by B. D. Riehl
As they left the sweltering heat of the day and entered the cool lobby of Deliverance, she began to doubt again.
Maybe those women hadn’t actually been abused, just at risk of it. Didn’t Deliverance also run prevention programs?
Paul led them up three flights of stairs and onto an open roof with a tent covering. He pointed out the fish hatchery the girls were in charge of and their garden area; both used to help them train for life after Deliverance and to help earn an income while they went to school.
Lydia could hardly hear what he had to say. Her anxiety over what they would actually see when they met the girls that were currently in school two floors below, built up and turned the delicious breakfast in her stomach sour. She had experienced such hope and excitement watching the café workers; now she was afraid her familiar worldview would crash through the hope she felt rising. How would she survive more disappointment once hope had begun to blossom?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Stacey Gray bid goodnight to the tellers in the parking lot and walked to her car, unlocked it and got in. She sat in the quiet for a moment, pensive.
She missed her daughters.
Stacey had spent most evenings after work that week at the gym, and then stopped on her way home to check on Sam and the girls. That man was surprisingly efficient in caring for his young daughters. Certainly, he did things Daddy’s way, and she had to suppress a giggle at the girls’ hairdos most days. But they were clean, fed, and the house wasn’t a total wreck.
Charlotte had chosen a wonderful man for herself. Hopefully she had gotten a chance to talk some sense into Lydia before they split up.
Stacey couldn’t forget the warning from the detective that night almost one month ago, that Ethan had put his hands on her daughter in violence. Her blood turned to ice, then raged to a boil just thinking about it.
She had finally discussed it with Bryan in the weeks Lydia was preparing for her trip.
She sat on their bed; he stood in the adjacent bathroom brushing his teeth. It had taken her all day to work up the nerve to talk to him.
“Um, Bryan?”
“Hmm?”
“That detective we talked to last week?”
“Mm?”
Deep breath. “Well, he said that when they pulled up behind Ethan and Lydia that—well, that it looked like, like he was maybe getting rough with her.”
The brushing stopped. Bryan spit into the sink. Her hands shook while he ran the toothbrush under the faucet. She heard the shink when he dropped the brush back into the silver holder. He walked slowly out of the bathroom, wiping his hands and face on a towel, his eyes never leaving hers.
They stared at each other, her heart in her throat, his jaw set, until he shook his head and went back into the bathroom. Stacey shook her head, fear quickly mounting to resentment. He knew she hated it when he used his cop face on her. No matter how much he said it wasn’t a face he intended to make, she always felt backed into a corner like a criminal.
She slid under the covers and turned off her bedside lamp, removing her ring and placing it in a small jar she kept on her nightstand.
Bryan snapped off the bathroom light and came back into the room. She expected him to go downstairs to watch television. He surprised her when he crossed the room, sat on the bed, and leaned next to her against the headboard. She was close enough to lay her head in his lap, but she hadn’t done that in a long time and wasn’t about to.
“Stacey, I…" He paused in the quiet of their room. It was too dark to see his face, but his voice was soft, broken. She felt him raise his hand from his lap, and then drop it again in exasperation. “I don’t know what’s happened between us to make you feel like you can’t talk to me—especially about something like this.”
Stacey felt a hot tear roll down her cheek. Her resentment crumbled and she struggled to hold on. “Well, it’s not like you asked what was said or anything.” The excuse was lame and she knew it.
“Okaaayy…” he drew the word out.
Her words sounding more pathetic as they hung between them in the dark room. Minutes passed.
“Okay, Stacey, I don’t know what happened to make you stop talking to me, and I don’t just mean about Lydia. We’ve been roommates and parents together for years, but certainly not husband and wife. Not the way we used to be.”
Trust me, I know.
“So here’s the deal: When Lydia’s gone, I want to talk. Really talk. It’s been long enough.” He scooted down in the bed, pulled the covers to his shoulders, and set his back to her.
Stacey’s tears fell fast and hot, her head ached from trying to keep quiet so that he wouldn’t know and her throat burned.
He was right, they did need to talk, but she wondered if she would even know how, and if they would really follow through.
Now the night was upon her. Bryan had called her at work and asked if he could take her on a date. She had been stunned and glanced at the caller ID display on her office phone, wondering if the call was really for her. How long since Bryan had done such a thing?
“Um, I guess. Sure,” she answered. Smooth, Stacey. As she hung up the phone, she wondered why her hands were clammy.
Stacey drove home on autopilot, filtering through the dresses in her closet in her mind. Should she go casual? Dressy? She didn’t know what to expect, but felt anticipation building inside her. She missed their early years of marriage, before the secrets and doubt and distance. She uttered a prayer, pathetic as it was, for God to go before them, to help them repair their flailing marriage.
It had been so long since she’d really prayed anything through, and it felt good. She pulled into the garage, smiling when she saw Bryan was already home.
Her steps nervous, but light, she entered the garage door into the kitchen, set her purse on the counter, and called out, “Bryan, I’m home!”
No answer. Probably in the shower, she thought.
Yet, as she climbed the stairs, she noticed the door to Lydia’s room stood open. When she reached the landing, she found Bryan sitting on the floor, back against the bed, a book in his hands, and his head thrown back. His eyes were closed, but fluttered open when she spoke from the doorway.
“Bryan! What on earth are you doing?” She took a step into the room and saw that the book was Lydia’s journal that they’d bought her years ago for Christmas.
His eyes were red as if he’d been crying. In all of their years together, Stacey had never seen her husband cry. Not once.
She sunk to her knees beside him. “What’s the matter?” she whispered.
Bryan held up the journal. “I decided to do some police work at home today.”
Stacey groaned in her throat, “Bryan, I don’t think we should—”
“Stacey, I should have done it long ago. We should have shaken it out of her long ago. The years she has carried this, it all makes so much sense,” his voice cracked, but he shook his head as if to deny any more tears from coming.
“What makes sense? Bryan, what are you talking about?”
And then he told her. The awful truth of what had happened to Lydia on the bus, what her life at Central Valley had been like, why she respected Zanna so much, and that, yes, Ethan was rough with her.
Stacey felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. How was it possible that they had missed so many signs, been so completely unaware of what their daughter was dealing with?
“Bryan…I—how? I mean…” She straightened her shoulders, eyes glassy, unsure of what to do or say. “Do we talk to Ethan? Press charges against that kid from the bus? What do we do?”
Bryan shook his head. He held up the journal. “Ethan had been sending her some obsessive texts before she left. I called him out on it. Sounds like she and Ethan broke things off for good before she left, but I will definitely be calling his dad. Legally, there is nothing we can do.”
They sat side by side in the room for the next hour. The setting sun cast a warm glow across the walls, and Stacey dra
nk in her daughter’s room. The young woman had posted pictures of models in various types of clothing, tacked a few quotes and poems on a board above her desk. Her bed was made, her room clean. Lydia had always been very good about keeping things tidy and nice. Had Stacey ever told her how much she appreciated that?
“I just—I didn’t get as much time with Lydia as I did Charlotte,” she spoke aloud without thought.
Bryan, understanding that her statement was an outspoken continuation of an inward thought, nodded. “But why, Stacey?”
She bristled at the question. “What do you mean?”
He turned and looked at her. “Why? You stayed home until Lydia was born, then insisted on working part-time, then full-time. Why was it so important to you? After all of those years home with Charlotte, why was it suddenly so important to you to go back to work?”
Stacey stared straight ahead, refusing to look at him, feeling the weight of blame fall heavy on her shoulders. She chewed her lip and Bryan thought about how much Lydia looked like her. For the first time in all of those years of distance, chaste kisses and busy months, he saw the walls his wife had placed in front of him.
What a fool he’d been not to notice and scale them earlier. He reached a hand to squeeze her knee. “Stacey, please. I’m not blaming you. I just want to know. Is it just me? Or did everything change after Lydia came?”
“Of course it changed, Bryan. Babies change things.” Stacey couldn’t believe how she snapped at him.
He stood firm. “Come on, you know what I mean. Talk to me.”
“I thought we were going out.” Maybe if they got ready now they could drop the subject. She wanted their relationship back, wanted to be close again, but was afraid of this talk, afraid of all that could tumble out of their carefully locked up places.
“And we can…” He rotated on his rear and faced her, his face open, but firm. “Right after we talk.”
It took a while, but Stacey finally confessed her fears from so many years ago. Told Bryan of the day she’d gone to share her pregnancy news with her friend only to find out that Barbara was in crisis; that her husband had cheated on her.
Stacey shook her head, “I just kept thinking, what would I do if Bryan did this to me? It happens a lot in law enforcement families. I thought if it could happen to a couple that was so involved in the church, that it could certainly happen to us.”
She paused, but Bryan could tell there was more. His heart thudded with dread. “What else?”
She looked to him, pained. She shrugged one shoulder. “Then through my pregnancy with Lydia, you withdrew from me a lot. You worked later, came to bed, and wouldn’t touch me. You had a lot of private phone calls…” She took a shuddering breath and looked straight into his eyes. “You had an affair.”
The air hung thick between them—ugly and dark and sour.
Bryan wore his cop face and just stared at her.
Stacey’s stomach dropped. She couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud. For years she’d known, but had been too afraid to rip the sheets off of his secret, too afraid of losing him.
She rubbed her nose. “That’s why I got the job. I didn’t want to leave, but I wanted to be ready to support the girls and me if you decided to stay with her.” She searched his eyes. “But you must’ve ended things with her, right? You stopped coming home so late, stopped hiding phone calls from me. We didn’t get better, but you stayed.”
Bryan groaned in his throat and dropped his head in his hands. Stacey’s heart ripped open, terrified that he’d admit he was still with that woman and was ready to end things with Stacey. “Oh, Bryan, no, please, don't tell me…”
He bolted upright onto his knees, grabbed her face and kissed her, hard. He drew back slightly and looked into her eyes.
“Stacey, I have never, nor will I ever cheat on you. Ever.”
The room spun around them. She tried to understand what he was saying. Would he really deny it now, after she admitted that she’d stuck around all of these years?
His eyes were red again; tears flowed freely down his face.
“Never,” he said again, shaking her face with his hands one time. “When you were pregnant with Lydia, I was asked to work alongside a detective on child abuse cases. If a school or daycare suspected abuse, the case was referred to me. I helped Garret handle his caseload. I didn’t talk with you about it because I knew how upset you would be over some of the things I saw and heard. I wanted to protect you. I couldn’t get over the things I’d seen myself. I couldn’t touch you because, well, it’s hard to be in the mood when you’re dealing with victims of perverts.”
He let go of her face, sat back on his heels, and covered his head. “Oh, God! What a mess I’ve made of my family. What a mess. Oh, Stacey, all these years? All this time you thought I had been unfaithful. I am so sorry. So very sorry.”
She nodded, numbly. She couldn’t believe that it had all been a misunderstanding. How could a misunderstanding last for over eighteen years?
“When you pulled away, I thought it was hormones. When you wanted to go back to work, I thought you wanted out of the house a little, and I didn’t want to deny you that. The paycheck was nice, and you seemed happy.”
She shook her head, her own face wet with tears, her own heart crying out to the Lord, wondering what she’d done to her family. “No, Bryan. No. I’ve been miserable. But instead of dealing with it the right way, I’ve been wallowing in selfishness.” She pounded a fist on Lydia’s journal. “Because of my irrational fear and misconceptions, I let our daughter go! I let her fend for herself. I sent her to Thailand to learn about God and grow close to Him when the Christian school she went to treated her like trash!” Her face crumpled and Bryan grabbed her, crushing her to him.
“Oh, Sweetheart, I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”
They talked and prayed for the next hour. They prayed for Lydia, that she would open her heart to the Lord, regardless of their neglect, regardless of the misrepresentation of His love at her school. They prayed for Charlotte and the baby she was caring for. They prayed for forgiveness and for God’s will to be center in their home.
Hungry and spent, they ordered Chinese food and sat in the den on the floor, sharing the meal in front of the fireplace.
As the firelight flashed on their faces, they laughed together and talked late into the night. Truth was shed on their doubts and dark places, and Stacey felt the walls she had built around her heart crumble. She knew it would take retraining for them to topple completely, but she knew, with God and Bryan, it wouldn’t take long.
They spent the rest of the evening in bed, making up for lost time, rediscovering each other.
Bryan tucked her in close to him, kissing her shoulder and cheek. “I missed you,” he whispered.
Stacey smiled into the dark. How long had she kept Bryan and the Lord at arm’s length? Busy with her worry, busy with fixing her problems her way, busy with herself. Too Long.
“I missed you too,” she whispered back.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Charlotte looked back on that moment in time with wonder. How did she do it? How did she walk down the stairs, look Noah’s grandparents in the eye and hand that precious boy over? Only God. Only His Spirit inside holding her steady explained the unexplainable.
She should have felt warmth for Noah’s kin, but she didn’t. His grandmother didn’t look old enough to be one, but she expected that could be common in Cambodia. The woman looked at Noah with obligation and a hint of disinterest.
Charlotte knew that she only needed God’s approval for her care of Noah, but she’d hoped for some glimmer of woman-to-woman connection from this bent, leathered person before her.
Instead, Noah was snatched from her trembling arms, and like that, they turned to Megan and rambled something off.
The translator explained, “They need to get back. Where’s the girl?”
Charlotte’s heart leapt in her throat; she had forgotten about Maly.
&nbs
p; Maly, the sweet-natured girl that always had a smile and had come to Charlotte’s room a few times to love on her younger sibling. Maly, who had so captured the hearts of those at Deliverance’s Prevention Center. Charlotte’s throat closed anew; so much they were losing.
Megan began to answer, but was cut off by a door opening. The foster family that had been caring for the young girl all ushered her in together, obviously in the same tortured state that Charlotte was.
Maly shuffled forward, clutching a small Minnie Mouse doll. Charlotte had seen her with it before; she knew her foster sister had gifted it to her, and Maly cherished it. She was led close to her grandparents, whom she’d never seen or met, and buried her face in Minnie’s neck. The foster mom, a Cambodian nurse with a large heart, knelt down to whisper encouragement while she patted her back.
Charlotte looked to the grandmother of these small children, expecting her to kneel as well, or reach out in some way to comfort her own. The hard look on the woman’s face shocked her. The look on the man’s face frightened her. Like a Cheshire cat with a secret. She felt the oppression in the room and wondered at it.
Lord, what evil is at work here?
Immediately, the look was replaced by a determined one, and they reached for Maly’s hands and quickly ushered her from the building and out the doors. No thank yous. No hand shakes. Just a quick good-bye as they disappeared into the night. The foster father had to hold his wife back as Maly screamed in toddler terror and reached for her family, tears streaming down her frightened face. Her cries and her grandparents’ short responses could be heard as they piled onto a moped outside.
Through the window, Charlotte saw Noah, a tiny bundle now crying out as well because of his sister’s wails, shaking his fists while the grandmother positioned him between herself and her husband. Maly was instructed to hold on from her seat on the back, and they roared off.
Megan and the translator, the host family, and Charlotte looked between each other, silently communicating that sick feeling of unease.