by Dekker, Ted
Her hands were trembling and she dropped the skillet without meaning to. It landed on his leg and clattered to the wooden floor.
Oh my God, oh my God, what have I done? He’s going to kill us all!
But Zeke wasn’t getting up to kill them all. He was just lying there. He was still alive—she could see his lungs expanding with each breath—but he wasn’t moving his legs or arms, and as long as he couldn’t move those, he couldn’t punish or kill anyone.
All of these thoughts trained by so many years under Zeke’s guidance flew through her mind before a far more obvious one took root.
He’s unconscious. Which means I can call 911 without him knowing.
Kathryn spun and took two steps toward his office before another thought pulled her up short.
What if he woke up? He’d come after her! She had to tie him up!
She spun back and stared at his large frame on the floor, expecting movement even as she looked. She had to hurry before he did wake, but for that she needed rope, and there was no rope here that she could see. Maybe outside or in the shed, but what if he woke while she was out looking for something to tie him up with?
No, she couldn’t risk it. She had to tie him up right now, while he was still unconscious, and she had to tie him up good because he was a bull. There was only one way to do that.
Kathryn grabbed the hem of her skirt with both hands and ripped as hard as she could. The cotton fabric resisted at the hem, but then tore past, leaving a long split up her thigh.
Working in frenzy, begging that form on the floor to remain still, she shredded the bottom of her dress, tearing off four strips before deciding she could wait no longer.
Dropping to her knees, Kathryn straddled Zeke’s thighs and reached for his right arm to pull it back. It was then that he groaned and tried to lift his head off the floor.
The change came so unexpectedly that Kathryn cried out, jumped back, tripped on her heels, and went sprawling to her seat beyond his feet.
Zeke grunted and shook his head. Started to push himself up.
No! No, no, no . . .
Blinded once again by panic, Kathryn dove for the fallen frying pan, grabbed its handle, scrambled to her knees, and, with all her might, brought the skillet back down on his head from behind.
Zeke dropped to his face like a bull that had just received a million-volt surge of electric current.
Thump.
She sat back on her heels, panting. There. There, he was down. Still breathing but down.
She had to hurry.
Straddling him, Kathryn started with his hands once again, pulling them behind his back. This time he stayed out.
She wound a strip of cloth around both wrists and tugged the tie tight. Then wound a second strip overlapping the first, this time using her heels for leverage as she cinched the knot as snug as she could.
She quickly did the same at his ankles. And then, to be absolutely sure, she tore off another two strips and bound one around his arms at his elbows, and the second around his knees.
That made six bindings, but that wasn’t good enough either, was it? She tore off a seventh strip of cloth and bound it around his mouth so he couldn’t yell out and alert Claude or anyone else posted outside.
She stood up and stared at her handiwork. Zeke lay facedown on the wooden floor, bound and gagged like a hog. Not by the strongest ropes, but without any leverage he would be hard-pressed to break any of the bonds.
I’ve stopped him, she thought. I’ve tied Zeke up.
It took a moment for this thought to become real for her because the very idea still struck her as somehow impossible. Nothing could stop Zeke. That’s just the way it was.
And yet there he was, out cold, like a side of beef.
So why was she just staring at him? She had to make a call, so why was she just standing here if he was bound up like a dead bull?
She’d done that?
Slowly the significance of her accomplishment settled into her mind, and with each breath her resolve to do what she’d come to do grew.
This is what it means to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, she thought. Eden claimed to be a water walker. Maybe this meant that she too was a water walker.
Somehow she doubted that.
Didn’t matter. She was going to save that water walker.
“Don’t move,” she said, jaw firm. Then she turned her back on Zeke, walked into his office, crossed to the desk, and lifted the phone.
“This is for you, Eden,” she whispered, and with her forefinger she pressed the number 9, then 1 and another 1.
A female operator answered after the second ring.
“Thank you for calling 911, please state the nature of your emergency.”
“Yes . . .” She lost track of what words to use.
“Ma’am, please state the nature of your emergency.”
“Yes . . . I . . .”
“It’s okay, honey. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Kathryn drew a deep breath.
“I would like to report a kidnapping,” she said.
A hesitation.
“Who’s been kidnapped, Ma’am?”
“Alice Ringwald, daughter of the late congressman James Ringwald, was taken from her home in Greenville, South Carolina, five years ago. She is being held at 2090 Rosecrans Road south of Interstate 10 out of Lafayette, Louisiana. Please inform the FBI, I’m sure they have a file.”
“Are you sure about this, ma’am?”
“Of course I’m sure. I have the man who kidnapped her bound up on the floor in the next room.”
“And do you have his name?”
“His name is Zeke Gunner and he’s the devil.”
Another short pause.
“And how do you know that Zeke Gunner kidnapped Alice Ringwald, ma’am?”
“Because I helped him do it,” she said. “Please hurry.”
Then she dropped the receiver in its cradle and walked back into the living room.
There, she thought. There. I’ve undone it.
Now what? But as soon as the question presented itself, she knew exactly what now.
Now she would wait and let the chips fall where they would fall.
Kathryn walked to Zeke’s preferred high-backed, upholstered chair in the corner of the living room, poured two fingers of his preferred Scotch into a crystal glass on the side table, and sat down.
Zeke’s body remained where she’d left it, back slowly rising and falling as he breathed in darkness. Not so much now, was he? No, not at all.
She leaned back, crossed one leg over, and swirled the Scotch in her glass. Eden wouldn’t do it this way, she was sure of that. She would probably just walk on down the street, having no worry. After all, she could heal her own leg.
No, Eden wouldn’t do it this way, but then Eden probably wouldn’t do it at all. And either way, she wasn’t Eden.
She was Eden’s mother. And as her mother, she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her again. Ever. Not Claude, not Zeke, not herself.
“They’re going to lock you up and throw away the key, you stupid pig.”
She didn’t hear Zeke speak the words with her ears, but she could hear him nonetheless, speaking from her own mind.
“Shut up, Zeke,” she said.
She threw back the Scotch as she’d seen him do so many times, swallowed it in one gulp, and slapped the empty glass back down on the lamp table.
“Just shut up.”
29
Two Days Later
WE SAT in our living room—Mother, Wyatt, myself, and Olivia, the FBI agent who’d worked my case since that first night when Wyatt took me from my home in Greenville, South Carolina. They were talking about the law and about the consequences of their actions, but my mind was on something else. On someone else.
On Stephen Carter, the Outlaw.
He was coming, you see? He was a real person and Olivia knew him, and he was coming today.
I can’t tell you how that made me feel. B
utterflies were doing aerial loops in my stomach. My heart had been beating like a drum since Olivia had told me an hour earlier.
Why was I excited? Because Stephen seemed to know more about me than I knew about myself. And because he’d shown me all the meaning that my life had for me—all in a dream that was as real as sitting on the couch while Olivia explained the law to Kathryn and Wyatt.
“You have to understand that the law is the law,” Olivia was saying. “I understand the situation has changed, but turning yourself in doesn’t negate the fact that you kidnapped Alice five years ago. Kidnapping is a serious offense. There’s no statute of limitation, you understand? My hands are tied.”
Her words bothered me, and I didn’t like that, so I put her speaking out of my mind and watched her as she continued.
I was fascinated to learn the extent of the effort she’d expended on my behalf. It made me feel quite special, in an old sort of way. I say “old sort of way” because in the new me, everything felt rather special, so it was strange to think of one thing being more special than another. Or threatening, for that matter. But that’s hard to explain without stepping out of the boat, so to speak, so unless you’ve gone to that place where there really is no difference between the water and the sand, you’ll have to take my word for it.
Still, I fell in love with Olivia from the moment she climbed out of the black FBI car and walked up to me wearing a tentative smile. She held out her hand.
“My name is Olivia,” she said. “I’m with the FBI. And you must be Alice.”
I took her hand. “My name is Eden.”
She nodded. “Okay. Eden. Are you okay?”
“I always have been,” I said. “I just didn’t know it.”
She searched my eyes, clearly not understanding, then she took me into her arms and held me tight enough to squeeze half the air out of my lungs.
“It is so good to finally see you,” she breathed.
She didn’t need to hear more about what I meant when I said that I’d always been okay—she simply knew that it was true, even if it made no sense. Something about my presence told her that. There’s a way that we speak to each other without words or looks, that’s how it works. I can’t explain it, I can only report it.
But let me back up a minute.
When I first woke from walking on the lake two days earlier and forgave my mother the way Outlaw had shown me, I wasn’t the only one who’d changed. Kathryn had as well. I know that such profound change may sound far too simple, but when you let go of everything, it really is simple because there’s nothing left to figure out, and nothing to change because letting go of this world completely is the only change you need. Letting go of even the need to understand and trusting your Father.
And that is miraculous, you see?
But just to be clear, letting go is something you do, not just talk about. Talking about forgiving changes nothing.
Doing it changes everything, not just in you, but somehow in those around you. We are not healed alone. Don’t ask me to explain.
So when I shifted my perception and embraced love instead of blame and threats, something also shifted in my mother. At the very least she was looking at things differently. Sure, seeing my unbroken leg didn’t hurt, but she was seeing more than a healed leg.
She was seeing a new kind of love. The only real kind, actually. And the physical power of real love is staggering, because real forgiveness is staggering.
I later learned that while I was spending time with Bobby, whom I loved in whole new way, she’d gone down to Zeke’s house, hit him on the head with a cast-iron frying pan, tied him up, and called the police.
I didn’t know she had it in her.
It’s weird, I know, but part of me had compassion for Zeke. He always was a miserable wretch, not because he was any less loved than I ever was, but because he was blind to that love, just like I had been.
You could say that Zeke was in a kind of hell. Still is. Someone needs to rescue him.
Twenty minutes after Mother made the call, a whole troop of cars with flashing lights swarmed the place. They’d taken Zeke and Claude away in handcuffs on bootlegging charges and then rounded up a bunch of others, none that I knew because I only really knew Kathryn, Bobby, and Wyatt.
As for Paul, Zeke had sent him away with his mother following his beating. I hope to see him soon.
They didn’t take my mother away because she’d made the call and there was some confusion about her role in a whole mess of things that would probably take weeks to figure out, beginning with these kidnapping charges that Olivia was now discussing with them.
I didn’t know what was going to happen to my mother, but none of that worried me. Kathryn had returned from Zeke’s house beaming. She’d run to me and hugged me off my feet, kissing my neck and face. She’d walked though her own small valley and found out that death was only a shadow.
As for my trust account, the money was mine to do with as I pleased, and I had no idea what pleased me as of yet. Maybe I’d just give it all to my mother. Maybe I’d give it to Stephen. Maybe I’d buy a big house and a fast truck for Bobby.
So there I sat on the couch, only half listening to Olivia talk about the case and kidnapping and prison, because I didn’t want to think about prisons.
Besides, Stephen was coming to see me.
“There’s no way the law is just going to turn a blind eye to such a blatant offense,” Olivia was saying. “What you did was wrong. There are consequences. Punishment. Surely you understand that.”
“Excuse me,” I said, bothered again by what I was hearing.
Kathryn, Wyatt, and Olivia all turned to me as one. They’d treated me like some kind of angel the last two days, not that I blamed them. After all, I was the one who’d walked on water, so to speak. And there seemed to be some speculation that my walking was more than just ‘so to speak.’
But hearing Olivia talk about how badly I’d been treated and how unfair it would be for Mother not to be punished, only made me feel like sinking again.
I stood up. “I’d like to go check on Bobby, if that’s okay.”
“Of course, sweetheart!” Kathryn said. “I think he’s down by the lake.”
“Okay. If Outlaw comes . . .”
“We’ll send him right down,” Olivia said.
“He’ll be here soon?”
“Should be any minute.”
“Okay.”
I headed for the door and was halfway there when I thought better of it. I turned back and looked at Olivia.
“Can I say something?” I asked.
“Of course, honey.”
“I would like to stay here with my mother and father, if that’s okay. We have a lot to catch up on.”
Olivia exchanged a look with Mother, who smiled proudly.
“Well, sweetheart, I think that’s very kind of you. But there may be some complications—”
“I don’t want her to go to prison. Wyatt either. I don’t think prison will be a good place for them.”
“I understand. But we have laws for a reason. The courts can’t just overlook a charge in view of a full admission of guilt.”
“What charge?” I asked.
“The kidnapping charges.”
“I don’t want to press any charges.”
That made her blink.
“You were underage, sweetheart. And, it’s the state the presses charges in these cases.”
“I don’t think either the orphanage or John and Louise would want you to press charges,” I said. “And I don’t want you to either.”
“They do want me to.”
“But they can change their minds. And so can you, right?”
“Well . . . yes. . . But . . .”
“Then please change your mind. Then we won’t have a problem.”
“Maybe, but that’s assuming quite a bit, sweetheart.”
“Assuming you’ll drown is why you drown,” I said. But I immediately knew that she wouldn’t
understand that, so I put things more in her way of understanding.
“I’d like to assume you and they will hear the heart of a daughter who wants to spend some more time with her mother before she goes off into the world. I’m sure you can all understand.”
“That’s very loving of you, Eden, but that’s not the way we do things under the law.”
I thought about that for a second and then looked at Mother, who was watching me with fascination. Strange how all of my grievances against her were no more, as if they’d never been.
I turned back to Olivia.
“Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough already?”
“Yes, of course. I . . .”
“Then why are you trying to put me back into a prison, just when I’ve found my way to freedom?”
She blinked. “I’m not, dear. I’m only . . .”
“By putting my mother in prison, you only tempt me to think that she offended me, which might put me in my own prison, don’t you see? I’ve let that go. We’ve had enough offense and punishment in this family to last a lifetime. Please, don’t try to make us suffer any more.”
She stared at me in silence, and I think the truth of my words finally connected with her because her face slowly softened. In truth, only I had the key to any prison in my mind, but I didn’t want to see my mother suffer.
My mother was beaming proudly. There was no way I could let her go to prison. It seemed absurd to me.
I smiled at her. “I’m going to find Bobby.”
I left them sitting in silence and made my way toward the lake to look for Bobby.
Funny how the swamps looked so different to me the last two days. I had lived in fear of them—they were a part of my prison. But now I saw that it was my fear of the swamps, not the actual swamps, that had fortified that prison. There’s always something to fear if you think fear will keep you safe. Fire. Swamps. Alligators . . .
Water.
I’m here to say that you can’t make the troubled waters of life go away by defending yourself against them. You can only walk over those troubled waters if you offer peace to them and leave the safety of your boat.
Or so it was once written, and I have found Jesus’ teaching to be true.