Over Her Head

by Shelley Bates

  “Thank me for what?”

  She threw a glance over her shoulder as she crumbled bits of herbs into the eggs. Since he owned neither herbs nor eggs at the moment, she must have brought the whole kit and caboodle for the occasion.

  “As Randi would say, Duh. Your partner told me. For solving the case. For making sure Kate Parsons pays for what she’s done.”

  “From what the witnesses say, if it’s any comfort, she didn’t intend to kill Randi. No one could have predicted she’d hit her head in exactly that spot on the support beam with exactly the amount of force that she did.”

  “And I’m glad to hear it.” She poured the eggs into his only other frying pan and the kitchen filled with the scent of thyme and rosemary. “I can forgive a girl for being stupid and aggressive. I’d have a harder time forgiving her for deliberate murder. I could do it, but it would take longer. A lifetime, maybe.”

  “Who says you have to forgive her at all?” He saw that the oven light was on, and opened it to find biscuits baking. Just turning golden, in fact. Had she forgotten they were in there? “Let the court system take care of her.”

  “I don’t have to live with the court system. I do have to live with myself. And if I got hit by a bus with no forgiveness in my heart, I’d have a hard time explaining that to the Lord.”

  “Is that all it takes to run salvation off the rails?” he asked lightly. “Scary thought.”

  “Jesus had strong opinions on the subject,” she informed him. “I don’t want to mess with what he said. So yeah, I’m glad I can forgive Kate for what she did. And we all have to live with the consequences.”

  “See, that’s the problem I have with you Christians. Everything’s always perfect in your world. Always rosy. Forgive everybody, love everybody, everybody’s happy. Unbelievable.”

  The rosiness faded from her face, leaving her freckles in stark contrast to her pale skin. “It isn’t like that, and no one’s saying it is.”

  “You just did. You just said you forgave Kate.”

  “I did not. I said I’d be able to. I haven’t managed it yet, but with God’s help I will.”

  “Why? Why worry about it?”

  One by one, she placed the strips of bacon on paper towels. “Do you seriously want me to live with this black lump of grief and hatred in my heart forever? What a happy thought. Thanks a lot, Nick.”

  That was the last thing he’d expected her to say. What happened to “Because the Bible says I should”?

  “No, of course not.” He sounded as stupid and awkward as he felt.

  “And if I forgive Kate and God puts peace in there, and I can sleep at night without wanting to take a bunch of Tylenol myself—yes, I heard what happened to Anna. Dorinda told me that, too, when I called and asked her about counselors. If I can do that, what’s it to you?”

  Now he’d made her angry. What was the matter with him? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Well, you did.” The threat of tears trembled in her voice as she shoveled eggs onto a plate with savage efficiency. “Forgiveness is a gift, Nick. Not an obligation, not something to bad-mouth just because you’ve never had to use it.”

  “In law enforcement we—”

  “I’m not talking about law enforcement or how a cop sees the world. I’m talking about how I see it. And I won’t have you run down something that’s important to me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Here’s your breakfast. I hope you enjoy it.”

  Oh, man, she was going to leave. “Tanya, don’t go. Please. I was being stupid. Forgive me. There, I just admitted I needed it. That’s a start, right?”

  To his enormous relief, she didn’t tear off the dish towel she was using as an apron over her jeans and storm out the door. Instead, she picked up her coffee mug and took a sip, then lifted her eyebrows as the oven timer pinged. She’d just remembered the biscuits.

  She checked them, her back toward him. “You’re forgiven,” she said after a long moment in which he saw their tentative friendship circling the drain. “And I’m sorry I lost my temper. That happens when people poke at what’s important to me.”

  She was as solid as the guys on the force, who stood by the principles they were sworn to as if it were part of their personalities. Is that what being a Christian was all about? Not the swearing to uphold justice part, but living by principles that were important to you?

  “What else is important to you?” he surprised himself by asking.

  “Love,” she said simply, pulling the tray and piling the biscuits in a bowl. “God’s love for me despite my weaknesses. The love I had for Randi despite hers. Love’s the backbone of everything. The rest of it just kind of branches out from there.”

  “It’s easier to forgive someone you love, I’ll admit that.” The way each of them had just—

  Now, hold on a minute. That was two friends smoothing things over, nothing more.

  “Easier to forgive,” she agreed. “Easier to be honest.” The way she’d been with him. “Easier to be brave.” Like coming here with the makings of a full breakfast, a gift from the heart from a woman who had nothing else to give, trusting that he’d take it and not push her away.

  Did God do that? Sure, he knew the gospel story inside out and backward, but he’d never actually applied it to real life before. Because the truth was, he was a practical guy. Street smart. Analytical, even. And love wasn’t a thing that lent itself easily to analysis. Or street smarts, come to that.

  So had God come to him with a heart full of love, and he’d pushed him away? For what reason? Because he thought he could do a better job of life on his own?

  Nick thought of what might have happened if Tanya hadn’t had that internal backbone of love to support her. Maybe she’d have gone off the deep end, like that mother in California who had gunned down her son’s molester right there in the courtroom. Maybe she’d have gotten serious about the Tylenol and taken not just a “cry for help” dose like Anna but a truly lethal one.

  If not for God, maybe he’d have lost his friend.

  Maybe he was lost, himself.

  And suddenly Nick recognized the true nature of that yawning void inside him. He took its measure, and there was nothing left but to admit that he’d been filling it with justifications and avoidances and cynical humor, when all along the real nature of it had eluded him. The fact was, despite his close-knit family and the brotherhood of law enforcement, he needed love. He needed it, craved it, wanted it—and had deliberately deprived himself of it.

  Why?

  Because it means giving up your own way. Being the boss—the captain of his own soul and all that. He hadn’t done so badly in the captain department, but if he were completely honest within himself, he wasn’t completely happy, either.

  So, to be happy, was it a case of giving up—or getting?

  “This is too much for me,” he muttered.

  Then he realized that while he’d been locked in his own thoughts, having his little moment of truth, Tanya had set the table and put all the food out on it without saying a word.

  She sat in front of the plate of eggs and waved him into his chair. “The standard cautionary preamble applies here,” she said. “I know this is your house and all, but I brought the food so I’m going to say grace.”

  “Have at it,” he said mildly. “Put in a word for me.”

  She bowed her head, and instead of staring politely into the distance as he’d done the other night, he bowed his, too.

  “Father, thank you for this food, and thank you for giving Nick a good spirit about finding me in his house without an invitation. Thank you for revealing the truth about Randi’s death, and, Lord, I hope you’re taking good care of her until I get there. If there are nose rings in heaven, Lord, she’s going to want one, and you need to tell her no. I pray for Nick, Father. I know you love him to pieces, and he just needs to know it, too. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  She raised her head, opened her eyes, and pa
ssed him the eggs.

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “Know what?”

  “That he loves me to pieces. How does anyone know?”

  “Well, to put it in cop-speak, he let his Son be killed by a homicidal gang for your sake. If that doesn’t show love, I don’t know what does.”

  “If it happened, it happened two thousand years ago. Pretty abstract, if you ask me.”

  “All I can do is tell you what happens with me. He fills me up inside. It’s like being loved by the greatest guy in the world—not that I have any experience there, but I can imagine it—and then multiplying by ten. He shows it in a hundred little ways. Like with Laurie and her casseroles. You and your determination to find out the truth. People stopping me in the street to say they’re praying for me. He changes people, and then they show his love to other people.”

  “He hasn’t changed me.” But even as he said the words, he heard the defiance in them, and the hollow knowledge that they weren’t true.

  “You’d be surprised. Why else would you put up with me?”

  “That’s what friends do.”

  “It says in the Bible that he’s the friend that sticks closer than a brother. I’ve found that to be true. Maybe you should, too.”

  Nick had never considered Jesus as a friend. He was the sad-eyed guy on the cross, letting people beat up on him when he could have blasted them off the face of the planet with one lightning bolt. But a friend? Someone to walk beside and talk to and get advice from? It was a little weird thinking of Jesus like that.

  “I guess I don’t understand a friend like that,” he said at last. “He’s too complicated for me.”

  “He’s love, Nick,” Tanya said softly. “And love is the simplest and most powerful force on earth.” She smiled at him, and there were those seedlike dimples, and his heart squeezed and did a really strange flip-flop in his chest.

  He needed to focus. Tanya was trying to tell him something important, and he couldn’t think yet about why her smile kept affecting him like this.

  “You like talking about him, don’t you?” If he got her back on the subject of her own beliefs, maybe she wouldn’t press him about not having any.

  “It’s natural to talk about the things you love. I love to talk about Randi.” Her gaze faltered and she blinked, trying to keep the sudden rush of tears from flowing over.

  He reached behind him and snagged a tissue out of the box on the counter. “It’s okay. You can cry here if you want to.”

  She dabbed at her eyes and took a deep breath. “Dorinda tells me this is normal. You know, tears just coming up out of nowhere. Believe me, it was easier being angry.”

  “You? Angry? Weren’t you the one just talking about forgiveness?”

  “Sure, I was angry. One night I imagined the bridge collapsed and all those kids drowned. Even Anna.” She glanced at him in apology. “I prayed a lot that God would help me through that stage, and he did.”

  In one of his courses at the academy, there had been a segment on the stages of grief. Anger had been one of them. He could imagine himself being stuck in that stage forever. Maybe Tanya was lucky to have a faith like this that would get her through it.

  “I’m glad you had him to turn to.”

  She nodded. “He was faithful. People want to know how to help, too, you know? But sometimes what helps the most is just to talk about Randi. They try to change the subject, as if it’s going to hurt me, but it’s just the opposite. When I talk about her, in a strange way she’s still alive, even if it’s only in my memory.”

  “It’s natural to talk about the ones we love. But when you talk about Jesus, it still seems strange to me. Like he’s a real person—as real as Randi.”

  “He is real. And I think you’re beginning to see that.”

  Maybe. “What’s that verse about seeing through a glass darkly? He’s just a shadow to me right now.”

  “Give him time,” she said softly. “And you’ll see him face-to-face.”

  After dawdling over breakfast and doing dishes and talking about everything from the nature of grief and the definition of healing to whether bacon was better crispy or curly, she finally glanced at the clock.

  “I should go.”

  “Why?” It was surprising how easy it was to just be with her and celebrate the moment. He’d be happy to string all of these moments together all day, the way a kid made a daisy chain on a lazy summer afternoon.

  “Because it’s Sunday morning, and the service starts in half an hour.”

  It did? “Which service?”

  “I go to Glendale Bible Fellowship. It’s just on the other side of the river.”

  So did his family and Laurie’s. “I know where it is. How about I walk you over there?”

  So that was how Nick found himself beside Tanya on the river path, ambling toward the bridge. The weather seemed to have decided to prove the forecast wrong, and the snow clouds had cleared away, leaving the day sparkling bright instead of gray and damp. He wasn’t into looking for symbols and meanings in things. But today, with the memory of Tanya’s words still warm in his mind and the endless vault of heaven arching over them and the river whispering to itself down the bank, he could almost believe that maybe the Creator of all this was trying to tell him something.

  Like he’d done something right, there in the kitchen that morning. Admitted something. Started something. Whatever it was, the world seemed to be pretty happy about it all.

  When they reached the part of the path that took them past the sandbar, his instinct was to quicken his step a little and get Tanya over the painful part as quickly as possible. But she had other ideas.

  “It’s shrinking.” She pointed at the bar. Water swirled around it, carrying it away a little at a time.

  “Soon it’ll be gone, and the river will make another one somewhere else. The Susquanny never stays the same for more than a few weeks at a time.”

  “I never thought that something like a river would change. Especially—well, especially that spot. It’s kind of like a memorial for me. You know. Where she was found.”

  “It can still be that. But it’s not the sandbar that’s the memorial. It’s your love for her, isn’t it?”

  She nodded and moved on. They walked in silence for several hundred yards, until they could see the bridge straddling the river, its awkward wooden bones dark against the bright sky.

  There were people on it, just standing there looking down.

  “That’s where she went in,” Tanya said. “Right about where those people are. You can see the support beams sticking out from here.”

  They were only a few hundred feet away now. Nick stopped. “Hey. That’s Colin and Laurie and the kids. What are they doing up there?”

  “Debbie told me Anna was phobic about the bridge. Wouldn’t go on it. Wouldn’t even ride in a car across it.”

  “Maybe. But there she is.”

  “They must have released her from the hospital. And Debbie must have been wrong about the phobia thing. That’ll teach me to listen to gossip.”

  “I’d still be interested in knowing what really happened when Kyle found her standing in the water. You’d probably like to know that, too.”

  “I already know. She went down there to see if she could help.”

  “Did someone tell you that?”

  “She’s Laurie Hale’s child,” Tanya said simply. “Why else?”

  He looked at her in wonder as he heard the softness in her tone. She’d forgiven Laurie, it was clear. A bit of white light now lived in her heart instead of that black lump she’d talked about earlier. And it was real forgiveness, too. This woman was incapable of playacting or putting on a face for people. She had that in common with Laurie, whose passions were right out there in the open for people to see.

  Love. Forgiveness. All there for the taking.

  Tanya nudged him in the ribs. “It’s nearly eleven.”

  She sounded as though she expected him to head bac
k to his house. As they walked, she moved away from him a little, as if she wanted to give him permission to go back. He closed the gap so that instead they walked side by side.

  “No,” he said. “I think I’ll go with you. You never know. Maybe I’ll learn something new.”

  “Maybe you will,” she agreed.

  Across the river, the bells announcing the service began to ring. It took Nick a second to recognize the tune, and when he did, he grinned. He could appreciate a God with a sense of humor.

  It was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Laurie glanced into the backseat as Colin braked to approach the bridge. “Are you sure you’re okay with this, sweetie?”

  Anna didn’t look okay. Her fingers gripped the stem of the rose so tightly that Laurie thought she’d snap it. On her right hand, a narrow bandage formed a bump over the cotton ball where the IV needle had been, and a small blue bruise had spread on either side of it. “I’ll be fine.”

  “We don’t have to do this today.” Colin parked the car on the side of the road and looked at his daughter in the rearview mirror. “We can wait ’til you’re stronger.”

  “I want to do it now. I need to.” Anna got out and, wearing a determined expression, led the way to the middle of the bridge. Laurie, Colin, and Tim followed, gathering around her at the rail as though their bodies would protect her from the wind . . . and from the stares of the curious as they drove past.

  They’d brought her home from the hospital yesterday, and she’d spent the day in bed. Laurie still wasn’t convinced Anna should be going to church today, but Anna had insisted.

  “I meant both things,” Colin said. With a gentle finger, he smoothed a lock of windblown hair off Anna’s pale cheek. “This and what we’re going to do at church.”

  “I know.” She looked up at him, then at Laurie. “I meant both things, too.”

  “Mom, it’s freezing out here,” Tim complained.

  “We won’t be long,” Laurie said to him. “This is important.”