The Con Man's Daughter

by Candice Curry

  I offered a list of three names:

  His lawyer.

  His girlfriend.

  His best friend/worst enemy.

  The moment I said the name of his best friend her head perked up. It hit me that she knew who he was and my stomach turned.

  So that’s why I was here. Of course it wasn’t about me; it never was when it came to my dad. It had always been about his scheming best friend and whatever it was they were cooking up together. It made me hate both of them even more than I had before, if that was possible. I wondered if he knew my dad was dead, and I wished I could be the one to tell him. The pure evil half of me wanted to see him hurt and squirm like a snake.

  When I realized that she knew my dad’s best friend and was interested in what I knew about him or why he wanted my dad’s computer, I felt a small bolt of power shoot through me. Up to this point she had what I wanted, but now I held a piece, if only the size of a mustard seed, of what she wanted. I would have dropped to my knees and prayed again for the courage of David and mumbled something under my breath about slings and stones, but out of fear I remained in my seat and silently cried out to God.

  God, I don’t know the reason you sent me here, but I know you were here before me. Will you please let this be the end? Just help me give them what they want and release me completely from all of this mess he created. None of this belongs to me. I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it. Release me. Set me free. I can’t carry the weight of his sins. I can’t even carry the weight of mine. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

  A slight smile appeared on my face, and she mirrored it on hers. I took a deep breath in and exhaled. His name and his sins fell out of my mouth and slammed onto the desk in front of me. It was as if they had weighed me down for long enough and were now being regurgitated for someone else to deal with. I got it out, all of it. I told them every piece of information I knew about my dad and his best friend and it felt good. Oh, how I wish he could have sat in that room and begged me to keep quiet. If he had, I would have spoken louder just for effect.

  As I spewed information they wrote frantically. I included the day he sinned against me and every detail I could remember of him. I was out of breath by the time all the information had traveled from my mouth to their legal pads, and I sat back with a sigh of relief. I wanted to yell, “Mic drop!” and walk out, but the fear of being handcuffed kept me on a level of sanity. I simply told them that was everything I knew.

  At the end of the conversation, or interrogation depending on how you look at it, they told me that I could retrieve the computer in a few weeks from the police detective I spoke to at the police station the day before. That made me laugh out loud, and in my most smart-mouthed way I asked them why I would want the computer after they wiped it clean. It would be useless to me then. The male FBI agent, who had said very few words while sitting on the other side of the desk that day, gave me a grin and let me know that they would just take what they needed off the computer and give the rest back. I rolled my eyes completely out of reflex. We both knew the computer would just be a shell when they were done with it. I told them no thanks and hoped we were done.

  The two FBI agents led me back down the hall to the lobby, thanked me for my time, and shut the heavy wooden door behind me. I turned in my visitor’s pass, retrieved my driver’s license from the stiff receptionist, and signed out. This time my signature was sturdy and straight; my hands were as precise as a surgeon’s because I had left all my fear back in that small interrogation room. Those two detectives could have it if they wanted it. I no longer owned it.

  I had to be buzzed back out the front door. When the buzzer went off this time, I noticed my heart didn’t skip a beat. I pushed the door open with a newfound confidence that hadn’t existed two hours before when I had reluctantly walked through that very same door. If I hadn’t had boots on I would have skipped down the sidewalk. I wanted them to see my joy just in case they were watching out a window. As I walked past the security guard, through the metal detector, and out into the land of freedom, I waved at him and told him to have a great day. I got nothing in return and relished in it.

  You can’t get me.

  You can’t steal my joy.

  I’m free!

  As I made the long hike across the parking lot back to my car, I started to hear the bricks crash onto the asphalt. One by one, the bricks that had taken so many years to stack up around me came tumbling down, crumbling in my path. I left a wake of rubble behind me, and all the demons from my past could no longer follow me. The claws that once dug into my spine were now desperately clawing through the bricks behind me, desperate to reach me and feed off of me like they had done for years. All those years of hiding behind a wall of shame and guilt were made new. I no longer owned the sins of my father. His rejection no longer had an effect on me. By the time I reached my car, I was a thousand times lighter than when the cold weather had stolen my breath away hours before. I could breathe again.

  I unlocked my car door and slid into the driver’s seat. It wasn’t until I started the car and felt the heater blast my face that I realized just how cold it was outside. The healing in my heart had overwhelmed my mind and blocked out the feeling of the winter wind on my face. I would no longer allow anything to steal my breath again.

  I sat in my car for what seemed like an eternity. I couldn’t put the car into drive. I couldn’t take my eyes off the building in front of me, the building I had feared only two hours before.

  It all hit me at once and I felt a tear stream down my face and crash onto my pants. When it landed on my leg, I flinched and looked down to see the wet spot it had left. Then I felt another and soon my legs were nearly soaked with my salty tears. You could almost hear my tears, like waves reaching the shore. It wasn’t relief or pain that released the emotions; it was a mixture of pity for my dad and guilt for my freedom. I was sobbing, unable to navigate my car through foggy eyes, so I just sat there and let myself drown in my own little ocean.

  Up to this point in my life, I would have given anything to change what I had been through. I prayed on several occasions for God to take it all away. On more than one occasion I even begged him to take me home to heaven. I once texted my husband and told him I wished a Mac truck would slam into me on my way home and disintegrate everything about me. It made me cry harder for the lost little girl I had held on to for so long. All my life I felt like I never truly measured up to the people around me. I was good at things I attempted and usually excelled in anything I put my heart into, but deep inside I always felt like I was second-rate. I always felt like my boyfriends didn’t really like me and then that my husband wasn’t truly in love with me. I’ve heard that is called having “daddy issues.” I felt like no matter what I did there was no real value in me.

  But on this day, sitting in the car only days after my own dad took his life, I felt free from it all. The battle over wanting him in my life and never wanting anything to do with him was over. I was left with two options: I could let it go and forgive him or live the rest of my life heavy with rejection and worthlessness. While in some ways it felt like he still had the final say, I had the choice to forgive or not.

  I had spent a great deal of time praying for God to heal me, praying that he would teach me how to not only accept that everything had been part of his plan but also forgive the mess I went through along the way. God had always made it clear that I was to forgive the same way that I had been forgiven. It was only through him that I was able to move forward and find a healthy way to live my life. I choose forgiveness on a daily basis. I choose Jesus every morning.

  Sitting in the car that day I made a promise that I would allow myself to mourn the loss of what I had always pretended not to need. I allowed myself to mourn never being loved by my dad. I released the shame and guilt that came with rejection. From that day on I was going to love myself enough to be free of the chains in which I had wrapped myself so long ago. From that day on I would have the courage to forgive ot
hers and myself for the sins in our lives. From that day on I was going to truly accept that Jesus died not only for me and my sins but also for my dad and his, and for that reason alone I knew we were both free. From that day on I would embrace that my heavenly Father had always considered me Daddy’s little girl—his little girl.

  twelve

  My Redemption Song

  Life has a funny way of exposing the past and offering up the truth. I’ve always wanted to hold my pain and secrets tight to my chest. I would have been satisfied taking my hurts to the grave with me, but God always had a better plan. After giving my life to Christ, I began to understand that God has a plan for us and that even through our deepest pain, his plan is always beautiful. Becoming a Christian and truly surrendering my life didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to continue to face heartache and hurts; it did mean that I would have someone who would carry me through them. I started to accept that the dirt on my feet would be what God would use to help me lead others to him. It gave me the opportunity to show others that even though my feet were dirty, my path leads to Jesus. In this short time on earth that we’ve been given, that’s truly all that matters.

  After my dad’s funeral, when the dust settled and everyone went on with their lives, my feet still felt stuck. I remained silent and hid my tears behind the door of my bathroom in the dark of the night. Every time I got in my car I would listen to the song that was played at my dad’s funeral. I set the player to repeat and as long as I was in my car, that song was playing. I repeated his eulogy in my head several times a day; I knew it by heart. Even though Brandon knew my pain, I felt like I was suffering through life alone. How could anyone possibly understand how I felt or what my heart was going through? How was I ever going to get over what had happened and move forward?

  I spent many nights begging God to help me understand why this had happened in my life and how he was ever going to use it for good. My pit seemed to be bottomless. Even with a strong Christian family and strong faith, I was beginning to think God had made a terrible mistake. Had he picked the wrong person to put on this path? Why did he allow me to be the rejected little girl? Whoever coined the phrase “God only gives you what you can handle” is a liar. Life gives you more than you can handle, and that’s why we need God. In the midst of my pain and pleading, he started putting my biggest hurts back in front of my face and making me come to terms with them. He taught me to forgive. In fact, God somehow gave me that strength in abundance; forgiveness wasn’t a problem for me. My pain was in the feeling of worthlessness. I forgave with ease; why couldn’t my heart heal at the same pace?

  A few days after my dad had taken his own life, I was with a coworker who knew my story inside and out. We had spent several hours in the car with each other each day and shared our stories. She knew my struggles. We pulled into a shopping center to get our boss a gift card at a local barbershop for Christmas. As we pulled into a parking spot I glanced to my left and saw his car. The man who had sinned against me twenty years ago was parked just a few spots away. I gasped for air so loudly that it spooked my friend. My instinct to run and hide took over and we made our way into a store nearby, a store I was sure he would never enter.

  My sweet friend hunkered down next to a shelf of hair dye and held my hand. She knew my fear was overwhelming. Instead of trying to talk me down, she supported me by hiding alongside me. She could tell by the way my eyes fixated on the front of the store that my fear was more than she could help with.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know what to do.”

  The bell on the door handle rang, and I knew someone had walked in. I slowly scooted back, making sure I was protected behind the bottles and brushes. I heard his voice, a voice etched in my mind, and realized he had come in too and was up front talking to the cashier. I stopped breathing so that I could try to make out what he was saying, but I couldn’t hear. I would have to get closer and I was too scared to move. My friend could see the look on my face and decided to de-escalate the situation for me since I was frozen in fear. She pulled my hand and we almost ran out the door, completely undetected by him. We snuck into the next store, and my body shook like a wet dog.

  Here I was, twenty years later, a grown woman, a wife, and a mother, and still completely in fear of the one who had crushed my dignity so long ago. How had he held this power for so long? How was I still his emotional puppet? I frantically pulled my phone from my purse and struggled to work the buttons with shaky hands. I called my aunt and told her what was going on. She knew the man I feared, but she didn’t know why I feared him. She knew that he was my dad’s best friend and that neither were good people, but she didn’t know how much he had damaged me. I simply told her that he was near and I was panicked. She assumed his sin against me was emotional from being an accomplice with my dad. I was hoping that she would tell me to get back in my car, rev the engine, and run him over when he emerged from the store. But she didn’t. She calmly told me that maybe, just maybe, this was God’s way of allowing me to let it go and forgive the man and the sin that consumed me. Maybe this was God’s way of freeing me. Maybe this was the beginning of my redemption song. I knew she was right but couldn’t imagine facing this man, so I went back to my car to collect my thoughts and pray that God might give me the courage to make brave choices.

  I sat in silence in the front seat, waiting for him to come out of the store. I had no idea what I was going to do or if I was going to do anything at all. I watched as tiny specks of rain began to cover my windshield and the blast from the heater danced on my face. I wasn’t thinking. I felt completely blank with zero emotions. For once, I was empty and without a plan.

  And then I saw him.

  He confidently marched out of the store with a bag dangling from his arm and headed toward his car. I paused for a moment and in the second of the pause my friend asked me what I was going to do. I didn’t answer. With a courage that wasn’t mine, a courage that I borrowed from my heavenly Father, I got out of my car and walked up to him. I yelled his name as I approached, and he turned around with a confused look.

  “Who are you?”

  He didn’t know me. He didn’t recognize my face. A flood of emotions didn’t rush through his entire body the way they had done in mine. He hadn’t been locked in the same cage I had locked myself in.

  Who are you?

  That one sentence felt like a bomb in my stomach. How did he not immediately know who I was? How had my face not been etched in his memory? I realize I wasn’t the sixteen-year-old girl he had stolen from and that my face showed years of aging. But his face had never left my memory. I thought mine had never left his.

  “Candice Snell.”

  I used my maiden name so he would be sure to make the connection, and I prayed that the very mention of my name would be like a baseball bat to the face. I used my dad’s last name for a little extra sting.

  “Candice,” I said again.

  I saw it in his eyes the moment it clicked, and he realized who it was standing in front of him. He looked down, took a deep breath, and then he cried.

  I lacked any compassion. I couldn’t have shed a tear if you sprayed me with pepper spray. That was his fault. That’s what he had stolen from me as a child. He single-handedly took any tears I might have had for him twenty years ago.

  He mentioned my dad and cried harder as we talked about his death. He’d already known about it, but as I laid out the details he became more and more upset. My dad had held some weird special spot in his life, and I knew he had just lost one of his best friends. I had a hard time sympathizing with him and did absolutely nothing to comfort him in the midst of his pain. I was over sacrificing myself to help him. I wasn’t going to cower, not this time. I lifted my head a little higher and set my shoulders back an inch or two in an effort to state my position. I was not a weak child any longer.

  Then, like a kind and gentle man, he told me about his daughter. His eyes sparkled as he said her name,
and my whole body went numb. God had let this man become a father. He didn’t consult with me or ask me if it was okay; he just gave him a child. Not only was he given a little girl but he was so proud of her. He beamed at the mention of her name, and I was jealous. I was jealous because she had in her dad, the man whom I feared, what I was desperate for in mine. A little girl admired and loved this man, and I knew in that moment I had to end it all. I had to stop the cycle and let it all go. I couldn’t live my life hating someone who was deeply loved by his daughter and by my heavenly Father. He was no different from me in God’s eyes. Our sins held equal weight, no matter how I felt about it. God gave his Son for this man the same way he gave his Son for me. I knew, right then and there, that I had to forgive the one person in my life that I had promised myself I would hold a grudge against forever. In an effort to do right by his daughter and to somehow be an example of a godly woman for her, even if she never saw it, I forgave her dad.

  “I forgive you. I don’t hate you anymore, and I will never spend another day of my life hating you.”

  He simply said, “I’m sorry,” as tears rolled down his face.

  I hadn’t realized that it was now pouring rain. I was soaked and so was he. His face was soaked in tears and mine in raindrops.

  God had washed us both clean and it was over. It was time to move on and let it go.

  thirteen

  The Power of Forgiveness

  God opened my eyes that day and gave me a sneak peek of what he can do in our lives when we surrender to his will and let go of our own. That day began a rolling redemption in my life that can only be explained by the hand of my heavenly Father. That day God whispered in my ear, “Share your story and I will redeem it all.”

  Because of what God did that day, Brandon and I decided to give everything we had to the Lord and submit to his plan for our lives. It was a crazy choice and a difficult one, because we were still struggling to recover from all the hits we had taken over the years. We had faced empty bank accounts, sick children, a marriage that hit rock bottom, and deaths in our family that rocked our world. But we had the choice to either continue living our lives for the world and what little it had to offer or fully submit to the Lord and willingly follow where he led. We chose to find God’s hand in all that was happening in our lives and all that would happen in the future. We made the choice to completely forgive the past failures in our marriage and not make either of us live a life sentence for them. That meant forgiving cold hearts, infidelity, harsh words, and all the other things that had almost brought our marriage to an end. We left them in the past and never pulled them back out to use as weapons. From here on, no matter how tough things got, I would not bring up the infidelity and swing it wildly like a sword in battle. It was over, forgiven.