m so sorry,” Pamela cried, regaining her balance, ripping herself from his clutches, and scrambling on. “My child … there may be something wrong.”

She broke into a flat-out run down the long hallway for Faye’s room, dodging adults and children, scanning them feverishly for the man in black.

Several parents stood waiting at the closed door for the kindergarten class to end.

“Excuse me, excuse me.” Pamela could barely breathe. She swung open the door and burst into the room. “Sorry … sorry … I just need Faye.”

Pamela spotted her daughter’s head first, the white bow, the stringy blonde hair, then her plump little red cheeks and the blue-and-green-checked dress they’d chosen together that morning.

“Faye!” Pamela dashed to her, slid to her knees, and hugged the child. “Oh baby, thank God you’re okay.” She locked Faye in her arms, rocking her back and forth, their heads nestled together.

The teachers, Trevor and Cindy Samuelson, looked at each other.

“I’m sorry to barge in,” Pamela said. “We’ve had—”

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Faye pulled back a few inches and set her little hands on Pamela’s shoulders. “Did you see the bad man too?”

12

Jack gripped Rebecca’s sweaty hand tighter, but he was hurrying so fast that she was pouting and dragging three feet behind by the time they got to Faye’s room.

“Have you seen him?” Jack’s blood pumped feverishly through his wrists and pounded at his temples.

“No.” Pam hugged Rebecca, then yanked Jack’s hand, her eyes bulging. “But Faye thinks she saw him.”

He did a double take at Pam, dropped to one knee, and took Faye’s little hands in his. “Tell me what you saw, Faye.” His eyes were just inches from hers. “Do you think you saw the man who broke into our house?”

Jack felt Pam’s hand rest on his shoulder and her fingers digging in. That meant, “Be gentle.” It meant, “Don’t scare the girls.”

Faye blinked slowly and nodded. “I told Miss Cindy, but she didn’t believe me.”

“When? When did you see him?” Jack wiggled her little hands, trying to keep it light, but his neck and shoulders were as taut as the strings on a banjo. “Where were you?”

“We went for a potty break, and I saw him getting a drink. It was him, Daddy. His clothes were black, just like when he came into our house. And he had those pointy boots.”

“He was getting a drink at the fountain?” Jack scanned the hallway.

“Uh-huh. He smiled and waved at me, but I didn’t wave back.”

Jack’s head buzzed with static and seemed to lift from his shoulders.

“Should I have waved?” Faye said. “It felt mean not to. He seemed nice.”

Pam hugged her hard. “You did the right thing, honey. No, we never wave or get near strangers, especially the man in black. You did so good.”

Jack remained kneeling.
Calm … be calm. We’re okay. We’re all okay.

He forced himself to shed the hatred and revulsion that were mixing like toxins in his head. He shook away the dread and wrath that boiled and steamed and threatened to poison the wisdom he knew was in there somewhere.

He drew Faye and Rebecca close. He took in the people walking past and standing in the halls.

There was no one in black.

Faye wore the nonchalant look of a bored spectator at a chess match, but Rebecca’s nostrils flared, her lower lip quivered. She was old enough to know something very wrong was going down.

It ticked him off so bad that this, this
demon
was scaring his girls.

Jack forced himself to take in as much air as his lungs would hold, silently trying to invite the Holy Spirit in anew at the same time, then exhaled aloud. He was so mad. He felt so distant from God.

Pam’s dark eyes met his and locked. They seemed to pulsate with terror and blaze with rage at the same time.

“All right.” He stood, resolving to be steady, unflinching. “Will you take these, please?” He handed Pam his Bible and journal and took the girls by the hands. “What do you ladies say we go get Mommy’s Bible at the lost and found then go get some pizza on our way home?”

“Campolo’s!” Faye yelled. “I’m starving. We didn’t have a snack today. Miss Cindy said Mr. Trevor forgot. He was supposed to bring Tootsie Rolls, but he forgot them.”

He nodded at her and gently squeezed her arm. “Come on,” Jack encouraged. “You wanted black olives, no sausage, you got it. Everybody up. Here we go.”

They stood and smoothed the wrinkles from their outfits, wiped wet noses on tissues Pam produced from her purse, grabbed hands, and headed for the lost and found. Actually, the lost and found wasn’t a room at all but a large cardboard box on the floor behind the reception counter next to the basement-level exit.

“Here, give me your stuff.” Jack took Pam’s purse and the things she had been carrying. “We’ll wait for you over by the doors.”

While she went to find the Bible, Jack knelt with the girls, found the papers they’d brought from their classes, and asked Rebecca to tell him what she’d learned in class.

“We learned about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.”

Jack examined her artwork—a coloring book picture she’d done neatly, in all colors, of King Nebuchadnezzar’s three chosen servants wandering about unscathed in a blazing furnace.

“What a great picture. I love the colors you chose.” He forced himself to sound calm. “What’s the one big thing you learned from the story?”

In the background of Rebecca’s picture, but in the fire with the three devoted men of God, was a fourth man. Jack knew from the account in the book of Daniel and from the traditional way in which the man was portrayed—handsome, strong, bearded—that he was Jesus.

“If you believe in God, he’ll take care of you, even if you have to go into a really, really hot fire,” Rebecca said. “But you have to believe, or it won’t work.”

“I see.” It took a second, but her words registered and Jack pondered them. Funny how, from a child’s perspective, everything was so simple, so cut-and-dried. It was as if Rebecca viewed God as some larger-than-life magician. If you believed the magician was real and had power, he knew it and helped you. However, if you said you believed but really didn’t, he knew that too and refused to find favor on you.

Jack believed God spoke to people in different ways—through the Bible, through circumstances, dreams, other people. Rebecca’s words were a reminder that God was
that
intimate and
that
involved in Jack’s life, that he was speaking to him at that very moment through his own seven-year-old daughter.

They were in a fire.

Did they believe Christ was in it with them, able to keep them unharmed?

Really believe?

Something alit in Jack’s spirit. The uncomplicated little Sunday school lesson he held in his hand had been custom-tailored specifically for him, in that moment, at that precise second.

With her back to Jack and the girls, Pam drifted into a corner with her Bible.

Jack’s eyes found the words above Rebecca’s coloring.

Nebuchadnezzar was furious. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than normal. Strong soldiers tied them up and threw them into the blaze. Nebuchadnezzar said, “What god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

Pam had retrieved her Bible and was peering down at it, leafing through it.

Below Rebecca’s picture Jack found the mother lode, the words that had been designed for him in that moment, before the beginning of time:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, “O Nebuchadnezzar, if we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold.”

Whoa.

He’d read the account before, but it had never hit him like that—like a Mack truck.

God can save us from this trial, but what if he doesn’t? What if the worst happens? What if that’s his will? How will you do then? What kind of Christian will you be then?

“Daddy.” Rebecca tugged Jack’s sleeve and held up a piece of candy in a yellow wrapper. “Can I have this Tangy Taffy?”

“Yes, sweetie, but that’s all. We’re going to have lunch soon.”

“That’s not fair,” Faye whined. “I didn’t get a treat ’cause Mr. Trevor forgot—”

“Or maybe you didn’t know your Bible good enough,” Rebecca said.

“It’s not
good
enough, Rebecca, it’s
well
enough,” Jack said. Faye’s temper flared and she started to protest, but Jack cut in. “And that wasn’t a very nice thing to say.”

“Sorry, Daddy.” Rebecca proceeded to open the Tangy Taffy.

“Tell Faye you’re sorry,” Jack said.

“Sorry, Faye. Here.” Rebecca bit half of the candy and handed the other half to her sister, dangling the yellow glob by one sticky finger.

Faye’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, sister!”

From across the room, Jack saw Pam’s whole body tighten and sway. Her head swiveled toward him, her eyebrows angled up high above frightened eyes. The horror resonating from his lovely wife’s face was bone-chilling.

“You guys sit down.” Jack pounded the floor by the wall and eased them both down. “I’m going to see what Mommy’s doing. Stay right here.”

Pam had three things in her hands when he got to her. In her right was the thick maroon Bible. In her left was a sheet of wrinkled, yellow-lined notebook paper filled with handwriting in blue ink. On top of it was the piece of their wedding photograph that had been sliced out and removed from the frame on their mantel.

Jack grabbed the yellow paper and photo from her hand.

The back of the photo was charred black and portions of the front were burned as well. A frown had been scribbled over his smile with black marker; lines had been scratched over his eyes to make them look closed. A noose was drawn around his neck, leading to a knot behind the neck and a line leading up and off the photograph, as if he’d been hung.

Jack glanced back at the girls, then slipped the photo into the Bible and held the yellow paper. The small, slanted handwriting covered both sides of the page.

Pamela,

I know I shouldn’t be doing this. Life has not been good. I don’t even know what friendship is. Thinking about you gives me something to cling to.

There was no one like you. You were always gracious when no one else was. You helped me and talked to me. You laughed with me, not at me. I remember you looking me in the eyes and actually listening—and even speaking up for me. Do you remember holding my hand? I will never forget it. I thought we might kiss that one day. I wanted to, but I was too scared to tell you.

Jack read faster and faster in disbelief.

I watched you on your wedding day.

Do you ever think of me? Could it have been me at the altar? Could Faye and Rebecca be our children? I regret not pursuing you. I should have been the one to win your heart. Maybe then my life would have turned out normal.

I am an outcast. People despise me. I feel like the trash they trample in the street. I’ll be honest, it’s almost as if I have purposefully fueled peoples’ hatred and disgust. Probably because I was taught to believe I was a waste of life. Am I, Pamela?

A hailstorm of fury whirled in Jack’s head. He had to get a gun … contact Officer DeVry … get Pam and the girls out of the house … track this freak down.

I don’t think you realized what your small acts of kindness did for me.

That’s why I began thinking of you again. I told myself—it’s wrong! But I was so low. It was so black. The memory of you kept me alive. You saved my life—again—just like in school.

Then I wanted more. Just to see you, but it got worse. My mind began playing tricks. I started to believe—really believe—if something happened to Jack, I could take his place. You know, come onto the scene like your knight in shining armor.

Jack let the letter crunch to his side and shot Pam a look, but she was in a world of her own, curling the pages of her Bible with her thumb, probably looking for any more evidence from the nutcase who’d decided to turn their lives upside down. He held the letter up to read the last of it.

It’s gotten worse. I’m messed up. I know that. If you could talk to me like you used to. But we are past that now, aren’t we?

I want to cry out, help me, Pam, please, won’t you help me make sense of this life? Won’t you help me get my sanity back?

But now I’ve gone and done it. The demons are so much louder than the truth. The only thing I know is that you cared, and I want that again. It’s wrong. You belong to someone else. You are the mom of two kids. But the voice in my wretched mind keeps screaming that none of that matters. We still have a chance. And even if none of that is true, I believe you are the only thing in this life that will make it worth living.

From the lost boy, with love,

G.M.