Paper Moon (13 page)

Feeling akin to a salmon swimming upstream, Blaine pushed as politely as possible through the crowd until he caught up with Caroline at the white stone entrance outside. She pointed to where Annie cradled Karen in her arms near a statue of some saint.

“Is she sick?” he asked.

Caroline took the lead. “Don't know,” she called over her shoulder. “She just bolted past us, crying. I couldn't keep up, but Annie was on her heels.”

Crying?
What was wrong now? Once again all that he felt was helplessness.

He caught up with the girls and found Karen sobbing on Annie's shoulder, her face buried. Her friend looked from Caroline to Blaine, her expression a plea for help.

“Kitten, what is it?” Blaine pulled Karen away from Annie and turned his daughter with a firm but gentle hand. “Are you sick?”

Karen shook her head, her gaze fixed on her sneakers.

“Karen, we can't help you if you won't tell us what is wrong,”

Caroline coaxed.

“G . . . God made me leave.”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“Did someone say something to you?” Blaine chimed in. He hadn't heard anything above the reverence in the cathedral. He'd been so caught up in . . . what?

Karen shook her head. “It h . . . hurt, Daddy.” Beating her chest with fisted hands, the girl hiccuped. “I . . .
hic
. . . I c . . . couldn't b . . . breathe.”

“Should I get medical help?” Blaine looked from his distraught daughter to Caroline. He didn't want to entertain the idea that it was Karen's heart, or something worse, but— “I'm n . . . not sick!” Karen threw herself against him. “Just h . . . hold me, Daddy.”

Hold me, Daddy.
How he'd missed those three words. But what once made him feel so big and capable, now rendered him small and helpless. He swallowed hard, tensing his muscles against the tremble rolling through his body.

God.
The directionless prayer of frustration emerged, stemming more from basic need than conscious faith. The Holy Spirit's past record with such petitions for Ellie was hardly rock solid.

Wrapping his arms tightly around her, Blaine bent his head over his child. “Okay, Kitten. It's okay.”

He felt her tears soak his shirt, absorbed her anguished sobs against his chest, just as he had in days gone by when she'd brought a favorite broken toy to him. Except this time, she was broken.

And he was at a loss to fix her.

“Maybe we should go,” Caroline told her daughter softly.

“N . . . no, Miz C.” Karen reached out from the cocoon of Blaine's embrace. She seemed as stricken by the notion of losing Caroline's comforting presence as Blaine's.

“Please stay,” he said softly.

Caroline wasn't certain if Blaine voiced the plea or if she'd heard his desperate spirit seek her own. All she knew was that she was needed, here and now, by father and daughter.
God, give me the
right words of wisdom and assurance.

“Annie,” she said, “please catch up with the group and tell Hector that the crowded church made Karen queasy and that we'll meet him at the bus on time.”

“Sure, Mom.” Before leaving, Annie squeezed Karen's arm.

“Catch you later. It's going to be okay. Mom's here.”

The words hung like a gold medallion around Caroline's heart, but there was no time to bask in her daughter's spontaneous accolade. As she turned from Annie's retreat to the Madisons, two rambunctious boys raced by, knocking Caroline's handbag off her shoulder and stepping on Karen's heel in the process.

“Ow!” Karen pushed against her father even more.

Blaine shouted
“Calmate!”
after the boys, but they disappeared without any evidence of “calming down.”

Hauling her purse strap back into place, Caroline glanced around the paved area. There had to be somewhere they could talk without being run down by the inflowing tide of sightseers and worshippers.

A few yards away, a senior-citizens group mustered under a cypress tree, emptying the seating next to its gnarled, twisted trunk.

“Why don't we get out of this beating sun and go over to that bench God just cleared for us?”

“What?”

At Blaine's blank expression, she pointed to the bench.

Taking measured steps, Blaine ushered the girl to the shaded spot, as though to rush might tip the frail balance of his daughter's distress. When Karen sat down, Caroline dug out a bottle of water from her handbag and handed it to her.

“Here. You've leaked so much water, I think we need to replace it before you dehydrate.”

The girl grinned from the crook of her father's arm and took the water with a shaky “Thanks.”

“Just take some deep breaths,” Blaine advised as she handed the water back to Caroline. “Is your chest still hurting?”

Karen shook her head. “It felt like God was squishing my heart with His hands,” she said in a rush. “L . . . like, if I didn't leave right then, He was going to kill me in front of all those people.”

“Honey, what makes you think God would do such a thing?”

An overwhelming empathy seized Caroline as she pieced together what the child was talking about. Yes, she knew. After Frank left, rebellion and anger had had their way with her. She'd returned to church, ready to give them to God. It had felt as though someone were ripping her soul out with bare hands, ready to dash it on the floor of the church, expose it for all its shame to the people surrounding her. Caroline had wanted to run, to escape the disgust God surely felt for her.

Except that now, she knew it hadn't been God shoving her away, but trying to take her guilt from her beleaguered heart. But Karen was just a baby— “B . . . because I hate Him,” Karen blurted out. “He can grow roses in December and paint cloths for Indians. He did all kinds of miracle stuff for everyone but Mom.” She sniffed in defiance, but the tremor of her chin betrayed her pained, fragile state. “Why did He let her die?”

The age-old question echoed in Caroline's mind as she glanced over Karen's head at Blaine. She didn't know the circumstances, and even if she did— “Wh . . . why couldn't we m . . . make her stop drinking?” Karen sniffed. “I begged her to. I . . . I emptied her bottles when I could f . . . find them.”

“We tried counseling, rehabilitation centers . . .” Blaine trailed off, lost in the hopelessness of the past—a past that clearly still haunted him.

“She d . . . died in a car crash.” Karen punctuated her memory with a shaky breath.

“I'm so sorry,” Caroline said.

“It was so stupid!” Vehemence stilled the tremor in the girl's voice.

Heavenly Father, what can I say to ease this child's pain, to open her
eyes to Your love?

“Kitten, there are a lot of things we see as stupid that we won't understand until we get to ask God ourselves.” Blaine's reply was strained, as though the steel cord binding his feelings might give way, should one thread unravel. Or did his heart echo Karen's disillusionment?

“But I need to know
now.”

Caroline's mind raced, prayer and thought running nip and tuck as she spoke. “God loves us so much, Karen, that He gives us the choice to do what is right or wrong. And when we make bad choices, we have to face the consequences of those choices in one way or another.”

“So He killed her?”

Now two anguished gazes waited, expectant, hungry for relief
.

“God didn't kill your mother, little one, any more than He made my husband leave me for someone brighter and prettier and younger than I. God doesn't do bad things to us. We do them to ourselves and to each other when we don't know or listen to His Word.”

God, I'm sounding too much like a preacher, when she needs a
comforter.

“But no matter what happens as a result of our human weakness and mistakes, God will take the bad and turn it into something good.” Caroline hesitated, reluctant to share the pain of Frank's rejection in front of Blaine.

But what if others hadn't shared their disappointments in life with
her, and told her how God turned them into blessings?
She'd have been lost, that's what. Misery loves company, needs empathy.

“And we'll be stronger for it, so that we can reach out and help others who know the same pain and disappointment. I lost the man I loved, but had that not happened, I'd never have gotten my degree or built my school. I wouldn't be able to share God's love with you today. All we have to do is give God time to shine His light on our darkness and disappointment.”

“But He let her die.” The plea in the girl's voice told Caroline that Karen wanted to believe her.

“He let His Son die too, and Jesus had made no bad choices at all. But His death and sacrifice saved all of us. That's how much God loves us.” Caroline licked her lips, biding time until she could sort the sudden rush of words springing to her mind. “Sometimes God looks away, just as He did when His Son suffered so on the cross, so that others might be saved.”

“
You
could have been in the car with her.” Blaine pressed his lips to a bloodless line and swallowed. Tucking Karen's head under his chin, he closed tortured eyes. “I don't know what I'd do without you, Kitten.”

Caroline wanted to hug them both, to draw them to her bosom as the Father would. Instead, she prayed they'd feel His arms encircling them in the midst of their despair.

Karen tightened her thin arms around Blaine. “I miss her, Daddy. Why wouldn't she stop? D . . . didn't she love us?”

“She loved us very much, Kitten,” Blaine whispered against the dark crown of his daughter's head. “Maybe God knew Mommy was too sick to quit on her own and took her home to keep her from hurting herself and others anymore.”

From one Father's lips to another's.
Letting go and letting God take over, Caroline focused on a pigeon that had landed in front of them. It walked first this way, then that, head bobbing in search of food. Like the three of them, she thought, searching for answers— food for the soul.

“I'm going to get some cotton candy,” she announced, upon spotting a vendor selling the sticky rainbow-colored clouds of sugar. “Can I get either of you something? A soda, maybe?”

“Thanks, but I'm fine,” Blaine said. “You've already given us more than I can ever thank you for.” The glow of his dark gaze blessed Caroline from toe tip to behatted top. “We'll hold your seat.”

Leaving the father and daughter to feed their spirits in God's presence, Caroline made her way toward the cotton candy maker's cart with a heart spun as light and bright as his tempting wares.

She made the purchase and started back. Karen saw her coming and jumped up to run toward her, but Blaine remained seated, looking drained.

“Guess what, Miz C?”

Caroline extended the paper cone to her. “What?”

“You know the pain I had in my chest?”

“Yes.” Caroline couldn't help the slightly ironic tone in her voice. They'd just agonized over it for what felt like hours, and now Karen was back to her bouncy self, as though nothing had happened. Her eyes were still a little red, but the splotches on her face had already faded.

Ah, the resilience of youth,
Caroline mused with no small envy.

“Well, I figured out what it was.” She pinched off a piece of candy and popped it into her mouth. “It
was
God squeezing me,”

Karen told her, “but He wasn't doing it to hurt me. He was digging out my anger.”

Just as He'd dug out Caroline's shame and countless other concerns that caused His children pain.

“Like a splinter,” the girl explained, mistaking no reply for ignorance. “You gotta take it out before it heals. Get it?”

“Got it.” Caroline smiled from the inside out.
From the mouths of
babes.
Linking her arm with her charge, she started to take a celebration bite of cotton candy when something splattered right in front of her face.

If Karen's appalled “Ee-eww!” wasn't enough to confirm Caroline's suspicion, Blaine's outright laugh was. There was no point in trying to identify the perpetrator. There were pigeons all over the place.

“Ya think somebody is trying to tell me something?” she wisecracked, depositing the spoiled candy in the trash bin next to the bench. “I mean, for most people, birds sing.”

CHAPTER
10