by Rhonda Bowen
He leaned on the counter, running a hand through already tousled blonde hair. “I just drove around New York for twenty-four hours looking for her. I haven’t slept. I haven’t eaten. I don’t want to break any rules. I just want to know she’s okay. Please. And then I’ll go, I promise.”
“Trisha, it’s okay,” Portia stepped closer to the open door. “I know him.”
“Portia, you know I can’t let you have visitors at this time of night.” Trisha frowned.
“Come on, Trish,” Portia whined. “I checked myself in. I am here of my own freewill. And I know Craig signed those forms.”
“Nevertheless, rules are rules.”
“Wow, I see you guys have a lot in common,” Khai grumbled.
“Five minutes,” Portia held up an open palm. “We’ll sit out here in the hallway where you can see us.”
Trisha chewed on her lip before letting out a deep breath. “Five minutes. And no funny business.”
This felt annoyingly like being sixteen again on her first date. Back then, her mother was the one calling the shots, only letting her talk with her ‘friend’ on the porch alone as long as they stayed under the light with enough space between them to park an SUV. Memories. But before she could make any further comparisons, there was a buzz of a door and Portia was staring at Khai. She didn’t have an opportunity to say a word. He pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his chest. She felt the warmth of his breath at the top of her forehead as he let out a deep sigh.
She put her arms around him gingerly. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Passing out on the side of the road and being unconscious in the hospital for hours is not okay.” Khai held her at arm’s length to allow his translucent green orbs to search her face. “Thank God you’re okay. Do you have any idea how worried I was?”
The look in his eyes gave her a pretty good idea while taking her breath away at the same time. She stepped further away and sunk down onto the bench in the hallway. It was uncomfortable, probably meant to discourage people from staying too long.
He sat beside her. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at him. “What are you sorry for?”
“I knew something was wrong.” He shrugged. “I should have been there.”
Portia shook her head. “It wasn’t your responsibility to be there. Or to fix things. This thing with me...it’s my thing. I have to do what I need to to be okay. No one can do it for me.”
He nodded. They sat in silence for a long moment, staring at the wall in front of them.
“How did you even find me?” she asked.
He glanced over at her and smiled. “When you turned your phone on, I could use the GPS to track its location and you. The rest was easy.”
She smiled. “I’m surprised it took you that long. Your skills slipping there?”
He shrugged and kept his eyes on hers. “Happens when you’re too emotionally involved.”
Her heart skidded to a halt in her chest before restarting again. Another long moment of silence passed between them as she tried not to think too hard about what he had just said. Khai, her feelings for him, his feelings for her, was a situation to be dealt with at a later date. Right now, she was most focused on staying alive, making it through the next few days with her sanity.
But she could admit that it was nice to have him there. “I’m glad you came.”
“You know I always will.”
Khai. Always saying the right thing. Oh how she wished...
She let out a deep breath and rested her head back against the wall. The silence easily passed between them without either one of them needing to fill it. One of them had moved closer, maybe her. Now they were touching, his jean clad thigh pressed against her hospital gown covered thigh. And that was enough for Portia. No need to go to the courtyard anymore. Khai here, sitting next to her like a calm sure presence was enough.
His voice broke the comfortable quiet. “So what happens now?”
She sighed as reality came crashing back to her. She was, after all, in the mental health ward of a New York City hospital. This was not how she had planned to spend Christmas.
“I think I need to stay here for a few days. At least until I figure things out. I can’t keep living the way I am. Something has to change.”
Christmas in the hospital. She knew she needed it, but man was it a depressing thought.
He reached out and grasped her hand without looking at her. An unexpected sob burst from her throat.
She was tired. So very tired. Tired of trying so hard to do everything right. Tired of trying to control everything. Tired of carrying the burden of her own expectations for herself. Just plain tired of being tired. And so when he squeezed her hand, she laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.
Whether life turned out good or bad, she couldn’t carry on with it the way she had before. She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant or how it would look, but she was willing to give it a try.
Okay, Daddy. I believe You. I believe that I’m Yours and You love me, just the way I am.
And the release she felt as she embraced the concept was so peaceful, it rocked her all the way to sleep.
Chapter 23
“Merry Christmas.”
Khai slopped another spoonful of potatoes onto a plate.
“Merry Christmas.”
It was the week of Christmas and the crowd was larger than he had seen it the two times he had been there before. Evidently, word was spreading about the feeding at Holy Trinity and the change of day from Thursday to Tuesday had been just as well communicated. The crowd had grown so much that tonight they would serve dinner three times instead of two. It was worth it though for every smile and satisfied person.
Nonetheless, Khai was having a hard time staying focused. He pasted on the necessary smile but his mind wandered throughout the evening. Thankfully no one seemed to notice.
“You here with us, son?”
Okay, so maybe it was noticeable.
Khai looked up. Pastor Greg stood by his shoulder. “Huh?”
“Well, I know you’re enthusiastic to share, but there has to be a plate before you can dish out potatoes.”
Khai looked around and realized there was no one in front of him, even though he was holding a spoon stacked with the creamy white mush mid-air. The line had finally ended. He sighed and dropped the spoon back into the serving container.
“Why don’t you grab those leftover potatoes and come with me?”
Khai nodded and followed Pastor Greg into the kitchen to the back where a long stainless steel counter was laid out with leftovers from the meal. Stacked to the side were a couple hundred takeout containers.
“The shelters?” Khai asked.
“Yup.” Pastor Greg grabbed a styrofoam meal box and added turkey and beans to it before handing it to Khai. “Rough day?”
Khai slopped potatoes and cranberry sauce into the container before sealing it and setting it on the empty metal counter behind them. “More like a rough couple of weeks. Maybe longer.”
“Mhmm.” Pastor Greg nodded. “It’s hard to kick against the pricks, isn’t it?”
Khai took the container he handed him. “So now I’m Saul-Paul?”
Pastor Greg paused, raising an eyebrow at Khai.
Khai chuckled. “I remember that part from a play my nephews had to rehearse for. I’m not a complete heathen. I’ve been inside a church a couple of times. Used to sit in Sunday School with my brother when I was little. Church was a regular occurrence for the family. Right until my parents got divorced when I was nine. Then none of us bothered with it anymore.”
Pastor Greg went back to filling the containers. “None of you?”
Khai shook his head. “Nope. Well, my brother Kristoffe got back into it a couple years ago, got more serious when he met his wife. My dad and his wife started going when his wife got sick and kept going even after she got better.”
“Hmm,” Pastor Greg passed him a half full container. “
Sounds like God is calling all of you, one by one. And using women to do it.”
Khai filled the container and sealed it, placing it behind him. He did four more before either of them started again.
“I...I made a promise.”
Khai glanced over at Pastor Greg, expecting the man to respond to his statement. When he didn’t, Khai went back to plating and kept talking.
“I promised God that He could have me if He...if He did something for me.” Khai swallowed hard as he remembered his literal eleventh hour petition in the middle of an empty Brooklyn street.
“And?”
Khai sucked in a deep breath. “And He did. He answered my prayer.”
Khai didn’t say anything more. Didn’t think he needed to. He meant what he said that night. He didn’t make promises he didn’t plan to keep, and his promise to God was no different. But it wasn’t like the promise he made to his mom to visit more often. Or the promise he’d made to Portia to keep their friendship platonic. Both of those promises he could do. He didn’t have to like them. He didn’t even have to feel like doing them, he just had to do them and he would have kept his word.
But this one was different. How did he come to Christ unless he wanted it? He could show up in church every weekend. He could pay his tithe and be honest and do all the right Christian things. But those weren’t his heart. And coming to Christ was a heart thing.
“I’d like to keep my word.” Khai said finally.
“God appreciates your desire to keep your word,” Pastor Greg said. “But what He wants more is your heart.”
“I can’t tell my heart what to feel.” Khai shoved his spoon into the potatoes. “I can’t tell my heart to stop hating someone who helped destroy me. I can’t feel forgiveness just because I say the words. And I know that God wants all of that. I know I have to be able to do that before I come to him but…I can’t. This hatred...it just gets in the way, and I can’t…I can’t move it.”
He pressed his palms against the counter, willing the heaviness in his chest back down. Why was all of this coming up now? Why was it that when he wanted to want to do the right thing, it suddenly felt harder than ever before?
He wanted to not hate Trent. He wanted to move past what happened, but the feelings sat there like burning coals in the middle of his chest.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “He knows you can’t move it. He’s not asking you to move it. He’s saying, come to Him and He will take care of it.”
“What does that even mean?” Khai hit the counter so hard with his fist, the containers jumped. “People always say that, my brother, my sister-in-law and now you. But it doesn’t make sense. How do I come to Him? He’s not here. He doesn’t have an office in Manhattan where I can go drop off my issues. How do I do this?”
Pastor Greg squeezed his shoulder. “You tell Him. You say the words out loud and let Him know you are giving your heart to Him. You are giving yourself to Him, along with all of these feelings and letting Him take care of it. And then you walk away. You don’t go back to thinking or worrying about it. You have faith and trust that He is taking care of it.”
Just like that?
It sounded too easy. There must be something else he had to do. But he had tried everything else to get past this chapter in his life and nothing had worked. No matter how much he took from Trent, he still felt the anger. No matter how successful he became in this second career of his life, it still didn’t feel like enough. No matter how many people respected him in spite of his prison time, he still felt like less of a man.
But he didn’t want to carry around these feelings of inadequacy anymore. God had proven to Khai that He loved him and cared about him. He answered his prayer with a yes when he really needed it. And maybe it wouldn’t always be that way, but this time was special and God had known that. And now Khai wanted to know this God more.
Khai sighed and looked up. “What do I say?”
Pastor Greg smiled. “Whatever is in your heart.”
Khai closed his eyes and did just that, praying out loud in the basement kitchen of Holy Trinity Church on a Tuesday night, surrounded by takeout containers full of Christmas dinner. It was a strange place to come to Jesus. But it didn’t feel strange. It didn’t feel odd to pray out loud, with his words bouncing off stainless steel surfaces. It didn’t feel like he was talking to Pastor Greg or to himself. It felt like he was being heard. Truthfully, it felt like coming home.
Chapter 24
Portia opened her eyes and stretched. Sunlight streamed over her, reflecting off the warm honey colored walls. She smiled when she realized she was no longer in the hospital. She stretched again, rolling to the side as she did and almost fell off the bed. The twin bed. She missed her bed. Her queen size bed. And her bedroom. In her house. It was time to go home. First thing tomorrow. But today was Christmas day and she was spending it with the people she loved the most.
Glancing at her phone, she realized it was barely seven. She slipped onto the carpeted floor of her mother’s guest room and scrolled through the Bible app for a text for her day.
She stopped at one of her favorites:
The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
She read the text from Isaiah 58:11 again even though she had memorized it long ago. But now she committed the promise to her heart. He would satisfy her needs, strengthen her. Make her the vibrant healthy woman He intended her to be.
As she knelt by her bed and whispered her prayer of thanksgiving and praise, she claimed that promise again for the day ahead and all the others that would come after.
When she finally shuffled her way downstairs, she found her mother was still not up. She was glad. This way she could surprise her with breakfast. Her mother deserved the break and for Portia, this would be a Christmas present to herself. She hadn’t cooked anything in more than a week. Her fingers were itching.
She pulled out her phone to find a playlist for making breakfast. Her fingers paused over the text message icon. There were all the regular random Merry Christmas messages from the people she only heard from once a year. Unfortunately, there was no message from the one person she wanted to hear from. The person she hadn’t heard from since the night he visited her at the hospital. The person who had been a prime focus of her prayers.
She had been praying that this Christmas would be a special one for Khai. One where he opened his heart to knowing Christ a little better. Portia hadn’t forgotten about all the issues Khai struggled with related to the man who had caused him to go to prison. But she wanted him to be able to let them go. She knew what it felt like to rest everything in God’s hands and the freedom and lightness that came from leaving God to take care of the things that burdened us the most. She wanted him to have that feeling too, because he was her friend and she cared about him.
This Christmas she wanted that for all her friends. For Milo, Brady, Casey, for all her employees. Even for Barry, her ex who she was finally starting to forgive. But most of all, she wanted it for Khai, because she felt that right now, he really needed it. And the truth was, she needed him. She knew it was selfish and stupid and unwise to want him to accept Christ so she could love him the way she really wanted to, but it was what she wanted. There was no sense in lying to herself about it, especially since God already knew her heart.
Merry Christmas. Praying for you this season and always. Hoping this New Year will be a year of freedom in Christ for you. Love, PJ
She hesitated on the last two words, but then decided to send them anyway. She did love Khai. He was one of her best friends and if there was ever a day he should know that, it was today.
She put on her Chillin in a Cool Yule playlist and jammed to Louis Armstrong as she pulled out flour, molasses and ginger to start gingerbread pancakes.
“Mhmm, what is that smell?”
Portia looked up just as Der
ek wandered into the kitchen in his pajamas. She smirked.
“I should have known the smell of food would wake you up. No matter where you guys are, you seem to smell it the minute I take something off the stove. You’re almost as bad as Khai.”
“Not a bad way to wake up though.” Derek grabbed a hot pancake off the stack before Portia could slap him with the spatula. “Ha! Too fast for you...ahh...ahh.”
Portia tried to frown but ended up laughing as she watched her brother burn his tongue from the hot pancake. “Serves you right for not waiting.”
“Ump...so worf it.”
Portia shook her head. “You’re shameless.”
He grabbed the syrup from the fridge and tipped some of it onto the pancake in his palm.
“Derek, get a plate and stop eating like an animal.”
Portia and Derek both looked up as their mother wandered into the kitchen, her head still tied in a scarf. Yvonne pulled a plate from the shelf and handed it to her son.
“Thamfs.” Derek plopped what was left of the pancake onto the plate and settled himself by the kitchen counter.
“Good morning, sweethearts.”
Portia smiled as her mother kissed her on the cheek before doing the same with Derek.
“It’s so nice to start my day with both my children.”
The smile that stretched across her mother’s face told Portia it really was special to Yvonne. Portia bit her lip and glanced around at them. How much longer would this tradition last? Things were changing. Who knew where life would take them? Instead of worrying about it though, she was going to sit back and enjoy the day God had given them right here, right now.
“What’s on your mind?” Derek asked. His eyes fixed on her.
Portia turned back to the pan and flipped the pancake. “Why do you think something is on my mind?”
“Well,” Derek wiped his hand on a napkin. “I may have been slacking in my duties recently but I am still your twin. I do pick up on a few things every now and then.”