Precinct 11 - 01 - The Brotherhood

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “Yes,” Pastor Sosa said, turning a sheet of paper to face them and sliding it across the desk. “This will be in the printed programs, but just so you can see it. You’re sure you’re up to this, Mr. McNickle? Everyone will understand if you can’t get through it.”

  “I intend to try.”

  Boone was impressed. He would not have dreamed of trying. His mother grabbed Steve’s forearm. “We wanted to say a few words, but we just couldn’t. God will be with you.”

  “He’ll have to be.”

  Sosa walked them through the order of service. The program would begin with organ and piano music while the caskets were rolled to the front. “The mothers will then place framed photographs atop each coffin. I will read a brief formal obituary for both Nikki and Josh, then introduce Mr. McNickle. After that I’ll open the floor for anyone who wishes to be heard. Then we’ll have a solo by a friend of Nikki’s. I will speak, and then we’ll close with one more solo. I will explain the instructions for all who want to join the procession to the gravesites and then announce that all are invited back to the church for food and reflection.”

  Boone came alive. “For what?”

  “The church is happy to provide this,” Sosa said. “Just light refreshments. Usually about half the people choose to return.”

  “I knew nothing of this.”

  “I’m sorry. My error. I didn’t even think to mention it. We do it all the time. You don’t have a problem with it, do you?”

  “I wasn’t prepared for it, that’s all. The service itself and the gravesite thing are going to be stressful enough. . . .”

  Mrs. Drake said, “We can’t cancel, Boone. People expect this sort of thing and will want to express themselves. Anyway, the church has gone to a lot of trouble and expense—”

  “That is not an issue, ma’am,” Sosa said. “This is offered by the church on behalf of the family, so it’s entirely up to you all.”

  “It’s up to me,” Boone said, feeling slighted.

  The four parents began to speak at once. “Not only do we have to do it, Boone,” his mother said, “but you must be there. People will expect it.”

  “I don’t care what people expect! It’s going to be all I can do to survive, and I don’t need a big banquet on top of everything else.”

  “This is my fault,” the pastor said. “I apologize. I can easily just leave out the invitation, and people will understand that the traditional post-service reception is not part of today’s agenda. People are flexible.”

  “No, no,” the parents said. “Boone, please.”

  Part of him wanted to stomp and pound and shout. He was so tired of convention and expectations and worrying about everyone else. Yet clearly there was no way out of this. “Don’t expect me to be cordial and cheery.”

  “No one expects that,” his mother said. “Just let people minister to you.”

  Minister to me? They could better minister to me by leaving me alone.

  “Forgive me, Boone,” Sosa said. “Totally my error.”

  Boone nodded. He certainly didn’t want this weighing on the pastor.

  Pam McNickle handed the Bible back to Boone. “I’m sure you know this, but somewhere in there is Nikki’s prayer list. She’s kept one there for years.”

  Pastor Sosa’s secretary returned to usher the parents to their seats.

  “Boone,” Francisco said, “hang back and you and I will walk in together, all right?”

  When the others were gone, Francisco put a hand on Boone’s shoulder and pulled him close. “Are we all right?”

  “’Course.”

  “Do I need to apologize again?”

  “Please, no.”

  “Thanks,” Sosa said. He pulled open a closet door, revealing a small mirror. He straightened his tie and checked his teeth. “Occupational hazard. Need a last peek?”

  Boone was going to decline, but Sosa opened the door farther and he caught a glimpse of himself. Everything was in place, but Boone was sobered to realize how lined his young face was. The last several days had not been good to him. The sunglasses gave him a hard, foreboding look, and that was fine with him.

  Following Francisco down the back way to the sanctuary was almost as dreadful as the walk to ICU not so many days before. As they entered from a side door, Boone realized he had never heard such silence in the sanctuary. Usually the place, especially when full, was hopping with music and chatter.

  A low murmur began when Boone and the pastor split, Sosa heading to a chair near the steps to the platform and Boone to his seat in the front row next to his mother. Beyond her sat his father and his in-laws, beyond and behind them the rest of the family. Boone was relieved to see Jack directly behind him. Most stunning, however, was that immediately behind the rows reserved for the family was an entire section filled with hundreds of Chicago PD officers, men and women in formal dress uniforms.

  A pianist and an organist made their way to electronic keyboards and began playing. When Boone heard a low moan from all over the auditorium, he knew the coffins were being wheeled down the center aisle. People turned as they would for a bride, but Boone sat staring down, gripping Nikki’s Bible so tight his fingers felt stiff and his knuckles turned white.

  The caskets were transferred to a bier in the front, the tiny white one tucked in next to Nikki’s and gleaming under a spotlight. Boone found it hard to breathe. His mother looked to Mrs. McNickle, and they stood together. Pam placed a framed portrait of Nikki atop her casket, and Lucy Drake put a picture of Josh on his. Boone hung his head again, refusing to look.

  Francisco Sosa strode to a simple lectern at center stage and solemnly announced the birth and death dates of mother and child, reciting the litany of relatives who both preceded them in death and survived them. “And now Stephen McNickle, father of Nikki and grandfather of Josh, will speak on behalf of the family.”

  Steve looked shaky to Boone as he took the stage, pulling a single sheet from his breast pocket, fingers fluttering as he spread it flat before him. He cleared his throat to little avail. He had to lean close to the microphone to be heard. And he never lifted his eyes from his notes.

  “It is my privilege to speak on behalf of the families. Nikki was a wonderful daughter. . . .”

  Steve spoke haltingly, and again Boone had to look away. As his father-in-law told familiar stories and touching incidents, people quietly laughed or oohed and aahed. But when he got to his memories of holding Josh for the first time, of watching the video of his first steps, of his saying his version of grandpa, the place was silent except for sniffles and rustling for tissues.

  Boone lowered his chin to his chest, pressing his lips tight. He had to hand it to Steve. No way he could have done the same. Boone ran his fingers across the edges of Nikki’s Bible, then thumbed through it. There in the back, just as his mother-in-law had said, was a small card titled My Prayer List.

  It included several names and situations, but at the very top was, “Boone—that he become a complete man of God and remain a devoted husband and loving father.”

  On one of the blank pages at the back of the Bible, Nikki had written, “My favorite verse: ‘Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart,’ Psalm 37:4.”

  Suddenly Boone was aware of his mother leaning toward him. He turned the page so she could see. She reached for the Bible and he reluctantly let her take it. She immediately left her seat and tiptoed over to where Pastor Sosa sat. As Steve McNickle was finishing his poignant remarks, she showed the Bible to the pastor and whispered in his ear.

  Sosa took the Bible with him when he replaced Steve at the lectern. “Before I open the floor for comments, I’ve just been shown something special in Nikki Drake’s Bible.” He read her favorite verse, then directed people to microphones placed throughout the auditorium. Boone was surprised to see dozens line up to wait their turn. As they began to speak, the pastor returned the Bible to him. Never had anything but his family seemed so precious. Was
the first thing listed on Nikki’s prayer list the desire of her heart? Had he ever been what she wanted, what she hoped and prayed for? Regardless, it was too late now.

  Boone had no idea how far and wide Nikki’s influence had spread. She had never been what one would describe as a dynamic personality. Rather she had been a servant, a pleasant people person. And yet friends and coworkers shared story after story of her kindnesses. Boone wondered if he had ever really known her or appreciated her. She had always been wonderful to him, but all this . . . of this he had been largely unaware.

  Boone was not sure how she accomplished it, but when the comments from the audience had run their course and the program moved to the first solo, Cheryl Schmidt was already waiting at the lectern. She had apparently slipped up there while the lights were concentrated on the floor mikes. He saw immediately what she had meant by being less than animated. But somehow that made Nikki’s favorite songs all the more special.

  Cheryl looked to be college-age and was rather plain. But her voice was soft and pure. Apparently without printed music or lyrics, she merely gazed at the audience and sang to simple piano accompaniment:

  I will sing the wondrous story

  Of the Christ who died for me—

  How he left his home in glory

  For the cross of Calvary.

  Days of darkness still come o’er me,

  Sorrow’s paths I often tread;

  But the Savior still is with me—

  By his hand I’m safely led.

  He will keep me till the river

  Rolls its waters at my feet;

  Then he’ll bear me safely over,

  Where the loved ones I shall meet.

  Boone heard weeping from all over the sanctuary. The place fell silent as Francisco Sosa mounted the stage and quietly traded places with the soloist.

  The pastor took a moment to open his Bible and spread his notes. “Dearly beloved, there is a reason that pastors have begun solemn church ceremonies with that phrase throughout the centuries. I call you dearly beloved because that is what you are.

  “I knew Nikki Drake and her precious baby. I didn’t know her as well as many of you apparently did, but I knew her well enough to know that she is dearly beloved by you, and that you would be dearly beloved by her, if for no other reason than that you have made it a priority to be here today.

  “As I look out over this crowd and see the grieving family before me, I confess my heart is broken. The remains of the two who are in heaven today lie before us entirely too prematurely. Nikki was a young wife and mother. Josh had virtually just begun what should have been a decades-long journey.

  “While we are here to celebrate their too-short lives and to rejoice in their home-goings and the joyous welcome they have enjoyed in the arms of their heavenly Father, you must not wonder whether I am aware of the elephant in the room.

  “Believe me, I am aware. There is a villain in this story. We have an enemy. Some would say this enemy is fate. Destiny. Luck. Happenstance. Others would dare say the enemy is God himself. While no one holds him responsible for these awful deaths, some naturally question how he could have allowed them.

  “Do you want the studied, prayer-filled, measured answer from the one who has been charged with trying to interpret God and his Word for you? Here it is: I don’t know. Anyone who tells you he knows why God allowed this is a liar. While we rest in what the apostle Paul calls ‘that blessed hope’ that we will see our loved ones again one day, and while we are instructed not to grieve as those who have no hope, that does not imply that we are not to grieve at all.

  “I say grieve. Grieve with all that is in you. Embrace the grief. Ask your questions. I am confident we will not know or understand this whole story until we are in glory ourselves. But I can tell you this: Our enemy, our villain, is Satan, the devil, the prince of darkness.”

  On the giant screens was projected John 10:10: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

  “The thief is Satan. The one who has come that we might have life and may have it more abundantly is Jesus. You want to blame someone for this, blame the thief. Is your heart broken as mine is? Grieve with all your might.

  “If there is any lesson for those of us who remain today, it is that we never know when our end might come. These precious ones were with us one moment and gone the next. Did they want to be used as examples, as visual aids to the brevity of life? Do their loved ones and their dearly beloved friends accept that they have become object lessons? Of course not.

  “Our task has become clear. Live life to the fullest, to its most abundant. Grieve with vigor. And come alongside those who remain, loving them, supporting them, praying for them, being there for them. If you have questions, if you’re confused, if you hate this and don’t understand it and can’t comprehend it, imagine their turmoil.

  “It falls to us now to be the body of Christ.”

  Boone sat rigid through it all, fighting to maintain composure, desperate to corral his rage. He gripped Nikki’s Bible to keep from shuddering. If he could just bear up through the rest of the message and the one final solo, he could retreat to his rote response for anyone who said anything. And many would. He knew he had to sit there as people filed by the bier and paid their respects and expressed themselves.

  Cheryl was waiting in the wings, and she stepped in behind Pastor Sosa as he finished. With a simple piano introduction, again she sweetly sang:

  My Jesus, I love you, I know you are mine—

  For you all the follies of sin I resign;

  My gracious Redeemer, my Savior you are;

  If ever I loved you, my Jesus, ’tis now.

  In mansions of glory and endless delight,

  I’ll ever adore you in heaven so bright;

  I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow,

  “If ever I loved you, my Jesus, ’tis now.”

  Boone had been wrung out emotionally. All around him people wept openly. The organ and piano played as first the hundreds of uniformed police officers lined each side of the center aisle, heads bowed, gloved hands clasped behind their backs. More than a thousand people slowly passed by the caskets, some stopping, some touching them, some just brushing their fingers across the tops.

  Everyone stopped to shake Boone’s hand or hug him or say something. Most just said they were sorry or that they were praying for him; some said something about Nikki or Josh. He couldn’t listen. He couldn’t smile. He just tried to endure, accepting their touches, their handshakes, their embraces. And he repeated over and over, “Thank you for coming.”

  The procession to the cemetery, led by more than a hundred squad cars with lights flashing, seemed to take forever. To his credit, Pastor Sosa kept his gravesite remarks brief. To see his loved ones lowered into their graves was almost more than Boone could bear, and he nearly collapsed. At the perfect instant, Jack Keller grabbed one arm and held him up without making a show of it.

  On the way back to the cars, the Chicago police officers stood at attention on either side of the cemetery road, and all in attendance strode between them.

  The reception lasted two more hours, and by the time Boone had thanked the last person for coming, he wondered if Jack would have to carry him to the car. He couldn’t imagine needing wine that night. Maybe for the first time since the tragedy, he would be able to simply fall asleep.

  Boone’s final task was thanking Francisco Sosa and saying good-bye to the extended families. The pastor pulled him off to the side. “I know you want me to leave you alone for a while, Boone, and I’m going to do that. But listen, you need to be in the Word. Just like with exercise, where anything is better than nothing, the same is true with the Bible. You don’t feel like reading or studying just yet, fine. But the Scripture will not return void. Every so often I’m going to just text you a reference. Look it up. Read it. That’s all I ask. Will you do that just
for me?”

  Boone nodded, wondering if he would follow through. Anything to keep Sosa off his back.

  Parting from the family was the worst. His mother badgered him to let her stay around a few days, “so you’ll have someone to lean on.” He promised to keep in touch, but he knew she would do that work for him. He might leave Jack’s message on his phone for a while.

  Finally back in the car with Jack, Boone had never felt so spent.

  10

  Processing

  “I’ve got a DATE TONIGHT,” Jack said on the way to his apartment. “You gonna be all right?”

  “Yeah. Might turn in early. Just want to get out of this suit. Hey, you bringing someone home? Because I can—”

  “Nah, you’re fine. Just dinner and a movie. Now if she invites me home, I might be late.”

  “I just don’t want to be in the way.”

  “Believe me, I’d tell ya.”

  Boone was hungry after having ignored the food at the reception. And he continued to feel that he should try sleeping without any help. He changed from his suit to shorts and a T-shirt and was hanging around the apartment snacking while Jack changed into a light sport coat and slacks.

  “Call me if you need me,” Keller said on his way out. “This gal is an old friend and flexible.”

  Boone was rummaging in the refrigerator when his phone rang. The readout said it was Steve McNickle. He hesitated, wondering if he should just check the message later. Ah, he’d better take it. What could it hurt?

  “Boone, listen, Pam and I were wondering if you could meet us at the house and let us pick through there a bit.”

  “Oh, I thought you had a flight out tonight.”

  “No, tomorrow morning.”

  Pick through Nikki’s stuff? Anything but that.

  “I’m shot, Steve. How about I choose a few things and send them to you?”

  There was a long pause. “Uh, Pam really wanted to see the place. If you’re not up to it, maybe we could just drop by and pick up the keys?”