Forsaken (24 page)

I shook my tingling arm and bent to pick up the Bible. When I lifted it off the carpet, my finger touched something sticking out of the binding. A row of stitches had torn free from the bottom seam, and the corner of a folded sheet of white paper poked out.

I pulled the paper free. Judging by the way it was folded, it appeared to be a note. I leaned around the corner of the closet and peeked into the room. It was empty. I reached up and twisted my bangs with my fingers. Large black letters showed through the paper, so how secret could it really be? After all, by simply holding it up to a light, I could read it without even opening
it. I looked out the door one more time—still no Kacey. Leaning back against the closet wall, I slid down to the carpet and crossed my legs Indian style. I unfolded the paper.

The single page of plain white stationery contained only one sentence, written in heavy black marker:

I KNOW ABOUT THE BOY
.

AFTER I’D SAT IN the closet for fifteen minutes trying to arrive at all of the possible explanations for the note, the doorbell rang. I stood up, folded the paper, and stuck it in the back pocket of my jeans. With the Bible in my hand, I walked into the family room. Simon was sitting in his favorite chair in the corner, reading the sports section of the
Dallas Morning News
.

Meg led Carston into the room and offered him a cup of coffee.

“No thanks, but I’ll take a glass of water if you don’t mind.”

“Simon? Kacey?” she said.

Simon pointed to a glass on the end table next to him. “I’ve already got lemonade.”

“I’ll have a cup, please.”

While she was getting the drinks, Meg pointed at me. “Tom, this is Taylor Pasbury, Simon’s security chief. Taylor, this is Tom Carston, pastor of Fourth Baptist Church downtown.”

“How do you do?”

I nodded. “It’s a pleasure.”

Carston pointed at Simon’s newspaper. “Reading about the Rangers, I see. That’s a gutsy undertaking anytime, but especially when they’ve started the season so slowly.”

Simon stood up, walked over to Carston, and held out his hand. “Call me a dope, but I’ll never give up on them.”

Carston took his outstretched hand and shook it. “Okay, you’re a dope.”

Simon laughed. “We’ve always got the Cowboys.” He motioned toward the couch. “Have a seat. I understand that you’re here to save me from myself.”

“I told Meg we should meet on the golf course. It would be easier to save you there. She vetoed the idea. I have a strong suspicion that she doesn’t play.”

“You’ve got that right,” Meg said from behind the breakfast bar. She walked back into the family room, handed me my coffee mug, then walked over and placed Carston’s glass of ice water on the coffee table in front of him. She sat next to him on the couch.

I sat off to the side, at the breakfast table next to the
windows. I blew steam from my coffee and waited to see what would happen. Meanwhile, I was so conscious of the tiny bulge that the folded note made in my pocket that it might as well have been a tennis ball. I set Simon’s Bible on the table.

Carston rubbed his hands together. “As much as I would like to talk baseball, I think it would be better for us to get right to the point. Meg tells me that you’ve decided to stop preaching. That seems like a bad idea to me.”

Simon crossed his leg. “Well, to begin with, she’s not exactly correct.”

Carston looked at Meg, who raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad to hear that. What do you mean ‘not exactly correct’?”

Simon picked up his lemonade. “I’ve given this a lot of thought and prayer. I’m thinking about taking my ministry in a totally different direction. It’s a direction I think I’ve been called to.”

“What direction is that?”

“I want to become a missionary.” Simon tipped his glass, as if toasting Carston, and took a drink.

“What sort of missionary?”

“To Muslims.”

Meg’s mouth fell open.

Simon smiled at her. “Yes, Meg, I said Muslims. You know, Muhammad and all that?”

“Very funny. Where are you going to find these Muslims—in Iran?” Her laugh was decidedly nervous.

A drop of condensation slid from Simon’s glass onto his pant leg. He brushed at it, then put one hand under the glass. “Actually, you’re not far off. I would like to go any place they are—any place that will let me in, that is. In fact, there are areas in the U.S. that have large Muslim populations. I’ve been researching on the Internet. Dearborn, Michigan, for example.”

Carston leaned forward. “Aside from where you will find these Muslims, I’m interested in hearing why you’ve decided God is calling you in that direction.”

Simon turned toward me. “Taylor, do you remember that limo driver in Chicago—the seminary student from Lebanon? Hakim.”

“There’s not much that I’ll forget about that night.”

“Do you remember what he said?”

“He asked you when you were going to go to Lebanon to preach.”

Simon turned back to Reverend Carston. “I don’t think it was an accident that we had that conversation just before all of this happened. I’m convinced this is all part of God’s plan for my life. It’s a way to make something good come from this thing that I’ve done.”

Meg threw up her hands.
“What
thing that you’ve done? You were put in an impossible situation and you saved your daughter’s life. You retracted what you said, and now it’s over.”

“Look, Meg, I don’t really want to get into a discussion about all of that. I feel the way that I feel about what I did, so let’s just leave it at that. I’m convinced,
though, that God wants to use this whole situation for a purpose.”

“Fine, but does that purpose have to involve Lebanon?” Meg said. “Do you know what’s been going on over there? You would be committing suicide to go there and try to convert Muslims.”

Simon shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be Lebanon. I said it could be here in the U.S. I don’t know yet. Don’t worry. I’m not looking to get myself killed.”

I watched his eyes as he spoke, and I wasn’t so sure. But I decided to sit this discussion out if I could.

Simon immediately dashed that plan by turning toward me and nodding at the Bible on the table. “That’s my Bible, isn’t it? The one you picked up from the Challenger Airlines Center?”

I held it up. “Yes. I figured you might want it back today.”

“When you picked it up that night, did you notice what it was open to?”

“No. The page was dog-eared. I remember that. Even if I’d read it, I wouldn’t have known what it was.”

He pointed to the Bible. “Find the page. It’s a passage I read over and over in the days leading up to that evening.”

I opened the Bible and flipped the pages until I found the one with the corner folded over. “Here it is.”

“Read it.”

My neck became warm. Within seconds it would resemble a fire hydrant. It was time to punt. I got up,
walked over to Reverend Carston, and handed it to him. “I’m no Bible scholar. Maybe you should read it.”

He chuckled as he took it from me. “You know, Taylor, you don’t have to be a theologian to read this thing. You should stop by Fourth Baptist sometime. We have plenty of programs to help people get comfortable with the Bible.”

I was mortified already and the conversation was only a few minutes old. I gave him a lame smile and crept back to my chair.

“Now, let me see what we’ve got here.” He spoke with the confidence of someone who spends much of his time with a Bible in his hands. He pulled reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and leaned over. Placing his index finger on the page, he glanced up at Simon. “The underlined part?”

Simon nodded.

“It begins at John twenty-one, verse fifteen. ‘
When
they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter—’
”

Simon held up his hand. “You don’t need to read it out loud.”

Carston smiled. “Sorry, I misunderstood you.” He bent over the Bible again and ran his finger over the page, occasionally moving his lips. When he finished reading he looked up at Simon. “Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him, and Peter told him three times that he did.”

“Why did Jesus ask him that?”

Carston rubbed his earlobe between his index finger and thumb. “Before Jesus was crucified, Peter denied
three times that he knew him. Peter had been afraid that if he admitted he knew Jesus, he would be arrested too. This verse is after the resurrection. Now Jesus is basically beginning Peter’s rehabilitation by giving him a chance to start over. That’s why he asked him to restate his faith publicly, and why he asked him three times—because that was how many times Peter denied that he knew him.”

“That’s right. Jesus was giving Peter a gift that he desperately needed. He had let Jesus down terribly. He’d been afraid and denied him. Jesus was giving him a chance to redeem himself. He was asking Peter to commit. In verse 18 he even tells Peter, in so many words, that if you do commit, you’ll eventually have to die for your faith.”

Meg raised her hand. “Excuse me—what does this have to do with your becoming a missionary to Muslims?”

“Without Peter the church might not have survived in those early days. Jesus needed leaders with total commitment. Guilt is a remarkable motivator. If Peter hadn’t denied Christ, if he hadn’t felt the shame and guilt, who knows whether he would have been committed enough to risk death every day by spreading the Word? Who knows if he would have been willing to die for what he believed? The same thing happened with the Apostle Paul. He persecuted the Christians before Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Who knows whether he would have been willing to suffer the things that he suffered to build the church if not for the guilt that he must have felt from that? He eventually died a martyr also.”

“Are you implying that Jesus wants you to die?” I said. They all turned and looked at me. My neck grew warm. I reminded myself that as the spiritual leper of the group, I needed to keep my mouth shut.

Simon shook his head. “No, I’m just saying that I’ve done something as awful as any Christian could ever do. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it. Maybe God is using my guilt in the same way that he used Peter’s and Paul’s. Maybe that’s why we just happened to run into a Lebanese limo driver on the night all of this began—a limo driver who put the idea of preaching to Muslims into my head. Do any of you doubt that Muslims need to hear about Jesus?”

Meg crossed her legs. “Just a hunch, little brother, but I don’t think they’re interested.”

“You could say that about any group that missionaries have reached over the years. How can they know whether they’re interested until they hear the story?”

Carston tilted his head back. “‘How can they believe if they have not heard? How can they hear without someone preaching to them?’”

“What was that?” Meg said.

“I’m sorry. The verse just came to me. It’s Romans 10:14. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Meg frowned, then turned back to Simon. “Look, this is crazy. You’ll get killed. Preaching to Muslims in the Middle East is not like preaching in Ecuador or Samoa. You know that.”

“Yes, I do know that. Does the fact that it’s dangerous make it any less important? Besides, you’re getting
too hung up on the Middle East part of this. I may never leave the U.S.”

Carston took off his reading glasses and pointed them at Simon. “You know, old pal, an outsider looking in and listening to what you’re saying might conclude that martyrdom
is
what you really want out of this.”

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think, Tom?” Simon leaned back in his chair. “There’s a difference between doing something that has identifiable risks, and going out and looking to die.”

“Maybe, but if you have the notion that you are going to stand outside of mosques in the U.S. and preach to Muslims, you will most certainly be in some danger. If you try to do it in the Middle East, you may very well die. That is, if you can ever get there in the first place. It’s not as if you’re unknown. I’m not sure any of those governments would even let you in.”

“I’ve thought about that—about whether I would even be allowed to try to preach in those countries. On that score, I’ve got an idea that I’ve been bouncing around in my head. I don’t know if it could work or not.”

“What is it?” Carston picked up his glass of water and took a drink.

“Something like a debate.”

Carston hesitated, then lowered the glass back on the table. “A debate . . . about what? With whom?”

“Maybe
debate
isn’t the right word. I’m thinking about something more like a public dialogue with a prominent imam—the principles of Christianity versus
the principles of Islam. That’s simple enough, wouldn’t you say? I’d venture that most Christians don’t know much about Islam, and most Muslims don’t know much about Christianity. Maybe it’s time to let the ideals of the two religions compete openly.”

Carston rubbed his earlobe again. After a few moments, he nodded. “I get it.”

Meg, who had been standing beside the couch, spun toward him. “What do you mean, ‘I get it?’ I didn’t ask you over here to
get it
. I asked you over to reason with him.”