I watch her fill a glass with ice and Diet Coke and comment on her full service. I thank her. Then I try to offer a little encouragement. “We don’t know what the jurors are thinking, so you shouldn’t worry about things yet.”
“Do I look worried?”
“Actually, no,” I say. “Which is great. I just—I didn’t know how you were doing. I know you were frustrated when you left the courthouse.”
“I think dumbfounded might be the right word. All of this—from the moment Principal Kinney called me into her office till now—has felt like some kind of dream. You know, the kind you wake up from and can’t really remember. You just know it wasn’t particularly good.”
“They haven’t made a judgment yet, Grace.”
“The pastor’s appendix decides it’s time to go. Now Brooke crashes the party and decides to share everything and make us—make me—look like a liar.”
“You’re not a liar,” I tell her.
“I know that. But like you said, we lost the case.”
“I didn’t mean to say that. I just—it slipped out.”
“You were being honest,” she tells me. “So I’m preparing to be found guilty.”
I study her and find her calm fascinating. “And how are you preparing?”
She holds up one of the cupcakes she just made. It looks like it’s probably vanilla. It’s the size of a softball. “I’m dealing with it by making Gramps his favorite: salted caramel cupcakes with caramel Swiss buttercream.”
I have to laugh. Actually, I think I gasp. “That sounds like some kind of chemistry experiment.”
“Each vanilla cupcake has a tablespoon of melted salted caramel in it. I’m going to frost them in a few minutes. Want to help?”
I nod. I suddenly think about bypassing the sub and going straight for the cupcake.
“The frosting is caramel Swiss buttercream that’s topped with crumbled pecan-coconut brittle,” Grace says.
I almost tell her that if the teaching thing doesn’t work out, she has a second career. Thankfully, for once I keep my mouth shut before saying something ridiculous.
After I inhale the Italian sub and we start to put frosting on the cupcakes, Grace asks me a question that I’ve been expecting for a while. I’m a bit surprised she hasn’t asked me before now.
“Do you mind telling me what happened out in California? How you ended up here? I know you said you worked for a judge, right?”
The frosting I’m attempting to put on the dessert is running over and making a mess.
Grace just looks at me and shakes her head. “Maybe I should do the rest of them?”
“I was a clerk for a Ninth Circuit Court judge. A prestigious job for someone coming out of law school. The future looked bright. I had a steady girlfriend—thought we were serious. I was arrogant, but so were the rest of my friends, many of them lawyers themselves. I thought the last thing I’d ever do was come back to Hope Springs. Honestly.”
Grace stops working with the frosting and just stares over at me. “So what happened?”
“The judge—it took him a week before he began to dislike me. For lots of different reasons. He didn’t like my sarcasm. He didn’t do sarcasm. And it’s not like I was flippant or anything, but I’m still me. That was the start. But honestly—the old man’s a racist pig. I called him out once and he fired me because of it.”
“He did? You got fired for confronting him?”
“No, not like that.” I lean back against a kitchen counter and feel like a knife has been wedged into my side. I hate thinking about this, much less talking about everything. “I made some comments in private and we had an argument. It was more like I said some things and he went off and then the next thing I knew there were repeated questions about my work ethic and attitude and everything. He eventually managed to get enough strikes against me to let me go.”
Grace waits to hear the Then what? of the story.
“Then I had a bit of a double whammy happen to me,” I say. “My mother passed away right at the same time my girlfriend—this love-of-my-life, soul-mate sort of girl—dumped me. I came back to Hope Springs pretty crushed. Well, not pretty at all, just crushed.”
“I’m sorry,” Grace says.
“Then I got hooked up with my partner, Roger, and took a few cases. The very first one ended up getting me held in contempt of court. By none other than Judge Stennis himself.”
“You never told me that.”
“It wasn’t even that big a deal, just my stupid mouth getting me in trouble like usual. I had an objection overruled and I didn’t like it and I told the judge so. Not in so many words. Actually, I used a lot of words, some of them pretty . . . colorful. He placed me in contempt, I lost the case, and the next time I saw him was at jury selection for your trial. But I don’t think he’s holding it against me. I’m just going to keep my temper—and my mouth—in check.”
Grace doesn’t say anything.
“I don’t think the conversation while decorating cupcakes should be this heavy.” The goopy mess in my hands doesn’t even resemble a cupcake anymore.
“And I don’t think that’s what decorating means,” she says with a laugh as she makes a face while looking at my messy dessert.
We talk a little more about my coming back to town and trying to start a new business and get back on my feet after my disastrous first case.
“All I know is life is hard,” Grace says. “My parents abandoning me. My complete inability to ever find someone who wants to go on a second date. My bills. And now this.”
Her tone isn’t one of misery. It sounds like she’s relaying details about an event in history.
Which is sorta what she just did.
“So do you believe God still cares? That he’s even there?”
“Yes,” Grace says. “And I can keep going because he brings opportunities and people who help.” She gives me an acknowledging smile.
“Ha. I’m thinking maybe the devil brought me.”
“Who said I was talking about you helping me?” she asks, finally taking my cupcake away from me.
This case and this place and this moment suddenly don’t seem to be the main thing. The most important thing. Maybe it’s bigger than that.
So tell her.
“Grace, look—I need to tell you—”
“Tom? Save your words for tomorrow. Okay?”
Shut down.
I nod.
“I’m not telling you to not say them or to forget them. I’m just saying—don’t add an epilogue on a story that hasn’t ended yet.”
That’s good. I need to write that down and use it in court one day.
“Okay,” I say. “Tomorrow it ends. Then we’ll know.”
“Yes. The verdict in the case of Thawley v. Wesley.”
I pick up another cupcake and hold it, wondering whether to try my luck again.
“And what about the case of Tom v. Grace?” I ask her.
“Have you filed, Counselor?” she says in a voice resembling Judge Stennis’s.
“Not yet.”
Those blue-topaz gems look my way. “I think I prefer you defending me, Tom.”
With those words she leaves the kitchen for the moment. I hear her talking to her grandfather. I smile and then skim some of the frosting off the bowl.
As I’m resting against the counter, glancing around the kitchen and feeling warm and lazy, I suddenly realize something.
This place feels like home.
49
NOBODY ELSE WOULD ever get it. They might see the toy and laugh and wonder why in the world she has a Dark Knight Batman bobblehead in a gift bag. But Amy knows that her mother won’t wonder. Especially after reading the note in the bag.
She hopes that she’ll actually be able to see her mother in person to tell her the words she wants to say instead of having to write a summary of them in a note.
She drives fifteen minutes out of the town of Hope Springs to where the house still stands. The place Amy grew
up in and couldn’t wait to leave.
It’s been too long.
The message is clear, despite any attempts to mend the relationship. But God works in mysterious ways, as they say, and Amy knows there can still be plenty of mysteries to solve. All she can do is reach out like she’s doing.
She pulls the car up to the curb with the evening light fading, then picks up the bag with the silly bobblehead and climbs out of the car. Even in the dim glow of sunset, Amy can see the wrinkles on the house. The paint is duller and the cracks in the porch more pronounced. Wooden steps groan underneath her feet. Soon she’s knocking on the door, knowing the doorbell probably still doesn’t work.
More knocks. More. Then she tries the doorbell.
She’s home. I know she’s home.
The car in the driveway and the open blinds prove that her mother is home. But she would have looked to see who’s at the door. And if Mom saw her, Amy knows she probably would do exactly what she’s doing.
Nothing.
Amy tries one more time, this time speaking out.
“Mom, I know you’re there. I want to talk. I need to talk.”
She waits. Her heart beats once. Then again.
Amy places the gift bag right in front of the door, then starts to walk back to the car. If this were a movie, the door would open and her mother would be standing there, tears streaming from her eyes, a look of regret and longing all over her face. They would rush to each other and embrace, and then the happily ever after would commence with the credits and the wonderful closing song.
The only door that opens is the one to her car. Amy climbs in and starts up the engine. She glances back to the porch and the front door. The gift bag still sits there in front of the unopened entrance. She drives off.
A voice begins to whisper to her, second-guessing the bobblehead thing. Amy refuses to go back, however.
I was sixteen and stubborn.
Today she saw a sixteen-year-old standing up for something she believed in. All Amy did when she was sixteen was blow up the very loose and broken bridge that connected her to her mother. Over something so stupid.
The small things are probably the very things that the devil chooses to use to create the big holes in our lives.
Amy thinks about that ridiculous George W. Bush bobblehead that her mother received from work more as a gag gift than anything else. There was that one day arguing again. Every day was an argument, and this was a big one, and Amy started talking about Hurricane Katrina and the obvious reality of there not being a God because what God could ever have allowed such a thing. Since her mother didn’t have a bobblehead of God on the shelf, Amy could only find the Bush one to throw at her mother’s head.
It missed and burst apart against the wall.
That was the true beginning of the end. The time when Amy said “enough” and wanted to get away from her mother and her beliefs and her hopes and her dreams when all of them resembled New Orleans in the midst of that devastating disaster.
Amy drives home and turns on the radio and wonders what sort of song will play on the Christian station. It’s a slow song she hasn’t heard before, so she listens and turns it up and hears them singing about the Prince of Peace.
“You heard my prayer,” the singer says.
Amy knows she hasn’t offered many of those. She has only prayed when things were at their bleakest. She still doesn’t know—make that believe—that God is hearing them. That God hears those prayers.
The singer says otherwise.
Amy thinks about the note she wrote, and then she asks God to allow her mother to read it. To be open to it. To accept it. And to somehow, in some way, mend this relationship. “Please let her know I mean it,” Amy prays.
It’s been too long and it’s been too silent and it’s been too much.
But maybe her mother will understand when she reads it.
Dear Mother,
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for thinking I knew more when I knew far less.
Forgive me for cutting the cord and never even bothering to say good-bye.
I’ve written thousands upon thousands of words, but I’ll never be able to write enough to replace the time and the memories I’ve kept from you. I know that, and I hope God can allow us to have a little more time and create a few more memories in this life.
Today I saw a sixteen-year-old girl stand up for what she believed. It made me think of another sixteen-year-old standing up to her mother. The difference, however, was that one did it out of love and the other did it out of hate.
I never knew of the freedom you could have in believing that Jesus died for you. That he’s real and that he came to atone for our sins. In my mind, God was missing, just like my father. And in my mind, anything that stood for the faith you had needed to stay away from me.
Hurricane Katrina wasn’t just a terrible natural disaster wreaking havoc on those poor folks in New Orleans. It was a symbol of the flooding of my faith. I couldn’t find a bobblehead of George W. Bush to give you, so Batman has to do.
Youth is wasted on the young, so they say. Sometimes I think faith is wasted on the young too. It sure was for me. And I regret that.
But I do know this:
God’s not dead, and he’s also not done with you and me yet.
Your daughter wants to learn what it’s like to start loving you, Mom.
Sincerely,
Amy
50
THE LARGE CUPCAKE takes up most of the small plate it’s on. There’s one lit candle on top of it. Grace sets the dish on the table in front of her grandfather.
“Happy birthday, Gramps,” she says. “Sorry it’s not much of a celebration.”
“And sorry I barged in for the cupcakes,” I tell him.
The wrinkles curl up as he grins. “Anytime you let me near icing, it’s a celebration.”
Walter blows out the candle and then Grace gives him a spoon while she takes another. My cupcake—resembling the ugly puppy nobody wants to take out of the cage—hovers on the plate I’m standing in front of.
“Where’s yours?” I ask her.
“These have like a thousand calories in them. And since I’m not Miss Gym Fanatic or anything, I decide to be careful with what I eat. Unless, of course, it’s Chinese.”
Even though it looks sad, my cupcake is absolutely delicious. I work on it while Grace and her grandfather talk about the day we just had and her feelings about tomorrow.
“You know what I was just doing in my room before dinner?” she says to Walter. “I was praying. It’s funny—I feel like Jesus isn’t letting me feel his presence lately. Usually it’s like I can almost reach out and touch him, but right now? It’s like he’s a million miles away. And I can’t make out a word of what he’s saying. If he’s even saying anything at all.”
Wisdom often demonstrates itself through careful pauses or silence, and this is one of those times. Walter finishes his bite while considering the words of his granddaughter.
“Grace, you of all people should realize something when you’re going through really hard times. Remember: the teacher is always quiet during the test.”
It takes a millisecond to come up with a witty response. It takes a lifetime to come up with a wise one.
We talk for a few more moments before hearing something outside. I assume it’s just chatter from the television. Grace seems to know it’s something else, so she goes to the front entrance and stares through a side window.
“Oh my . . .”
She moves over to the family room and pulls back the curtains while Walter and I follow her.
“What’s going on out there?” Walter asks as he leans toward the window and looks out into the dark evening.
Grace seems too surprised to say anything. I stare out and see a group of seven or eight students standing there, each one holding a lit candle. Then a few of them lift up hand-lettered placards. I read them in order.
We’re Not Allowed
To Spe
ak to You
But Nobody Said
We Couldn’t Sing
I notice that Brooke is one of the teenagers holding a card. Her friends are with her.
A high voice begins to sing. The others join in. Even I know the song: “How Great Thou Art.”
Grace doesn’t move, her gaze fixed, her hand wiping the tears from her eyes. It’s a bit surreal, this tiny choir glowing in the darkness and giving Grace and her grandfather a little encouragement. These teenagers singing their souls out to their Savior and God and telling him how great he is.
I find myself wondering what I’m doing here. Really and truly. The feeling of seeing these students standing up for something they believe in is surreal.
Walter goes over and puts his arm around Grace.
“See that?” he says. “Looks like the teacher decided to no longer be quiet.”
She nods and chuckles and leans into his chest.
“That’s your reward this side of heaven,” Walter tells her. “The rest may have to wait.”
“It’s enough,” Grace says.
After the mini concert is over and the cupcakes are finished and I’ve had two cups of coffee, we bid Walter good night and happy birthday before he goes to bed. That’s my cue to take off as well.
I remember what Grace said about saving my words for tomorrow, about not acting out an epilogue here. I get that. What I still don’t fully get is why I’m here and why she doesn’t seem to mind and how natural this feels and how we have barely spoken about the trial.
Grace gives me my bag full of subs. Nothing caps off a night like being handed a bunch of hoagies. We talk for a few minutes about Brooke and the rest of the students and how much their gesture meant to Grace. I slowly make my way to the door.
“You have a funny look on your face,” Grace says.
“I do?”
Grace nods. “Yeah. It’s—I haven’t seen that one before. And you have quite a few to choose from.”
“Is it a good look?”
“I think so. But . . . I’m not sure.”
“You should never be too sure with lawyers.”
She laughs. The entryway feels very quiet with the two of us just standing here.
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