Unforeseeable

by Nancy Mehl

  Levi gave me a quick smile. “You are getting better. Please don’t see this as a death-bed confession.”

  “Ruth Fisher recognized me,” Mother said. “I was surprised. I’ve changed so much. That’s what we were talking about the other day in the restaurant. She threatened to tell you if I didn’t. Ruth said it was wrong to hide it from you.” She shook her head. “I don’t think anyone else knows who I am.”

  “Esther came to me after her talk with Ruth,” Levi said gently. “She didn’t know what to do.”

  I kept my eyes focused on the bathroom doorknob. Although I wanted to respond, my emotions were exploding in so many directions, I couldn’t seem to sort them out. I honestly had no idea how I felt about my mother—or toward Levi. He’d kept this from me for days. Whether it was right or wrong, a sense of betrayal overwhelmed me.

  “You should have told me,” I said to him. “This was a secret you shouldn’t have kept. It involved me, and I had a right to know.”

  He stepped up next to the bed and took my hand. Although my first reaction was to pull it away, I didn’t.

  “Callie, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you, I really did. But I was trying to do the right thing. For you, and for your mother. Finally, the only solution I could find was to get Esther to confess the truth herself.” He squeezed my hand. “You know I love you. Please believe me when I tell you this was one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through.”

  I took a deep breath. “I believe you. I know this isn’t your fault.” I turned my head to stare up into my mother’s face. “I blame you, Mother. You should have come to me when you first got to town. Instead, you hid the truth. Then you forced Levi to carry your secret. One more example of how you always put yourself first. I had the right to know. And the right to tell you I don’t need you anymore. I don’t want you in my life.”

  The color drained from her face. “I . . . I understand how you feel, Callie. I really do. But please . . . please give me a chance to explain. It may not make any difference, but after you hear me out, if you still want me to go, I’ll go. And I promise to never bother you again.”

  “It’s too late, Mother. Fourteen years too late.”

  She swayed a little, and Levi let go of my hand. He reached out to steady her. Then he helped lower her back into her chair.

  “Callie,” he said, “if you don’t want to talk to your mother, that’s okay. I understand. It’s your choice. But I’m asking you to listen to her. Just this once. Then, as she said, if you want her to leave, she’ll go. I’ll even help her get out of town.”

  I started to refuse, but the look on Levi’s face stopped me. My love for him overshadowed my anger.

  “All right. As long as you both stick to the agreement. After you’re done, Mother, you’ll leave and never come back?”

  “I promise,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. She stared down at her hands and clasped them together before she spoke again. “A friend in Kansas City who knows all about me found your father’s obituary online. It was posted in the Washington paper. I decided I had to see you. I wrote to the Kingdom church elders with a story about being related to a man I knew used to live here who had died. I assumed they couldn’t confirm the truth and would let me come. I was right.”

  “Another lie,” I mumbled.

  “Yes. Another lie,” she repeated. “I was afraid if I told the truth, they wouldn’t allow me to live here.”

  “Why wouldn’t the elders let you move back, Mother? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does, because of what happened,” Mother said quietly. She wouldn’t look at me, kept her head bowed. It made it harder for me to hear her.

  “Life with your father was . . . difficult,” she said. “But I want you to know that I’m not blaming him for my actions. I’m responsible for the bad choices I made. At the time, I was confused. If I could go back and do things differently, I would. But that’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” I acknowledged. I sighed. “The nurse will be here soon, Mother. You need to say whatever it is you feel you have to say.”

  Her head bobbed up and down. “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. I want you to know that when your father and I first came here, we were looking for a safe place to raise you. A place where you’d be content and secure. The world seemed scary and dangerous. We were happy then. Excited about you. Excited about our lives together. But after we got here, things began to change. The pastor of the church was a harsh man. A man who believed in rules. A man who taught that God was always angry with us. I watched your father change before my eyes. Nothing I did was right or was good enough. I tried to be a good wife, I really did.”

  She finally looked up. There were tears running down her face. “I loved him,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to give up on our dream of having a wonderful life together. But after a few years, I could tell it wasn’t going to happen. James became someone else. Someone I didn’t know.” She took a deep shuddering breath, her thin shoulders trembling. “At first it was just verbal abuse. But then he began to hit me.” She shook her head and gazed at me. “He never tried to hit you, Callie. I was thankful for that. His anger seemed directed toward me.”

  “He never struck me, Mother. And I don’t remember him hitting you. Not once.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. I made sure of that. When he got angry, I sent you outside to play.”

  A memory flashed through my mind. Something I hadn’t thought of for years. My father’s face red with rage. Mother telling me to go play at Lizzie’s house. I’d forgotten all about it.

  “Your father kept a tight rein on me,” she continued. “I was rarely allowed out of the house, except to go to church. But there was a man . . .” She sobbed and covered her face with her hands.

  Levi reached over and put his hand on her shoulder. There were tears in his eyes.

  Mother looked up at him and seemed to gather strength. “There was a man,” she said again. “A veterinarian from Washington who cared for our horses and cows. He was a kind man, and he overheard your father and me . . . arguing. He knew your father was abusive, and he tried to help. I . . . I began to have feelings for him. Your father figured it out and fired him. James also threatened to kill this man if he ever came around me again.” Her tear-filled eyes locked on mine. “Nothing happened between us, Callie. I swear to you. Nothing. But your father went to Pastor Linden and told him we’d had an affair. Pastor Linden ordered me to leave town. That’s why I left. It wasn’t my choice.”

  “You could have fought to stay,” I said. “Or you could have taken me with you.” The anger I’d felt earlier was turning into something else. A kind of deep grief.

  “They never gave me the chance. Your father and Pastor Linden drove me out of town and dumped me off on the road with nothing. Just the clothes on my back and not a dime to my name.”

  “In all these years, no one ever told me about this, Mother. Why am I just hearing this story for the first time?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. If anyone else knew about it, maybe they didn’t tell you because they didn’t want to hurt you. They didn’t want you to know that your mother had been branded an adulteress. But my guess is that your father and the pastor kept it to themselves. I wasn’t called before the elders, nor was I allowed to speak to anyone before I left. Not even you.”

  “I-I’m sorry you went through that. But it doesn’t explain why you never tried to come back and see me.”

  “I planned to, even though I was told the church would never allow me to get near you. My plan was to sneak back and get you. Take you with me.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” I glanced at the clock. The nurse would be back any moment. But I realized to my surprise that I wanted my mother to finish her story.

  “This . . . this is difficult,” she said, her voice catching. “I ended up in a women’s shelter for a while in Kansas City. At first, all I could think about was coming back here and find
ing you. But I didn’t have any self-esteem, Callie. In the end, I became convinced I wasn’t worthy of you. That leaving you in Kingdom would be better for you. I couldn’t support you. I had no job skills. No money. But being without you devastated me.

  “Another woman at the shelter gave me drugs. At first, they made me feel better. Happy for the first time in years. Eventually I became hooked. I was thrown out of the shelter and lived on the streets, doing anything I could to get the drugs I craved.”

  The horror in my mother’s eyes brought tears to my own.

  “I even—”

  “Stop, Mother. You don’t need to go any further.”

  She nodded and pointed to the scar on her face. “This was caused by a drug dealer I couldn’t pay. My life was a nightmare. I wanted to die, and in fact, I tried more than once to take my life. Then one day a church opened a ministry downtown. I went there for food and ended up finding God. The real God.” A look of wonder crossed her face, and for the first time since coming into my room, she smiled. “The loving God. Not the angry deity your father believed in. And I changed, Callie. I really did. I’m a new person. A better person.” She blinked hard, trying to control the tears that ran down her face. “Once I was clean, I decided to come back to Kingdom, but I was so afraid. Then my friend showed me that obituary. I took it as a sign.” She gulped and wiped her face with a tissue Levi handed her from a box on the nightstand next to me.

  “My plan was to take you back to Missouri with me, but when I got here I discovered you were planning to be married. My number-one goal was to stop the wedding. I didn’t want you to experience the kind of unhappiness I had. I didn’t know Levi then. He seemed different from your father, but I didn’t know if I could trust him. Then I went to see him. Got to know him. And finally, I told him the truth. I found him to be a wonderful man who truly loves you. He counseled me to tell you who I was, and he promised to stand by me when I did.” Mother let go of a sigh so heavy it seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her. “I’m not blaming anyone but myself for my life, Callie.” Her eyes searched mine. “I’m so sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you. I wish I’d been a better mother. All I can do is hope that someday you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.” She grasped the railing on my bed so hard her knuckles turned white. “You don’t need to say anything today. I’ve told you everything I can . . . for now.” She stood to her feet. Levi grabbed her arm to support her. Her body was limp, as if all the strength had gone out of her.

  “I’m sorry for you, Mother. Really. But right now I can’t promise anything. You have to give me time. I need to think.” Suddenly a wave of weariness swept over me, which seemed silly, since I’d been doing nothing but sleeping lately.

  “You’re tired,” Levi said. “Get some rest. I’ll come back after church.”

  I nodded. “All right.”

  He started to say something else, but just then the door to my room opened and Ellery came back in. “Sorry, folks, but that’s it for now. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “We’re going,” Levi said to my nurse. Then he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Callie. I love you.”

  “I know.”

  After they left, Ellery checked me over and added the contents of her syringe to my IV line. As I drifted off to sleep again, a disturbing thought jumped into my mind. Was my mother’s revelation the thing that had upset Levi so much the other day? If so, what could it possibly have to do with the murders?

  Chapter / 19

  I spent a restless night full of odd dreams. In the most disconcerting, I searched through Kingdom, trying to find something, but I had no idea what it was. I knew it was very important, and that I had to discover it, yet Kingdom was empty. No one was there. Every building, every home, had been deserted. I had the strangest feeling there were people all around me, hiding in the shadows, watching me. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, but every time I turned to look, they disappeared. Muted voices came at me from shadowy corners, but I couldn’t make out the words. After a while I became frantic—and frightened.

  Toward the end of the dream, I began to call for my mother, but I couldn’t find her either. Finally I thought I saw her walking down the road, and I began to run after her. Before I could reach her, she disappeared, and I started shouting her name. At last I spotted her again, but when I approached the spot where I’d seen her, I realized I was standing amid the red cedar trees that lined part of the road to Kingdom. I cried out her name, but she wasn’t there. Just before I woke up, I found myself lying on the ground, the trees standing over me, and something wrapped around me. Plastic. I opened my mouth to scream, but before I could get any sound out, I woke up, sweating and breathing heavily.

  “Are you okay, honey?” A new nurse stood next to my bed, watching me.

  “Y-yes,” I stuttered. “B-bad dream.”

  She nodded. “I’ve seen it before with the medication you’re on. Some people have nightmares. We’ll switch you to something different. Pills that will help the pain but shouldn’t cause dreams.”

  “Thank you. What time is it?”

  The nurse looked at her watch. “Almost ten. You missed breakfast, but I didn’t want to wake you. I’ll get you something now. The doctor wants you to eat light though. Do you like oatmeal?”

  “Sounds great. And some toast and coffee?”

  She smiled. “I think we can do that. Dry toast though.”

  “Still sounds good.”

  “How’s the pain today?” she asked.

  I tried to move a little. “Still there, but I think it’s getting better.”

  She smoothed my sheets. “You have a long way to go, but in the next few days your pain should begin to ease a bit.”

  She looked at my Bible lying on the nightstand. Lizzie must have brought it. “It’s Sunday morning. How about a nice Christian program on TV?”

  I started to explain that I didn’t watch TV, but instead of refusing her offer, I just nodded. I remembered Noah saying that there were some good television shows, and my curiosity got the better of me. Papa had said that everything on TV was evil and it would break down families and ruin the spiritual character of the nation. I wanted to see if he was right. No one from Kingdom would be here until later in the afternoon, after church services, so no one would know about it.

  The nurse picked up a small black instrument and pointed it at a television mounted on the wall. Suddenly, a picture appeared. Some man was pointing toward an automobile, saying he could help anyone buy a car, no matter how bad their credit was. I had no idea what he meant, although some of the business owners in Kingdom allowed residents to pay later. Especially the farmers who had to wait on selling their crops in the spring and summer. Could that mean people in the world could get a car and pay for it later when they had the money? That didn’t sound like a bad deal to me.

  “I think you’ll like the next show,” the nurse said. “I watch it a lot. Really helps me to feel closer to God.”

  “That sounds great. Thank you.”

  She smiled. “You’re welcome. I’ll see about that breakfast now.”

  She left the room, and I turned my attention back to the television. The man finished talking about cars, and then a big picture came on the screen that seemed to be announcing the name of the station I was watching. This wasn’t actually the first time I’d seen TV. When he was healthy, Papa had driven us into town for groceries and supplies many times. I’d seen a few televisions inside some of the stores we visited. Papa had instructed me not to watch them, but I’d sneaked a quick look more than once. Most of the time, I didn’t understand what was happening anyway.

  I’d also seen some television when Lizzie and I went to town. Many of Lizzie’s supplies for the restaurant were ordered through Maybelle Miller, who ran Maybelle’s Restaurant in Washington. Usually, she didn’t have TV in her dining room, but if the weather was bad, or there was a sports game on that was important to her cu
stomers, she brought in a large set.

  Some of the things I saw confused me, and Lizzie had to explain the difference between actual shows and what she called “commercials.” According to her, commercials were like quick shows that gave people information about products they might want to buy. That might be so, but some of the images I saw horrified me. Women in skimpy outfits dancing around, men drinking alcohol, and one where they were speaking about a personal product for women that shouldn’t be talked about in public. There were men in the restaurant, watching this announcement. I remember being so embarrassed that I left and went to the truck. Lizzie came out a few minutes later to see if I was all right. I explained how horrified I was by the commercial.

  “I still remember how I felt the first time I saw a commercial like that,” she’d said, smiling. “I guess now I see both sides of the issue. On one hand, they’re very personal and probably shouldn’t be broadcast in public to children who don’t understand what those products are. Yet in Kingdom, things like this are never discussed. Normal and natural functions of the human body are hidden. It can cause young people to feel that everything that has to do with the body is wrong. They can end up in trouble like I did.”

  “But, Lizzie,” I’d wailed. “Men shouldn’t see these things.”

  Lizzie had hugged me. “Oh, honey. That’s nothing. I’ve seen some things on TV that would curl your hair if it wasn’t already curly.”

  Thinking back to her words made me wonder if I should have allowed the nurse to turn on the television at all. Then the program started, and I was shocked to discover that the speaker was a woman! Women weren’t allowed to teach men in Kingdom. I grabbed for the little device the nurse had used to turn on the set, but when I looked at it, all I could see were buttons, numbers, and words that meant nothing to me. Not having any other choice, I stared up at the woman who was talking. I noticed that she had a very kind face.

  “Feelings buried alive never die,” she said, looking at me through the television screen. “They only cause problems that can derail God’s plan for your life.”