Lost in Dreams (18 page)

criminal skills, but he leaves with immeasurably more. If that fact weren’t so tragic, referring to their interaction as cross-training might be amusing.”

I shook my head in disbelief. He’d given me more to think and pray about than he probably realized.

“You’ve all read the rules,” he said before turning to head back to his office. “Please obey them.”

Rules? Had I read any? I couldn’t remember even one of them.

The bored-looking matron who patted me down giggled when she discovered that my chain-link belt was the culprit that had set the metal detector off.

“I’m supposed to make you take that off, baby,” she said after touching it. “You know, so I can make sure it’s just a belt. But since you’re friends with Mr. Larry, I think I’ll skip that step.”

I wondered what kind of disciplinary action a breach of procedure like that could result in. But I sure wasn’t going to be the one to tell on her.

“Thank goodness,” I told her. “I need it. My hips aren’t big enough to hold these jeans up, and I’d prefer not to lose them … especially here.”

The matron looked uncertain about whether to laugh or not.

“I told you you’re skinny,” Aleesha said. She knew I didn’t mind the teasing nearly as much as I minded being skinny.

The matron took her cue from Aleesha and guffawed in a most unrefined way, one that reminded me of Sandra Bullock’s Miss Congeniality snort.

“I can do that better,” Aleesha whispered in my ear. “Great actor that I am.”

“But this woman’s not acting,” I whispered back. “I’m afraid she really laughs that way.”

About that time, a humorless-looking man of fifty swaggered in as if the prison belonged to him. Padded with so much fat that he didn’t appear to need outerwear, he reminded me of a bear that someone had awakened prematurely from a pleasant state of hibernation.

“Greetings, Rev. Thomas,” the matron said in a pleasant, cheery voice. When the chaplain failed to acknowledge or return her greeting, she made a vulgar gesture as soon as he turned his back. I felt like cheering her—the man had been
so
rude—even though I would never have made such a gesture myself.

“You’re the five outsiders Jenkins interrupted my work about, huh?” Good thing the matron had addressed him by name since he hadn’t bothered to introduce himself. Like his attitude wasn’t enough of an introduction.

None of us bothered to respond to his warm, friendly greeting. I wondered if he’d always been that unloving. Maybe dealing with insiders for so many years had eroded his optimism. I could almost understand that.

But why hadn’t he let God renew him—so he could once again rise on wings like eagles and fly? Or had he quit “waiting upon the Lord” altogether?

He gave each of us a lengthy once-over—especially us girls—accompanied by a frown that would have permanently shriveled every impossible-to-kill weed in my backyard. He didn’t make any effort to shake hands or to welcome us. We were evidently one more cross he’d been forced to bear. An unavoidable interruption to his busy evening.

“I’m Rob White. We’re here to conduct a worship service.”

The chaplain didn’t waste time with common courtesies. “I’ve already told you no. Why did you bother coming back? You can’t come in, and that’s final.”

Although Rob had warned us about this guy’s attitude, I

thought he’d been exaggerating. He hadn’t been.

“Sir,” Rob said in his most diplomatic tone of voice, “Warden Jenkins told us we
can
come in. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without his permission.”

“I don’t care how you got here. You’ve got to turn around and leave.”

Man! He wasn’t budging an inch. Not a centimeter, a millimeter, or a hairbreadth.

I looked at Rob. Steam might not have been rising from his ears, but I suspected he was losing some of his cool. I’d already lost all of mine, and I could barely keep from saying something I knew I’d regret. This was definitely a time to defer to the wisdom of my elders.

Rob must have sensed my anger, though. He held his right palm the way he might have hand-signaled an obedience-trained dog to stay. I bit my tongue so hard it would probably be sore for days after that.

“Ma’am,” Rob addressed the matron, “would you please call Larry Jenkins and tell him Rob White and his group need some help getting in?”

She glanced at the chaplain, who looked like a balloon that might explode at any second. Then she said, “Gladly,” and punched in a couple of numbers on her phone. She didn’t do a very good job of hiding her smirk.

Frankly, neither did I.

A few minutes later, we stood just outside the final gate. The guard who’d accompanied us from our security check looked at our visitor badges once more and wrote down the numbers.

“Inside,” he yelled as loudly as if he weren’t speaking into an intercom. His no-nonsense voice reminded me of the bailiff’s
“All rise!”
on courtroom TV shows.

A moment later, the gate swung open. He nodded toward a short inner passageway. Not until the heavy steel gate clanked shut behind us did I notice that we had to pass through an inner gate, too.

While I didn’t panic, I couldn’t miss the fact that we were isolated from both the inside and the outside. For now—hopefully a very brief now—we were neither fish nor fowl. We weren’t “in” prison, but we weren’t free, either. We couldn’t go any farther unless someone opened the inside gate, yet we couldn’t change our minds and return the way we’d come unless someone bellowed, “Outside!” and reopened the outer gate.

I had entered the portal to a foreign world, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Maybe the prospect of involuntary confinement between the two doors should have frightened me more than it did. Chaplain Thomas would have preferred keeping us at that distance, but the warden had demonstrated his power over Chaplain Thomas, and that made me feel safe.

Safer, anyhow.

At orientation for the Mexican mission trip, I’d felt trapped by the hostility of the other kids and to some extent by Rob and Charlie’s initial questioning of my irresponsibility. But God had liberated me from that feeling, and I was counting on Him to do the same thing now.

W
ow!” I said when we got back in the van two hours later. What else could I say? Our visit to Red Cedar couldn’t have been the more complete opposite of what I’d dreaded. I didn’t want to leave, and I could hardly wait to come back the next night.

From the excited buzzing that filled the van, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

“They’re such spirited singers,” Aleesha said. “That skinny, bald fellow hit some of the lowest notes I’ve ever heard anyone sing.”

“And what about that big guy with a voice like a woman’s?” I said. “If that was falsetto, it was the best I’ve ever heard. So sweet and pure.”

“Oh,” Jo said, “I talked to him after the service. They call him Hi because of his voice, but he spells it H-i like the greeting.” “Huh?” I said.

“Not huh,” Jo said, laughing. “Hi. And you’re right. That wasn’t falsetto. Hi is a countertenor—a man who sings naturally in a woman’s range. He told me he had a lot of voice training in college.”

“You can tell,” Aleesha said. “Even I can’t sing that well.”

“And that’s saying something, huh, girl?” I poked her on the arm. “But college? How’d somebody like him end up here, anyhow?”

“The same way all of the insiders did,” Jo said. “He broke the law. He didn’t say what he’d done, and I didn’t ask.” “But Hi
is
a Christian, right?” I said.

“Since he was twelve. I did ask that.”

“And he still did something
illegal
?” I’d naively assumed that Christians didn’t become lawbreakers and that the worshippers at Red Cedar had all come to know Jesus after being locked up.

“‘Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone,’” Aleesha quoted. “Every one of us is capable of breaking the law if we give in to a sufficiently serious temptation or let our guard down for even one brief second at the wrong time. The most sincere repentance won’t erase the damage, whether our activity has been illegal or not. Neither will it free us from the appropriate punishment.”

At the mention of punishment, my stomach jolted big-time. While I’d tried not dwelling on the way my mom’s death made me feel, I could never escape the feeling of culpability for long. Aleesha had described my situation too well. I’d given in to the temptation to try calling Mom instead of being patient, and no amount of regret on my part was going to bring her back. I couldn’t imagine ever being free from guilt over that.

“You girls have made some mature observations,” Dad said. “I’m proud of you.”

“Me, too,” Rob said. “Aleesha, I knew you were a good singer, but you’re a great preacher, too.”

At first, I thought he’d referred to her monologue as Mary the mother of Jesus, but then I caught on that he was talking about what she’d said about Christians and criminals.

“Kimmy, I’ve never heard you sing before, but you’re terrific. You picked just the right hymns, too.”

“You can thank Aleesha for that,” I said, trying to hide my frustration. “Every time I opened my hymnal to something
I
liked, she leaned over and said, ‘They won’t know that one.’ But if you want to praise something I
did
do, I came up with

the idea of asking for requests.”

Aleesha hooted. “Girl, you and the insiders have different tastes for sure. But they loved your a capella solos.”

“Yours, too.”

“I hate to interrupt this meeting of the mutual admiration society,” Dad said with a chuckle, “but how do you think my talk went over? I didn’t notice anyone asking to go back to his cell while I was speaking …”

“I doubt they had that option,” Rob said before anyone could answer Dad’s question. Although the darkness hid Rob’s face, we couldn’t have missed the smile in his voice.

“Mr. Scott,” Aleesha said. She sounded more wound up than usual, and that was saying a lot. “That talk of yours was something else. I watched those insiders while you preached, uh, delivered your meditation, and nobody looked bored or restless.”

“Aleesha’s right,” Jo said. “They nodded in agreement—”

“And they
amen
ed all over the place,” I said.

“Many of them had tears in their eyes at one part of your message or another.”

“And didn’t all ten of them respond to your invitation?” Rob said.

“They wanted to rededicate their lives,” Dad said. “I was thankful for that, but I wish someone had made a first-time profession of faith.”

I wasn’t used to hearing my dad sound disappointed. I’d never thought of him as a potential failure. Or as someone who’d ever need his confidence bolstered. I still had so much to learn about him.

“Maybe nobody needed salvation.” Aleesha’s comment seemed to help Dad a little, but still …

“You wait,” Rob said. “Now that those ten know what we’re doing, I’ll bet we have twice as many men tomorrow

night. I have a feeling communication is better among the insiders than among the staff. At least the insiders don’t have an official bureaucracy to hamper them.” Laughter filled the van.

“Jo,” Aleesha said, “you speak Spanish pretty well, don’t you?”

“I took it from eighth grade all the way through twelfth.”

“She’s great,” I said. “If we’d had her in Santa María, I wouldn’t have had to read the Gospel of Lucas.”

Rob and Aleesha knew I wasn’t serious. The trip probably wouldn’t have been nearly as successful if Jo had read to the villagers instead of someone who didn’t know how to pronounce Spanish. My ignorance had generated ever-increasing interest as various villagers taught me to pronounce their heart language correctly.

“Aleesha,” Jo said, “why did you ask about my Spanish?”

“I was talking to one fellow who told me about a friend who’d wanted to come to the service. His English is pretty poor, though, and he was afraid he wouldn’t understand much of what was going on. He’s very shy because of that.”

“Tell him to bring his friend,” I said. “Jo will make sure he gets the full benefit of our services, won’t you, Jo?”

“Please. I’ll do my best.”

“Sorry, but I can’t,” Aleesha said. I had a feeling she had a tease up her sleeve, but Jo didn’t know her well enough yet to recognize the possibility.

“No …?” Jo couldn’t have sounded much more disappointed.

Aleesha spoke in her most serious voice. “I can’t.” Then she lightened up and giggled. “I already have.”

I couldn’t see what happened, but from the “ouch” I heard from Aleesha’s side of the seat, Jo must have given her a playful thump.

No one spoke for a while, and my mind went back to

Aleesha’s comment about crime and punishment. God had forgiven me for my mom’s death. I believed that with all my heart and soul. But how could I forgive myself?

In Santa María, I’d been concerned about Geoff’s inability to forgive himself for his sins. What I couldn’t remember was how he finally conquered that problem. I wasn’t sure exactly when his self-forgiveness occurred. Not unless …

Could it have happened that last night when he came and apologized? Had my spoken forgiveness been the thing that freed him?

Oh, great. My stomach started turning inside out at the realization I was in desperate need of the one thing I couldn’t have.

Mom’s forgiveness.

K
im? Kim!” Jo was shaking me like an apple tree she wanted to get every last piece of fruit down from. I rolled over on her hand without realizing it, and she jerked it out again as quickly as she could. Aleesha grabbed the flashlight from Jo’s other hand and beamed it away from my eyes. “Kim, are you okay?”

Jo, have you always been this stubborn and persistent?
I yawned in her face with middle-of-the-night breath. “Trying to … wake up.”

I don’t know if she understood my mumbling or not, but I desperately needed to finish waking up. This nightmare had been the worst one yet, and it still had me trembling. Along with Jo’s efforts to wake me.

“Kim, speak to me. What’s wrong?” Jo wasn’t giving up. “Were you having a bad dream or what?”