Betrayed (17 page)

Evelyn set the tray on the card table. “I’ve brought you some supper. I know you’re tired, but you’ll feel better with some nourishment inside you.”

The tray held a small hot water pot, and the fragrance from a covered plate was a reminder of how long it had been since Vicki had eaten. But she didn’t immediately move.

Pouring hot water into a mug and adding a tea bag, Evelyn asked quietly, “What is it? What’s eating you up inside?”

“It’s just . . . ” Vicki made a helpless motion with her hand. “I don’t know what to do. No matter what I do, it could turn out wrong.”

Taking a step from the window, Vicki studied Evelyn as she set the mug in front of a chair and added the covered plate and cutlery to make a neat place setting.

“Evelyn, what would you do if you were in my place?” she asked suddenly. “You were here through all of it—the dictators, the massacres, the disappearances. What did you do? How did you decide when it was best to keep quiet or give in or when to make a stand? How could you be sure you weren’t making the wrong choice?”

Evelyn waited until Vicki had slid into her seat before she answered. “I did exactly what I’d been called here to do. Feeding children. Teaching them to read and their parents how to make a decent living. And sharing God’s Word and His love.”

“But that was dangerous too, wasn’t it? How many teachers or social workers who tried to help the peasants ‘disappeared’ over the years? Weren’t you ever afraid? Didn’t you ever wonder—agonize like I’m doing—over what was the right thing to do?”

“Of course I’ve been afraid.” Evelyn slid into the other plastic chair opposite Vicki and stretched out her legs with a sigh. “And I used to worry about what to do. Then I learned to remind myself that I am Sarah’s daughter, and it became easy. The decisions at least. Not necessarily carrying them out.”

“Sarah’s daughter?” Vicki echoed, puzzled. “You mean, like from the Bible?”

“That’s right. Abraham’s wife. Mother of Isaac. And through him, of the nation of Israel. Genesis tells us the story of Sarah and Abraham. But interestingly, the most complete biography we’re given of Sarah isn’t in the Old Testament but the New Testament.”

Evelyn dug into a pocket of her ample skirt and emerged with a Bible. Flipping through the well-worn pages, she handed it to Vicki. “Read me what it says here in 1 Peter 3; start with the third verse.”

The Bible was the smallest complete volume Vicki had ever seen, the print so fine that she couldn’t believe the elderly missionary could decipher it.
She’s probably got the whole thing memorized
.

With some reluctance, Vicki read aloud, stumbling over the unfamiliar words. “‘Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master.’”

Vicki stopped, uncomfortable and confused. “I don’t get it. Isn’t this the kind of thing preachers read to tell women not to pierce their ears or wear makeup? You know: keep yourselves ugly so the men don’t notice you. You’re going to hell if you wear pants and all that. We’re a long ways past that in the twenty-first century—” Suddenly she took in Evelyn’s old-fashioned dress and scrubbed-clean face, and she turned her last words into an embarrassed cough.

There was a twinkle behind Evelyn’s thick lenses. “You’re not understanding what I’m trying to say. Or what Peter was saying. He wasn’t telling women to disregard their physical appearance, though there have been those who’ve misused it that way. After all, if you know the story, you know the Bible tells us Sarah was the most beautiful woman of the land. So beautiful that twice she was carried off to a king’s harem. And where was her husband, that great hero of the faith and founder of a nation, when it happened? Not mustering his forces to storm the harem. No, he just stood by and let it happen. No, not just stood by. He actually planned it to save his own skin—and made a hefty profit off it.”

Taking a second mug from the tray, Evelyn poured hot water and added a tea bag. “Abraham really didn’t deserve Sarah—like a lot of husbands, from what I’ve observed. Finish reading the passage.”

Obediently, Vicki finished the verses. “‘You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.’” She looked at Evelyn and repeated slowly, “Sarah’s daughter?”

“That’s right. Here, let me take that so you can eat your supper before it gets cold.” After lifting the Bible from Vicki’s hand, she removed the tea bag from Vicki’s mug and uncovered the plate, revealing pan-fried steak, rice, and fried plantains. Then she bowed her head. “For this bounty You have given us, our Father, may we be truly thankful.” The grace was clichéd, but in Evelyn’s Scottish burr, it breathed absolute conviction.

As Vicki picked up her fork, Evelyn went on placidly, “You’re a beautiful young woman like Sarah was. But the point Peter was making is that Sarah’s beauty was not a matter of fancy clothes or jewelry but a beauty that was from within. I see that in you too—a caring spirit and a strength that some lucky young man is going to appreciate far more than your pretty face. And like Sarah, you’ve found yourself in a serious predicament, not because of any choices you’ve made but because of wrongdoing of other people. Maybe very powerful other people. As powerful as that rich king and Sarah’s own husband. You asked me what I would do. How to know what you should do. It’s really simple—so simple people miss it at every level. And you’ve already given it to me.”

Her pause demanded an answer, and Vicki supplied it, with amazement in her tone. “‘You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.’” Then more slowly she said, “Do what is right. Do not give way to fear.”

“That’s right. Just those two simple steps. Let’s not forget that in the harem, Sarah had no way of knowing how her predicament was going to turn out. Yet look at the biography Peter leaves us of her. One of the most detailed biographies ever given of a biblical character. A gentle and quiet spirit. An inner beauty. A woman whose hope was in God. Which was just as well because in the end it wasn’t anything Sarah engineered and certainly not her loving husband galloping in to save her that got her out. God had His own plan.

“You see, we keep thinking that if we can just figure out how to manipulate the situation, if we can read the future and make the right decisions, we can make things turn out the way we want them. The problem is, we don’t know all the facts, and we can’t read the future. Nor are we called to. All you and I are called to do in any situation is to be Sarah’s daughters. Do what is right. Do not give way to fear. If you just do that, believe me, our heavenly Father your sister loved to sing about will take care of the outcome, just as He did for Sarah. It might not be the outcome we planned, but it’ll be the right one.

“After fifty years in this country, I can bear witness to that a hundred times over. It’s when we forget—or figure the end justifies the means to get what we want—that we really mess things up. Again, Sarah is a good example. Just once, she got tired of doing right and gave way to fear, and we’re still paying the price thousands of years later.”

“She did?” Vicki was realizing despite all those years in Sunday school how little she knew of that worn volume Evelyn handled and quoted with such familiarity. “What happened?”

Evelyn laid the Bible back on the card table. “Go back to Genesis and figure it for yourself. Meanwhile, eat, and then let’s get your bed made up. A full stomach and a good night’s sleep are as much an aid to good decisions as knowing the right thing to do.”

Chapter Twelve

Do what is right. Do not give way to fear
.

Vicki stared up at the fluttering shadow that was the mosquito netting above her bed. Despite her exhaustion, she had not been able to sleep after Evelyn had collected the supper tray and left her alone.

Vicki had finally turned the light back on and reached for the Bible Evelyn had left behind. What a story that had turned out to be. She remembered bits and pieces from Sunday school. Abraham receiving a call from God to leave his city and people and step out in faith to an unknown land where God would make Abraham's descendants His chosen nation. And Sarah, his wife and half sister, had gone with him. What had it been like for Sarah to leave the security and wealth of Ur for that nomadic existence in a dry and dusty land where water was the greatest treasure, obediently following her husband, never knowing where she was going? Vicki had lived in tents in more than one refugee camp and knew the relief of returning to a clean living space and hot water.

How beautiful Sarah must have been for rumors of her to reach the local king’s ear. And here was her celebrated husband, the man who talked with God, who had trusted Him enough to pick up all he had and head into the unknown at His call, begging Sarah to say she was his sister so he wouldn’t be killed to possess his beautiful wife. How frightened and alone and betrayed had Sarah felt in that harem while her husband was accepting a bride price of valuable livestock?

"
Do what is right. Do not give way to fear
."

Vicki had reread the biography given of Sarah. And she’d been fascinated at how God had reached down—not once but twice—into a harem to secure Sarah’s release. Abraham had walked away richer on both occasions. Had Sarah ever been able to trust her husband again with the same obedient faith that had followed him into a wilderness? Maybe that was why she’d forgotten just once the creed that had been her enduring memorial.

That part of the story at least was familiar to Vicki. How Sarah had despaired of God fulfilling His promise to build a nation—at least through her infertile womb—and talked Abraham into sleeping with her maidservant, Hagar. So Ishmael was born, and when the son of God’s promise was finally born, Isaac already had a rival whose descendants, the Arabs, would hate Isaac’s descendants, the Jews, to the present day.

Yet Sarah’s final biography had not been of that scheming doubter who’d messed up international politics for thousands of years ahead. That second harem experience had been long after Ishmael’s birth and not long before Isaac’s. And like Abraham, the friend of God, she must have learned her lesson because the Bible’s final appellation of Sarah was as Evelyn had made Vicki read. A gentle and quiet spirit. A woman of hope and faith. An inner beauty far greater than the exquisite outer form that had captivated the hearts of kings.

“
You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear
.”

Sarah’s daughter.

Vicki’s wide-open eyes were suddenly wet. Holly had been a daughter of Sarah. She’d rushed fearlessly—if not always wisely in Vicki’s sober opinion—toward what she believed was right. Vicki had been the prudent one, whatever Michael and Joe and others seemed to think, always considering the consequences, thinking of the future.

It was an irony that Holly had asked Vicki the same question Vicki had demanded of Evelyn. What should I do? What would you do? And what had been Vicki’s response? Walk away. Don’t get involved. Watch your own back, or you might get hurt.

And now?

The tears became hotter, spilling out of the corners of her eyes as she gazed up at the ghostly flutter of the mosquito netting. She hadn’t shed so many tears since . . . Had she ever? Had she wept for her birth parents in those forgotten days behind the dark curtain of her past? If only she could remember! Certainly not in the orphanage or foster homes or even when Mom and Dad Andrews had died. She’d been the tight-lipped child that all her own early photos revealed, so different from the joyous little girl in Evelyn’s album, allowing no one and nothing to touch her. Or Holly. Another reason she’d been unpopular with those multiple foster parents. She’d been as forcefully protective of her younger sister as a hen with one remaining chick.

But Holly was gone. In the end, Vicki had not been able to protect her, to keep her safe. As she had not been able to save her parents.

Now why had that thought sprung to mind? Though Vicki was lying flat, she felt a sudden vertigo, a familiar nausea gripping her stomach.
That’s ridiculous. Whatever happened back then, I was only a child
.

But that was no longer true. Was pursuing her sister’s killer futile, an attempt perhaps to assuage her own feelings of guilt? If she’d gone after Holly, left her own assignment to track her down, however unnecessary and even irresponsible it had seemed at the time . . . But, no! While she might always carry that regret, Vicki hoped she was too level-headed to be making present decisions based on guilt.

No. Vicki cataloged the facts: Holly’s dying words, the bizarre setting of her death, the pendant, the demolition of her own room.

I can’t let it go because I know there’s more that could be done, and I’m the only one who seems interested in doing it
.

There was Michael. But would he really follow through? Besides, he didn’t know the way Holly thought. What to look for.

Vicki could talk to that zoo administrator and Department of Environment minister Holly mentioned and try to find out if anyone saw her that night.
Even if her cell phone’s gone, our account should have a record of her last calls. The police didn’t even ask for it
.

And the center. Vicki could question the locals Holly worked with, however distasteful the cold, wet mountain cloud forest might be.

If Vicki couldn’t guarantee any better results than that incompetent—or indifferent—homicide unit, at least she’d have the consolation that she’d tried. The path seemed very clear. So why was she shivering despite the warmth of the heavy, handwoven Indian blanket that had replaced her ripped bedding?

“I’m afraid.”

There, she’d said it aloud. For all the public defiance Joe had derided, Vicki hadn’t missed the stony glares of those uniforms in the back of the sanctuary. Nor did she share Holly’s optimism—or naiveté—that a few signatures on a peace accord had changed the impunity with which power and evil operated in this country. The warning of today’s vandalism was only too real.

With longing, Vicki thought of the quiet apartment in a secure upscale DC suburb that was her refuge and sanctuary between assignments. No one would fault her if she took everyone’s advice, bought that ticket, and retreated from the fear and horror this place had come to mean to her.

But then, when hadn’t she been afraid? While others might raise an incredulous eyebrow at her career, it seemed to Vicki that she’d always walked a line of caution, watched her back, carefully judged circumstances. Even in the comparative safety of the Andrews family farm, even when she was enjoying a place or a person, there’d always been that tight knot of fear in the pit of her stomach. Fear that the bubble would burst, the ax would fall, and disaster would strike again.

I’ve been so afraid of what life might hand me
, Vicki admitted with sudden stark realization.
I haven’t let myself experience life
.

Maybe that was the reason she’d never let any of the relationships men had tried to pursue with her develop beyond lukewarm, not the excuse she’d always made that her career kept her too busy. While Holly—for all the rashness that had so often driven Vicki crazy—had rushed toward life, thinking not of what might happen to her but of what needed to be done.

If I were the one lying on that trash heap, Holly’d go after this without thinking twice. And it sounds as though Jeff, our father, would do the same
.

And look what it got them—killed
.

Still, there were worse things than death. At least if you had the faith Holly’d had that this life was only a prelude to something far greater.

Vicki threw back the Indian blanket and lowered her feet to the floor, an action that left her shivering in earnest as her flesh came in contact with the cold concrete. Ignoring the chill, she walked over to the window, stepping into a gray and black pattern the paleness of moonlight and protective iron bars cast on the floor. A full moon gave strength to that pale light, but Vicki could not see it or the stars as she looked out. The
basurero
children didn’t even know such splendor existed behind the pall of smoke from the dump that left the night permanently overcast.

Staring up at that sky, Vicki searched futilely for a glimmer of the silver globe responsible for the gray radiance in which she stood. As invisible behind those clouds was the God in whom Holly had put so much trust.

As Sarah had in that harem.

"
This is my Father’s world
."

Father God, is that really who You are? what You are?

There was no answer any more than a glimpse of that full moon. That there was a Creator of the universe, Vicki didn’t doubt for a moment, as she’d told Evelyn. That was too evident in the very complexity of the world. And she’d never doubted any more than Holly that He had a plan for the universe and the power to accomplish that plan.

But if the billions of crawling little beings caught up in the accomplishment of that plan really mattered, then would that desperate father she’d spotted earlier be hauling his sick child in the back of a donkey cart in a frantic search for aid? Would a Mayan teenager be cradling her dehydrated and malnourished baby on a street corner? Would precious children be crawling through the planet’s waste for survival?

Father God, if that’s really what You are, I don’t understand what You’re doing or why You’re doing it.

"
Do what is right. Do not give way to fear
."

Was that really the answer?

Vicki felt suddenly paralyzed with the weight of her decision. Beyond a shadow of doubt, she knew this was the pivotal point of her life. She could walk away and go on through life governed by fear. Or she could follow a path whose end was no clearer than that pattern of gray and black on the floor and trust the outcome, as Evelyn had told her, to that distant, invisible God somewhere beyond the cover of smoke and cloud.

"
This is my Father’s world
."