“He was s-seventeen and she was twenty-five. Michael says he was drunk and seduced her . . .” A sob choked and she started to heave.
Marcy gasped and Patrick swore under his breath.
“H-his ten-year-old stepsister f-found them.” Lizzie began to weep, keening against her father’s side. “M-Michael s-said Brady left home that night, and stole his stepmother’s jewels before he ran away.”
“Oh, God help us.” Marcy made the sign of the cross.
“A-and t-then . . .”
Marcy’s voice rose with alarm. “There’s more?”
Lizzie nodded as a broken sob heaved from her lips. “M-Michael is w-worried b-because he says Brady h-has a temper and g-gets violent when he drinks.”
Patrick gripped her arms. “Brady drinks?”
Lizzie stared as if in a stupor. “Since he was fourteen,” she whispered. A spasm shuddered through her. “Michael says that Brady . . . that he . . . lived on skid row for almost a y-year after he left. And t-this l-last week, when he w-was in N-New York, he got b-blind drunk and tried to kill Michael.”
Patrick exhaled slowly. “Lizzie, have you ever seen any indication of this before? Brady’s temper, his drinking, his past?”
She shook her head. “No, I-I just knew he had a checkered past. That he never wanted to talk about it.”
Patrick grunted. “I can certainly see why. I’ll wager even Collin doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t. Michael says nobody does.”
Marcy stroked her daughter’s hair. “Maybe it’s not true, then. Maybe Michael is making it up . . . or exaggerating.”
Fresh tears swam in Lizzie’s eyes. “Oh, Mother, I pray you’re right. When Michael told me tonight, I felt like a part of me died inside. I love Brady, but if this were true . . . I just don’t know what I would do.”
“You’ll forgive him, Lizzie, just like God has,” Marcy said quietly.
Patrick shifted in the bed and punched his pillow several times before stuffing it behind his back. “No, Marcy, she’ll forget him. Any man who could do that to his own family, I don’t want for my daughter.”
A sob erupted from Lizzie’s throat.
“Patrick, we don’t even know if it’s true. Brady deserves the right to defend himself.”
Lizzie lurched from Patrick’s hold and jumped up from the bed. “God help me, I can’t handle this. I need to know—right now!”
“Lizzie!” Patrick rose up in the bed, his tone paralyzing her where she stood.
She put her hands to her face and started to sob.
“You are not going anywhere tonight. We are going to pray about this, and then you are going to bed. You can talk to him in the morning.”
She shook her head and took several steps toward the door. “No, Father, I won’t be able to sleep—”
“Lizzie!” Patrick’s tone was sharp with warning.
Marcy rushed to her side. “Your father’s right. We’ll pray about it, sleep on it, then you can talk to him in the morning.” She ushered her back to the bed, and Lizzie started to cry. “Patrick, will you pray?” she whispered.
He put his arms around them both and bowed his head. “Lord God, our hearts are heavy, but we trust in your Word which says ‘weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’ Be in this situation, Lord, work it out for Lizzie and Brady’s good, bringing joy in the morning. Reveal the truth, no matter what it may be, and give each of us the strength to receive it. And help all of us to sleep, Lord, especially Lizzie. Give her a peaceful night. Amen.”
Patrick squeezed Lizzie’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to her head. His voice was low and rough. “Lizzie, whether truth or not, we are bound by God to silence. Exposing Brady’s past edifies no one and hurts everyone. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She nodded and rose to her feet, her tear-streaked face iridescent in the milky moonlight.
“Good night, darlin’. Get some sleep. This will all work out. Trust me.”
“Lizzie, do you want me to lie with you for a while?” Marcy asked.
She nodded.
Marcy kissed Patrick’s cheek. “I’ll snuggle in as soon as she falls asleep.”
He watched the two of them leave and slowly laid his head back on the pillow, staring at the ceiling, a father in shock. God have mercy, he didn’t want to feel this way toward Brady, he didn’t! But if it were true . . . how could he ever accept the man?
Trust me, he had told his daughter. Patrick shivered with a cold, sinking fear. God help him—he couldn’t even trust himself.
She supposed the prayer had worked—at least half. She had slept, but it had been anything but peaceful. Her dreams had been a bizarre kaleidoscope of Michael and Brady in a surreal tug-of-war. Mother had stayed with her most of the night, sneaking out in the early hours of the morning when Father rose to get ready for work.
Lizzie’s eyelids felt too heavy to open, no doubt Michael’s revelations weighting them closed. That and a restless night that did little more than paste her eyes shut. She managed to open one eye and blink at the clock, then jolted up in bed at the late hour. Nine o’clock! She threw her covers aside and lumbered to her feet, her face still numb from hours of weeping. She thought of Brady, and a sharp pain seared through her. No, God, please!
She dressed slowly as her thoughts rambled, and she was glad Katie and Steven had already left for school. Father and Sean would both be at work by now, so only Mother would be downstairs to wish her well in her quest for the truth.
The truth. Lizzie wavered on her feet while a sickening dizziness whirled in her brain. Her Brady—always so decent, so kind, so perfect. Her knight in shining armor—tarnished by sins too painful to ponder. She reached for the bureau to steady herself, praying for God to give her strength. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Oh, God, let it be so!
Her mother looked up when she entered the kitchen, and her tired eyes mirrored Lizzie’s. “Were you able to sleep?” Marcy asked.
“Some. Thank you for staying with me, Mother. I couldn’t have gotten through the night without you.”
“Are you going to see him this morning?”
Lizzie drew in a deep breath. “Yes, right now.”
Marcy’s smile was weary. She squeezed her hand. “Trust God, Lizzie.”
Lizzie nodded. But even so, she pushed through the swinging door with a growing sense of dread. She slipped her coat on and headed outside, so lost in fragmented thoughts that she jolted when she finally reached the window of McGuire and Brady Printing Company. She peered inside and saw Collin hunched over his desk and Brady in the back. Tears stung her eyes, and she turned away. God, help me, please. She rubbed at the wetness with the edge of her scarf and straightened her shoulders. She could do this. She could.
She opened the door, and the bell jangled overhead. Collin looked up and started to smile. He sat up in his chair. “Lizzie? What’s wrong?”
That’s all it took. Tears started to flow, and Collin jumped up and rounded the desk. He pulled her to him, and she collapsed in his arms with a sob. “Oh, Collin . . .”
He glanced over his shoulder and put two fingers to his mouth. A shrill whistle carried over the droning noise of Brady’s press before it ground to a halt.
She heard his swift stride as he entered the room. “Beth? What’s wrong?”
Collin handed her over, and Brady swallowed her up in a tight hug. The smell of ink and solvent, Bay Rum, and soap filled her senses with painful longing, and she wept all the harder. He gripped her arms and held her away, his eyes dark with worry as he scanned her face. “Beth, tell me what’s wrong!”
He stroked her cheek with a gentle touch, and she suddenly realized those same hands may have violated his stepmother and God knows how many others. She lunged away, her hand quivering as she warded him off.
“No! Don’t touch me, please. Not yet. Not until I know . . .”
He flinched as if she had struck him.
&n
bsp; “Lizzie, you’re acting crazy. Until you know what?” Collin demanded.
Brady stared, lips parted in shock.
Water pooled in her eyes, and his handsome face blurred before her, distorting into an image of a man she loved and one she hated. Her father had told her to keep the silence, to tell no one, but anger told her she didn’t care. The man of her dreams could very well be nothing more than a lie, destroying years of trust and faith.
Her fingers balled into fists at her sides. “The truth! I want the truth,” she whispered harshly, her voice strained and foreign to her own ears.
Collin grabbed Brady’s arm. “John, what’s she talking about?”
Brady’s face was calm and resigned, a pale backdrop for dark eyes steeped in pain. “She’s talking about my brother,” he whispered. “He told her—”
“Told her what?” Collin demanded.
“Is it true?” Lizzie shouted. Thoughts of his depravity flashed in her mind, and she felt sick to her stomach.
He turned and walked to the back of the shop.
Lizzie followed, her heart hammering in her chest. “I want to know, Brady. Is it true?”
He kept his back to her and lowered his head, his tension obvious from the muscles straining his shirt.
She had always had too vivid an imagination. Now it conjured thoughts of that same muscled back lying prone over his father’s wife. Her fury rose and she flew at him from behind, pummeling him hard with her fists.
He spun around to fend her off, and Collin restrained her from behind. “Lizzie, stop!”
She wrenched against Collin’s hold, her chest heaving as revulsion rose in her throat like vomit. “It’s true, isn’t it? You slept with your own stepmother!”
There was a faint whirring in his brain, as if reality had given way to madness. His blood slowed to a crawl and he stared, first at the woman he cherished and then at the friend he loved, and knew his life would never be the same again. He could feel the hope bleed from his soul as shame slithered in. A shame hard-fought and beaten. Until now. All gone in the blink of an eye . . . or a cold stare of shock. He looked away, unable to bear the loathing of the two people he loved the most.
“Answer me!” Beth’s voice rose to a shriek, unnatural as it slashed through his numbness. He slowly looked up, meeting her gaze without wavering.
She shivered and took a deep breath. “Is it true?” she repeated, her voice an octave calmer, edging toward hopeful.
His eyes shifted from her pale face to Collin’s, taking in his friend’s parted lips and eyes glazed with shock. He could lie and save his life. Or tell the truth and save his soul. He shifted, his limbs and fingers dead at his sides. He looked back at Beth, and a nerve quivered in his cheek. “Yes.”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Dear God, John, why?” Collin’s voice cracked with emotion.
Brady’s eyes never strayed from Beth’s. “I was seventeen and very drunk.”
Her face looked so fragile, so young—bone china, easily shattered.
Like their love.
Her voice quivered. “Michael said . . .” She paused, emotion bobbing in her throat. “He s-said you have a drinking problem, since the age of fourteen, and that when you ran away at seventeen, you lived on skid row as a drunk.”
Collin turned away.
Heat braised the back of Brady’s neck. “Yes. For eight months.”
Her voice was so low, so broken, he had to strain to hear it. “And that you robbed your stepmother, stole her jewelry before you left.”
His eyes flicked to Collin’s back, bent and weighted. He clenched his jaw. “Not robbed, Beth. I only took what was mine—my mother’s diamond ring, a gold watch fob, and brass bookends from my father.”
Her eyelids fluttered closed, and she swayed on her feet. He shifted to catch her, but she jerked away to grasp at a nearby press. Her cheeks glistened with tears as she pierced him with a look of disbelief.
“Dear God, Brady, what kind of man are you?”
Conviction stiffened his chin. “A forgiven one, Beth. By God, if not by you.”
“Forgiven?” She rose up, fingers clenched. He had never heard her voice so shrill. “Forgiveness requires the truth.”
“You have the truth, Beth. You know what kind of man I am.”
“Do I?” Fresh tears spilled, and she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her coat.
Brady reached for his handkerchief, but Collin handed his first, his look guarded as he glanced at Brady. She wiped her eyes with a trembling hand and lifted her chin.
“Michael s-says you have a v-vile temper and that l-last week in N-New York, you . . . you got drunk and tried to k-kill him.”
Collin stared, open-mouthed.
Heat traveled Brady’s neck. He focused on an ink stain on the wall. “It’s true I had a drinking problem in the past, Beth, but I don’t drink anymore.”
She looked up, eyes puffy and raw. “So he’s lying about New York, then?”
Heat gorged his cheeks, and he forced himself to meet her gaze. “No.”
She listed against the press, the handkerchief to her mouth. A heave shivered her slight frame. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
“Only that I love you.”
She shook her head, her tone lifeless, dead. “I don’t know, John. I don’t know if that’s enough anymore. You’ve broken my trust, and I worry that . . . I’ll never get it back.” Her voice broke on a sob.
“Beth, please—”
“No!” Her once-gentle eyes darkened with anger he’d never seen before, deepening to a cold, dark blue. “You were the one man I looked up to more than any other—the perfect man. But you’re not. Now every time you touch me, hold me, I’ll always wonder . . . how many others have you defiled . . . and how many lies have you told?”
Her words drained the blood from his face. All at once he felt vile and dirty and unworthy of love, much less forgiveness. He closed his eyes, and a cold shaft of realization pierced his heart. It was over. Life as he knew it was over. He had lost the love of Beth and the respect of Collin. And nothing was left.
Nothing but rage.
In sobriety, he had never been a man of temper, but he felt it now, burning in his gut with murderous intent. He wanted to lash out, to hurt, to destroy . . . just like he’d been destroyed. He thought of Michael, and a spasm of violence jerked through his body like an electric shock. Dear God, he would kill him!
He ripped the apron from his waist, shredding the ties, and slammed it into the press with a curse. He heard Beth crying, but he no longer cared. Nothing mattered. Not Beth, not Collin, not God. In a blind rage, he strode to the back door and flung it open, shattering a pane of glass.
“John! Where are you going?” Collin gripped his arm.
He shoved it away. “To do what I should have done all along.”
Collin blocked him. “Hurting Michael is only going to make things worse.”
“Get out of my way, Collin, or I’ll hurt you too.”
“John, none of it matters, not to me.” He shot a frantic look over Brady’s shoulder. “Lizzie, tell him—now! Tell him it doesn’t matter!”
“I’m telling you for the last time, Collin—get out of my way!”
“Lizzie!” Collin shouted. “Tell him now!”
Brady slammed Collin hard against the door, buckling him at the knees. He heard Beth scream, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
At least not anymore.
Brady slumped at his kitchen table, eyes glazed with alcohol and his conscience glazed with remorse. He tipped the last of the vodka from the bottle he’d stolen from Michael’s hotel room—right after he had stormed in and vented his fury with a well-placed fist. He cursed as the final drops dribbled into his glass and hurled the bottle at the wall. It struck the pane of his favorite nautical picture and shattered it, raining a million tiny pieces over the sofa.
He rubbed his sore jaw with the side of his hand and grimaced. The ache
of Michael’s return punch throbbed far less than Brady’s guilt over bloodying his brother. Michael would be a pitiful sight in the morning—black and blue, Brady thought. Not unlike his own conscience at the moment. He gulped the dregs of the alcohol and stared in a daze at the open Bible on the seat, littered with shards of glass. Splintered, just like his hope, over the broken promises of God.
The empty glass dropped from his hand. He closed his eyes and reeled. A painful sob rose in his chest. No. Not God’s broken promises—his. He’d prided himself on being a man of God, honest and true. But he had never been completely honest with himself or those he loved. Instead, he’d presented an image of the man he wanted them to see rather than the man that he was. Not perfect, not holy, but fractured and broken. Like the nautical picture on the wall—an earthen vessel, not fit for holy things.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
Brady groaned and put his face in his hands. He thought of his brother as he’d left him—battered and stunned. Michael bleeding on the floor, Lizzie bleeding in her heart. And Collin—a friendship betrayed by a man too proud to admit he was human. A wrenching sob broke forth, and he collapsed on the table, a man of sorrows, void of all hope.
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed . . . perplexed, but not in despair . . .
His shoulders heaved as he wept.
Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed . . .
His ragged breathing slowed.
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Glory. He raised his head, and through the fog in his mind, a flicker of hope . . .
My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Tears spilled from his eyes at the sudden realization. Glory— God’s, not his.
He staggered to his feet, and revelation overtook him like a flood tide. Through the haze and sway of the liquor, God’s Word pierced his consciousness with startling clarity. His weakness . . . God’s strength. With renewed purpose, he made his way to the door. He reached for the phone in the hall and dialed a number, grateful that his neighbors were at work and their children were at school. His fingers trembled, but his resolve was as steady as it had ever been.
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