The Weight of Shadows

by Alison Strobel

  Debbie nodded. “Right. No one deserves to be treated like property, or like a prisoner in their own home, or like they’re subhuman.”

  “But—see, that’s the thing. They didn’t do anything to deserve being beat. But…I did.”

  She held her breath, waiting for Debbie’s reaction. But Debbie merely cocked her head and said, “What makes you think you deserve to be beaten, humiliated, degraded, and almost choked to death? I mean if you had beaten, humiliated, degraded, and almost choked someone else to death, then maybe I could see the connection. But somehow I don’t think you did that.”

  Kim shook her head. “No, I didn’t. But…” She couldn’t bring herself to say what she had done, and her unwillingness to name her crime must have been plain on her face because Debbie held up her hand.

  “You don’t have to tell me what you did. Honestly, it’s irrelevant. Regardless of what happened, domestic abuse is not a pardonable punishment. If you broke the law, then the law should deal with you. If you hurt someone’s feelings, then you and that person need to work it out. And in between those two extremes are a thousand shades of wrongdoing—but none of them are made right by what your fiancé did to you.”

  Kim felt tears of frustration beginning to well in her eyes. “But I don’t know how else to make up for it, especially now that I have Anne. I should have made it right years ago, but I didn’t, and the guilt has been killing me.” She extended her arm to Debbie, pointing at the faint lines that criss-crossed her skin. “I was cutting myself, trying to deal with the pain I felt inside. And when Rick began to hit me—it was a relief. Honestly, a relief! Because I could stop hurting myself, and trying to hide it, and making excuses for it. And even though it was more extreme than what I had been doing to myself, it seemed more fitting. And when he wasn’t hitting me, things were really great. I mean, I actually felt even more guilty sometimes, because I’d found this man that loved me so much and made me so happy. It wasn’t until recently that things started to get really bad, and I think it was more because of Anne than anything else. He wasn’t happy that I got pregnant.” She kissed Anne’s head and inhaled the sweet scent of baby shampoo that lingered there. How could someone not love their own flesh and blood? Rick’s stories of his father came to mind. “I just don’t think he knows how to be a good dad. His own dad beat him—Rick was in foster care for a bit, even. So he didn’t have a real good model, you know? Same for being in a relationship, or a marriage—his mom was gone, he didn’t have a model to learn from.”

  Debbie smiled a bit. “You’re making excuses for him, Kim. You’re on to something in recognizing the impact his upbringing had on how he parents Anne and how he relates to you. But that doesn’t make the behavior okay.”

  Debbie leaned in, her posture inviting Kim to listen carefully. “Whatever you did, I know it must have been pretty serious for you to think living with abuse was a good way to make up for it. But no amount of penance would have ever made the guilt go away, because your punishment wouldn’t have gotten to the root of the issue.”

  Rather than feeling relief, this made Kim feel even worse. “So there’s nothing I can do to get out from under this? I just have to live with it for the rest of my life? The root of the issue—it’s impossible for me to get to it. I can’t undo what I did.”

  “No—you can’t undo it. But you can face it and ask for forgiveness. You can offer to make amends in whatever way makes sense to all involved.”

  Kim’s head was swimming. Amends meant jail. Any way she looked at it, that was the only way out. She rubbed her eyes and almost smiled with relief when Anne began to whimper. “I—I think she needs to eat. And probably nap soon too. I’m going to go feed her and put her down to sleep. Thanks for your time, Debbie.” She clutched Anne to her chest and fled, eyes streaming, for the safety of her little room.

  ANNE INDEED FELL ASLEEP, but try as she might, Kim could not follow suit. After half an hour of staring at the ceiling, she eased herself up from the bed and slipped out into the hall.

  The kitchen was a couple doors down, close enough for her to sneak in and grab a drink and snack without worrying about Anne. But after washing an apple and pulling a couple cheese sticks from the fridge, she sat at the table instead of retreating to her room. There was too much rattling around in her brain to be cooped up in that small space. She needed room to think.

  A woman teetering on the line between skinny and skeletal walked in, humming and smiling. She introduced herself as Adele, grabbed a snack, and sat across from Kim after preparing her food, and made small talk for a few minues. Seeing the troubled look on Kim’s face, she probed, “You’re not rethinking coming here, are you?”

  Kim sighed and shook her head as she pushed away the food she no longer had an appetite for. “Not exactly. I just had my first counseling session with Debbie, and I’m just…confused, I guess.”

  Adele polished off one of her apple slices. “You want to talk at me, you can. When I can’t sort things out, it always helps me to just get it all out of my head, you know? But it helps when there’s someone there listening and not just the walls.”

  “Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it.” She thought for a moment, then said, “Have you had any counseling sessions yet?”

  “Oh yeah, three of them. Candice, my counselor, she and I started talking about Jesus, and I felt like someone opened up a bit of my head that I’d closed off. Me and Jesus used to be tight, so when Candice brung him up I was kicking myself for dissing him for so long.”

  Kim sat up a little straighter, the name of Jesus conjuring Joshua’s voice through the wall. “So…you know about Jesus?”

  Adele laughed. “I wouldn’t say I know a lot; I’m no preacher. But I went to church all the time as a kid and my mama was real spiritual, so I know some. Why you ask?”

  Kim propped her chin in her hand. “I don’t know much about him—but he seems to keep popping up. One of the foster couples I stayed with was some weird, fanatical kind of religious, but I don’t remember a lot of what they taught me, because I was still pretty young. The one good family I was with went to a Catholic church on holidays, so I know Christmas is supposed to be Jesus’ birthday, and Easter is about his death—”

  “Naw, naw—his resurrection.”

  Kim frowned. “What’s that?”

  “Good Friday, which comes before Easter—that’s about Jesus’ death. But Easter is about when he was resurrected, when he rose from the dead.”

  Kim raised her eyebrows. This Jesus character was starting to sound like a fairy tale. But Joshua doesn’t seem like the type to fall for fairy tales.

  Adele dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “You gotta get your hands on a Bible. Check your room. I bet there’s one in there. It’s big, right, so you don’t read the whole thing right now. But what you do is you read the gospels and see what it is Jesus did. I think that might help you.” She smiled, then glanced at the clock and let out a squeak. “Speaking of counseling, I’m late! I just stopped in for a snack and forgot I had to go to Candice.”

  Kim let out a gasp of her own. “Anne! I forgot my baby is sleeping in the bedroom!” They both hustled out the door, and Kim’s chest squeezed with relief when she saw Anne lying content on the bed, pulling her feet to her mouth.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” Kim said as she sank to her knees on the mattress. “I’m sorry I left you alone.” She picked her up and leaned against the wall, then let her nurse while Adele’s words whirled around in the blender of her mind. Her eyes went to the small nightstand, which had a single drawer. Holding Anne tightly to her, she shuffled over and pulled it open, revealing a black leather Bible with gold-edged pages. Once back at her spot on the mattress, she bolstered Anne with pillows to free up her hands and began to turn the thin pages, looking for the table of contents. She skimmed the page when she found it, and her eyes snapped to the first four titles listed under the heading “The New Testament.” She flipped to the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew and skippe
d past the line of bizarre names until she saw an italicized heading: The Birth of Jesus Christ. She began to read, but the lines blurred together, her exhaustion making it hard for her to concentrate. She was about to give up and shut the book when her eyes fell on a passage set apart from the rest of the text.

  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

  She paused, then read it again. Poor in spirit. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sure sounded like how she felt. Her spirit—if that was what she thought it was—had felt downright destitute for a long time. She read more closely.

  Blessed are those who mourn…

  …the meek…

  …those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…

  It started to fall apart for her after that—whatever righteousness was, she was sure she didn’t have it; she didn’t think she was merciful, or a peacemaker, or pure in heart. But the first few verses of that section had definitely piqued her interest.

  Anne began to fuss. She dog-eared the page before shutting the giant book, then patted Anne’s back to settle her. Maybe after she got Anne calmed down and occupied she’d spend some more time reading that passage. What did she have to lose?

  TWENTY-THREE

  Joshua had just finished tucking Maddie in when pounding on the front door made them both jump. Maddie’s face began to crumple, and Joshua laid a hand on her head. “It’s alright, sweetheart. Don’t worry about it, okay?” He closed the door behind him and tried to maintain the illusion of calm he had conjured for Maddie’s sake. He looked out the peephole and saw Rick, as he knew he would. “Please don’t do that again. It scares my daughter,” he said through the door.

  There was a brief pause. “I’m sorry, I won’t,” Rick said. “Can I speak to you for a minute, please?”

  Such manners. He unbolted the door but left the chain in. Opening the door as far as the chain allowed, he said, “One minute, that’s it. I have work to do.”

  Rick fidgeted from one foot to the other and shoved his hands in his pockets. “One of the ladies down the hall said she saw Kim leaving with you yesterday. I just want to know where she went. I’m worried about her, and the baby. She hasn’t called, didn’t leave a note, nothing.”

  Obviously Rick’s and Kim’s little domestic secret was well-kept around here. “I don’t know where she went. She saw I was home and asked for a ride to the bus depot. She didn’t say where she was going.” He narrowed his eyes at Rick. “But don’t think for a second that I don’t know why she left. You know how thin these walls are.”

  He watched as Rick’s composed exterior developed a crack or two. “What goes on in my home is my own business.”

  “Not when a child is involved it isn’t. Next time I hear anything like that going on again, I’m calling the cops and DHS, understand?”

  A muscle jumped in Rick’s neck. “I wouldn’t get involved if I were you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Just returning the sentiment is all.” He jabbed a finger in Joshua’s direction. “I don’t believe you about the bus depot. She has nowhere else to go. Now the next time you see her, you tell her to come home. We’ll talk things out and patch them up, okay? You tell her I love her and miss her and just want her back safe and sound.” With a final menacing stare, Rick turned and disappeared down the hall.

  JOSHUA HEARD A SOFT KNOCK on his office door. “Come in.” He swiveled his chair and saw Kim looking into the room. He greeted her with a smile. “Kim, hi, come in and sit down. I’ve been wondering how you’re doing. Everything alright?”

  She slid into the chair beside his desk and returned the smile. He noticed the bruises on her throat were fading, though still visible. A haunted look still lingered in her eyes, which Joshua was sad to see. “Anne and I are doing pretty well. Everyone is so kind and helpful—and everyone loves Anne.”

  “I’ll bet. She is a beautiful baby.”

  “And Debbie—well, all the staff, really—they’re great. I came up because, well, a couple reasons actually. First, I don’t think I ever really thanked you for bringing me here. I know things were getting worse, and I’m relieved that Anne is safe. And me too,” she added.

  “You’re welcome. I’m relieved that you’re here too.”

  She twisted her engagement ring around her finger. He was surprised she still wore it. “Have you seen Rick?”

  He sighed. “Yes, I have. The last two nights, actually. He suspects me of helping you leave, and unfortunately someone else in the complex saw us leave together and told him.”

  “Oh no.” Kim’s hands twisted together. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I drove you to the bus depot but that you didn’t say where you were going. He doesn’t believe me, though.” He remembered Rick’s message to Kim but chose not to pass it on. Something in her demeanor told him she hadn’t given up on him.

  Kim sighed and pressed her palms to her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Joshua. I should have known he’d catch on somehow.”

  “Hey, Kim, don’t worry about it. So what if he suspects me—what can he do about it? It was a risk that had to be taken, and I’m glad that I did.” He gave her a reassuring smile, then said, “You said there were a couple things you came up here for.”

  She sighed. “Yes. I wanted to ask you—but it’s kind of personal, so I don’t know if I should…”

  Joshua spread his hands. “I’m an open book, ask away.”

  She gnawed her lip a moment. “Okay. One night—the night before you came and got me, actually—I heard you singing to Maddie. I think you were singing ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ ”

  Joshua chuckled. “Yeah, that’s a standard at our house.”

  “So you believe in Jesus too?”

  “Yes, I’m a Christian.”

  “Seems like everyone here is. I mean, I know the staff are because it’s a Christian place, but even a lot of the women here seem to be.”

  “Is Christianity relatively new to you?”

  “Well, sort of—I mean, I know it’s a religion. I know about God, and Jesus—a little bit, anyway. Debbie told me in my counseling session yesterday that Jesus has already paid for what I’d done, and that only through him could I be released from my guilt.” She frowned. “It’s confusing, honestly. One of the other women here talked about being part of God’s family, and I do like the sound of that, but…” She stopped and gave him a sheepish look. “I guess I have a ton of questions and just don’t know where to start.”

  Joshua nodded. “When you don’t have any kind of background knowledge to build on, it can be a little overwhelming. I was raised in a Christian family, but my wife wasn’t, and there were a lot of things that never fazed me about the faith that really hung her up because they were so foreign to her. If you’re looking for the CliffsNotes version, I think I can probably give it to you if you give me a minute to think.”

  She grinned. “I’d like that.”

  “Alright, let me see.” Give me the right words here, God. He arranged his thoughts and took a deep breath. “Well, in a very small nutshell, God is perfect. People are not. God cannot abide imperfection in his presence, but he loves us because we are his creation. He wants for us to be in a relationship with him, to allow him to guide us, and to be willing to live by the laws he lays out for us in the Bible. But in order for us to be able to do any of that, we need help—we need to get our sins erased, get them paid for. A perfect life needed to be sacrificed in our place. That’s where Jesus comes in.

  “God sent Jesus to earth to be both fully human and fully God. As God, he was able to live a perfect life and never sin. As man, he was able to die. And so he died the death we deserve, and God made it possible for that death to cover our sins, if we are willing to admit that we’re sinful and ask God to extend the benefit of Jesus’ death to us, which he does as a gift, without expecting us to pay for it, which we never could.”

  Kim’s look of concentration brightened. “Oh, I think Debbie was talkin
g about this. There were a bunch of A words.” She frowned again, thinking. “Um…acknowledge what Jesus did—that he died in our place, I guess—admit that we need help getting rid of our sin, and accept the sacrifice that was given in our place. Or something like that. Right?”

  Joshua nodded. “That’s the gist of it, yes. But then, in response to that gift of grace, we in turn give our lives to God, devote ourselves to living the way Jesus instructed us to in the Bible. It’s not easy; God’s standards are pretty high. But the grace of God through Jesus covers our mistakes, and he gives us the strength to do things we can’t do on our own.”

  He heaved a sigh. “I’m sure there are a lot of holes there, but if nothing else, that gives you the basics. The bottom line is that God loves you and sent Jesus to die for you so you could be a part of God’s family if you wanted to be.”

  “That was pretty impressive for being off-the-cuff,” Kim said with a grin.

  “Yeah, well, it’s only because God gave me the words. I’m rarely that coherent.”

  They were both silent for a moment, until Joshua asked, “So was there anything else I could do for you?”

  Kim looked about to speak, then stopped. “No—no, that’s alright.”

  “You sure?”

  “You’ve done enough already.”

  “But I’m always willing to do more. What is it?”

  She bit her lip. “Well…if you’re willing—and you can totally say no—I wondered if you might go into the apartment and get some things for me?”

  JOSHUA TRIED TO KEEP HIMSELF busy instead of staring out the window, but he was eager to get this over with. Kim had mentioned that Rick had been laid off, so who knew when he’d leave the apartment? Joshua had noticed, however, that Rick had been gone the last three nights that he’d come home, so obviously he was going out somewhere. He just hoped it would be soon. It was already 4:00 p.m.