Lost in Dreams (16 page)

I didn’t realize how tense Rob’s news had made me until I noticed a spot of blood on my hand. I’d hugged myself so tight I jabbed a hole in my arm with a fingernail.

“‘So you’re not going to be able to come,’ Thomas told us. ‘Not tonight. Not anytime.’”

Graham didn’t seem so strange anymore. Not compared to this Thomas guy. If I’d thought Thomas would be an idiot not to welcome fellow Christian brothers and sisters, I had to wonder now if the man was even a Christian. Wasn’t that a job requirement for a chaplain? A Christian one, anyhow. Maybe I should have slapped myself for being so judgmental, but what was I supposed to think about a man who didn’t even talk the talk, much less walk the walk? Was he part of the local mission field, too?

“So what did you do?” Aleesha asked.

“We went back to Warden Jenkins. Our report didn’t surprise him. He told us he didn’t forewarn us because he wanted us to form our own opinions. Objective ones.”

“And your objective opinions are this chaplain guy is a creep?” Aleesha said. Her normal smile had morphed into a vicious frown. She wasn’t shy about expressing her opinions, and they were usually spot-on.

Rob smiled. “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but yes.” He rubbed his forehead as if trying to massage the next few words out of his brain. “There’s more to the story than this, but I’ve told you all I can. The warden has sworn us to secrecy.”

Aleesha, Jo, and I looked at one another before looking at Rob again.

“One more thing, though. The warden wants us to keep an eye on the interactions between Chaplain Thomas and the insiders.”

“What …?” Whoever said that spoke for all of us. “Don’t ask. We can’t tell you more than that.” I rolled my eyes.
Fine. If you can’t trust us to keep a secret, so be it
.

Aleesha caught my eye. I couldn’t tell what she was mouthing, but I couldn’t have missed her meaning:
Quit fretting. The warden trusts Mr. Rob and Mr. Scott to keep
his
secret
.

I sighed. She was right. She was almost always right, and it got so frustrating sometimes.

“Bottom line time,” Aleesha said. “We
are
going to the prison tonight?”

“I’m not,” Jo said in a flippant, almost boastful tone. “Graham asked me to help him with something.”

Rob narrowed his eyes and looked at her, but he didn’t say anything. Not to her specifically, that was.

“The Warden says we’re in. As long as he’s in charge and Chaplain Thomas works for him, all Christian groups are welcome. Our coming wouldn’t be so important, but not even the hostel’s sponsoring churches are geographically close enough to do a regular prison ministry at Red Cedar. We’ll be in the area for two weeks, and he plans to work us hard.”

“If you’ve had teams doing construction for several weeks,” Aleesha said, “why didn’t
they
have run-ins with the chaplain?”

“They were doing hard labor compared to you. Because their daily work wore them out so much, I didn’t feel I should ask them to do anything extra. I didn’t even bring up the idea of prison ministry.”

Hmm. Sounds like you want to make sure our trip here is worthwhile
.

“Besides that, they didn’t have the variety of abilities you four have.”

As scared as I’d been of visiting the prison, I couldn’t help cheering because God was more powerful than the chaplain’s best efforts to keep us away. That, plus we’d get to use our evangelistic skills.

Aleesha applauded, too. She and I were on the same page. As usual.

Rob started passing out papers. “The warden says you need to complete these visitor questionnaire forms before we get there tonight. It normally takes thirty days to get them approved, but he jumped through a number of hoops—I think he had to go through the big boss of the California prison system or maybe the governor himself—to get permission for us to come on such short notice. Without official preapproval.”

I gave him a questioning look when I noticed he didn’t start completing one of the forms. “Scott and I have already turned ours in.”

Oh.

“I don’t need—”

“You
do
need, Jo,” Rob broke in. “Before you work on your form, you and I are going to have a private conversation about your proposed plans.
If
I let you help Graham—don’t get your hopes up about that—tonight’s the
only
night you’ll do it. You’ll be with us every time we go to the prison, and you’ll ask me before attempting to schedule any change of activity.”

My word! I hadn’t heard Rob talk so tough since he threatened to send his own nephew Geoff home from Santa María for destroying the rock garden Anjelita and I had worked so hard on.

“Yes, sir.” Although Jo’s response sounded humble and contrite, I caught a hint of resentment Rob might have missed hearing. He didn’t know Jo the way I did.

I asked Dad for a pen and started filling in my form while Rob and Jo went into the living room to talk. Her face was scarlet when they came back in the kitchen, but she sat down without saying a word and reached for the pen I’d just finished using. As hard as she was bearing down with it, I was afraid she might dig a hole in Graham’s new wooden table.

Flashback time again. This time of an unharmonious mission team. I hoped Jo wouldn’t do more harm than good by participating in the service.

I
t was only 5:40 p.m., and we weren’t going to the prison for at least another thirty-five minutes. “Where are you going, sweetie?” Dad asked as I pulled on my down-filled jacket. I’d never needed anything that warm at home. I probably looked like a mouse wrapped in a king-sized quilt, but I’d bought a larger size than I normally wore so I’d have plenty of room to dress in layers.

I hugged him. I ate up his expressions of affection now, although I still couldn’t understand the timing of his transformation from a near-neutral dad to a terrific one. Surely Mom’s death hadn’t made him happy.

Especially considering what Aleesha had told me about his feelings of guilt. But I assumed he was over that. I had more of a reason to feel guilty than he did. I had no doubt that I’d caused the accident, but he couldn’t be equally positive about his ability to prevent it.

“Going for a little walk,” I said. “You want some company?”

I hated to turn him down, but I needed some me-time. “Dad, I’d love for you to come, but I … well, I need to do some praying.”

“We can pray together,” he said. Oh, did he want to come with me! I felt twice as bad as before. “We can prayer-walk Red Cedar Lane if you like.”

Great idea. Although I’d heard about prayer-walking, I’d never tried it. But now wasn’t the time to start. Not with a partner, anyhow.

“Tomorrow evening, okay?” How could I make things

clear without hurting his feelings? “I need some private prayer time now.”

I felt like I’d just kicked a gaping hole in some little kid’s intricate sand castle, but Dad pretended to understand. I hugged him again.

“Great idea about Red Cedar Lane, though. That should be a safer place to walk at night than that dark, twisty two-lane road we took to get here.”

He smiled.

“Besides, if I’m not back by the time to go, you can pick me up along the way.”

“You have a flashlight?” Rob said as he walked into the room. He must have caught the tail end of my talk with Dad.

“Some strange old man e-mailed us and told us to bring flashlights or else,” I said with a cackle. “I didn’t have the courage to face the ‘or else.’”

“Tell him the truth, Kim,” Dad goaded me playfully. “I made sure we had everything that was on Rob’s list. All you would have packed was jewelry and makeup.”

He winked at me, and I zipped and snapped my jacket as loudly as I could in protest. But when I giggled once and then chuckled, he gave me a curious look.

“Haven’t you ever wondered what I’d look like fat?” I asked. “I have.”

Dad, Rob, and Aleesha were still laughing their heads off when I stepped outside and turned on my flashlight.

The temperature had already dropped—I could see my breath—but my jacket felt wonderful. After looking both ways—I’d bet no cars had passed that way in hours—I crossed the highway and looked down the long, dark, lonely looking prison road.
Red Cedar Lane
sounded too elegant to be the entranceway to a prison complex.

As I commenced my walk—actually more of a casual

stroll—I started thinking about Jo, Aleesha, Graham, and the prison ministry and wondering why our small team had so many relational problems. I’d once taken a short, introductory sociology class as an elective, and I still remembered the basics of an activity that involved drawing solid lines connecting individuals to the members of the group they felt the most comfortable with. And dotted lines for less desirable relationships.

I’d try something like that in my head. My version wouldn’t be very scientific, though. Done correctly, the information should come from careful, unbiased observations made over a number of months. I’d have to base mine on limited—and not necessarily objective—observations.

That, and woman’s intuition—and mine hadn’t finished maturing yet.

A solid line would link me to Dad, Aleesha, and Rob since our relationships were excellent, but my line to Jo … That link wasn’t as strong as it could be. My link to Graham didn’t even merit a line, no matter how I hoped that would change.

Dad seemed to link equally well to Rob, Aleesha, and me. I couldn’t tell how he related to Jo. I hadn’t seen him make any effort to speak to Graham.

Rob related well to everyone but Jo. He related to Graham better than anyone else did. And Graham related only to Rob.

Or was that entirely accurate? If Graham had asked for Jo’s help when he wouldn’t say boo to the rest of us girls, maybe they at least had a dotted-line relationship.

Jo seemed to have a dotted line with both Aleesha and me. A limited comfort level with Aleesha made sense, but I couldn’t understand why Jo and I hadn’t been closer on this trip. I thought we’d reestablished a good relationship before coming, but something had changed.

And even before Rob lectured her earlier, she seemed

unable or unwilling to get close to him. Did she even have a dotted-line relationship with him? I doubted it.

My analysis was driving me nuts and getting me nowhere. Besides that, I’d told Dad I wanted to pray, and that’s what I needed to do. I’d probably walked halfway from the two-lane road to the prison buildings by now, but I still had time. So I started praying.

Aloud. Talking as if another human being was listening helped me experience a greater sense of God’s presence. After all, Jesus was both God and human.

“Lord, thank You for this crisp, cool night and all the stars I can see without being able to count them. The lights back home are so bright I can’t see them this clearly. Thanks for the reminder that it’s Your world, Your universe, and You made it perfect, even if mankind messed it up by sinning. Somebody eventually puts a ding in the new car, but Adam and Eve totaled it before it even left the dealership.

“This mission trip is Yours, too. You called us here to complete the Welcoming Arms Hostel, but I believe You expect more from us than that. I don’t have to tell You that our team isn’t pulling together the way it should. I don’t know what the problem is.

“You know, though.

“Maybe I’m not supposed to know. Or even to try to figure it out. Am I supposed to just do my part and leave the rest to You? I’d love to do that, but I need Your help to quit fretting about our problems. I can’t do that on my own.

“And why do I have such an unsettled feeling about Jo? I was thrilled she could come, and her enthusiasm seemed genuine at the time. Yet now that she’s away from home, she’s a different person. I don’t get it. She isn’t homesick, is she, Lord? Is it something that simple?

“I don’t recall her ever being away from home very often—not without her parents, that is—and that was only for local mission trips. Like to the beach. Come to think of it, she was on the phone with her mother every time I turned around. I’ve seen her get out her cell phone here, but I haven’t heard her talking on it.

“Lord, hold on a second …” I pulled my phone from my purse and powered it on. “Whoopsy doodle! No bars. My phone can’t find a network to connect to. Is that part of Your plan for these beautiful mountains of Yours—no cell phone coverage? If Jo’s homesick and can’t call home … is that why she’s acting so strange? Do You want me to talk with her about that?

“You also know that Graham O’Reilly is another of my concerns. I know, I’ve been unfairly critical of him. Mostly because I can’t figure him out. The reason doesn’t matter, though. I’m just sorry about it, and I ask Your forgiveness. I’d ask his forgiveness, too, if he knew how I’ve felt. I guess he has problems, too, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to talk with him.

“Ha! How right You are, Lord. I don’t know if he’ll ever be willing and able to talk with me, either. About anything. But if he does, please open my heart. Let me be receptive, and please keep me from being judgmental.”

I stopped walking and leaned against the split-rail wooden fence that ran parallel to Red Cedar Lane.

“Speaking of having an open heart and not being judgmental—You know what I want to talk to You about next, don’t You, Lord? Please strengthen me and soften my heart and spirit as we do this service tonight. You know how terrified I’ve been today. Off and on. Part of it’s my fear of the unknown. I experienced some of that before leaving for Mexico, but You’re the only one I ever told about it.

“This fear is different, though. These insiders are
men
.

They probably haven’t been near a woman in years. And some of them may not be petty thieves or white-collar criminals. They may be guilty of violent crimes, and some of them may be lifers.

“You know the figures Rob told me this afternoon. The insiders are almost evenly divided between black and white, with a much smaller number of Latinos, Asians, and American Indians. He didn’t think the warden would permit anyone from death row to participate in our services, but he wasn’t sure.