The Weight of Shadows

by Alison Strobel

  She’d almost hyperventilated with panic. She’d been drinking, speeding a little—the fact that the girl had basically jumped in front of her wouldn’t matter much to the police in the face of these issues, especially without witnesses.

  That’s when she realized—there were no witnesses. The windows of the houses along her right were dark, and to the left was a cemetery. She jumped back into the car, made a U-turn, and headed back in the other direction.

  She’d inspected the car when she got home. The chrome grille was bent and one headlight was smashed. She’d woken her foster mother, telling her through her sobs that she’d hit a deer. Saundra had comforted her, shared her own story of animal encounters while driving, assured her that sometimes there was nothing you could do.

  She’d heard nothing at school about a student dying. She avoided the television when the news was on, afraid hearing about the story might cause her to do something that would give away her guilt.

  “She was in college. A freshman,” Ruth said.

  “No wonder I never heard anything. I wondered why no one was talking about it.”

  Everyone was silent. Kim finally offered the only thing she could. “I know it doesn’t help. But I’m so sorry. You don’t know how much this has haunted me, how often I’ve wished I could go back and change everything I did that night.”

  Debbie gave her a small smile. “I do know, actually. You told me in counseling.”

  Kim let out a strangled chuckle. “Do you understand now? Why I let Rick do what he did?”

  Debbie nodded. Her mother looked between the two of them. “What do you mean?”

  “Kim—I won’t if you don’t want me to, but if it’s alright with you I’d like to tell my family what you’ve been through.”

  Her gaze dropping, Kim shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

  Debbie recounted Kim’s time with Rick and the reasons she let him hit her. Kim averted her eyes, feeling awkward under this microscope. When Debbie finished, Ruth turned back to Kim with a look in her eyes she couldn’t decipher.

  “You poor child.” It was not what Kim had expected to hear. “I can’t believe what you’ve gone through.”

  The sentiment tugged at her heart. She was sure Ruth meant to be compassionate, but instead she felt even worse than she had before. “What I’ve gone through? It’s nothing compared to what you had to go through—losing your daughter, not knowing what happened, having to live with that mystery all these years.”

  Ruth shook her head. “Loss is a part of life. Losing a child rips your heart in two, I won’t deny that—and from what I understand you’re experiencing that yourself.” Kim ducked her head to hide the strain on her features caused by holding in the sudden sob that tried to escape. “But we know we’ll see Gina again in heaven. We miss her now, we grieved for the future with her that we lost, but God’s peace and comfort got us through, and his Word assured us we’d see her again.”

  The weight of Kim’s emotions bent her double. She wept, dropping her head onto her arms on the table. Ruth murmured words of comfort into the receiver that lay on the table beside her. When her tears ran out she sat up, feeling lighter in her spirit than she ever had. “Thank you,” she said to Ruth. “I can’t tell you how much better I feel, having told you face-to-face what happened. And your—your grace towards me…” She shook her head. “I almost can’t believe you’re for real. Thank you.” She looked to the rest of the family and was struck by the look on Debbie’s face. All the others looked at her with compassion—even Pete, whose posture had been defensive from the start. But Debbie just looked mad.

  DEBBIE FUMED ALL THE WAY back to her parents’ house. She hadn’t expected to feel this way when she’d agreed to take her family down to the station, but seeing Kim look so unburdened and free had stirred her anger. She didn’t care what her mother said about knowing the whole story—it didn’t bring Gina back, and it didn’t make her feel any better.

  She let the door slam behind her when she entered the house. Her mother was alone in the kitchen, putting the kettle on the stove. “Tea?”

  Debbie sat on a barstool and propped her chin in her hands. “Only if you don’t have any ice cream.”

  “All out, sorry.” Ruth pulled two mugs from the cabinet and ripped open the tea bags. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay.”

  She stared at the fire beneath the kettle, watching it lap the metal. “You’re happy, then?”

  Ruth set the sugar bowl on the island in front of Debbie. “Happy? No. My daughter might have killed herself. What does that say about the relationship she and I had, that she didn’t feel like she could come to me? I’m relieved, however, to know the whole story. I’m relieved to know she most likely felt no pain. I’m glad to know, though I’m not sure why, that someone else was there when she passed, that she wasn’t alone in the middle of the road.” She sat beside Debbie. “But knowing that she felt so alone that she wanted to die? Knowing she was in love with someone, and that he not only broke her heart but tried to actually harm her? That doesn’t make me happy at all.”

  She dragged a spoon through the sugar, making patterns in the crystals. “And it breaks my heart to know that another girl her age had to go through that experience alone—had to go through her entire life alone, really, or at least without a real family, and then felt it necessary to submit herself to abuse just to make up for something that wasn’t really her fault.” She shook her head. “Such a broken world. Come, Jesus, come.”

  Debbie stared at the sugar, watching the spoon write Gina’s initials and then scrape them away, over and over. Then the vision blurred with tears that fell unchecked to her cheeks. “It was supposed to be some drunk, some drunk jerk who I would be justified in hating. Not a kid who can hardly be blamed.” Her mother’s hand rested on her back and smoothed circles on her blouse. “Now I have no one to put my anger on but myself.”

  “Lay it down, Debbie. Hate and anger do you no good, doesn’t matter where you direct them. Neither does guilt, and I know you’ve dealt with plenty of that too.”

  Debbie buried her face in her folded arms and let herself cry harder than she had in a long time. When she finally raised her head, a cup of tea sat steaming in front of her along with a box of tissues.

  “It’s time for you to take the advice you gave Kim,” her mother said. “You keep saying you’ve forgiven yourself, that you’ve made your peace, but obviously you haven’t. It’s time to do it for good and move on.”

  “I don’t know how. I keep doing it because it doesn’t work the first time.”

  “Don’t confuse moving on with forgetting. It’s acceptance of what you’ve done and extending some grace to yourself for having made a mistake. And you probably can’t do it on your own—that’s why you need the Lord’s help. Stop trying to be so self-sufficient and independent, you stubborn girl, you.” Ruth smiled gently and set a plate of banana bread in front of her.

  Debbie picked up a slice of bread. “Why is it I can walk other women through this kind of thing, but I can’t do it myself?”

  “Well, what is it they say about doctors, how they make the worst patients? Maybe it’s the same idea with psychologists.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It helps to have someone else to talk to, too, instead of just letting it rattle around in your own head.”

  “But I talk to you all the time.”

  Her mother smiled. “Maybe it’s time to talk to someone else.”

  Debbie snorted. “Like who?”

  “You’ve talked an awful lot about that Joshua…”

  “Mom!”

  “What? I’m just saying.”

  “Ahem. New topic please.”

  Her mother smiled and sat down beside her as she helped herself to a slice of the bread. “Alright then. There is something I’d like to talk to you about…”

  THE CELL AT THE COUNTY JAIL for women was just what she expected: cold, stark, and depressing.
Her cell mate was blessedly quiet, her nose buried in a ratty paperback whenever they were locked in. The other women were a mixed bag of all shades of friendly and various levels of threatening. Kim mostly kept to herself.

  Her attorney arranged for Anne to be brought to the prison the second day she was there. The visit was agonizing. When the social worker took her back, Kim retreated to her cell, burying herself beneath the bedsheets and sobbing into the stiff pillow. She’d thought seven years of guilt and nightmares and the recent past with Rick had been bad, but they were nothing compared to the experience of watching her baby be taken away. She tried to find comfort in knowing Anne was in good hands, but it didn’t help much.

  Kim quickly learned that an unoccupied mind would go instantly to memories of Anne, so she kept herself busy praying and reading the Bible Ruth had given her. Sometimes it backfired—she could identify a little too well with the agony she imagined God felt as he watched his children leave the garden—and she had to stop reading and pour out her pain in prayer. But eventually a sense of comfort would envelop her and she’d open the book once more.

  On the fifth day the warden led her to a visitation room where her attorney awaited. “Discovery is completed,” he said. “Your trial date is set for next Wednesday.”

  Five more days. “Okay.”

  “I talked with the prosecuting attorney. He’s willing to skip straight to sentencing. There’s no point in dragging everyone through a trial—you’re pleading guilty, it’s a straightforward case.”

  She shrugged. “That’s fine, I guess.”

  He stood to leave. “Oh, and the Trumans have asked if they can speak on your behalf at the hearing.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know, but it can’t hurt.”

  “You’re sure they want to speak on my behalf and not against me?”

  “They were pretty clear.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense.” She spoke aloud, though the words were meant for heaven.

  “Beats me. But I’m meeting with them Monday to find out. See you next week.”

  THEY WERE THE LONGEST FIVE DAYS OF HER LIFE.

  Anne was brought back for two more visits, and each parting was more excruciating than the last. Her cell mate was transferred, and she was alone for the last two days before her sentencing. Ruth came back to visit once, bringing with her another book, this one a hardbound Bible dictionary that was twice as thick as the bulky, leather-bound Bible. “Thank you so much,” she’d told her for the hundredth time, “but honestly, you don’t have to do this.”

  “I know I don’t. But I want to.” Normally cool and composed, Ruth seemed different today, more animated. She sat on the edge of the metal folding chair and fidgeted now and then. “What will you do when you’re done serving your time, Kim? Where will you go?”

  Kim gave a mirthless chuckle. “That’s so far in the future there’s no point even thinking about it. The last year has been so far from what I could have predicted—what’s the point in trying to plan for the next year, let alone look ten years down the road?”

  “We want to help you, Roland and I.”

  “What do you mean? Is that why you want to talk to the judge?”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Your attorney told you about that?”

  “Just that you wanted to speak on my behalf. I don’t understand why, though.”

  “You’ve been dealt such a difficult hand, Kim. Such a difficult life. And it pains us to see you locked up for something that really wasn’t even your fault. We just want to encourage the judge to show you mercy and compassion.”

  Mercy and compassion. Kim shook her head. “I don’t think those words apply to my life.”

  “Maybe not before. But now…” Ruth smiled. “They’re the hallmarks of Christ. Your life is new in him. The old rules don’t apply anymore. There’s no telling what your future holds.”

  Kim ruminated on those words that night when sleep was elusive in the face of the next day’s sentencing. Her old life held three bright spots: graduating from foster care relatively unscathed, starting her career, and having Anne. Three accomplishments in twenty-five years. With the bar set that low, God wouldn’t have to work that hard to make her new life better.

  KIM FOLLOWED THE BAILIFF into the courtroom and sat where he pointed. She rubbed her damp palms over her thighs as her eyes flitted from one new sight to another. What little breakfast she’d been able to eat tossed with the butterflies in her stomach. Mercy and compassion, Lord. Mercy and compassion.

  The doors in the back of the courtroom opened. Debbie and her parents entered, and Kim’s butterflies danced with apprehension. Ruth and Roland smiled at her, their countenances warm and encouraging. Debbie’s face was unreadable, though she looked more peaceful than she had the day she and her family had first visited her at the jail. They took seats directly behind her, and Kim felt her courage grow just from knowing they were there.

  “All rise. The Honorable Judge Fullerton presiding.” Kim stood along with everyone else in the room, then settled back into her seat as the judge began the proceedings with another defendant. She paid close attention to what went on so she would know what to do when it was her turn. Her attorney had briefed her on what to expect, but his explanation flew from her head when she entered the wood-paneled room.

  The judge completed the sentencing of the first defendant, then the bailiff said, “Next on the docket, the state versus Kimberly Slone.” Her attorney stuffed his crossword puzzle into his briefcase as he stood along with Kim.

  The judge stared down at Kim. “It always makes me nervous when a defendant decides to skip the trial. But if it’s what you want, then it’s okay by me. You’re still comfortable being sentenced today in lieu of a trial, Ms. Slone?”

  “Yes, your honor.”

  The judge nodded. “Alright then. Now I understand the parents of the victim wish to speak on your behalf. Are they present?”

  “Yes, your honor, we are,” Kim heard Roland say.

  The bailiff opened the gate to admit Ruth and Roland, who came to stand beside Kim’s attorney. Ruth cleared her throat. “My name is Ruth Truman, your honor. My family and I had the chance to speak with Ms. Slone and hear her side of the story. Based on what she said, and on information we learned about the days leading up to our daughter’s death, we believe she committed suicide by pulling in front of Ms. Slone. There was no way Kim—Ms. Slone—could have avoided hitting her.

  “Since then, Ms. Slone has been haunted by guilt, which drove her to seek punishment in an extreme fashion. Our family feels Ms. Slone has suffered enough already. Any sentence handed down to her would be, in our opinion, excessive and unnecessary. I know we’re not the law, but we are the ones who are supposed to be vindicated by her punishment, and we feel we already have been. So, your honor, we would like to ask for mercy for Ms. Slone.”

  The judge shifted in his seat, eyes fixed not on Kim but on Ruth and Roland. “This is an unusual turn of events,” he said. “It’s not often that a victim’s family asks for a sentence to be lessened.” He shifted his gaze to Kim. “Ms. Slone, may I ask what punishment you sought to take care of your guilt?”

  She hadn’t expected this. She licked her lips, which were suddenly dry, and stood to speak. “My fiancé beat me up, your honor. A number of times. I let him because I figured I deserved it.”

  “How long did you submit yourself to his abuse?”

  “About a year, your honor.”

  “And what made you decide to turn yourself in?”

  She sighed. “It’s sort of a long story, sir. He began to hit my daughter—”

  “You have a child?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In foster care. Neither me or my fiancé have any family, and he’s in jail now as well.” The judge nodded. “Anyway—I left him because he began hurting her. My neighbor took me to the shelter where Mrs. Truman’s daughter works…” She explained her experi
ence there, the things Debbie told her, and the reason why she decided she had to come forward for what she had done. “The Trumans are being very gracious, your honor, and I really appreciate their compassion. But I also understand that the law has to be followed.” She fought to keep her composure. “All I ask is that I be able to see my daughter whenever possible. I don’t want her growing up the way I did.”

  The room was silent as Kim sat down. The judge’s eyes did not move from Kim’s face, even as she sat down and bowed her head. Each time she peeked up, he was still staring at her.

  “This is quite the story,” he said after an eternity. He looked to the prosecuting attorney. “Counselor, do you have anything you would like to add?”

  The state’s attorney stood. “No, your honor.”

  The judge nodded slowly. “Please rise, Ms. Slone.” Kim stood, her legs shaking beneath her. “I hereby sentence you to five years in prison, time already served.”

  Ruth clapped her hands over her mouth, her face frozen in surprise. Roland beamed. Kim looked to her attorney. “What does that mean?”

  He smiled. “It means you’re free.”

  EPILOGUE

  Kim glanced out the window. “I think Joshua and Maddie are here.”

  Ruth frowned. “Not Debbie?”

  “No, I don’t see—oh wait, there she is. She drove separately.” Kim set down the stack of linen napkins and opened the front door as the three approached. “Happy Thanksgiving!”

  “Happy Thanksgiving!” Joshua and Maddie replied. Hugs were given all around; then Kim went back to setting the table while Joshua took Maddie into the kitchen for a drink and Debbie sank onto the sofa.

  “How did lunch go?” Kim asked Debbie as she arranged the silverware on the napkins.

  “It went well, thanks. The ladies appreciated the cookies. Thanks again for making them.”

  Kim grinned. “The least I could do. I’m glad they turned out okay.”