When She Returned

by Berry, Lucinda

  Margo put her hand on my back.

  “He said that you are the definition of an unfit mother by abandoning her the way you did, and he doesn’t want you anywhere near her,” Ray said.

  “But I didn’t abandon her,” I cried. “Did you tell him that?”

  “I tried everything I could think of to make him understand, but he refuses to see things differently.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately the courts will probably agree with him. The world has a hard time understanding our methods and training practices.” I sank to the floor in defeat. Margo knelt next to me, and Ray sat on the other side. He put his arm around me, and this time I didn’t fight him off. “This may be the Lord’s way of doing for you what you couldn’t do for yourself.”

  “Losing my husband and daughter?” I could barely speak through my sobs. “What kind of God requires that kind of sacrifice?”

  “The same one that sacrificed his own son,” Ray said.

  I buried my face in my pillow, trying to stifle my cries, but it was no use. Willow had amazing hearing and was at my cot within seconds. She knelt next to my bed with her face inches from mine.

  “I can’t even imagine how much this hurts,” she whispered, even though we were the only two in the cabin, and there was no one around to hear us. “Remember that you’re giving up so much more than most of us, so think about how much more you will gain as a result.”

  She’d been saying the same thing for the last two days. It didn’t help. The pain of losing my family felt like it would never end.

  “Move over,” she said, and I lifted the blanket so she could slide underneath. She pulled me next to her, wrapping her arms tightly around me. “Shh . . . shhhh . . . you’re okay,” she said over and over again in the same voice you’d use to soothe a crying baby. I clung to her, sobbing into her chest.

  “I can’t do this without them. I can’t,” I cried.

  “Yes, you can.” She ran her hands through my hair. “You’ve been doing this without them. For months probably. You’re stronger than you know.”

  I shook my head. “I’m weak, so weak.” Their faces were my last images before falling asleep each night and my first thought each morning. That would never leave. How could it? Knowing I’d be with them again had gotten me through so many difficult moments during my training.

  “No matter how hard this might be, it’s your last step in letting go of your worldly attachments, and you have no idea how much freedom you’ll experience once you’re on the other side of this,” she said.

  Her words pierced me like knives. Scott and Abbi were more than earthly attachments. They were my heart living and breathing outside of my body, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to exist in any kind of world that didn’t include them. I wished discipleship had asked me to give up my physical life. That would have been easier than this.

  TWENTY-ONE

  MEREDITH

  NOW

  Kate sprang out of the chair and raced toward Abbi after she came through the door with Dean. Her shoulders shook with sobs. She kept pushing Abbi out to arm’s length, like she was checking to make sure she was unharmed before pulling her back into a tight hug. Scott walked up to them and made sure Abbi wasn’t still mad at him before circling his arms around them.

  “Abbi, please don’t do that again. We were terrified.” Kate spoke to her like a mother for the first time. I glanced at Scott to see if he’d noticed. He’d caught it too. He was staring at her with such intense longing that I had to look away. Within seconds, Kate was crying again. “I’m sorry, Abbi. I’m so sorry for hurting you.”

  “It’s okay, Mom.” Abbi’s voice wavered as she tried to be strong for her.

  “No, it’s not. I hurt you, and I’m sorry.” Kate’s voice trembled as she spoke. “Nobody forced me to go anywhere. I left you and your dad to become a disciple of Love International.” The pain of her decision carved deep lines in her face, but I’d never heard her sound so real and authentic. “God called me, and I went because I believed in them. I thought I was joining a movement that would change the world, and eventually you would join me.” She hung her head as she continued, too embarrassed to make eye contact with anyone. “You must think I’m so stupid. But I waited for you to come. Both you and your dad.”

  Scott frowned. “How could we? We didn’t have any idea you were with them.”

  “You should’ve talked to Ray,” she said with a hint of anger. “He would’ve explained things to you if you’d have let him.”

  “Talked to Ray? I talked to him all the time.”

  Something passed through Kate—a memory, recognition, something—and then it was gone.

  “I don’t understand.” Her voice slowed. “You talked to Ray?”

  “And Margo and Bekah and some other guy that was always with him. There were a lot of them who came out, and I can’t remember their names after all these years. But, yeah, a bunch of people came out from Love International and helped with your search.”

  She stared at Scott with a blank expression, like he was speaking a foreign language. “But why didn’t he tell you where I was or what was going on?”

  The reality slowly registered on Scott’s face. “Kate, he helped us look for you. He organized search parties and led teams trying to find you.”

  I’d watched Kate’s world crumble after Scott had told her about Ray. His brain had been spinning almost as fast as hers.

  “How could he do that? I mean, what kind of a man helps look for the woman he’s keeping in a locked cellar? It’s sadistic,” he’d said. He’d called Ray all kinds of names when Kate told him the story. Abbi’s eyes had grown huge at the things that came out of his mouth tonight. She’d only ever heard him use the soft cuss words, and he’d taken it to another level.

  It was a horrible deception. There was no denying that, but something about it didn’t sit right with me. She’d still made a choice. Once she’d heard that Scott wasn’t coming because he thought she’d been unfaithful, she could have decided right then that her family was more important than Love International and gone back to them. She could have at least tried to explain things to Scott herself. There was no way I would let James think I was having an affair if I wasn’t, and we could barely stand each other at the end. And what about Abbi? Short of being tied up, there was nothing in this world that could keep me away from my boys for eleven years. But I didn’t dare say any of it to Scott. I hadn’t said a word since they came back with Abbi. Not like it mattered or anyone was interested in my opinion, anyway.

  I’d never felt so much like an outsider as I had tonight. Not even when Scott and I had started dating and Abbi would fake an illness or injury whenever we went out, and, like clockwork, Scott would drop whatever we were doing and go to her. He had left in the middle of a play once to help her get something out of her eye. It wasn’t just that he had skipped out on our plans—he had never taken me with him when he went, even after we’d been dating for over a year. But that didn’t compare to how I felt now. I was still trying not to cry, and Scott hadn’t even noticed, which only made it hurt more.

  Kate had given up valuable information when she’d told Scott how Ray had led her to believe he’d told Scott her whereabouts. Dean had been quietly listening, but he had jumped into the conversation then, latching on to the new lead.

  “Wait.” He held up his hand to stop her. “Are you saying that Ray told you Scott knew where you were?” She nodded. “And he asked if Scott wanted to see you, and he said no?”

  “Yes,” she answered in a weak voice.

  Dean wanted to keep going with his questioning, but Shiloh woke up and needed to be fed. Everyone else was grateful for the distraction, too spent to do any more, and it was the middle of the night. Dean scurried away, quickly tapping out a message on his phone as he left. Probably to Camille. I needed to go to sleep. Even though Dean had been up half the night with us, he’d be here at eight before anyone else to help me make coffee.

  I stretched o
ut in our bed, pulling the covers up to my chest. Scott still wasn’t close to coming to bed. He sat in his office chair with the computer turned on, but he was staring at our bedroom door instead of the screen, fingers unmoving on the keyboard. He hadn’t gotten out of his clothes or brushed his teeth.

  “Come to bed,” I said for what felt like the tenth time. I was exhausted and wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until he did, because his movements would startle me awake if he got into bed after me. “There’s nothing you can do about any of this tonight.”

  “Really?” he asked like he wasn’t sure. “I don’t know how you can even think about sleeping. Shouldn’t we keep her talking? I mean, just look at everything she gave us tonight. We’re finally getting somewhere. I don’t think we should stop.”

  “It’s probably not a good idea for you to talk to her by yourself.” They still recorded all her interviews and reviewed the footage afterward. It was what the night shift spent most of their time doing—deciphering her videos for clues. It was how they’d figured out that the abandoned RV campground had been their camp.

  “Why can’t I talk to her by myself?” He turned his nose up like he smelled something foul.

  I sighed. “That’s not what I meant. Scott, I’m tired. Can we please go to bed?”

  “I’m not tired,” he snapped, raising his voice.

  I put my finger to my lips. “Shh, you’re going to wake everybody up.”

  “Why do you suddenly care so much what everybody else thinks?”

  “What? How is that even related?” He was being ridiculous. I rolled over on my side, trying to keep from getting riled up. If I got upset, it’d be hours before I could sleep, and I didn’t want to do another day on four hours of sleep. “I just want to go to bed.”

  He scowled. “Oh, here we go again. Back to how inconvenient all of this is for you.”

  “You are impossible to deal with right now. I can deal with logic; I can’t deal with whatever nonsense you keep throwing at me.” His over-the-top reactions only proved he was as tired as I was.

  “I don’t care. I’m going over there to talk to her.” He moved toward the door. I flung the covers off and leaped out of bed. I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the door. “Stop! She’s asleep in there with the baby. What are you thinking?”

  “I can do whatever I want.” He ripped his arm away from me. “This is my house, and she’s my w—” He stopped himself, but it didn’t matter.

  There it was. She was his wife.

  At least he’d admitted what I’d always known. I was his second-place wife. But now that she was back, I wasn’t even that. I didn’t know what I was. He had always assumed we were the same, and even though I’d tried to set him straight over the years, he had refused to hear it. But that was the thing. Scott was my first-place husband. I’d fallen for Scott in a way I’d never fallen for James, but Scott loved me because of our shared pain. In the beginning of our relationship, I had understood that was why he loved me, not because he’d stopped loving Kate, but part of me had hoped that he would grow to love me the same way he’d once loved her after enough time had passed. Those dreams had died when the police had knocked at our door.

  He turned around. “Come on, Meredith. You know I didn’t mean that. You of all people have to know how confusing and weird all of this is.” But he wouldn’t look me directly in the eyes while he talked. “This is super complicated. You’d feel the same way if things were reversed. Can you just please admit that?”

  But I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be the same. Not even close.

  “I went to meet with a divorce lawyer two weeks before James’s cancer diagnosis,” I blurted out.

  His eyes widened. “What?”

  I nodded, swallowing hard, my mouth dry. “I did.”

  The weight of my secret forced him to sit. He sank into his office chair. “Why would you do that?”

  “I was going to divorce him.” It felt good to finally say it. It was never supposed to be a secret.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “We got married young because I was pregnant, and it was the right thing to do. We had Caleb and fell in love with being parents. We didn’t waste any time getting pregnant again with Thad. And, honestly, we were a good team. Our lives revolved around them, but then they grew up and didn’t need us as much. You know how it is. Anyway, we were strangers and ones who didn’t really even like each other. And then he got cancer. I couldn’t divorce a man with brain cancer. Nobody is that evil.”

  “So everything was a lie?” I could see his head swimming with questions.

  “The work I did in group wasn’t a lie. I loved him once. More than anything. I’d been grieving his ghost for years.” I’d spent most of Caleb’s freshman year of high school crying in secret, because I knew our marriage was dead and had no idea what to do about it. “And I tried to tell you. I did, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”

  I couldn’t count the number of times I’d started the conversation, but he’d always stopped me. “We don’t need to talk about it. I get it,” he’d say. “You still love James, and I still love Kate, so it feels like we’re doing something wrong. I know someone will always have part of your heart, just like someone will always have part of mine.” The conversation always ended there.

  He remembered. I saw it in his eyes. He rose slowly and walked over to the bed. He plopped down next to me. “Can we just go to bed tonight and pretend these last five minutes never happened?”

  “Sure.” I forced a smile for his benefit, but not because I would ever forget.

  KATE

  THEN

  Willow was right—leaving California was what I’d needed to let go of my life there, even though I’d fought against it with everything in me right up until the day we left. Being physically near my family made me feel close to them even if they wanted nothing to do with me. The new physical space created new emotional space within me. It was exciting to live somewhere besides California, since I’d been there since I was three. But my guilt wouldn’t allow me to enjoy it. Happiness felt too disrespectful to my family’s memory.

  Twenty-three of us had piled into vans and headed to Oregon after Ray received a prophecy that we were to separate ourselves from the rest of the world to prepare for the next part of our journey. A sense of camaraderie had grown up among us as we had created our new home. I’d never worked with my hands before, but all we had done was work in the forest clearing trees and digging in the dirt, and it had been some of the most satisfying work I’d done. Things would have been almost perfect if we hadn’t been starving. Our meals had dwindled down to beans and rice while we waited for our crops to grow. All we’d had for dinner tonight was bread and water. We’d been nervously waiting around the campfire for Ray to return ever since.

  He’d disappeared by himself after lunch, promising to have food when he returned, without any mention of how he planned to get it, and he’d refused to let anyone join him. It wasn’t unusual for him to go off by himself, but it was getting dark, and he still wasn’t back yet. We were almost ready to go to bed when someone spotted him coming through the clearing behind the spice garden. Something dangled in his left hand, but it was too hard to see what it was in the dark. As he got closer to the fire, he raised his arm up, dangling two rabbits upside down, eyes bulging out of their sockets.

  “Are they dead?” Phil’s eyes widened in horror. Most of the disciples were vegetarian. He was one of them.

  “I think so,” Bekah said, fixated on Ray.

  Ray proudly waved them for everyone to see. Red stained their necks. There was no mistaking they were dead. Ray grinned. “Who is hungry?” he asked.

  We all stared back at him, too stunned to speak. Phil turned to Will, waiting for him to say something, since he was usually the one who stood up to Ray, but Will was still eyeing Ray in disbelief. Phil was too angry to wait on Will.

  “That’s not funny,” he spat. “Where did you find them?”

 
“What do you mean, ‘Where did I find them?’” The goofy grin was still on Ray’s face. “I went hunting for them.”

  Silence again.

  Ray wanted us to pull it out of him. Something about the exchange pleased him, almost like he was playing some kind of a game. I hated when he acted like this.

  Phil put his hand over his mouth and breathed deeply, working his jaw as he tried to get the breath past his chest and down into his stomach, where it could do some good. “How did you hunt them?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Phil narrowed his eyes to slits. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  Ray feigned innocence. “Is there another way to hunt animals besides killing them that I don’t know about?”

  Phil took a step closer to him. His chest puffed forward with challenge. “How did you kill them?”

  Ray took a few steps forward and set the rabbits down on one of the chairs around the fire. He reached into the back of his pants and pulled out a handgun. “I shot them with this.”

  Will jumped up, waving his arms around. “Put that thing away! What are you doing?” he shouted.

  “Being completely transparent,” Ray said as he set the gun down next to the two rabbits. He raised his hands in a peaceful gesture. “Please allow me to explain myself.” He gave Phil a second to respond before continuing. Phil looked like he wanted to explode, but he allowed Ray to speak. “I promised to protect you and care for you when we left California. As you know, things have been much more difficult with farming than we’d expected, and our food supplies have dwindled down to almost nothing. Most of you are starving.” His face filled with concern. “I couldn’t let God’s people starve. I just couldn’t.” He waved his hand around at all of us. “Before anyone gets riled up again, I want you to know that I didn’t tell anyone about my plans to hunt, because I knew there would be those of you who would stop me.” He looked at Phil. I didn’t know him well enough yet to read him, but he seemed less angry. His shoulders had relaxed since Ray had started talking. “I had to find a way for us to eat.” He pointed to the rabbits. “And I did. In a minute, I’m going to cook these over the fire, and anyone is welcome to the meat. Please don’t partake if it makes you uncomfortable. I will be giving up my portion of beans going forward to anyone who doesn’t eat meat.”