Blood on the Threshold

by Karin Richmond

  He paused to collect himself. He was visibly upset.

  “He told me it was one of our guys that did this to our guest. It was the new Johnson guy with Maintenance. ‘How do you know for sure it’s our guy?’ I asked him, already wary of a lawsuit. ‘She is still alive, she is really beat up, but she is still conscious and is talking. The guest identified her assailant as our guy—he still has on his uniform and name badge.’

  “By the time I got back to the hotel, Mirabelle, you were gone. The emergency team had you to the hospital fast. I was there getting the story of the situation down and talking with our bartender and the police when a call came over the radio to let the police look in the room again. We had already locked the door as a crime scene.

  “I don’t know how, but someone tipped off the police to go back to the room and search for the weapon, a knife. I let the officers in and this time they were on their hands and knees looking for a knife. They had to be careful not to get in all the blood and glass. One of them popped a flashlight under the bed skirt. ‘Found it!’ he shouted and showed the knife to me. It was not a hotel knife and I told the police that it must be a personal weapon.”

  Henry leaned toward me. “Mirabelle, I never knew what happened to you after that night. The hospital would not release any information about you. Until this moment, I did not know if you lived or died from that attack—the attack that happened on my watch!” Henry’s shoulders began to sag. His eyes were moist. “Mirabelle, this is the nightmare that any of us in the hotel security business dread. This is the fear each of us lives with. This is the event we are supposed to protect our guests from, and I failed at the task. Over all these years, I have asked myself over and over, had I been there and not taken off to see my wife, would this have happened?

  “You know, after a few years, I had to quit the security business for hotels. I could not bear the idea that something like that would ever happen to an innocent guest.

  “Would you forgive me?”

  I softly enclosed my hands over his. He saw the scars that remained on my hand from my defensive wounds. His eyes misted over. I quietly replied, “Henry, it is all right. It’s okay. See these? See how they have healed? I have healed, too. I am physically okay. There is no need for you to carry this burden with you any longer. It was not your fault—and I do forgive you. I forgive you with all that I am and still hope to be.”

  Our eyes met in one more deep exchange. Henry managed a small fleeting smile before the glass door opened and my companion strode inside the bar.

  Forgiveness feels like it’s omniscient. I can feel it, but it does not have form. It can be pushed aside from everyday life, hidden in small recesses of the mind. Rarely brought up in casual conversation. Friends don’t know about your “forgiveness scorecard,” and perhaps they are pretty sure the numbers on their own scorecard are not very high.

  As time moved on and the pain of my attack was pushed back into the recesses of my memory, I began to reflect on forgiveness as a method of healing myself. I still could not bring myself to forgive my enemy outright, but I was given some counsel from my closest friend, Lynda. I know I have a wonderful, strong relationship with Lynda, and I find comfort in knowing that she cares very deeply about me. What I did not know, however, is that she has given my emotional healing much thought over the years. She knew that what she wanted to say would be disturbing and might provoke some fissure in our friendship. So she was careful to choose the right time and place to deliver her delicate message.

  “What if this isn’t entirely about you?”

  I was taken aback and hurt by this statement from my trusted friend. Anger flickered in my eyes. “She’s betrayed me!” my mind protested as tears began to brim in my eyes.

  Lynda lightly tossed her head and gazed directly at me, her Mirabella. “What if your assailant was on a path from God to do this to you? What if he was directed on some level to put himself in your path, hurt you so badly you could see and recognize the Light from the other side but not injure you in a way that would profoundly impact your physical life?

  “Think about it. Yes, it was horrible. Yes, it was a crime and he is paying for that crime. But, honestly, how could someone be stabbed repeatedly and not have the knife hit a single internal organ? All the stab wounds were slivered in between your intestines, your kidneys, all of the body parts crucial to your physical well-being. Now how does that happen twelve times?”

  I did not have an answer for that. I had been through countless medical exams, each time the physician making a remark very close to this same observation. It was seemingly impossible, but there I stood as living proof in the exam room. And now here. I needed a moment to think, to process what my friend was telling me.

  “Can you excuse me for a moment? I want to go to your powder room.”

  Lynda knew that she did not have to reply. She had anticipated some kind of reaction and trusted me to do the right thing for myself. She got up from the pillows and went to the kitchen to brew some green tea.

  I softly closed the bathroom door and braced myself on the basin counter. I closed my eyes for a moment. Opening them, I saw myself in the mirror. “I have been given a Gift, a profound one, a Gift which has emboldened me with a freedom from fear. A Gift which has changed my faith in God to an absolute knowledge that He is here. Right now, throughout time.” I turned on the water as much for the sound as for the splash on my face.

  I recalled how I felt the suspension of time in Patmos while in His Light. “He reminded me again that He is still very much a part of the plan,” I barely whispered. “He cannot make my choices for me, but He has provided me a Gift. What I do with it is my business. My soul journey. Now what?” I looked at my reflection once more. It had never occurred to me to think about my assault in this way. I splashed my face and left to find Lynda, who was still in the kitchen.

  Lynda gave me a warm, embracing smile and she gave me a good strong hug.

  Then she placed her Kyoto tea service and biscotti on a tray and led us both outside near the soothing water fountain. “Hear me out, please.

  “Do you remember the vision I gave to you years ago? The vision given to me, but it was for you? You asked me to inquire about your lifetimes and certain déjà vu remembrances you have experienced. You felt particularly close to angel energies and wanted to have some background on that feeling.

  “The sense-feeling I received when you asked that question was that your soul energy is angelic in its essence. You were a strong angel, a vigilant angel in the Father’s choir. The Father had commanded that you were to act within certain boundaries. These were clear markers. You understood where you were allowed to play—because on the other side it is play—but during an impulsive moment, you crossed beyond where you were to be. The reason you crossed beyond, however, was to help another entity; there was trouble or pain and you sought to right the wrong. Your motives were grounded in Love. And the vision said to me that your angel energy did shed protective light and prevented pain. But the Father was not pleased. Your soul entity was returned to this planet for a reason. You also remember that we were told that this was to be your last life experience if that is what you want. You have paid your dues. You are forgiven.

  “So, as the Father has forgiven you, your work is to learn and experience forgiveness as a human. I know that you have had lots of resentment harbored toward your human father, most of it well deserved. But maybe, just maybe, that was and is your Forgiveness Class 101. Maybe forgiving your negligent and aloof father for being a jerk was and is the precursor to learning a really huge lesson in forgiveness.

  “And what if the Father sent your assailant on his life’s mission to hurt you only enough so you would have a very-near-death experience, yet come out of it alive and very well, thank you. In fact, you came out of it financially independent due to the civil settlement from the hotel owners. You know it and I know it. You have achieved a certain lifestyle most people can only imagine. Though you don’t flaunt it, y
ou travel, you own your own business, and you pretty much do what you want to do. Is that not a profound gift when you sit back and think about all of it?”

  I shifted in her bamboo chair. “You know, it has taken me years to get to the physical and emotional point of even considering such an idea. I actually tried to reach out through mediation to try to understand him, his motives, and how I felt. It is meant to be a process of healing for both parties. But he stopped the process; it may have been too much for him to experience. I have been able to come away from that incident more than a survivor; I am a person who has helped other women by changing the law in Texas. I have been a participant in life. But I still keep that thick steel door locked tight between me and the fear and pain inflicted on me that night.

  “Now I realize, as years have passed and I have had time to reflect on all of this, that I can feel a small slit in those steel doors. But I also feel I must protect myself because he has been released. Yes, he has a GPS monitoring bracelet on as a condition of parole, but I feel more frightened with him out of jail. I have never wanted to own a firearm, but I do now. I do not know if I could stand down on this, Lynda.”

  “I understand,” she replied in a patient easy voice. “But what if you could break it down into two levels?”

  “Okay, let’s hear it,” I said, knowing that Lynda always had a unique take on situations such as these. I leaned in closer.

  “What if he was a messenger? What if he was doing the Father’s bidding to get your attention? It would not be the first time the Father inflicted pain on a human to make a point. We know He could do it again.

  “Could you forgive the soul of your assailant?”

  There. Lynda had laid it on the bottom line. Clearly and succinctly. She always did that for me. I squirmed and pursed my lips.

  We each leaned back silently; only the katydids broke the silence. Lynda closed her eyes and gave me some personal energy space to consider her proposition.

  “What might that feel like?” I asked Lynda, still struggling with the ethereal versus the physical concept of forgiveness.

  She tilted her head slightly as if she were listening to the other side for guidance. She shook her head.

  “I am not hearing anything for that question. But let me tell you what I think as your friend. This whole event and all the events that have surrounded it are beyond normal. There was—and perhaps continues to be—a greater hand in this. For you to truly embrace the Gift provided to you, you must be free of hatred and scorn toward this person. Now, I do not know if I would be strong enough to actually face the man and talk to him. But what I do sense-feel is that he was a bit player in a drama beyond his control. If you are able to accept that, then perhaps you can clear your emotions and your soul energy on a spiritual plane—that is your true destination.”

  I looked at her and let this information sink in. Deep inside, I felt like Lynda was on to something. I still did not know what it would feel like to separate the two energies—human and ethereal—but I thought I might be able to reach within myself to find forgiveness on some level. I also knew that this journey was one my soul was given that will take my lifetime.

  Okay.

  Deep breath.

  Exhale.

  Enough of this soul-searching spiritual stuff. I need to move on. I can get my heart around forgiving my assailant’s soul if he indeed was acting as God’s messenger. But I’m a hardheaded, practical Texas woman too.

  Right now I gotta blow off some steam, and I know just what to do. I’m going to head out to Daddy’s ranch to shoot off some rounds with my newly acquired pink two-toned Smith & Wesson M&P9. I throw my field bag on the floor of my red pickup truck and pop the engine into life. I wave to my neighbors as I lay a little rubber on the asphalt, grinning at my own mischief.

  Adíos, and vaya con Dios, y’all!

  EPILOGUE

  T hrough out 2012 Karin Richmond persuaded a small group of politicians and professionals to join her and they began to meet with the staff of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Victim Notification System (part of their Victim Services Division) to press them to provide real-time victim notification should a Texas parolee forcibly remove his GPS bracelet or break out of his designated inclusive zone. The following hypothetical story illustrates what might happen as a result of those meetings.

  Brenda Naylor lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her family. The year is 2020. She manages a professional team of security personnel for a private company that has contracts in thirty-four states and hundreds of counties to monitor the movements of sexual offenders and violent predatory offenders who are compelled to wear GPS monitoring devices as a condition of parole. Major Naylor gained her surveillance skills while serving with a UN unit during a peacekeeping tour of duty in Egypt in the chaotic period following the Arab Spring. She has contracts with the state of Texas as well as individually with the state’s six largest, most populated counties. Her unit is contracted to watch about two thousand parolees.

  State and local authorities assign each Super Intensive Supervision Parolee (SISP) an “inclusive zone”—that is, the areas he is permitted to move about in. He also has “exclusive zones” that are prohibited to him, such as schools and parks. If his GPS bracelet registers any breaches, Brenda and members of her staff will be alerted within minutes—in real time.

  He idly poked at a scab that would not go away. Every time he thought it had healed enough to pull off, he stuck a coat hanger wire down between his ankle bracelet and skin, like he used to do as a kid when he wore a cast.

  “I hate this thing,” he complained to his roommate in the halfway house. “I hate it especially in the summer and no air-conditioning. It fuckin’ itches all the fuckin’ time.”

  “Yeah cholo, but at least you are out of prison, man. That was no goddamn party either.”

  “Ahh, punta. I wonder if she still lives in that house we used to live in. Didn’t have to call the cops, but she did, didn’t she? Punta.”

  His bracelet vibrated and emitted a low buzz. He stared down with blank eyes at the intrusion.

  “That’s your med call, man.”

  “What a piece of shit,” he mutters to his roommate as he feels the bracelet constricting around his ankle and closes his eyes in anticipation of the drug dose pre-programmed to be administered through a high-powered liquid injection device developed by MIT in 2012 and built right into his bracelet. He also knows that a powerful toxin is embedded and programmed to be released on his skin if he ever tries to break the bracelet off his leg.

  But prison will give a man a hell of an education, and he had learned of a retired security guard on the take who might take the bracelet off and give him at least a day before the GPS signal monitors reported him as missing. All for a hefty price. And he had been saving his money now for nine years. He was ready to teach his punta another lesson, and he planned to hurt her just like they hurt him in prison.

  “She’s got it comin’ and I plan on giving it to her fast and hard.”

  Both hands full, Dahlia pushes the kitchen door open with her back and patiently listens to her two teenagers moan loudly about being late for class. “Turn off the lights and get your lunches, cariños!” she calls out. The family piles into their late model Camry and heads down her street in Temple, Texas. Dahlia is pleased with her kids and still praises Mary the mother of Jesus for the subsidized voucher program that got them into a great private school. “We have our lives back now,” she says to herself as she glances into the rearview mirror. Her kids, more cheerful now that they are on the road, are smiling right back at her.

  But as she merges onto the crosstown freeway, Dahlia starts to get a really bad feeling in her gut. “It was a kind of premonition. I just couldn’t shake it off,” she would recall later.

  When they arrive at the school, she gives her kids an extra big smile—she had to give up helping them out of the car and hugging them in front of their friends some time ago—and she turns back into
the traffic to get to her workplace. It is a local bank branch and she likes her hard-won position as a clerk. She also feels safe because she knows that there are security cameras throughout the building. Although it has been years since her ex-boyfriend raped and assaulted her, she still is not completely free of her memories and fear. “I’m not sure I or anyone else can truly get over horror and violence,” she has confided to a close friend at work.

  Years ago, when he first entered the prison system, Dahlia had taken precautions to protect herself and her kids from her former boyfriend and their father. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice had encouraged her to participate in their Victim Notification System—part of the Victim Services Division—and she had provided her cell phone and email address. She also had her phone receive her email so she would not miss much if she was off line for a while.

  In the odd moment, she remembered how astonished she was when she first officially signed up to be contacted if her assailant—she called him “a predator”—ever intentionally broke out of his inclusive zone or forcibly cut off his bracelet, to learn that she would not be called immediately. Her only notification from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice would be through the U.S. Postal Service. “Incredible! Even a decade ago, I knew where my kids were pretty much 24/7 with the GPS app on their cell phones!” she said to herself.

  Then last year, to her surprise, she opened a letter and even got a robo-call on her cell phone with good, really good, news. Texas was starting a new program to contact victims registered with the Notification System if their assailant paroled with a GPS monitoring device broke free of his electronic boundaries. And the victim would be notified within fifteen minutes of the time the parole system discovered the violation.