Now, if it had been voices telling him what to do, that would be a different matter altogether.
But what good had the therapy time done him?
No matter the meds they put him on, the music remained a constant.
Though the music came and went, it seemed to be the same three or four songs that haunted him. It showed up day or night, at its own whim, and left just as peculiarly, leaving him baffled and on edge.
With shaking hands, he tore open the top of the letter, written in Mark’s signature red pen outer envelope, green pen letter. When Arthur had finally asked about it, Mark had told him that it was “to help things feel more Christmassy” in spite of his “housing situation.”
What a crock, Arthur thought as he carefully slid the tri-folded papers from within and sat down at the desk.
He tried to ignore the overpowering smell of the urinal as he began to read:
Dear Arthur,
I know I said I’d never write again, and really, in some ways, this isn’t truly a letter. It is a note to say I forgive you.
It has taken me a very long time to do so.
I think back to the last several months we were in contact, and in some ways, I cringe. I look back at the whole time we wrote, and I cringe further. But as I’ve watched my little girl interact more and more with people in the larger world, I’ve learned a few things:
The first is that children forgive easier than adults do. At least, mine does, and that brings to mind the words of Jesus Christ when He said we need to be as children. Children forgive easily, and unless they’re really burned, they trust easily. Isn’t that what God wants for us to do, too? Trust Him and forgive others?
I wish I’d learned that a long time ago, but there it is.
What he be tellin’ me all dis fo,’ Arthur thought, getting frustrated. He pounded his fist down on the desk before continuing to read, hoping he wouldn’t wake up Maplethorpe.
The second thing is that as difficult as it is to do, we need to make amends where we can. And so, along with forgiving you, I also ask your forgiveness. I do not seek a reply; in fact, I hope you will not do so. Just your consideration of forgiving me for partaking in the paranoia and obsession about R. J. will be enough.
Last of all, and the most difficult, I have learned about the fragility of life and the importance of forgiveness from watching my daughter’s interactions with a friend who has been in the hospital for over a month now. A friend she watched collapse on his living room floor, who she thought was going to die, but who, by God’s great grace, is still with us. He is thankfully still breathing and being healed, not quickly, but slowly.
And that’s why I decided to write. I could have forgiven you and said nothing. I could have chosen to never forgive you, or to blame you for my part of how things went when my marriage was on the rocks… and for a while, I did. But once little Majesta was in my arms, and I was looking into her big beautiful eyes, my heart was transfixed and I believe God changed something within me that I cannot explain. Especially not to someone who never got to hold his own child in his arms, though he could have.
I never found the words to tell you all this before. If I had, my heart wouldn’t have been quite right yet. And I knew that, if and when God called me to be reintroduced into your life, no matter how briefly, that it would have to be Him speaking through me, and not me trying to quote Scripture at you. It would have to be Him, because I truly don’t want anything to do with you other than Christ, and Him crucified.
By this, I’m not sure if you know what I mean: I mean to say that, as much as I care about you… as much as I care what happens to you, your soul is all that concerns me. If you are part of the body of Christ, then we be brothers, and if not, we are still on opposite sides of enemy lines, spiritually, and prayer is still needed.
I’ve run into Morton a time or two, and last he knew, you had not come to Christ. This saddens me, for I think, where else but a continual dark night of the soul… where else but at the lowest point in one’s life… will Arthur actually turn to Jesus? When and where else will he have the potential to open his heart so wide to His grace and mercy? To His goodness and love? Will he ever learn? Will he ever trust God to know what’s best and listen to the still, small voice He’s been speaking with to woo Arthur’s soul? For the melody of His wooing is distinct to each, according to their need, if they will only grasp onto the gift.
Arthur’s heart began to race as he set the papers aside, tears streaming down his face.
What melody of the soul? Is that what he’d been hearing?
God trying to woo him?
I ain’t good ‘nough fo’ none of dat wooin’ bu’ness from God, so why Mark be trippin’ on it, tellin’ me He care ‘bout me a’tall, Arthur screamed to himself. Why he be writin’ me jus’ t’ say I gots prob’ems ony Jesus c’ solve? Don’ he thinks I know dat much? Don’ he think I gots some idea what God be like? I mean, He who done put me in here, like I done did somethin’ wrong! He who done gots me stuck in dis joint, stuck like… like some comm’n crim’nal or som’thin’.
Arthur took a few deep breaths to try to calm down enough to finish reading, his heart beating so loudly in his ears it sounded like water.
He flipped the page over to read the last of it, thankful the thing was only two pages front and back.
At dis rate, he gonna tell me how much a sinner I be, jus’ ya watch, he thought to himself as he began the final couple of paragraphs.
The point of all this is, Arthur, that God loves you very much. He loves you so much, He sent His Son to die on your behalf to accept and take on your every sin, no matter the size and scope. The consequences of the sin may still be there, as we both well know, but the sin itself is washed away for those who choose to trust in and believe in and on Jesus as Lord – the Master of their lives. He loves you enough to get me writing this letter that I fought tooth and nail against, even though I’d forgiven you in my heart. I didn’t want to write this. I was compelled, I believe, by the Holy Spirit to do so, and now that it’s nearly written, I am thankful I heeded the urging to do so.
And at that, I’m going to close this off. Please do not write me back… the address I used is non-existent, in any case; it was a place marker to be assured the letter would go through to you in His time. The important thing isn’t a reply from you in writing… this isn’t about you and me anymore. It’s about you and Jesus, if you’ll let Him help you. And it’s about obedience, for this wasn’t what I expected to spend my Saturday afternoon doing.
In Jesus’ name and by His power,
Mark Jeffries
Seriously?
That’s what all his excitement had been over? A letter telling him more about Jesus? Why, if he’d known that, he could have put off reading it until later.
A rage he remembered all too well came back – a familiar, nascent feeling come to spoil the day – and settled into the pit of his stomach. Rage was a nemesis he loved to hate; a nemesis that always lunged for his throat when it showed up.
In the end, Arthur usually held tight to it instead of fighting it off. But now, something inside of him fought; there was no reason to rage over that which he couldn’t change, was there? Even if he was upset with Mark for raising false hopes within him.
He moved to tear the letter up, but something inside him said to stop. Instead, he refolded it, placed it back in the envelope, and carefully placed it in his Bible before trying to concentrate once more on the drawing he’d been doing prior to mail call.
“I take it, no mail for me,” he heard Maplethorpe ask groggily behind him.
“Nah… and mine weren’t nothin’ to write home ‘bout, neither,” Arthur said as he grabbed his pencils and began to work, his heart beating wildly within him.
How long had his cellie been watching him?
Twelve
Pendleton, Oregon… March 16, 2020
Quentin Quimby shivered as he made his way toward the back of the line to go inside.
“Come on, move it,” the guard nearest him shouted to the men. “We don’t have all day, ladies.”
There had been snow on the ground for more than two weeks straight, and Quentin, for one was tired of it. On top of that, he’d gotten a letter three days prior that his mother’s cancer was back, and she had little time… not to mention his son was acting out.
At least he’d be able to have a face to face talking-to with the boy.
The letter had arrived the same day they’d let him out of solitary, and before he’d been able to read it, he’d been pulled aside for what seemed the hundredth time to discuss his “threats” to Edward and Paloma.
What is this, anyhows, some kinda an interr’gation campus, he thought as the memory flashed through his mind once more.
As if he had the money to hire someone… he’d just been dreaming. Was there anything wrong with that?
When they’d asked his cellie, the man said he didn’t really think so; he’d told them he thought Quentin was full of steam, and nothing more, so why the big fuss?
If the man he shared a cell with didn’t think he was a threat to anyone, then how could the system believe it?
Quentin waited as those ahead of him moved inside and, when his turn came, headed back to his cell. Once the door had clanged shut, he picked up the latest letter from his Mama and read again, wishing the words would change, but knowing they wouldn’t.
How could Mama be dyin,’ he thought to himself, skipping down to the end of the letter. How can she die and I be locked in here, on the other side of the state from her, nothin’ to do about it? how come they don’t send be back to Salem, ‘least, so’s I can say goodbye like decent folks would let me?
Now, Quentin, I just wanted to tell you the doctors can’t do nothing else for me, she had written.
And I didn’t want none of your cousins to be telling you before I could. It doesn’t make any kind of sense to me to leave it to Lovan to tell you, either, and so here I am, your Ol’ Mama, writing you in person, Son. I had to tell ya myself even though it pains me to think of you so far away, and me unable to travel no more to come see ya. But I wanted to tell ya myself because I love you, Quentin.
Now, I knows I didn’t always do right by you, and Lord knows your Father didn’t either, but we did what we could, each in our way.
I hope in the end you’ll be able to realize that.
And what the Stuarts done to help Lovan, Quentin… I done seen miracles happening in that child’s life because of their involvement. I knows you aren’t happy with them folks for how things ended up in court, but can’t you forgive them, Son?
Can’t you forgive them for taking things so hard when you done come back into their lives so unexpectedly? They done been through so much – not just as a result of what happened between ya’ll – that they really just needs time to heal. Like you needs time to heal, too.
Now, Lovan says he’ll come visit you in about a week. I’m sending all the love I got for you with that boy that won’t fit in no letter, no way.
Will you see him this time? Will you just let him talk to you?
Believe it or not, that boy loves you and wants more than anything to spend time with you. That’ be in spite of all that’s happened between you two.
Now, I’m gonna close this letter off now. I love you, Quentin. Never forget that… and more important… don’t you be forgetting that Jesus loves you and done died for you and your sins to help make you whole again.
That’s somethin’ Ol’ Mama’s death can’t do.
“Hey, man, whatchu cryin’ over? Again. You been cryin’ ever since you got back from the hole,” his cellmate, Perkins asked him, interrupting the welter of thoughts that tossed topsy-turvily around in his mind.
Quentin flew around toward the man, shaken and startled.
How long he been watchin’ me, he thought. Can’t a man grieve his Mama in peace… can’t he give me that, God? Or can’t You, since You the big man in charge? I know You real… and I know I done messed up, and I want to fo’give them Stuarts… and I want to fo’give Lovan… I know they been through the wringer, even if not like I done, but… why it so hard, God?
“Listen, man,” he finally said, trying to remain calm. “I… it’s like dis... I got somethin from my Mama sayin’ she got only a few weeks left, at most, to live. Iffen it was your Mama, wouldn’t you want some respet on that? Can you just… just let it go and leave me be… at leas’ fo’ a few days so I can get a grip on it? This once?”
“Hey, man, I didn’t realize, Cellie. I just figured somethin’ done happened to you in that solitary; like you done found God or somethin’ and was goin’ whacky now,” Perkins said, holding his palms up in the air as he stepped back a couple of times toward the bunks.
The man’s own dark blue eyes filled with tears.
“And believe it or not, I done been there, too, man… three years ago. I was stuck in Salem, and my Mama and Pops both passed away while I was in. didn’t get to say no graveside goodbye, though I tried to argue for one. They died in Medford, and it was unes’pected. Some drunk hit’em on the way home from church.”
Quentin looked the man in the eye…and for a moment, they shared a thread of silent understanding and camaraderie before shouts from another cell broke in and reality hit once more.
Quentin listened to Perkins as he tossed and turned in his sleep, the springs loudly groaning overhead. It had been a long, hard day, and he wished that sleep would come for him as easily as it did his cellie, in spite of their deep conversation.
Memories of his mother – as well as his father, sister, and son – rolled through his head like billiard balls on a collapsing table as he tried to escape the familiar feeling that there was still something they hadn’t told him.
Not his father, of course.
Who knows where he’d run off to when he’d left? But his son, sister, and Mama? They should know better than to share only partial truths with him, shouldn’t they?
It wasn’t as if he could do much about it, anyway.
Fitfully turning onto his other side, he banged his foot on the metal bar at the end and swore.
When would the system ever learn to make beds that accommodated taller people? Not that he should even be here… should he?
Quentin sighed.
Sometimes he just didn’t know anymore.
Maybe he did belong. Maybe they’d been right all along, and he had been in the wrong, but….
Pictures of his Mama, younger and prettier than she was now, came back to mind and he tried to shove them off, to no avail. So, instead, he embraced them as tears began to flow once more down his cheeks.
What do she look like now, he wondered. What do that med’cine do to her looks?
He hadn’t asked for a photo in three years, and she hadn’t offered to send one. Maybe she knew he didn’t do well with ugly, or maybe she wanted to save him the worry.
He wasn’t sure of that, anymore, either.
He remembered when his father, Quincy, left… never said a word, never left a note, nothin’. He just walked past his sister Ione, and then Quentin, and then Mama, wordlessly, his eyes straight ahead, a single red backpack dangling from a long, thin hand.
Quentin had been eight… Ione had been five. And Mama? Well, Mama had been depressed to the point of being suicidal a few times and having to be locked up to protect herself and them from the anger welling inside of her.
At least, that’s how her doctor had explained it to them.
Three years after ol’ Quincy had left them, they finally got a letter saying he’d relocated to New Jersey; it was more his style, more his pace, he’d said. And he had found someone he wanted to marry.
Would Mildred please let him divorce her quietly so he could live his life, he’d had the nerve to ask.
And oddly enough, just like that, Mama had said yes.
She
didn’t want anything to do with Quincy Quimby other than the children she’d bore him, and if he ever contacted them again once the divorce was finalized, it would be too soon.
Mama had said that line so often that it had stuck in young Quentin’s mind like bubblegum on the bottom of a desk.
He never did understand what had caused Mama’s attitude to shift… he was just glad it had, because from the get-go, he hadn’t wanted anything to do with his father, and from what he knew, neither had Ione.
The tears kept coming along with the memories, and he had to keep from laughing as he recalled some of the better moments. The moments he’d spent with Mama, the moments with Paloma, the moments with Lovan.
But then he thought about that dark November night when he’d decided to track Paloma down at work and scare her.
It was a night he’d never forget, and it had changed his life forever.
It was the night he realized he really didn’t own her anymore; he didn’t have her heart.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t told him a hundred times, maybe a thousand, since she’d broken off their engagement. He had crossed a line that she just couldn’t forgive; she couldn’t get over his little infidelity, as though she was Miss Perfect. And it had irked him; it had irked him something fierce.
It irked him now.
Sometimes, like now, with nothing but the sounds of snoring, footsteps, and the shifting of bedsprings and the smell of the urinal, he wondered if there really was a God. And he wondered if, had he not gone out to scare Paloma that night, she would have still ended up with Edward Stuart.
It still stymied Quentin where the man came from.
He’d made sure everyone left the Shoe Shoppe and she was closing up before making his move. And still, he’d been foiled.
He pictured his first meeting with Edward, the funny-looking clothes and sword he wore; the long, damp hair; the look in his eyes when Quentin had looked back as Edward chased him down the middle of 23rd.
The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven Page 9