Lost in Dreams (29 page)

I didn’t tell them I didn’t believe Chappy, though. Not after witnessing Alfredo’s conversion. If he’d faked that, he was a better actor than Aleesha could ever hope to be.

I didn’t say anything about my visit with Alfredo, either, although everyone but Graham knew that’s why I’d gone to Red Cedar. Considering Graham’s ability to park silently in open doorways, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he

already knew about that, too.

“No, he didn’t touch me,” I responded to Dad’s statement. “He’d be wearing a fresh set of claw marks all over his hands and face if he had, and I’d have Rob on the satellite phone with the police right now.”

“I’m going to phone Larry,” Rob said. “He needs to know about this. Intimidation alone may not land Thomas in the pokey, but it’s more ammunition to use against him.”

Jo didn’t ask what in the world we were talking about. Not at first. She just stared at Rob in wide-eyed wonder. I’m afraid we’d all forgotten that she wasn’t in the loop. And that she wasn’t supposed to be.

Graham wasn’t, either, but he wasn’t in a position to do any harm. Or was Jo still a potential problem? I couldn’t think clearly anymore.

But then she began firing questions at me. Very pointed ones. “What are you talking about? What’s this with Chaplain Thomas? Has he done anything to hurt Alfredo?” Her voice was a cross between rage and worry.

Her third question seemed safe enough.
Fine. Be more concerned about Alfredo than about me. “H
e was doing great when I talked with him awhile ago.”
Okay, Kim, don’t let your expression change now. Don’t let your eyes betray concern about whether he’s still all right
.

“None of us likes that chaplain,” Jo said, “but why are you accusing him of intimidation?”

Jo, haven’t you been listening?

“Something happened this afternoon and—”

“To Alfredo?” Her tone was near-frantic.

I might have had a one-track mind, too, if I had a romantic interest in someone in that prison. Maybe I could distract her with good news.

“He’s fine, Jo. I already told you that.” I paused

strategically. “He’s better than fine, in fact.”

“Huh? What?”

“Jo, your, uh, friend became a Christian this afternoon. The chaplain apparently found out about it and—for reasons we don’t understand—he isn’t as happy about it as we are.”

There. Close enough to the truth
.

“Alfredo became a Christian? You led him to Christ? You should have let me do that!”

Aleesha’s face was clouding up. Each of Jo’s outbursts seemed to darken her frown a bit more. I motioned for Aleesha to stay calm, but she didn’t notice. Either that or she preferred to ignore me.

“
You
are the most selfish person I’ve ever met,” Aleesha said. “White, black, or plaid.”

Jo looked like somebody had just slapped her.

Aleesha didn’t wait for a response. “Here Alfredo has made a profession of faith—the most important decision in his life—but are you happy about it? No. Any normal person—normal Christian, that is—would be thrilled to hear such good news. But you? Uh-uh! All you seem to care about is who gets the star in her crown for it.”

Dad had excused himself a number of minutes earlier to polish his message for that evening. If only I’d gone with him. Away from these two squabblers.

Rob wasn’t in the room now, either. He’d taken the satellite phone outside. He didn’t have to listen to this, and I envied him.

And Graham was … somewhere. Probably somewhere nice and quiet. I couldn’t help grinning at the thought of that frail-looking old man trying to referee a fight between Jo and Aleesha.

“You’re crazy!” Jo said. That was mild compared to what I’d expected her to say. “If you’d let me go to translate this afternoon, I would have been the one who led him to Christ.”

I hoped Aleesha wasn’t going to waste her breath saying any—.

“I wasn’t the one who stopped you. I told you this afternoon the warden wanted an impartial translator.”

No, girl, don’t pay any attention to that
.

“Impartial?” Jo actually quieted down. Instantly. I could almost see the wheels spinning, but I couldn’t tell what gear she was in. “Now I
know
something strange is going on.”

Duh. You just figured that out, did you? Where were you when Rob asked us to keep an eye on the chaplain’s interaction with the other men? I
mentally slapped myself on the mouth for thinking such unkind thoughts.

“So what’s going on?”

Jo wasn’t looking at Aleesha. She was looking at me, and I knew that look. She expected an answer, and she wasn’t going to settle for baloney when she wanted steak.

Although her question was the one I’d hoped most to avoid, I would have done almost anything to keep her from yelling at Aleesha anymore. Or provoking Aleesha to yell back. An online-chat friend in Australia once described people who can’t get along as being like cheese and chalk.

Nothing could have described Jo and Aleesha more perfectly. Thank goodness Aleesha hated violence, and Jo had never been exposed to any.

But, Lord, how do I answer her?

“Something bad is going on at Red Cedar.” As soon as I said that, I knew I’d said too much. I had to keep going, though. “Alfredo isn’t guilty of any wrongdoing. He’s one of the victims. One of possibly many victims. The warden asked me to talk with him and—”

“Alfredo asked to speak with you,” Jo said. “Remember? I’m the one who told you.”

She might as well have accused me of lying. I’d never

known her to act so irrational. I still needed to corner her and find out what was going on with her parents. Especially if it was affecting her like this.

“The warden wanted me to find out if Alfredo was a victim or not.”

Jo still didn’t look satisfied, but at least she didn’t argue. And she shocked me by not asking what he was a victim of.

“He brought your Bible to our meeting. He’s read the whole New Testament. That led him to ask how to become a Christian.”

I glanced over at Aleesha. I could almost see her biting her tongue to keep from saying,
“Why didn’t he ask you that, Jo? Didn’t he think you knew?”
As much as I didn’t want her to provoke Jo further, I couldn’t have blamed Aleesha.

“Oh.”

Jo sometimes took longer than Aleesha and me to catch on to something, but she was no dummy. Based on experience from our long friendship, I knew she was processing this information to see whether it fit with her concept of the truth.

“Hello, girls,” Rob said when he came back inside. His cheeks were a nice rosy red. So was his bald spot.

“Cold outside, Mr. Rob?” Aleesha said.

He nodded.

“It’s been hot in here.”

“I could tell. Girls, we need to pray for tonight’s service. Then it’ll be time to leave.”

Rob went to get Dad. We formed a circle, but when Jo discovered she’d have to hold hands with Aleesha, she changed positions and got between Dad and Rob. Our prayer time was quite intense as we prayed around the circle. Whether Jo had gotten over not being the one to lead Alfredo to Christ, I couldn’t say, but she was eloquent in praising God that it had happened.

We were putting our coats on when Graham came through the front door. He handed the satellite phone to Rob. What a shock. I couldn’t imagine Graham knowing somebody’s phone number, much less calling it. But that wasn’t any of my business.

Graham shocked me even more when he got in the van with us. He hadn’t gone to any of our services before, and I couldn’t imagine why he’d chosen to attend now. I thought it strange he hadn’t brought one of his many Bibles with him, though. He seemed like the type of Christian who would.

His failure to come to the service seemed even stranger. I couldn’t imagine where he’d been. Although he was waiting for us at the van when it was time to leave, I couldn’t believe he’d spent the last two hours there.

But what had he been doing?

J
o, we need to talk,” I said. She and I were doing some outside painting, and no one else was close by.

“Did you hear me?”

She started crying silently. I set my brush across the top of a paint can and approached her.

“You haven’t been yourself the whole time we’ve been here,” I said as gently as I knew how. “I don’t mean that critically.”

I could see from her pained expression that talking about her problem would be excruciating. I considered telling her about my guilt problem first, the way I’d originally planned to do.

But now wasn’t the time for that.

After another sniffle, she managed to start talking. Just a word or two at a time at first, but then she picked up speed. She seemed to realize she’d been holding this in way too long.

“Kim, I’m so sorry. It’s just …”

Please help her, Lord. Let her know how much I love her. How much I care
.

“My parents are getting a divorce.”

The look I pictured myself wearing now couldn’t have begun to express the shock I felt inside. Jo took my hands in hers. I looked into her eyes, and we both broke out crying.

“I didn’t think your parents were getting along well, but I had no idea things had gotten this bad.”

“They have.”

“Are they going to counseling?”

“My mother moved out, and she’s living with some

twenty-five-year-old guy.”

No nightmare this time, Dad. This one’s real, and it’s not mine
.

“When … when did you find out?”

“On the phone that night after our first visit to the prison.” “No!”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”

I couldn’t imagine anything worse, but I was wrong.

“Papa and I found out at the exact same time.”

The horror I felt was so indescribable I could only respond with tears. “He and I were talking on the phone that night. Mama came in the room and told him everything. Since she hadn’t noticed that he was on the phone, she didn’t realize I could hear everything she was saying, too. Can you disown a mother?”

I couldn’t tell if she was trying to be cute or not … trying to cover up her grief with a bit of whimsy. But whether she had been or not, I snorted once, and soon we were both laughing as if we’d been in the world’s greatest mood.

It didn’t last.

“What …?” I had a million questions, and I didn’t know which one to ask first. And which ones not to ask at all.

“So that’s why I’ve been playing the female-dog part all week.”

The female …? Oh
.

That also helped to explain why she’d been so quick to latch on to Alfredo. She was desperate to grab hold of some sympathetic male while she was so far away from her papa, and Alfredo had been in the right place at the right time. I wondered if she’d told him about her mama and papa.

“Don’t tell Aleesha, though. I hate her.”

Could this soap opera get any worse?

“She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t understand me. She doesn’t respect me.”

“You don’t think she’d be more sympathetic if she knew the truth?” A long shot, but what else could I say?

“Ha! She’d probably accuse me of driving my mama away.”

Whoa there, girl. What are you really trying to say? What Aleesha might accuse you of or what you’re accusing yourself of?
This was starting to sound familiar.

“It’s not your fault, Jo. Every kid whose parents split up thinks it is, but it’s not. It never is.” I knew that was true. Everyone knows it’s true. Everyone but the kids.

The half-painted exterior wall paid as much attention to my statement as Jo did. “I could have been a better daughter. I could have been less demanding. I could have been more obedient.”

And I could have avoided calling Mom when I knew she was driving in bad weather
.

“Jo, you wouldn’t feel this way if you’d been at home when you found out. She would have told you in a nicer—at least a gentler—way, don’t you think?”

Mom would have been nice about forgiving me. That hit me in a way I hadn’t thought about before. I’d been despondent because she
couldn’t
forgive me, but I hadn’t given her credit for what she
would
have done if she’d been able to. When had Mom ever failed to forgive me for anything?

She loved me with all her heart, and people who love forgive. But what about Dad?

Could he forgive me for what I’d done to Mom? Did he love me that much now?

Now? What am I talking about? He’s always loved me that much. He just hasn’t been good at showing it until recently. Oh, man. He and I need to talk
.

Jo remained silent while God inserted that realization into my brain like coins into a drink machine. She somehow sensed that she shouldn’t interrupt. How thankful I was for that.

“You okay, Kim?” she asked. Her voice sounded steadier than before.

“Better than okay.” I started crying again. But from joy. And relief.

“You asked if Mama would have been nicer in person?” I nodded. “I have to believe so. She’s still my mama.”

And I had to hope Dad’s forgiveness would come unhesitatingly if I ever dared to tell him. He was still my daddy.

“Are you better now?” I asked Jo.

She smiled.

“Can you excuse me for a few minutes? I need to talk to

Dad.”

But I still couldn’t tell him everything.

J
o asked me not to say anything to Aleesha about her parents’ marital problems, and I honored her request, even though it made—or should I say it kept?—things unnecessarily tense. I explained to Aleesha that Jo’s problems were so serious we should ignore the way she’d been acting, but that didn’t seem to lessen her hostility any.

The two of them didn’t talk in the van going to that evening’s service. They walked through the door to the Administration Building at the same time—as far apart as the width of the doorway allowed; neither was willing to yield to the other. I followed several feet behind, shaking my head at their childish stubbornness.

Although Alfredo appeared to be as thrilled to see Jo again as she was to see him, all he could talk about was his conversion to Christianity, which he obviously found even more thrilling than he did Jo’s company. She didn’t seem to mind, though, until he turned most of his attention to the two other Latino guys he’d brought from his cell block.