Leah’s expression must have shown the shock wave such a statement caused.
Nora gave a mirthless chuckle. “Yep, that’s what I said. I found God here, Leah. I found God and he gave me peace. Drop a kyte for the chaplain. God can help you too—I know it.”
“I told you I’ve got no use for God,” Leah said.
“You might not always feel that way,” Nora said. “And for sure you’ll never be free of what’s dogging you until you let it go.” She turned and trotted back to the game, leaving Leah standing, fuming, and hating the fact that wherever she turned, someone seemed to throw God in her face.
Clint Tanner popped into her head. Saint Tanner, the good guy who’d helped her during the darkest time of her life. He’d made her so angry with his prayers. She tried to drum up that same anger, tried to force the tears away with anger, but she couldn’t. A part of her realized she was exhausted from holding on to all of her bitterness.
Would talking to a chaplain really help?
The thought kept her up that night. Before she fell into a fitful sleep, Leah decided maybe it would. The chaplain would be someone she could vent to. Since she knew from personal experience that God did not answer prayers, that he heard nothing, maybe it would be helpful to talk to someone who could hear. She didn’t expect any answers; she just hoped that venting would help her feel better.
The next day she followed Nora’s suggestion. A few days after that, a guard escorted her to the chaplain’s office. They’d barely left her cell when she began to get cold feet.
Can I really vent to a total stranger?
“What’s the problem?” Hastings, the corrections officer who interacted most with Leah, asked when her gait slowed.
Leah looked at her. The woman always had a frown on her face. Not having the words to explain the feelings raging within her, Leah simply shook her head and kept walking.
When they reached his office, Chaplain Darrel was not at all what she was expecting. He stood to greet her, and Leah, at five foot seven, could look him right in the eye. With a craggy, well-worn visage and sandy-colored hair, he looked more like a weather-beaten cowboy than a chaplain. But then, what was a chaplain supposed to look like?
He offered her a chair next to his desk, and she sat while Hastings stepped out into the hall and closed the door.
“I hear you’re depressed,” he said without preamble, catching Leah off guard.
She wiped sweaty palms on her thighs. “Who told you that?”
“Your dad.”
Leah wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “You talked to my dad?”
“I have. I spoke at his church a couple of weeks ago. He introduced himself.”
“Oh, well, I guess you could say I’m depressed.” Leah fidgeted, looking around the small room. Wondering how to get out of the meeting.
“How’s that working out for you?”
“Huh?” Her gaze rested on the chaplain. Pale-blue eyes gazed back at her. There was no judgment in the gaze, but Leah had the eerie feeling he could see right through her, so she turned away from him, glancing toward the door.
“Where’s it getting you? You’re a young woman with a long life ahead of you. How’s being depressed and broody going to get you anywhere?”
Leah frowned, gave an exaggerated wave of her hand, then fixed her eyes on the clearly delusional man. “I’m not going anywhere. In case you forgot, I’m in prison for twenty-five years.”
His lips curved into a slight smile. “You’re breathing. Got two arms, two legs that work. Using prison as an excuse to check out is pretty weak.” Amusement played in his features and Leah got mad.
“Is this a joke to you? You think my situation is funny?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t. Your situation is serious. I think it’s strange that you choose to live in the past. Can’t get anywhere always looking in the rearview mirror. You need to turn your head around and move forward.”
Furious, Leah tensed and almost shot to her feet. “There is no forward for me. What is wrong with you?”
He didn’t flinch, just stayed where he was, gaze fixed on her. “There’s a lot ahead for you if you’ll open your eyes.”
“What, if I turn to God and prayer?” She spit the words out bitterly. “I’m done with this meeting.” Calling toward the door, “Ms. Hastings?”
“Turning away from God hasn’t done you much good.”
“He turned away from me! That’s why I’m here.” She held her hands out, palms up. “Look what your God did to me. I didn’t ask for any of this or do anything so horrible to deserve it.”
“I didn’t say you did. But if he’s my God, why do you blame him for your troubles? And can you honestly say you have no responsibility for anything that has happened to you?”
“Is that what you and your God do? Blame the victim?”
“It’s not about blame. It’s about breaking free of self-pity and taking an honest look at your circumstances so you can move forward.”
For a minute Leah was speechless. But the pain and unfairness of her situation provided the words to fire back at the chaplain. “He’s a vindictive God! He lets evil people prosper and punishes innocent people like me for fun.”
“I don’t believe that, and I’ll bet you don’t either, really. God is good all the time; all the time God is good. His message to you is one of hope, even here—especially here—if you’ll listen.”
Anger boiled and she stood at the same time Hastings opened the door. “Everything okay?” the woman asked.
“We’re good,” the chaplain said, his calm posture never changing.
“I’m ready to go back to my cell.”
Later, on her bunk, arms wrapped around her knees, which were pulled up against her chest, Leah fumed anew about God and his betrayal. It brought back all the pain and loss from the day of the shooting. But under the anger and the pain, barely audible, was a voice that told her the chaplain was right. Focusing her anger at God had gotten her nowhere.
Drowning in a sea of bitterness and self-pity, she buried her head in the pillow, not wanting to let go of what had become a crutch. What hope could there ever be for her again? She’d lost everything. The world would never hold hope for Leah, not now and not in twenty-five years.
Would it?
CHAPTER 21
After her visit with the chaplain, which Leah felt was a waste of time, she worked hard to stay positive if for no other reason than to keep her dad happy. On his Saturday visit her father told her about the possibility of a new lawyer, someone Tanner had found.
“I waited a little bit to tell you. We had to be sure she could clear her calendar. Her specialty is domestic violence, and she’ll be here to see you as soon as she finishes up some cases she already has going.”
Leah smiled and tried to feel it. “That’s great, Dad. I look forward to meeting her.”
By Monday her doubts were already overtaking any hope she might have gotten from her father. The day started out like any other. Leah simply followed her routine, the one she had no choice but to follow. After lunch she grabbed a basketball and headed to the court. There were a lot of women milling around, a lot of normal conversations, when a strange sound assaulted her ears. It was like an animal’s strangled cry.
Leah turned and saw a woman, someone she’d noticed around but had not interacted with, come screaming around the corner straight for her. Trained to always look at a subject’s hands, Leah spotted the shank. Reflexively Leah pushed the ball toward the human missile.
The weapon came down into the ball, which popped with a whoosh of air. Leah squeezed it, trapping the knife, and twisted right, using the woman’s momentum to send her stumbling that way. In the process, she lost her balance and her grip on the ball. The woman fell back, grabbed the ball, and worked to free the knife.
Leah backed up to put distance between her and the crazy woman. Heart pumping, a cold, icy feeling injected straight to her bones: This person wanted to kill her.
>
Hastings jumped into the fray. Turning to Leah, she said something Leah didn’t hear because Leah was still focused on the threat.
In the split second Hastings directed her attention toward Leah, the guard didn’t catch how quickly the crazed woman repositioned herself. She’d yanked the shank from the ball. Leah saw her raise the weapon and run straight for Hastings, who stood between them. Leah knew the guard would get the shank right in the back.
She pushed her shoulder into Hastings, shoving her out of the way, and caught the frenzied woman’s wrist in both her hands as the weapon thrust toward her. Leah caught a look in the woman’s eyes. Her pupils were huge—she was high on something. She was also very strong.
Leah kept the shank from impacting her face by twisting sideways, but the woman overpowered her and jammed the weapon into her midsection. The sharp punch to her stomach took her breath away.
Hastings reentered the altercation and grabbed the attacker by the shoulders, pulling her away, causing the woman to yank the knife out of Leah. An alarm sounded and several more guards surrounded the knife-wielding woman, wrestling with her for control of the knife.
Leah looked down at the spreading blood on her shirt. Astonishingly, she felt no pain. She put both hands on the wound and fell back into a seated position. Blood oozed through her fingers and she felt queasy. Her vision faded, and the last images her eyes registered were Hastings and other guards turning to check on her after they subdued the crazed inmate. Then the world around her faded to black.
Leah woke up in the ambulance.
“She’s coming around.”
Leah turned toward her left and a paramedic smiled at her. “You’re in good hands. Relax and enjoy the ride.”
“I’m not dead?”
His smile widened. “No, and we have no plans to lose you.”
She relaxed slowly, remembering the crazed woman, a hundred questions running through her mind. Why being the biggest and brightest question. Why did that woman want to kill me?
Leah woke up in recovery after a short surgery where the doctor determined that the shank had not done any serious damage.
“You were lucky,” the surgeon told her. “You’ll need to take it easy, but the stitches are dissolvable and will take care of themselves. You’ll also be on a course of antibiotics for seven days.”
After an overnight stay, medics transported Leah back to the prison infirmary. There, she was allowed to phone her father and tell him what happened. It was the hardest phone call she’d ever had to make.
“You were stabbed?” The fear and anger in his voice made her breath catch in her throat and she fought tears.
“Yeah, but I’m okay. They took me to a hospital, and the doctor who treated me said I’m going to be fine.”
“But they told me there was no threat to you, that’s why you weren’t isolated. What is going on?”
“They don’t know why the woman did what she did.” She explained what she knew about the situation to him.
“I still can’t believe it. Leah—”
“I’m okay, Dad. Please don’t worry.”
“That’s like asking the sun not to shine.” He paused and Leah wasn’t sure what to say. Finally she heard him sigh. Then with resignation in his voice he said, “You are in God’s hands. I won’t forget that. I love you, sweet pea. Your new lawyer will get to you soon.”
“Dad, can you afford—?”
“She’s offered pro bono work, and she’s good. Cheer up—I’m truly hopeful now.”
“Okay, then I am as well. I love you too, Dad.”
“See you Saturday.”
CHAPTER 22
While Leah was in the infirmary, the police officer investigating the assault visited her.
“You don’t know this woman?” He showed Leah a picture of the woman, Tracy Dunham. She looked decidedly sane in her booking photo, not at all like the drug-crazed attacker who stabbed her.
“Sure, I saw her around, but we never spoke.” It was three days later. She was ready to be transferred back to her cell. Her midsection felt as if she’d done about a thousand too many crunches. But she was healing.
“She was arrested in Table Rock eighteen months ago for possession of meth. She failed to complete drug court and was sent here two months ago.”
“She’s still not familiar to me. Who arrested her?”
He gave her the names of two narcotics officers she knew, but the names did nothing to illuminate why the woman attacked her.
All Leah could do was shrug.
The investigator got up to leave. “Quick thinking to push Hastings out of the way,” he said. “I believe she might have been stabbed simply because she was in the way if you hadn’t shoved her.” He pointed. “You got stabbed instead.”
Leah shrugged. “I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
He started to say something, then stopped and left the infirmary.
When she was sent back to her cell, she soon discovered that the incident was the talk of the prison.
“I knew Tracy,” Nora said. “She had problems, but I’ve never seen her violent.”
“She sure had a head of steam that day,” Leah said. She’d relived the attack over and over every time she closed her eyes. While it seemed to her that it had gone on forever, she knew it had only been a matter of seconds. For her part, the attacker kept fighting after Leah fainted. Four guards struggled with her while everyone else was ordered back to their cells.
The aftermath of the attack was a whole prison lockdown. The yard where the attack happened was covered by cameras, so it was clear that Leah was not an aggressor. In fact, she was credited with saving Hastings from getting a shank in the back.
The question was, what made the crazed woman, in for a drug crime but assessed as very low risk, go after Leah? Blood tests showed she was pumped full of illegal stimulants. Where did she get the drugs? The stabbing instrument was a shard of metal honed to a sharp point. Where did she get the shank?
Tracy couldn’t tell anyone. She fought with the guards who took her into custody until she went into cardiac arrest. CPR was performed to no avail, and she died on the way to the hospital. Cause of death was ruled a drug overdose.
Back in her cell for the first time in days, Leah picked up the Bible again. The next morning, she dropped another kyte for the chaplain.
“Hear you had a serious scrape.” The calm chaplain eyed Leah as she sat gingerly in the chair. Her midsection was still sore, like a very badly pulled muscle, and she didn’t need to be reminded to take it easy. In his office, Leah felt unsettled and more relaxed at the same time.
Attempting to lighten the mood, she said, “She had very poor aim.”
“Unusual here. Medium security. Tracy wasn’t known for violence.”
“First time for everything.”
“Hmm. And what made you call me back? Last time you were here, you didn’t like what I had to say.”
Leah swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. What did she want? “When that woman—Tracy . . . when she came screaming at me with the knife, all I could think was, I don’t want to die.”
“I can understand that.”
“But before that, I didn’t want to live. I . . .” Something caught in her throat. “My whole life is ruined—it’s over. Everything I ever dreamed of is gone. So why at that moment did I not want to die?”
“You tell me.”
“I’m trying to figure it out. . . .” Leah studied her hands for a moment. “I remembered a call I went on once. A woman killed herself the day before Christmas. She shot herself in her husband’s workshop.”
She wiped her eyes. Strength returning, she found Darrel’s presence calming, fortifying. “The note she left was scathing. She blamed everyone, even God, for how horrible and what a failure she felt her life had become. Her final fervent wish was to hurt everyone she left behind.”
Leah swallowed a lump and forced her voice to steady. “I don’t want to hurt my dad. I don’t want
to hurt anyone. But I don’t want to go on feeling like this, empty like a hollowed-out shell.” She paused. “I’m so tired of crying and wishing things could be different, because they never can be. And I’m tired of asking why because I don’t believe that question will ever be answered.”
Darrel watched her. After a couple of beats, he said, “You’re right about the why questions. A lot will never be answered in this life. I can’t help you there. I can help you with the future. But to move forward, you have to let go of the past, make peace with it. Can you do that? Can you let go of Brad?”
Leah looked at him, exhausted. Her shoulders sagged. A thought flashed through her mind. I’ve been holding on so tightly to all the anger, regrets, and self-pity that it’s sapped all of my strength. What would it feel like to really put it all behind me?
“I’d like to try,” she whispered.
He scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Here’s an assignment for you. I want you to read these passages in the Bible. Write down any questions you have, and we’ll talk about them at our next meeting. We’ll set it for next week. Does that work?”
Leah took the paper and nodded.
Leah couldn’t play basketball until the doctor said it was okay. She had nothing but time, so for the next week she read and reread the passages Darrel had given her. She also read other passages she remembered liking when she used to go to church.
“We have a weekly Bible study you’re welcome to attend,” Nora told her when she saw her looking up the verses the chaplain had given her.
“I don’t know yet,” Leah said truthfully. “I used to go to church a lot when I was a kid. My mom sang on the worship team.” So many good memories came flooding back. She paused as they hit her in the center of the chest, drowning her with warm feelings.
“There’s a good church service here as well.”
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