by Don Prichard
He answered each letter prayerfully. They, too, would read and reread his letters. Memorize them. Take them to heart.
Dana’s dismay was that she couldn’t compete with the scores of her male peers’ physical prowess. Treasure the limits of your female body, Jake wrote back. God designed it perfectly as a gift to you, to your future husband, and to your children. Love being a woman. And remember, dear daughter, competition does not require domination.
His son’s distress lay at the opposite end of the spectrum. Although Brett had dated dazzling girls aplenty in high school, the charm had worn off now that he was in college. Where was the love of his life? Patience, son. Your bride is on special order. Prepare for her by focusing on your job at hand. In two and a half years, as a graduate of West Point, you will be ready, and she will be waiting to rush into your arms.
The letter from Betty required him to cool off first. Not only had Neal Oakleigh betrayed them with the lie about the restraining order, but Jake suspected Betty was right about Oakleigh abetting Jake’s deportation and arranging his imprisonment at the Salonga Prison. “When I confronted him with the file, he threatened to send Crystal to a different boarding school and get a restraining order against me. Jake, what do I do?”
He swallowed the rage shoving flames into his throat. For Crystal’s sake, you’ll have to back off. Go ahead, though, and dig up what evidence against him you can. But whatever happens, remember what I learned (at long last) on the island—that God does not abandon His beloved. Don’t look at circumstances, Betty, but instead look at God’s heart.
And then there was Crystal. Someone had framed her by putting answers to the semester pre-algebra test in her textbook. Crystal was the only one in class who got all the problems correct. Fortunately, her protest of innocence was listened to, and the whole class was given another test. Crystal aced it, but one student did significantly worse—Crystal’s roommate, Allie. She admitted to setting Crystal up. At Christmas, Allie would be sent home for good. “She told me she did the other mean things to me too,” Crystal wrote. “What should I do? I feel crummy about it, but I can’t stop hating her. I want to be mean back to her.”
Jake dreaded answering the letter. It required looking into a mirror and either turning away in denial of his own disfigurement, or rushing to the Great Surgeon for a facelift. He couldn’t give Crystal answers he refused to obey himself.
He gritted his teeth and started in. Sweetheart, we face the same problem. You with Allie, me with Captain Emilio. They’ve given us good reason to be angry. Yet God says payback is His job, not ours. That’s because He is the great Judge, and justice from His hands is spot-on. But you and I don’t qualify to be judges—not when we have our own sins to be judged for.
The good news, Pumpkin, is that as God’s beloved, you and I and all other believers are forgiven. On the cross, Jesus faced God’s judgment for us and paid the penalty we owe. So our job as those who’ve received this sweet mercy is not to dish out punishment, but to show that God’s compassion is real. He tells us we do this by “loving our enemies and doing good to them.”
A wisp of a breeze touched Jake’s cheek. His whole being quivered, and his soul swelled. Joy flooded him. He finished the letter, blotting moisture from his eyes onto the back of his hand. Sounds hard, doesn’t it? But loving them isn’t about feeling all gooshy and happy toward them. It’s about how we act toward them. When we “do good” to them, it sort of puts the spotlight on the bad things they did. I think that’s what it means in Romans 12 to “heap coals of fire on their heads.”
So let’s start heaping those coals, all right? We can share them in our next letter. And let’s pray for each other’s heart too, that God will cleanse us of hate. We need His soap for that.
It was a relief to hand over his disfigured mirror image to God. Still, his heart protested. Wasn’t “doing good” to Captain Emilio the exact opposite of what would chase the rat out of the warden’s bosom?
Chapter 42
December
Eve shook her gloved hand out of her pocket to grasp the stairwell’s handrail. The steps inside the apartment building weren’t icy, but melted snow from laden boots and coats made them slippery. Huh, so she wasn’t the only one who used the Beachwood Apartment’s back stairs. A month ago she’d started climbing them to add to her exercise routine at Ace’s. Funny that in all that time she’d never encountered anyone.
She shifted her shopping bags of decorations to her other arm after passing the first floor. Excitement tingled the back of her neck. Her first Christmas in this apartment. She wanted the place fully decked out for Natasa. The party invitations had been hand-delivered to Brad, Marianne, and Stella this morning, but Rock and Natasa’s had to be sent to his office address. She had no idea where he lived.
Two weeks until Christmas and then Natasa would be gone. Moving. Eve’s elation spiraled into a noose that slipped over her heart and tightened. Why was it that no one seemed to stay long in her life? Even Chaplain Peterman had been reassigned to another state. The hospital’s Sunday morning chapel service held nothing for her with him gone.
The heavy metal door to the street squealed in protest. She stepped to the banister and peered down. A man dusted in white flakes entered and stomped snow off his shoes, removed his hat, and batted more white flakes onto the floor. His black hair picked up the pinpoint of light from the surveillance camera above him.
The man with the Audi from the parking lot. The air in the stairwell swirled like a cyclone into Eve’s lungs and barreled back out in one huge lunge. She grabbed the stair rail to steady herself.
The Audi-man started up the stairs, saw her, and clomped faster. “Hey, neighbor!”
Encountering him in the apartment lobby was one thing, but meeting him on steep, slippery stairs was another. The perfect place for murder if he was a Romero thug. She sprinted up the steps, her heartbeat outpacing her feet.
Above her, the third-floor door clanged open, and someone whistling a ditty took to the stairs.
Rock?
Rock!
She all but flew to him, stopping just short of throwing herself into his arms.
His eyebrows shot up, eyes and mouth wide open at the sight of her. “Eve, what are you doing here?”
She swallowed, chest heaving, grappling for some measure of dignity.
He grasped her arm. “Are you okay?” She nodded, and a frown flicked across his forehead. “Marianne said you had some kind of invitation for Natasa and me. I could have picked it up. You didn’t need to make a special trip.”
The Audi-man closed in and stepped around them but didn’t stop. “Hey, neighbor.” His glance fell squarely on Rock and avoided Eve.
“Hey,” Rock said.
“You know him?” Eve shivered, not sure if it was in relief or another rise of panic.
“A neighbor on my floor.”
“Your floor?” Eve stared at him. “You live at the Beachwood Apartments?”
Rock nodded. “Isn’t that why you’re here? To deliver the invitation?”
“I live here. Same floor.”
“No kidding!” He almost sparkled with delight. “How long? I can’t believe we haven’t run into each other before now.”
“Since September.” Dread burrowed through her like a long, dark tunnel. “And you?”
“October. If Natasa had known that, she’d have bugged you all the time.” His face fell. “I hate it that she’s moving.”
Eve’s mouth ticked down. “Me too. My invitation is to a small Christmas party, which I’d like to double as a farewell party for Natasa, if you don’t mind. I didn’t know where you lived, so I mailed it to your office.”
“How nice of you—she’ll love it! Consider the invitation accepted.” He glanced at his watch. “Not meaning to be rude, but I’ve got an appointment. See you later,”—he grinned—“neighbor.”
She managed a weak smile and dashed the rest of the way to the third-floor door, shopping bags slapping he
r thigh. “Coincidence,” Brad had warned her, “is an enemy in disguise. Don’t trust it.”
Rock Giannopoulus could be as much a Romero thug as the Audi-man.
With every step toward her apartment, she shook harder. It took several tries to get her key into the door. So now what? Move? Invite Wonder Woman back into her life? Learn karate?
The warrior with the two-edged sword flashed into her mind. Her fingers curled with the sensation of someone taking her hand. Warmth spread up her arm and cascaded like a waterfall to flow throughout her body. A calm of unbearable sweetness settled over her, ending in what could only be a whisper from above. Beloved, I’ve got your back.
Melted bones turned to steel. Angst transformed to mettle. She emptied her shopping bags of Christmas decorations and distributed them around the foyer, living room, and kitchen until good cheer in the apartment beamed as brightly as the exultation in her heart.
Lastly, she got out two more invitations and filled them in. One to Chaplain Peterman, who just might surprise her and come, and one to the Audi-man in 3E down the hall. It was about time she learned his name.
Chapter 43
“Dad?”
A rift the size of the Grand Canyon ripped through Jake’s chest. He raced to the prison gate and plastered his son and daughter as close to him as the steel bars allowed. Their arms enveloped him, pressing his back, clasping his shoulders, gripping his neck and head with trembling fingers. First with Dana, then with Brett, he secured each dear face between his hands and smothered eyes, cheeks, and lips with kisses.
When at last they had exhausted tears and emotions, they stood back and surveyed each other with hungry eyes. Aside from copious sweat and overly friendly mosquitoes, their commonality ended there. The prison gate might as well have been the portal between two alien worlds. Jake had bathed from top to toe as best he could from the drinking water in the courtyard, but he suspected three months of ground-in grime and a bumper crop of bug bites overrode his effort to look somewhat normal. At least he wore the new shorts and shirt from the warden rather than the ragged, bloodied clothes of six weeks ago that revealed his true life in prison.
“Dad, this is awful.” Dana, nose scrunched, teeth clenched, eyes squinting, grabbed his hand as if to pull him through the steel bars and make a dash for freedom.
He’d warned them about what they’d find after they wrote they were coming for Christmas. One step away from Auschwitz—how do you prepare your kids for that kind of venue? “I’ll be out soon enough, sweetheart.”
“When, Dad?” Brett’s voice rose harshly in a battle between rage and helplessness. “We’ve tried everyone we can think of—the U.S. Embassy, our senator, even the commandant of the Marine Corps. They all say their hands are tied, that they can’t reverse your deportation. Only the Philippine government can.”
Jake’s breath stilled. The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; like rivers of water, He turns it wherever He wishes. If these authorities were bumping up against God’s will, they wouldn’t prevail. His heart squeezed, half-comforted at God’s sovereignty, half-dismayed at God’s choice. “It’s okay, son. God may want me to walk through this, not around it.”
Dana’s chin and lower lip quivered. She blinked back tears. “How can we help?”
Brett nodded, hands fisted. “We’ll take on Hell with you, if that’s what’s needed.”
Joy, peace, resolution swept over Jake in a tsunami of love. He gathered Dana and Brett into his arms, mindless of the steel bars’ resistance. No prison gate could separate them. He wasn’t alone. It was time to stop counting zombies and start counting blessings.
***
At heart, Eve was a people-person. What a fool she’d been to cower in isolation all these months in fear of the Romeros! Happiness glowed in her chest, as bright as the crystal-clear Christmas lights suspended like icicles from the edges of her ceiling. A small Douglas fir decorated with fluffy girlie decorations in lavender—Natasa’s favorite color—stood center-stage in the living room, radiating the fragrance of evergreen into every corner. Gifts, every one of them carefully selected for Eve’s seven guests, tumbled from a generous pile beneath its branches. Until Natasa had to leave at ten o’clock, Eve’s party was a tiny piece of eternity to be cherished.
“Natasa, could you be more beautiful?” Eve hugged her young friend, who looked at least sixteen, all dolled up in an ankle-length, velvet cranberry dress, hair snazzed into an elegant ballerina’s bun adorned with holly. The gents, too, came spruced up in suits, except for the Audi-man—whose name turned out to be Robert Lopez —dressed, to Natasa’s delight, as Santa. Who would have guessed he’d turn out to be such a hoot!
A week earlier, Marianne, Stella, and Eve had made a day of hitting the stores and sorting through vast possibilities of glamour. With Marianne making no secret of her wish to dazzle Rock, Eve had chosen a simple, silky red dress for herself, in contrast to Marianne’s eye-catching, sparkly, silver one.
Chaplain Peterman was the last to arrive. The embrace he wrapped her in jerked a sob from deep in her soul. She clung to him for several seconds, knees suddenly weak from how starved her heart was for someone who loved her. Someone who knew her only as God’s child, born as a thirty-four-year-old woman from the womb of a dark coma.
He had accepted her invitation to stay in the spare bedroom for the three days he was in Chicago. When Natasa prettily shook Eve’s hand, thanked her for the party and gifts, and departed without a promise to write, disappointment wrung Eve’s heart. “George,”—she plunked down on the couch, next to Peterman—“I’m trying to fill round holes with square pegs. So far, I’ve mistrusted two men who might be white knights, and I’ve trusted a princess who doesn’t fit Cinderella’s slipper.” He took her hand, and she poured out her heart.
***
Romero’s son unlocked his apartment door in time to answer the phone. Ridiculous to have to be back at midnight to receive his father’s call. Even more ridiculous that Danny Romero, a prince among drug lords, would have to place the call from a stinking phone booth. He listened for the identifying raspy catches of his father’s breathing, then reported in. “Party’s over, Pops. Got all three mikes planted where they’ll never find them.” He hung up and headed back out the door.
***
Crystal’s Christmas card to Jake was tucked into the same envelope as Betty’s card.
Grandma and Grandpa took me to Disney World for most of Christmas vacation. Aunt Betty didn’t come, she didn’t say why, and I missed her horribly. We spent most of the time at the hotel because of Grandma’s oxygen tank. She didn’t like lugging it around, and Grandpa seemed embarrassed by it anyway. I had to go on the rides by myself, but some of the places were fun for all of us.
I bought a Mickey Mouse shirt to send to Allie as my next lump of coal. I wish she could come back to school and be my roomie again. Not to pile coals on her head, but because we’re becoming friends. I think I’ll ask Miss Lavender.
Betty revealed in her card that Neal had refused to let her come on the Disney trip. Crystal told me about piling on the coals. Sorry, Jake, but it’s all I can do to not hurl them at Neal’s hind end. In spite of his troubles, Jake guffawed. He faced the same challenge with Captain Emilio. Civil words through gritted teeth were the best he’d managed so far in the way of kindly coals.
Rage still scalded his gut from the destruction two days ago of the prisoners’ first furniture shipment. He hoped Emilio was the rat behind it. If the warden, eager now for his fifty percent profit, could find that out, Emilio’s destiny was a smoking bonfire.
Chapter 44
February 1983
The squawk of the smoke alarm jolted Betty awake. Heart pommeling, brain hurling startled thoughts, she choked in a breath and sat up. Valentines to Crystal and Jake lay nearby on the living room coffee table. A gap between the drapes revealed a coal-black sky devoid of stars. Drat that Neal, he was smoking in the house and had set off the alarm again!
&nb
sp; She rose from the couch, halted as the acrid stench of smoke hit her nostrils. A curtain of gray gauze undulated on the ceiling. Her stomach bunched into knots. The alarm wasn’t kidding. Fire! She sped toward the master bedroom.
“Clara! Neal!” The smoke thickened in the hallway. A vertical curtain of gray flowed from the bottom of the closed bedroom door to the ceiling. She jerked the door open.
Flames leaped halfway to the ceiling with the fresh blast of air. They had consumed the bedroom’s wool carpet and sprung to the king-size bed. Bed linens writhed in blackened agony beneath a golden tongue of fire. At the side of the bed closest to Betty, Clara’s oxygen tank sizzled.
“Clara!” The lump that had to be her sister under the charred bedcovers didn’t move. A smaller lump lay where the pillow had burned away. “Clara!” she screamed.
She rushed toward the bed. Heat clawed at her skin. Flames bit her toes, reached higher to sink teeth into her pant legs. A wild animal, the fire forced her back from its prey. “No! Clara! Clara!”
Panting between convulsive gasps, sobbing her sister’s name, she stepped back, beating the flames from her slacks. Call 9-1-1. Get a bucket of water. Hurry!
She stopped at the sight of Neal. He lay flat on his back on a brown leather recliner close to the bedroom door. His mouth was open, his left arm outstretched. He must have been reading a book and fallen asleep. Below his arm, the charred remains of a paperback lay on the Oriental rug setting apart Neal’s chair, table and lamp from the rest of the bedroom. An ashtray lay upside down on the book. Wisps of smoke snaked a sooty path from the ashtray to the edge of the rug.