Barefoot

by Brown, Sharon Garlough;

  If a friend came to me for input about my own circumstances, I’d want to know about her motivations for returning and remaining at Westminster. Guilt? Obligation? A sense of responsibility? Or joy and a renewed sense of call in serving the people of God there?

  Oh. Wow. Just saw something as I wrote those words. That image of holding Mom on my lap, of Dad giving me the responsibility of caring for her and the burden it became—I transposed that image right onto God, didn’t I? I assumed my Heavenly Father had given me responsibility for holding his people on my lap, that God was counting on me to take care of them. Like my dad leaving town with the words, “I’m counting on you, Hannah.” That’s how it was for me in ministry, feeling like God had entrusted me to keep things going for him, to be the servant he could trust to be faithful while he was “away.” And while there’s important imagery in Scripture about being faithful stewards of the household of God and watchful shepherds of the flock, I assumed the responsibility in an unhealthy, fear-driven way.

  This feels big, Lord. I felt the pressure to be responsible, to be hyper-vigilant because I assumed you were counting on me, and I lived in fear of letting you down, of something going wrong because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I don’t think I’ve ever made the connection before, how my image of my dad impacted my image of you with regard to responsibility I thought you laid on me.

  Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me for my false image of you. And continue to set me free from any impulse to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I am NOT the Messiah. Thank God. I already resigned from that role.

  Nate’s Scripture verse in my note today is Psalm 116:7: “Return to your rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.” Yes, Lord. You have. You are. Thank you.

  Mara

  “What on earth happened to you?” Miss Jada demanded.

  Mara, busily chopping carrots and celery by herself in the Crossroads House kitchen, had forgotten her mottled bruises were still visible whenever she rolled up her sleeves. “I fell on the ice.”

  Miss Jada reached for her arm. “Lemme see.”

  Mara pushed back the rest of her loose-fitting tunic sleeve.

  Miss Jada eyed her suspiciously.

  “I was walking Brian’s dog, and I slipped. Coulda been bad. Lucky I didn’t break anything.” Mara turned around and lifted the back edge of her sweater to reveal a slowly fading mosaic of color.

  Miss Jada whistled. “We’ve known each other too long to play games, Mara. You telling me the truth?”

  “Yes. Promise.” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve before picking up a stalk of decapitated celery.

  “You got a lot more going on than dog-walking, Mara. I know you do. You wanna talk? Or are you tired of talking about it?”

  Amazing, how Miss Jada wasn’t tired of hearing about it. The abuse. The violence. The heartache. Day after day, year after year Miss Jada listened to story after story. She wouldn’t be shocked or scandalized, that was for sure. And Mara was tired of talking about it to herself, tired of going round and round in circles about the neighbors and Brian and Tom in an unending interior monologue. She didn’t even know how to pray about it, which made her embarrassed to go back to see Katherine for spiritual direction. Even though she knew that was silly. And with Dawn still out of town—

  “I’ve got lots of stress with my thirteen-year-old right now. And stress with the neighbors. And something that happened with Tom years ago—crap I buried real deep—got flushed to the surface, and I know it’s important and I can’t ignore it, but I’m not sure what to do with it.”

  As Mara narrated the story, she watched it all unfold again: Tom ravaging her in the dark, taking what he wanted and then pulling on his boxers and strutting away, leaving her whimpering in the bed while he went downstairs to watch TV. And then Kevin started squalling from his crib, so she shrouded her naked body in a sheet and shuffled down the hallway to soothe him.

  Brian was conceived by violence in a bedroom. Kevin was conceived by deceit in a hotel room. Neither one of them was conceived in love.

  “So, see?” Mara said. “I got what I deserved.” She picked up the knife again and resumed chopping.

  “Oh, honey.” Miss Jada laid her hand on Mara’s forearm. “Honey, listen. Jesus—he took what we all deserved.”

  During the rest of their conversation, Miss Jada didn’t tell Mara anything she hadn’t already heard a hundred times before from Pastor Jeff, Dawn, and Katherine. No condemnation. Mara had heard Romans 8:1 so many times that she actually had it memorized: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So why couldn’t she believe it?

  “You’re still all caught up in punishment and justice,” Miss Jada said. “I’m gonna pray for God to set you free from that shame and blame game once and for all. The Christian life, it’s not, ‘You owe, you pay.’ Those rules are gone. It’s ‘You owed, Jesus paid.’ You’re a new creation in Christ, Mara. The old has passed away! And the new has come.”

  Miss Jada didn’t offer any specific advice about how to handle Brian but insisted Mara needed input from her counselor about how to process and pray through subconscious resentment toward him. “And practice forgiving,” she said. “Practice it over and over again. With your boys. Your neighbors. And Tom. Even when you don’t feel like it. Do it. When we really see the size of the debts Jesus paid for us, believe me! it gets easier to forgive the debts other people owe us.”

  In theory, Mara knew that was true. In theory.

  “You write that forgiveness letter to your mom yet?” she asked Meg on the phone later that night.

  “Not yet,” Meg said with a sigh. “Just haven’t had the energy—physically or emotionally.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean.” Mara couldn’t imagine writing a forgiveness letter for Tom. It would be hard enough to write one for the anonymous neighbor. She almost hoped they’d try the dog poop stunt again and give her an opportunity for a confrontation. She patted Bailey, whose head was resting on her foot, his breath warm on her bare toes. “When does Hannah get in?”

  “Late,” Meg said. “Really late. Nathan’s going to pick her up and then bring her here. He came by yesterday morning to shovel my driveway, said Hannah had given him instructions before she left. There was no way I could have shoveled. That was a wet, heavy snow.”

  It sure was. Kevin had done such a lousy job shoveling that Mara had gone out to try to complete the work. And then the snow plows rumbled through the neighborhood and flung more snow onto the driveway and when she tried to back the car out, the rear wheel got stuck in a mound of snow and she had to plead with Kevin to come outside and help her dig it out—

  “That was nice of him to do that for you,” Mara said, “nice of Hannah to arrange it.”

  —and several neighbors drove past without even waving at her while she was trying to dig the wheel out with a shovel and by the time she finished she was so sore she could hardly move and she didn’t have the energy to drive to the store to get anything for dinner so she ordered a pizza for delivery but they brought the wrong one and she only discovered the mistake after the driver had left and Brian threw a fit because he hated veggie pizza—

  “I know,” Meg said. “I’m really grateful.”

  —and then he shouted that he wanted to go live with his dad and she almost shouted, Fine! but instead she said, Get yourself a bowl of cereal if you’re not going to eat the pizza, and he went up to his room and slammed the door and Kevin took Bailey for a walk because she knew she couldn’t manage it.

  She was done. So done.

  “You still sound pretty hoarse, Meg. Still feeling crummy?” Mara decided not to burden Meg with all her worries about Brian. Meg had enough worries of her own.

  “Just can’t shake the cough,” Meg said. “Hannah warned me she would drag me to the doctor if I was still coughing when she got back. So I guess I’ll call tomorrow morning and make an appointment. And then watch—I’ll make the appointment and sud
denly I’ll feel all better, and it will be a waste of the doctor’s time.”

  “Yeah,” Mara said. “I’ve had that happen before.” She really needed to call Dawn’s office and schedule an appointment. Not that anything would be resolved before she got there. But then she could at least tell Charissa, who had called several times to check up on her, that she had something on the calendar.

  She would call the office first thing in the morning. Maybe.

  Hannah

  Hannah and Meg sat together at the kitchen table early Friday morning, Meg huddled in her robe, her skin ashen. If she didn’t have pneumonia, Hannah would be shocked. “If the doctor can’t get you in today,” Hannah said, “I’m taking you to urgent care.”

  Meg nodded and inhaled some steam from her mug of honey lemon tea.

  “And I wish you had called me about Rachel,” Hannah said. Though Meg seemed too tired to be angry, Hannah was furious. What Becca didn’t need was an enabling ally.

  “I didn’t want to bother you,” Meg said.

  “It’s not a bother. You’re like a sister to me. You know that. You could have called me. Any time. Remember that. Please.”

  “Thank you.”

  The hawk that had been soaring above Meg’s backyard in lackadaisical loops for the past several minutes landed atop the telephone pole, stoic and unperturbed as a horde of crows circled and cawed. “They’re all stirred up,” Meg said.

  “Strength in numbers, I guess,” said Hannah.

  “He’s invaded their space. They’ll band together, try to mob him. You see it especially in the spring when they’re trying to protect their nests. Even some of the little birds will go after predators.”

  Squawks. Screeches. Dive-bombing. Nothing intimidated the hawk. Maybe it would eventually get bored. As more crows joined in the fray, the cacophony swelled. Still no response. And then, with a slight arc of the head and a flick of a wing, the hawk plummeted toward the snow-covered earth, talons extended to snatch a rabbit hunched beside a woodpile. “No!” Meg shouted, springing to her feet. “No!” Airborne, the rabbit wriggled free and tumbled downward. The hawk flew away to circle again.

  Before Hannah could grab her sleeve, Meg dashed out the back door and down the steps in her robe and moccasins, stumbling toward the middle of the lawn where the rabbit lay crumpled. Hannah yanked on her boots and coat and darted after her, the snow almost knee-deep. Meg stooped beside the lifeless little body, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  The hawk perched again on top of the pole, observing the tableau with feigned nonchalance.

  “They can die of fright,” Meg whimpered.

  “I know,” Hannah said. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Meg’s hands hovered above the rabbit, as if she were going to stroke it or pick it up.

  “C’mon,” Hannah said as gently as possible. “Let’s get you back inside.”

  “I should move it, bury it.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll come out later.”

  Hannah wrapped her arm around Meg’s waist and guided her back to the house, where Meg yielded to Hannah’s command to change out of her wet clothes. When Hannah looked out the window again, both the hawk and the rabbit were gone.

  Meg

  Acute bronchitis, the doctor said after listening with his stethoscope. Though Meg had anticipated a round of antibiotics to knock out an infection, the doctor dismissed her without a prescription, with instructions to rest and stay hydrated. She hoped she hadn’t spread her contagion to her students or her friends. Especially to Charissa. She would have to cancel all her lessons, and parents wouldn’t be happy about that, not with the annual spring recital and achievement tests looming on the horizon.

  “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Hannah said when Meg tried to persuade her to return to the cottage. “I told you. I’ve got years of immunity built up. I’m not worried. You were already at risk to catch something because of all the stress in England. And all the stress this week hasn’t helped.”

  That’s for sure, Meg thought.

  “Nate’s bringing over a chair for you later,” Hannah said. “He’s got an extra recliner down in their basement, says he doesn’t use it. And you need a comfortable place to sit, to rest. We can move some furniture around in the music room or the parlor. You choose.”

  Sitting in the parlor for long hours at a time would only depress her. Though formal, the music room had a little more of her spirit after all the years of teaching in that space. “That’s really kind of him. Thank you.”

  Meg looked out the kitchen window at the tracks in the snow, at the place where she had knelt. She couldn’t shake the image of the hawk and the rabbit struggling midair. Get over it! Rachel’s voice commanded inside her head. It’s just nature.

  Her eyes burned. She had prayed a child’s prayer in that moment of skirmish—Please, God! Save the rabbit!—and when the rabbit broke free, she had a moment’s hope that her prayer had been answered. And then the disappointment was more severe.

  It’s just a rabbit, Rachel chided.

  But it wasn’t just a rabbit.

  It was a parable. A parable about predators and prey. A parable about her powerlessness to intervene. A parable about the kingdom that did not come and her anguish about its delay.

  You’re way too sensitive, Mother’s voice scolded. You need a thicker skin. How will you ever survive in the real world?

  Not easily, Meg thought. She tried to calm and quiet her soul, but all she could manage were shallow breaths. Her mind circled back to the same question she had wrestled with in England when she prayed with Isaiah 11: What did it mean to trust God for the coming of the kingdom when it seemed like the vulnerable always suffered and the predators always won? Maybe someday the rabbit and the hawk would dwell together in peace like the wolf and the lamb, the serpent and the child. But today, that promise didn’t mean much to her.

  She reached for her computer on the table and opened her email inbox again. Finally! A reply from Becca.

  from: Becca Crane

  to: Meg Crane

  date: Friday, January 16 at 5:07 PM

  subject: Re: Trying to reach you, please respond

  Mom,

  Yes, I’ve gotten your messages. I can’t believe you kicked Aunt Rachel out of the house. That only proves my point about how totally unreasonable you’re being about me and Simon. Until you can calm down and have an adult conversation about my plans for the summer, I think it’s best that we don’t communicate. It’s just upsetting to both of us.

  I love you, but I can’t deal with you right now.

  Becca

  Meg closed the inbox.

  “Something from Becca?” Hannah asked. Meg nodded. Hannah sat down beside her at the table and covered Meg’s fist with her own hand. If she prayed, she prayed silently.

  As for Meg, she had no words.

  six

  Charissa

  “Charissa! Just the person I was hoping to see!”

  At the sound of Dr. Elise Gardiner’s voice, Charissa’s stomach clenched, her ego still suffering from residual bruising. Turning, she greeted the professor who had assigned her a barely passing grade in her Milton course after she missed her final presentation.

  “Do you have a minute?” Dr. Gardiner asked.

  “Sure.” She didn’t need to be at her next class for another hour. She followed Dr. Gardiner down the hallway and into her office, where, a few weeks before, Charissa had pleaded her case in vain.

  Dr. Gardiner gestured toward a chair. Perhaps she’d had a change of heart over Christmas break. Perhaps the faculty had made special arrangements for Charissa to give her final presentation after all.

  “We’ve had something unexpected happen, Charissa, and we’re trying to come up with a viable solution.” Dr. Gardiner straightened a stack of papers on her otherwise tidy desk. “One of our teaching assistants for a freshman composition section has had a medical emergency and will need to take a leave of absence.”

>   Charissa raised her eyebrows. Normally, the graduate student rumor mill was a well-oiled machine. She’d heard nothing about this, however, during her morning on campus.

  “That means we’re left scrambling to find a substitute, and the department faculty wondered if you would be willing to pinch-hit. It would be twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.”

  After taking time to blink, Charissa said, “Absolutely! I’m available, and I’d be honored.” What a golden opportunity! She could hardly believe it. And then she remembered that her gift had come at the expense of someone else’s pain. She should probably acknowledge that. “I hope he or she recovers soon,” she said, “that everything works out all right.” It also occurred to her that she should offer a quick silent prayer for the person—which she did—before probing for details about what she would be required to do. Freshman comp wouldn’t be difficult to teach. She could comb through her own class notes from a few years ago, revise a syllabus, skim through textbooks. Even if she wasn’t thoroughly prepared, she could fudge her way through the first class. No problem. No problem at all. “Will I start tomorrow, Dr. Gardiner?”

  “No, I can rework my schedule and teach it this week, buy you a little bit of time to settle in. I’d like for you to be there tomorrow, though, so you can meet the students and get a feel for the syllabus. Your section has about a dozen enrolled, and you can coordinate sharing lecture notes with the other section leaders.”

  “Happy to do that.” Charissa wondered how many other graduate students had been asked ahead of her, wondered if her longtime academic rival, Amber Dykstra, had been unavailable. But it didn’t matter. Amber wasn’t the one who would be teaching, was she? And Charissa would have ample opportunity to prove herself in the classroom. “I’m very grateful for the vote of confidence, Dr. Gardiner. Thank you. I won’t disappoint you.”