Last Writes (6 page)

No wonder Erin had been drawn so thoroughly into the Temple of Brighter Light. After the childhood neglect and abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her alcoholic mother, her need to trust in something or someone who would take care of her had left the sensitive young girl vulnerable. To someone looking for love, for belonging, for parenting, the Temple of Brighter Light had a natural appeal. The group had assimilated Erin, made her part of the whole, and she was happy to have been assimilated.

Harold Stedman continued to preach, constantly modulating his voice, varying the pitch and pace at just the right moments. The audience seemed spellbound.

“So, what does all this mean to you, brothers and sisters? My Heavenly Father is above me and above you. My Heavenly Father brought me here to the earth to teach you how you can be saved and not become part of the compost when he wipes clean the earth, as he is about to do very soon. You may believe, or you may not. It is your choice.
I want you to believe,
because I want to see you have a future at the feet of the Lord.”

His voice had a resonant, soothing quality that began to take on an almost hypnotic cadence. Fifteen minutes into the program the crowded room began to feel stuffy. Claudia’s eyelids began to droop.
A modern hotel like this one should have better air-conditioning for a group of this size,
she thought, fighting to stay awake. Or were the TBL organizers deliberately controlling the temperature?

The desire to let go and nod off grew almost overpowering. She sat up straighter in her seat and gave the skin of her left hand a painful pinch to wake herself up. She forced her mind to focus on their reason for being here at this event: little Kylie Powers.

Where might Rodney have hidden his daughter?
Was it possible that he might show up here tonight, looking for help from his fellow TBL members? Neither Claudia nor Kelly would recognize him if he did. They had seen only his handwritten note and the photo of Kylie. Too bad neither of them had considered asking Erin what Rodney looked like.

While Claudia’s mind drifted, Harold Stedman had stopped talking. The lights were being turned up. Ushers were distributing index cards and pens to the audience. “What did he say?” she whispered to Kelly. “What are they doing?”

“Why, weren’t you listening? We’re supposed to write a confession. The worst thing you’ve ever done—something you’re ashamed of.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No! Just write something.”

Cards and pens were passed along their row. Claudia stared at the blank index card in her hand, wondering what she could write about. She had no intention of revealing anything personal to the TBL people. In the end she settled for scribbling a lie about having had an affair and signed a phony name to it. When she looked down at what she’d written she was mildly amused to note that she had unconsciously changed her regular handwriting style by switching from a right to a left slant. She turned the card facedown and handed it to the person seated next to her to pass along to the usher at the end of the row.

“
What did you write about?” she whispered to Kelly.

“How bad it makes me feel for not being there for my little sister at the worst time in her life. Hell, she was only fifteen when she ran away.”

“Jeeez, Kel, you really took this confession thing seriously.”

“Yeah, yeah. They say confession is good for the soul, right?”

“Depends who you’re confessing to. Don’t go getting all caught up in this mumbo jumbo and forget why we’re here.”

Kelly’s ready capitulation concerned Claudia. She worried that despite the difference in their ages, the same lousy upbringing as Erin had left her best friend as vulnerable as her younger sister.

“Brothers and sisters.” Harold Stedman’s deep voice silenced the conversations that had started up as the cards were passed back to the ushers. “We’ve collected the confessions and now the ushers are going to pick out a few for us to share.”

A swell of anxious chatter rippled through the room. Brother Harold held up his hands, smiling in a way that jarred in the face of the audience’s discomfort.

“Please, brothers and sisters, you have nothing to fear. The first step to forgiveness is public confession of one’s sins. If there is anyone here who is afraid to expose himself or herself to the Lord God, let him or her leave now.”

Claudia turned around, curious to see whether anyone would accept Stedman’s invitation to leave. Three rows back, a man got to his feet. She could hear him muttering as he pushed his way to the aisle, caught the words
Looney Tunes.
He stalked out of the ballroom, letting the doors bang shut behind him. Several others rose, taking courage from his defection, and sheepishly trailed after him.

Harold Stedman leaned close to the microphone and said in a kind voice, “Go with God. We wish you no ill.”

“I don’t see him publicly confessing
his
sins,” Claudia whispered to Kelly, who just shrugged. She would like to have followed the fleeing runaways who hurried through the doors, but there was a certain fascination in staying to see what happened next. Like watching a ten-car pileup happen on the I-10, knowing you couldn’t stop it.

When the door had closed on the last one, Stedman waited a full minute, gazing over the audience. “Does anyone else fear to tell the truth? I sense that some of you are wavering in your faith. Please go now.”

A half dozen more got up and left. After the doors had closed once again, Harold repeated his question: “Is there anyone else who fears to tell the truth?” An expectant silence fell over the crowd, a collectively held breath. When he determined that no one else was going to get up and leave, he signaled to James Miller at the computer.

The ushers had gathered around the computer station and were rapidly sorting through the cards they had collected, selecting a few and handing them to Miller. Now Claudia understood why they needed the Elmo projector. The selected index cards could be placed directly on the sensor and projected onto the screen. Her heart raced a little as she hoped her card would not be selected.

The lights were dimmed again and one of the handwritten confessions was displayed on the screen. Before she began to read the words written on the index card, Claudia noted the smallish, neat copybook writing style; the conventional, not very confident small personal pronoun
I.
The handwriting told her that the person who had written the confession would not appreciate being put on public display. Reading the content, she felt mortified on the writer’s behalf.

The name “Karen Harrison” had been neatly signed at the bottom
.

Harold Stedman read the statement aloud. “Sister Harrison, I want you to come up here to the podium. Come up here and stand with me. Come on now, don’t be afraid. Do you believe the Lord has mercy and forgives you? Where are you, sister?”

A frumpy woman around thirty in an unattractive pink-and-white-striped shirt and elastic-waist pants rose slowly from her seat. Even under the lowered lights, the flame of embarrassment could be seen burning her face.

Claudia wouldn’t have thought her the type to be hankering after someone’s wife. But who could say what went on in someone else’s heart? That was something handwriting certainly could not reveal.

With an usher waiting to escort her to the stage, Karen Harrison inched her way to the aisle, shoulders slumped, head hung low.

This woman’s self-esteem must be the size of a peanut to allow herself to be so publicly humiliated. It seemed to Claudia that Harold Stedman was setting up those who had stayed in a way that would make it harder for them to leave. From what she knew of cult behavior, the more difficult and painful it was to join the group, the harder it was for a member to leave.

The TBL leader stepped away from the podium and went over to meet Karen Harrison as she approached the stage. She mounted the risers slowly, as if her feet were nailed to the steps. As she reached the top step, Stedman reached out and took her hands in his. He drew her the rest of the way to the stage with a smile that would melt butter. “There, now, sister. You’ve opened up your soul and the Lord God loves you for that. A wise man said, ‘The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works
.
’ Do you repent of your evil works, sister?”

Karen Harrison nodded in silence and began to weep into her hands.

“This is starting to make me feel sick,” Kelly whispered. “Now I wish I hadn’t written what I did.”

Claudia leaned close to her ear. “It’s the beginning of breaking her down. That’s how these people operate.”

Stedman led the sobbing woman to a chair behind him on the stage and sat her down, already signaling James Miller to project the next confession before he returned to the podium.

Claudia studied the writing on the screen. The plain printed handwriting was poorly developed, which could mean that the writer was not educated or that he was emotionally stunted.

When Harold Stedman called for the writer of the statement, a man of middle age stood right up and marched up to the stage, his head held high. Letting everyone know by his demeanor that he wasn’t going to follow the humble lead of Karen Harrison.

As the man was welcomed to the stage and commended for his courage, Claudia found her attention wandering again. She was more interested in what the next handwriting might reveal. When it came, the sadness and guilt were evident in the downhill direction that the baseline took.

A man with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail joined the others on stage. Now Karen Harrison could hide behind the two men, her own confession already forgotten in the abasement of those who followed.

A few more statements projected misery of varying strengths in black and white on the big screen. Claudia felt a wave of relief that neither hers nor Kelly’s were among those chosen for display.

Small, intense-looking writing with many sharp angles. The writer meant what he said.

That one had large, circular forms with hooks in the
o
’s and
a
’s and claw forms on the lowercase
d
’s. “She might be ready to confess; she might even feel guilty, but she’s about as dishonest as they come,” Claudia said in an undertone.

Kelly cupped her hand beside her mouth. “He’d better not pick mine.”

“You and everyone else are thinking the same thing. Hey, there’s another one who’s lying through his teeth.”

The latest index card read:

“Where’s the lie?”

“See where it says ‘I’m embarrassed.’ The
I’m
turns to the left and there’s a big space before he wrote
embarrassed.
He was conflicted about what he was writing because it’s a lie.”

Kelly gave her an admiring grin. “Claudia Rose, you are one dangerous woman.”

 

After gathering the small crowd of penitents on the stage Harold Stedman spoke for a few minutes about how they could join the Temple of Brighter Light and be saved from their sins. Finally, he said a prayer in closing.

After the final Amen, Magdalena turned to them, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. “So, what did you think? Isn’t Brother Stedman wonderful? I never get tired of hearing him speak.”

Claudia drew a mental comparison between Magda and Annabelle Giordano, the fourteen-year-old girl who had recently stayed at her home for a few months while her father was fighting for custody. Magda, who was in her late teens, seemed years younger than Annabelle. There was something very 1950s about her manner and speech. Kelly’s “Stepfordized” comment came back to her. It seemed an apt description.

She started to reply to Magdalena, but was interrupted by the arrival of one of the TBL ushers. He looked right at Claudia. “Would you sisters come with me, please?”

 

 

 

“Come with you where?” Kelly demanded. “And why should we?”

Claudia watched her with admiration. When she stepped into attorney mode, Kelly seemed to grow several inches taller.

The usher said, “Brother Stedman asked me to come and get you. He’s resting backstage. He’d like to meet you.”

“Why would he want to meet us?” Kelly asked again. It was a good question and Claudia asked herself what they might have done to inadvertently draw attention to themselves.

The usher gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry, sister, I’m just the messenger. Brother will have to tell you himself.”

Seeing Magdalena’s eyes widen in surprise, Claudia realized that this invitation was not a common occurrence. It occurred to her that meeting Harold Stedman could be a very good thing. They had missed the opportunity to talk to James Miller, but now were being offered the possibility of learning something from the TBL leader himself.

 

Claudia and Kelly followed the usher onto the stage and behind the curtains. Harold Stedman was seated at a folding card table in his shirtsleeves, eyes closed, his face slack with exhaustion. He had opened his shirt collar and loosened the knot of his tie. At their approach he opened his eyes and immediately rose and came around the table, extending his hands to welcome them.